Watcher (2022)  ****
Much like Baran bo Odar's 2010 film The Silence, Choloe Okuno's thriller is constructed around human nature. You bet we go looking for things, even when we know we shouldn't. This applies especially to cities. In an era where irony seems scarce, this directorial debut shows us a side of human nature seldom scene, and it's truthful to the hilt.

We know this, recognize it, like all great observational movies should. It's also a portrait of a character and a series of relationships; even those who live virtually alone aren't islands. Maika Monroe knows how to relate to the camera, and therefore us. Chloe Okuno, whom we hope is a director to watch, knows what she has here in her lead: a screen actress in a stark, minimalist look as a plot gradually reveals itself in a worldly, and wary, plot. Why is it that, with Steven Soderbergh's Kimi, paranoid thrillers are enjoying a healthy resurgence?

Rolling Thunder (1977)  ***1/2
William Devane was one of those rising stars in the seventies who never hit the big marquee in movies. This is his lone starring role. He downplays it as a character inside a story, never tries to upstage anyone or anything. If anything, John Flynn's film balances this revenge tale with supporting performances that are pitch perfect by Tommy Lee Jones and a wonderful Linda Haynes.

Shocked by its violent climax in 1977, audiences and critics have gradually found this treasure. Watch how it takes its time in Act Two, where people, in what seem like minor moments, reveal parts of themselves and their pasts which seem natural. The whole thing seems natural, outside of a subplot where someone pursues the villains and it ends disastrously. then again, perhaps one of the understated statements the movie makes. Whichever the intent, we're entertained by this installment from a different time all the way through.

Kimi (2022)  ****
In his interview here, David Koepp said he was inspired by paranoid thrillers of the sixties and seventies growing up. This film, directed by Steven Soderbergh, is clearly in their tradition and stands on its own. It's compelling start to finish. The filmmakers don't waste a shot, explain just enough, and unfurl a story for our time. It's one thing to incorporate technology into a story, quite another to make a story work and not surrender to what they believe current audiences want. 

Good thrillers seem so rare these days. Zoe Kravitz gives a measured, controlled performance, and she's surrounded by unfamiliar faces in familiar roles. Soderbergh himself directed the brisk Unsane, another paranoid thriller that worked. He seems to work constantly, unspooling yarns that keep the audience guessing, and he's kept at his craft in this genre ever since some uninspiring efforts like The Limey now over twenty years ago. That's also inspiring.

What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael (2018)  **1/2
Pauline Kael was quite the film critic no doubt about it. She was also not that likable. One has to be very interested in Kael's writing and know all the interviewees to be galvanized here. The filmmakers clearly chose the interviews carefully, and guard the legendary critic's private life. They half-show, half-reveal. the drama feels halfway there. Even her own daughter talks with a gleaming smile that turns us off. Filmmakers such as Paul Schrader and critic Stephanie Zacharek (on screen too little) get to the heart of what made Pauline so influential. There's a better film here for this icon.

JFK: Through the Looking Glass (2021)  ***1/2
Oliver Stone's documentary is packed with information and moves along at such a clip that we're still processing what happened when events double back on themselves. We're also still uncovering new angles on this president's death that feel fresh. That's the urgency Stone, reuniting with his Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson, editor Kurt Mattila, and writer James DiEugenio recreate.

Jumping back and forth chronologically with the editing is one of the best parts of this documentary, released thirty years after the director's seminal film. They make it still feel alive and create a sense of mystery and intrigue with a gallery of historical figures. The interviews are just long enough before cutting away to footage. If the last, say, thirty minutes broaden the canvas to foreign policy and events, the "why," the transitions feel a little hasty. But the first good bulk of the movie is galvanizing.

Lightyear (2022)  **
This movie teeters on entertaining and preachiness: the shots are there, the story moves, positions are taken, but the story...well, it stops building our interest after establishing itself. There's not much dramatic need, and the central missions of the characters, never mind their arcs and interplay, slowly dissolves of meaning.

So what do we remember? Buzz saluting and declaring he's court-martialing himself. The robot sidekick announcing he's given Buzz ten minutes. The legacy of one character bestowed on an offspring. That's about it.

Prince of the City (1981)  ****
There's a segment of the movie-going population that misses Sidney Lumet films. We felt as if we were witnessing real people in real jobs with real lives on and off-camera. According to the DVD of this movie, the director used actors and non-actors, and rehearsed so much the lines between the two groups became blurred. 

At the center of it all is Treat Williams, an actor on the cusp of stardom with Hair two years before and then this film. His performance is sometimes so theatrical and dialed-up, we feel he's going to leap off the screen and head for a stage. The real strengths of the film are the cinematography, frequently shot in natural light, and the writing. Jay Presson Allen and Lumet were nominated for an Oscar for their brilliant work in structuring a moral story while observing different sides of humanity in tough jobs among ethical codes. This is the penultimate police movie, and transcends decades because it is so specific in so many ways.

Stuck (2007)  **
Stuart Gordon, who passed away just a few years ago, had his hits (Re-Animator, Edmond), and his misses, of which this is one. The story on which it is based is fascinating; the structure of this movie, which runs under ninety-minutes, is full of shots that don't build suspense or advance the story. The actors give it their efforts, sure, but there's no payoff, no wit, no memorable lines. There you are.

Star 80 (1983)  ****
If you see immediately below, the actors are mentioned but not the characters. Bob Fosse's film of the Dorothy Stratten tragedy paints a portrait of two characters entering and exploring a world they know nothing about. They become enveloped, seem to take people at their word, and one has rapid success while the other, shall we say, explores many options, many of which stall. The story is so specific yet we all recognize these journeys and trajectories.

Mariel Hemingway as Dorothy and Eric Roberts as Paul Snider are so good in their roles that we forget we meet them as fully developed characters. Even if you know the ending, which many have only heard of, this film doesn't waste a moment of observation. This is one of those movies that stands the test of time and stays with you for days after seeing it. The climactic event isn't nearly as important as the motives and personality layers leading up to it, and you can only get so close to and inside the mind of a psychopath before realizing these people are who they are. They just have parts that are like the rest of us.

Jurassic Park: Dominion (2022)  *1/2
You realize how much Steven Spielberg and Joe Johnston, who directed Jurassic Park 3, pay attention to characters in heightened dramatic, action-oriented situations. Remember when the dinosaur sneezed on a little girl in the first movie? All the Jeff Goldblum wisecracks that were quotable?

This time that journeyman actor is hurried in some scenes and looks like he, and everyone else, are on an amusement park ride. Characters are out of break after not caring in a death-defying situation. The corporate plot is listed, not adhered to, and the villain, we suppose played by an inspired Campbell Scott, is on the spectrum, sure, but he's not inspired, disappointed, and then dies in a recycled routine from the first movie. This is Monsters in a house, and that's all. Worse, with highly paid actors given little to do and who don't behave like people. The curiosity and wonder are gone. Long gone.

Carnal Knowledge (1971)  ***1/2
Mike Nichols had quite the run, and this movie ended it before he disappeared for much of the next decade. This movie shows us two guys thinking about, pondering, speculating, and fantasizing about women. They are each impotent in some way, or several ways. It's also a portrait of friendship. Guys rib each other, sure, and sometimes how much of it's phony, genuine, or an insincere mix of both depends on who you believe, or like more.

Of the actors, Jack Nicholson announces his arrival has a flawed leading man. Ann-Margaret, nominated for an Oscar, gives a complete performance, and has the most complete character arc of the ensemble. This is the kind of movie about people that earns its ending, starting with hope, and ending on a sad yet fulfilling note.

The Overbearing Weight of Massive Talent (2022)  **
Nicolas Cage is such an invaluable actor, so eager to please the camera and in turn us, that he almost saves the movie. It sure starts out that way. The setup, exotic locations, the immediacy of his performance all hook us. The domestic situation not so much, and the grinding gears of the plot even less.

These two aspects are linked, so the final shootout, chase, ransom situation, and most of all the final scenes and grand irony hold no weight whatsoever, so to speak. They're not even amusingly shot or staged, so who cares? These characters don't behave like people, only that they're having a good time. So are we, for a while.

The Burnt Orange Heresy (2019)  *
You don't need one of the most aesthetically pleasing locations for a rich setting; you need a director who knows where to put the camera relative to his actors, the mountains, and the lake. Based on a Charles Willeford novel and written by Scott B. Smith of A Simple Plan fame, the gears are there but she sure don't run good. The director, Giuseppe Capotondi, doesn't know how to transition between scenes. His actors, starting with a very wooden Claes Bang, don't suggest any subtext, or text. This could be remade today and probably soar.

Wonderland (2003)  **1/2
David Ansen wrote about Sea of Love probably not winning the war but winning so many battles along the way that...We can't recall the rest, but this movie sure fits that bill. With the energetic filmmaking and performances, we forget these characters aren't that interesting. If they live, so what? If they die...

So we suppose this movie engages our humanity only slightly. It's also a period peace where Los Angeles was entering the '80s and the movie industry had grounded itself in blockbusters, and drugs. With a stellar cast, especially with supporting actors such as Eric Bogosian showing up at just the right times, we find this insatiably curious, if not galvanizing, from moment to moment.

Lethal Weapon (1987)  ****
Shane Black's script is so airtight with character, wit, action, and, dare we say, progress through a story while being entertaining, it's a wonder people don't hire him as a script doctor. They did, and could do so again. Just about the only thing that dates this movie is the use of landline phones; the rest is first rate. There isn't a wasted shot, even when it takes viewing the movie two or three times to notice the shadow walking by in the opening scene.

The wonderful and often hilarious podcast The Rewatchables casually said that director Richard Donner, after a long career in TV and several successful feature films, cashed in with this one. This was actually his first foray into a rated R, adult-oriented action movie. The sequels were probably very kind to his bank account, but he took a risk with film, and it paid off. What's best Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh and surrounding characters seem like real people all the time who are thrown into mayhem. That beats many, many comic book moves on the big screen over the last decade.

Magic (1978)  ***1/2
The sheer fact that writer William Goldman and director Richard Attenborough, who went on to make much larger-scaled films, explain so little says a lot. They understand the power of suggestion, what's barely in the frame implying what's just outside of it. Even if we piece the story together, we're still not sure just how powerful the paranormal conscience and actions are. Anthony Hopkins may not hit all his marks; he seems to still be finding his way in terms of helplessness as an actor, but he provides an insecure center for everything else. This is a buried gem--see it if you can.

The Man in the High Castle (2015)  ***
Here the filmmakers have their actors flat to go with stark production design and images. It works. No, there's no real dramatic pull; the world provides that. What it adapts successfully from the novel is combining worlds and ideas. Those elements, deployed at a methodical pace, is the mark of solid storytelling. Then there are the images that haunt us for days.

Unsane (2018)  ***1/2
Structure is so crucial in a thriller that the fact this was shot on an iPhone is almost beside the point. Steven Soderbergh, in one of his best films in years, has his actors play to the camera only so much. The mistaken identity (Is he who he says he is, or not?) has been done before, but here it's grounded in the main character's psychology. That character, played by Claire Foy in a pitch-perfect performance, takes us into a netherworld and leads us to a satisfying, ambiguous, yet clear conclusion. Soderbergh also clearly knows how phones are used by everyday people, and uses it skillfully here every step of the way.

The Humbling (2014)  **
We can see how Philip Roth's novel spoke to Al Pacino and Barry Levinson. It's about an ageing actor...but the central throughline, idea, and purpose are elusive here until the very end. What does an entire relationship sort of at the center of this film mean anyway? What purpose does it serve on its own terms?

There are some good exchanges and quiet scenes in this movie along with a few comedic ones that fall flat and are so obvious, we wonder who was laughing behind the camera. It says something about how this movie cost $4 million, starred Pacino, Greta Gerwig, Dianne Wiest, Charles Grodin, Dylan Baker, and many others, and only made $400,000.

House of Gucci (2021)  *1/2
You have to hand it to Ridley Scott, born 1937, for one thing at least: he knows how to make a movie look great. His shots balance the characters, who are not that colorful, with settings that include beautiful awnings, elaborate houses, luscious picnics, and, of course, wonderful costumes. Too bad the character sketches don't inhabit a screenplay that let's them bounce off one another. They barely interact, in dynamics we've seen before, but, and this is a big one, we don't know or learn how the Gucci empire made its money, expanded, and what personalities and practices drove it to royalty in the fashion industry.

We get minor asides on how characters feel about the family business, but these are gestures, not people with implications or agendas. The performances are fine, with little to go on, and Scott of all people knows how to move a movie along, but these people could be anybody. We suppose that's the point, but they aren't people we care about. Even an unrecognizable Jared Leto with quite the makeup job behaves but doesn't evoke. There you are.

Blume in Love (1973)  ***
If we noticed Paul Mazursky's name attached to prominent comedies in the '80s (Moscow on the Hudson, Down and Out in Beverly Hills), some of us wondered why. Well, it's because his early comedies including this one felt real. There are times his camera simply observes people looking at the world around them. In what might be George Segal's best leading man performance, he plays a man who cheats on his wife (Susan Anspach). It leads to their divorce. What happens in the past is much less important than what this man does when he discovers he still loves her and she appears to have moved on.

Ah, but appearances can be deceiving. So can smiles, looks, and invitations into the home. So does one big accusation late in the film. We're surprised by the ending. If the inner dialogue comes across as stilted at times, well, that his how we think sometimes, right? It all still feels real, and this is one character-driven story that satisfies in unusual and unexpected ways.

Severance (2021)  ****
You have to admire the nerve of filmmakers that are so geometric in their composition, so deliberate in their color palette, that the actors, mannered as they are, seem freer. Adam Scott, Britt Lower, and especially Patricia Arquette appear to know exactly what they're about to say, why they're about to give their lines, and always seem to spontaneously, yet calculatingly, embody a feeling before opening their mouths. It's mannered, yes, but part of this world. Come on: how calculated are people when navigating office spaces anyway? It's not where humans were born to be, right?

We've never doubted Ben Stiller as a director, all the way back to Reality Bites and The Cable Guy. He gets people. This is a welcome, new direction for him, and one to watch.

Pig (2021)  ****
Talk about the power of suggestion, or that less is indeed more. Or how about when filmmakers know a place so well, they can show its role in the story in shot selections. When it comes to the characters, they almost speak poetry about lost lives against the backdrop of affluence, or depravity. There's also how the movie weaves and uses a character's history in a story, comments on a class system in a supposed liberal bastion in Portland, Oregon, and achieves intimacy with characters without telling us too much.

One of the movies best scenes, and there are many to choose from, are when the main character encounters one of his proteges from long ago. Watch the characters' expressions as the filmmakers cut back and forth between two, and then three, as the conversation progresses. Look at the villain in his dark, plush, woodsy house. He might be left-of-center in his societal political views as well, or thinks he is, but what about his actions? This movies asks that question, and paints a portrait of a man, a city, and a society, that might look warm and cozy on the outside, but is just as savage and chilling as anyone's inner demons as they become visible over any great length of time. 

Mosaic (2018)  **
Steven Soderbergh works constantly, and it might be starting to show in the economical pace of his work. His actors are so mannered and so absent of energy, depth, and emotional projection, it's as if this is an exercise. Sharon Stone does what she can, just like everyone else. Ed Solomon, a solid writer (Men in Black), must not be right for this genre. This story unfolds economically with no gravitas or suggestion beyond the words uttered by people at a ski resort. Some scenes are redundant and reveal nothing new. The characters are coy with each other, sure, but who cares? We don't if their goals or the show's themes are so murky and  listlessly conveyed.

The Servant (1963)  ***1/2
Harold Pinter's screenplay must have been a mind-bender to read. Joseph Losey's direction tackles it as if these people are locked in a cabin together. They are: it's called the British class system. Chief among its prisoners is the introduction of James Fox as a subtle actor. His transformation into ambiguity is just that: we don't know if he's gay, never socially experimented, or simply experiencing freedom outside his preordained future for the first time. He talks about South America, but how serious is he?

The catalyst for this transformation is played by Dirk Bogarde and his accomplice, whom he introduces as his sister (Sarah Miles). They test our assumptions, interpretations of interactions, and societal roles. Pinter, heralded as one of the best writers of the twentieth century, must have had that in mind in every scene. The movie is also ranked twenty-second on the British Film Institute's list of great films of the twentieth century. It sure resonated with people then, and still does now. See it on the big screen if you can. It, along with that house, swallows you.

Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)  ****
As introduced by David Koepp, technology is one of the themes of this classic...is it noir? Is it simply a suspense thriller, with a few, but not many, laughs? A family drama?

We suppose it's all of these, and so much is packed into it's eighty-nine minutes, we almost notice how they drop one character toward the end of Act Two. However, that character, played by the inimitable Barbara Stanwyck, is so established, and the flashbacks handled so well, we understand these people and this world. If you've ever been to New York, this story especially resonates. People are close to each other, and yet so far, far away, even in the same family.

Doctor Foster (2015)  ****
Any series that goes five hours, the last hour of which has us guessing off-camera actions by the main character has to be working in overdrive. The structure is the hero. So is the acting relative to the camera. Sometimes us Yanks wonder about the Brits where every glance seems to mean, infer, and imply, something beneath the surface. This series, like the latest Pixar movie Turning Red, captures a twelve year-old's mannerisms perfectly. It also does that of a professionally successful woman. She's absorbed in her job, sure, and in a nice twist, what if she's married to someone who's professional arc is built on a sham?

We also get the sense that they inhabit a quaint, small town. So it's back to trouble in paradise. With these characters, we want a sequel there or anywhere.

Spartacus (1960)  ***1/2
Stanley Kubrick was, say, thirty and thirty-one when he helmed this grand historical epic. The strengths of the movie: the pacing, the handling of transitions between large-scale scenes with intimate ones clearly on a set, and the cast. We have Kirk Douglas commanding the screen, and he is surrounded by stellar supporting performances by Lawrence Olivier, Peter Ustinov, Jean Simmons, and especially Charles Laughton. The latter doesn't get much notice in later years, yet he perfectly complements everyone else in the scenes he shares. 

We mentioned the pacing. At nearly three hours and fifteen minutes, Kubrick knew how to move images, scenes, and dialogue. He was a master at such a young age. Even if the glossy closeups of some intimate scenes stand out, the screenplay by Dalton Trumbo merges philosophical with character agendas, and we feel like we truly learn what occurred to people alive during that time. That's rare in film indeed.

Targets (1968)  ***1/2
When Peter Bogdanovich passed in January 2022, this film got several mentions. We see why. It is a masterwork in efficiency. We sense a young director, in his late twenties who appears onscreen as a director, grasping what it is to tell a story on film. He got Boris Karloff for a (very) short time, but look at how the story advances. It is so efficient and cut together so well, with different framing throughout, that we wonder why we haven't heard more about this movie. It also works on an American societal level relative to guns. You'll see why.

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)  ****
Remember when movies were beautiful to look at? When two characters are chatting, and you simply admire the colors, the movement, the sun-drenched scenery? This movie, with its characters dancing around each other at over two hours, reels us in. We discover just enough about them.

Writer-director Anthony Minghella (1954 - 2008) did this film as his follow-up after the multiple Oscar-winning The English Patient. It's a treasure. It also did big box office, proving yet again how we can be seduced by a well-told story that is about people and places set against a time and place not seen like this before, or since. It indeeds stands the test of time.

The Lorax (2012)  **1/2
Even as charismatic an actor as Danny DeVito is, he can't prevent an hour and fifteen-minute movie from seeming drawn out. That's even with the filmmakers making the smart choice of integrating three main characters in a balanced screenplay. The songs are not memorable, a few lines are, and the animation is gorgeous. Now we need...a need in the story, and that's with a heartfelt environmental message. Maybe those behind the scenes thought we couldn't take it. If this is remade, let's start there.

The Cable Guy (1996)  ***1/2
This is one of those comedies where everything works. Perhaps one sequence can be taken out, where Matthew Broderick has a nightmare and Jim Carrey's eyes turn green. We don't believe the fear.

The rest of the time, though, we laugh consistently. We also see Ben Stiller as a director, two years after he deftly moved Reality Bites, shine and show such good comedic timing and firmly in control of his actors, that he's a budding talent. Broderick is also the perfect blank slate for Carrey to bounce off of. He mirrors all of us in the presence of an invasive sociopath. The movie touches on how much trust, reliance, and faith we place in acquaintances and technology, and stands the test of time.

Red Planet (2000)  **
As big a fan as many are of Val Kilmer, he doesn't exude, or explain, his minimalist acting in this story. The dynamic, wonderful star of Top Secret!, The Doors, and Thunderheart can carry a movie, and we're not sure if he's asked to this time. He's surrounded by actors of archetypes we've seen before, and the preeminent special effects with a drone are solid. There's not much of a dramatic arc, and the commentary marrying religion and science goes nowhere. It's not bad, just not that good, or ambitious to warrant visiting again.

The Wizard of Lies (2017)  ***1/2
Director Barry Levinson seems to have found a home at HBO over the last decade. Like Rob Reiner, he couldn't step wrong in the '80s, was hit-and-miss in the '90s, then had a few releases from 2000 - 2010. Since then he's made the thought-provoking You Don't Know Jack, the uneven Paterno, and The Humbling, curiously all with Al Pacino. This is one of his best films, with stellar performances, sharp writing, and observations about behavior surrounding one of the biggest financial scandals in modern American finance.

Robert De Niro proves he can still carry a movie start-to-finish. He gives us space as we're supposed to reciprocate, and if we grow disinterested in him as a character at some points, the screenplay knows just when to switch gears and spend time with the family. It's also an interesting choice to have Diana Henriques, author of the book with the same title, play herself, interviewing Bernie Madoff in prison. She provides a thoughtful, proving center which indirectly affects everyone. For anyone who thinks money buys happiness, or that the struggle to gt rich is worth it, this is required viewing.

Romero (1989)  ***1/2
British-born John Duigan must be one of the most under-appreciated mainstream Australian filmmakers of the last fifty years. His great movie Flirting transcends time, space, cultures, you name it. This movie, done two years before, understands how to place a character in one tumultuous situation after another and observe how he handles things. It also paints a portrait of a specific time and place with characters operating against a chaotic landscape. We see all of them just enough. This movie creates atmosphere in the context of dramatic elements and dynamics, and Raul Julia continues to be mourned as we lost a versatile, unique actor in 1994 all too soon.

David Byrne's American Utopia (2020)  ***
Many of us will remember seeing Stop Making Sense (1984) on the big screen and listening to the soundtrack for months. This production has a fair amount of songs from that. The real triumph is in the choreography, how director Spike Lee cuts during numbers, and how Byrne as a performer insists we go with him. Watch his transitions between songs: he knows when we're done, how to tell personal stories that resonate broadly with audiences and, most of the time, share the stage. As it's around the forty-fifth anniversary of Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz, a forerunner to Sense, this movie should be pretty far up on the list of concert films, and is probably even better live. One aside is we're not sure if Lee knew how to incorporate the filming equipment with the cast and audience; sometimes cameras and microphones are visible, sometimes a little in the way of our viewing experience; handling this element is sort of a dance in itself, and it's an awkward one. 

Garden State (2004)  **
It's particular, yes, and amusing. Unlike the movie listed just below, this film doesn't move along or offer insights we remember. Zach Braff wrote, directed, and starred in this film. He knows this part of the country, the streets, and has inspired ideas for scenes. Now he needs to shape them with characters who drive scenes instead of serving them.

Deconstructing Harry (1997)  ***
This is probably Woody Allen's most self-exploring story he's ever done. That's okay, because it's done with his wit, comic timing, and a well-rounded cast. It's also about the creative process, with an ending that works. He knows how to cut scenes together and between them. If the applauding characters near the end feel a bit much, well, it offsets a wonderful scene where he descends to and walks around in hell. Billy Crystal shows his range as a leading man and supporting actor, as does Demi Moore. There's not a flawed moment in the performances, though it feels insular in some of the longer scenes.

Friedkin Uncut (2019)  **1/2
Having read William Friedkin's memoir several years ago, it's more insightful of the man. Some of this documentary is a visual aid to the book, especially when we see his staging of operas. There are, however, many shots of the director posing on photo shoots, accepting awards, and speaking at festivals. They're okay for a bit and get old real quick. The interviews are thoughtful, though, as is he. We just need a tighter story and through line on this fascinating person.

The Father (2020)  ***1/2
Anthony Hopkins deserved the Oscar for this role. He creates a character, indeed father figure, we all know. He's charming, aiming to please strangers and acquaintances. Behind closed doors with his own family, he let's his emotional guard down, takes out his frustrations, and demands things to exist as he sees them, and sequences them. The structure of the story must have been challenging, and this must be a tour de force as a play. As a film, it almost achieves greatness, especially with the last shot. Hey, we know a few in their nineties, physically debilitated, mentally ware at times,  that simply like to look at trees. It works.

Free Guy (2021)  **
We suppose the actors give it their all. At least the supporting ones do, and their dialogue has no, and we mean no, subtext. At the heart of this assembly-line thriller is an emotional involvement that's confusing: one character falls for another, as demonstrated through a trip to an ice cream stand, and one of them isn't real. Both characters know this. So why...

But let's not digress. The moving shots of mayhem in a downtown plaza, up a block, down an alley, up at skyscrapers, are shown eight times in the first, let's say, forty minutes. That is not inventive filmmaking or storytelling. At the center of it all, Ryan Reynolds looks like he doesn't take any of this seriously, which is fine in Deadpool, but not when he's a geek falling in love. Jodie Comer, so good in Killing Eve, seems restricted and going through the motions. She probably got paid well, which we also hope for the supporting actors. 

An Unmarried Woman (1978)  ****
We hear about the '70s as a golden era of movies, we believe it, some may doubt it, then we come across a fairly overlooked gem. Paul Mazursky was one of those writers and directors known to cineastes who had quite a run that decade. This is probably his best, and earned Jill Clayburgh a much-deserved Oscar nomination.

One of the keys to her involving journey is there are no villains, only flawed characters with admirable moments, even seconds. She's flawed, perseveres, and much of the time we're watching her react to what happens in her single life. There's one extended scene with a therapist that transcends decades, and we wish other filmmakers had the courage to hold shots that long. This is a wonder to any adult, and maybe a few kids.

Nomadland (2020)  ****
If you believe less is more on whatever philosophical level, and it usually shines in storytelling, this film's a home run. Oscar-winner Chloe Zhao understands how to make daily mundane and subtle exigencies interesting, and those are no small talent. In that she gets a lot of help from Frances McDormand, who inhabits her role, connects with characters around her while understanding her character's space, psychological underpinnings, and points along this person's journey. On top of these qualities, there are images and stay with us for days and weeks after seeing them. And the movie moves well. And, and, and...

The American President (1995)  ***
After the calamity of North, Rob Reiner returned to form, and was smart to re-team with Aaron Sorkin given the success they had with A Few Good Men (1992). The movie has a great cast, and even if it's glossy (they clearly spent a fortune on interiors), treats the Annette Bening character like a high schooler early on, it's efficient, witty, and has a great ending. We also recall what a great, subtle actor Michael Douglas was as a leading man. He probably still is.

Fargo Season 3 (2017)  **1/2
We suppose the filmmakers stick to the themes and, dare we say, formula of what made the first two seasons of Fargo so watchable. We needed to see what happened to these characters. Now we don't. By episode three, we feel sidetracked by the female sheriff (Carrie Coon), who doesn't display a need to uncover and discover what happened in the first two episodes. It's murky here: is she not given enough to do? The props not suggestive enough? What makes the narrative lose its drive?

Ewan McGregor playing two characters was at times distracting, but his schlub and girlfriend, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, added spice that slowly, interestingly, revealed their agendas and showed their improvisation. The same goes for David Thewlis. Why veer from this? We think of Fred Zinnemann in an interview about High Noon, about handling the threat from afar to a community. That was mysterious, worked in the first two seasons differently, and one device that's missing here.

Without Limits (1998)  ***
Robert Towne, author of one of the all-time great screenplays with Chinatown, has his second movie centered around running track in Oregon. He and co-writer Kenny Moore, a close friend of the main character, Steve Prefontaine, played by Billy Crudup in his first starring role, get to know "Pre" enough. Here they have a leading man that may be too good a character actor for this kind of role. We're sure of who he is, and not sure how he relates to us. We see how he relates to the rest of his teammates, and most importantly to his coach Bill Bowerman (Donald Sutherland, in one of his most iconic performances.)

The other key relationship in the film is Pre's on-again-off-again girlfriend played by Monica Potter. When it's just the two of them, their dialogue is a tad forced, their insecurities half-suppressed, half in plain view. Well, isn't that how many college students are? Anyway, we barely track the progress of their relationship over a few years. It seems ambiguous for most of that time, but we're not sure. What we are sure about his how the young runner lived, what he meant to the amateur athletic establishment, especially in the context of track, and his inspiration to many. On those fronts the movie works, and the track scenes, outside of multiple Oscar-winner Chariots of Fire, are among the best ever put in a mainstream film with their editing and insights.

Kim's Convenience (2017)  ***
Revisiting Siskel and Ebert recently, they said about About Last Night (1986) for once had young, working characters who were likable. Here they are likable and empathetic. If the punchlines are strained, at least the slice of life (slices of lives) are depicted wittily and particularly. The characters also have goals and evolve slowly. Not a bad idea for a series.

Killshot (2009) **
Here is a strangely qualified movie. John Madden, the director, watched his Shakespeare in Love snatch the Best Picture Oscar from Saving Private Ryan ten years prior to this outing. This movie feels directed at a distance if not slapped together. Look at how the moving camera tracking left starts so many scenes. The thrumming score doesn't build tension but sure bores us. Caleb Deschanel (The Black Stallion) did the cinematography and it's fairly sure-footed but doesn't feel authentic. 

The two leads remind us how to go about a hum-drum screenplay. Mickey Rourke plays reserved cool better than just about anybody. Diane Lane plunges into her role and creates a believable character. All they had to do was keep the Elmore Leonard dialogue, which John Travolta insisted on in another Leonard adaptation. That's not too hard to figure out.

Damages (2007)  **
This is the kind of series that has a great premise, interesting structure, and plays out within the confines of network TV. It also has a bona fide star in Glenn Close, who is a great character actress, who was a character actress before becoming a star. How the filmmakers handle her character though violates the belief that less is more. Rose Byrne is not given much to do, is intimidated by Close as a mighty, powerful attorney, and then has coffee and drinks with her seemingly every day. In some scenes both actresses appear not given clear direction or unsure of where they're motivations. If we can spot this, then we reply on the structure, which is interesting, but not enough to carry a show.

Der amerikanische Freund (1977)  ***
Wim Wenders has long ben a giant of German film. From the IMDB, he is semi-constantly making films of all kinds. He also makes movies that cross cultural barriers, so it doesn't surprise us that the inspiration and structure of this film is that great mystery novelist Patricia Highsmith's Ripley's Game. Her work impacts the director similar to how Michael Tolkan held Robert Altman to a concrete structure with The Player. Though the latter two never worked together again, they produced a great, seminal movie.

If Wenders has something to call his own, it's his deliberation as plots unfold. Bruno Ganz plays an innocent man pulled into a murder plot based on his faith in people, including the powers that be in the medical establishment. Dennis Hopper is perfectly cast as an amoral outsider who appears barely under control and always unpredictable. A quieter role, but just as strong, is Lisa Kreuzer as Ganz's tormented wife. The three of them somehow balance each other, and we see the plot depends not on a filmmaker's agenda but their personalities. It all feels natural. That is indeed a testament to the director. (One will also note that two prominent American directors in supporting roles.")


Fargo Season 2 (2016)  ****
This is some series, consistent in style and content, and at a slightly brisker pace than the first season. The pattern of building tension and cutting away is continually employed. There are a few dramatic pulls with central characters who are connected yet isolated. That is indeed a tightrope to watch. 

Probably the biggest surprise is Kirsten Dunst, very different here than anything she's done before. She is counter-balanced by Jesse Plemons. Watch how they both internalize the encroaching forces around them. Other characters are stock and stoic; they don't have to do too much outside of erupt in violence.The framing and compositions are so precise, though, we can't take our eyes off the screen. They sure took Hitchcock's advice, or method on how to do his job, in "filling up that rectangle."

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)  ***1/2
We forget what solid character actors our stars became in the '70s. Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw are the stars, and they are surrounded by character actors who inhabit their roles as if they have for a long time, or a short time at their jobs. The interiors are shot wide or in closeup by Owen Roizman, who three years earlier shot exteriors and interiors a little differently in The French Connection and a year earlier with William Friedkin on The Excorcist.

Characters as played by Hector Elizondo and Martin Balsam establish themselves and their relations with chief villain Shaw  in seconds (This movie could be studied for that). The structure and how the story plays out is unpredictable; no small accomplishment. The movie also has a great ending. Instead of the classic climax/showdown/apex of dramatic tension, we get a slice-of-life, before, we sense, something similar could start the next day all over again, especially for the Walter Matthau character.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)  ***
Two years after the galvanizing run of Twin Peaks as a TV show, where viewers turned in weekly to see what clues made progress toward solving a murder, comes a much-dismissed movie. It should not have been. The best performance is by Sheryl Lee as Laura Palmer: she conveys teen depths and, shall we say, desires surrounding teen angst better than almost anyone here. 

The real strength is in the structure. After new characters are introduced and get closer to solving the whodunnit, the whole movie is one long flashback. Then there's the masterful conclusion where two characters who've never met are united in some demented version of hell. David Lynch and Mark Frost know what they're doing, with the former showcasing this as a forerunner to his masterpiece nine years later, Mulholland Drive. This trip back is worth it.

L'assassino (The Assassin) (1961)  ***
One of the best parts about movies is you can come across one you'v never heard of from sixty years ago that is so fresh, so different from present-day releases, you feel like you're there. Also, the director, Elio Petri, is one barely noted in the U.S. This time he gets a lot of help from his star, Marcello Mastroianni. Check where Petri puts the camera and how Mastroianni, in a long struggle proclaiming innocence, relates to it and the characters around him.

The movie's editing appears pre-eminent. It's the '60s, after all, and shifting perspectives with creeping American doubts in our institutions and social distrust looming, the filmmakers here appear much wiser. Though deliberate, this film demands to be seen all the way up to the last shot; now there's a cultural implication and mindset us Americans can lear from.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)  **
Based on a great book and that transcends and reaches far past its 1971 publication, here's a movie that's wrong-headed in its screenplay and undermines a great performance. Johnny Depp stated he spent four months with Hunter S. Thompson. We believe it: he looks, talks, and acts as a complete actor as the journalist strung out on drugs sent to Las Vegas to cover a District Attorney's conference. (This movie fifteen months after his breakout performance in Donnie Brasco.) The young star's work and Terry Gilliam's visuals complement each other and could be a great, dizzying tour through sin city amidst straight-laced society. That's what the book does, and the cast talk about the book greatly in their interviews. 

Unfortunately, Benecio Del Toro's role as the journalist's attorney is zany, directionless, and uninteresting. There are long scenes where he and Depp interact aimlessly, and a long extended scene where they slowly demolish a hotel room. These ideas were established early on in a brilliant sequence near the beginning. Ultimately, this movie showcases Gilliam's challenges as a filmmaker: the lack of structure, prolonged scenes of inane dialogue and interactions, and what comes across as self-indulgence. His best movie (Time Bandits, 12 Monkeys) have a plot that his visuals help come alive start to finish. This time he's in control, but of what? Not structure or insight, that's for sure.

A Perfect Murder (1998)  **
Michael Douglas has such charisma and is such a good, complete actor, we're cheering for him as a snooty, wealthy New York businessman. We're not cheering for the lackluster Gwyneth Paltrow character, and the movie doesn't know hot it feels about any of its characters. Even the admirable conman, played by Viggo Mortensen, doesn't seem to have a purpose in life.

The plot starts nicely and gets worse. That's because these characters are at the service of it. We feel the machinations kicking in as Andrew Davis, usually an action director (Under Siege, The Fugitive) seems bored with characters going from place to place. He needs a chase, and characters who get to the point. He also doesn't need a Friday the 13th/Fatal Attraction ending.

The Wrong Man (1956)  ***1/2
Alfred Hitchcock's introduction sets the stage just enough. This is not a suspense thriller, but boy does it shed light on humanity, at least in the big cities inside a system that once accused, those in power sure are unforgiving. In this movie, once a verdict is reached through police work, people still don't apologize for how they treated the wronged. Just like the dialogue in North by Northwest (1959), the fifties weren't a great time even for those who had sustainable livings. The world could be a cold place in the movies then.

Much is made of the photography and imagery in this movie. It alone holds our attention, especially as this movie is shot in glorious black and white. That lends weight to a mental breakdown we don't see coming by a main character, who's pulled into systemic punishment and mostly internalizes the pain. With Henry Fonda and Vera Miles and a squad of strong supporting roles, it remains very much a director's picture. It tells its small-scale tale with biting commentary on authorities who think they have the criminal. Like The Night Of (2016), this movie is also the portrait of a system that once a person is deemed guilty, weighs them down, almost to a preordained conclusion launched and sustained by initial perceptions.

Kill the Irishman (2011)  *1/2
The main character is such a stereotype, clean-shaven and clearly in a movie from the opening scenes, this film is in a corner right out of the gate. This construction worker makes friends, takes down a boss's henchman, gets a girlfriend, all while living in poverty and looking like he just stepped out of the shower. He waltzes through everything. Even Val Kilmer's voiceover doesn't fit in with story or have any impact on the audience, or the experience. No wonder this went largely unnoticed.

​Fat City (1972)  ****
​John Huston had such an illustrious career as a director that we trust many forgot he had a period where his films were not well reviewed. He'd done epics, and then he'd done small-scale human dramas, if this one can be called that. This is one of those fulfilling movies that really lives up to that genre called "Slice-of-Life." He took an established actor (Stacy Keach) and partnered him with much younger newcomer (Jeff Bridges), who's not in too much of the movie. They're also not in the movie together much, except for a key last scene and shot. This is one of those movies that observes people carefully amidst their trials of, well, making a living. 

It isn't too much of one, but we sure feel these people's lives. Check the scenes where the older Keach pulls Bridges aside and guides him to getting a job picking crops and boarding a bus while it's still dark out. Visually arresting images such as a machine shaking an almond tree capture our attention before we have much time to simply watch people behave. Then there's the jarring Oscar-nominated performance by Susan Tyrell in just her fourth appearance on screen. She wins and shares every scene generously. At the end of the film, it's important to understand how many in Stockton, CA (shown to have a population over 112,000 at the beginning) lived then, and probably still do today if not there, then elsewhere in dusty towns. This is one of those overlooked gems w hear about from time to time, and don't forget easily.

The Gambler (1974)  ****
These are the kinds of character portraits we need and revisit time and again. It's one of those buried '70s movies where James Caan, two years after The Godfather, chose a plum role in Axel Freed next to strong supporting ones played by Lauren Hutton and Paul Sorvino. The movie feels real start to finish, and we see Caan do his best subtle acting. Watch his eyes dart around as he slowly approaches Burt Young after the latter ransacks an apartment. Axel is who he is, and he's still searching and finding his way in this world.

I'm not sure how old or when James Toback wrote this screenplay, and in the hands of Karel Reisz, a native of the Czech Republic, they picture the east coast establishment for what it is: money and needs creating prisons over time with history looming over these people. Check the direction the movie takes toward the end. For the tightly-written words, the characters' actions speak volumes. Those but a few reasons this films stays with us for days after seeing it.


Crank (2006)  *1/2
It's pretty clear from the opening minutes this movie is close to a film school exercise. The premise is interesting, sure, and the actors do what they can, but we don't believe much of it at all, especially the indignity Jason Statham and Amy Smart endure in one key scene. The villain has the required fleeting presence, as does the ally played by Dwight Yoakam who appears phoning it in after his other performances. So it's an exercise of pure frenetic filmmaking, and one of those movies where we ask, who really needs this?

American Psycho (2000)  ***1/2
Christian Bale established himself as a leading man in Mary Herron's film that knows how pointed it is in commentating on American corporate culture. Movies like this are like Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, which Pauline Kael noted followed its own narrow path. This one does too, which frees up Herron and her cinematographer Andrez Sekula, to be creative with their framing and closeups. 

Herron knows how to open a movie; sustaining dramatic momentum has not been her strength. Here she handles the whodunnit fragment just right, knowing the audience's hunger for exploration. Do we care about the societal cost of Patrick Bateman's deeds? Not really, because we know them. What makes him tick, with a wonderful final scene and shot, is tons more interesting.

Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)  ***1/2
It must be the banter between Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson balanced with the stoic Jeremy Irons, who's tied to Hans Gruber from the original in the series, that drives this story forward. This movie works. It creates chaos out of and next to logic as John McClane slowly discovers the plot, which is recycled from the first movie. We sense John McTiernan in improvisation mode, back on his feet after the disastrous Last Action Hero two years earlier. This is one of those action movies you see every once in a while, and reminds us that sequels can hold up over time. With this series, that's no small accomplishment.

Bad Education (2019)  ***1/2
Not many people note the structure of a movie. We always get caught up in the emotional and spiritual pull of a story. Here it is equal with the characters; even one of the main characters is skillfully dealt with and dropped and we don't notice. She's played by Allison Janney with the actress's usual directness and confidence, and this is what makes her character revelations sting that much more.

The other main character is played by Hugh Jackman in a great performance that shows off his subtlety as an actor. In real life, these two people led the Roslyn school district from the lower ranks to fourth in the country among public high schools. That's no small accomplishment, and it took conflicted people with buried identities, misuse of public funds, and straight-up cons to do it. The movie's subplot of the high school journalism student investigating and first breaking the story is also intermixed with the first two characters seamlessly. All these parts shouldn't go together, especially in light of a subject matter that doesn't usually excite audiences. Here it does, with structure, straight-forward dialogue, and oh those observations of awkward pauses where you wonder what people are hiding.

Leaving Neverland (2019)  ***1/2
We know the description of the content says "Alleged." then comes the four-hour documentary, which we finish largely because as the subjects and their trajectories slowly reveal themselves, we also peel back the layers of alleged deception revolving around the King of Pop. We see how Michael Jackson liked being around kids, the charisma and power he possessed when interacting with others, and those that led to alleged promises of fame and famous roles at his side. 

The format of the subjects speaking in a medium shot and cuts to angular closeups is repeated, but what the characters are saying isn't. It's like taking a boat trip in rough seas: we may know the boat but the waters stay unchartered, and unpredictable. This is a masterclass in documentary story structure, and proves that real people can be more interesting than dramatic characters when given authentic experiences. Of course, in the words of a drama teacher mentioned in David Mamet's Masterclass, what choice did they have? Allegedly, none.

Roadkill (2020)  ***1/2
David Hare has been one of the most consistent writers in theater and on film over the last five decades. If he borrows from others, he does it so slyly and so firmly in the context of the story, we don't notice. Here the writer uses the main character, played by Hugh Laurie, to keep everyone on the screen and viewing from home at arms' length. We get close enough to continuously spark curiosity, and he's filmed from all sorts of angles. His face always seems to be stoically pondering, calculating, what to say next, and especially how to react past his knee-jerk comebacks and asides.

As the audience we're led by the nose yet events happen off-screen and we circle back to them in various points of midstream with this character. Well, isn't that how government works? The filmmakers surround Laurie with supporting roles divvied up fairly in proximity to him. He's the windmill's center, and if he were to fall, we sense everyone would feel the void and loss. The characters need this Minister of Justice as much as he needs them. Otherwise, we feel their lives would be missing someone to wonder about from afar. He's also the kind of selfish man who goes unappreciated (or does he?); we'd realize his good deeds long after he's left the room. We'd also realize there are worse folks out there.

Yojimbo (1961)  ****
Akira Kurosawa's heralded classic stands up to the praise, and more. He knew how to advance a story with framing and photography alone. Observe the opening sequence with credits. He has his actors play to the camera just enough and in varying degrees. Sometimes we feel like we're in the room with them and the characters, especially an old man, know we're there and disregard us at times.

Toshiro Mifune commands the frame and the screen no matter where he's placed. This is a wonder of visual storytelling. The director said a good film should be easy to understand. Here the incidents are on and off the screen, and the scenes bleed into each other. Paul Hirsch said in his book that he's always been a fan of the wipe. Here it's used so effectively as to have events and scenes overlap and transition like in a dream. That's cinema right there.

National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)  ***
Harold Ramis's movie's best scene opens the film with Eugene Levy in a great bit as a car salesman. Watch how he interacts with the mechanic, in another great role that lasts seconds. We also instantly remember how funny Chevy Chase was, and maybe still is. He plays off the straight-playing Beverly D'Angelo throughout the movie, and that's what makes this story work. Each character in the family is eventually given a prop, especially when they visit cousin Eddie. Overall this outing works well, though at times Chase lets us know how much of the joke is his alone. Despite the uneven pacing, there are many laughs, so the movie did what it set out to do.

Varg Veum - Bitre Blomster (2007)  **1/2
In the middle of this well-plotted , plainly shot story is a performance that doesn't quite reel us in. Trond Espen Seim doesn't embody his character as much as navigate this world like an undergrad seeking academic advising. The supporting performances are equally flat; they're playing parts, not people.

Still, se like this better than the Camilla Lackberg's adaptation and are curious to the end. Too bad the villains grow clueless when they should be tightening screws to our heroes and weasel out of their predicament. There's also no emotional steam, and since the plot revolvs around the death of a child, this should be easy.

Sudden Fear (1952)  ***
It is a perhaps unfortunate Joan Crawford has become a punchline in so many jokes, that people guffaw at her life story in the deplorable Mommie Dearest. Seeing this film, the actress commands the screen and shows a great range, starting with her eyes and looks. The person I don't buy is Jack Palance. At times he shows confusion out of context, often he doesn't project direct emotion, and is always isolated in his performance from just about everyone on screen and in the audience.

If the movie drags in Act One and the first part of Act Two, it builds suspense in Act Three and has a wonderful ending. Crawford's performance (she also did uncredited writing) carries the movie along with Charles Lang's cinematography. Together they create images that resonate long after the ending. That's what cinema is supposed to do.

The Last Waltz (1978)  ***1/2
Martin Scorsese's concert film set the stage, so to speak, for future concert films. From interviews, he and cohorts lined up lyrics with camera movements, had several cameras running simultaneously, and even ran out of film except for one camera during Muddy Waters's song. The Band is remembered today somewhere between a cult following and movement memory. The movie brings them, and many stars, alive, while orienting us through framing technique.

For us today, the music inspires and endures. The movie you probably only need to see once, and the joy live concerts and music bring to people leaps off the screen. We sense Marty and company barely contain the music within the confines of the film. They don't for a long time afterward.

Sleeper (1973)  ***1/2
Woody Allen's classic comedy is existential right out of the gate. What's also evident is there's not a wasted shot in the setup nor the whole movie. David Mamet in his Masterclass says how much he likes jokes because nothing's wasted, that everything tends toward the punchline. That's true here, with jabs at California sprinkled just right.

The movie slows way down when Allen and Diane Keaton start sniping at each other when boosting the infamous leader's nose. It's the one sequence that stalls. There are still so many asides and suggestions about the future, including the Swastika on a party-guest's outfit and the leader frequently pictured in the background who's been dead a while, that the comedy, front-and-center, never lands falsely. And many of the jokes, including Rags the dog, like the movie, hold up for decades.

Ace in the Hole (1951)  ****
On the box it says this is an indictment of American culture. We commend writer-director Billy Wilder, one year after Sunset Boulevard, and especially star Kirk Douglas, for making this daring film that works on several levels at the peaks of their careers. The movie's story is simple and touches on many things. The subtext of Native American cliff dwellings is a masterstroke. So is the ending, which is simultaneously symbolic and overstated. No matter the context or scene,  the movie never misses a step.

Of all twentieth-century mainstream Hollywood writers-directors, Billy Wilder gets the vote of a person who really could do it all across genres. Here he collaborates with two other writers (Lesser Samuels and Walter Newman). They must have boiled each scene down to the themes, starting with what makes a great story. In our web-saturated journalism landscape today, this still works.

Ocean's 11 (2001)  ***
After reading Julie Salamon's seminal book The Devil's Candy about studio-made films, one sees them differently. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Andy Garcia's faces grace the screen the most out of the entire cast, and yet, and yet, the movie works due to Steven Soderbergh's crisp direction. Almost every facet of this movie is likable, and the villain (Garcia) is just evil enough. Even the supporting roles with heavies such as Elliott Gould and Carl Reiner are welcome while gently adding to plot mechanics. It feels like everyone contributes, so in a heist movie about cheating, we've don't feel cheated and sail straight through. There's worse out there.

Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)  ****
Last year someone in Hollywood said that streaming classic films from the 1930s and '40s has gone through the roof since the onset of the pandemic in the U.S. AS us yanks have withdrawn from the public, waiting for a vaccine, beset by a political campaign season that was anything but peaceful, few of us have discovered some gems. This is one of them. At sixty-four minutes, Boris Ingsters is ranked by some as one of the best noir films of all time. We believe it. It's grounded in fear, explores psychological demons and paranoia, and is plausible every step of the way. Even if one is not familiar with Peter Lorre, let alone John McGuire or Margaret Tallichet (a short screen career as she was married to William Wyler), it's best you watch this movie cold.  That lets the atmosphere take over that much more, but look at how the plot and characterization advance. This should be studied by anyone interested in movie now over eighty years since its release. That's saying something.

The Company You Keep (2012)  **
William Goldman once remarked that it's "All in the casting." By "All" we recall he means the success of the movie. Without this cast, this movie would barely exist. Neil Gordon may have written a heck of a book, which inspired Robert Redford to direct and indeed assemble one of the great casts of the last decade. Too bad these characters, including Shia LeBeouf in a career-best performance at this point, is the exception among characters who talk resentfully in terms of politics and past deeds. That's all these people talk about in one scene after another. Lem Dobbs's screenplay is so consistently one-note and implies the stakes when it should be building steam that by the end we're not even sure who lost or gained what. That's not what you're supposed to be thinking when a movie is about leftist radicals from the early '70s come to terms with life.

We're not even sure what the terms are with so many shots of the cast looking just past the camera, which ties back to the casting. We see the actors, remember and enjoy their presence, and then we cut away to a scene with the same pattern. Then the movie ends, and we go looking for meatier fare.

​Ocean's Eight (2018)  **
Gary Ross's movie takes place so far up in the socioeconomic stratosphere, it's hard to identify with almost any of the characters.The "almost" comes late with the wit of James Corden (we can feel Helena Bonham-Carter's angst in holding back in an underwritten role.) The target audience for this movie seems to be middle and high school girls who long for the world of high fashion, and don't require much in a man.

That's because Richard Armitage plays the dumbest male character put on screen in many a moon. Awkwafina plays a role just right for her, but the talents of Cate Blanchett and Anne Hathaway are barely used. Scenes of verbal conflict, scheming, and sparring are handled so a twelve year-old can follos them. The rest of us notice the untapped talents sitting idly there on the screen.

Groundhog Day (1993)  ****
The genius structure carries Groundhog Day. Yes, we appreciate and have seen Bill Murray's mannerisms many times before. If there's a hardened main character forced to come out of his shell, this story offers a prototype. Seeing this film for a third time almost three decades after its release, we notice at what points the filmmakers cut back and forth. Early drafts of the script had Phil (Murray) progressing through hundreds of years, and sometimes those drafts are rumored to be even broader in scope. What Danny Rubin, the screenwriter who shopped this project around, must have done with Harold Ramis, the co-writer and director, was chip and hack away at the time intervals until one character's growth was all that remained over about twelve repetitions (We don't need to count exactly, that's how important the characters are.)

We're not sure if there's a better existentialist comedy. Look at how differently Phil sits next to the dying homeless man in the cafe, how he awkwardly shares breakfast with Andie McDowell early on and later in the movie. There are many other asides in addition to Ned Rierson, played by the great Stephen Tobolowsky. With Phil, though, the screenplay reveals depths to his insights while he opens up as a person. If this movie isn't studied in storytelling workshops, it should be.

Tyskungen (The Hidden Child) 2013)  **
Camilla Lackberg, according to reports, has sold more copies of her books in her native Sweden than any other Swedish author. That's a great legacy. When translated to screen, however, director Per Hanefjord juggles the story so that personalities are at the background of all the flashbacks. The structure is all actually organized and deployed efficiently. It all builds to an ending, however, that is laughable. One would venture to guess that the Swedes find this story enthralling. For many outside their homeland, though, the moral imperative to investigate and dramatic need to know takes a backseat because the characters are suggested and not explored. Sometimes we struggle with who is who. They could be anyone, which we know is part of the point of the story, but they can't be just anyone on the screen.

Wentworth (2013)  **1/2
This Australian series is great at introducing characters and showing them interact. Maybe Australia is that isolated on the world's stage, so when people do interact, the filmmakers are so excited at times that they cut between each line of dialogue. The camera is equally excited with the jagged cuts back and forth between slow-motion and grainy footage with fancy angles. It distracts, and takes away from solid, closeups of expressions from all the principles. If the filmmaking weren't so in the way, we'd have a watchable series for hours.

City on a Hill (2019)  **
Boy do the characters feel real. Chuck McLean is from Boston, got Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to financially back the project, and apparently they left him alone. Perhaps they needed to intervene in moving the story along from episode two on. In the first episode the writing is solid and the direction, by the usually droning Michael Cuesta who films many shaky closeups, is uneven. In the second episode, the direction is crisp and the writing and performances are uneven.

Kevin Bacon, at his best, plays sly, conniving characters, and is usually excellent with accents. Here he knows he's all of those things, so we can't feel anything. Aldis Hodge has such a personable, open face, he's perfectly cast. We just need to humanize the criminals on micro-levels, shape the scenes more, and give someone to cheer for. Now, one may ask, doesn't, say, Woody Allen's masterpiece Match Point do that? Yes, and it connected audiences through private moments with characters, and through their identifiable and understandable actions, which quickly erased that dramatic deficit.

Schitt's Creek (2015)  ****
When you think about it, how Eugene Levy, his son Daniel, Catherine O'Hara, and Annie Murphy misunderstand, miscommunicate, and parcel little utterances into exchanges that grow into scenes while keeping it all interesting, is genius. Usually this shape of story grows tiresome. The cast and the few directors who helm each episode understand that their characters don't need to be funny all the time. They also understand the value of props such as costumes, which call attention to themselves a few times each time out. Then there are the character agendas, which don't pop up all the time either, and sometimes seem to occur to characters right before they articulate them. 

Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara have been mainstays for American audiences for decades, always in supporting roles. Here the camera captures their little glances, gasps, and looks flitting between characters and the bizarre landscape they've been trapped in for eighty episodes thus far. The show knows how strong the premise is, which is why the filmmakers focus on everything else. Starting with the characters, who grow and become, not at the services of the plot, but seem to materialize as developing people right before our eyes. This show is truly unique, and should up for decades to come.

Jodorowsky's Dune (2013)  ***1/2
Even if you don't like science fiction, or have read Frank Herbert's heralded classic novel Dune, one is truly inspired by Frank Pavich's documentary. Its argument about the impact of artistic work grows organically. As a piece of filmmaking, it knows just when to cut back to Alejandro Jodorowsky's early films to the present, then back to the stages of his collaborations on a movie so large and grandiose, it's difficult to imagine the movie any other way.

Of course, it was made by David Lynch in 1984, a much maligned film seen once by many and never again. Jodorowsky's impact, however, reaches far in subsequent films. His imprint shows up, his spirit endures, and we are inspired. He also shifts our thinking, saying at one point, "Failure is not important. It is important that you try." That is truly important.

Wait Until Dark (1967)  ***1/2
This movie has two stars, one in her twilight, Audrey Hepburn, and Alan Arkin, fast on the rise with two Oscar nominations in the '60s. One could argue that the third star is the set. Frederick Knott wrote the play of Dial M for Murder, and later this one right before the movie was made. He puts a lot of work into backstory: much is communicated in a few sentences about how these people got to be where they are. Knott hopefully gave seminars on setting stories up before lights come on.

This thriller is solid start to finish and hasn't aged a bit minus the advents of the Internet, cell phones etc.). It handles the entrances and exits of players just right, with character revelations and employments of learned skills at just the right times to raise suspense, which ties back to the stars: Arkin is truly creepy, a part of his repertoire we haven't seen much since, if at all. While Hepburn's face fills the frame many-a-time, the writing, acting, and direction by Terence Young, a James Bond veteran, hold up everything else. This film should be studied and noted in the genre for all time.

Catch Me If You Can (2002) **1/2
Steven Spielberg can move just about any story along. Here he's taken one of the most intriguing stories, Frank Abagnale's memoir from 1980, and turned it into a star vehicle for Leonardo DiCaprio. It is watchable, and does not build from the emotional depths established at the beginning revolving around a divorce. This sets up the problematic Act Two surrounding a marriage as well as Act Three, where transitions are handled so quickly, we're barely curious on a logistical level.

We also notice the work of director's longtime cinematographer Janusz Kaminski. Some interiors are so glossy, we notice the lights more than anything else, and aren't much left to wonder about each shot. Characters are developed, then dropped,; this leaves us entertained, yet empty. Spielberg's Minority Report, which came out six months prior, is meatier in every way. We need something else here, starting with a relationship or theme on top of the pacing.

Dog Eat Dog (2016)  **1/2
In some ways, Paul Schrader is branching out with this film. He uses music and faster editing during scenes to play up the performances, and the violence is used to jolt the audience instead of growing out of the characters' needs and acts of will. Matthew Wilder's screenplay deviates from the book in unexpected ways, and we don't get to know the characters too well through actions and reaction shots. Some big reactions are skimmed over, especially when one of the main characters kills another, and Schrader pulls back from intimacy and revealing true, believable motive.

Intimacy has always been a dance with Schrader. Having read Edward Bunker's book of the same name, the California locales in the book serve these characters better than Cleveland; it's grimier, with the heat subsuming and consuming the characters. This violent tour of the American underbelly of the '70s is better imagined and felt in pages than the bleak, midwestern landscape seen on the screen. 

Top Secret! (1984)  ****
Even if you're not familiar with the Elvis spy movie or many World War II movies, this comedy holds up amazingly well. Barely a shot is wasted. I believe I've seen it seven times, and only now noticed what's next to Nick Rivers (Val Kilmer, in his first starring role) on a shelf in prison. He, like all the actors, play it straight, and there are witticisms that follow sight gags in ensuing seconds. Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker don't hurl the gags like fastballs; they're more like volleys, one after another, and the pace is consistent. They also understand what makes so many espionage movies work, from code phrases to love triangles to resistance movements. Believe it was Quentin Tarantino who coined the phrase bunch-of-guys-on-a-mission movie, and this film never runs dry when that sub-genre takes over.

There are YouTube clips of this movie where there are multiple laughs in under a minute.  How many comedies, the hardest kinds of films to make, can you say that about? We're serious, and so are the filmmakers, about comedy.

Deliver Us From Evil (2006)  ****
Amy Berg's Oscar-nominated documentary lays it all out for us with the narrator firmly in control. In the above comedy, the actors play it straight. So does Father O'Grady in this film, who now resides in Ireland. His interviews, balanced with those of his victims and their families, are heart-wrenching. The banality of evil doesn't even cover it; this is more about our imaginations used in conjunction with what's on the screen. When Father Tom Doyle and two victims go to Rome and approach the Vatican, they're not even allowed inside. The church knows who they are, why they're there, and what purpose they serve, and barely an official is seen.

What also helps is the visual aid of a map of the Catholic Church moving Father O'Grady around California in what appears to be a fifty-mile radius of his past misdeeds over eight years. This is instructive of how small communities, revolving around organized religion or not, can be subsumed by a predator with the most benign demeanor drama cannot duplicate. This documentary is required viewing today, and probably for many years to come.

Elf (2003)  ***
This movie gets better with age. We see how efficient it is, how James Caan is perfectly cast as the hardened man who must be drawn out and let his guard down, and how they tie two worlds together. The film never drags and handles transitions between scenes, and gags, effectively. The appearance by Peter Dinklage is wholly inspired. Even if the finale is on autopilot with villains, Central Park mounties, kept firmly at a distance, we don't need them. It's more about the Elf's journey, and Will Ferrell's launch to movie stardom after Saturday Night Live.

From Hell (2001)  ***
After bursting onto the scene with Menace II Society, the Hughes Brothers made another film, then took their sweet time in making this brilliant tale of Jack the Ripper. They seem to have approached London society of the late 1800s with fresh eyes, noting the rules of the class system, police department, and medical establishment while developing a main character's tour through these worlds. They juggle short, effective scenes with a gallery of supporting characters, whose looks, pauses, and quips slip in right under our noses. The Hughes Brothers dare us to pay attention to ever shot and scene. Since they take it so seriously, we do, too.

Reykjavik-Rotterdam (2008)  ***
Here's a reason to see foreign films, which used to occupy theaters decades ago: they transport us to another place instantly, one of the enduring powers of film. This efficient thriller shows not much of a visual flair, but we are with these characters on that boat from Iceland to Rotterdam in every room. The claustrophobia complements the police procedural, its methods and pace. 

After this movie, we've seen this story before: a talented star does one solid film and then goes to Hollywood. Baltasar Kormakur directed the needlessly over-plotted Two Guns with two big stars. We want to see the next chapter: he stars in or directs a good movie with a firm hand on the controls, his native roots intact and shining away.

A Bronx Tale (1993)  ***1/2
Robert De Niro seemed to have found his directorial style completely separate from all the directors he ever worked with. He shoots from the boy's point-of-view early on, and captures what it's like to be nine and, later, seventeen perfectly. This is the kind of personal coming-of-age story we don't see too much of, and inspires us to read Chazz Palmintieri's play.

Chazz plays the other male figure in the young boy's life, and the two men are teachers and father figures in different ways. We understand all three male characters, and some time in Act Two when the boy's father, played by De Niro, doesn't appear for several scenes, he pops up later when the boy is a teenager; hey, this is how parents enter and exit kids' lives in their teens. As a director, the great actor recreates and evokes 1960 and '68 so well, especially with a lot of good music, that we know this series of blocks by the end of the film, or at least have a good sense what it was like to grow up there back then.

You Don't Nomi (2019)  **1/2
Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls has achieved legendary status in some circles. Critics are not sure where to place it in the director's canon. When actors are interviewed, hosts always seem hesitant to bring it up. In the movie, at least the story moves along, and few see it more than once. It is also the only mainstream feature film this writer has ever walked out of.

What diminishes this documentary is how congratulatory it is toward the film, its fans, and how it never fully explains why people latch onto it. Of all the commentators, Hayley Mlotek is the most insightful while many seem to not quite understand the reasons they have watched this barely-watchable film many times.

As a documentary this is tough to describe. The movie has a distracting away of projecting some of Verhoeven's films on screens in the background of clips from his other works--see what I mean by tough to describe?  We're glad we watched this, but the celebrations and praise seem glib, which is the opposite kind of movie Joe Ezterhas contends he set out to write. He didn't. It's a mirror to society in some ways, sure, but what about the dialogue? In the movie these characters aren't watchable past a minute, so we get big production numbers and cheap laughs. The director is capable of much better (The Fourth Man, RoboCop, Elle), and this deviation in 1995, well, it fell by the wayside for many, but it isn't forgotten by some. We're going in circles here, and need a slightly better exploration of why we should remember it.

Human Desire (1954)  **
Even in our favorite genre, film noir, we'll find a movie that should work a whole lot better than it does. This time the actresses outperform the star so much, we wish it was about them. The dialogue also needed much more subtext; we don't feel dramatic need bubbling underneath the surface, but people exercising the dynamics of the plot. The plot is there, as are the character actions, and what's missing is the urgency and fear that compel to trap people, and see how they trap themselves, in the first place.

White Dog (1982)  ***
Some films about race stand the test of time. This one does, with dialogue growing out of the characters, whom we believe really exist. The specific setting and character choices allow for the movie's unusual structure. Kristy McNichol, though, doesn't seem lonely or joyous enough (except for the final scene) to have taken in her new dog. We feel her anger toward the end in a brilliant speech and piece of storytelling, but the emotions the story hinges on don't consistently resonate. Paul Winfield, during a long, under-appreciated career, looks at home as the inquisitive animal trainer, and does what he can to relate to the others. Of all of Samuel Fuller's films, the theme of race shows front-and-center here, and leads to a great, suggestive ending.

Cul-de-sac (1966)  **1/2
Of all of Roman Polanski's films, this movie probably has the most dated behavior. Donald Pleasance, looking young and unusually energetic, must have been a star at the time, but his mannerisms are so over-the-top, we lose interest and are conscious we are always watching someone act. The hefty Lionel Sander, much more of a caricature, and Francoise Doreleac (who died tragically the following year at twenty-five in a car crash) as a playful wife, stand outside Pleasance and interact with him so awkwardly they sometimes feel like they are from another movie.

What keeps this story going is the cinematography by Gilbert Taylor who had a long, distinguished career. The visuals are consistently interesting, even if the scenes are dramatically uneven. The revelations feel strained this time around, while Polanski's other '60s works such as Knife in the Water, Repulsion, and of course Rosemary's Baby show dramatic arcs all the way through. Of all his works, you could sidestep this one, but sub-par Polanski remains watchable.

Twin Peaks (1990)  ***1/2
Maybe Mark Frost and David Lynch were onto something in the spring of 1990. Lynch was on his way to winning the grand prize at the Cannes film festival with Wild at Heart. Yet three-and-a-half years after his masterpiece Blue Velvet comes this other take on small-town American life. Like the series below, this story revolves around one murder, yet things are in motion: two high schoolers reveal they've long been having an affair, a crew is knocking down a door of an abandoned railroad car, the F.B.I. arrives because the murder may be connected to another that occurred the previous year. The fact that the F.B.I. is called alone tells you something.

Motives are oh-so-slowly revealed. Every character measures their words, shouted or spoken softly, in rooms at work and at home. When we do get a character visibly off his rocker, he is dispensed with, but what did he leave behind? What did he know? And why are we spending time with twenty people in what looks like a town of ten thousand when in fact, with all the wilderness, has a population of how much seen in the opening credits? One thing we see: why people tuned in every week throughout 1990 to see who knew what about a single death.

Ozark (2017)  ****
Though not having seen all of the streaming series of the last decade, this is the best thus far. Its themes are prevalent, the characters knowable enough, and every scene perfectly executed. The filmmakers must have scrutinized every scene, or line, of the script. It also stands on its own. 

Kathie Fong-Yoneda told us that every scene is a negotiation. This is one of the cornerstones among many others, all revolving around a story of a family on the run and making a living. The actors are dialed up, or dialed down, just right. The camera always seems to be the right place relative to blocking with scenes lit just right. We could go on, and glad they have for thirty episodes as of November 2020.

Engrenages (Spiral)  (2005)  ****
It is freeing to find a series that is not overly concerned with visuals. Efficiency is the cornerstone of this French series that quietly debuted in its home country and became a blockbuster hit overseas, apparently starting in Australia. The filmmakers know to set up scenes from the original story, cut away to developing stories in short and long scenes, then cut back to the main story. The fact that one murder touches many lives, sometimes from oblique angles, is one of many things they get right. It's also astounding that we want to get to know these people more. The writing and direction are so present-minded, it's comforting, and the kind of escapism that's always welcome.

Pick of the Litter (2018)  *1/2
Especially during the pandemic, dogs appear to take on more meaningful roles in people's lives. In that, guide dogs have long done a service like no other, and becoming one is a great subject for a documentary. Instead of emotion and meaningful impact, though, we get title cards, brief phone conversations, and very similar training sessions over and over again.

The filmmakers don't understand that the people are a hundred times more interesting on camera than dogs. Errol Morris understood that in his great documentary Gates of Heaven. These people are so arrested by their own importance, they undermine an important subject, barely skimming the surface.

Enemy of the State (1998)  ***1/2
This movie sticks with the ideas behind the technology, and that's what propels it as a thriller. In terms of storytelling, we're pretty sure we can trust the main character, and understand why everyone else is hesitant to do so. We believe the love story, the setup, and payoffs revolving around him. 

The one mechanical detail that shirks human behavior is Jason Lee's character's nonchalance in a crucial early scene. For secondary characters, though, director Tony Scott handles actors such as Jon Voight, Loren Dean, Jack Black, Barry Pepper, Lisa Bonet, and Gene Hackman, who shares top billing with Will Smith, with the right amount of screen time as he did five years earlier in True Romance. Scott knows how to juggle all these characters and familiarize them to the audience in a breakneck-paced story. Unlike other thrillers from over twenty years ago, this one holds up. Over two decades after its release, we are still curious about others, employed by the government or not, watching ordinary lives through who-knows-what devices and avenues.

Mulholland Falls (1996)  **
You know how we give much leeway to an artist who strikes gold early in their career. Consider Lee Tamahori of New Zealand. After making Once Were Warriors, we saw he was lured by Hollywood to make Mulholland Falls. The former brought international attention to his native culture, people, and ways of living through a story about the wounded male psyche. Great. He then makes a cousin of Chinatown, which was not written by Robert Towne but by Pete Dexter, who has written a few dreadful films such as The Paperboy.

What's strange about this movie is the structure is fine, especially handling flashbacks that tie to the present. Even most of the dialogue works. It's the framing, and considering the cinematography is by the legendary Haskell Wexler, what went wrong here? The actors give it their best shot; Melanie Griffith does her best work restraining hurt feelings, and remember when Nick Nolte used to headline films?

But the movie doesn't earn its ambiguous ending. Was this a personal story or a professional one? The film stumbles into saying it's both, and really stumbles into saying it's about the Nolte character, which ties back to Tamahori's journey as a director. He went on to make an adventure film held up by a David Mamet screenplay, The Edge and one of the worst James Bond films in Die Another Day. He later made the forgettable Next and XXX: State of the Union, before returning to New Zealand to make the well-regarded Mahana. Maybe he came full circle, and realized where he needs to tell stories. We need those stories, too, and too bad they're few and far between.

The Foreigner (2017)  ***
Billed as a Jackie Chan action film, we don't expect him to share so much screen time with Pierce Brosnan, a gallery of supporting characters, and a plot thick with politics and personal subplots. It's amazing it holds up. Martin Campbell knows how to move a story along, and the screenplay by David Marconi (Enemy of the State) balances it all, even if Chan disappears for a while in Act Two. It's far-fetched that he's hiding in the woods all that time, but the story never seems desperate to distract the audience from its shortcomings: it gets back to what it originally grew out of, personal pasts and agendas, and that's why it works surprisingly well.

Pickup on South Street (1953)  ***1/2
Samuel Fuller must have spent much of his preparation deciding where to put the camera. He frequently shoots plainly with his characters facing to the side, sometimes looking just past the camera, and always thinking. The plot starts right out of the gate, and only a handful of locales are used to tell a complex heist story with transnational implications. Remember when we dreamed big? When less indeed meant more? These kinds movies feel real, even if made over half-a-century ago and in the wonderful world of black-and-white.

The performances seem to inhabit characters from different worlds who meet and behave haphazardly; their schemes and jobs are the few things that you unite them. We sense that they know these two facets are all they have to live for. Watch and listen to Thelma Ritter, who was nominated for the Oscar six times, on her death bed. She and her character embody everything in this eighty-minute film.

Fargo (2014)  ***
This series comes heralded as among the best TV shows of the last decade. It does pull you in with new and regular characters and a balance of characters. It also draws stories from the movie's suggestions of other parts of the characters' lives. The visuals dance back and forth, and where the Coen brothers emphasized the lack of a horizon in their 1996 film, it is seen here off in the distance. We'll deal with traps, some of which are far away, and approaching, well, we're not sure how fast. Some appear suddenly.

This is one of those rare cases where the violence happens unnecessarily. Almost all the dialogue is necessary, though, like the facial expressions and reaction shots. Little scenes appear to have no purpose. It's a close call here, but it is expansive, in ways unforeseen. That's something.

**Note: Someone has to have mentioned this: with the role of one character, I kept thinking of the main character from another Coen brothers film, No Country for Old Men, dropped into the middle of the Fargo landscape. We can hear the pitch session.

Filmworker (2017)  **1/2
Leon Vitali gave up a promising acting career and, we discern, life roles of being an involved husband and dad, to help Stanley Kubrick. He says toward the end of this documentary that he loved Stanley. We believe it. In the title of Max Roach's album, deeds, not words.

The documentary drags at times; a little less of Vitali talking into the camera might have helped. What makes up for it is the amount of work he talks about doing and the filmmakers showing us. There are indeed many Leon's behind every Stanley, and that's one of the most important lessons here.

Night Hawks (1981)  ***1/2
This film resonates as much, maybe more, decades after it was made. Rutger Hauer, the year before he gave the best, dominant performance in Blade Runner, here shows his greatest asset: his eyes. Sylvester Stallone showcases his own best acting: holding still. Both men are such physical actors, along with a theatrical Billie Dee Williams, that they form a trifecta of American maleness that transcends the genre. They could be in a sitcom and be watchable.

The direction by Bruce Malmuth is economical, with master and a over-the-shoulder shots. We're thinking with these characters from both sides of the crime coin. It works. Seen as a mere urban thriller at the time, this movie stands up to it.

Deadwood (2019)  ***1/2
David Milch must lay awake scripting his characters: how they face each other, how they talk, and probably most importantly, how they pause and look at each other. If the movie sets feel phony at times, the strengths of the storytelling, and the performances, make up for it. This feels consummate, a capstone with no need to return here. All the characters are played with such gravity, we see the past tied to the present with subtle hints at the future. We also don't see the perfect ending coming, and that's a big accomplishment with all the others.

The Gentlemen (2019)  ****
Guy Ritchie has the two aforementioned strengths of Peter Berg listed below plus a host of others. Starting with his camera angles, blocking, dialogue, and...At some point we think Bridge of Spies was the kind of movie Steven Spielberg could do in his sleep. Guy Ritchie might be getting there, but he does this kind of scheming-gangster-comedy better than anyone else. We wanted to follow these people after the end. That's sure a sign.

Ritchie is endlessly inventive with shaping his scenes and yet singular: everyone has agendas simultaneously concealed and revealed. Colin Farrell, Charlie Hunnam, and Hugh Grant know just how much to give and are consummately watchable. In this well-worn genre, that's the best you can ask for. The director can return to this mined territory any time he wants and deliver something magical. He's touch-and-go with these films, and might be why each one feels just as fresh.

The Kingdom (2007)  *1/2
As a director, Peter Berg has two strengths: he knows how to move a story along and is ambitious, especially with an explicatory dialogue scene setting up the mission. (This is preceded by a brutal massacre in the opening). Shame the mission and story get bogged down in a police procedural in Act Two worthy of a Dukes of Hazzard TV episode.

Act Three is an exhausting, extended shootout, and the downbeat yet complacent ending isn't earned. The filmmakers probably asked, "Where do we go from here?" when the credits rolled. So all the energy the actors put into their roles seems wasted, and that's too bad.

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019)  ***
Even if Kevin Smith makes a few too many references to himself and is troupe of actors and family, we laugh thirty times in this movie. His reference, or homage, to Glengarry Glen Ross is hilarious with a great payoff at the end. Jay's reactions, which grew old in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) here feel fresh and anew. Here the reactions almost always work.

The most inspired cameo is by Ben Affleck; everyone else appears happy to be in the movie, which ties back to this world Smith has created. We keep thinking each installment in this franchise is his last, and yet, and yet, watching one of these every five years is a welcome reprieve from the banal dialogue of other films. After the terrible Tusk and Yoga Hosers, we hope Smith continues to find inspiration from his roots, and whoever seems to wander into his stories.

True Lies (1994)  ***1/2
Some films simply accomplish what they set out to do. In his follow-up to T2 (1991), James Cameron had even more action set-pieces this time. This movie felt even bigger, perhaps because his previous four films took place in dark, squat spaces while here he balances day and nighttime sequences. 

What's consistent is how his action films move along. Right after his action scenes, he cuts to a quiet setting and with a few shots, establishes a transition before characters start talking, always an agenda at hand. This appears to be one of his secrets. If the domestic thread of this plot works, it's because of the performances, which belie the dialogue, weaker here than in other Cameron outings. After twenty-six years, though, as an action movie, a genre that ages spottily, this fulfills and delivers.

Bombshell (2019)  ***1/2
Charles Randolph won an Oscar for co-writing The Big Short. He said, "This film is made for men." Both genders would benefit from it, and subtly, I think, as we see a three-character structure take shape. The three star actresses are at different points in their careers, families, and lives. The fourth character, Roger Ailes, stands for many men in power, who condescend, harass, provoke, and perhaps sometimes without knowing it. 

The performances are spot on; notice how everyone seems to look just past the camera. The supporting roles are recognizable actors (Allison Janney, Richard Kind, Connie Britton, Kate McKinnon), and lend heft in brief scenes of buried emotion surrounding the major players. If there's not too much of an emotional buildup and release, we at least see how and why things are said, not said, done, and undone. Efficiently directed by Jay Roach, who usually does comedies and did some of the best recent political movies (Recount, Game Change), this is solid, one of the best American films about office behavior and politics in a while. 

Mean Girls (2004)  ***1/2
As Tina Fey ascended to stardom in the first decade of this century, this is one of the best high school comedic screenplays ever. She was a fresh talent, had fresh jokes that made fun of the entire landscape and people bouncing savagely off one another. All of them have ambitions, and inhibitions, insecurities, and schemes that play out. Not a scene or line is wasted, and why this comedy holds up strongly indeed.

Game Night (2018)  ***
Yes the best comedies have characters who don't know they're in a comedy. This time they do. We laugh thirty times, maybe more, and enjoy ourselves, but the plot machinations are all on cue. The climax drags out just a bit with little suspense. This is all despite an inspiring concept and the actors clearly look like they're having fun, as are the writers toward the end as they pile on the twists. It just needs to feel spontaneous, and that is indeed difficult to achieve.

In Treatment (2007)  ****
You know the adage, "Good things stand the test of time?" This show presents a ready challenge to filmmakers which they seize with such skill and verve, it makes everything before in the genre seem tired. I don't know the background of the series's creator, Rodrigo Garcia, outside of attending Harvard and being the son of famed Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Maybe he's yet another foreigner in the tradition of Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Hair) and Sir Alan Parker (Fame, Shoot the Moon, Mississippi Burning) who comes to the U.S. and sees Americans most clearly.

Garcia frequently writes and directs, and the framing and editing are key counterpoints to the dueling dialogue. Each show starts a little differently on a few levels. Garcia understands all the spaces in a room, many of which can go unexplored over long periods of time. It's also an interesting choice with Gabriel Byrne in the lead. His face seems to cover so much while projecting thoughts outward without revealing emotion. When he does, it's still not a revelation, and one of the many facets, and reasons, for the show's success.

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)  ***1/2
If the themes are consistent, Derek Cianfrance's film has some scenes that don't work. This could be tighter. It is unique, though, and a spectacular comeback after the meandering Blue Valentine, liked by many, but doubt it will endure.

The director, whose name appears with pines above his name and no one else's in the opening credits, is ambitious. He gets the right amount out of his actors, and details about small towns evoke the feel of a place. We always admire a movie where we're not sure how it's going to end even eighty percent in. As this movie achieves that, with the weight of the story on the characters in a good, dramatic way, it works.

Take the Money and Run (1967) ****
Growing up, this is the first Woody Allen film I recall adults laughing consistently throughout. Allen starts his movie, the first mockumentary friends and I recall, from day one in the life of Virgil Starkwell, and goes right up to the present. It's perfectly structured, never drugs, is a snapshot back in time, and inhabits its own universe.

It also incorporates a believable romance with social commentary on how criminals behave. All the laughs are in the context of the story, and many are surprises. In reading Paul Hirsch's great memoir recently, comedy is unexpected. they keep coming here, and end on a wonderful note indeed. 

Burn Notice (2007)  **
The pilot's opening recalls Oliver Stone's jagged camera angles and editing. then the series settles down into a TV show where it falls into the same trap as White Collar. Would you believe a multi-millionaire with beachfront property in Florida tracks down and visits the home of a private investigator? No way.

Maybe filmmakers in this context are afraid of appealing to imaginations (see the below review). Maybe they think adults who watch television as a diversion don't want to think too much, and want only to see Jeffrey Donovan look just past the camera again and again. A neat scene involving a staged plant with a taxi has a payoff so obvious, we don't believe the villains here. So I guess it is only a diversion.

The Assistant (2020)  ***1/2
At eighty-nine minutes, the repetitiveness of shots in this movie lose luster and call attention to themselves. Now that that's out of the way, this one is to be seen by every young twenty-something around the world entering the workforce. Less is indeed more, with one day at the office and a few phone calls that bring to mind Roman Polanski's masterpiece, The Ghost.

What goes on behind closed doors, emails (especially the short ones) appeal to our imaginations. The director, Kitty Green, understands this to the hilt. The framing is crucial with closeups and medium shots. The ambiguous ending may not sit well with some people, but hey, isn't that the future much of the time?

21 Bridges (2019)  **
If Sidney Lumet hadn't mastered the New York cop genre, or if you don't remember Q&A, Prince of the City, Serpico, or Dog Day Afternoon, you would enjoy this movie a fair amount. The setup is great. Too bad about the dialogue in scenes where levels of law enforcement interact. Even charismatic actors such as J.K. Simmons recite dialogue beneath their screen personas. They seem to lose intelligence that undermine their own characters and everyone else in these scenes.

In this time we think of how a studio saw how Chadwick Boseman carried Black Panther and pieced this movie together with a veteran TV director in Brian Kirk. The script is a pretty well-oiled machine, which the dialogue services but doesn't sustain. I suppose that if you're fourteen and new to the genre, this works as escapism. But for moral questions and machinations in lawful institutions, see the first sentence of this review again. Toward the end, having been up all night, Bozeman appears fresh as the morning coffee in a tailored suit. These are compositions for the plot, not real people.

Drive Angry (2011)  **1/2
With cursing in the opening voiceover and graphic violence in the ensuing scene, this movie declares itself right out of the gate. And yet, and yet, there's good dialogue sprinkled in the clearest scenes. The plot and introduction of characters also work, so this things is watchable for its audience. You almost forget that one wonders where the heck Nicolas Cage's career is going.

Mr. Robot (2015)  ***1/2
Borrowing pretty heavily from Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo setup, Sam Esmail created this series with the charismatic Rami Malek in the title role. We also think Christian Slater has finally found the character he's been meant to play for almost three decades. What's effective is how the filmmakers, and the cast, know how to humanize their characters: they and society we're approaching from the outside and working inwards.

The supporting cast reveal themselves just as gradually, revealing personal sides at inopportune times. We're all socially awkward at some point, and especially with those who are simultaneously self-actualized and still socially adrift. The framing jumps around just enough to keep us off-center. On its own terms, this series works.

Starship Troopers (1997)  **1/2
Paul Verhoeven is one of those directors who no matter the material gets energy out of his actors. His films also don't dwell and move along briskly almost outside the juvenile behavior of the characters. He himself seems above the characters, has perspective, which is key in a movie about warfare.

He must also be good with special effects, given this film and Total Recall. Too bad Denise Richards, Casper Van Diem, and Dina Meyer look like they're in shampoo commercials. Those big, bad bugs sure are believable, even if we don't understand larger reasons for the plot. Then there's the effective media satire, which Edward Neumeier used in his other collaboration with Verhoeven, the brilliant Robocop. In sum, I'm not sure what this movie is about, but it's still watchable after all these years for its staging and pacing if nothing else.

Sliver (1993) *
Apparently making this film was a nightmare for many. Sometimes creative, not combustible, conflict can have great results on the screen. Here the principle fault lies with the cardinal sin of not having a single character with which the audience can identify, and the main character around which the entire story revolves is impossible to discern. At minimum the heroine, played by Sharon Stone, fresh off Basic Instinct which debuted fourteen months before, should have some kind of agenda. Not even her role in publishing is clarified until after the mid-point.

There are indeed so many shots of her face where we're not sure what she's thinking most of the time, we're forced to focus on the plot. Unfortunately, that's an Agatha Christie-like whodunnit with a red herring so obvious that when the mystery is solved, there is not just one emotional release but two about characters we don't understand. On top of that, Willian Baldwin's performance is so one-note, calling it skin-deep is an insult to cosmetic products. Like the solid director of this, Phillip Noyce, who next directed Clear and Present Danger the following summer, we watch this and move on. The abrupt, lackluster ending of this film makes it easy.

Killing Eve (2018)  ****
The strength of this series is how it plunges into the plot while never getting plot-heavy. People are developed as personalities, and developing while they work and we walk and hurry along with them. The fact that we think of them as people instead of citizens going about their days is a testament to the writing, direction, and performances. 

Sandra Oh is finally allowed to showcase her range. Jodie Comer is diametrically opposed in her subtle performance and just as effective. Both are differently proactive and reactive, are indeed opposites to their cores. This dynamic runs counter to the consistent filmmaking with its framing and surprise events, large and small, relative to the characters. Few are the stories that focus on a narrow storyline while touching on so many societal facets. Phoebe Waller-Bridge seems to know these worlds, and the people that make them, inside and out. She knows them so completely that she gives herself the freedom to improvise. That's powerful storytelling.

Motherless Brooklyn (2019)  ***
Edward Norton said he secured the rights to this film before Jonathan Lethem's book even hit the streets. This movie was then in the planning stages in 2001, and arrived as a passion project for its screenwriter-director-star Norton eighteen years later. The production design and cinematography are wonderful, as is the acting. In fact, all the elements for a great film are.

What holds this movie back is the director lingering on himself, the inefficient choices of repeatedly showing ideas and journeys, creating saunters and strolls when suspense should be building. Take the numerous shots of the main character following someone. We sure see him follow her and others again and again alright. The other elements are just right, and that can pay dividends when your director is an amazing actor, one of our best. The story itself is inspiring, a cutting commentary on American cities, and on one of our most important. I didn't even mention the incredibly complementary music by Dan Pemberton with trumpet by Wynton Marsalis and a song by Thom Yorke. There are so many parts that work, that if placed together in a two-hour movie, this would be a masterpiece. It runs twenty-four minutes longer than that.

A Face in the Crowd (1957)  ****
Now here is a movie ahead of its time. Filmed during a prosperous era for many (remember critical films of the roaring '90s such as The Insider? Wag the Dog?) yet late enough to peek below the surface of the defining culture of the last half of the twentieth century, Elia Kazan's film is so straight-forward and so insightful, the filmmakers make it look easy. It all centers around the rise of one character to fame, and this movie gained momentum about a decade ago in film critic circles. It turned out few moviegoers had heard of it. The election of our current president solidified its cultural resurgence.

One can easily focus on Andy Griffith's character while he dominates the movie, even when he's not in the movie (We think of John Travolta in Primary Colors). But the early physical performance by Walter Matthau, and the subtleties of Patricia Neal's facial expressions are what add texture and indeed map the emotions and machinery behind cultivating a media star. These two observe, think, and act about as well as anyone on camera through this time. This film must be seen today, especially by young viewers. One can easily relate it to social media sixty-three years after its release. That's saying something. The ending is also different, unexpected, and true to its story. It leaves us in the lurch, and doesn't life do that to us sometimes?

Back to the Future (1985)  ****
We know how screenplays should make everything count. Warren Etheredge in Seattle told our class to always question why is something there in a screenplay. I think Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale did that here. Events and ideas connect, and Michael J. Fox in a star-making performance has the right wide-eyed tone to be in the middle of it all.

The supporting performances, right down to Lorraine's family. are also first rate. The movie never drags, and delays Marty McFly's triumph perfectly to the end. He overcomes so many obstacles, in a movie full of heart, that this film wins us over on all fronts. This remains a classic for its time, and stands the test of it.

Adventures in Babysitting (1987) ***
Yes, movies from the '80s date themselves. It's as if we see the rise of the sitcom come to fruition. Therefore, all the more credit goes to the screenplay by David Simkins with Chris Columbus's direction. They know they're dealing with irony and how to allot screen time and how and when to re-introduce characters. They also know how to incorporate characters' dreams and agendas in a movie that's just over a hundred minutes.

Those are the reasons the movie works. It was released in July of 1987 and grossed thirty-four million, not inconsequential. It's also a little sad that Elizabeth Shue, nominated for an Oscar eight years later for Leaving Las Vegas, hasn't had a bigger career. She plays off everyone so well that she's the perfect focal character for this, and this kind of, movie. At least she's still working.

Triple Frontier (2019)  ***
The first half not only works and stands on its own, it almost saves the movie. It's all but forgotten in the second half, where the screenplay by Mark Boal (the Oscar-winner for The Hurt Locker) and the J.C. Chandor (also the director) muddles about with themes. The bromance is clear, but what else is being said here? The fortune comes at a cost? What is the value of human life next to material fortune? Is one man worth an epic journey?

All of these things, I guess. Too bad the filmmakers didn't focus on one and explore it to the hilt. At times the actors seem confused thematically, but they inhabit their roles under the zeal of solid direction. This ties back to the first half with a great opening that's well staged and cut together, immersing us in this world. The filmmakers just needed to follow this up and keep the stakes and emotion, grounded in character, at the same pitch-level.

Blazing Saddles (1974)  ***1/2
The fact that racism permeates Mel Brooks' comic tour de force is one of the reasons it stands the test of time. It also, in its day, turned the western on its ear, not celebrating the white settlers while touching on the political overtones of the time. Remember: each white person in power, starting with Harvey Korman and including Mel Brooks and cavalier enforcer Slim Pickens have agendas. They add to the underlying commentary on democracy and our governing institutions. Notice how no one is shocked when the Governor is clearly horsing around with his Secretary during the day.

There's something else: we truly believe in the friendship between Cleavon Little (it is hard to imagine anyone else in the part) and Gene Wilder. When they ride off into the sunset and get in a limousine, we wonder where they'll end up, and enjoying each other's company. It's this kind of relationship across racial barriers that make this comedy tolerable, and acceptable, even perhaps culpable, after all these years.

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)  **
If we don't identify with a single character in the first movie, William Sadler sure stands out as an actor in the second. As Death, he often just stands there, eyes darting from time to time, looking around, feeling out of place at the gates of heaven. Here's an actor best remembered for Die Hard 2, which came out the year before, and has over 170 credits on the IMDB. He's almost the reason to see this movie.

The first one was paced well, and this one feels uneven with the performances. The introduction of mean Bill & Ted doesn't go anywhere, though it is true to their characters that they lack such creativity that all they can think to do is trash the good Bill & Ted's apartment. The female characters aren't given much to do. As this sequel came and went in the summer of 1991, we're not surprised. Sometimes we outgrow campy sets, even with a foreboding Joss Ackland.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)  **
This movie moves along and lurches pretty well from one event to the next. It does this so well, we barely notice Napoleon makes it from a restaurant to a water park and back to the high school in under half-an-hour. We also barely notice the vertically-challenged leader's wide-eyed expression amidst his sight-gags. 

So there you are: a movie that lumbers along, we snicker maybe five times, and cannot identify with a single character across ninety minutes. Maybe it's just me, but wouldn't you value time travel above a high school report? Did those reports really hang over our heads back this much in the day? I dunno: the acting is so mannered, with George Carlin's punchline at the end getting the biggest laugh, that you stop the film with a grin with the sneaking suspicion the filmmakers hope you don't remember what preceded it. Then again, this move cost ten million to make, came out in February 1989, an unusual time for comedies, and cleared forty million in the U.S. alone. It also inspired one and a forthcoming sequel. That's no small accomplishment in the movie business.

The Matrix (1999)  **1/2
This film was new and cool at the time, and clearly thought it was. There's something too smug with Laurence Fishburne, in the film's best performance, walking around in his suit and sunglasses asking, "What is...real?" The production design is one of the reasons to see this movie, as we realize Guy Ritchie has handled shootouts better.

The Wachowski siblings take themselves so seriously, as do the characters, that this eventually came back to bite 'em with Speed Racer, Jupiter Ascending, and Cloud Atlas. They surged forward with this film after their best outing with Bound. That movie had laughs while this one doesn't. Compared to other action movies before it, thinking James Cameron here, humor is important, and this movie is all about how important it is.

Mindhunter (207)  ****
We expect a certain amount from David Fincher directing the first two episodes of this series. He delivers, especially on the strength of the writing and performances. His actors tend to exhibit a stoicism suggesting much beneath the surface.

What we don't expect are the storylines that build on one another naturalistically. An F.B.I. guy (Jonathan Goff) sees a lecturer, goes to a bar, meets a girl, and there launches a romantic relationship. These are, after all, young adults, who work and play. The same guy meets an older mentor (Holt McCallany) and there starts another relationship. All these storylines are never on hold because of one another. This series toggles back and forth so easily, reeling us in, that if kept at an emotional distance, that's because we've become investigators on many levels as viewers. We love it.

Fighting with My Family (2019)  ***1/2
Every once in a while you have a comedy, this one inspired by a true story, that stands on its own and everything works. It also plays to how much the audience knows, this subject being Wrestlemania. Wrestling has played on late night for decades, dismissed by many as fake, hearty entertainment for some.

This time we have a Rocky character in the form of Paige from a lovable family in Norwich (Norwich!), England. As Paige's dad, Nick Frost proves the most durable of comic actors, as does her mom, played by Lena Headey. The movie bogs down a tad with Paige's brother Zak (Jack Lowden), and builds toward a predictable climax. But dang if these aren't lovable beasts in the face of American arrogance. That's personified by Vince Vaughn, always strong when he plays straight. The movie plays best as a straight rags-to-riches story, too.

Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)  **
Movies like this are entertaining, and you forget interactions five minutes after leaving the theater or turning your TV off. They're like video games, and the colors are great. The parts are underwritten, though, and this repeats the premise of the first movie. You could see either one, have a nice detour with an elementary or middle school-age kid, then venture elsewhere. You may later wonder, why not inject a little wit above the level of a Kindergartener?

White Collar (2009 - 2014)  **
The pilot episode starts so promisingly with extreme closeups of a man shaving. We're braced for great filmmaking in the television medium. Unfortunately, the rest of this episode relies on the plot. By episode two, the actors having done what they could, are forced to succumb to ridiculousness: if you were a multi-million-dollar Turkish arms dealer, would you escort your personally kidnapped hostage to Central Park? After reading Elaine Shannon's excellent book Hunting LeRoux, I prefer the real thing.

Angels & Insects (1995)  ***
I and many others are not much for costume dramas. They are slow, and yet the framing here, which must be the case in almost all costume dramas, should be studied. It galvanizes our interest and belies the subtle acting (future Oscar-winner Mark Rylance in an early role).

Act Three is what makes this worth watching. There's a great dramatic pull and last shot with a last look by Rylance. Such attention detail, if you like this sort of thing, makes it worthwhile.

Knives Out (2019) ***1/2
Rian Johnson's movie, which he wrote and directed, leads us by the nose while planting so many relevant details that this story is more a commentary on mysteries themselves. After a slightly jerky first act with suspect interviews, Johnson and company know how to shoot and cut in details that add up. This is a great update of Agatha Christie mysteries. The dramatic pull is spread out; some characters front-and-center at first and recede as the mystery deepens and we spend an increasing amount of time with one. This solid entertainment reawakens of what solid filmmaking in a classic genre can do. One central piece the story has is we are never quite sure how sharp the chief investigator is. He's played by Daniel Craig, who should have a stellar career long after 007 expires.

Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon (2020)  ***1/2
This is better than the first movie featuring those sheep. It's tighter, has more plants and payoffs, more laughs. It also dares to venture into character backstory and tie it all up at the end. If you're going to see one of these films, see this one. The filmmakers were right to sprawl the plot and add several characters outside that farmer. 

The Mandalorian (2019)  ***
I imagine Jon Favreau had an epiphany, a call to return to writing. After having a strong hand in The Avengers movies, he is credited with creating this series which creates a sub-universe in that of Star Wars. It works, even if it's a cousin to Mad Max.

If the story arc is familiar, Greig Fraser's cinematography (in the beginning, Barry Baz Idoine's later) and Ludwig Goransson's music grab and hold the audience's attention. Favreau and company understand they had to, in this era of streaming, create atmosphere. It was also brilliant choices to have two disparate actors in Carl Weathers and Werner Herzog have tightly constructed scenes amidst this vast landscape. Their scenes work, too. In a recent seminar, Christopher Vogler said the audience hears and senses beats just before, say, cymbals crashing. This series creates that sort of anticipation.

The Getaway (1994)  ***
This movie has the characters behave needlessly nasty after ideas are well established. Director Roger Donaldson knows how to move a story along, but not necessarily the drama (witness the dumpster/garbage truck scenes). The actors fill their roles, especially the supporting cast of James Woods, Jennifer Tilly, and the baddest of all hard men, Michael Madsen.

What saves this movie are the heists in the first thirty minutes and the luscious cinematography by Peter Menzies Jr. The hotel setting for the climax is perfect: it is so rundown and the shootout so well staged, we're drawn in. Then comes the whimper of an ending that doesn't tie up any of the issues introduced about the main couple. This movie has good components; it's just uneven, which is often the hardest movie to judge.

Hal (2013)  ***1/2
Hal Ashby must be one of the most unsung mainstream American filmmakers of all time. In Peter Biskind's great book, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, the author says at one point that no other director enjoyed a run like Ashby did in the seventies. Ashby's run was so good, this movie about him could've come out any time since his death in 1988. It's just fine thirty years afterward.

Why? Harold  and Maude, The Last Detail, and Being There, to name only three, all endure. They stand on their own, don't seem to borrow from any single story before them, and stick with their messages and dynamics start to finish. The director Alexander Payne says Ashby did seven great films in nine years. In the eighties he did some forgettable films before passing away at the age of fifty-nine. But for a while, no light behind the camera shined brighter.

Big Little Lies (2017)  ***
This series starts out so well, setting the stage with empathy, dialogue, intrigue, and a central event that occurs off-camera. The characters are well drawn, especially Reese Witherspoon. She has morphed into an actress who hits her marks physically, especially with her eyes, her voice, and pauses. What we realize is how complete an actress she is.

The other two characters, played by Nicole Kidman and Shailene Woodley, are revealed more with reaction shots. Laura Dern is also solid. Then why does this series let all these sharply drawn characters languish in the second episode? Male supporting players are established and then fleshed out in one-note scenes. They don't go anywhere. As we progress toward the main events around which this series revolves, we grow tired. These people need to be propelled by things even more.

Joker (2019)  **
It's one thing to take a hard look at social movements and societal outcasts. It's another to wander around and make Statements of the Human Condition. It's still another to be self-indulgent and monotone in atmosphere where even walk-ons by actors Shea Wigham and Bill Camp fall flat. The main performance by Joaquin Phoenix is solid, if repetitive. The actors do fine with what they're given; it's the world they inhabit.

This movie clearly wants to plunge us into a bleak world much like David Fincher's merciless classic Seven. That movie had a voice of wisdom by the grandest of voices in Morgan Freeman. Here we cannot relate to a single person, nor understand the behavior: what little kid would let a loony stranger grab his face through the gates of his dad's mansion? There's even a romantic relationship that's tossed in with no foundation or shape.

I guess that's the point, made again and again. Director Todd Phillips loves wide-angle shots, and they are cut smoothly together, still or moving. Now we need someone with which to observe and experience all this.

Against All Odds (1984)  **
If Taylor Hackford's follow-up to his breakout movie An Officer and a Gentleman was more consistent with one of the main characters, this movie could've harkened back to its original, Out of the Past. Jeff Bridges's character really does start out as a desperate man, a football player who's been cut and lived frivolously. The first half of the move establishes that. In the second hour he has scenes of crying desperation followed by ones where he walks around like he owns half the beachfront in SoCal.

The other two parts to this triangle do fine, especially James Woods as the plotting, scheming club owner. Other supporting players are established and disappear. Then there's a break-in scene late in the film that goes on way too long that we can't take seriously for a moment. It's one of the reasons people don't remember this film, but cineasts easily recall the original on which it's based.

Pain and Glory (2019)  ***
It's hard not to like films like this, or overlook their importance. This movie is so clearly autobiographical of Pedro Almodovar that we really are spending time with him and Antonio Banderas in one of his best performances. Interiors pervade the film, aside from a few taxi drop-offs and pickups.

As the director turned seventy last year and hit his stride thirty years ago in mainstream cinema, we get a peek inside his daily life now as a consummate experience from his past. He still has ideas, memories, regrets, and longings based on flashes of wonder centering around what might have been before, during, and after life episodes that lasted a few months decades ago. Many of us who age do. He knows us better than we think we do, and he's about as wise. He appears devoid of ego yet full of wonder. The camera cuts back and forth between close-ups and medium shots, so we are in a constant tango with him. The ending brings in the perfect execution of a story doubling back on itself, and places contentment right next to unease and avarice.

The Loudest Voice (2019)  **
It's definitely not the filmmaking at fault here. Kari Skogland is an efficient, observant director who knows how to move a story along and get just the right notes out of the actors. The entire story, on the other hand, starting with Roger Ailes, leaves much to be desired. It is all so predictable, and not inspiring enough, that we're turned off to the hilt. No one comes across as deep in any sense of the word. We see the man dabble in affairs while he barks orders as a general at Fox News. 

This is all fine with juxtaposition, but where do you go with it? Where does it all lead? If there are no revelations or huge insights to take our breath away, we're left with unlikable people and actors doing what they can. There's more to be done here, and to be seen out there with all the content around us.

Official Secrets (2019)  ***1/2
If there is one thing that could be improved, or removed, from Gavin Hood's political thriller, it would be the lingering shots on Keira Knightley's face, especially as she ascends stairs toward the end. You'll see what I mean. The movie inserts sentiment when the real intrigue with implied, buried emotion is in the scenes of legal wrangling and negotiations. All of these scenes sure work.

This movie moves so well and touches on asides around policy, organizational rules, agreements, and legal implications, we realize how reflective and timely this movie is. This is the movie Rob Reiner's Shock and Awe could have been without it's sitcom subplots. Everyone involved with this film takes it so seriously, it's a wonder we don't suffocate. We're allowed to breathe as characters establish themselves within seconds of appearing on screen and then take action, or an angle, on what's happening to and around them. This is a must-see for any citizen planning to vote or participate in government on any level.

Hustlers (2019  **
The opening shots, including a long take where we follow a woman (Constance Wu) into the main arena of her work, are fine. So's the introduction of her mentor, played by Jennifer Lopez. The presence of Julia Stiles, however, offsets our absorption into the characters. They're desperate alright, but that's one contrast too many.

We're welcomed into this world, complete with some dialogue that's so particular we barely understand half of it. The rest of the dialogue is banal, and the narrative predictable. As are the feelings about it all, and the Lopez character is the most intriguing, but not interesting. Same goes for the movie.

Payback (1999)  ***
Having read Donald Westlake's novel The Hunter, this is a decent adaptation and doesn't quite reach the inventiveness of the book. The dialogue is largely retained, and the interiors reflect the stripped-down material scarcity the characters are forced to, or choose to, live with.

I enjoyed this adaptation without being caught up in it. the outbreak of borderline exploitation violence near the end feels off-kilter. With a theme of less-is-more, reticence in that department might have been fine. At least it has a bona fide star in Mel Gibson who can carry a movie start to finish. Now for a polished, consistent production.

Memory: The Origins of Alien (2019)  ****
Not having seen Alexandre O. Philippe's other work, he exhibits here a deft, unique way of digging into the roots of a story and matching it with various interviews as well as how the movie was made. There are big reasons Alien (1979) became a cult film, initially released here and there the first couple of years, launched a franchise, and announced the arrival of a major filmmaker in Ridley Scott. He and writer Dan O'Bannon and the painter H.R. Giger collaborated at various stages to create what at first looks like a monster in a monster-in-a-house movie. They dug deep, explored, and batted ideas around with Ronald Shusett. They also convinced an eclectic and complete cast to merge into an ensemble that reflected America at the time.

The interviews, such as Dan's widow Diane, William Linn, and Clarke Wolfe cover so many different angles, approaches, and insights to the film, we want to know more about the movie, and them. Philippe shows a personal, balanced touch. Not many filmmakers you can say that about.

True Detective, Season Three, Episode One (2019)  ***1/2
After a languid Season Two, this series returns to its roots, a little askew of Texas where the first season took place. Mahershala Ali shows once again why he'll be around for decades, and the director, Jeremy Saulnier, shoots him from a range of closeups and medium shots with various angles. The throughline, near as we can tell, is a man piecing together his life by reflecting on various pivotal times. We love it, and admire how the filmmakers, including creator and writer Nic Pizzolatto, never confuse us.

With a cast of mostly unknowns in supporting roles, it's different to have one lead provide a center for the entire episode. The doll clues we've seen before, but the path to uncovering these mysteries feels unique. That's the sign of virtuoso storytelling in front of and behind the camera. 

Anna (2019)  **1/2
If Luc Besson's movies didn't turn into video games of shootouts with eighty-five people attacking the protaganist and the latter surviving, his stories cold build toward climaxes and have emotional payoffs, and therefore have more emotional resonance. This film arrives amidst allegations of his personal conduct, once again with a strong female protagonist who transforms and transcends her environments. The writer-director has done this before, and much better, with Le Femme Nikita (1990), one of the all-time greats of its genre.

This movie is very different in structure, and it's a wonder that that aspect actually works. What doesn't work, and what I suspect was supposed to earn this film credence, is a fight scene in a restaurant about thirty minutes in. This scene is so over-the-top we realize it's at the service of the plot, and so ludicrous it inhabits a different universe. It was done better in the South Korean film The Villainess. Here it stands out for the wrong reasons, and we get tired of it, also what didn't happen with The Villainess. 

Anyway, our hero has affairs with two different men and pits two spy networks against each other. There is no end-goal here other than entertainment, and the staging in the big battle scenes toward the end become, as we said, like video games. In an interview Besson said he "wanted to go for something real." There are parts of that here. Unfortunately they get mowed over by style, this time to a detriment.

American Gods (2017)  *
We suppose one has to read Neil Gaiman's book to understand STARZ's series. If you don't, the actors are so overwhelmed by the special effects, constantly moving camera, and pounding score, disorientation must have been the filmmakers' goal. this they achieve in the first few minutes and never let up. The problem is, we can't enjoy it. 

Ricky Whittle is supposed to provide the center against which everyone, including animals, bounces off. That's okay, but we don't understand the rules or the world which these people inhabit. So we need to read, but we have to enjoy the process, too.

Home Alone (1990)  ***
There are reasons this movie works and stands the test of time as a holiday favorite. The big one is that Chris Columbus's film, written and produced by John Hughes fresh off his hot streak of teen movies in the '80s, sticks to its theme. Irony pervades every setup, payoff, and, I think, every scene. There is one shot near the end that sets this film apart from your average Hughes-influenced comedy, when one of the villains, played by Joe Peschi, eyes our hero, played by Macaulay Culkin, from inside a police car.

Pesci is in the opening scene, posing as a police officer. He handles every scene so well, we forget what a great comic actor he was just eighteen months after he resurged in Lethal Weapon 2. He has the wry wit and smile in contrast to his partner, the wide-eyed Daniel Stern. The movie balances their crime streak, communicating its backstory effectively, with Culkin's journey and interactions with his neighbor, a Santa Claus, and of course the thieves. Citizen Kane it isn't, but it might be better than many adults remember. 

Jacob's Ladder (1990)  ****
Adrian Lyne had quite the repertoire of commercial films emphasizing his visuals throughout the 1990s, we think he needed a solid screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin to inspire and accentuate Lyne's style to new heights. The documentary about the making of this film shows several good ideas that Lyne had, were used, and worked throughout the film. 

This movie is bold. It takes guts to tell a story from this point of view and take us on a journey that utilizes every facet of cinema to the hilt. With Tim Robbins playing Jacob as a character bounced around between worlds like a pinball, it's easy to overlook Elizabeth Pena's performance. With everyone else, she's perfectly cast and complementary to Robbins. This film stands the test of time, and, I believe, not forgotten by anyone who's seen it.

Domino (2019)  **1/2
If Brian De Palma's name wasn't attached to this movie, we wouldn't be sure who made it from the opening scene in Copenhagen. Nicholai Coster-Waldau shows he's a leading man, and he and Catrice Van Houten don't project any spark of a partnership at all. When they beat up thugs in a completely unrealistic, if dramatically random, fight in Brussels, our brows furrow. This is a thriller, and character logic seems to barely exist.

Then comes a De Palma set piece that only he can do. It is wonderful, and just about saves the movie. Then we recall that we made it through the movie, were kept watching through the wooden acting and flat dialogue. Guy Pearce gives the best performance in the film; his scenes with Eriq Ebouaney work. So does the score by Pino Donaggio. If the movie wasn't shot on video (or appear that way), and scenes were shaped better, we'd have quite an international thriller. 

Mission Impossible (1996)  ***1/2
As director Brian De Palma re-teams with editor Paul Hirsch, whose book has just come out, we see how in control the filmmakers are with this material. This movie moves so well, the double-crosses handled do deftly yet confusingly (especially on first viewing), we appreciate reticence when we see it. 

The cast is first rate. Even though it is a Tom Cruise movie, De Palma surrounds him with an international cast that bounce off of him in one scene after another. And yet it's a director's picture, his big comeback at the box office after nine years. Like many of his films, it gets better on repeated viewings, and sets up a franchise that has stuck to its guns and themes for over twenty years. Not many mainstream movies you can say that about.

Rake (2010)  **
If the editing and pacing weren't so flawless, we might overlook the fact that the hero is flawless. This is every Aussie bloke's dream. A handsome, middle-aged man is an absentee but dad with genuine relations with his sun. He's successful at his job, gets along extraordinarily well with his ex-wife, is a confidante of another man's wife, and gets the girl in the end for no reason other than mere existence.

The photography is sloppy, but the writing makes up for it. We also see why Richard Roxburgh has worked steadily. He commands the courtroom and the screen, providing a center for everyone else to bounce off of. That's fine. What's not so fine is how the creators (Roxburgh is a co-creator) treat him as if he walks on water. 

Bron/Broen (2011)  ***1/2
Having seen the American version of this story, The Bridge, and spent a gap year in Denmark, this story resonates because it is so specific to its place and people. This series is about precisely those two things, and is exacting with its pivotal event that starts it all. 

This is also a Scandanavian urban landscape seldom seen; shots of buildings, just a tad more still than the water, are just there. True to the noir genre and societies, these people seem to barely interact, but boy do those interactions count. The series drags up history between characters bit by bit while the camera mostly stays waist-high. Listen to the dialogue: these people are more homogenous, and separated, than they seem with what they reveal. This is a wonderful throwback, even an updated, so timely, but will undoubtedly live on.

Natural Born Killers (1994)  ***
Seen again twenty-five years after it came out, and twenty-one since a last viewing, Oliver Stone's film works best in the first half. After a brilliant opening, we really do believe that Mickey and Mallory Knox love each other, will stay together no matter the forces against them. The screenplay also knows just when to introduce Wayne Gale and take us inside the media machine and processes that catapult the couple to stardom. 

Stone uses many cinematic techniques, especially after JFK showed us he has limitless technical skills. This was his eighth collaboration with cinematographer Robert Richardson, a three-time Oscar-winner, and all the locations and scenes feel lit just right. Then check the locations and small moments: even the gas station attendant looks perfect. Then there's the use of sound during Mallory's drive through urban America at night. This wasn't the roaring nineties for some, and this movie isn't loud all the time.

Which brings us to the last fifty minutes. The prison escape with all the gunshots and, surprisingly, a seemingly one-note performance from Tommy Lee Jones, drags to the finish. This is too long, yet we still believe, right to the end, that Mickey and Mallory love each other. That's one of the big keys to why this film works, and sucks us back in after a quarter-century.

**Note: In her wonderful read, Killer Instinct, about this movie's filming, Jane Hamsher says that Oliver surprisingly thanks her for contributing so much to the music of this film. He was right. The music may go unnoticed, but it adds so much. 

Helter Skelter (1976)  ***1/2
It is probably the deliberation that prevents this TV Movie from getting a four-star rating. At 184 minutes, there are some hearing scenes that must have been unnecessary. Maybe. On the other hand, this is such a slice-of-life inside an institution of law, not justice, that we enjoy almost every scene.

The performances, with George DiCenzo leading the way as Vincent Bugliosi, are flat and serve as baselines for Charles Manson (Steve Railsback) to bounce off of. Those two characters seem to be interacting even when their not talking to, or looking at, one another. The movie gets the look right, though how much Southern California changed in the six years between the events and filming I do not know. The screenplay boils many insights down to one protracted scene in a witness's deposition. It works. Some movies simply work, and know just how much mystery and hysteria to suggest, and show.

All the President's Men (1976)  ****
Seen on a 9/11 anniversary on the big screen, Gordon Willis's cinematography and William Goldman's screenplay (which won the Oscar) stand out. Both aspects underly all the performances. About halfway through, there's a sustained take of Robert Redford's face when he makes a phone call. We watch all of his eye movements, simultaneously knowing and wondering what he's thinking, hearing the voice on the phone, and contemplating where all the talk is going.

This movie indeed has a lot of dialogue, and the whole story framed by giant hits by typewriter keys that pound away at the screen. Robert Redford, heavily involved in this production (the credit near the start says, "A Robert Redford-Alan J. Pakula film" instead of only the director) wanted to jolt the audience at the start. It works. For all the discussion and the parade of names which are listed in quick fashion at the end, we are with these two people, and watch many people, who are good at their jobs. We all know the stakes, and the results, while the process is shone here is galvanizing start to finish. It doesn't doubt the audience's intelligence, and played in journalism courses across the country. The attention to detail in the process of making this film could also be studied, which ties back to Willis's use of light. You don't forget those shots or scenes with Deep Throat in the garages on a many levels.

Revenge (2017)  ***1/2
In this era of special effects, a melodrama with minimal characters who commit a few, pivotal acts that set the plot in motion and throw their trajectories off one another is certainly welcome. The movie starts and ends as an exercise in style; it has a unique way of introducing characters and observing them before and after their actions. Decisions are made in seconds, and some are shot in such cinematic slow-motion, they could only exist in a movie and accentuate the power of cinema.

The acting is almost beside the point. Matilda Lutz is put through quite an ordeal, as is Kevin Janssens, a little known Belgian actor, and the other half of the cast gets off the easiest. The shots of the desert, including the opening one, punctuate and underscore all the violence. With that, we enjoy all the contrasts, and the ending leaves you wondering what would happen if the film kept going. Not many action movies you can say that about.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)  ***
Andrew Dominik's film barely showed when released in the fall of 2007. He's barely done anything since. As he teamed with the great veteran cinematographer Roger Deakins, there are shots that linger with you for days.

The performances are good if a little mannered. So's the use of voiceover. It's one of those movies with such a protracted third act, the ending arrives with a series of touches like an unfocused essay. Good along the way, yes, but its purpose a little mired in ambiguity. We're not sure if there was a message here, or a mystery, but boy do Deakins's compositions, sense of depth stay with us.

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)  ***1/2
Yes, this movie feels like a sitcom at times with its obvious acting and cuts. However, and this is a big caveat, the main actors embody their characters so easily, and wittily, that we sense they're real people and not striving too hard to be in a comedy. The plot doesn't feel too mechanized because the crowd at Average Joes really do look and feel run down, like the gym itself. This movie also doesn't waste your time, and the director, Rawson Marshall Thurber, in his late twenties at the time, knows what's funny and when to move on. This movie doesn't waste your time.

There's a central, underlying question here: how much do you really need in a gym? You could pay double or triple-digit fees to belong to Globo Gym or or drop in at Average Joes. You cold be under the watchful "tutelage" of Ben Stiller in overdrive mode or hang out with Vince Vaughn. This movie the material accessible in many ways, which was why it cleared $100 million in the U.S. box office, making it look easy. If only half the comedies make it look that way.

Destroyer (2018)  ***
Karyn Kusama has that rare ability to declare each of her films her own, even if they are not much alike. We know we're in the hands of a craftsperson who enjoys shooting and cutting scenes together so much, the story is almost beside the point. Actually, the long, sedentary takes here are much better than, say, a foot chase. Like the takes, Nicole Kidman's performance is also nuanced, yet we're not caught up in it so much. If anything, there are a few too many shots of just her face (The ending is very drawn out).

Still, we're always grateful when fresh eyes can tackle a well-worn genre. Every place feels slightly bent from last time, as if the sets were borrowed from another movie and revitalized. Kusama helps us enjoy the story and discovery processes all over again.

The Tragedy of MacBeth (1971)  ***1/2
Shakespeare nuts will enjoy Roman Polanski's film, which lost money according to various reports, and came out two years after the director's wife was murdered in one of the most publicized and historicized murders of our time. From MacBeth's speech, Polanski probably didn't think life meant nothing at the time, but that did not detract from him making a competent, visually interesting film start-to-finish. That's an artist.

The director's framing and staging are among his best here. The same goes with the landscape and use of light and color (Notice when the sun and color red appear). He also gets tremendous help from Jon Finch as the king: he plays MacBeth up just enough with his voice and facial expressions to share the stage with the other characters. This is quite a production and experience, if a little long when Act Three gets going.

Ready, Player One (2018)  **1/2
At this point in his career, Steven Spielberg knows how to fill up the screen. We're given lots to look at. The characters and dialogue don't quite match it: they are so mission-driven that they are unable to pause and relate to one another. Ben Mendelsohn is great as the villain.

There is one sequence that borders on the obscure: The Shining is one of the great horror films of all time. Referenced in the book, it becomes a set-piece here. This is such a deviation that I'm not sure how many audience members will get swept up into it as the movie came out thirty-eight years ago. That elusive facet of inspiration is missing here, but we are entertained by a master. It simply does not transcend entertainment.

The Bank Job (2008)  ***1/2
In sharp contrast to the movie reviewed below this one, the screen play for this heist thriller is the reason it succeeds. I don't know much about the writers Dick Clement and Ian le Frenais, but they know how to structure a thriller while balancing logistics and not putting the characters through too much ordeal. The actors seem to know this, and know their parts relative to everyone else. It never steps wrong.

The director, Roger Donaldson, cuts away too quickly a few times. But maybe that's the point: we're almost coming up for air much of the time, and that's fine. We are with the characters, and the flashbacks are handled so well incorporated into the story, we think this should be studied. 

Sharky's Machine (1981)  **
I'm not going to check how many movies Burt Reynolds directed prior to this cop thriller. He gets great work from his actors, knows where to put the camera most of the time (his cinematographer was the solid veteran William A. Fraker), and he can sure act given the right motivation. The fault here is the screenplay, by another veteran. Some character exits are dropped. One big death scene, reportedly improvised, goes for a laugh in contrast to the music. Charles Durning yells a ton, sometimes for no apparent reason. One key scene doesn't explain, shape, or resolve Dominoe's (Rachel Ward) feelings about Sharky, but they're patched up so we can have a love scene.

Almost all the international intrigue from William Dieh's novel is left out, which we could forgive if we had a suspenseful story. We do not: at the end the villain is either going to shoot himself or Sharky shoots him. Whatever.

The Falcon and the Snowman (1985)  ****
One of the most interesting things about John Schlesinger's film is how we witness the characters become more and more involved in espionage and get to know them through the process. But we don't know them, really. We see Sean Penn's visceral reactions in a tour de force performance next to the mild-mannered Timothy Hutton; the former makes such an impact on the screen, we're almost a little let down with all the time the latter gets toward the end. However, the screenplay, by future Oscar-winner Steven Zaillian, captures the key turning points of Robert Lindsey's book so well, we're able to simultaneously follow character trajectories during what can only be described as an ambitious, wrong-headed business venture.

The entire story grows out of the characters. We accept that a top-secret defense firm has alcohol flowing freely on the premises (we don't have time to make up our minds or judge) and the scenes at the embassy in Mexico are handled as sit-down affairs. Zaillian's script gives us the bare impression of these negotiations, and we're with this story all the way because of the shape and constant propelling forces that hammer at us from different angles like a rhythmic beat. This movie is like espionage: we witness scenes and images so simple, and what we've seen stays with us long after. 

A Star Is Born (2018) ***1/2
As a director, Bradley Cooper sure knows how to open a movie. He and his cinematographer, Matthew Libatique, film some of the best concert footage seen in a long time. The whirling camera and lighting are perfect. So are the performances, on stage and off, for the first half. We have just enough adulation and understanding of the characters, and sense where music and songwriting originate. And we get enough of the process of songwriting and recording.

You can feel the "but" coming. The movie unexpectedly loses its luster when the two main characters sit in a cafe, start a home, and one confronts a sibling. These scenes, the backstage story of a bonafide star Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper), are astride real domestic scenes of the rising star (Lady Gaga). Each facet of the screenplay exists on its own, but when the two characters fall in love, the movie meanders toward a belabored conclusion. 

The music lingers, as do the production numbers. That's where the life is. We don't personally connect with these characters, though, as we're left out of their personal decisions, and some feelings are in brief scenes that barely connect with what happened before and after. This was a big hit last year, and Cooper will go far behind and in front of the camera. Lady Gaga is also great, and at least will continue her musical career. This movie, though, will likely fade in time.

After Hours (1985)  ****
Word on the street is Martin Scorsese was so frustrated and angry for having the plug pulled on The Last Temptation of Christ in 1983 that he went out and made this comedy. What performances he gets out of Griffin Dunne, John Heard, and especially Catherine O'Hara, that under-used Canadian actress. The editing, by longtime Scorsese collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker, accentuates the performances. The script, by Joseph Minion is like an airtight Chinese puzzle that sticks to its theme. 

A restored 35mm print is playing around the country now. Seeing it on the big screen for the first time shows you filmmaking alive and plunging us on a tour to another world. Literally. The audience and my friend laughed a good thirty times, too. It may be hard to classify as a comedy, but it's greatness probably stems from the source, part of which would insist this isn't a comedy.

Back in Time (2015)  **
Back to the Future, that relic of 1985, stands out in the mind of everyone who saw it in the theater. I believe this. Why this is the case is explored a little, and deserves to be a lot. What about the competition it faced that summer? The Goonies? Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome? None of these compared at the box office, and Back to the Future announced the longevity of Robert Zemeckis as a director. After Romancing the Stone, he and Bob Gale hit it out of the park.

Their interviews are the most insightful of this documentary. Too bad we spend much time with fans who collect items, inspired by the movie. This does not make them interesting people, nor is this story shaped. Witness the ending.

The Favourite (2018)  ***
The moving camera does not necessarily make the audience active viewers. Yorgos Lanthimos, a celebrated director nowadays, draws so much attention to it, we wonder about its purpose. This is one of those cases where the actors, all great performances especially with dialogue, actually succeed in spite of the camera. Emma Stone outdoes her Oscar-winning performance in La La Land, and Rachel Wiesz reminds us why she won for The Constant Gardener.

Even Olivia Colman, who surprisingly won the Oscar for this portrayal shows a range out of nowhere. Which ties back to the director: Lanthimos achieved wonders here and every line has such attention paid to it, maybe Milos Forman would have transformed this script into cinematic greatness. Instead, we have actors giving it their all and a camera that undercuts their almost every move. We sense the editors did all they could against the photographic grain, too.

Incredibles 2 (2018)  ****
This sequel is different and just as good as the original. It's entertaining start to finish with a few pauses, which is more, than the first one afforded. Brad Bird has once again proven he can sustain a manic energy that is character-driven yet plotted just enough. The villains are also about ideas with a strong suggestion about screens. It all works.

We experience this movie. The color palette is so varied and lavish, we want to freeze the frame at certain points, if not to see a sight gag again. This is that rare sequel that smartly sticks to its roots (Terminator 2: Judgment Day comes to mind) and is plausible every step of the way. Sequels like this don't stand much of a chance to win the Animation Oscar as the first one did, and certainly could have.

Blast of Silence (1961)  ***1/2
I didn't know Allen Baron existed. The invaluable IMDB shows he's still alive, turning ninety-two this year, and directed many TV shows for twenty-five years after this film. Charles Brandt mentioned this film in his great book I Heard You Paint Houses, the basis for Martin Scorsese's forthcoming The Irishman about the life and dealings of and around Frank Sheeran. So you see this movie, and see why the French enlisted Scorsese to write about it.

It's solid noir without a wasted shot. Watch how the climax is cut together. Check how and when Baron, as star and director, uses silence with voiceover. The voiceover narration is flawless and a breath of fresh air. This is in the tradition of Hitchcock and Scorsese thinking with the characters instead of about them. At seventy-seven minutes, this movie packs more punch with imagery and dialogue, particularly with the narration, than many films, especially since I can barely quote one line from The Secret Life of Pets 2.

Death to Smoochy (2002)  **
Danny DeVito has to have had one of the more uneven directing careers. Throw Momma from the Train (1987) showed potential, which blossomed with the solid The War of the Roses (1989). Hoffa (1992) worked overall, as did Matilda (1996). He knows his strengths as a filmmaker, works well with kids, too; in all he's the right choice behind and in front of the camera for this film. Individual shots and scenes work, but the twenty or so reaction shots of Catherine Keener are overused, and I don't know how this story felt about the Edward Norton character. Are we cheering for him or not?

What is the whole story about anyway? Is this a portrait of studio wars revolving around children's programming? Showing what show business does to people? The perils of ego? Maybe all of the above, but the characterizations are so flimsy and feelings so whimsical, we're intrigued and scantly involved. There's even a cheap laugh during the climax. DeVito is curious about the underbelly of people, what they conceal, how they plan and plot schemes of avenge and revenge. He should stick with it, but with a consistent screenplay that let's us get to know these people (a fair amount of the characters sound alike, too). Still, we were intrigued start to finish, and the camerawork was inventive. We also see how Robin Williams, with all his talent, could only do so much in a story.

Sisters (1972)  ****
It's refreshing to see a well-made, carefully-crafted thriller no matter the decade. This was Brian De Palma's first noteworthy thriller, and he populates his movie with actors who look certain what kind of story they're in every step of the way. De Palma also tests our assumptions and trust with people. All the characters are driven by agendas, and we understand them.

But look how the director handles the psychological angle. He leaves the medicinal and technical details aside, and goes for broke in the third act. It works, including the last two scenes, which are perfect. This indeed stands up almost five decades later.

**Note: Carrie Rickey's essay that comes with the Blu-ray is essential for any essay on film. I'm confident no one could've written it better.

The Old Man and the Gun (2018)  ***
It's one thing to be likable, it is another to challenge, even galvanize, the audience. This film gets the first part right. At eighty when filming, Robert Redford shows why William Goldman called him a phenomenon in his seminal book Adventures in the Screen Trade. He shows up just enough on our screens now to remind us of who he can still be and romance us every second he's on the screen. Alas, next to his role, Sissy Spacek does what she can in an almost-thankless role.

This movie is cute to the core: we don't care much about these characters, but boy do they suggest the weight of history and lives lived a little too fast, yet they keep going. Something tells me The New Yorker article by David Grann on which this film was based was more intricate and interesting. So you see this movie, enjoy it, and leave well enough alone. Some old timers are that way.

Berlin Station Episode Four, "By Way of Deception," (2016)  ***1/2
With Larry J. Cohen writing and the same director, Christopher Schrewe, as last time, this installment is much better. Cohen is also the executive story editor. He knows that secrets are always on the cusp. We get a much-needed curveball with backstory that propels us throughout the episode. This framework works. Characters and secrets are half-revealed and half-buried. As we're about to move elsewhere in the fog of content, things pick up.

Berlin Station Episode Three, "Riverrun Dry," (2016)  **1/2
The music in the opening credits still captures us. The faces show just as much dialogue as the dialogue, so I guess they are intended as monologues. This is all fine, and we need urgency. The interior exposition scenes, especially at the office, play like soap opera, while the outside ones work best. Tamlyn Tomita is the quietest, and probably the best. One big character revelation we've seen before, so there's not much new this time, but it is topical. If this review is rambling, it's a reflection of the show this time out.

A Simple Favor (2018)  *1/2
We are all aware that Anna Kendrick can carry most of a movie. Here she meets her match in Blake Lively, who excels at half-revealed, half-buried agendas and feelings. What's a travesty is the dialogue and direction. These two and everyone else is at the service of a plot that builds steam without the drama: daycare, day trips, and investigations are made at the drop of many, many hats. All then events happen so quickly without decipherable motivation, we wonder why Kendrick's or any character desperate for a life would go through all this.

The director, Paul Feig (Bridesmaids), presses on with no regard that these are real people. He would do well to watch John Dahl's early thrillers such as Red Rock West and The Last Seduction. Those gems contained believable people thrust into suspenseful situations and made understandable, momentous decisions. Here the actors utter their lines and behave so immaturely, we're not sure who above pre-teens will identify with them. That is indeed sad to think about, because maybe those audience members are out there. This movie did well at the box office, so there you go.

Cartel Land (2015)  ***
Matthew Heineman's film is so important, timely, and full of implications, that its lack of focus is hard to notice. It begins with startling imagery with drug deliverymen far from anywhere, it seems. They are interviewed, we understand them, achieve empathy, and through a series of harrowing confrontations, drift into an almost-biopic of Dr. Mireles, the leader of the Autodensas. He's interesting, as is his journey, but what happened to the larger picture?

Don Winslow's trilogy surrounding the Mexican drug cartels knows how to orient the reader and frame conflicts in epic books. That kind of structural imposition probably could have made this more galvanizing. On the other hand, maybe that's the point, and  force must be met with force. Heineman and crew take you in the trenches, so to speak. There also appears to be no end in sight, or we don't know what it looks like.

The Avengers: Infinity Wars (2018)_ **
It's not so much the superpowers. We'll give ourselves over to movies if we're drawn in by humanity, challenged on some level, our curiosity is sparked, or for all sorts of reasons. The dramatic moments in this movie repeat themselves so much, and have the same pounding score in every confrontation on every planet, we just about lose interest.

The filmmakers actually balance out the actors' screen time with all the special effects. Clearly so many people have worked on this $300 million-dollar investment, the action has to be clear. But it doesn't have to be so clear to fall to cliche: witness the one of the final battles where the heroes attack the supreme villain one at a time. This was satirized in the days of the Conan movies. Maybe we have a new generation that doesn't notice this or, if they do, give it a free pass. I guess you have to know all the inter-locking universes. Outside of that, it's entertaining in the moment, and then the dialogue banter, seeming well below the actor's intelligence levels, is quickly forgotten. Many things in the movie are.

Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)  **1/2
The warm feeling the ending of this movie, especially with its closing words, save it from being forgettable. Walter Mosley broke out with the book in 1990. Carl Franklin, three years after making the provocative and original One False Move, teamed with Denzel Washington and a great cast to make this film, which bombed at the box office against stiff competition. Yet an established star in his prime and a budding director cannot transcend the material to greatness. Why? 

I think it's that the story doesn't build anywhere much. We get corruption, a down-on-his-luck hero we get fairly close to, but not too much, and a supporting cast that does okay with scenes that should have tension, and don't. Ace cinematographer Tak Fujimoto and Franklin, who wrote the screenplay, evoke an earlier era in L.A., and illuminate an underbelly we've seen before. Lines of dialogue aren't that memorable, though. Shot selections seem off-kilter at times. The climax sort of comes and goes, and then a solid closing leaves us rewarded, but for what?

Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind (2018)  ***
Having read Dave Itzkoff's seminal biography of Robin Williams, it is hard to watch this film and not notice what is left out. Marina Zenovich has done splendid documentaries, and certainly knows how to pace one (See Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired). Like Spielberg, though, chronology is tossed around a little here. We get a good sense of what the actor's personal life was like, and his professional trajectory barring his high points such as winning the Oscar. 

This is enjoyable, and not exploring too much what made the actor-comedian tick. What did he find most interesting about the world? Hollywood? His peers and line of work? We wonder what the director thinks of this work, and whether she could've, or would've done parts of it differently.

​Galveston (2018)  **
If this movie hadn't been based one of the best fictional books of the last ten years, we wouldn't expect so much. Even then, though, what is this movie about? If not a message, does it evoke mystery or atmosphere, employing cinematic tools with skill? Sorta, and at uneven rates. Some scenes are shapeless while others propel what there is of a plot. Some reaction shots and dialogue are appropriate, while others lead nowhere. 

Nic Pizzolatto, creator of True Detective, knew this terrain with his book, and foreign directors often see our social moors, especially in transient America, as rich territory. This time, much is assumed about how much the audience knows these characters. We've seen the types before, but if they're underwritten with little originality, watching them wander about gets old.

Happy Valley (2014)  ***1/2
Amir Var-Lev's film draws us into a controversy we knew the headlines so well about, it's a wonder how the filmmakers organized all the material. It starts with the opening shot: we all know the start of a nice, peaceful fall day before a college football game. We see people come together, the community alive and joining forces. Then things start to unravel, and one of Jerry Sandusky's sons gradually becomes a pivotal character. From this film, he probably grew the most toward self-actualization.

What this movie does right, and what Paterno, starring Al Pacino and directed by Barry Levinson didn't do, is cover who knew what, who could've known, what was said and done, and ignored, about horrific acts. The movie keys in on a few people whom we suspect represent many. Penn State football is a cornerstone of the community. How they reacted shows how a huge group of people can become so fractious based on beliefs, interpretations, and loyalties. This is very good, and captures the media angles perfectly. Just like Citizenfour, the real thing outstrips the dramatization with solid filmmaking of its own. The last ten minutes drag just a little; there are a few shots that could've been the last. Alas, this film should not be forgotten, and how to frame the story must have been one of the biggest challenges.

Damage (1992)  ****
I am pretty sure Louis Malle knew so much about human interaction, particularly among couples, that he was comfortable people at all times. This film, when you think back through it, is a tango between public and private life. David Hare's screenplay shades every scene with a burning question, not because of outrage, but because of the secrecy. 

Then you think again: there are several mysteries revolving around the central one that runs through Josephine Hart's book. She's Anna Barton, and we only know her impact on people. Hare's screenplay pays careful attention to this, how each gender reacts to her, and there may, or may not, be a lot to her as a person. What she is is a force. The lead actors, Jeremy Irons and Juliet Binoche, understand this. How susceptible we all are at times indeed.

Hall Pass (2011)  **
The Farrelly Brothers did so well in the '90s, they must find it hard to follow that decade. Case-in-point is this film. We know their kind of humor, and they how to handle comedic situations confidently and slightly differently. That's fine, as most of the early scenes, interactions, setups and payoffs work.

It's when we see recurring characters toward the end of Act Two, the obvious arcs, and throwaway jokes that don't fly that the movie begins to sag. Ben Stiller's slow burn and longing are much missed. Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis know how to project longing, but they succeed in battles along the way, and we already know that somehow they'll win the war.

**Note: In Blake Snyder's great book Save the Cat!, he mentions how the Farrellys always implement every emotion on the color-wheel. They do that here, but not with the sly execution they showed earlier. Or, maybe it's time to focus on one or a few parts of the emotional scale.

Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)  ***1/2
Guy Ritchie's breakout movie remains one of his best. Fresh from commercials and operating on what appears to be a very low budget, he shows his intricate plotting in overdrive. The coincidences and cross-cutting don't grow old or run dry and never feel strained. Ritchie knows how to let his characters' personalities drive the interactions, and action, just when we might grow tired of them.

I don't know where the director grew up, but he clearly knows these streets. With this cast, the characters also remain distinct to the end. The budgets of Ritchie's films quickly grew, along with their star power (Brad Pitt headlined the follow-up, Snatch, two years later). Now with the overwrought King Arthur two years ago and this year's live-action Aladdin starring Will Smith, we can only hope he gets back to the storytelling roots he so deftly showed here.

Fahrenheit 11/9  ***
At this point Michael Moore is experimenting with the structure of his documentaries. He is right to play on the beginning of his earlier Fahrenheit 9/11 and then diverge. He remains one of the best interviewers, and uses that skill set well in the Flint, Michigan segment. He also doesn't hit irony over the head and simply shows it clearly.

This film barely made a dent last year, or did it? His passages tend to be a little too long, but they show real people in slightly extended takes where he could fold his cards earlier. Still, he's necessary, and his stories and movies matter. 

Eighth Grade (2018)  **
Bo Burnham's film operates entirely on the assumption that eighth grade is about socially fitting in all the time. These characters have no interests in any academic subject or what goes on in the world. They are too busy scrolling and recording on electronic devices. That may be true part of the time, and I'm not sure how much time Mr. Burnham spent in middle schools with real teenagers.

We sure get the feelings he evokes in some shots, and sure don't get how Burnham's camera feels about his subjects. Sometimes the framing is dead-on, especially at a daytime party. At others, though, why does he film his protagonist from the back from the waist up for a prolonged shot? Then shots of the boy our hero is interested in are well done. Early teens can ask a basic question or make an obvious statement with much more behind the eyes. Then the dad is so one-note and he's on-screen too long, you wonder what this movie is up to? We capture the feeling and abandon many, many rules of storytelling, that's what. As a friend once said, artsy does not mean good.

Tully (2018)  ***
Jason Reitman's latest film and second collaboration with Charlize Theron slows down so much in Act Two, it's a wonder the movie recovers and wins us over. We, particularly women in this light, would all love a character like Tully in our lives. She's a reminder of where we were, who we were, anything for a distraction from the daily grind of just having a third child.

Without revealing too much, two characters are supposed to grow to become interdependent. Their scenes are not that interesting, especially when a fair amount of time is devoted to the first child in the first fifteen or so minutes. Act Three explains it all, and then comes what would be a glorious last shot. What's too bad is the filmmakers don't realize it's the last shot and tack on another short scene where we're supposed to appreciate another character's growth that we recognized, sure, but doesn't emotionally uplift or resonate. Still, this film stands on its own. Reitman like telling tight little stories about real people. Hence he stands out these days.

The Predator (2018)  **1/2
If it weren't for the sharp back-and-forth banter that Shane Black writes and influences like no other, we'd notice how tired this character is. In 1987 some critics called the original Predator a cross between Alien and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It still is a monster-in-the-house movie, as Blake Snyder aptly categorized. The plot and shots move so quickly, though, you wonder where the characters get all their energy from.

Writer-director Black is a fan of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and other masters of the noir genre. Imagine what he could do if he showed restraint? He's humorous at times, and the actors clearly look committed to their roles and having fun. Now we just need to get to know these people a tad better. Another of Black's trademarks are the action scenes that come out of nowhere (as helpfully explained in my interview with Tom Molloy.) Here they're hurled so fast, we barely catch a breath, and the over-the-top violence eventually wears us down. 

Suspiria (1977)  ***1/2
We like movies that know themselves, offer hints of who they are along the way, and reach a conclusion that fits perfectly. I've heard about this over the years, how it's a classic, and when the inexplicable is explained in the last five minutes just enough, we admire the care and duplicity that went in to the first nine-three minutes.

Jessica Harper (Phantom of the Paradise) is an actress who had such a plain, open face, and Argento frames her with such stark, sterile yet operatic beauty, we forgive the director if feeling hit over the head at times. Boy do those red lights shine a lot. We where, perhaps, De Palma, Polanski, and other filmmakers learned to lead us by the nose and have us so emotionally wrapped up in the ending, we forget how almost dormant we were. Sometimes motive doesn't matter, and evil exists no matter what.

Dead Man (1995)  **
Having seen Jim Jarmusch's earlier triumphs such as Down by Law and Trapped in Paradise, this film seems halfway between those slice-of-life works and a full-blown movie with big stars. The actors seem halfway in on the joke, while others take it seriously. Johnny Depp epitomizes this; with all those closeups and his eyes evoking insecurity of the role and movie he's in versus a man traveling from Cleveland out west. Whatever the tack, he's not convincing. Even Gary Farmer goes in and out of character, sometimes looking unaware of the scene he's in. Billy Bob Thornton revivifies the movie in the scene he's in, then dies. 

Robbie Muller's gloriously detailed cinematography is one of the chief reasons to see this movie.​ The other is the under-appreciated character actor Michael Wincott. His physicality is used so well, he almost offsets the needless violence that really brings the film down. What was Jarmush up to this time? The director also has a great notion with Neil Young's guitar riffs on the soundtrack, and overuses it so much, we grow conscious of it, then wary, and finally exhausted by its throbbing relentlessness. Since this movie is all atmosphere and observation halfway toward drama, who cares?

Berlin Station Episode Two, "Lights Don't Run on Loyalty" (2016)  ***
The same filmmakers are behind this installment which accelerates character revelations just enough. God shots are matched with ones featuring angles. Graffiti in the background is a great touch.

For a male-dominated show, actresses such as the aforementioned Forbes and Tamlyn Tomita do the best job, I think, of conveying emotions amidst an organization all about suppressing them. The dialogue is clumsy in one confrontational scene, but Richard Armitage, that strong and steady center, gets us through. The biggest thing these early episodes do is set up fertile ground, and that they do dutifully, though not so evocatively.

Berlin Station Episode One, "Station to Station" (2016)  ***
With writer-creator Olen Steinhauer behind this and director Michael R. Roskum driving the plot, this series seems to enter flatly. That's because it's a slow burn. Even the emotional peaks and valleys are surrounded by quiet moments at the office. 

The cast is filled with veteran actors who have been sneaking up on us: Rhys Ifans, Leland Orser, and Michelle Forbes who, twenty-three years after stabilizing Kalifornia, that great underrated thriller, does the best subtle acting. If outside of the acting the plotting is the best part, check the credits: Eric Roth is an Executive Producer and Robert Baer a technical consultant. Which brings us back to Steinhauer, unread by me, admired by many, and has been lurking in the literary shadows for the last couple of decades. His time in this medium has come.

The Battleship Potemkin (1925)  ***1/2
There's a reason Michael Mann and other mainstream filmmakers list this film as one of their all-time favorites. Few inspire you to learn about history. This one does, and also, with probably fewer than a hundred words in title-cards and subtitles, conveys so much.

The visual motif of a setting with many people entering the frame is handled so well, no wonder this stood the test of time. The war scenes with civilians are heartbreaking. (I was also a tad surprised many cite the train station scene in The Untouchables as an homage or rip-off; the two are used differently). Regardless, Sergei Eisenstein, who died in 1948 at the age of fifty, was in his mid-twenties when he made this. We trust he had his ear to the ground in many ways, and knew how to frame and execute a story.

The Ghost Writer (2010)  ****
This is the best thriller of the last decade, and one of the best of that time. A tribute or salute to Hitchcock, yes, but not a frame is wasted. It also captures particular sub-cultures so well, we forget we are with a character we can guess what he's thinking every moment for over two hours.

Having read Robert Harris's book, Roman Polanski, who worked with Harris on the script, knows how to frame plainly and make every shot count. He must envision alternating elements of cinematic storytelling: dialogue with shot selection, characters and spaces, movement with stillness. Take the opening: the music, by Alexander Desplat, starts at a pitch-level during a scene I didn't expect, followed by a steady shot. Then comes the voiceover and two guys talking in a cafe. So much is established thematically we're enrapt. You also don't notice the edits. I could go on. Polanski and Harris are also currently filming a movie about an event that took place over 120 years ago. That's how timeless they are.

Shock and Awe (2017)  ***
This movie wins you over the way James Gray's films do. Rob Reiner and his second time collaborating with writer Joey Hartstone cover a particular time with almost too many threads. The lighter sitcom stuff feels tacked on and from an earlier movie by, well, Rob Reiner. The personal relationships go nowhere, but shedding light on Knight Ridder Newspapers is the key, even if the direction starts out with sitcom behavior and builds steam in the second half. 

Reiner himself is quite good. In fact, everyone is good, even if the journalists don't look haggard and overworked like the more truth-depicting Spotlight. On the other hand, Tommy Lee Jones, in a pivotal role, seems to ground everyone. As overwrought as the structure might be, this movie matters, about an era that many, I suspect, feel like it was yesterday.

Twisted (2004) *1/2
Ashley Judd achieved such success early and was so reliable, the filmmakers apparently expected her to carry this movie all by herself. The camera does not need to linger over her body when we see her dancing in a bar. This is after she takes down a mugger in an opening scene that is supposed to establish atmosphere. It also establishes setting to the point of boredom.

Obvious is one notion of storytelling; plodding and inept intercutting are others. We get buried history repeated a few times, a present-day investigation, the main character's dating life history, and therapist scenes that sound written by a high school Freshman. None of this has any particular order, and such big-name actors utter such mundane dialogue that is overused and employed at the service of character development, all we're left with are straight-forward action scenes (staged obviously, there's that word again) and trite declarative remarks. As I wrote before, Philip Kaufman has had one of the most sporadic careers. Sometimes I'm not sure what he was thinking or his level of involvement in his movies. Here people in front of the camera do their jobs; now about that prep work...

Mandy (2018)  **1/2
For all its long takes and indulgences, this movie sucks you in and you forget how obvious the plot is. The synopsis says a couple leads secluded, happy lives. Who are all those lumberjacks in the opening shots then? Why does this couple seem only sort of happy and mostly dialed down?

Regardless, the score by Johann Johannsson is on a par with his earlier work with Sicario. Nicolas Cage proves he can still carry a movie, and that's not all he carries throughout his heroics here. It's nice to see Bill Duke again in a low-key, affecting performance. The villains, however, are on screen a little too long, and closeups exaggerate Cage's expressions; these are unneeded. Shots of actors slowly looking around are held long past their effect. You get the picture. You still admire the craftsmanship in spite of the languishing scenes.

The Believers (2003)  ***1/2
Bernardo Bertolucci's film made after his career sputtered in the '90s stands on its own and recalls a pivotal time in history. His camera sets and floats around a Parisian home like an intrusive yet intimate bystander. He also pays particular attention to the opening credits of his films, as with Last Tango in Paris and The Last Emperor. 

Everything feels naturalistic except the editing. There's a structure here as the director recreates the feelings of a time where people debated protesting peacefully or with force. And if you've ventured abroad in youth, you've flirted with and experienced certain adventures. With its specificity, this film should be held in the director's higher ranks.

Il Conformista (The Conformist) (1970)  ***
Going back to one that kept Bernardo Bertolucci's work in the American cinematic eye, the images in this film stay with you. A man waiting at a station to be picked up by a car appears purely geometrical. The same goes later in the climax. Other shots I think the director was experimenting though his camera stays fluid.

Sometimes espionage is fluid, with people and their agendas stumbling from one event to the next. When things wind up at the end, with the last shot, so much is suggested and heck, who knows what the future holds after a crime is perpetrated and the chief suspect called out? 

Species (1995)  *1/2
Roger Donaldson showed so much promise with No Way Out and seemed to lose his way over the next decade. He worked continually, yes, and is probably rich, but his actors are so flat here, there's no urgency. Someone should have told Michael Madsen that that alien poses a serious threat. 

The characters' reactions are so coached and trite, we sense they and the filmmakers are so much better than this and churned this out on the clock. Maybe they did. The box office success was the most inspirational part of this experience, and spawned two sequels. To revisit this phase of everyone's career, though is unnecessary.

The Door in the Floor (2004)  ***
This movie's structure is balanced and fluid, unlike a thriller from the same year. Once again John Irving has set personal indulgences in New England, and director Tod Williams, who shows he's competent, gets career-best performances out of Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger. They have both have such sweet, open faces that suggest so much. 

The same goes for Jon Foster, though his wondering looks grow weary. He's set up as the central character, then exits the story awkwardly. We only know this when he reappears. As he's overshadowed by the stars, as is Mimi Rogers, this movie wins us over because of them. There's a better movie here with more emotions unearthed. 

The Meg (2018)  **
For a long-gestating screenplay, Jon Turtletaub's movie comes across as not having spent much time developing the characters. They all look so glossy it's hard to believe these people go through attacks by an oversized shark. I kept thinking of Jaws with the dialogue and how the story focused on four main characters. Heck, even the beach stood for something. This time the shark seems to attack whenever instead of having an agenda no matter how basic that may be.

Since this movie is made today, we get international stars and no one has a single memorable line. Nobody's career will be hurt by this movie, but they probably won't be helped in visibility. That kind of impact also stands for the movie.

Spielberg (2017)  ***
Approaching the body of work of the most successful America commercial filmmaker of the last fifty years must have been daunting. At 147 minutes, almost all of his hits are covered, and two misfires, at least with critics, are all but ignored. This is a tad too adulatory, but it is entertaining all the way through. 

The format is chronological, skipping ahead at times and doubling back. I wish they'd probed deeper with the director around franchises (Jurassic Park: The Lost World is left out). How does he feel about being shunned by the Academy for so long? Has Dreamworks been the realization of a lifelong dream? If such questions don't surface, at least the film spends the right amount of time on his childhood, formative years as a young adult, and time with four other directors who all went to become successful. It works, and to go further we have to go elsewhere, or learn one day.

You Were Never Really Here (2018) ***
Joaquin Phoenix is such a complete actor, he makes you ignore the plot suggestions and possible holes. On the other hand, director Lynne Ramsay has control of her material (this is especially noticeable in the second half, and makes us rethink the first). She knows when to put violence off-camera and switch back to moods from plot developments. 

This is visceral and haunting; maybe not with images, but with tones and atmosphere. It's also quite a societal statement. That's especially near the end, though I'm not sure how much debate it'll inspire. 

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)  **1/2
This movie was better the second time. When I saw it the first time opening weekend, the first half, my friend and I agreed, was same 'ol, same ol', and loved it. The second half fell apart slowly. It still does ten years later with obvious staging and a lack of master shots that layout where the characters are and just how far they're venturing into the kingdom/temple/cave.

A comic payoff that doesn't is a microcosm for this movie. When John Hurt goes in search of help, and finds the villains who are the only people for miles, we think, it doesn't work. The dialogue also feels like rehearsals. There's no urgency to the characters. A new installment has been announced. Financially it'll likely turn out okay, and sometimes you don't ignore the signs to leave well enough alone.

Rising Sun (1993)  *1/2
Philip Kaufman has probably amassed one of the most eccentric and sporadic careers of any American film director. How he chose, or was chosen, to direct this adaptation of the Michael Crighton novel is beyond me. Maybe it was because of the overt sexuality of his last two pictures, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Henry & June. This is a murder mystery, though, and Crighton explored all the subtleties and navigation of international business methods and dealings between the Japanese and Americans. Nothing here suggests that's what Kaufman was after.

Which brings us to the acting. Sean Connery is well-cast but the script has him as Mr. Perfect. He dominates every scene except the obligatory one where his partner, Wesley Snipes, shows his senior he knows certain turf the former doesn't. Throughout the movie the acting is so obvious, the mystery unraveling looks like outtakes from Fantasy Island. We also don't learn much at all in the boring investigation scenes, or learned more in two pages in the book.

Stormy Monday (1988)  ***
Mike Figgis has distinguished himself from the start, and this, his first feature film, showed how much he was interested in his characters and gradually reveled them. The performances are so understated, with Sting giving one of his best, this small English town seems remote from everything. Hence the believability of the plot.

Figgis clearly understands noir. I'm not sure how he got Tommy Lee Jones, five years before he surged to stardom with The Fugitive, but Figgis saw something in him. Same with Melanie Griffith who, when restrained, knows how to convey knowingness. These kinds of movies walk their little paths, stand out, and the test of time, especially with the closing shots that wrap things up nicely. Not many of those these days.

Paterno (2017)  **
Like his colleagues, director Barry Levinson appears to fall into his own traps, or he missteps in similar ways. Is this movie about the investigation into the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State? A juxtaposition of Joe Paterno in his final days with the investigation, using him simultaneously as a prism through which to view it? Is it about a system that allows such tragedies to happen?

Perhaps it's all of the above, and that's no fault of the actors or, perhaps, the director. It's the screenplay, which spends thirty percent with a reporter interviewing likely victims in the scandal. She is not interesting, and neither are the scenes of people breaking down. Al Pacino successfully embodies "Joe Pa," suggesting much while doing little. His scenes work, though he is surrounded by many characters who aren't interesting, and appear to serve no dramatic role. 

I mentioned that Levinson falls into a trap. Disclosure didn't know it was a thriller. Sleepers packed in many characters and lacked emotional resonance. This film, with a banal screenplay in every sense of the word, lacks punch. This story is better straightly told.

Straw Dogs (2011)  *1/2
We've heard throughout decades how hard it can be to get a political film made. Rod Lurie has made several, and this remake of Sam Peckinpah's classic has some nice touches ("It's not hunting season," says town law enforcement). The performances actually exceed the lackadaisical screenplay which includes a few bar scenes with loud drunks and extended shots fawning over Kate Bosworth.

She, and James Marsden, that long-under-appreciated actor, are very convincing and good here. Not many others are, and if the filmmakers knew that subtlety made the original work so well before its shocking third act, they would've had something. Instead, it's all over-the-top. 

**Note: Laurie Scheer's great book The Writer's Advantage advises you at one point to view remakes and compare them to originals. Even when the remakes don't hold a candle, at least you haven't wasted time.

Mr. Mercedes - Episode three, Cloudy, with a Chance of Mayhem (2017)  ****
With a new writer and director, the plot propels forward; don't let the similar opening throw you. Now there's more character development as new situations arise. The past is suggested, and suggests there is much, much more to explore there.

Scott Lawrence has excelled throughout this series. He plays off the domineering and dominating Gleeson so effortlessly, he's the spark in wondering how things will turn out. The other African American actor, a young-looking Jharrel Jerome, knows how to hold steady and his own on screen. Maybe kids are better at handling tough situations than adults. They certainly don't miss much. Same with his dad, played by Neko Parham. Then there's Kelly Lynch: what a resurrection. All these sharply-etched parts help create this world, which is one reason we're eager to find out more.

Mr. Mercedes - Episode Two, On your Mark (2017)  ***1/2
You know the saying, "Things feel a little 'off'?" They do here in a good way, probably because the framing of the main character is always different yet he always looks the same. We don't get any more insight into his private life, and he doesn't gain much ground anywhere, except we see he senses things. There is a scene where he spends time in a parking lot looking around for a few moments, absorbing the landscape. In this era of phones, who does that any more?

It's the same director and cast of characters, and one supporting character has something happen to him. This will come up in episode three (we don't care about that person anyway.) If not much happens here, the deliberation drags a bit this time where it didn't in the pilot. Something tells me things will pick up again.

Mr. Mercedes - Pilot (2017)  ****
This is the first series I've seen presented by AT&T with the audience network. Boy, have they struck gold. Rather, David E. Kelley, taking his time after Ally McBeal and other hits, is behind a story where every shot counts. He's challenging himself. The director is Jack Bender and Dennis Lehane is listed as a consulting producer. Somehow, these storytellers have come together, and with a restrained Brendan Gleeson and perfect supporting cast, have created a world as intriguing as it is scary. 

It's an honor roll of elements in overdrive: the acting, with characters, particularly Aida and Pete, the editing you don't notice, and the pacing are at such a high level, you wonder how this can feel natural. That's with a shocking opening, too. The groundwork is laid, and they barely covered the first 100 pages of the book.

Eric Clapton: Life in 12 bars (2017)  ***
Eric Clapton rose up so fast in the late sixties, persevered through the seventies and seemed to re-emerge out of nowhere in the eighties, it's good to fill in the gaps. Actually, this movie does that until 1974, breezes through the last forty years, and leaves his musical evolution during the latter period alone. Were his solo efforts throughout the eighties satisfying? How did he feel about composing for films? Did the blues simply stay with him as his staple?

His love and family life, so detailed and built up through his young manhood, is really skipped over from the death of his son in 1991 to his marriage and three subsequent children later. Toward the end of the 115-minute running time, he seems happy. This is after his childhood is drawn very well and we see what kind of man evolved to become one of the greatest guitarists of our time. Still, a more balanced and complete portrait probably can be done. Maybe we're at arms' length, and that's the way the subject likes it. He sure did to many early on in life.

Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)  ***
This movie ranks up there with Good Morning Vietnam and Dead Poets Society as a perfect vehicle for Robin Williams. If anything, the heavy opening and closing scenes between he and Sally Field drag it down, but you can't keep him down in this role. There are also a few too many reaction shots of the youngest child (Mara Wilson) and his future boss (Robert Prosky). 

There are still many comic highs in the film, including the restaurant scene, which some comedic veterans complained had been done before. It had, and probably will be attempted again, but how director Chris Columbus handles it, cutting to different setups and payoffs, makes it work. There are also little asides such as the bus driver, Mrs. Doubtfire easily finding everything in the kitchen the first time, and so on that you keep chuckling. Then there are the big laughs. Williams transcends the sitcom structure. Hence the movie stands the test of time.

Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)  **1/2
This movie builds momentum and then loses it, dragging us to the finish line. This first movie and first two-thirds of this one were about people inside systems and how both navigated that murky world, the U.S.-Mexico border. This sequel reaches the higher levels of the U.S. government and simultaneously makes it personal with a kidnapping. The latter is particularly handled well, and makes us forget the extraneous earlier scene that was in all the previews.

The action scenes are well staged but the soundtrack, plodding and building the first time, is only the former here. The last forty minutes could have taken ten, and unfortunately weighs down what went on before. Emily Blunt and Daniel Kaluuya are much missed this time and the two stars Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin occupy too much of the screen. We also learn a little, but don't enjoy the process too much.

The War of the Roses (1989)  ***1/2
I saw this film in London in April 1990, four months after it came out and amidst the poll tax demonstrations down the street. The theater was half-full, and most laughed at the right moments. You laugh now twenty-eight years later, and though the characters aren't that explored, we all recognize parts of them at different points of the story.

After Throw Momma from the Train two years earlier, this was Danny DeVito showing a firm hand as a director. He used Brian De Palma's cinematographer Stephen H. Burum, and it shows in the several overhead shots. I'm also not sure how many people today know how vivacious an actress Kathleen Turner was in this decade. She dominates yet shares every scene she's in, while Michael Douglas, fresh off of winning his Oscar for Wall Street, knows how to build chemistry with his costars. 

We laugh a lot, and admire how they approach this story with the director's voiceover and his telling of the tale to a man in a chair who, incidentally, is Dan Castellaneta who voices Homer Simpson and many others. This is one of those solid bleak comedies, probably because divorce still happens no matter the decade. This film cost $26 million and made $86 million U.S. and $160 million worldwide. There's your proof.

The World According to Garp (1982)  ****
Perplexed by this film years ago, it stands the test of time. Some screenplays just work, and Steve Tesich, after winning the Oscar for writing Breaking Away, pieced this film together with a strong, veteran director in George Roy Hill. Working with veteran cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek, who worked with Milos Forman, the visuals are consistently mathematical and serve as a baseline to all the events.

Many things do happen in this movie that cause angst and pain, yet we give these characters space. We're close enough, and when two or three actions tie together, things add up. This was the book that put John Irving on the map. With this casting, including Robin Williams, Glenn Close, and John Lithgow, with Hill at the helm, this story is in control all the way. We also remember the last line: "Remember everything." We have a message from a unique story and are not hit over the head. We also don't see what Garp and his mom wrote, only our societal reaction. Sometimes that's all that counts. 

The Informers (2008)  **
Not having read any of Bret Easton Ellis's books, based on his films he seems to specialize in lost, tortured, or evil souls in cities. That worked with American Psycho, maybe because a strong director, Mary Herron, and her lead, Christian Bale, had many identifiable characters in it with social commentary. You also wondered what would happen next.

This movie has you a tad curious about events but without wonder. As far as the characters go, they're not much, and the dialogue is uninventive. The makers of Caddyshack apparently auditioned Mickey Rourke about forty years ago and called him a "natural actor." That shows here: he does little with his gestures and body language, speaks barely intelligibly and, along with Kim Basinger, suggests a backstory worth exploring. The young, sexually-obsessed cast, well, who cares?

Brad's Status (2017)  ****
After a New Yorker profile on Ben Stiller a few years ago about the perils of aging in the midst of stardom, this film shows he can carry a character study with all the right touches on the modern, middle class middle aged male. How he handles his face and navigates a room has always been interesting. He always seems like he thinks he may be in the wrong place, possibly at the wrong time, and will soon find out.

The rest of the cast is just right, and writer-director Mike White leaves one character, in the movie's best scene, to judge for ourselves. The rest of the lessons are spelled out, so this curveball feels just right. Why? Nothing's ever in order. We know this. Yet we're always seeing or experiencing particulars. White and Stiller also know this, and show it deftly start to finish, especially with the last couple of lines.

Jurassic Park (1993)  ***
Twenty-five years after it was released, Steven Spielberg's film holds up as entertainment. It's sort of amazing the movie runs over two hours, builds in a few character arcs, and is a monster movie for the last half. Released in June, this film came a year-and-a-half after the boring and over-produced Hook, which came two years after the Always, seen once by me, dismissd by many.

This was the director's comeback. It also put Sam Neill squarely in front of American audiences and re-introduced us to Jeff Goldblum. Laura Dern is good, too, as the emotional core of the film. And boy do the children scream a lot. At the end of the day, this is entertainment, and six months after this came Schindler's List for which Spielberg won the coveted Best Director and many other Oscars. Just after a lull, this was his prime. Then came another lull with this movie's sequel four years later. So it goes.

A Quiet Place (2017)  **1/2
It's fine to say "Less is more" and have a skillfully made suspense movie. It is quite another to recycle cliches, or encase yourself in a corner as the filmmakers do with this film. Thinking of Gravity, also skillfully made yet jumbling the aspect of sound, as with this movie. Here people walk through leaves and cornrows in complete silence, yet gentle running water is heard by creatures from afar at the service of the plot. Cinematically, the use of sound can work in outer space, and it works here to a point: this movie depends on noise whereas the former didn't.

John Krasinski co-wrote and directed, and he's a good leading man. His real-life wife Emily Blunt co-stars, and she's been a good in everything. The kids are fine, too. This all makes the visual borrowing of countless other horror films stand out that much more. It's a little depressing and understandable in this day and age where a movie like this cost $17 million to make, grossed over $188 million in the U.S., and cleared $300 million worldwide. The filmmakers should set their sights higher. With the sequel due in two years, they likely haven't.

Red Sparrow (2018)  **
You know it's not a good sign when you notice what a fortune the filmmakers spent on the interiors forty-five minutes into a spy movie. Just like the flat surfaces and right angles that surround these characters, the performances are measured to the point of boredom (for us, likely for them, too) save Charlotte Rampling and Jeremy Irons. Those two we can watch do anything, especially as they physically do so little. 

The same cannot be said for the two leads, especially as we're given such little information about them. They go from one event to the next. What do these people stand for? Where are these places exactly? Francis Lawrence, who directed the last three Hunger Games, which many reported to be declining of quality as they progressed, directs everything so nonchalantly, we think the editors tried to improve things in post-production. Unfortunately, not enough thought and emotion and clarity went into pre-production.

Wind River (2017)  **
Taylor Sheridan wrote the solid, if repetitive Hell or High Water two years ago. A year later he wrote and directed this movie, also set in the west and with isolated characters that play cat-and-mouse. This time it's a murder investigation, and the layers and implications of this throughline are the best part of this film. The performances we can see coming, and some individual scenes are handled very well.

However, repetition rears its head again, and I'm not sure Sheridan finds these people interesting. The soundtrack with moaning voices repeats. So do the characters' looks at one another, at the land, then around themselves. After an hour, we're not going places, and neither are they. There's a better movie here. I kept thinking of Atom Egoyan's masterpieces Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter. Those are trapped people dealing with life, death, and the former's trajectories, which makes this all the more a shame, because the closing statistic is deeply disturbing indeed.

Molly's Game (2017)  **1/2
Aaron Sorkin burst onto our movie screens with A Few Good Men (1992), based on his play. Since then his distinctive style has stood out, principally that people have rapid-fire conversations and circle back on a topic they touched on earlier. Curiously, that doesn't happen overtly in his directorial debut. Even more curious are the measured performances, especially by Idris Elba, whose delivery I found distracting, and that's strange for a veteran stage and film actor. Maybe he's like Colin Farrell: out of his native accent, he tenses up.

The story starts so well (Whatever happens to amateur athletes usually proves fertile fodder). A solid family dynamic is established at the beginning and how the screenplay goes back and forth in time works. It all works until about twenty-five minutes from the end. A plot-driven movie has a big family scene, you'll know it, that announces a further development which is completely dropped. Then come several wrap-up scenes and an announcement by the main character we've barely thought of thematically and logically. Maybe this material is too much, the stakes too plain, the characters given too much space. This matters on a level of intrigue, stops pretty well short of fascination.

Coco (2017)  ****
Here's an animated movie that so innocently toes the line of cultural conviction with wondrous animation, it's amazing it achieves a mature message without offending anyone. I imagine many could see it again and again. Many individual shots and places stay with us; their depth on the color palette mirrors the insides of these characters as they explore different worlds, inside and out.

This occurs so much that the central mystery revolving around a picture is small potatoes compared to the experience of the story. These characters have straight-forward dialogue that suggests more. Now that's writing.

RocknRolla (2008) ***1/2
Guy Ritchie knows how to show men thinking. The voiceover choice of Mark Strong's character is virtuoso, and he's the most interesting to watch in all the meetings that occur in this film. In fact, the movie is a series of meetings, speckled with flashbacks, dialogue bubbles, and slight revelations.

This is a return to form for Ritchie, after Revolver, unseen by me (and barely acknowledged in the director's body of work) and the much-dismissed Swept Away. It's also not just Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels with a bigger budget. The addition of Russians and real estate is brilliant. If Act Three sags a little because we're not so invested in the characters, we've had enough fun getting there that forgiveness comes easy. I wonder when Ritchie will return to these streets. Probably not with Aladdin starring Will Smith.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)  ***1/2
As a sequel, this is the movie that once it finds its purpose, it soars. The beginning in Shanghai is great (the opening musical number's a nice touch). The transition to India, though, is haphazard: the raft out of the plane bothered me the first time I saw it. Indy and cohorts are abandoned by suspicious pilots. This scene is handled very well. The raft, however...it's luck, not about people rushing after goals that revolve around life, death, and self-worth.

The other issue is the female character. Kate Capshaw had a tough act to follow, and she knows it, and gives her all here. The part is written as a throwback to ditzy bombshells, and seems a regression after Karen Allen's tough girl in the first movie. It works just well enough. That goes for the whole movie, especially with acts two and three. It's just the setup is better before and after this outing.

Just Getting Started (2017)  **
As a director, Ron Shelton started right out of the gate with Bull Durham. That was thirty years ago, and one of the two films listed on the poster of this movie, which was barely released and seen last year. The other is Tin Cup from 1996. You always wonder how they choose which movies by the director to put on the poster, especially with people such as Paul Verhoeven and Brian De Palma. 

This movie has the Shelton dialogue, the two and three-way banter (used well in the movie's best scene) and three solid stars in the leads. What's missing is a plausible story. When we find out the setup for this sitcom on the big screen, we don't believe it for a second. It was once said by Siskel or Ebert that Robert Altman moved away from Hollywood for more than a decade and returned with The Player ("He didn't change, Hollywood did.") That's happened here, with Shelton's first feature film in fourteen years after Hollywood Homicide. That movie had the issue of us not caring about the characters as they didn't face anything close to a dire situation. Now it's the premise. Shelton may have another movie in him; maybe darker territory from his films such as Cobb and Dark Blue would serve him well, especially if he re-teams with Morgan Freeman, Rene Russo, and Tommy Lee Jones.

Savages (2012)  ***
Taken from one of the best fiction books of the last ten years, this movie does many things right and makes two big changes that set it back. One is the character "O," played by blake Lively. I, and many others I suspect, pictured her with back-and-forth banter with her mom on the big screen. What we got was the nurturing, heartfelt "O." Many times she appears on the screen and it's a letdown because it's such a drastic shift in tone. The other is the ending. I put down the book and walked around the home at what Don Winslow had achieved. In the theater, with the, shall we say, opposite ending, I felt a sigh of disappointment in the theater. As soon as a character says, "But that was just my imagination..." you felt the air leave the room.

On a second viewing, this movie gets many things just right. The bromance, the colors, the depiction of the SoCal culture and Ben and Chon's operation are great. All the performances are sharp-etched, and the screenplay distributes attention to all of them with such balance, we feel immersed in this world. The one exception is the backstory given to the DEA agent, played by John Travolta. His character made such brief, honed appearances in the book, we didn't need more. Here his charisma takes over, and doesn't need to.

So there you have it. A movie that sweeps us away, moves very well, and almost undercuts itself completely with some big alterations. If it had been sharp-edged across the board, it probably would have transcended to greatness.

The Untold History of the United States - Episodes one through three  (2012)  ****
You know a film, especially a documentary, works when you learn so much and don't care how didactically it's presented. This is also in light of Oliver Stone's narration, which sometimes grows repetitive in tone yet dispenses information and revelations so densely, we're glued to the screen. The biggest discoveries in the first three episodes are Henry Wallace, so close to becoming our president near the end of World War II, and Russia's role in that war. The balance of graphics and news footage feels even and the editing never draws attention to itself. Long after his heyday of  JFK and Nixon, this multiple Oscar-winning director and his collaborators remain fascinated by America, and bring history to breathing life. More than that, his films still inspire.

Aknyeo ("The Villainess") (2017)  ***1/2
This film seemed, like its heroine, to appear out of nowhere on American video cues. It is fantastical, poetic, and about dueling systems. It's as if William Friedkin and Kathryn Bigelow teamed up on story and let Quentin Tarantino loose with action set-pieces. Yes, we may doubt the realistic action scenes at first, then realize how well Byung-gil Jung and colleagues handle toggling back and forth between reality and a millimeter shy of farce. This is meant for a particular audience with precision about government operations. 

The rest you have to see for yourself. Somehow the filmmakers start a love story, insert a covert assignment, switch back to the romance, and never confuse us, or cause us to doubt them. That's skill. If it feels a tad long, the perfect ending lets us forgive. Some mainstream franchise pictures might take heed.

Lady Bird (2017)  ****
Here's a test, or series of tests, for a movie: does it stay with you? Do you think about it days if not weeks afterwards? Does it have lines and scenes that replay in your head? This was initially three-and-a-half stars, then one thinks of specific lines ("Sacramento is the midwest of California!") and certain scenes (the opening, and it's not even the best one) and you have an episodic film that touches on, well, just about everything one encounters as high school winds down. For some of us, the last year of high school is where many things come together. Even the quiet scenes toward the end work.

This is the best-written film of last year. Each scene knows where it's going. This film handles its time-choice so well: the Gulf war of 2003 was distant, confusing, and many of us felt not in control or without a say at all. We're given a family medley where fights are quickly followed by make-ups, and we sense all character arcs moving forward simultaneously, and that's hard to do (L.A. Confidential comes to mind). This doesn't feel like individual moments add up, and then they do long after, and life can certainly be like that.

Man on Wire (2008)  ****
This film's structure was probably the most challenging and, I think, rewarding part of the story. How do you tell a story of a man who, from a very young age we learn, decides he wants to walk on tightropes and high-wires for life? How do you build a story around such a simple-sounding yet mesmerizing feat of him walking between the twin towers of the World Trade Center? 

It starts with Philippe Petit's dream and psychological plants along the way. There are straight-forward psychological needs, and the characters are revealed just enough as they all center around a mission, but this isn't done in the genre of a mission like Louie's Psihoyos's documentaries. This is about people, a dream, and we are so immersed in such a straight-forward endeavor, the how of the story is the key. It doesn't need a happy ending. The joy is indeed in the journey, to borrow a phrase, and with Philippe, we don't need incentive in a complicated, noisy world clamoring for our attention. Director James Marsh makes this look so easy, he is a director to watch.

Searching for Debra Winger (2002)  ***
Now sixteen years old, this movie is a snapshot of women's roles in film. The title implies it's centered around one actress plunging into the industry and leaving it. Not so, as much as it is Rosanna Arquette interviewing many famous actresses, most of them white Americans, about the roles they've taken, what's expected of them, and probably most importantly, what's assumed about them when mainstream movies are conceived. Each has their own take, and probably the most consummate of them all is with Jane Fonda. In her mid-sixties when interviewed, the subtext with her is how much has changed and remained the same. She has an interview late in the film that is long, and it works. Salma Hayek also talks of what adds up to a happy life. In light of what everyone else says, the life balance she speaks of seems almost impossible to obtain. Hence the tightrope they all have to walk.

So this documentary is a snapshot and yet very relevant today. Consider the latest Avengers movie featuring eight men and one woman (Scarlet Johanssen). All the super-hero movies are male-dominated, though the juicy roles, Lady Bird comes to mind, are out there. Smaller films, maybe, but more lasting and, hopefully, leading to bigger ones. This ties to distribution, which Roger Ebert touches on in this film, which leads us to word-of-mouth. That's still out there, too, just vastly different from what it used to be.

Racing Extinction (2015)  ****
To be inspired by a movie is one of cinema's greatest gifts. Louie Psihoyos won the Oscar for The Cove, one of the best documentaries of the last ten years. Now he broadens his material scope and scales back the group mission theme a bit, but maintains his focus on vanishing animals. This film is balanced with breathtaking footage of increasingly rare sea creatures and talking heads. Louie himself is on-camera more this time, and I dare anyone not to sympathize with his cause. He also admits how hard making a film is on the natural environment. You look at the million spend on the Fifty Shades series differently after seeing this.

Like other documentaries of serious subjects, you wait for the inspirational ending. Fed Up, Forks Over Knives, and Food Inc. all show the ramifications of healthy diets supplemented by a wide range of talking heads. Here the footage and commentary stand on their own. Psihoyos has only directed three documentaries, and is unique in his approach. As Executive Director of the Oceanic Preservation Society, we see he practices what he preaches on film. He's also generous and collaborative in his approach. You see how people are moved and inspired by him. He alone can probably save our planet, except he can't. Let's hope his influence grows. This is all more than you can say for some in power.

The Getaway (1994)  **
Roger Donaldson has indeed had an up-and-down career. Making solid films through his breakout in the American market, No Way Out, he followed that up with flops such as Cocktail and Cadillac Man. He returned at least to his double-crossing turf with White Sands, and then this remake. I have seen the Sam Peckinpah original from 1972 once and thought it okay. This movie gives you no one to cheer for. Coming out the same year as John Dahl burst onto the scene with Red Rock West and The Last Seduction, these characters have barely any humanity, humility, or worldly sense. They are stock. This movie also has great casting, and villains you usually cheer for or at least like to watch with Michael Madsen and James Woods.

Maybe it's the two leads. Alec Baldwin comes across as gruff and downcast. Kim Basinger doesn't project much. Only David Morse suggests he's having fun, and his character is the most interesting, seizing an opportunity. Maybe it's not one of Jim Thompson's best books. This one's hard to dissect: the first thirty minutes with double-crosses works great, and then it slows down with the action and wit, so the personas are left standing there, if they were looked into at all.

Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)  *1/2
If you remember Adrian Lyne's 9 1/2 Weeks from 1986, you know the plot of this movie based on a worldwide bestseller of reportedly million copies. That's the reason many in the theater audience were younger than thirty, I suspect. What's astonishing is how un-creepy the filmmakers, with a female screenwriter and director, make the male role. James Dornan might be a good actor, but here he's the kind of person who's rich, and that's it. No mystique. Nothing buried of any kind. No one reacts to him as he waltzes into Portland bars, crashes a college graduation party, and stalks an undergraduate, played by Dakota Johnson.

Johnson has a curious face that grows on us. In the right role, exploring a personality, something will come of her. Which ties back to Kim Basinger in 9 1/2 Weeks. Her personality was gradually revealed over two hours, and that of her counterpart played by Mickey Rourke, grew only in its externalities, which made us wonder on a few levels. We were curious, and cared. This movie doesn't care about these young people; they are only on screen to suggest. After about an hour, we need more.

The Comedian (2016)  **
A friend of mine contends that these days the director doesn't matter. Taylor Hackford, over the last four decades, has a pretty eclectic resume compared to any mainstream director. Chemistry (Against All Odds) has been one of his strong points, while his biggest success as a biopic, Ray, showed his attention to life's trials and details that surround them. Here he has one of America's greatest dramatic actors in Robert De Niro, and this movie starts so promisingly with his stand-up gig, we think the plot will take off and not look back.

It doesn't, and the character study is so strong that when we meet and sort of develop a relationship with Leslie Mann (we do, not the characters on screen), the happy ending​ is beyond preordained. There's a better movie here, worthy of the movie's last line. I've been a long-time fan of producer Art Linson, who co-wrote this screenplay and whose book What Just Happened had a similar thing happen with that movie: we followed De Niro's character so much, we waited for bigger eruptions from supporting characters. Both of these movies were one-note for too long. We feel like they're selling themselves short, and need to aim higher in just about every facet of storytelling.

West World Episode Three, "The Stray" (2016)  ***
By now we see that two or three characters are the focus of each episode. The stock Western locales and clothes are just that, and without the sci-fi subtext we'd be bored. Even the story's stakes are buried. There, also, buried, is the fact that much is suggested all along, so the curveballs of events don't shock us.

Characters' limitations are shown through action all the time, even when characters switch modes. Cliches are slightly askew, especially with the tearful "I'll be back..." farewell scene. If not for all the narratives in play, we'd look away, and yet all of this doesn't feel manic. Walt Disney himself would have been proud, and may have seen a touch of a reflection in one grandmaster scene.

West World Episode Two, "Chestnut" (2016)  ***1/2
Richard J. Lewis directs this time with writers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. I imagine a team of psychologists worked on this installment, or the filmmakers give the appearance they comprise one. The acting is consistent and sharp-etched; corporate politics are next to those of small towns in the Old West. We viewers are indeed the newcomers as we don't know exactly how characters go back and forth. This show is all about the narrative as modern storytelling nuances infuse the story just enough (those last two words enter our minds a lot) to make us seem a part of the narrative when we're not.

There is the filmmaker's point: we're not in control at all, even when we reach out to others, leverage our skills, and pursue an agenda full tilt. We might be forthright at the time, holding back the next. Thandie Newton, still acting up a storm, takes us with a harrowing passage. She embodies the show. Always we are belied by surprises which, come to think of it, is one of the spices out there, right?

West World Episode One, "The Original" (2017)  ***1/2
The newcomers are free to stake out their dreams, or are they? This must have been the central question in Michael Crighton's mind when he wrote and directed the classic film starring Yul Brynner. In that star, the writer-director took the quintessential, reticent cowboy hero and put him in quite the sci.-fi. context. This time the plot is all about crafting narratives though the themes are similar regarding juxtapositions, what is, is not, consistent, and inconsistent.

Jonathan Nolan appears to have broken away from, I think, his brother Christopher's shadow. He directs this pilot with the excellent Paul Cameron as his Director of Photography. There's nothing flashy here: a straightly shot piece endorses the outlandish storyline. The sentences, in dialogue and narration, are just long enough. So's the motif shot of the piano, even when it plays a Soundgarden song from 1994. Then there's the Rolling Stones song done as the musical score. We wonder what the heck the filmmakers are up to, and all the more amazed that it works. Maybe we are newcomers every day, or often enough, which is about how often we know what's going on with this story.

High Fidelity (2000)  ****
Stephen Frears was quite the veteran director when John Cusack, having worked with him ten years prior on The Grifters, brought him over to direct the adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel. This movie needed a sure hand, got one, and one that makes you not notice the straight-forward structure. It's really about one man, in his late twenties, talking through all his break-ups. Finally, at the end, he grows, which we don't quite see coming.

You also think of Cusack during this film. Fifteen years after The Sure Thing and eleven after Say Anything, he seems simultaneously new yet comfortable in the role. He's surrounded by a star-making performance by Jack Black, a solid, veteran performance by Tim Robbins, and decent turns by Ibem Hjejle, and Todd Louiso. Those last two names Americans probably scarcely know, but these performances don't hit false notes. Speaking of which, of his eighty-five credits, I don't think Cusack has made a truly bad film. Roger Ebert remarked that after he made Hot Tub Time Machine (saying he'd made fifty-five films then). This man sticks to his guns, works consistently, and clearly respects the audience's intelligence. When he shows up, it's clearly him, fully committed, not growing old on us.

Captain Underpants (2017)  ***
If it weren't for the barrage against public schools and teachers, this movie would surpass many, many attempts at comedy these days. The creativity is palpable, the characterizations just right amidst a bromance tour through modern-day high school, with the exception of cell phones hitched to our heroes. The story also follows a key Hitchcockian concept: this villain is indeed successful and resourceful, and forces our two boys to reach new heights.

This is perfect for middle schoolers on a Friday night. Especially males who enjoy thinking they have the upper hand on many-a-grownup. They create a Frankenstein of juvenile proportions in more ways than one, so the throughline is familiar enough with a postmodern twist. The only objection is the depiction of adults belittled with jobs as important as they come. We all have weaknesses at work, and these supporting characters a few too many.

Boss Baby (2017)  **
This is the kind of animation that plays all the notes but doesn't pull us in or through to fulfillment. We gain skin-deep sympathy and empathy for the main character, a seven year-old boy who, through strange circumstances explained at the end and with surface motive, becomes a big brother. How this plays out is for profit motive without human or existential urgency. There's money, then there's what people will do for it, and Tom McGrath, so deft behind the Madagascar and Penguins of Madagascar movies, seems at the mercy of a larger rush into production. 

Case in point: Alec Baldwin is the master of portraying men of ruthless power. We get his voice, and a reference to his brief tour de force from Glengarry Glen Ross, but not the impact, reason, or heightened sense of life's paths. Once the plot kicks into gear with a nifty chase, the third act in Las Vegas feels routine with animated character powers deployed at convenience, so death-defying thrills are immediately cast aside. Just like the plot, we finish the film and move on to better fair, knowing the talent behind this film will also do better.

The Spider's Stratagem (1970)  ***1/2
By the time Bernardo Bertolucci made The Last Emperor, which won nine Oscars for 1987, he was a household name in film circles. Many couldn't explain why at the time, he appeared to be just known. I think he was because he made four prominent films including this buried gem by the time he was thirty. Films such as this transport us to a different place and time and, more than that, evoke feelings of simplicity, duplicity, and unease around human nature.

Sure, this movie is categorized as a mystery, which doesn't necessitate thrills as much as discovery. Even in a small Italian village, people aren't what they seem, which invokes the great American crime novelist Jim Thompson. But as it stands culturally, this movie is very Italian with a political undercurrent that impacts the village from afar. We feel as trapped with these characters; note the tracking shots left to right, and back, and back again. If the performances are stilted, that's also the time and the director at work. Many shots are framed starkly, especially the last one which illustrates the point. Even then what happens off-camera is a mystery.

Youth (2015)  ***
This is indeed that kind of movie that grows on you. At this point, in their eighties and comfortable in front of a camera, the faces of Harvey Keitel and Michael Caine have seen much, experienced a whole lot, and are still in wonder of it all. This story is meant to be highlights and reminds us of gradually encroaching stories in a central place (Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract comes to mind). Moments add up, and when we need fresh life on the screen, Jane Fonda arrives in a wonderful performance that enhances the movie on a level we didn't see coming. Paul Dano gives his best performance, probably because he's half-disguised and full immersed in character. Rachel Weisz is just right, showing us buried, then revealed, emotions, before their tamped down again. 

Think about the title. We do a whole lot of listening to characters, and when something is revealed, not necessarily shown, our curiosity is peaked. We're still detached from these people, though, and the place we're watching, for all it's stillness, is disquieting, maybe because in our eighties we should all be so lucky to live in a gorgeous European hotel such as this one.

It (2017) *
This movie was a craze of last year, grossing over $327 million in the U.S. and clearing $700 million worldwide. No surprise that it wasn't up for any awards, but that's not the reason any adult over thirty-five probably can't sit through it. This movie subtly belittles kids: a seventeen year-old knows no better than an eight year-old as both follow a lone, floating red balloon down a dark hallway. There aren't any adults around when you need them, or they don't care. Such are the contrivances of a trite plot. 

It's fine if you take a creepy character, a clown, and make him the villain. In this case, though, the filmmakers, including Cary Fukunaga of True Detective fame, masquerade a coming-of-age story in horror. This was done well in Stand by Me thirty-two years ago because it focused on the kids as people. They were each different, knew a fair amount, glimpsed at and were curious by teenagers and adulthood. These kids are just scared, taunted and haunted by a supernatural clown. This is shameless exploitation that doesn't even declare itself. One can only hope it doesn't inspire, if only because many people have seen it who shouldn't, and that's just based on age alone. And that points to the filmmakers not caring. That is indeed horrific. 

**Note: There's also a gaffe: an event occurs in June 1989 and the filmmakers try to by cute and have a marquee showing Batman and Lethal Weapon 2. The latter came out July 7th of that year.

Frontline: Black Money (2009)  ****
This is essential viewing for the simple reason that for those who are turned off to politics, or at least separated from the political process, money can change hands within and beyond our borders all too easily. Especially between the royal Saudi Arabian family and BAE (British Aerospace Engineering). With a travel agent breaking his silence, a prosecutor for the OECD, and bribery rearing its head throughout the process, it all seems so simple. 

Correspondent Lowell Bergman knows just how to lead us by the nose and spell everything out. No wonder his was the story Michael Mann chose for his great film The Insider (1999). The double-edged sword of corruption is you either get caught or lose out. Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia didn't want to lose out. His interviews are brief. David Leigh of The Guardian, Stanley Sporkin, and Mark Piat all have interviews of just the right length. I wrote before how pieces seem fit together by someone else. This time everyone feels in on it. There's a metaphor there.

Wake in Fright (1970)  ***1/2
This screenplay hits all the right notes. The direction, by Canadian Ted Kotcheff, is sloppy, but moves us along enough. This is truly an Aussie film, long forgotten and restored in 2009. It's different, taking us to a seldom seen part of Australia. The arc is perfect, if a little deliberative. Then again, anyone who's been to the outback easily imagines the events and characters in this film. It is not to be missed, especially for anyone having traveled far from, well, everyone.

Don't Say a Word (2001)  **
We go into this film associating Michael Douglas with his previous thrillers. He is, or was, one of those rare star actors who is so present-minded in his performances he simultaneously immerses himself in the role, and the story, and yet rises above it. The same can be said for Gary Fleder, the director. He produces a lot and usually has a steady hand with a story. This time the pieces feel fit together by someone else, or a team.

After a great heist in the opening with a series of closeups, the getaway is preposterous, so all credibility is out the window. The usually interesting cinematographer Amir Mokri, seems at the behest of the editors. Shots of hallways repeat themselves and don't advance the story in any way. The kid bent is handled well: we believe her and the kidnappers as much as Douglas and the underrated Famke Janssen. But all the kidnappers do is watch her. Since the direction and reaction shots are so heavy-handed, no wonder we lose visual interest. Then we have the things kidnappers would not do, such as the motorcyclist raising visor while surreptitiously tailing Douglas in a car. He does this three or four times. Who is the audience for this movie anyway?

The Deuce, Episode Two: Show and Prove (2017)  **1/2
This is strange: Ernest Dickerson, the renowned cinematographer of Spike Lee's films in the late '80s and early '90s has created the less visually entertaining of the first two episodes. Richard Price is on board writing with Pelecanos. This should be a home run, or at least should crackle. It doesn't. Some dialogue lifts us up so that we're weighed down by the scenery that much more. This is about possibilities in a cesspool, which is why Abbie, the New York University student angle works so well. She's the most interesting, with Gyllenhaal's story not so interesting this time. The relationship between her and her pimp is the least interesting.

Some scenes have no conflict. We need laughs. We also need to learn more. More visual flair, anything. When this installment ends, we don't really care about anyone. It's a decent snapshot, and these filmmakers have better in them.

The Deuce, Pilot (2017)  ***1/2
Maybe it's the combination and collaboration of George Pelecanos and David Simon. In an interview, Pelecanos said he had the street talk down, he does, and Simon ties in the bigger picture. The opening scene works: a car pulls up outside a bar while a the bartender (James Franco) closes down for the night. We sense the instability and freewheeling scene of New York in 1971. The next scene works, too: two African American men on a bench in Grand Central station, ogling women and referencing Nixon and Vietnam. The soft colors of light and dark are always present, and they seemingly unwittingly enhance Franco's mustache and sad eyes. He's never been better.

We're also not in a hurry. Michelle MacLaren is the director, working with the two aforementioned writers, and she juggles her master, one, and two shots so that we always wonder a little what's beyond the frame while what's in it has our full attention. It's photographed to near perfection. The plot threads slowly come together and there is great subtle acting by Maggie Gyllenhaal and a gallery of worn New York actors. This is a solid start, as elusive as the inspiration for this show may be.

mother! (2017)  ***1/2
We are so with Jennifer Lawrence (we don't know her character's name) in this film. We don't know much about her but boy do we identify with her. Since her choices and reactions are logical (great use of reactions as opposed to the below review of Rough Night), this is a tour de force of filmmaking and storytelling right up until the end. The ending is logical, and leaves (too) much unexplained.

Darren Aronofsky continues to be fascinated at what boils beneath innocence and politeness, how a fairytale house is a perfect setting for the paranormal, and what happens when whatever is inside us is unleashed. Talk about life crashing in. Aronofsky also uses sound to the hilt and, for the most part, doesn't go for cheap thrills. The actors are at his direction, and discretion. The supporting performances by Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, and Michelle Pfeiffer are so controlled, joyful, precise yet free-wheeling, this movie draws us in from frame one. Its method of tidying up won't be explained, and in a movie about heart and fears, left me cold. It's still original and one to talk about though.

Rough Night (2017)  *
Here's the thing about movies that observe people and try to put them in awkward to bad to horrendous situations: the characters have to represent something. Some, like this one, are so petty and trying so hard to be funny and the objectives of the characters so picayune, you wonder what happens when they have real problems. What if a one (anyone) is framed for murder? Hates blood and has to operate?

We sure see why Scarlett Johansson is a true star. She carries her scenes and can't the movie because of so much trivial banter. Her character is the only one that stands for something (anything). There are so many reaction shots, we don't think these women have ever let loose, or for that matter, know each other too well. Those are not things you're supposed to think about in a movie about a thirtysomethings's bachelorette party with five friends from college.

I Am Not Your Negro (2016)  ****
The overpowering strength of this Oscar-nominated documentary is how personal it is. As written by a composite of James Baldwin's writings to a publisher, director and editor Raoul Peck juxtaposes images superbly, especially with a motif of lights, palm trees, and the like drifting by. The film jumps back and forth in time yet doesn't feel episodic because it all feels new. Baldwin is so eloquent in asking questions, he lulls you without calling attention to himself.

We also note that the Dick Cavett flashbacks are edited so that Baldwin has the last word. That's okay: his is a voice fairly neglected by the mainstream for so long, and he is such a thoughtful narrator, we could listen to him for hours. Or, better, yet, he's a voice for the future and a reckoning of self-actualization on a grand scale.

Good Time (2017)  ***
It's amazing this movie actually works. What starts as a character study with social commentary transitions, with a main character we don't see most of the rest of the movie, into a heist story. It opens interestingly, if a little ploddingly, and hurls us into one thick situation set-piece after another with a smart plot twist I didn't see coming. The story is held together by two brothers, and one is in severe need of something. What are their agendas anyway outside of the immediate present? One character is indeed that desperate.

Robert Pattinson is clearly out to prove himself, and he's part of what makes this movie different. It stands on its own, and though we don't care much about the characters, we are curious. The movie also doesn't get bogged down despite unnecessary tough guy talk. On some level we admire this movie. What the message is, no idea, but it's fairly entertaining.

Get Out (2017)  ****
This movie draws us in so well, leaves much unexplained, and is one of the best movies of the year. It should at least be up for editing awards (Only two Golden Globes: Picture - comedy and Actor in a Comedy). Once in a while you get a movie that's in touch with how people behave, capitalizes on it immediately, and integrates it with a genre that will stand the test of time. The performances are pitch perfect and under the hand of writer-director Jordan Peele who knows exactly what he's doing.

All this said, it slightly follows the structure of an all-time great Hitchcockian classic (you'll see what I mean). And yet, and yet...the less said the better. We are with the main character played by Daniel Kaluuya, a fresh face, who sizes up people, we think, given his hobby of photography. We're with him all the way, but Peele and co. know more than we do. This provides just the right social or societal commentary, stays true to itself, and has a screenplay that goes into a corner and truthfully fights its way out. Then think back to one of the incidents near the beginning. We think we know who's in on it, but how much of daily life assists madness? Bystanders sure can. The last shot is also perfect, evoking mystery for what transpired, and what's to come of race relations, even out in a farmhouse.

Animal Kingdom, Episode Four (2016)  **1/2
The themes of this show are in full force as we dig into backstory, and so's the steadicam. In spite of this overuse, the framing is often good and the dialogue uneven. Regarding the history of these people, I think it's more what these characters do in the present that's interesting, watching them make life up as they go along, their maturation stunted, floating. The adults still know better and the kids remain in a sea of uncertainty. I still like this series, think there's rich, fertile material here. I'm not sure how the filmmakers will keep it interesting though. Enough with the wandering camera.

Animal Kingdom, Episode Three (2016) ***
This series is plateauing. It has our interest, probably because there are many women involved, and this is just a guess, behind the camera with many men in front. Maybe they're trying to make sense of this Wild West California culture where a lot of people let loose. It is to what end that interests us.

Agendas still drive this series; who knows about what hidden motives and values is what keeps us coming back. Shawn Hatosy is the one who does so little and suggests so much. He's the outsider still on the outside gradually making his way in. What he does next is anyone's guess. Seriously. This is simultaneously as Ellen Barkin's character emerges. Watch her improvise and see what the filmmakers leave out. These are smart, if not always involving, choices along the way.

Animal Kingdom, Episode Two (2016)  ***1/2
One can visualize the ideas of threat and safety doing a tango at the center of filmmakers's minds. Uncertainty permeates paradise and what should seem like an easy-going lifestyle. Even in decisive directives by mom, her four grown sons go forth not sure what will be decided by them or someone else in a matter of minutes. Agendas only carry us so far before values take over.

The wounded especially dope up, and amidst lying around between scores, intimacy, physical and emotional, marks and breeds danger. In all these contexts, the hovering camera gets a little repetitive. We need to observe a tad more and not participate all the time. Some scene endings fall flat. At this point, though, we wonder lingers just outside the frame of that moving camera. That comes from the performances, which are naturalistic yet pointed. This rich material continues for now.

It Comes at Night (2017)  ***
We are indeed skeptical and curious at the start of this film which seems to follow the path of that great dystopian film, Children of Men. This is a lyrical, carefully made suspense movie with much left to the imagination. Joel Edgerton is just right for his role (after the debacle of Black Mass) in a straight forward story. What is it about Aussies and their ease in dystopian stories anyway?

The threat and atmosphere are established early on and proceed right to the finish. That's fine, and do we need to see this again? Unless you forget it, no. It is well done, and now we need another facet to give us a reason to re-watch it. Maybe redemption, or some sort of sunny outlook.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)  **
In a way, it must be hard being Guy Ritchie. Eighteen years after he burst onto the scene with Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, he's now repeating his hallmarks of rapid cutaways and voiceovers in order to advance backstory. He's great at it. Now he needs a story that's accessible or makes us care. The special effects here are so overblown we note the emotional involvement of the characters are plants for their arcs, but they are just that: plants. Ritchie moves on and the drama is lost on us. Reading David Mamet's indispensable book On Directing Film recently, some images on the screen are indeed uninflected, but some are cut away from so fast we get the feeling Ritchie is not sure what to do with them. Can we just sit for a while?

Blue Velvet (1986)  ****
I suppose one of the great things about aging is if you've never seen a movie straight through start to finish and it's reportedly good, you know you're in for a good time. David Lynch came out with this movie two years after the debacle of Dune and four years before Twin Peaks on TV and Wild at Heart blasted into and won the Cannes film festival. One person said this is when Lynch hit his stride. I agree. If you can, see the blu-ray version. The color and framing of Frederick Elmes's cinematography are so glorious, we feel an affinity for Wilmington, North Carolina.

That makes it all the more seductive overall and betraying when Isabella Rossellini lures Kyle MacLachlan into her apartment and Dennis Hopper barges in. The contrasts in production design are noticed and exist right with the action. Lynch doesn't waste your time, and just the right things are explained. We know enough, and the ending frames up a story so tired in mainstream films, we appreciate the specificity of this noir all the more. 

Risky Business (1983)  ****
This movie earns its rating not because of nostalgia or anything else, but because it takes its time. Halfway into this story, we're still not sure how Joel (Tom Cruise) will handle everything thrown at him. He handles his friends okay half the time, listens to them half the time before the "I was just kidding" caveat uttered later. He's responsible to the hilt, an only child in a good-sized house, and watch how he handles the first stranger to arrive there: he opens door the first time, later just the gated little window. This guy knows when to put his guard up.

We sense he has his group of friends at school but is not enormously popular. He's an introvert, Benjamin of Mike Nichols's great The Graduate if he were five years younger and had the world barge in on him after he merely unlocked the door. You also see Cruise's depth in the quiet moments and Rebecca De Mornay's ease in her role. The supporting cast is on screen just enough. So are the hilarious situations. The filmmakers, including director Paul Brickman who was in his early thirties, trust the audience (They show you the egg only once before it disappears). That is just one of the reasons this movie cost six million to make and grossed sixty-three million domestically alone. And we still don't know Joel too well.

Sea of Love (1989)  ***1/2
If you follow a writer in the movie business, and I'm not sure how many do, you're generally rewarded. Richard Price appeared on many peoples' radar with his novel The Wanderers in 1974, which was made into a movie in 1979. In 1986 he penned The Color of Money, and that's where his dialogue stood out against a straight-forward arc. Three years later came this thriller and you know, within the thriller genre, the writing can transcend and bolster everything else. Six years after Scarface, Al Pacino turned in this great performance, showing his range and depth. Two years after The Big Easy, Ellen Barkin held her own with him. Together with Richard Jenkins, Michael Rooker, and John Goodman, they collectively infuse film noir with energy, wit, and drive the story naturalistically.

The director, Harold Becker, a native New Yorker, had done several good films including The Onion Field. His films may be trapped in the genres they inhabit, but they are so solid start to finish you feel compelled to watch them again years later. This one still stands out.

Animal Kingdom Episode One (2016)  ****
It's heartening when filmmakers realize there's fertile, robust territory in a bad movie. That movie was the title of this show, filmed in Melbourne, Australia, and tagged as Australia's answer to Goodfellas. It came twenty years after Goodfellas, for one, and was filled with cliches and assumptions, for others. 

Here the writer, Jonathan Lisco, and director, John Wells, understand how to balance family with the world around them (Wells did this in the very good August: Osage County). Like Don Winslow's great book Savages, they also know to provide minimalist dialogue amidst outsized surroundings. There are also quiet scenes where looks and glances communicate just as much as the dialogue. Camera angles are used as curveballs just right. We also don't feel or notice the editing. If the writing doesn't follow the rule of starting a scene as late as you can and getting out early, so many scenes work so well, accomplishing little objectives along the way, that we're drawn in. Roles are inhabited instinctively, with Ellen Barkin, Scott Speedman, and a host of up-and-comers. With this crew, everyone will be around for years.

The Assignment (2016)  **1/2
At seventy-three, Walter Hill made this film, and he appears out to prove himself in a way. What's different is he handles two plot lines that intersect from afar. He still shows no need for backstory, something he has long-professed, and that still works. He still also gets strong performances out of Sigourney Weaver and Tony Shalhoub, whose scenes together work great and are the best-written. His star, Michelle Rodriguez, carries the movie and shows a range we sense she had in her. Anthony LaPaglia holds his own as he always does.

Unfortunately, the violence grows repetitive. The dialogue touches on issues of a bigger movie and don't lend heft, they plea for more. The closest twin to this is probably Hill's Johnny Handsome, that crisp noir from 1989. This movie lacks the urgency, but has the verve. Hill may have another solid film in him yet.

CHIPS (2017)  *
Dax Shepard was storied to be one of Hollywood's next great comics. He reportedly fantasized about it since growing up in Michigan. As a filmmaker and actor, he has a ways to go. He even casts Michael Pena, who's turned in fine performances as a star and supporting player in several films. This movie is part homage to the so-so TV show which barely held many people's interest back then. It's also a broad comedy though the villain facet is taken one hundred percent seriously. So then we have the broad comedy part that comes across as misogynous, cheap, and so immature, you wonder how forty year-olds in Hollywood act on or off screen.

Why was this stock movie made anyway? It cost twenty-five million and made eighteen domestically. The target audience appears to be grown men who didn't mature past ten. Best of luck to them all. With minds this small, life is probably nice enough, but not going anywhere, and their vote counts just as much as anyone else's.

Baywatch (2017) *
Maybe Dwayne Johnson is going through what George Clooney did twenty years ago. He's starred in some big films, is financially solid, and can now hone is talents in more serious-minded, ambitious projects. There is actually a story here, with big-city corruption residing right next to paradise in the form of a serene beach. There's also a ton of standing around with no character development and no urgency from the outside world. Even vacationers have to work to reach the beach.

This has been an emerging sub-genre for some time: the R-rated comedy aimed at twelve year-olds. But there's no coming-of-age arc, no motive for why people like each other. Elements are presented then discarded with no effect on anyone. Action sequences are off-the-shelf. To call whatever excuse of an ending there is is improbably at best. Johnson even litters on the beach and doesn't care.

Certain Women (2016)  ***
Kelly Reichert is a director who carefully lines up her shots. Things are so quiet that when nothing happens we understand she's not after big emotional reactions, but wow is she fascinated with how people react in underplayed, understated ways. Laura Dern has an interesting face with drawn out features. Her eyes are only part of it. The opening shot evokes the big expanse of the west, and evokes Atom Egoyan's great film The Sweet Hereafter.

The stories are connected, barely, with overlapping characters and places. One story slowly grows and has one of the best, subtle scenes I've seen in a long time. What is not said can say so much. Reichert cuts away at the oddest of times, occasionally, but she has her vision, and cumulative stamp, starting with uninflected images. Those are nice accomplishments.

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950)  ***1/2
I'm not sure how many people today know who James Cagney is. He died thirty-two years ago, and to watch him a the original gangster is something to behold. Heavyset, he squares up and off against anybody, even the corrupt cops who at times have the upper hand on him. Speaking of which, if you think people today are mean, check them out in the glory days of 1950. The difference? People had a thing called restraint, which is such an asset in film that when it's used well, everyone in the audience seems to notice.

Characters in this movie are scheming and plotting in every scene, sometimes every line. Everything is so plainly photographed against such anger-laden dialogue, we keep waiting for emotional dams to burst, and for the next scene. Watch the characters closely: they improvise, and that overlaps with best-laid plans, sometimes coincides with them. Those are two more layers we don't see in movies much these days. Horace McCoy's book started great and slowed. This feels more evenly paced, right up until the perfect clincher of a line at the end.

Black Swan (2010)  ****
I'm not sure how much director Darren Aronofsky knows about ballet, but boy does he create a visual, visceral experience here. Two years after The Wrestler, Aronofsky hit this home run and his stride in structure and editing. He also develops his characters just enough to sustain our interest. Though one declares themselves perfect at the end, and it is a perfect ending, we feel there's more to uncover. 

Looking back now, it's also a forerunner to Birdman, a tightrope where the pendulum could swing either way in every scene. Natalie Portman, in the role of a lifetime, could come undone at any second. What she imagines and what happens is in the right hands: the unreliable main character taken to the hilt. I'm always amazed when backstage stories are given architecture in which a story unfolds. This should be held up and studied. This time Aronofsky topped himself.

Midnight Run (1988)  ***1/2
When you've seen a movie three times over the twenty-nine years since it came out, something's happening. It's a snapshot in time. Martin Brest's Midnight Run came out mid-summer in 1988, around the same time as Die Hard and after the initial flurry of summer blockbusters, which included Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Bull Durham. This film stood on its own; even if the road movie had been done, we hadn't seen two characters grow to like each other and have a moment at the end that is unique.

Brest was right to insist on Charles Grodin over the studio's choice of Robin Williams. He had persevered and been consistently good since the '60s (Rosemary's Baby came out twenty years prior) on the big screen plus many roles in westerns before. He and Robert De Niro share much screen time, and supporting performances by emerging actors such as Dennis Farina and Joe Pantoliano bring up everyone else. Yaphet Kotto remains one of the best at exuding authority on screen. Toward the end, all the plot elements come together. Then we think back: there's not a wasted shot or scene in this movie. We really do believe the mob and the F.B.I. are after these two guys for two hours. Everything still works after all these years.

This Changes Everything (2016)  ****
Not having seen any of Avi Lewis's other films, and knowing that he's married to Naomi Klein, we know he must be passionate about his product. This film, based on Klein's book of the same name, has great pacing. It wisely starts in the civilized first world and takes us to places impacted environmentally by economic (read: business) initiatives. For McMurray, Alberta, also deeply effects the local native tribe. Haldiki, Greece, may not have a mountain next to it some day because of a Canadian mining operation. 

Klein's narration is sprinkled throughout the film just right. She gets out of the way just enough, and is so efficient and accessible about complex issues, no wonder I've read three of her books, starting with No Logo fifteen years ago. She and Lewis also frame the environmental destruction as a story in and of itself. Lewis knows to put many images together to cover many incidents and points of view. Like movies, stories matter, and the best movies change our views and ways of thinking. With this movie, let's hope these two, and a few surprising Hollywood names among the producer credits, continue to find audiences all over the globe, which leads to action. Now that would be an impact.

Yoga Hosers (2016) *1/2
Maybe Kevin Smith has done what Robert Altman once did in the seventies and eighties: moved away from Hollywood, Hollywood changed, he didn't. We could say the same, though, of Roman Polanski. In this movie, I laughed five times in the first twenty minutes, then the repetition of the jokes, the confusing mixture of heartlessness and empathy and juvenile humor with a mysterious little monster lost me. Where is this director's sensibility? Has he changed that much, now in his mid-forties as a husband and father since Clerks splashed on our screens twenty-two years before this? Looks like he hasn't. 

He is curious in one sense - how many people knew of Canada's role in World War II? Smith also continues exploring the supernatural, but the humor is baseless. The villain is so shallow, overplayed, and over-photographed, that the movie undermines itself. Heaven knows what sort of films he will make, likely in Canada again, when he's sixty. That isn't too far away.

Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad) (2007)  ***
Jose Padilha, recruited by Hollywood after deftly handling many parts of this film, clearly knows how to move one along. He intercuts domestic scenes with street ones so seamlessly, we forget the worlds are far apart. Or are they? We track two characters as the center of this film. Both have arcs and are interesting start to finish. Then why the terrible ending? Why the relentless gloom of the third act?

The structure is also interesting. After showing the corruption and just enough of the ropes and dealings by cops on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, we get an uninteresting climax that builds and keeps going for almost the last half-hour. The first two-thirds are fantastic. They're the reason to see this film. The last part tells you you don't need to see the sequel.

Hit and Run (2012)  **
I've read that Dax Shepard as a boy in Michigan dreamt of entertaining the world. He clearly wants to "make it." After some independent films, some good (Zathura), some not (The Freebie), he's written co-directed, and co-edited this screwball comedy that takes the relationship of the two main characters seriously and almost nothing else. A large African American man is pummeled by a supporting character to no consequence, and of little motivation other than annoying another in a grocery line. What's Dax trying to say here or anywhere anyway?

He clearly loves cars. He likes assembling characters, along with unpredictability. There's very little reason or motive at any time, but then those are the character traits. We don't like anyone much, especially with the juvenile humor about gays. This is a miss, and we'll see where Shepard's talent goes. It apparently didn't end up in Chips.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)  ****
For a movie of pure entertainment and fun released thirty-six years ago and playing around the country this summer, the most amazing thing is how quiet it is. Opening shots like the one here in South America draw us in so well and reveal the jungle and Indiana Jones slowly. We're hypnotized in less than three minutes and filled with wonder. And this is before the big opening chase scene. It's also startling how strong the supporting performances are. It would be many years before we recognized Alfred Molina and see Karen Allen and especially Paul Freeman on American screens, but they play off Harrison Ford so well this borders on an ensemble piece.

As Indiana stumbles and strides from one threatening situation to another, we see how resourceful he is. A friend pointed out that Indy does whatever he can and doesn't rely on anyone. He's also unhappy at the end. The two-pronged suggestions on the higher powers that be, the government and the supernatural, are just enough and juxtaposed with the hard-edged action grounded in reality. Speaking of juxtaposition, this came out the same summer as For Your Eyes Only, when James Bond was in peak popularity. Raiders showed us you can recycle from old serials and with sharp filmmaking and inimitable music that underscores every scene, make movies entertaining to the hilt. There's not a wasted frame and each frame is filled up. And have scenes with snakes that let us figure out how Indy will get out of sticky situations. That's just it: we think with him the whole time, even when the story is set in 1936.

Weiner (2016)  ***1/2
Slyly, the press is as much a character as Anthony Weiner is in this documentary. The press creates and sustains his public-private issue. He rose out of the working class of New York, married a powerful woman, Huma Abedin, an aide to Hilary Clinton, with whom he has a child. Boy does this couple weather a storm that starts with a habit Mr. Weiner cannot contain. The man is intelligent. He has charisma. The couple have quiet domestic scenes, and the strain on their marriage comes and goes.

Anthony remains the focus, and everyone's reactions are caught in glimpses and they convey enough. We don't need any more. It's a complete portrait, as this guy seems like he wants to do good, is willing to fight through the modern political machine, and has an issue that he knows will become broadcast, he cannot control.

Note: Starting this documentary, I wondered if his marriage would make it. I recommend seeing this documentary without knowing the outcome.


Performance (1970)  **
Here's the thing about directors: you follow them for years if not decades. You feel like you know them, and after a few tries you as a person don't jibe with their work, you stop trying. Nicholas Roeg made one great film, Walkabout (1971) and good, intriguing films, Don't Look Now (1973) and The Witches (1990). Two of his films I could barely get through (Eureka and Hard Timing) though at least I remember seeing them. He's visually consistently interesting, framing his characters against the landscape in many ways. I'm not sure if he cares much about what his characters are saying, especially in police scenes, usually routine, intercut here with an unfolding plot, such as it is.

Apparently at one time his editing was innovative. Seen today it's jagged and distracting. We enjoy the shots and juxtapositions but can't quite our hands or emotions around what's happening on the screen. These shots are among meandering, boring scenes of people sitting around saying random things. These go on for several minutes, and shortchange a dynamo performance by James Fox as a gangster. Mick Jagger is given much freedom (or is he?) to open up as an actor and has a terrific musical number in the second half. There's also a great trick at the end (a trace of Lynch here). The story, though, is so improbable and loosely connected that we lose interest and investment in these characters. There is a purpose here, just not for some of us in what is considered a classic. 

Fences (2016)  ****
This is the most performance-driven film in several years. That's partly because it's based on the famous play by August Wilson, who wrote the screenplay many years ago (he passed away in 2005). It's also because the director and star, Denzel Washington, seems to give his actors a lot of freedom. They appear to have end points in scenes; how they get there is up to them. All of them succeed again and again as history, family roles, and life as an urban American male after World War II all come into play and bounce off one another. Sometimes there's a center, especially in wonderful performances by Mykelti Williamson ad Stephen Henderson.

The cinematography by Charlotte Bruus Christensen, a native Dane, frames her shots in twos and threes. Inserted are interiors, sometimes with the characters, sometimes without, always geometric in sensibility (the exteriors show space alternating between confinement and layered horizons). This also must have been a tough film to stage. Washington succeeds fantastically there, even if the visual flair is not always there, and some scenes toward the end call too much attention to themselves as shots linger. A cliffhanger, leaving us to ponder the main character's impact, might have had more on us. For what's on the screen, though, we've witnessed film acting at its finest.

13th (2016)  ****
Not many documentaries with talking heads blends well with seen or unseen  news footage of racial tension and altercations. Ava DuVernay's film is streaming on Netflix and is still being screened at various schools and public forums around the country. This is for good reason. It thoroughly covers how laws and agendas in positions of power have placed millions, the vast majority of whom are African American, in prison. The film also starts with the staggering statistic that the U.S. holds 25% of the world's prison population yet only has 5% of the people. And we wonder why Europeans shake their heads at us. 

Unique, fresh voices such as that of Jelani Cobb are blended with familiar ones (Angela Davis). The photography doesn't draw attention to itself. The cuts are well-placed and paced according to messages. DuVernay is after the meat of each person's message. If the chronology jumps around a little, and visits the same era more than once, it's because we're looking at things at a new angle. Therein lies the talent of an important filmmaker, who trusts the audience to see how and why we show pivotal incidents, figures, and initiatives that still ripple today. 

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) ***1/2
These are but a few of the great things about movies. Richard Brody of The New Yorker can call a film to attention and the way he writes a piece convinces you to watch it. You see it start to finish for the first time ever and go back to a simpler time where two criminals drift around Northern Idaho and Montana. The landscape is inherent to their trajectories. It creates a feeling. A heist movie with such colors and costumes, conveying exuberance and loneliness, is one of a kind. We spend so much time with Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges that we realize their trajectories matter more than how well we know them. Yet we are with them so much. The dialogue evinces just enough and their personalities, while not explored and plot-driven, galvanize our interest. They have to. Much of the film has only the two of them chatting.

This was Michael Cimino's first film, and very different than anything else he did. He did epics (The Deer Hunter, Heaven's Gate) and sub-genres of crime (The Sicilian, The Desperate Hours) and much of his subsequent work feels like it was a different director entirely. I'm not sure if he ever said why or why he didn't re-visit this territory of hardened criminals done in a unique way. One thing is for sure: this movie stands out in the filmography of both stars and gives us a manic George Kennedy who contrasts the two main characters. He does that just enough, too.

Split (2016)  **
Once heralded as the next Steven Spielberg on the cover of Newsweek fifteen years ago, M. Night Shymalan has soldiered on, and so have we, with his films. He's had his big hits (The Sixth Sense, Signs), and his misfires (The Village, The Happening). I believe all of his films have been profitable, so he will be around. It is, however, getting harder to like his work. It's also hard to pin down how and where his self-aggrandizement shows up in his storytelling. He puts the worst therapist on screen in a while, played by Betty Buckley. She and the inciting incident, in broad daylight at a mall, are so implausible that the scenes of real fear lurch us all the more to attention.

The scenes of terror involve three teenage girls and the outside world apparently has no idea how and where to find them. A grownup, we think, was killed in broad daylight at a mall. Don't these people have friends? Loved ones? How about the local high school? Two cops appear in a seedy end of town, otherwise, they apparently have other things to do. Similar thrillers such as Dressed to Kill (1980) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991) framed their characters in close-off worlds. It was part of the characters' professions, and we believed the people around them. This movie presumes so much in that arena that as James MCAvoy talks and talks and dissects his multiple personalities in extended scenes, we wonder how much time he has on his hands (A lot, apparently). Come to think of it , this is where Shyamalan comes across as self-impressed.

We also wonder about the throughline involving one of the girls. Separately we scoff at the director's attempt at humor in the scene he's in. Reading Leading Lady about Sherry Lansing, she once said that great scripts say something about life itself. The last shot of this film says that, I guess, and fits, sort of, with the rest of the movie. Or, there are so many implications in this movie, it's an implausible, incoherent, thematic mess in a very straight-forward thriller. Maybe killers are everywhere, but with this experience we have to work hard to find them, or care. For a movie or person, that's a bizarre thing to say.

The Brothers Warner (2007)  **
Cass Warner Sperling is the granddaughter of Harry Warner, one of the four brothers who founded the movie studio famous for almost a century now. I don't know anyone who knows their story or that of the studio. The first part of this documentary works well, starting on a personal note and going back to the brothers' immigration into the U.S. and arrival in Hollywood. 

Sprinkled throughout this film are interviews with family members. These are boring and take up a lot of time. They're just people with little stories you could take out of any family. The documentary also focuses a fair amount on World War II which feels bogged down. Sherry Lansing, Nancy Snow, and Leo Brandy offer the best of many quick interviews and epithets, and then the movie ends on a personal note of hope to grandpa. What did we achieve here? Some notes about the studio's start and family dynamics between the four brothers (including one wallop toward the end). But was there a theme to all this? Any consistencies? So much is presumed about importance that we'd rather read a book, and be inspired. 

Logan (2017)  ***
Talk about a happy accident: I somehow got ahold of the noir version of Logan. It was in glorious black and white and presented the best part of the movie, the cinematography by John Mathieson. After the success of last year's Deadpool which promised a reinvigoration of the rated R superhero movie, this film sure is rated R and the violent, not necessarily action, scenes hit us over the head. We recover okay, but not sure they're necessary. The rules seem strange at times, too, as when normal humans with heavy machine guns are chasing mutants through the woods and never fire. Why are they carrying them in the first place?

The kid played by Dafne Keen is a natural and carries such weight she almost carries the movie. She shares as much screen time as Hugh Jackman, still filled with rage as Wolverine. Eriq La Salle still has gravity after all these years. James Mangold has now made mainstream films for over twenty years, starting with Heavy in 1995. He's sure-footed and has turned toward dark territory before (Identity, 2003). I'm not quite sure he loves his genre, though. He's slated to direct Don Winslow's The Force, just released as a book and due out in two years. Let's hope he puts his heart in it.

In Order of Disappearance (Kraftidioten) (2016)  ****
Here's a lesson in how to convey a bleak world view with humanity in a story where we understand and accept the characters. It stands for values and on its own in a thriller plot that is driven by personalities instead of contrivances. In the end, though, we see its all planned out. The stark, plain colors, especially in the interiors of abodes, mark the photography of the film and the characters. We eat it up because it's so plain.

Stellan Skarsgaard is used the best he's been in years. So is Nordic humor. This is about intersections and I imagine many in Scandanavia will identify those between royalty and underbelly, wealth and the underclass, Norway with the rest of Europe. It can be a bleak world in a beautiful setting, and movies can maintain a sensibility, gradually revealed, to the end. 

The Night of (2016) Episode 8: The Call of the Wild  ****
Unlike the last Jack Reacher movie, filmmaking here with music and editing creates atmosphere. Richard Price and Steven Zaillian co-wrote and Zaillian directs this finale, and the music by James Russo adds touches like one adds shades to a painting. I've barely painted, but that's what it feels like.

Then dialogue exchanges are like '40s noir with shorter scenes, but nobody's given short shrift. We certainly aren't, and this episode runs over ninety minutes. We're also not sure what it all means and little details feel just right. We are with these people in geometrically perfect shots. Again., they feel that way. This is why I love film: we're in another world, transported there, yet not passive, and we want more.

Phantom of the Paradise (1974)  ***1/2
Seeing De Palma last year, this movie was just released on Blu-ray and I hadn't seen it in thirty years. The colors jump out, and you realize how much attention the director pays to the looks and feel of his films. The acting isn't that strong, especially by the lead, William Finley, who worked with De Palma at Sarah Lawrence college. But the story stays true to itself, and the soundtrack adds so much.

Then the film does something you don't expect: it has a perfect ending. Seriously: you see it as a sign of the times, with the Vietnam war winding down, Watergate imminent, people not sure about the higher powers that be...it's all there. Paul Williams and Jessica Harper are pitch-perfect in their performances. They stand for something. Just like the director's framing. It's all intentional, and points to how careful and subconscious film is.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)  **
There have been a few articles recently about Tom Cruise's career being in a downward spiral. The Mummy, where he reportedly demanded a lot, has been scathed. No matter: he has another Mission Impossible, again with Christopher McQuarrie, and a few others in the pipeline that look meaty. This second adaptation of a Jack Reacher novel (one I've read) has all the makings of a good story. What surprised me was it's made by Edward Zwick (Glory, Blood Diamond) who knows how to handle tough material, but he's not a straight-arrow action director. His movies tackle large issues and suggest even more. 

Not here. Action movies these days don't have much down time. There's a constantly driving techno-drumbeat that jumps to life every time a character starts running. Or realizes something. We've seen this before, and that's the last thing you expect from Zwick. He also co-wrote the screenplay with his longtime collaboration Marshall Herskowitz.

Michael Cuesta did the same thing with Kill the Messenger (His American Assassin comes out this fall). These movies have little character depth because they're not given time. Same with us. This might have been a point where Cruise should've put his foot down and exerted greater control over the final outcome. I'm serious. It might've helped.

Silence (2016)  ***
You have to wonder what the Japanese thought of this movie. Martin Scorsese here completes a trilogy of sorts. With The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Kundun (1997), and now this, he finishes a journey that cannot end, as people such as himself are still questioning and exploring religious implications, and probably will as long as they live. Silence is meditative on all the questions Scorsese has thought about over the years. Borrowing that storytelling theme where the more specific your choices are, the more universal they apply, this film occurs in Japan at a particular time. Part of the reason the director wanted to make it fourteen or so years ago was to serve as commentary on the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. It still serves us well, though it's probably not as apt.

Anyway, this is Scorsese, working again with cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, at his most mathematical. Look at how the camera is frequently at angles and how it moves, stops, and frames. Many images stay in our mind, as they did with Temptation. What's not quite as strong is the acting, especially by Andrew Garfield in the lead, and the music, heavily collaborative yet not accentuating the mysticism of Peter Gabriel's soundtrack to Temptation. The British musician back then culled music from throughout the middle east and Asia and produced one of the best, most original soundtracks ever. Here the minimalism doesn't jump out or add as much.

Still, the brevity of the climax, which is not what you might expect, fits very well with the story. We sense this is the film the filmmakers set out to make, even if the central plot meanders a little; we sense those behind the camera weren't sure how to handle this. In the end, we have wandered and been taken away for a lengthy time. In what seems like a constantly noisy, urban-driven world, cinematic efforts like this remind us that other worlds existed once, and held many philosophical questions within and between people. Then think about the title: how scary that is for some people, and infinite in meaning it can be.

​Chinese Coffee (2000)  ***
Every once in a while you come across a movie that has a huge star in it. You're not sure why the mainstream never picked this film, so you watch it. Watching Al Pacino, in his second directorial effort, command such intimate spaces with the late Jerry Orbach, is fun. There are many closeups and reaction shots. The flashbacks work for the most part, and that must have been tricky for an off-off-Broadway play.

This doesn't mean the story propels forward, but it is a good portrait of the fragility of friendship. Symbiotic, real friends are rare indeed, and all the back-and-forth reveals the layers of these tried, and tired, friendship. After the end credits, we sense they'll keep trying, even if it's for familiarity instead of friendship.

Elle (2016)  ****
I'll admit: I and a few people I know almost gave up on Paul Verhoeven, the director of Showgirls, Starship Troopers, and Hollow Man seemed to lose his faith in storytelling and the audience's intelligence, if not passion, if not pulses. This is one of his best films, and he directs Isabelle Huppert mercilessly. The camera lingers on her reactions shortly after events and interactions invade her life. (I use the word invade purposefully.) The more we find out about this character, the more the plot, her backstory, and present actions unfold. Verhoeven said in interviews two things that ring true, that this is his protest against genres, and that he wanted to make a movie where seventy percent of it is social interactions. Turning seventy-eight last year, he needs to be fired up more. The man is an inspiration, just like he was thirty years ago with Robocop.

What the movie does after the usual Big Reveal part of the thriller is what sets this movie apart, The ending is a tad flip for the rest of the story, but it works in tone. The decks have been stacked evenly around the character of Elle, who at first appears to lead a hectic life, but we relate to it. That's the genius of this film, and why it matters to us, and its director.

The Handmaiden (2016)  ***1/2
Park Chan-Wook has made an interestingly shot and edited film. I was reminded of Martin Scorsese's masterful The Age of Innocence, where in the upperclass of New York society, one nod, blink, or turn of the head conveyed much emotion and underlying urges. This movie is similar, and the camera, like Michael Ballhaus's in the aforementioned film, is moving, always smooth, active. I wonder if Park was inspired by Scorsese.

Whatever: it works, especially in the first hour. Act Two is less dramatic and more expository. A cast of supporting characters isn't as interesting, and Park aims for spectacle. Act Three ties the plot threads together, and the ending takes its time. As in other South Korean films (Oldboy comes to mind), the movie stands outside its main characters' plight. This may make it an ordeal for some, running over two hours. But for a story chronicling several levels of Korean-Japanese relations, it is visually arresting, technically virtuosic, and haltingly bold in its eventual conveyance of emotions. Quite the achievement on those scales.

Wayward Pines, Episode Five: The Truth (2015) ***1/2
James Foley, who directed the last Shades of Grey film and will the next, is now a top-tier director hired by A-listers to helm the top TV series (House of Cards, now this). Blake Crouch, authors of the books, pens the script, and he appears to  insert Stanley Kubrick's intention of showing the future's banality in 2001: A Space Odyssey. There are still nicely gradual revelations as the plot gears are the focus now. We sense what all the characters are up to as the sorority/fraternity theme feels natural. 

How the filmmakers handle the teenage kids is especially deft. They sense, wonder, ask questions, and the adults fall just short of answering them completely. So does that enigmatic British actor Toby Jones, whose very appearance makes us question if we're watching a series in another dimension. Sometimes the urgency is lost. We feel things are being dragged out, a little too ponderous, but we go along because the originality as we are now far from Twin Peaks, Crouch's inspiration. Now we're in his grasp.

Wayward Pines, Episode Four, One of Our Senior Realtors Has Decided to Retire (2015) ***
The chase stops, daily life resumes as best it can, and there's a nice transition after the opening as Matt Dillon continues to play along with what can only be described as a false reality. The camera is frequently at eye-level; while not inventive, it brings us closer to what these people think they are seeing and what we think they are experiencing. The music by Charlie Clouser is like Dillon's eyes: depthless, wondering, wandering in every scene if not look.

In the end, this series is commentating on how much we want a safe, gentrified neighborhood. Do we all indeed want it? At what cost?

Being Charlie (2016)  **
We feel how personal this film is from the first fifteen or so minutes. Rob Reiner, that director who began his career with a hot streak in the '80s, was hit and miss in '90s, and has had a few good ones since, has made an intimate movie, we think, about his son, who co-wrote the screenplay. Too bad we eventually do not know what the message of this film is, or more importantly, what Charlie, a nineteen year-old just out of rehab and struggling with addiction, wants out of life. 

I said this was a personal story. We have no idea of the main character's backstory: college? High School? Friends? The movie starts with Charlie getting picked up by a stranger, by whom he's rightfully abandoned. He calls his best friend. As the two drive around L.A., these scenes of subtle interplay are handled so well, we're braced for a unique story about something. We spot the love interest right away, and her relationship with Charlie is true about many in and out of rehab: a bright beginning, some good times, an abrupt exit. In the background the whole movie is Charlie's parents, and in the last fifteen or so minutes one parent is completely left out to dry dramatically while the other, we guess, has a revelation following a stunning display of naivete. When a key character dies, the funeral is a highlight reel. The last shot is Charlie doing standup. Who was Charlie indeed? What did this movie want to say? How could a sincere movie try to end with an unfunny standup?

Billions, Episode One (2016) - ***
Neil Burger directs mercilessly. He has his actors spit dialogue back and forth. The metaphors are thick early, then back off. Shame about the character development. The most interesting character, an on-site psychologist at a hedge fund, played by Maggie Siff, could have the whole show structured around her. 

Damien Lewis has a few "What's he thinking?" shots. Paul Giamatti on the other hand, always seems to be thinking in one direction. Both leads meditate, so we're rife with parallels. Inspiration, though, eludes, especially with where these people will end up, which ties back to the character this show should be about.

The Missing, Episode Two (2014) - ***
Tcheky Karyo, barely recognizable from his roles in Le Femme Nikita and Bad Boys holds the screen and the key, we feel, to this mystery. It's always the reticent ones. The story now balances the characters and progresses on two fronts, one in the past, the other now.

We're not quite as intrigued because the plot feels stacked and deployed rather than felt. We need to feel something for these people, though the mysteries of the past are the ones we wait. We're just not aching for them.

The Missing, Episode One (2014) - ***1/2
This British crime series is laden with atmosphere. Never has it rained this hard in a French village. The camera is also level and waist-high the majority of the time. We're in the trenches here with James Nesbitt. When the big incident happen, it's harrowing and the camera backs off and circles him, we're disjointed but not dizzy. 

Then we flash forward, and this is unexpected. About halfway through, we know more than the characters. Then the plot extends its tentacles and drops a journalist in the middle of it, who may know more than anyone else. The French police seem suspect, too. There's a lot missing for this family, starting with the child.

The Night Manager, Episode Three (2016)  ***
Now we see some plot elements come out of left field and grind into place at the same time. Where the last installment, I felt, skipped over some things, this time the filmmakers seize us in the first scene. There is a tragedy, beautifully led up to, and cross-cutting that aligns celebration with that sad affair. 

Then the two-shots of people talking grow slow before a great "interrogation" scene as two characters size each other up. The head and over-the-shoulder shots work, and vary slightly. We're slightly adrift, just like the characters, whether they know it or like it or not. We, with another character, sense what's coming. Brits have a way of silently foreshadowing with long looks, some of which aren't that far away from an unsuspecting person. Hence we expect the cat-and-mouse game to amp up. That's a good way to lead us on.

The Night Manager, Episode Two (2016)  ***
Same writer and director, and this time we have a heavenly, out-of-focus opening around a supporting character. That's good: we needed a curveball after the straight-shot first outing. Then we jump around in time, switch locales, and a pivotal scene is handled a little sloppily after what should be a great setup that lulls us in.

We jump again in locales, and speed through a subplot that has to be referred to later. Why? It's Jack Higgins in overdrive, and he was fast at employing barely-known and seen characters in small towns as hideouts. Here those characters also interact with the locals in minutes, something happens, a relationship develops, and is discarded. So much is left hanging from act two that when we switch back to the first location where the pivotal scene took place, the filmmakers skip part of the grand setup that opened this episode. It's messy, but compelling. The great ending on where we're about to embark saves it.

The Night Manager, Episode One (2016)  ***1/2
I don't know the writer David Farr, but he, with famed Danish director Susanne Bier, has efficiently adapted a John Le Carre novel. The framing and editing are just enough, as are the closeups of Tom Hiddleston. This is also the role Hugh Laurie was born to play. He has an air about him, like he's capable of anything, even walking around with a serious expression in red pants and a scarf. He's the kind of character that could turn hero or villain, and that's partly why he's so materially successful. 

This first installment has a great ending. It pulls the common Le Carre settings of Northern African with mountainous central Europe and the U.K. This kind of plot-driven story gradually draws us in. After all, we do wonder what's behind those taut, busy, almost pained expressions of night managers at international hotels. Maybe that's where he got the idea.

The Night Of, Episode: Ordinary Death (2016) ****
The opening shot is a main character's reaction to a new plot development. Yes, the makers have the courage to do this because we know the characters so well. The courtroom stills are the setup, and are followed by two women in a bathroom in an understated yet harrowing scene. Where and how do women fit into this story anyway? Is gender a factor? Yes and no. 

A picture of birds, a woman in a Burkha: these stills, which take seconds, establish the often-ignored subtext, part of my upcoming interview with Dr. Linda Seger. From that subtext we get empathy: are the co-owners of the taxicab company thieves, protecting their business, or both? Is the father a father of a killer, and is that worse than a thief? I'm not sure if they know, or anyone in these situations, revolving around this criminal justice system, knows. A mom hangs up on her son...why? Then comes a kiss that throws just about everything away. We didn't see this coming, and I wonder if the co-writers, still Richard Price and Steven Zaillian, saw it either.

The Night of: Samson and Deliliah (2016)  ****
We start again with the lawyer, John, and go back to the mom's story. The slowly zooming camera always works. Then we go back to the plot of the night something happened and tie it nicely to Chandra. She has the single most chilling scene questioning someone who somehow slipped through the initial investigation. I suppose that's how investigations work: you uncover something later that,  looking back, went unnoticed by someone who appears to be thorough. Chandra's big eyes and face are perfect for showing this discovery.

Single shots such as a woman cleaning with a mop convey enough, and take a few seconds. Steven Zaillian is still directing, and co-writing now with Richard Price. The ensemble is cued by the Chinese medicine man--foreign influences gradually creep into American cities, sometimes noticed, sometimes not. A character's problem is solved; this also goes unnoticed. We sure do see the clothes change in the courtroom, which is cut short before throwing us back to a key plot point, or muddled reaction from the first episode that we remember clearly now. That's great filmmaking right there.

The Night Of, Episode: The Art of War (2016)  ****
This starts right where the last episode ended with an overhead shot of the burnt bed. Nasir is forced to find a new mentor. Deals are done in code as a form of navigating the prison system. Of all the prison films and TV series done before, never has suggestion balanced direct action before like this. The funeral scene is great--brief, illuminating, and a setup for two episodes later. As is the non-traditional yet straight-forward framing of the courtroom. A new attorney played by Glenne Headly appears on the scene, and we want to go with her, watch her talk straight at us. Why? She appears trustworthy.

Everyone appears trustworthy, one of the many themes that propel this story. We know some may vanish, others will be explored, but in a terrifying, walled-in world, we have to believe in someone, something, some time. The more Richard Price, Steven Zaillian, and the cinematographer Igor Martinovic, his fourth turn behind the camera here, teach us, the greater we realize how much they have yet to reveal. What's that Einstein quote? "The more I know, the more I realize how little I know." We are also entertained and learn so much along the way. 

The Night Of, Episode: A Dark Crate (2016)  ****
With natural light, this is starting to feel like an Alan Parker film, the kind he made in his Mad Dog days of Fame, Pink Floyd: The Wall, and Shoot the Moon. With the sidelong lighting and natural soft shadows in harsh circumstances, we'll see a brief shot of a kids' play area in a prison visitation room. One character's exema demands cisco cream and saran wrap. That metaphor is the most overt part of the show. Little details like these, done in seconds on screen, add so much. They're part of the picture and portrait we're seeing. 

Nasir, the main character, could integrate, doesn't, and is everything is set up for the ending, which is a little melodramatic. Then again, with this setup, we have to see the payoff, and whether and how Nasir will persevere. We've never seen a story quite like this before. Even with the ethnic bent, the angle at which we'v approached this enduring situation never feels oblique.

I was reminded of my interview with Christopher Vogler. To paraphrase, he said the rapidity of our pacing in visual storytelling has created a hunger in our collective attention spans. That goes with the plunge this show takes into our psyche, along with the criminal justice system. Everything ties together, and that's what makes this the best TV show of 2016.

The Night of, Episode: Subtle Beast (2016)  ****
The first two scenes are great storytelling. The cinematographer, Igor Martinovic, has a slightly moving camera. He has shots of slightly dripping water, slightly running water. The plot is drawn out, lulling us, but the photography and editing are so good, we notice the filmmaking, and that's a good thing. We watch machines, doors open and close, and see people approach us and veer away. All this is juxtaposed with shots of how big these buildings are. These facets with the haunting music draw us in even more, and we brace for what's next. That's also a good thing, even on Rikers Island.

The Night Of, Episode: The Beach (2016)  ****
Having been a fan of Richard Price since The Color of Money, I eagerly sat down to watch this wary of his comfort with the police procedural plot. This introduction deals with the intricacies, picayune, and logistics of a police procedural, and is multisensory: as we follow a young man of Pakistani descent in New York City, there are moments without dialogue, but we feel. We are with Nasir Khan (Riz Ahmed) as he takes his father's taxi down into New York. Plot details are the bare essentials, and personalities gradually revealed, especially as the inciting incident, as it were, occurs.

Then comes the procedural Price knows so well, and this is taken to the hilt. Price wrote the teleplay, and the direction is by unheralded, underappreciated Steven Zaillian, whom I'm not sure how many recall his winning an Oscar for writing Schindler's List. He directs with veteran virtuoso cinematographer Robert Elswit, who seems to have worked on every other heralded film of the last decade. The episode is perfectly shot, acted, staged, and executed. Phones and technology are used sparingly, because this, folks, is all about the people.

Angel Heart (1987) ***1/2
You know a movie stands the test of time when you think of it in light of so many thrillers made now. I thought of Alan Parker's nightmare film during Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island now almost seven years ago. This movie is a masterpiece at establishing atmosphere, at leading us on yet involving us so deeply we never question the authenticity of the scenes before us. When two men attack Harold Angel, played by Mickey Rourke in a career-best performance, in an African American town hall, we never think why. We're too in-step with Harold. 

This was also the first time I saw a movie with a Special Apperance By credit to such a big star in Robert De Niro. He inhabits his role so well, that by the end we really believe he is who he says he is. Lisa Bonet, thrown off The Cosby Show because of the content of this film, equally fills hers. Parker's repetitiveness, which showed up in Midnight Express, rears its head right near the end. Otherwise, this movie is a fastball in its thrills that builds and still scares us twenty-nine years later. The end credits remain the perfect touch, and was also something I hadn't seen before. We have to stay to the end, just like Harold.

Blood Father (2016)  **1/2
You do wonder why many filmmakers impose a constant, driving pace that frequently involves a jerky camera. This time the camera almost drives the movie into the ground. Having just seen Allied, the quiet intimacy of cinema gets lost so many other times and leaves us warded off from the screen. Mel Gibson is still a good actor. His scenes with Erin Moriarty are the best in the film, and the showdown is different. The ending works. Shame about those scenes where armed Mexicans approach a trailer and the neighbors arrive with even more guns to stand up for Gibson.

It's cinematic moments like these that make you wonder what countries around the world think of America. I imagine many think we've got a screw loose. Time to nail that camera into the ground and let us soak up the glorious southwest. A little sense of order, moral or by law, wouldn't hurt either.

Mississippi Burning (1988)  ***1/2
Alan Parker's film lost Best Picture to Rain Man, and Gene Hackman lost to Dustin Hoffman. The latter I can see, the former is tough to take. Right after Angel Heart and having worked my way through Parker's repertoire including Angel Heart which came out the year before, I expected another fastball that hits one over the head. This movie wasn't. So fueled by anger before, the director seemed more into sizing up the situation from the point of view of two FBI investigators. That's a smart move: he knows he cannot place himself squarely in the shoes of the African American experience of the American South. As a foreigner, though, he can study our society from the ground up, outside in, you get the point.

This movie is a procedural on a few levels, about the agents and how locals perceive the culture and themselves in a tumultuous time. Notice the documentary-like interviews inserted between the investigation scenes and those of whites assaulting blacks. This movie doesn't seem out to prove anything but merely show. In the middle of this approach is a strong, complete performance by Hackman. He wins every scene and Parker and Peter Biziou (who won the Oscar) shoot him close up to reveal his buried feelings. This is especially in his scenes with Frances McDormand, who also lost the Supporting Oscar to Geena Davis. The one fault among the story elements is the grinding musical score, used to the point of distraction and for different purposes. Is it simply foreshadowing? It's not underlying the action and doesn't add to any themes.

This movie is different in a few big ways, and stands the test of time. Looking at it now, and never having been to Mississippi, I wonder how much has changed. Its importance hasn't.

11.22.63 - Episode Eight (2016) **1/2
The breakneck opening is one we've been waiting for. The camera literally whirls for the first time. When we flash forward, then back, however, and focus on the love-struck Franco...well, the filmmakers sidestep a ton. Franco belongs in espionage instead of love caught in the middle. Notice I did not say lust. I didn't feel any. Same goes for urgency. Then again, maybe this series set itself up to dissatisfy. Since the grand event happened, so many questions are left un-raised and none answered, we're left with too much and too little to contemplate. Once every eight hours isn't bad, but there are ways to fulfill and reward people for watching. We don't sense a changed person or world, only one that whisked us away for a while and sustained admirably, dangerously, and ended dutifully.

11.22.63 - Episode Seven (2016) ***1/2
The power of suggestion is something we all know and most can relate to, I think. Starting on November fifth, quickly moving to the seventh, the twelfth, and so on, the Oswald scenes are SO good and the memory subplot and these are handled so well, we really do wonder if history hangs in the balance. Bridget Carpenter wrote this one again. She holds all the cards and deploys them with cautious glee.

A key supporting character dies, lending to efficiency. That was necessary. Time speeds up, which is almost Lynchian. A domestic scene with Oswald and his mom is so effective that when the following one gets out of confrontation too quickly, we're let down. Franco's still looks continue to work. Cherry Jones as an actress asserts herself so carefully that we accept it as part of her personality. How easily she gives herself over to the main character's cause, though, is tough to stomach. Then we get the ending zoom and much is forgiven. This show is one long setup. That's why it matters so much, and reflects us along with it.

11.22.63 - Episode Six (2016)  ***1/2
This time we have a good, healthy change-up to start, where Oswald and his wife give the best subtle acting of the series in a domestic scene that puts many others in movies to shame. Death and emotional (re)attachment emerge as themes. Then there's eavesdropping: we all wish we could hear what the Oswalds said leading up the historic event.This show is also multi-sensory as there are lulls and then emotional and plot screws tighten at a party scene that is brilliantly staged and cut together. 

There is a scene with two guys that is not that interesting. The real deal is in the plot trends and how they emerge. Then the episode ends with a brilliant observation. Amberson (Franco) has the upperhand, then he doesn't. The photography is stylish, then isn't. Th gambling plotline recalls David Swanson's great book Blood Aces about the gambling Dallas was. We end with a much-needed cliffhanger. This was the shot in the arm this series needed. Perhaps Bridget Carpenter, on board this series from the beginning, should write on her own more.

11.22.63 - Episode five (2016)  ***
This opens with a change-up, back to the present with our main character teaching The Odyssey. What we blieve trumps truth, he says, and his personal issues indeed get in the way of what's historically important. That's the message, and it's true of this episode. 

The classic hostage-blackmail scene doesn't help, but Franco, the director this time, frames an overhead shot that is wonderful. This guy wants to branch out and may sense he's not quite ready to go full bore stylistically. Why do we say that? The ending is sappy. We sense he'll seize the reins and not slow down if given a second chance. 

600 Miles (2016)  **
One character is gradually drawn out, especially as we spend time with him driving around a pickup truck somewhere near the Texas-Mexico border. Another suddenly appears about a third of the way through. Both are true to life. We know they are destined to cross paths. We also have forgotten what a subtle actor Tim Roth is. He always seems to be trying to make sense of the world around him. Remember him in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction over twenty years ago? ​​

This kind of Slow Reveal makes the first two-thirds of 600 Miles enticing and rewarding. Especially if you've read Ed Vulliamy's Amexica knows how readily available guns are in this part of the continent (Hundreds "Within a day's drive," he wrote). The sideviews and over-the-shoulder shots of these characters are the right approaches for these characters. Why does this film take its time so monotonously in Act Three? Several scenes go on way too long, and though we're in suspense, the ending barely makes the grade for "ambiguous." What are we supposed to take away from this movie? What's the message? Shows such as The Bridge know how to propel a plot and plant character subtlety with an underlying sense of danger. This story needed an arc.

11.22.63 Episode Four  ****
The plot shifts up a few gears and we get just enough of our characters before events spur them on. They also react, which is key. They are as unsure as the audience about this time. So much about racial relations, social relations, what the country is ready for, which direction it should take, we wonder indeed how much has changed over the last fifty-three years. 

The emotional development surges, almost as if it found its place in the story. The climax of this episode leaves us very hungry for what happens next. At hour four, that's what you want.

11.22.63 Episode Three  ***
This story section sets up what we presume will be the climax (Hence the title). It also slows way down when our main character goes into teaching. This part is not action-oriented and we're unsure of our emotional involvement. 

Then the story builds toward a climax as the story filmmakers smartly move past the teaching facet (there's a little Back to the Future here) and reinvests in building the story around the CIA, Oswald, and the latter's wife. We sense unexpected emotional developments will occur but can't quite place them. You have to remember that before people become famous, many lead pretty ho-hum lives. This isn't delved into so much as it provides ground for our main characters to speculate and play off of. That's okay: it's intriguing, not galvanizing, and we're ready to accelerate a fair amount.

11.22.63 Episode Two  ****
Joe Gilford talked in his book about Plants and Payoffs, and they are crucial to a mini-series that runs almost eight hours. It's also important to stick to a theme. James Franco and company have wisely given themselves a broad timeline. Stephen King creeps in with a personal story to match the outsized stakes. Franco's likeness to a young James Dean keeps him perfect for his role, and his subtle acting sneaks up on the story here.

This installment is so well-paced and cut together that we don't even notice death as a central idea getting explored. There's also a spiritual side, with consequences of actions to come. Which ties back to Gifford's concepts.

11.22.63 (2016) Episode One  ****
Talk about thematic, economical filmmaking. Kevin Macdonald proved to be an expert director at moving stories along with The Last King of Scotland. This first episode is supposed to entice us into watching seven more, and it does purely with Stephen King's device of using a closet to go back in time. The camera is frequently chest-high, photographing heads or upper bodies, so we don't get the full picture on a few levels. James Franco is perfectly cast because, well, he does look a lot like James Dean. He inhabits his role and the early sixties era so naturally we never get the feeling this young, prolific actor is never in over his head. He never sees what's coming but was born curious.

There are always new angles to the JFK assassination. King knows this. As developed for TV by Bridget Carpenter, the filmmakers know not to play up this angle too much. Chris Cooper and initiate emotion with little physical movement. We're never quite sure of his awareness an d buried past in everything he does. And Franco, at one point seeking to direct a film adaptation of James Ellroy's American Tabloid, is clearly interested in this era. That's another reason why this feels natural: the makers are i this to the hilt. So are we. 

Seven Psychopaths (2012)  **
Martin McDonagh's second big film to crack the U.S. market has a great cast, economical editing, and a paper-thin storyline that feels like a film school exercise. The reaction shots to jokes are just that; so obvious, so plain, and suggesting nothing at all. In Bruges, McDonagh's first film was about real human emotion, and unfortunately in Act Three shifted one character's moral dilemma to that of another in order to wind up the story. But the conclusion was there. Here we don't care about Act Three because the setup, amusing at times, doesn't involve real people. Thus the references to heaven, hell, and the commentary on male-male and male-dog relationships don't mean much, except that to a man women come in a distant second dogs. 

We can imagine this kind of story happening, especially in L.A. That's what the movie wants us to think. This premise might be getting old, though writers such as Robert Crais and Duane Swiercizynski find new ways to present characters and put them through believable stories in this backdrop. McDonagh should consult them, and put his talent for moving stories along with his editing and framing to use. Then his movies would relate, and matter, more. 

Le Boucher (1969)  ****
While watching this story unfold, It took about ten minutes to conclude that less is indeed more. Claude Chabrol's classic runs at eighty-seven minutes, and its greatness sneaks up on us in that short of time. Martin Scorsese once said that film transports us to a different place and time. The fact that we can watch a thriller set in a (very) small French village in the late 1960s and be captivated by its last twenty minutes is amazing. If film is the history of men photographing beautiful women, according to the French who invented the auteur theory, then what's the great director did here. There are scenes where his star Stephane Audran simply walks around her apartment, opens and closes curtains, then drawers, then one time opens a window and looks out. Chabrol zooms out; we leave her like that, the scene ends.

What's so refreshing is that the actions, so little, mean so much. A key decision and movement, plainly photgraphed, comes about two-third into the story. This leads to the mystery's solution. But how quick a decision was it? We don't know. What we do know, by the end, is one character was safely ensconced in her private and professional lives, was drawn out of them, and, with us, are left to wonder what it was and what will happen next. That's a little of what the ending shots are all about. Then think back to how Chabrol's camera scans the landscape, the placement of the caves in the opening shots, the passing of night and day near the end. All the meaning is there. He's made us feel, think, wonder, and ponder long after the closing shot. Not many films you can say that about, especially when they came from a radically different place and time, and that's only the start of the little differences that add up. The story, however, reaches everyone. I'd bet a lot on that.

The Hateful Eight (2015)  ***
You have to admire Quentin Tarantino's courage in his chosen art form. This is his eighth film, and every one of his efforts have started anew, ignoring his previous venture. This one starts with a virtuoso opening shot with majestic music by the great Ennio Morricone. The shot takes its time, as does the director. The first forty-five minutes or so are the best. The writer-director is a master at having us watch people, even if, at the end of the day, they are just tramping around in the snow.

Given the settings, we sense the filmmakers backed themselves into a corner and are making due. Many know about this film's script getting leaked approximately two years ago that forced the writer-director to start from scratch. We can only wonder what the original story was. We admire his bravado, but the technique seems, well, at this point only that. We've also seen it before from him. The actors soldier with the material but they con't have much depth, even with much trucked-in backstory. We need more, less, or better quality of dialogue-driven revelations. That was Quentin's hallmark. We sense he will return to top form again, with no memory of this outing whatsoever.

Bloodline Part 2 (2015)  ***
How good is it when a huge, pivotal event occurs in a story and the audience doesn't see it? We're closer to the characters. Warren Etheredge, in a writing class in Seattle, showed my classmates and I how reaction, not events, is drama.

Kyle Chandler, after strong, suggestive supporting roles in Zero Dark Thirty, The Spectacular Now, and The Wolf of Wall Street, finally shows he can carry a story on his back, so to speak. I say that because his role in the family is clearly defined though his character is still unearthing parts of himself, of others, with and against his will. Linda Cardellini and Ben Mendelsohn are the same way, yet different. They all wear the buried past on their sleeves yet are constantly trying to re-bury it, afraid of what will surface. That reflects a few people we know.

Bloodline Part 1 (2015)  ****
Now here's a talking picture coupled with visuals and drama that play out. The atmosphere you can sink into. Never has Florida seemed so sumptuous, seductive, and lonely. That's surprising since this story starts at a huge family gathering. 

This story revolves around the family and we gradually, one by one, peak into people's lives. A recent interview with Jennifer Van Sijll revealed that all the great characters are introverts. A returning forty-five year-old brother of our main character may be an introvert, but more certain is that he's been beaten down by life events. We know those kids from big, materially successful families. In this episode, a spat between two characters, with one playing mediator in between, grows contentious. In this long form of storytelling, the banter and scene grow, stagnate, taper off, then get going again until another character steps in. We are so grateful because curiosity about family never abates. This series knows this to the core.


All Things Must Pass (2015)  ****
Rare is the documentary that has that one storytelling element: the more specific the subject choice, the more universally it relates to everyone. Colin Hanks directs a story about Tower Records as it evolved for nearly half a century before closing its final store in America in December 2006. I remember "Tower Stops" in the '90s. One was immediately after seeing Cameron Crowe's film Singles. The soundtrack had all the prominent alternative bands and was a hit, in conjunction with Pearl Jam's Ten and Soundgarden's Bad Motorfinger. My friend and I chatted with the clerks for twenty minutes. This documentary interviews passionate people who grew up with Tower Records in California, who loved it as a place to work. It was a particular culture people knew. 

Russell Solomon created a thriving retail chain that expanded too fast and is now carried on and appreciated elsewhere in the world. (I will not give away where outside the U.S.). It's also the profile of a business, changing industry, different generations, supplanting the one that made Tower Records soar. People don't stop in CD stores much now, have their own individual music stations on their phones. Or has the sense of community changed today? What will be the next Tower? It may not happen here, by a small group of people, some of whom worked there more than forty years with Russell. Either way, this film demands to be seen by fans of music, history, business, and those who enjoy watching people. That was another pasttime at Tower Records.

Zoolander 2 (2016)  **1/2
Oh Ben Stiller has talent and is at his best when he's in character. It's even better when his character is put upon. Him in Deadpool would be a home run. As Derek Zoolander hiding out in a cabin in Northern New Jersey, he's hilarious, and does a smart thing as a director. We simply spend time with him. The gags are sprinkled here and there, and we enjoy watching this guy with his perfectly tousled hair make tea and lounge around a living room made out of logs and stone. He has a throwaway line that is so funny, we want this to continue. Alas, Derek is called to action, we meet Hansel again, also hiding out, and both are being tracked by Penelope Cruz and Interpol who suspect a criminal plot.

The story gets going, along with a gallery, then a convention, of characters, the culmination of which is the reintroduction of Jacobim, played by Will Ferrell. His confrontation with Derek stalls the film a little, then a lot. We feel the strain of the story as the last noisy twenty minutes drag with Ferrell and reaction shots and in-jokes by towering fashion icons in cameos. Man, do we lose interest.

​We need much more of Derek and his son, so well played by Cyrus Arnold. Stiller, though, as a director and all great comedians, takes chances. Who else dares to make fun of Malala? Why not make her the villain? Recycling the same villain who then occupies drab, strange scenes nowhere near reality is uninspired. It's hard not to pin it on Ferrell, and when this facet of Stiller's filmmaking changes, he'll be back on top.

Deadpool (2016)  ***
It is indeed difficult not to like a movie that laughs at itself and has you laugh maybe fifteen times. It's even harder to judge such a movie. It's crisply made and edited, especially in a bar scene that sets up the romantic storyline. This part of the plot is all but dropped for a twenty minute span in the middle, and we're a tad lost. Through this sequence and most of the movie, we sense Ryan Reynolds draws too much attention to himself; his reaction shots are when he's best, but he comes across as so self-centered and absorbed, we laugh more when he's framed, caught, and unsure how to escape predicaments.

With all the references, the target audience appears to be twenty-five and up. With all the references to other genres, and there are many, seventeen and up will get most. Ambition is here and a world is created, starting with dazzling opening credits. For some, this will be a classic. For others, it's witty entertainment, so disappointments aside, we're on board and laugh fairly often.

Wayward Pines Episode 3: Our Town, Our Law (2015)  ***
This show is still great with one tough dynamic that grows out of one inspiring development. Two characters join our main character and don't question much around them; they only question enough to keep the plot moving. This also hearkens back to Roger Ebert's Idiot Plot idea, where one character could say one thing to another and much would be resolved, or in this case, cleared up. Or, more importantly, it would open up dramatic tension of a new sort.

However, and this is a big one, the filmmakers handle a Big Reveal at the end of this episode very well. They also manage several along the way, sort of like winning battles in a war. You win enough to keep going, and are inspired to wonder. The economicity of the filmmaking, with no glaring visuals, is belied and overcome by ideas. There you are.

Wayward Pines Episode 2: Do Not Discuss Your Life Before (2015)  ***1/2
Now this show kicks into gear. Scenes finally transition and build to a shocking climax that's in the book. The filmmkaers leave the right parts in. As my recent interview with Adam Coplan shows, questions are essential at the beginning, and some good suggestive acting by Carla Gugino and Matt Dillon keep us drawn in. We know the villain but we don't know why. This installment also starts more cinematic with a show shot over the shoulder and head of a child. It's shots like these that stir emotions.

Building on that, this story section builds on Dillon's disorientation and all the relations between the characters. It centers on how much, how little, and what people assume they know about each other. That's why this series hits home.

Wayward Pines Episode 1: Where Paradise is Home (2015)  ***
One immediate reaction to this first attempt is, "So much for the Slow Reveal." Blake Crouch knew how to balance plot and character and slowly reveal the world he created. He was after the notion of discovery the whole way. This episode starts with a slow discovery and cuts back and forth between Seattle and Idaho, though they don't look as contrasting if you've been to these places. I remember Idaho as dry. The family's short scenes in Seattle are intercut pretty nicely, and interiors in both locales are serene.

The director is M. Night Shyamalan, and he's inserting and asserting atmosphere with stylized shots. Economicity of filmmaking takes over with a long chase; while Crouch had kids taunting our hero Ethan, played by Matt Dillon, who can pass for thirty-seven even though the actor just passed fifty, during his extended trek beyond ... well, you should read the book. Then watch this. The supporting performances shine (Melissa Leo and Juliette Lewis especially) and Dillon is off-center. We're trying to figure things out with him, and this works enough though transitions lurch. Maybe they have to, given that we've seen the corrupted small town before.

Harper (1966)  ***
Having read Ross Macdonald's book on which this film is based, I knew what to expect. I bet the element of surprise at the amount of plotting and scheming took those who didn't read the book by surprise. Then again, it's a throwback to noir of the thirties and forties, so maybe we should prepare today's audiences for the use of plot. Macdonald was an author who knew exactly how to stay two or three steps ahead of the reader. The man had done his research, formulated the events that led to scenes as we entered them.

We enter and exit every scene with Paul Newman as Lew Harper, a private investigator. When Newman turned seventy in 1995 and was featured on the cover of Newsweek, the profile writer noted that the star has been romancing indeed us, the viewer, for four decades, not the ladies on the screen. It is so true here. Only this icon could pull maintain this gruff demeanor, almost misanthropic standoffishness, and in one scene, blatant self-centered actions. He is surrounded by finely etched characters in a sleek California landscape. This is quite a tour of a time, but we also see a star stewarding us through a tough world at arms length. We almost don't bother adding up the number of schemes and double-crosses, but we know just enough. Newman and Macdonald knew that, and how to deploy it on a few levels.

Orphan Black (2013) - Episode One: Natural Selection  ****
This show plunges us over a cliff and hurls fastballs at us all the way down without letting up. It gives us interesting characters with scenes just long enough we wonder what they'll do next. We meet them with personalities pretty well formed yet evolving as people, if that makes sense. Don't we in our mid-twenties?

We also re-visit the same settings three or four times in this first forty-five minute episode, which lets the makers focus on the plot. We're confused yet oriented. The characters, especially Tatiana Maslany, suggest depth and brevity in the face of ever-shifting circumstances. The makers, chiefly John Fawcett and Graeme Manson, know that this is enough for building and indicating character before hurling another event, propelled by some backstory somewhere, at us. This kind of real, unfurling escapism is what we need. No wonder it achieves a cumulative 8.4 on the IMDB three years after it's release.

Blue Thunder (1983)  ***1/2
Many ideas are crammed into John Badham's Blue Thunder, starting with the disclaimer at the beginning. You'll see what I mean. This is an harbinger of a few incidents involving the police, recording events, invasion of privacy, and the police state. Technology is the center of it all, as is the focal character, played by Roy Scheider whom, in his forties, is perfectly cast. He's worn down but not too much by the system. Inside ten minutes we are thrown into this world and its ideas, and at fifteen minutes have the plot in motion. The soundtrack is also established with its bold, rising chords; we're with this guy and his flashbacks all the way.

Scheider and Daniel Stern spy on people, catch people off-guard, always from above and with a spotlight. This was a unique perspective to people, and a different approach to an action movie. The last thirty minutes is non-stop action, and the one act at the end by Scheider says so much. Building toward that third act, however, is klunky, when he returns to police headquarters and steals the copter. 

Still, Badham is in his prime, with this film and WarGames coming out right near each other. He knows how to integrate technology and spend time with characters instead of inserting events that blindside everyone. 

Uncle John (2015)  **
Filmed in and around Lodi, Wisconsin, this movie has all the makings of a great thriller, and like many-a-movie has a great opening, a great first thirty minutes with exterior shots and interiors with its main character. His name is John, played by veteran actor John Ashton (both Beverly Hills Cop movies, Midnight Run) and he lives alone on a farm. He, we think, commits a terrible if questionable act and, we think, covers it up. He meets friends, three other white middle-aged men, at a coffee shop daily. In the A-story-B-story format, this is the A-story and we are intrigued.

Shame about the B-story. We meet John's nephew who works at a small advertising office who has a romantic seance with his new producer who moved to this small town from New York (they say Chicago in the movie though this is clearly not Chicago. Why do they always scrimp on details like this in some movies?). The romance between these two characters, the scenes, the dialogue, the acting are all so second-tier to the first part of the movie we can't wait to get back to solemn, world-weary John. It's with this second story that the land-loving cinematography goes haywire along with the writing, acting, framing etc. Then there's the ending with a rock soundtrack I don't what is supposed to indicate. We don't even know how John feels though the symbolism is there. If it's without meaning, though, what is symbolized? What is this movie trying to say?

Trainwreck (2015)  **1/2
Judd Apatow continues to direct amidst his reign as the king of comedy in Hollywood. He has good ideas, a script by nascent star Amy Schumer, and a pretty solid cast. This does not mean the execution is top notch, and the director may be complacent, with a better script in the pipeline to sharpen his chops.  A challenge to his throne might be healthy. We're not over the moon with this outing, but we do recognize many situations even if they don't pan out.

After a pretty funny opening, we're with a female character who has several indulgences and works at a racy magazine. These scenes, again, we recognize but don't laugh out loud, especially at moments when there should be a payoff to finish exchanges and cut right to what happens next. This pattern stays consistent with LeBron James, who plays himself very well, and Bill Hader, solid as the unsuspecting, straight-laced doctor. Watch when James acts as if he left his wallet in his car and wants Hader to pay the bill in a restaurant. The first two-thirds of this scene are amusing and bring a smile, then let us down before jumping ship. Schumer is funny in parts but doesn't give herself much of a character, so isn't this ironic that a movie script by its female star has the worst-written part while the men are given all the good material?

Then there are the nursing home scenes, which don't build on the opening. Scenes of two women in the office acting like horribly immature high schoolers make us half-cringe. Comedy, in an upcoming interview I have with Steve Kaplan, is naked truth. But it also has to be funny, and closer to the truth so we immediately identify. We can only hope not too many people identify with this main character or her workplace. In testing proximity to truth, then, makes this movie somewhat healthy to experience. Now Apatow needs to get back to reality.

Blind (2014)  **
This Norwegian film came highly recommended, currently achieves a seven on the Internet Movie Database, and has the director's name above the title, which suggests originality. It's original alright, and boring, and eventually shallow. I like it when a film changes directions on us, operates by its own rules, experiences with framing so we're not sure how immersed in the characters we are, yet still willing to follow it.

Then the film, about halfway, breaks its own rules, appears to lose interest in its characters, and is sprawling in its own space and time dimensions. It's all about one person's psyche, but a key character is left out to dry after he has nowhere to go. Hence, with so much of our time invested, we feel cheated overall and not sympathetic for another character who screams for sympathy. Sometimes where a film comes from doesn't matter much no matter how original it is; it won't stir the emotions in us before banally admitting to toying with us. Come to think of it, that might be international and transcend borders, but not necessarily entertaining.

Chi-Raq (2015)  **1/2
Oh how this movie matters and wow does it take an oblique angle in approaching its subject. People should see it, or parts of it. Spike Lee again pays much attention to his titles. The song and lyrics draw us in and alert us to what's been happening in Chicago while the U.S. government focuses much of its attention on its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is why I value Spike: he alights information that's been on the sidelines yet right in front of us. For twenty-nine years we've sensed Lee's importance as a cultural icon and now, as billions of dollars have been and remain spent abroad, look how some of our citizens have lived these past fifteen years?

This time he really swings for the fences artistically, and in a way, unfortunately, distracts us from his fastball. The cadence and rhyming dialogue wear out their originality and scenes lose shape, especially as the filmmakers cut back and forth when people are talking in single rooms. We need to hear their plight, get to know them, and can't. On the other hand, Samuel L. Jackson as the narrator is wonderful, as is Teyonah Parris as Lysistrata. This is a star-making performance for her. This movie is so important that it overwhelms itself, especially in a scene with John Cusack as a white minister in a predominantly African American church. His speech hits on so many notes we lose interest. Lee does better when he focuses on a narrow story that means so much and is so much more universal. Clockers, which came out in 1995 amidst an economic boom, comes to mind, and was also about violence in inner-city projects and communities. Maybe Richard Price, whose novel that movie was based, kept him to a structure. Lee matters, his movies should not be overlooked. They can, however, be tighter, and have more impact.

Sorcerer (1977)  ****
Over the last fifty years or so, William Friedkin's career as a filmmaker has been one of keen intrigue. We're always interested in what he's doing. The director has the breadth and depth of great movies in The French Connection and The Exorcist. He's also had his disappointments with Deal of the Century and Jade. He's also at home in male-oriented action pieces such as To Live and Die in L.A. I read about this movie in Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls in 1998. Read the movie was released many places outside the United States and drew mostly rave reviews. When I discovered it was available, a few others and I jumped at the chance.

This viewing experience was worth the wait. Here's a movie that understands storytelling principles, its needs, how the storytellers can approach and go about the story without suspending our interest even for a second. That is, I'm not sure there's a wasted shot. Walon Green, who wrote The Wild Bunch, knows how to tell a narrow story and link it to larger ideas and movements across national borders. This story is preeminent in the context of global capitalism, incarceration, displaced men, and corporate power. Why is it not that bleak? Because we understand. We get the minimalist ending in full; everything accumulates. This is an experience with Friedkin: gritty, real, and never condescending. Watch how the director cuts back and forth between running legs and nature at a standstill at a key plot point near the end. He's always in control, all the actors seem on board, and so are we in this brutal world. We know that, and seldom admit it.

Time Out of Mind (2015)  **1/2
Oren Moverman's The Messenger and Rampart got great performances out of Woody Harrelson, who always seems to wander into scenes out of nowhere. Both movies were about dysfunctional men dealing with societal ills, and they're equally afflicted as the characters they meet. This film stars Richard Gere in one of his best performances as a homeless man who tries to connect, obliquely approaches people, makes conversation, defends himself, always at odds with everyone. Homelessness is an enduring issue: the opening shot of a layered city slowly pans from inside an apartment. These down-and-outers are indeed part of the landscape.

Urgency is missing, however, even with one of the best supporting performances I've seen in a long, long time, by Ben Vereen. I saw him as a musician at a county fair. He creates one of the most convincing, memorable, authentic characters we've seen and never misses a beat. His eyes are always alert, even when he repeats himself, especially when he repeats himself. To invoke this site, this movie takes on a serious matter, and wanders too long. We need to know more, and following these people around with meandering scenes, and a looming yet largely absent conflict, is not enough. Moverman has the tools, now he needs to engage us.

House of Cards Season 3 Episode 2 (2015)  ***1/2
Robin Wright is in top form and frames this episode. We've been waiting for her to erupt, or seize the reins, or go in a completely unexpected direction. John David Coles directs again (they probably hire directors to direct consecutively) and, with a script by John Mankiewicz, this walks the tightrope of soap opera and reality with realistic entrances and dramatic exits. Heck, don't we feel that way sometimes? 

Both principles face attacks. Phones are reactions and muted reactions telling. Doug Stamper is half-stuck, half-rejuvenation. The split-screen shows people halfway in with little details that feel just right; a spill on a skirt while dialing for dollars. This messy business goes in and out of messes with the cool surfaces always intact. The framing is geometric: this is how we long to see the world, and how these people fit in it. Some master plan? Maybe, and the music is hurried and thinking like the characters. The urgency and reactions are there, and emotion, like the urgency missing from episode one, like this year's campaign, just got higher.

House of Cards Season 3 Episode 1 (2015) ***
This has a great opening shot and scene. We're plunged into this world of power along side small-town Ameri​ca. The majority of this episode is extreme close-ups and interiors as The Underwoods pursue their agendas on one hand. The other hand deals with Doug Stamper's rehabilitation. We go back and forth between his recovery and the first couple's relationship, neither of which are galvanizing, but we wonder where we're headed. A Stephen Colbert scene is handled especially well with reactions; how well does royalty handle when asked directly anyway?

We need the stakes higher. Tony Gilroy surfaces as Executive Producer. His film Michael Clayton knew how to link corporate, law, and global events with main characters of wealth. We need that here. Beau Willimon wrote, and John David Coles directed. A shakeup might be in order, which might result in urgency, which comes from need. 

True Detective, Season 2, Episode 2, "Night Finds You" (2015)  **1/2
The career-best subtle acting by Vaughn, McAdams, and Farrell continues as we are plunged into a missing-person investigation. Then we notice the plot-driven dialogue and man, does that get old. It doesn't suggest. The police procedural dies from the outside in, culminating in overacting by the Hispanic character named Austin, played by Ritchie Coster. Usually not one to judge acting, this actor's enunciation stands out abominably as he slouches, drinks, and talks tough to Vince Vaughn. We know some people like this, but not to this degree with the camera in this tight.

The landscape, which we've seen before, is where the life is. In Vinci, moving cargo, which sometimes you notice if you live in such a place, echoes the moving camera. Quite an event concludes, but it's a surprise, not a spooky shock where he need to know whodunnit. I thought back to the end of one episode in Season One where there was, I think, a dissolve to a man in a gas mask and underwear running around his yard. We had to know who that was; hard to concentrate the next morning. Why? Not sure. This time, we're a tad curious. Then Justin Lin, again directing, blows it with a slow pan backing away from the outside of the place where the act occurred. This kind of filmmaking draws attention to itself. This series needs a director who knows how to suggest to the highest degree, and maybe a rewrite, or a consult, with a master of the police procedural. Richard Price comes to mind. We need to spark curiosity, proceed to shock, then cut away. Only a suggestion.

True Detective, Season 2, Episode 1, "The Western Book of the Dead" (2015)  ***
Plunging us into the new landscape of True Detective, among the best television of the last decade, is a great theme song with arresting images. This episode is written by Nic Pizzolatto and directed by Justin Lin, he who fled daring narratives for the Fast and Furious franchise. Actually, I wasn't even a fan of Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow, lauded by many, where he took an interesting premise and gave us characters we didn't care about in the least. Now he has Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, Vince Vaughn, and Taylor Kitsch, doing the best subtle acting of their careers (especially Farrell and McAdams). Vaughn is always good when he plays straight, and these characters are dwarfed yet stay on even ground with the industry that surrounds them in Vinci, California.

The plot this time revolves around a missing city manager amidst a super-train deal that's about to go through. We don't know quite what roles these characters have, or if they know each other, and that's part of the fun, such as it is. When they act out, though, watch out. Farrell commits a horrific act of vengeance halfway through, but we're with him, where we were before with the superb stars of Season One. Just before three characters come together at the end, however, things slow down in a bar and we linger over two characters too much. The first season was about atmosphere, dialogue, and the actors were shoved into this meat sandwich. We were sucked in and realized how much they're like us at some day jobs or lonely places. This time they are equally trapped on the snaking highways, though oppression, so clear and resonant and spooky the first time out, remains elusive here. We're not sure, so we give it a second shot.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)  **
This movie had four people work on the story and two on the screenplay. One of the screenwriters is the director, Guy Ritchie, and the energy and enthusiasm ends up on the screen. Too bad he likes his characters and we don't know why past their sleek surfaces.

The film stars Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer (who gets top billing) as the rival spies from the 1960s' TV show. Oh how they try, one (Hill) succeeds at personifying a spy in the era while the other (Hammer) looks out of place when he's not wearing that classic hat. The script has no wit; no one has an agenda, so the Ritchie's mechanics of camerawork and editing are literally going through the motions. We could wait for Hugh Grant and others to show up, but why? This is a retread that doesn't know what it is outside of the first-rate Production Design. The music almost saves it, and is probably best heard in the car driving around, with one's imagination not having seen the movie. 

Calvary (2014)  ***
One director, Ron Shelton when he cast Brendan Gleeson in Dark Blue, called him one of the best actors in the world. The opening scene of this movie backs that up with a soft light, shot straight on the actor's face, in a confessional that sets up the rest of the movie. When this priest, who drives a convertible Peugeot, is threatened in the opening scene, he's thereafter afflicted by societal ills. There are threats to him personally, he discovers a local woman who has been beaten, irreverence to the church, a confused young man, and materialism. Everyone verbally unloads on this guy and he bears it all on his shoulders. So where's his outlet? Certainly not his visiting daughter, or his dog, whom he dearly loves, is small consolation. "Some are less scared than others," someone says at one point, and that may be the most marked difference between those who inhabit this land, this story, and those who just go through life not noticing what afflicts them.

Light is big here in interiors and that vast landscape of Ireland we've seen before but seldom seen so scarcely inhabited. If the light isn't indirect, it comes down starkly from overhead. The framing is all over the place. The third act has much philosophizing about God, mercy, death, and this story doesn't lose focus, but the payoff as distracting with a panning shot of those touched by Father that doesn't belong. This film is about whether this priest will lose his cool or not, and his integrity. As you can probably tell, it's about a lot of things, so why doesn't it resonate more with this specific of a story? My guess it overreaches and doesn't quite declare what it's about exactly, centrally. Sometimes a near-success is the hardest kind to pin down and explain.

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015)  ***
Having read Lawrence Wright's book of the same name, not much was a surprise in this documentary. I finished it, though, and that says something. The interviews, especially with former church executives (the official church titles) and people who left such as Paul Haggis, Jason Beghe, and Spanky Taylor add weight, especially Haggis who was at the top of Hollywood's limelight when his film Crash won Best Picture. The extreme closeups and music at the start are effective and the movie builds steam with the interviews and story of people venturing out to sea with Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's Sea Orgs.

Hubbard does not come across as nice, forgiving, or compassionate. He's portrayed as a nut whose people fall under and for some reason don't leave. He repackaged dianetics into Scientology with phrases such as, "You have to be part of our group." One interviewer says, "It's a mixture of emotion and belief you can't get away from." Think about that. The movie really gets interesting with the church's war with the IRS and David Miscavige's reported paranoia and quest for power. (He beckons an image of J. Edgar Hoover). The movie shifts locations and focus to Gold Base in Riverside, California where people are quarantined and allegedly abused.

Why people got involved with this remains a mystery. Were they that lost? Is the church really that strong? Would they really come after people as depicted? Why so secretive? The movie isn't helped by the over-dramatic filmmaking with slow-motion shots and jagged editing. Alex Gibney, the director, didn't need to have this. The fear these people live by and strike in others is enough, but the movie works. So does the belief system for some people. 

The Hunting Ground (2015)  ****
Maybe Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering and associates had this site's title in mind when they made this, their most powerful documentary to date.​ They've taken on one of the most embedded institutions, universities, specifically undergraduate, that hallmark of the American experience, and flipped the premise inside out. Everyone goes to college to get a better job, make lifelong friends; it's a unique way of leaving home and striking out on your own. What many girls don't leave college for is what Dick, Ziering and co. take an x-ray to: experience sexual assault on campus. Sometimes this happens in the first few months of school. Often it's by someone they know and trust. Just as often is the college, fellow classmates, and law enforcement authorities don't take action, or seem to care. 

This film has a great opening, later framed nicely at the end, with shots of high school student reactions when they learn they've been admitted to the college of their choice. Underlying these shots is a huge, basic human feeling: acceptance. Then come shots of pristine college campuses during welcome week. Things turn grim when the filmmakers hold on one girl who breaks down and says she was raped. Many stories come after. The decisions these people make after the crime, yes folks, it is, and the details are unique. This could've been a predictable path for the storytellers, but they know just how to interview people and take us through every facet of these real people's experiences. They also take us through the reports, the percentage of reports and the ultra-low rate of expulsions when the offenders are caught.

Colleges are named: UC-Berkeley, Stanford, and the most prominently displayed, University of North Carolina. A girl there teams up with another and they start to build a case around Title IX. Here's where the film gains traction, covering fraternities, law enforcement, and just when you think things run dry, a big reveal happens in the second half with a prominent person in athletics (then college, now pro) I will not say.

It's huge. So is this film. I haven't welled up much this year; this was heartbreaking and alarming as any I've seen. There are big reasons it didn't get a wide release, that we have to seek it out. Kirby Dick took on the Hollywood ratings system with This Film is Not Yet Rated, the Pentagon with The Invisible War, and now undergraduate colleges. He is important, and shouldn't slow down. He's also careful to show and not sound blaming. But make no mistake: this is as strong an indictment as a film can make. Cynics may question the facts. If they did, I'd echo what Quentin Tarantino said when he gave the Palm d'Or to Michael Moore for Fahrenheit 9/11: this is about filmmaking. This film does it to the hilt.

The Affair - Episode 4 (2014)  ***1/2 
Now the format is firmly in place: part one starts with an exterior shot of a Suffolk police department and we're thrown a slight curveball with a cop revealing a little of his personal life. Consistency sets in as we know as much about him as our two main characters, though we doubt he ventures out much. The framing surfaces as a mainline where Ruth Wilson's legs are usually in the middle of the picture while the ocean is off-kilter and out of the frame. Where Noah is in the frame is equally important. These two people will venture out, and it probably won't be calm, though when is up in the air.

There is a Block Island excursion with our two leads and they draw us in, slowly falling in love, gradually getting to know each other. We learn backstories, though motive for the actions and behavior of two people remains a mystery. They have decades to catch up on and unfold. Actions speak loud with Wilson leaving a bar when things get a tad tense; that's because they could get very tense. Then we realize we understand both people pretty well. We feel the filmmakers are still in complete control. Veteran producer Eric Overmeyer must have a strong hand, and has tapped some wisdom, over the years. Melanie Marnich, the writer, and the director, again Jeffrey Reiner, know balance on so many levels, we wait for a seismic shift that tilts everything. It's all about when these people's uncertainties surface and Dominic West's acting, with his broad face and smile, gets more subtle. He's brave yet fearful all at the same time, sometimes without uttering a word. So is she with lines like "Nothing about you is easy...and I kinda like it." Some of us understand that.

The Affair - Episode 3 (2014)  ***
This section of the unfolding series starts where Noah doesn't want to be: alone with his father in-law. We've all been in situations we don't want to be in, so the storytelling is firmly on principle and therefore sure-footed. This man strikes us as healthy: financially prosperous enough, sexually active with his wife, at least involved with his kids, and a published writer. Not bad. We also knew this from the first episode, so what keeps us watching?

The closeups, the family, and the agendas, that's what. It's one big dance in Montauk New York, and the Locharts emerge as a family doing the best they can with which we can all relate. This installment also ignores the cliffhanger at the end of the preceding episode, but there is that fresh cliffhanger dropped in the middle: "The ocean is mean." It's safer to stay in your own home on the shore, but it may not be the happiest. The differences among these people emerge and we believe they are whole people, which is partly why we keep watching.

The Affair - Episode 2 (2014)  ***1/2
With shifting perspectives, the plot gears finally shift into place. Two parallel paths, both including marriage, upstate New York, intersecting in a small town and revolving around a crime we know nothing about yet has this storyline become a murder mystery as much as about two points of view. Noah and Alison's trajectories, meetings, and families brush right past one another. There are more closeups; we feel closer to these people, but not a police interrogator who handles both evenly. He represents the audience yet we sense he knows something we don't. Or he doesn't. In a nutshell, that's why we keep watching.

The Affair - Episode 1 (2014)  ***1/2
Here's a show with a great opening. We have the "look," from one person attracted to another and another resisting. I was reminded of Louis Malle's Damage when Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche first see each other. Then, as we follow Noah, a high school teacher in New York City, and his family out to his in-laws, the story becomes David Lynchian and by the end of this episode the structure gradually comes into focus. The characters, however, are placid enough and undercurrents are captured in gazes a second too long between two people. Extreme closeups are deployed and where Noah is in the frame seems always key.

The person he drifts toward, or is taken in by, is Alison. How much is she drawn to him? Just how vulnerable is she? This show, if a little contrived in its structure, makes us wonder what comes ahead if not what will happen immediately next. Along the way we discover what came before, which is just as important. The writer, Sarah Treem, and her co-creator, Hagai Levi, must have pored over this first episode for weeks. This time we feel the work a tad and are anxious for more in this little yet expansive universe.

The Connection (2014)  ***
The first five minutes of this French movie has everything: writing, action, dropping us right in the middle of a story and we're galvanized. About cops and drug dealers in 1975 France, we feel its impact today. The child in the first quarter of the film is a revelation, and a connection, so to speak, to our Magistrate and chief investigator played by Jean Dujardin. He and his wife have three kids, and he's drawn into this drug investigation which becomes about two systems that operate similarly and differently. We think of Fritz Lang's M and Michael Mann's Heat.

The police, as directed by the Magistrate, aim to take off the "Octopus's tentacles" and work their way up to the head. We contrast the organizational scenes with the best husband-wife scene in this genre we've seen in a while. Neither person quite understands the other, and this becomes a study of the anatomy of a law enforcer and the world closing in on him, or collapsing around him. Shame about Act Three then, where the cops-criminal storyline is the only one that stays intact, and the ending is an over-the-head theme we didn't see coming.

This movie matters because of what I first wrote above. It gets muddled, is a tad overlong at 135 minutes, and loses focus. We're still, however, stuck with the drug problem in France, Europe, North America, and, it seems, wherever we care to look.

A Simple Plan (1998)  ***1/2
This movie doesn't quite achieve greatness and man is it tough to put your finger on why. Maybe it's the constant presence of Danny Elfman's music, which takes a backseat in the second half which is when the plot and character revelations really shift into place. The acting by Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, and Bridget Fonda, is very good throughout. Sam Raimi, after helming the Evil Dead franchise and before directing the Spider-Man franchise, cuts to closeups just right. The screenplay was by Scott B. Smith, whose book captured all the notes of human nature in the midwest, which as that storytelling hallmark goes, makes it all the more accessible by everyone just as it's so particular. 

It's the quiet scenes that get us. When Thornton confesses to his borther, Paxton, about two-thirds of the way through that he's never kissed a girl. "I wanted to, just to see what other people do." Here's an isolated character, lost, not sure what he missed, what he will do, or what he's capable of. The same goes for Paxton and Fonda, and just about anyone else in this storyline. The camerawork by Alar Kivilo is sloppy framing. With interior shots and those of people just sitting, admitting, does this film approach greatness.

It Follows (2014)  **
The thing about horror movies is they haven't changed much over the last forty or so years. John Carpenter's Halloween was scary because it was grounded in reality but suggested just enough in every scene on different levels. This movie is the same thing over and over again, though that first shot is a doozy. We know the director, David Robert Mitchell, means business, and is out to grab and hold our attention. Shame he doesn't take us some place new or with interesting people. Characters with dialed-down personalities, mannered line deliveries, and long stares does not mean interesting.

Attempts are there to create suspense. Scenes are drawn out, we wait for the surprise shot for who or what is really in the room, then we see a revelation similar to what we saw thirty years ago. Mitchell follows one rule laid down masterfully by Jacques Tourneur in 1942 with Cat People: what is just outside the frame and unseen is scarier than what is. However, man do creepy reactions get old. How old are these kids anyway? Where are their parents? At home? Out a lot? Why doesn't anybody and I mean anyone call the cops in this placid what looks like midwestern suburb? The cops show up, then disappear. 

Another horror movie, The Conjuring, got great reviews a few years ago, and it followed the same horror rules cemented in the 1980s. We need suspense, but also wonder. Our imaginations can still be sparked, with a solid foundation, that is. Characters with smarts and sensibilities wouldn't hurt either.

State of Grace (1990)  ***
Somewhere in here is a great movie. The dynamite cast with Sean Penn, Ed Harris, Gary Oldman (overacting but interesting), Joe Vitterelli, John Turturro, and Robin Wright, can only do so much amidst an identity crisis of a story. An undercover cop in the Irish mob isn't enough: we have to explore among ethics and rules beyond loyalty to brethren and occasional references to religion and history. We're still not sure who Terry (Penn) is though he's in every scene, and not much revelation by anyone when we discover he's undercover halfway through the movie. Individual scenes work though,the best of which is between Robin Wright and Ed Harris in a hotel restaurant. Harris has indeed never given a bad performance, and three years after this quiet tour de force he played an FBI agent not quite as bright as his prey. Watch how he gives second glances and looks for reassurance to his henchmen; we know this guy is in over his head.

The casting was by Bonnie Timmerman, the music by Ennio Morricone. The director of photography was Jordan Cronenweath (Blade Runner). The director was a young Phil Joanou, who's previous US documentary Rattle and Hum was liked mostly by fans of the band. Here he might be in over his head, or at least indecisive about what he's trying to say. This also came about among giants in the fall of 1990, within weeks of Goodfellas and Miller's Crossing. I remember the wave of re-emerging organized crime pictures, and this one fell by the wayside. Despite the talent, we see why.

Citizenfour (2014) ****
The great opening shot of this film is hypnotic and a metaphor. We're in a tunnel with a single bead of lights overhead. Laura Poitras, the deserving director of this Oscar-winner, does a voiceover, which is weighty and ominous to say the least.

This is a tale of espionage that quickly cuts to Brazil and American suburbs before taking us to Hong Kong. First we meet Glenn Greenwald in Brazil busily typing away on a laptop. We also meet William Binney at a Hope Conference where he discusses, sort of, government spy programs he was hired to work on. Then we see Stellarwind in Bluffdale, Utah, followed by the inside of a court of appeals in San Francisco. this story spans a chunk of the globe, and makes comments such as James Clapper's "Not unwittingly" response to a pointed questions on how invasive the NSA's spying program was seem all the more minute and small-minded. These small minds, little deeds, even from a hotel room in Hong Kong, reach far.

The movie slows way down in Act Two when we are simply with Edward Snowded in his Hong Kong hotel room. We get to know him with Ewan MacAskill. If you followed the story, we know the stakes and they are indeed high, so Poitras and Greenwald don't have to play them up. Having read Greenwald's book No Place To Hide, we have some background on what Poitras went through to get to that room. The journalism strain really ramps up, and it's surreal to see Snowden washing up as the camera pans over to the TV where he's on CNN. Act Three portends, suggests, and ends hauntingly with Greenwald and Snowden aweing over a piece of paper they hint at, then rip up. This time in the word won't be forgotten soon.

No Good Deed (2003)  ***
Bob Rafelson is one of those directors who's been around since the sixties. He once said he makes films to "keep off the streets." Only when Mountains of the Moon (1990) came along, that unconventional, inspiring tour de force about the British explorers William Burton and John Speke did I realize the depth and breadth this human had in him. He's off-beat alright (Stay Hungry, The King of Marvin Gardens, Five Easy Pieces) and yet even his misfires (The Postman Always Rings Twice) are colorful and leave an impression. He also at minimum gives the genders an interesting turn as with Black Widow.

Here Rafelson has his familiar down and out characters with buried agendas and has Samuel L. Jackson dialed way down, but he also has a terrific and very under-appreciated actress in Milla Jovovich on his hands. Her performance in Stone was one of the most overlooked of the last decade. She covers the scale. Other characters are almost devices, almost window dressing from Dashiell Hammett's The House on Turk Street on which the film is based. Rafelson and his cinematographer, Juan Ruiz Anchia (who shot David Mamer's House of Games) are economical. The night scenes are well lit and the daytime a mere background. The music is melodramatic, yet this film works best when it's quiet, and without a miscast Stellan Skarsgaard whom I understood about half the time. When the film slows, a key relationship builds. We lean forward, then are snapped back to the fact that this is a thriller that observes its characters more than watches them act. That's where the director is at his best.

Whiplash (2014)  ****
A few days after seeing a few films where barely a scene is well written, this movie opens with one of the best openings in a long time. The story then proceeds, and builds. Like Arbitrage, writer-director Damien Chazielle stacks the stakes, finds layers, then throws curveballs at us. We can view it as  a coming-of-age story, a relationship centered around power, but it grows out of a portrait of two people who meet. Perhaps they were meant to.

It's the details, though, where the story really excels. Look at how the filmmakers handle the female character. The dad and his son only have a few scenes together; they are subtle, yet convey a lot if not enough. When you are as talented and willing to work as hard as Andrew (Miles Teller) is, and follow the rules of Terrence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), you go places you didn't dream, or do you? Andrew's dad, played by Paul Reiser, also understands the subtleties of playing a minor part yet filling the background.

Among the many storytelling principles, probably the most prominent is the more specific the choices of setting and characters are, the more universal. How many get a chance to actually play jazz these days? The other is F. Scott Fitzgerald's quote from William Friedkin's memoir: action equals character. I also like movies where gender isn't much of a factor. The ending is perfect: closure, with much left open. This is one of the best movies involving music in a long time, and one of the better about power and relationships and teaching ever.

Focus (2015) **
This is one of those con movies starring grownups that's targeted toward teenagers. That's because every character in it acts like one, including Will Smith who never faxes in a performance. He and everyone are fully committed and given no nuances. Smith and Margot Robbie (from The Wolf of Wall Street) act like high schoolers. What's also been done better previously is the back-and-forth banter in bars with sleek surfaces and settings. Banter does not equal wit. I kept thinking back to The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) and David Mamet's House of Games (1987). Those people inhabited a world different than many others, and drew us in, but they were real people with lives, abodes, and work ethic. 

This movie has none of that, and their con is about pickpockets. There's even a scene with a fake heart attack where many onlookers are ripped off in broad daylight. Underneath, the filmmakers sure have a low opinion of your average person. Later comes an even more preposterous scene involving an Asian businessman who could easily bluff our main characters and based on the honor system doesn't. How did this guy get rich then? This is gambling for the masses with elementary school math. Regarding the characters, Gerald McRaney and Rodrigo Santoro (of Mamet's Redbelt) show up in the second half and do what they can, though this is where the screenplay adds backstory, which doesn't equal weight on the characters. You sense a theme here. And of course there's the weariest of all heist-relationship cliches: since Smith and Robbie part ways at the end of Act One, do you think they'll end up together by the end? Does a trampoline bounce?

Co-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa directed I Love You Phillip Morris with Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor. That movie stumbled a little at first but the last hour took off with one surprise after another. They needed that energy and deception here, starting with plausibility and real characters. Otherwise, barely a thirteen year-old will enjoy this. It's not even a commentary on capitalism, or the kinds of people forced into this line of work, so it can only matter with aesthetics.

Kill The Messenger (2014)  ***
To invoke this site's title, this movie's subject really does matter on a few levels: the drug war, smaller-scale journalism shaking the annals of the stalwarts, and pursuing the truth. Michael Cuesta's film starts so efficiently setting up the topic's importance, with highlights of past presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan announcing the vitality of facing the drug epidemic through foreign policy, we're braced for a film to be political to the bone. That's what the first hou holds as it romanticizes its hero, downplaying his personal life until later, and following Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner, in a fine performance) of the San Jose Mercury News as he uncovers one story after another and leads to a huge discovery. For storytelling principles, we get the call to action early, and we follow Gary into court, to Latin America, into meetings with a jailed drug dealer and a U.S. government operative. This is all consistently interesting, and consistently at the same pitch-level of an action movie with a soundtrack that beats on and on.

Shame, then, about the last forty-five minutes, where the movie focuses on Gary's family. This was not what the first-half setup was about. We meet Gary as streetwise, dogged, able to piece clues and hints together, but his wife and three kids are given little to do, so we react less when tragedy almost strikes. We sense this coming when everyone is so congratulatory to Gary when his story breaks. This movie needed a unifying theme and chief decision on what it was about outside of one man's journey. Having read Nick Schou's book of the same title, one could see an important film in the subject, but not a great one regarding drama.

Leviathan (2014) ****
Here's why we watch movies like this: they are from another place, far removed from a culture we know, yet we recognize so much. The sharp observations of human nature, starting with the home, land, and ending in politics and passion, are told in such a distinct way that the audience intimacy with these characters, not always likable, grows. We believe, though we may not be kind; we recognize, yet cannot quite grasp some hidden cultural nuances I bet those who live in Mermansk understand without saying a word.

Things weigh on these people in the far north of Russia. We know they're close enough to Moscow that a friend drives to a remote village to help a man whose house may be leveled at the government's behest. So remote is this village that boats simply drift, their purpose obscured though we sense they were used once. We witness power and manipulation, but some big events are off camera, which makes their effects stronger. Notice how the storytellers reveal the whole agenda right at the end. We're still unearthing things, pondering them hours afterward. This is right after a heavy-handed scene discussing God. Do all these people believe that he will right wrongs? We're not sure, but when all is said and done, we've seen emotional brutality and resilience. We should feel hopeless  when the screen goes dark, but not altogether angry. Why? Maybe we've seen enough abuse of power that we are, to borrow a phrase, comfortably numb, no matter where we see this great film.


Pumping Iron (1977) ***1/2
Yes, this documentary, at eighty or so minutes, packs quite a, shall we say, punch. It's relevant, not least because it pulls back the curtains of bodybuilding in the 1970s, showing the human side of muscle-bound hunks, but it paints a picture, and boy can we see the early seeds of Arnold Schwarzenegger's political side. He's casual, calculating, happy; we and everyone around him want to watch him. Some time after he gets under the skin of Lou Ferrigno at the Mr. Olympia championship in Pretoria, South Africa, we see Arnold and Lou's family on a bus on the way to Lou's family's house in Brooklyn, NY. See how Lou's father and mother hinge on every word Arnold says while he borderline pokes fun at their sun. That's power. That's charisma on a scale seldom seen.

Early on we see Arnold's friendly way of shaking hands with many in Gold's Gym in Venice, CA. We also hear why he and others pursue bodybuilding: symmetry, proportion, the amount of work that goes into it, even the opening shot of a ballerina showing a couple bodybuilders how to gracefully pose. We meet Mike Katz, a mountain of a man who was picked on as a kid (hurt many times, we sense, "leaving dances at 11:00 and running the track for three hours"), played football, and taught Junior High at the time of filming. Ken Waller, a cocky redhead and competitor to Mike, tells friends how he'll mess with Mike in order to win a competition. Later, his strategy pays off, or did it? Did Ken win outright? We think so; he's just not nice, and it's a dark precursor to Arnold later.

We first see Lou Ferrigno, twenty-four, living at home with his parents and taking many pills off the top of his dresser. He trains hard under his dad, only to be needled psychologically later by the future movie star. We also meet Franco Columbo of Italy, whom Arnold is friendly toward and later off-camera calls him a child. Perhaps the big man is right. So Lou has the muscle but not the theatrics, as Columbo as the looks but not the charisma. Arnold shares breakfast with Lou and his dad on the morning of the big competition and immediately afterward pull the dad close, right in front of Lou, and say, "Don't mess him up." That's manipulation barely masked as concern, and we're not sure how far in the superior position the audience is placed relative to the characters.

It takes all that and a certain coldness to win Mr. Olympia six times as Arnold did. He didn't attend his dad's funeral because it was two months before a competition. He's still always at ease. He charms into the stratosphere, which is partly why he's gone so far.


Portlandia, episodes 1 and 2, (2011)**
This show a series of parodies of parodies. The first episode is hilarious, with a skit about ordering a free-range, properly-treated chicken in a restaurant that leads the patrons out to the countryside where they end up joining a cult. The rest of the skits, well, they should be about a minute or less and run for what feels like ten. The creators nail the passive-aggressive undercurrents in Portland and the northwest, but then things get out of hand. A lesbian bookstore owner, played by co-creator Fred Armisen in drag, almost refuses to help someone, then pretends to, then pretends not to. The scene goes on and on. A code name for "stop" in a relationship is uttered so much we lose sight of these being anywhere close to real people. There's more in the first two episodes, with inconsistent characters and barely a shape, let alone a variance in dynamic. This is one of those you wish a director with a vision would take control and not take flak from anyone.

The Zero Theorem (2014) **
You have to say this: Terry Gilliam, after a fruitful career in Monty Python, has persisted. He's directed films for thirty-four years. His Time Bandits from 1981 is still one of my childhood favorites. His stamp is unmistakable on the screen. Now, can anyone quote his movies? He has memorable characters, but they live on as sketches. Remember Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges in The Fisher King, beloved by many; I was over and underwhelmed at the same time. I don't need to see it, or many of his others, again, even though they are the very essence of cinema. Gene Siskel once said the most frustrating movie for him to watch was like watching a sitcom on the big screen. There was no sense of wonder, of transporting the audience to a faraway place and time and meeting new people, new worlds.

The Zero Theorem, barely released in the US last year, does that. It also has one of the hottest and most dynamic actors on the screen: Christoph Waltz. His character is apparently some kind of genius, yet he mumbles his lines about solving a mathematical formula and is given almost no character outside of phobias. For some reason he's trapped in a church-like abode with stain-glassed windows; we barely see his house because he's always at work. He's invited by his supervisor, played by David Thewlis, to a party, where Waltz, socially awkward and perpetually seemingly claustrophobic, stumbles into a room with a big boss-like character played by Matt Damon. Is he Waltz's boss? We think so. Thewlis is jolly, giddy, and annoying throughout. Waltz is, well, you get the idea.

The visuals are all Gilliam, but to what cause and effect? We don't know why this movie was made, though Gilliam doesn't know how to be boring. He also doesn't know whether to assault us or draw us in. Since we cannot connect with any of the characters, and their behavior is completely groundless, as is the world though it's amazing to look at, why should we persist? The visuals are all Gilliam, but to what cause and effect?

The Bridge - "Destino"  **1/2
One confrontation on the sidewalk in El Paso sums it all up: it happens fast, a tad unexpected, and leaves a few questions. Too bad the series is now getting bogged down in police procedures and lingering in the office instead of having the characters's personalities drive the events. This outing, however, boils down to a shootout that is conventional yet staged and shot so well in a unique backdrop, we feel like order is restored. We know the creative team of producers by heart now, and the director, Chris Fisher, moves things along a little unevenly. Another broad stroke of a story is coming, but that elusive spark of inspiration is fading, for now.

The Bridge - "ID"  ***1/2
We can't help but wonder what scheming, insecure Annabeth Gish wants next. Her farmhand, a Mexican male, has just the right looks at half revelation matched with straightforwardness. Diane Kruger is the neutral straightshooter: all she has to do is walk into a scene and she changes the room dynamics. She looks around, senses, and doesn't say much, yet everyone listens to her. These kind of character sketches and interdependence are what drives this superior storytelling, even if we get the classic drug cleanup scene with fast-cutting music. 

This episode slows to two and three-shots of people talking. The characters' speculation runs a tad dry though the reporter character adds a nice, exuberant right-angle to everyone else. Then comes a nice, quiet finish to balance all that leads up to it. The writer, Dario Scardapane, seems to know this, and the director (the show keeps switching), Alex Zukrewski, finds the right pace for each scene. We are with this story now, and it matters on technique and content levels, and more.

The Bridge - "The Beast"  ****
Here the DEA plot line is so good, not overused, hovering at the edges, that just the right amount is suggested. A wallet falls on the floor, telling one character exactly what another did. The meat lies in what the character infers from that tiny incident is in what is said and not said, and in how short a time in which it all occurs. Back at the police office, the soap operatics are glossed over -  these we've seen before countless times, but the script quickly snaps out of this trap as if it senses danger. The content is just violent enough to be real, too, with one quart of blood out of a human body and not the usual seven or eight. 

Then look how Demian Bichir handles himself. He walks into a diner to meet someone, kind of stumbles, doesn't look the other person in the eye until he sits. This man thinks he's being watched all the time. It's entrances like these that signify backstory. Maybe it's the writer, Esta Spalding, who knows guys like this, or the director, Gwyneth Horder-Payton. Regardless, these two are right to focus on him in the domestic and office scenes. He does so little yet conveys so much, especially with those buried eyes and crooked smile. Not many like him around.

The Bridge - "Maria of the Desert"  ****
I don't know if it's director Bill Johnson here or the creator Meredith Stiehm, but these storytellers always know where to put the camera. The subject matter is thick enough: we're ready to plunge in yet so ready to hold back, so the lens never calls attention to itself no matter the extreme angle. Consider a person stopping on a highway to shoe a rattlesnake off the road: he paces, thinks, fetches a stick, all with the sun blasting down on him and us and shot from low to the ground, but do we notice? Nope, too interested.

But enough with the landscape and fancy angles. We've seen all that, but not these particular characters, connected sideways at the end that spurs on to keep watching. The actors give just enough, as does the writer, Chris Gerolmo, whom I remember from Mississippi Burning in 1988 but have seldom seen since. He's one of those writers you wonder how he landed the job on such an important film, then rears his head more than two decades later. But like the characters, he steps aside. Annabeth Gish also gives just enough, as does the receptionist when she walks into the police station. This transition, right after Demian Bichir has left on a job, is handled like a 90210 switch, yet feels natural. That's also why we keep watching.

St. Vincent (2014)  ***
Like so many movies, this one has a great start. The opening shot lets us know it's a movie, that we'll be transported elsewhere, to a particular time and place. It's New York alright, in the 'burbs, and we have a great character introduction. It's clear this is, what one might call, the Shrek story, where a cranky old ogre of a man is slowly drawn out of his shell to reveal kindness, even if the kind acts occurred long ago. The story switches gears smoothly, yet big actors populate little parts, the biggest being Terrence Howard. Naomi Watts does a wonderful turn in a supporting role; she's terrific and generous in every scene she's in, though at some point we want to get back to the story about Bill Murray, who has a checklist of addictions, and his budding relationship with the young boy next door, played by Jaeden Lieberher.

The director, Theodore  Melfi , likes overhead shots. We're observing this story as intersections. It's about hidden things, among them finances with a struggling middle class. Chris O'Dowd is too much as the school teacher, and Watts is too much, but she's hilarious. I enjoyed Melissa McCarthy more than in the recent Spy; perhaps she didn't feel pressure, or special effects. This movie is amusing, moving, and disjointed, all falling around Murray, who carries the movie, but occasionally needs help, just not this much.


The Blair Witch Project (1999)  ****
Less is more. Think about that. Talk about a tried and true statement in art, communication, and whatever else one applies it to. This little independent movie came out when I was overseas in the fall of 1999. I read a little about it, heard even more, and eventually got around to seeing it. With unknowns cast, and we're not even sure if they're real people used in the movie or acting, we notice in the first few minutes how these three characters approaching the age of twenty are humorous, hip, laid back, aware, yet driven. They're motivated and articulate and go about their agendas in their own way. They have our attention, and embark on a journey to discover the curse of the Blair Witch somewhere in woods of Maryland, which is not a very big state. The characters often state they are never more than a few hours from their parked car on the side of the road. One does not need to stray far from civilization to get back to nature, or venture into the unknown. Along the way, we care about these people, simply exist with them, and the movie never condescends in its eighty minutes. Less is still more, especially at the end.

This movie also follows a golden rule Roger Ebert once said: what is not seen is scarier than what is. This movie leaves so much to your imagination while following it's own straight-forward path, it's nothing short of amazing. It's also a sensory experience. The filmmakers use sound, photography, and subtle plot points that naturally happen. One is about two-thirds of the way through, and garner the first big reactions of two characters in particular though that of all three matter. When the ending comes, run this scene through your head again. Run several more instances through your mind when the credits roll. There are not, I repeat, not many endings you can say that about. Sixteen years later, this story is still scary as heck. Even if the co-directors, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, never make a film approaching this quality again, the IMDB signals they haven't, they've achieved what they set out to do, and then some, in one of the most tired, overused genres out there. Then again, the IMDB ratings shows this movie to have a 6.4, when it should be a ten.


Inherent Vice (2014) **
Robert Elswit's cinematography is on full display in Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film. Several times the camera is zooming in so slowly we notice it, then focus on the characters, then our attention shifts back to what's in the shot, we notice where the camera is, maybe we notice the lighting, then back to the characters, and so on. Elswit won the Oscar for There Will Be Blood! (2007), Anderson's tour de force about, among other things, the search for oil in California and an all-out portrait of a character. Here, Anderson is after atmosphere, and perhaps Gordita Beach, California in 1970 had it, or Anderson created it, since he was born the year in which this takes place. What we don't get this time are characters we care about. We're plunged into this world and this morass of color, shadows, and dialogue that is often poetic, often not leading anywhere, imposes this update of Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1970) on us. Anderson has often been compared to Altman, and both stories have roots in Raymond Chandler. Just as the Coen brothers used Chandler as a foundation for The Big Lebowski, now it's Anderson's turn, but one of his worst traits, self-indulgence, is also thrust upon us. That can be okay, but one shot, clearing six minutes with two characters interacting in such a subdued manner, does not entertain or enlighten. Many scenes like this one don't add up, and maybe aren't supposed to, but boy do we get tired or stop paying attention. I was reminded of when the director's indulgence last really reared its head in Magnolia, but that had wonderful messages and was completely original. This place and these character's we've seen, and don't need to spend this much time with them.

There is Joaquin Phoenix, who's face Anderson and Spike Jonze in Her clearly love. When the credits rolled, after an underwhelming last shot, I realized that twenty years ago this fall Phoenix starred with Nicole Kidman in Gus Van Sant's To Die For. He's amassed a body of work, and the supporting actors in this film may do the same, if not under the firm hand of a director whom, we sense, stops at nothing to do what he wants. The plot is so heavy, with cop politics, money laundering, and more than a few drugs lying around, being exchanged, and chased after, that we suffocate, then lose interest, and that's at the halfway point.


A Simple Plan (1998)  ***1/2
Scott B. Smith's great 1993 book was sent to Bill Paxton, who produced and stars in this solid adaptation. He, Billy Bob Thornton, and Bridget Fonda give among their strongest performances. Shame, then, about the direction and sloppy camerawork by veteran John Seale, though we lay blame on him. The director is Sam Raimi, who after three Evil Dead movies did this one and then made the first three Spider-Man films. The script, also by Scott B. Smith, is about agendas of what to do and how to go about them, and they slowly unearth individual unhappiness. There's usually a "What about me?" instance in every interaction, because individual pursuits cross those of another, which isn't hard in the snow-bound Midwest.

The camerawork said, the closeups are effective, and the last hour, take the scene where Thornton admits he's never kissed a girl before, is where people's histories slowly rise up. Do these people really want a way out their town? Did they think of that? The characters and land are the life of this movie; somewhere in the morass of the studio music and sloppy direction lies a great film. This is simply quite good and noted, before we move on to slightly better ones.


The Hunt for Red October (1990)  ****
Oh, was Alec Baldwin, thirty-one or two when this was made, the perfect Jack Ryan. I can't recall exactly how it was that Harrison Ford took over the role, but a young Baldwin fit the role perfectly. He's a bookish office-type who is drawn into a story that is plot-driven with personalities thoroughly thought-out. We sense the filmmakers, especially the director, John McTiernan, knew who everyone was before letting the cameras roll. Jan de Bont, the cinematographer, is in top form, creating many camera angles inside submarines yet we sense he's never working too hard to distract us from the fact that we're in close quarters the vast majority of the film. The opening shot is hardly what we expect: a slow-moving camera across a snowy lake. The next shots are of a submarine escorted by two fishing boats. All this is just beyond the camera frame, which defines what we see and the characters know. This is an old maxim established by Sergio Leone in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. We also see Sean Connery gazing, thinking...about what? So much is set up in these first minutes this movie ears our trust in a low-key manner. 

I see why this film made such a big splash, opening in a subtle time of year, March of 1990, before movies like this opened year-round. This movie unveils the personalities, options, and stakes based on what's seen and unseen. It has aged so well, especially with the soft lighting inside the subs. Then check the acting. So much of this movie is people looking, listening, and talking in a calculated manner, which ties back to the filmmakers knowing who these people were before luring us in. John McTiernan (Predator, Die Hard) was at his peak, before petering out with three bad movies in a row, the last two being Rollerball (2002) and Basic (2003). He spent a year in prison with a wiretapping scandal in the late 2000s. This is by far his best movie, and he's capable, though how the same man who made this movie also made the last two plus The Last Action Hero (1993) is beyond me. I wouldn't mind seeing him return, but heaven knows we're not sure what to expect.


The Bridge: Episode Three - Rio (2013)  ***1/2
You know you hear about putting the audience in the superior position? We start that way with a funeral and a watch how a Mexican leads the horse. The credits roll, and it occurs to us how spot-on they are with the lyrics "Our love will be mistaken." We come back to the guy in a trailer on a hillside. Not everyone is where they should be. The master shots are early in the scenes if not at the beginning, and this consistent technique keeps us just off-center enough. Then we see Ted Levine's weathered face. He's an actor who, like the stars, does so little and conveys such a deep, worn history. We need this, especially in a show about borderland.

We're in standard police show format until we meet a Mexican woman's family with a sleazy reporter; both stock characters become fully formed and grow exponentially in minutes if not seconds. This installment was directed by a woman, Charlotte Sieling, unknown by me, and as sure-footed as they come. We sense she started with these characters and worked with the writer, Meredith Stiehm, to build the story around them. That's certainly one way of making it work.


Dumb and Dumber To (2014)  **
This is getting two stars only because a successful comedy is the hardest story to tell and movie to make. I left twice in the first ten minutes, and none after that. Only at minute twelve or so do we realize a) how important stakes are in a plot, let alone a sequel, b) how vital new and supporting characters are in a broad comedy, and c) how much we need our hair-brained heroes to be given something to do.

The Farrelly brothers hit it so big with the original in 1994, but then cemented their standing among comedic talents with their two follow-ups, Kingpin (1996) and of course There's Something About Mary (1998). Those two movies had characters with agendas, and both were believable. Here the characters don't care, are given an agenda with no underlying need at all. Then subplots are introduced needlessly and by minute thirty, having not laughed for what seems like a while, we get the idea, and no need to proceed.


Fed Up (2014)  ****
Finally a documentary that exposes one theme, idea, or in this case, mineral, without hitting us over the head, or in this case, the gut. Obesity isn't people's fault, or people should stop blaming themselves. Yet this documentary, shown in schools across the country, isn't prescriptive, just shows you what is. Katie Couric is one of the producers, and Bill Clinton and especially Michelle Obama, appear to be the highest officials who are in the toughest of positions. They clearly know more than they let on, yet cannot double back on large-scale food donors who pack sugar by any number of names into mainstream food.

I remember as an exchange student in Denmark at the age of eighteen that I drank (no drinking age, those Danes), biked everywhere, but most of all ate differently. I was fitter than ever after that year. Many could probably do the same, but what are we to do if most of what's available in grocery stores is stacked against us? The various doctors and researchers interviewed know this and cover this under-wraps epidemic from all sides. Like all good documentaries, just when you think it'll get boring or repetitive, it's not.


The Bridge (2013), Episode 2: "Calaca"  ***
Now things get rolling with subplots out of nowhere. Cell phones are the new plot device, so to speak, no matter how rich or poor characters are, we get reception everywhere. Demian Bichir is measured yet passionate; he's the metaphor for the entire border culture no matter who's side you're on. Again, though, the journalism scenes are unrealistic, and Lyle Lovett's scenes are weak. He needs to be harder, either more clipped in his manner or much more gracious and graceful, allowing menace to grow.

This is the first time we see Kruger's home, a half-lived in studio apartment where she eats ramen and works. She does, however, go out and pick up in what can only be described as efficient, yet when she and her conquest get back to her place, only then does she have a drink. She falls asleep immediately after sex. When she awakes, we know immediately she'll the man's hand off her leg. We know this character well enough. 

There's a little of the David Fincher film Seven here, with clues planted at murder scenes. To tie back to cell phones, we also get GPS coordinates as plotlines start to come together. We're also left hanging at the end, though, and want to know who pulls up next to that surviving immigrant on the highway. So this follow-up passes one test.


The Bridge (2013), Pilot  ***1/2
I imagine the creators of this show, which debuted on the FX channel of all places, chose Diane Kruger for two reasons: her gaze, evident in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, and her blond locks. She sticks out among those who troll along the U.S.-Mexico border, and has a condition we sense with her. Her face is knowing, and Demian Bichir, a superb Mexican actor I didn't even know was an Oscar nominee, has a face who tries to understand. This is the kind of pilot that feels sure-footed, that introduces about five plotlines yet never confuses us and we feel is never confused about itself. That's quite a feat when we've seen border-related films dating back to almost a century ago. If there is one fault, it's in a newspaper reporter who is too sleazy, a stereotype that is also ripe for showing humanity. He's too easy to hate, so we'll see. That's the strength of cable TV these days. We have hours ahead of us. Now the trick is for them to make us keep watching, but for F/X, someone is thinking, or out to compete against everyone else, which they have to.


Life Itself (2014) ***1/2
No matter how much you've read Roger Ebert over the years, this documentary is hugely moving. I first wrote on my notepad about one hour and fifteen minutes in. We get to know our subject, and also where he's from, what kind of culture he inhabited when not in one of Chicago's movie theaters. The interviews are among the best moments: Martin Scorsese, Richard Corliss, Thea Flam, Jonathan Rosenbaum, and of course, Chazz Ebert. Roger touched many lives, and after treatment for his illnesses, had over 800,000 followers on Twitter.

When the famed critic marries Chazz and joins a family at the age of fifty, he rejoices, and we see how consummately emotional he is. As we watch his health decline, and he re-emerges after various procedures, one friend remarks that Ebert produces his best work. There's a little too much Chazz on camera toward the end, but it is her husband, so we understand. Steve James, who made this after making two great Chicago-based documentaries (Hoop Dreams, The Interruptors), is also part of the movie with all his questions, and he's self-effacing and respectful enough of everyone that the balance and inclusiveness transcends this film to greatness. The reach is just right. We learn and enjoy on a few levels, and that's more than can be said for so many visual stories out there.


Tusk (2014)  *
Early on in Kevin Smith's latest film, which wasn't released theatrically, we sense where it's going and are interested. Then he, unlike his colleagues of 1990s' independent cinema, abandon a crucial storytelling principle. Scenes go on too long, but there is no shape or purpose to several. Michael Parks, who was in Smith's much better Red State, is way too talkie when his agenda is made clear, and long afterwards. Second, how do the secondary characters feel about the main one? Justin Long plays a podcast star who on a lark ends up in Canada to interview an old man, played by Parks. Long's girlfriend, who's having an affair with Long's podcast co-host, played by Haley Joel Osment, is conflicted about Long, then crushed when she learns of his disappearance. She and Osment set off to find the main character. Osment supposedly plays a close friend to the protaganist, and he's having an affair with the girlfriend. Are these two really concerned? Conflicted? What's their real motive?

The two eventually team up with a French-Canadian investigator in one of the worst performances I've ever seen. I learned from the IMDB that this character is played by Johnny Depp. Goodness. I have admired him a fairly long time, so he'll return. The blame must go to Smith, who conceived and dispatched this character as farcical. But more to the point, this is a horror movie that throws all suspense, revelation, or character conception out the window. Smith can do what he likes, but let's get back to characters, which are based on people. I don't mention character names above for good reason. They barely exist. For that matter, there are no thrills the last half of this "horror" picture. No wit. Then a backhanded swipe at humanity at the end. Why was this made?


Reservoir Dogs (1992) ***1/2
Seeing this a third time, nineteen years after my second viewing, I'm stuck on the structure. I marvel at it. Quentin Tarantino reveals the backstory, and it's interesting all the way through. Which of the characters of an ensemble cast are left in, who's left out, had to be a marathon of deliberate choice, yet the story feels consistent. That in itself is a feat. The movie is also a whodunnit ("Who ratted us out?") in a who-set-us-up story.

The big surprise is the revelation and constant presence of Mr. Orange, played by Tim Roth. As we get to know him the last half or so, we realize he symbolizes and underlies everything that's gone before. The screenplay also starts slowly: the opening scene with the guys sitting around a table runs nearly eight minutes, but it's never boring. The crooks show qualities: principles, wit, compassion, half-hidden agendas; there's more to them with their quick looks at each other. The movie then shows a brief scene that's just after the heist, then really slows down as Mr. White (Harvey Keitel), after barging into a warehouse with Roth on his shoulder, and Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), talk. This sequence goes on a tad too long, as do the ensuing scenes where Joe interviews two others for the job. Then the last half really gathers steam, mostly through Roth. The big showdown at the end is handled so well, with Eddie's defense of Mr. Blonde that pieces together again how perceptive these characters are and how well they know each other, feeling just right. Tension and backstory complement, as they should.

Two big things we expect are left out, and are parts of the keys to Tarantino's success. We never see the robbery, and Mr. Pink, I only now infer, gets away. The filmmaker leaves some big pieces to our imagination. He makes conscious decisions, not least of which is to not pander to the audience. On that basis he's consistent, too.


Brick Mansions (2014)  **
Any undercover cop thriller occurring in Detroit in 2018 could be plausible, and this movie has a plausible premise. Too bad about the zooming camera, over-acting, and banal dialogue. This is basically a remake of the pretty good French thriller District B13, where Pierre Morel, working with Luc Besson, actually made a point about democracy going only so far when it comes to wealth disparity. This one gets stuck on old standbys such as the soon-discovered mole whom we know has to be one of the stars since it's the opening scene, and this star finds an escape hatch none of the other several bad guys noticed in the same room. 

Other cliches: the star detective drives an old convertible, the laundromat with an escape hatch, and dad who used to be on the force. This movie could've mattered a whole lot more with real people. We gloss over what they say and do so much we notice in one scene it takes the cops in hot pursuit almost a minute to drive a block. Then we note that the word for a not-so-nice female is uttered three times but the filmmakers almost allow the magic twelve-letter word. So we're left to wonder what went through their heads, or the ratings board, and what's allowed in PG-13 these days. Who it influences. Come to think of it, this does matter, right?


Ray Donovan, Episode 7, "The New Birthday" (2014)  ***1/2
The director is Lesli Linka Glatter, a veteran TV director of many hits, and the writer is David Hollander, whom we've seen before. With this experience, we're surprised the teen and women-oriented subplots don't work so well. We don't sense adventure and exploration, and if we're plateauing, how about a little insight? The story picks up pace with the mafia angle, digging into the past, going back to Boston, interweaving the F.B.I.; all this is handled with sparser dialogue and short scenes that convey so much history and wonder, we want to simply stay in this sector, and remember how many mafia stories have been told. That's a tribute.

I mention the short scenes. They follow the rule someone, I think it was David Mamet, who said start in as late as possible and get out as quickly as you can. This episode also ends with what Jen Grisanti noted at the very start: a question. This is all good, and we don't sense these people going places on a few levels. This episode is good, and a fitting end as we, and they, need new territory.


Detour (1945)  ****
My high school English teacher once said that there were a series of movies in the late forties and early fifties that had such strong stories they didn't need much more. Within that statement, and within the anatomy of a story, were people who drove the events that happened at an unbelievable, almost otherworldly pace. At sixty-eight minutes, Edgar G. Ulmer's noir thriller barely pauses before falling into the emotions of Al and Vera. Al, a reasonably healthy guy takes a risk, pursuing a woman across the country. He picks up a hitchhiker, Vera, who at first appears normal and turns out to be some piece of work. She wields power over Al, holding him hostage in a consistent yet unpredictable manner.

We are inside Al's conscience at the start of the film, grow with his awareness, and understand his actions and motives so well, nothing surprises us. Doesn't mean we like the guy, or comprehend everything. When he says, "the kind of beauty you dream about when you're with your wife, but a natural beauty," I bet many people get it. When Vera says, "Plenty of people die...I know what I'm talking about," we get her. Many filmmakers today could visit this dialogue and learn that it can be sparse and pregnant with meaning at the same time. 


U-Turn (1997)  ***
Sometimes you have to go back to the source. John Ridley's novel, Stray Dogs, was so well-written and had such clear intent, it seemed a perfect inspiration for Oliver Stone, one of the best American directors of the last fifty years. We sense Stone having fun, having made ten good if not great films in ten years from 1986 - 1995, then releasing this one in the fall of 1997. It's a small-scale film, and the director's first collaboration with many of the actors: Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Billy Bob Thornton, and Jennifer Lopez. They do good work, and follow the director's lead, then it changes tone in the strangest parts. Take the playful music during a grocery store robbery. What is going on here? Are serious? finding humor and joy in desolate surroundings?

Penn gets the laughs when he's likable. Joaquin Phoenix and Claire Danes, in early roles, are familiar enough to create real characters. Themes of fait versus our own creation we've seen Stone tackle before. All this builds nicely in the dusty town of Superior, Arizona before the over-the-top climax. Ridley knew when to push ahead to the surprises. This movie takes its time through the climactic fight, pauses for a sex scene, then carries on another twenty minutes. How did the filmmakers want the audience to leave the theater? Bleak at heart, I think, and maybe laughing a little. One can't deny the craftsmanship or the talent, but it can look away at a little indulgence.


Night and the City (1950)  ****
I'm not sure if there's been a better black-and-white-photographed movie than Jules Dassin's noir Night and the City. I'm also not sure if another actor could've played the lead role better than Richard Widmark, someone those born after 1970 have scarcely heard of. His slippery con artist, Harry Fabian, wields his wit and schemes through the London underground with such skill, prowess, and a sense of being unstoppable, we're surprised he survives as long as he does. The themes of trust, money, agreements, even contracts, are made minutes before the curtain is pulled back to reveal true motive to us, the audience. The characters are indeed mere thoughts ahead of us, even short, complete sentences that seem just ahead of the words from their mouths. Yet through all the plotting the emotions are real even when the scheming is fake, creating the sense of a roller coaster amid hoods who are real people. 

Which leads back to the photography, which never draws attention to itself, though the shots are held long enough we look around the frame and see what's backlit, what's in light, in dark, and why. Slowly, we gain the upperhand on Harry. The line right near the end where Gene Tierney says, "You worked ten times as hard as the other men, Harry, just at the wrong things," is truer than we expect. After the film, think back: Fabian even succeeded where some don't.

A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)  *1/2
Seth MacFarlane's name appears ahead of Charlize Theron's in the title sequence of this comedy that was not a box office hit last summer. That's the most memorable thing about it, outside of the length. Unfortunately, the title sequence is an harbinger, as there are many master shots coming up over a ridge, sweeping across the land, or peering over a cliff on a small town, and this small town we've seen many, many times. We think MacFarlane, who co-wrote, directed, and starred in this film, would be smart enough to quickly get past the scenery. He is, we know that for sure, but boy do he, Amanda Seyfried, and ultimately Charlize Theron, spend a ton of time sitting around and talking. 

I did however chuckle five times in the first five minutes. The sheep on the roof is funny, as are the old folks who sit in the same chairs and are asked to switch. The dialogue involving prostitutes is amusing at first before trying too hard. The scenes that play for broad comedy are funny, then a lengthy breakup scene between MacFarlane and Seyfried sets up how serious relationships will be taken. This also happened in Wedding Crashers. Then comes the scene introducing Liam Neeson, the villain. This scene is so trite, serious, and long, and includes comedy by Theron, we're not sure what the filmmakers are up to. The characters needed to get back to their agendas, which ties back the greatest western satire of all time, Blazing Saddles. Remember how much Mel Brooks wanted a cabinet post? After forty-five minutes and MacFarlane's humor hitting sometimes, it still feels slow because of all that talking. It's a very good thing MacFarlane has Ted 2 slated for this summer. Time to get back on the right, and efficient, horse.


And So It Goes (2014) **
Wit creeps into Rob Reiner's latest effort. The setting is otherworldly, a ritzy east coast small town with many pristine sailboats; this is Steve Martin's comedy Roxanne on steroids. This rich, rarefied world doesn't come into contact with the rest of us much, yet it does in the form of Michael Douglas's son who goes off to jail for Wall Street shenanigans, and leaves his nine year-old daughter with Grandpa Oren (Douglas). Five minutes after dad leaves, the girl is all better. No scenes of sobbing. She's bonded with a complete stranger, Diane Keaton, who lives next door to Oren. Will Keaton and Douglas get together by film's end? Believe it or not...yes.

This really points to one memorable story about Robert Altman when he burst back onto the Hollywood scene with The Player in 1992 after a long hiatus. Siskel and Ebert pointed out that after his hits in the sixties and seventies, he moved away from Hollywood; he didn't change, but the town and industry sure did. This is exactly what's happened with Rob Reiner. The movie is marketed with, "From the director of When Harry Met Sally and The Bucket List." The first of those came out in 1989 when Reiner was in top form, just after The Princess Bride (1987) and before Misery (1990) and A Few Good Men (1992). Then he really stubbed his tow with the infamous North (1994), did well with The American President (1995) before stumbling again with Ghosts of Mississippi (1996). This last effort is similar to this: character reactions and agendas are kept to a minimum, the stakes, personal, professional, you name it, are almost completely absent. 

What's left? Exploration or illumination of human character quirks? Not in a safe romantic comedy such as this. When interviewed, Reiner is so likable and personable, that when he plays for broad laughs in this movie, inexplicably stepping on a slip-N-slide, we really cringe on many levels: it's him doing it, the scene is sloppily executed, and with there was no reason for any half-wit to do such a thing, that we just want him, and us, to leave this paradise and venture elsewhere. I also trust a man of his intelligence and insight has better work in him. If this is all he can get made, I say aim for something we haven't seen before. This we've seen many times, and better, by him.


Burden of Dreams (1982)  ***1/2
"If I abandon this project, I will be a man without dreams, and I do't want to live life like that," says the great German filmmaker Werner Herzog to a group of investors halfway through filmming Fitzcarraldo. Most of his insistence and persistence is off-camera, but we see a mostly introverted, speculative, and ultimately seeking human being venture down river in the Amazon rain forest, convincing natives and crew along the way, to bear with him. It's hard to absorb what great lengths Herzog went to, and we sense it's worth it. Actually, we know it is, because we imagine only he could have made the great masterpiece he did, and is the only human willing to go so far to make it. 

There are many scenes of local Brazilian tribes standing around. Some things are lost in translation, but patience, built by waiting, which creates boredom and wonder as to why they are in this film, are not. Few of the crew are interviewed except for once snippet of the cinematographer talking logistics at one point. This little documentary, though, shows the turmoil one person who lives his dream can cause, and how exhausting it is. Herzong ends the movie with this: "If we don't articulate them [our dreams[, then we are just cows sitting in a pasture." He has a point.


Johnny Handsome (1989)  ****
There is not a wasted beat in Walter Hill's film. Even the scenes that drag toward the end, with Mickey Rourke sitting around his apartment, stick with the atmosphere and we are simply with him. He does so little and yet carries this story on his back. This actor was almost the lead in Caddyshack, and Howard Ramis called him at the time a "natural actor." Rourke knows how to reveal yet conceal with the camera, and we sense with himself. We're not even sure who Johnny is even with clear choices.

Rourke heads a dynamite cast: Ellen Barkin, Lance Henriksen, Morgan Freeman, Elizabeth Mcgovern, Forest Whitaker, and Scott Wilson all surround him; their roles are clearly defined and we sense they all know how they relate to Johnny. For plotting, after an opening heist that bursts with so much energy, the film slows down; we need this down time, and the filmmakers know this. In the ensuing scenes we are with Johnny in his resurrection, but check out the camera work by Matthew F. Leonetti: the movie is still shot from angles, then at eye-level, then angular again, usually low to the ground. We also always wonder what's happening offscreen as the plot stays tight. So does the editing, right from the opening credits. Watch how Hill intercuts a slow motion scene of a character with the credits and the setup to the opening, the Ry Cooder score building the entire time. It's masterful, and a return to form for the director of 48 Hours after he stumbled through the '80s. 

This film deserves far more recognition. Released in September 1989, my dad wrote me about it, yet few saw it. It's hard to think of a noir that's been more overlooked.


Ray Donovan, Episode 8, Bridget (2014)  ***
The kid subplot works better this time as they deal with real emotions, the unannounced trips across town, and we realize how self-centered these people are. No one looks out for anyone else, at the end of the day, but they are in a sense forced to give part of themselves over to someone else. That's what family is. Ray and everyone else also impose their wills on others; class and race in Southern California doesn't look so good or so bad. This series also needs more humor, more wonder, and more James Woods. This installment, written by the creator, Ann Biderman, stalls along with the character's agendas halfway through. It looks tough to continue on as we visit the same places with these same characters. But after eight hours, you also tip your hat to the makers and can't complain too much.


Grand Piano (2014)  *1/2
Eugenio Mira's movie gets the logistics down: the sinister plot, the claustrophobic setting, the picked-on protagonist. But, and this is a huge one, we feel that elusive trait of trying too hard. It's also so flimsy of a plot, that a concert pianist is held hostage via earpiece in a performance hall, that we can't believe that no one notices gun shots tearing into the carpet mid-song. Yes. Too bad the camera work is interesting amidst banal dialogue that is purely about puppets in a theater. Then, and this is also a huge fault, the Brian De Palma facets really start to show up, complete with zooming camera, quick cuts during an altercation or assault, and, I had to rub my eyes, the split screen!

The concert pianist is nervous. We sense this in the first minute. He stays nervous for all ninety minutes. The security guard who changes sides stays sinister for all forty minutes he's on screen. John Cusack is so single-minded any personality or motive isdestitute. Adults act like little kids, or, as I said, puppets. Mira has talent. Now he has to find a voice, because before too long, we sense just how good De Palma is.


Locke (2014) ***1/2
Eye-trace, a term I learned from the great editor Walter Murch's book Blink of an Eye, is huge in Steven Wright's film Locke. Wright may have run out of ways on how to photograph Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) in a car, but lighting, cop cars occasionally zinging by, compliment an evenly stacked story between work and home. At one hour and twenty minutes with the entire movie one character, Ivan Locke, driving a car, the whole story could be a metaphor for commuting. We notice how much Locke plays with his face, except the whole story plays like radio: it's in your head. 

At least the various people Locke talks with are in your head. There's his wife, guys from work, and a third line I will not reveal. Through this toggling back and forth between characters, nothing feels contrived. This is is storytelling as we see a man who's made mistakes, owns up to them, and is trying to do the right thing while acknowledging his own past, particularly his upbringing by his father. It is an acting tour de force by Hardy. We really do care about Ivan Locke on his night journey, and feel satisfied, that the story has come full circle, and that we know the man when he makes that last turnoff.

Joe (2014)  ****
In the tradition of Winter's Bone, this is the best-written blue collar movie in a long time. Played by Nicholas Cage in his best role and acting in years, Joe is a metaphor for the community that struggles to stay alive, strong, and easily sinks into anger. David Gordon Green, who burst onto the independent scene in 2003 with All the Real Girls, balances all the film elements: plotting, music, photography, and writing. The writing leads to the acting, as Joe heads a group of workers, all African American males, who are clearing trees for a big company. Nobody asks big picture questions as they hatchet away with poison.

When the film seamlessly shifts away from the work site and we meet a few characters from the town, dialogue sets in: "Don't fool yourself too much about me," says Joe to a would-be girlfriend. Toward the end of act two, misery is heaved on just enough before things brighten with finding a lost dog. We also realize that Tye Sheridan appears to be a generous actor; he doesn't impose and is always in character. He should have a long career, much like Cage. In the end, it's your legacy that speaks for itself, and holds things such as small towns together.


The Rover (2014) *1/2
"Australia. Ten years after the collapse." So read the title card. Having lived there for two years, I suspect there are parts of the island country that don't look too far off from this post-apocalyptic vision. That vision comes from David Michod, after his self-important Animal Kingdom four years ago. That was billed as "Australia's answer to Goodfellas," so it took twenty years. It also didn't evoke or explain any part of Melbourne and its neighborhoods. The legal and family sides of the plot were so trite, we didn't care. Now comes The Rover, which must be their own answer to No Country For Old Men.

The atmosphere and minimalist, unique music are the best part of this film. The dialogue tries so hard; we feel the effort on every spoken line. People answer questions with questions, metaphors, and indirect allusions that are never referenced again. People avoid, and maybe that's what they do in the isolated outback. The scene transitions are so uneven, the movie's unusual structure could have been advantage, as in, say, the great French film Spoorloos (1988). Slowness does not equal suspense. Stoic does not mean the evocation of mystery, or that we want to know more, or that we care. The single best scene is between Guy Pearce and a guard: "Knowing nothing matters anymore," iss the one line that stands out. Meanwhile, Robert Pattinson's accent is all over the place, and we wonder how he got there, but that's a breif pondering, as ultimately we don't care. As the camera scans the horizon, the structure shifts into place with no letup in sight, we ask, what's the point? We're still asking as we leave the theater.


Snowpiercer (2014)  **
Bong Joon Ho's movie, which stirred a lot of underground energy in its limited release this summer, creates a world, atmosphere, and has a clear mission for its protagonists. What is sorely lacking is believability, developed characters, and that hallmark of all good films, pacing. So many times did I not believe that the characters were faced with urgency. These stock, uninteresting characters, headlined by A-lister Chris Evans, are made destitute, try humor, and behave as if they have no backstory. No history or personalities before appearing onscreen. Their only goal is to get to the front of one long train, which is powered by what? We find out at the end, as more an idea or device than any kind of  thought process.

The group on a mission has many fights, a few twists, a good one involving children which touches on the idea of brainwashing, and just before or after a nasty altercation, they talk. Oh, do they have discussions that are so banal and clearly at the service of the Writing God, we wait for the climax. When we finally do get the big showdown, Ed Harris, that invaluable actor, acts as if he barely believes the role he's in. The speeches are overdramatic, the fights uncreative and boring, and the plotholes too many to count. Apparently the Weinsteins, still running the film's distributor, Miramax, wanted to trim this movie by a lot. That would've been a good start.


True Detective, Episode 8: "Form and Void" (2014) ***
This section starts out so good, taking us inside the villain's lair, that we can't help but feel a slight sense of forboding: we've seen this before. The filmmakers pull back from the lair, slow down, then enters Silence of the Lambs crossed with Seven. That's the thing: we've seen too many suspense and horror thrillers to want to see this again. Ultimately, this individual outing satisfies, doesn't inspire, and doesn't need to in its universe. We're also set up for the next season. We don't hear all the dialogue, and probably aren't meant to, as the two detectives reconcile their existences and duties, if not their relationship, while stars loom above and one points out the night sky has a lot more darkness than light. A little insight goes a long way amidst cliche.

True Detective, Episode 7, "After You've Gone" (2014) _***1/2
By the way, Nic Pizzolatto and Cary Fukunaga are still the writer and director; they've been the same combo every step of the way, and we sense this flight will land slow and steady. The dialogue is direct, then indirect on an alternating dial as characters are often not answering the questions asked (That's a certifiable trend here, with House of Cards). We sense a team or partnership is necessary to get anything done, and the filmmakers skip the separation and divorce set up in the previous installment. Detective Hart and Maggie don't see each other for two years, and see each other again here. That, in case you missed it, is storytelling, and one I don't think I've seen before. Anyone? It adds so much weight we notice the characters, their surroundings that look a little different, their behavior much reluctant yet playing as if not much has happened. We've all been there. Then there's the ending, and we're back to the central mystery. 

True Detective, Episode 6: "Haunted Houses" (2014)  ***1/2
This installment links the previous shows in jail, then brings back Shea Whigham in a terrific scene of amped up yet buried emotional reach, if you get whatta mean. It is a revolving door of self-reinvention some people pass through, or don't we all? Michelle Monaghan shines here in her simultaneous confrontation with buried secrets; she epitomizes the show's characters having half-revealed, half-concealed secrets. This section of the story follows one rule, keeping the audience in the superior position as the creators drop the divorce one-third of the way through, so we wonder how things exactly unravel, or if we'll ever find out. 

True Detective Episode 5, "The Secret Fate of All Life" (2014) _***
Here Detective Cohle is the same as Sam Peckinpah's description of "A Walk Thing," that great walk the foursome make at the end of his classic The Wild Bunch. After a harrowing opening scene, things slow way down and we sink back into the family drama and what happened in 2002, whatever that was. The two detectives are always questioning, which instantly makes them admirable. Like I said, the story, events, and reaction, all culminating in pacing, slow down so much we think, enough suggestion already, show us! I jotted down, "Transgress the laws of man for a higher moral purpose...experience fear and consequences." We do alright, now onward.

Lost Highway (1997)  **1/2
Man, does this work for the first hour and fifteen minutes. Consistently Lynchian, plunged to familiar and unfamiliar worlds, it's nice to hearken back to that golden era of independent cinema, the nineties, and re-watch something that enwrapped me at the time at the Egyptian, that great old theater in Seattle. On a second viewing seventeen years later, David Lynch's Lost Highway works so well for the first half and we are almost miffed when Balthazar Getty takes over as the main character. We start with a couple played by Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette whom we sense have been married a while, decided not to have kids for good reasons, and know each other pretty well but also have buried nightmares and are still haunted by past events. Mystery is set up in the thematic sense: who's watching the couple's house? Why? Did this just suddenly start?

Like David Fincher, Lynch uses the full rectangle of the screen and knows so well how to suggest. This is especially inside one of those L.A. homes of which we're not quite sure of the layout. The friend I saw this with in '97 said Pullman always has that half-smirk on his face, and here it's balanced with Arquette's bland expression and sincere-sounding words. Taht's just it: she sounds sincere and simultaneously we're not quite sure what's behind them, or what she's about to do. In the second half, Getty has tough shoes to fill and is not near as interesting. Robert Loggia adds unneeded levity, just as Lynch added levity with Billy Ray Cyrus as the pool guy in the superb Mulholland Drive. Here levity is not needed. This story pulls together at the end, ties to the beginning, and we want to forget Act Two.


House of Cards, Episode 26 (2014)  ****
What a finish. Beau Willimon is the writer, James Foley again the director, and together they make this series, or long narrative, simultaneously real and a soap opera, and aren't soap operas based on reality anyway? Aren't our lives occasionally akin to the soaps? A millimeter shy?

There's the lighting at the forefront again. They've used the same Director of Photography, Igor Martinovic, throughout the show. the one-shots show what this series, and DC, boils down to: maneuvering. People have at once similar and differing agendas with equally different touches on how each pursues them. They also all improvise similarly yet differently. The filmmakers know how to balance plot and character; outside events invade here and there, people react, and part of them is always likable if not identifiable. 

This concludes with great pacing, a blend of events, revelations, shots at downward and upward angles, integrating nature, and showing character through actions. F. Scott Fitzgerald would be proud, even if one character's actions surprise us in his time of destiny, we aren't altogether blindsided. Many urbanites would react that way out in the woods, and who knows where that cliffhanger will lead.

House of Cards,Episode 25 (2014)  ***1/2
Beau Willimon, the creator, seems determined to finish this series off right., He's again hired director James Foley, and they put the battle of dark and light at the forefront of their production design and framing. Yes, I've mentioned this before, and you know what, neat, angular framing shouldn't be avoided. Look at Interstellar, a good film, and you'll know what I mean. Foley and Willimon show people isolated, frequently in one-shots, and yet they are of stature, at upward angles. These people are also composed and always half-concealing, half-revealing. Since we always know this, these characters are all the more fascinating. The light is frequently off-camera and at waist-level. In another scene there's one lamp off and one on; the drapes are dark and the window well-lit. 

We're also always on the inside of these meetings. This episode especially has few exterior shots, but boy do the exteriors of these characters matter. Then there's a perfect ending: all these squabbles don't amount to much though progress has occurred for about half the cast, and we're still making our way around the labyrinth that is Washington, DC.


House of Cards, Episode 24 (2014)  ***1/2
John Coles's direction centers around the central question of how people handle weaknesses, of themselves and others. The big scene toward the end is shot and cut so well, and is consistent with the culture if not the characters, we're satisfied, even though that new can of worms looms.

Who the heck knows what goes on behind closed doors in DC anyway? Do people really engage in these kinds of acts with their secret service agents? How close does everyone get? What buried secrets get revealed, and for that matter, when is a good time? Those questions stand the test of time, and in insular worlds, are pretty dang universal, especially with people who have pasts, like us all. Enough seeds are indeed planted, or in this case, pills taken, for next time. The ending makes the lagging middle worth it.

House of Cards, Episode 23 (2014)  ****
The opening action scene is cut so well here that we pull what William A. Fraker discussed with Roman Polanski pulled in Rosemary' Baby. We see a face slowly reveal itself around a wall, and yes, I leaned to my right, thinking I would get a better look. Here all the characters are on different paths, many of them private. Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly) lets go even more; Ron Underwood (Kevin Spacey) persuades the president and pushes and pulls just hard enough to save his backside. The international plotlines tie together, as do the camera angles between master shots, high and low-angles, and subtle shifts on where the camera is placed. This is Robin Wright's first time directing in the series, with Willimon and Lisa Eason writing. Sometimes the collaboration works best, as perhaps one of the writers got boxed into a corner. This once hits all the right notes, explains, suggests, then moves on, doing those same two things and setting up the next story, or phase of it, or whatever.

House of Cards, Episode 22 (2014)  ***1/2
To beat the same drum, this episode is expertly paced. Beau Willimon writes and Jodie Foster of all people directs, for the first time in this series. She's curious about what people will do when faced with tough decisions, and who controls a room. The dialogue is weighty, minimalist; manipulation is calculated where just enough is revealed for intensive purposes, but boy are these people disconnected from relaxing and an absence of agenda. Characters introduced early and have bit parts are explored more, but never fully, and we never know when they'll surface again. Reg E. Cathey leads this group of characters: he wants to do the right thing in a crashing world, has been given an opportunity, sort of, and yet can't bring his wants to fruition. Sort of like the Vice-President.

House of Cards, Episode 21 (2014)  ***1/2
This installment is especially about relationships and how they evolve and come about bit by bit. It starts with a series of two-person scenes. Director James Foley, as he did in Glengarry Glen Ross, cuts back and forth between two and one-shots with the framing sometimes prominent, while at other times it's completely secondary to the dialogue. Character movements are paced so that people are at rest, thinking, then they move with a purpose. 

This one builds toward a dandy of a climax, a sequence of single-handed double-crossings that suggest more to come. The supporting players build their roles and suggest they've always been these people. They're also getting in over their heads and we wait for them to improvise their ways out. In a sense, in that old story of survival, that's what truly defines us all.

Blood Ties (2014) **
Guillaume Canet so inspired me with his 2007 thriller, Tell No One, based on the Harlan Coben novel, that I could barely wait to see what the young French filmmaker did next. Now I will, because he may or may not match it. Rumor has it Canet is a huge fan of James Gray, who here co-wrote the script with Canet. Gray is hit and miss in his own right. The Frenchman should stick to his own turf, ideas, and execution. This movie feels like its trying to be something it's not, or go about it in such an emotional and logistically oblique way, we don't care much, if at all, and mostly, we're not curious. This is done with quite a cast. Billy Crudup has the best lines, while Clive Owen has the worst, most unconvincing character he's probably ever had. Zoe Saldana does what she can, but her part is underwritten.

Canet also enjoys watching people right before events happen, but character reactions? What are we supposed to think when Owen, when asked who he is, bangs his head repeatedly on a rusty telephone pole. That's supposed to show he's tough, I think, but we already know that. Some scenes build, others don't, most, I bet, cannot be explained. One person left us convinced, though, and that's Marion Cotillard. She can probably do it all. Too bad the scenes were not interesting or shaped five minutes in.

True Detective, Episode 4: "Who Goes There" (2014) ***1/2
The early scenes cut away a tad quickly: Harrelson in a confrontation in a hospital is interrupted by McConaughey slowly looking through a toolbox. We're interested, then we feel we're toyed with, after an intense opening in a prison cell where another trail is presented that might lead to Reggie Ledoux.

What a trail that turns out to be. We've heard crazy things go on out in the country at night in the middle of nowhere. We're not surprised at an all-night party, actually, make that a rave in what is probably an abandoned mill or factory. The second is in the wee hours of the night where many motorcycle gang members gather, and McConaughey goes undercover, playing a part where an associate from his past sizes him up. Need comes into play, as the biker needs our detective for a score, and the last thirty minutes are so harrowing I couldn't look away. Cary Fukunaga, using cinematographer Adam Arkapaw (They've worked in every episode together) whirl their camera through a poor, predominantly African neighborhood, and the edits are few. The scene, which becomes a sequence, is done authentically. The filmmakers could've lifted anything from earlier urban films set in the ghetto. Instead, they come up with an original set-piece that never once confuses or cheats us.This is great work, and we slowly realize the cliffhangers and endings are different from one episode to the next. Another reason we keep watching.

True Detective, Episode 3: "The Locked Room" (2014) ****
Surge ahead we do, starting with a preacher (played by the increasingly visible Shea Wigham) under a tent. We don't know much of his audience, dropping right in on these people, and the two detectives' opinions vary a little. A few leads are presented, then the story leaves this community and like many, if you've held more than one job in your life, you wonder when you'll see these people again, or if you care.

Woody Harrelson's anger equaling hurt is front and center, and the two manifest themselves through control, or backhanded attempts at such. We're amazed at his lashing out, but we recognize it, and know where it's coming from. His line, "I'm not a psycho," got a laugh. Because it's true: he knows better, and can't help himself. Speaking of which, the last shot gets a "Whoa." That's a true "Wow" factor. Increasingly, I thought of the Nietzsche quote about the abyss, and after viewing this installment, noticed the tagline of this story for the first time: "Touch darkness, and darkness touches you back."

We're grateful that Nic Pizzolatto and director Cary Fukunaga, the writer and director of all three episodes, are showing us what is. They avoid cliches, but not structure, and boy do they have the breathing turned up on the sound. The music by T Bone Burnett is used more than we realize, and perfectly. How often has one said that?

True Detective, Episode 2, "Seeing Things" (2014) ***1/2
Dialogue such as, "Sharp an eye for weakness as I'd ever seen," doesn't come along often. So particular, so defining, so much care put into it, we almost don't want half the moments to pass. As in life, they do. Then there are figurines inserted, the work of a child. Plot and character are once again balanced here, and if this segment plateaus a little, also like some days we've all known, that's okay. We notice the sweeping camera shots that pan up from another long, flat road next to a swamp, but some of these shots pan right; they linger. We're not sure where we're going next. And we want these shots to hold a little longer. We're closer to all mysteries and yes, toyed with, held at arms length, and ready to surge.

True Detective, Episode 1, "The Long Bright Dark" (2014)  ****
Few viewing experiences have so held me in their grasp that I stop noticing certain things. These things include the editing, or when the frame changes, how the dialogue almost always sounds authentic (there are moments of strain, or feel that way), and the actors, even Michelle Monaghan in a bit part so far, embodying their roles. Woody Harrelson just wowed in Out of the Furnace; twenty years after Natural Born Killers and twenty-one since Cheers ended, he is on a role. He's never been one to quite carry a blockbuster, but he will appear, be generous with others, be unpredictable, and then...a few months later he shows up again.

Matthew McConaughey, the more somber, water-runs-seep half of the duo, is absolutely in his prime. But then...the director, Cary Fukunaga, and writer/creator Nic Pizzolatto, are showing us moss-hanging trees, rundown houses in the bayou and taking their time. So many times has Hollywood cut away from these places, even in good films such as Alan Parker's Angel Heart, that we want more. We get it: and we're just starting on the path to investigating two murders, these characters, the land, and why police shun some cases and not others. The shots are never onverdone as the camera is usually waist-high; we see only parts of these people, framed in by the office, the cars they drive, and they are slow-moving around someone else's land. We're with them every step of the way, and we don't even know who, who, or how the murders took place, how the relationship between these two guys ended, and most importantly, why anything? Motives are buried, and we know they won't stay that way. Hence we keep watching.

Omar (2013)  ****
This is the kind of storytelling I just got done discussing with Laurie Scheer. Here is a movie able to mix genres, take us to a far away place, explicate only what is needed, and tell it authentically. It was a good forty-five minutes into this movie before I pinpointed where it was, added the cultural particulars, and I knew how sure-footed the filmmakers were three or four minutes in. This movie knows it's a thriller, and that let's us invest in the characters, especially Omar.

For a focal character, as the saying goes, they have chosen wisely. Omar is young (early twenties, we guess), confident, brave, teases danger, and is sweet-natured, though he doesn't often let it show. We wonder how much his environment has influenced him. We sure sense his family has. So it's also a slice of life. Then it's a prison movie, and when he's in prison we wonder if he'll see his girlfriend again, kill soldiers, or climb that wall, or how and if he'll get out of prison. The great opening shots tell us all we need to know on many levels: less is indeed more, especially with that huge, flat wall next to a small, rugged town.

The Unknown Known (2014) ***1/2
Danny Elfman's music builds and, with the editing back and forth between former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and images meant to evoke, provoke, and enhance, this movie always almost threatens to take off. Elfman's driving score is not unlike Philip Glass's of Errol Morris's earlier The Thin Blue Line (1988), which I saw in high school and wrote a paper on in college. The opening shot of the vast blue ocean also tells, almost warns us, that we are lost at sea; what is still unknowable is out there no matter how pretty it might seem.

"What are you worried about?" Morris asks Rumsfeld at one point. "Intelligence," he answers. "How do you think they got away with it?" asks Morris. "It was a failure of imagination," answers Rumsfeld. We ponder, and Morris slows down with his interrotron approach, and Rumsfeld, after office, looks more at ease than we've seen him probably ever. After dwelling in the present, Morris goes back in time--we see Donald as a young man, in the Navy, through marriage, in the oval office with Nixon and Cheney, and after Watergate a single one image sets us off: "What's in that safe?!" Like that picture, Morris throws images at us. This is good, solid filmmaking, and we only go so deep. Maybe we can, and we still sense there's more out there.

Ray Donovan, Episode 6: Housewarming (2013)  ****
We start this episode with one character dying as a continuation of the previous one. Otherwise, the plotline about the lounging kids is dropped. Now we notice the dark and light photography, where the hallucinations are used just enough. People just walk into these people's lives and we wonder if they'll amount to anything: consider the neighbor who joins the housewarming party

This does, however, delve more into the FBI investigation, and then we get the ending. How good is it to see that actor, James Woods, who has never turned in a bad performance in his life. We see him just after the character issues are introduced and left hanging. We so look forward to seeing him again. He's also unpredictable, but he's a one-and-only.

Ray Donovan, Episode 5: The Golem (2013)  ***1/2
This has great pacing at the beginning, with Ezra routinely driving home on a highway above the city. Then he hits a figure crossing the highway. Then we cut to Ray, whose head we now notice is like a shaved bullet; then it occurs to us there are barely any guns in this show. Great plotting takes over with Mickey wearing a wire--we're only shown the payoff. Meanwhile, the teens are lounging around...what else do some do when parents aren't around in the afternoon? These three characters seem always to be flirting with danger.

Even if something doesn't happen, we're always wondering what might happen, especially with Frank Whaley as the FBI agent. The young blond girl, not so much, and that's probably just as well: we needs some form of predictability.


Ray Donovan, Episode 4: Black Cadillac (2013)  ****
Here we notice how complicated the wife's eyes are. Paula Malcomson was probably chosen for this reason. She's churning and we wait for her to explode or do something unpredictable, so this is a stereotype/cliche revisited: the bored housewife who loses it. But like everything else in this story, we don't when, how, where, and so on. 

The culture clashes continue: home versus work, generations, even the mafia versus the new generation. I use "versus" because these forces start out against each other, and have to deal with one another. There's a visit to Palm Springs where some people are on edge and wary of their past. Ray is still a pillar of security, common sense, needed truth, and getting things done, and can't be everywhere at once, even if he knows he should be there. Near the end, it's Jon Voight's eyes we notice, and when we have a lighthearted ending, the credits roll and John Dahl, that bastion of independent cinema in the '90s (Red Rock West, The Last Seduction, Rounders) directed this thing. So good to have him back.


House of Cards, Episode 20 (2014)  ***1/2
James Foley returns to the director's chair, and he starts right out of the gate with attack ads, the president dropping the hammer on Run Underwood (Remember him?), who's chief of staff emerges and...watch what he does. This is a tip from F. Scott Fitzgerald as quoted by William Friedkin in his memoir: "What characters do define who they are." The plotline of the heat wave from the prior episode is dropped; that's how life is with these people and dealing with political issues--one tarbaby replaces the next. 

Claire (Remember her?) and Frank play people off one another, and the one-shots work. Actually, all the shots work. There's also a short scene where Jacki works and just sits there, thinking. Shame about one scene where two characters meet in a public place, act as if they're not talking to one another, and then one obviously hands the other a white envelope. Does it really go on like this in front of us? Maybe. But after all the slyness, let's keep it up.

House of Cards, Episode 19 (2014)  ****
The director team from the previous episode is back with a new writer, John Mankiewicz, and they start with someone not seen since the middle of the last episode. Actually, her absence has been nice. The FBI spy game quickly surges, boiling down to the legality of a journalist getting roped in; anyone who's read The Terror Factory by Trevor Aaronson knows this. The energy and plot grow out of the machinations spawned by this agency, and we sense the journalist, played by Sebastian Arcelus, has simultaneously sealed his fate and we watch helplessly. 

There's also a great scene with the two first ladies. This is storytelling, folks, when a scene can convey, evoke, and lay groundwork in what I think is under two minutes. For the filmmaking, the same cinematographer, Igor Martinovic, is sometimes framing, always showing people moving slowly and what seems like surefootedly in these walls. We notice things like this before sexual tension comes out of nowhere, and that's why this series has a 9.1 rating on the IMDB, and why we keep watching.


House of Cards, Episode 18 (2014)  ****
This team of writer Kenneth Lin and director John Coles gain our confidence.We start with two curveballs, three if you include Frank's reaction to something right before his eyes. Then we get back to the relationships this is all about, which feels nice. There's a great deep-focus shot as Frank enters a room with the chief Chinese businessman waiting for him. Shots like this show him entering a room lit with two prominent colors, and we see a character going into the woods, so to speak. How much do our higher-ups know about trade diplomacy anyway, when thrust upon them? Answer: it's still all about power and throwing your weight around, if not least not revealing weaknesses or lack of knowledge.

Now the China cyber plot takes off and is given a human dimension. We also meet the first lady, which is great timing on the character introduction. Where's she been all this time? Did we wonder about the president's family? We don't know, and not really. But back to China: great direction on this subplot as the decks are stacked evenly and links to the heated China talks a couple years ago if you read Paul Krugman's columns. The undercover theme resumes in a few ways; they're all undercover in a way. 


House of Cards, Episode 17 (2014)  ***1/2
Now this is great plotting: an outside yet not all unexpected force enters the fray. It also hits us that the supporting cast is not that well known, which is probably how Washington seems to most of us outside our own representatives. With the back-and-forth dialogue down to a science, this one slows in parts; we sense yet don't feel what's coming, if that makes sense. 

The writer this time is Laura Eason, with Foley directing again, and things slow way down for an interview that contains great revelation and inspires at the same time. John Frankenheimer, when interviewed about Seven Days in May, said, "When you say, oh, that would never happen, you've got your movie!" Couple this with the fact that Frank's sincerity is still a mystery; we don't know how deep it runs. With that, and the fact that we see the fruition of seeds planted one-and-a-half to two episodes before, and see how they play out off and on camera, wins us over big time.

House of Cards, Episode 16 (2014)  ***
This one almost gets too bogged down in legislation and its procedure; it does, however, show a part of the job we've avoided much of this time. We also get an interesting plant: one character, concealed in a hooded sweatshirt, visits a tattoo artist late at night, and looks wistfully right into the slowly zooming camera. We love plants like that, taking little screen time, with no idea where they're headed. Speaking of characters, we wonder whether the journalist will obey his new source. Anyone who's read Trevor Aaronson's The Terror Factory sense what's unfolding with the F.B.I.

This time we feel director James Foley at the hands of creator Beau Willimon, which ties back to my interview with John Badham on working in TV versus feature films. The camera placement isn't the best, sometimes plain, sometimes too simple. Maybe this episode is a break, letting us breathe, before ramping up again. And Frank Underwood (Spacey) still has our admiration no matter what dastardly deeds: he improvises, gets out of tough situations, navigates what can only be a tough job, and all this is enough to wait and keep watching. See, it can be that simple.


House of Cards, Episode 15 (2014)  ***1/2
With the same writer and director as the previous episode, the back and forth dialogue is in full force, as are voiceover transitions. Franklin, knows how to cut between two people talking at a table, when to leave the over-the-shoulder shot out and show people alone. Having just re-watched The Wolf of Wall Street, perhaps he's taken a page from Scorsese. The director is also more creative with his framing and camera movement.

Even if we don't quite understand one blackmail, we know enough, and clearly see the theme of the past coming up again. After all, It's how we carry and react to the past that defines us as we move forward. The Chinese syber subplot doesn't quite spark: what value is at stake anyway? We need to get back to the people, and that's where an old editor who appeared early on shows up as a voice of sanity. For such a sinful city, rebirth is possible.


House of Cards, Episode 14 (2014)  ****
Beau Willimon, the show's creator, is back on, writing this episode, as is Carl Franklin, nominated for an Emmy for his work. It is a tribute that we are in the fourteenth hour of this show and still don't know which character will show up next, unsure of many trajectories, or who will survive the day, which is probably true to DC life. And wow does this installment have a great ending.

It's espionage, soap opera, and veers toward noir so devious that we stop breathing...and the payoff is so across the line we can't believe it. Then we see the perpetrator outright lie about life and death consequences without blinking an eye. There is also one scene that lifts from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, as described by Martin Scorsese in an interview as his favorite. We forgive this kind of preordained groundwork because the story is (still) so unpredictable. Then there's the ending.


Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)  ***
Sometimes filmmakers have to stumble, or not dive deeply into a script before hitting it a home run or two. That's what happened with Wes Anderson with this film before hitting two homers with Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel. With this offering, he found his footing with composition, details, and camerawork. Yes, that fur does look like it wants to be petted. 

Then there's the story itself. Solid, a tad unpredictable, fairly rewarding, yet not skin deep. Perhaps it's Clooney's voice as Mr. Fox: he's so self-assured, never really tested so that his character grows. The story's musical interlude with locals sitting around while the animal's dance, and the animals dancing at the end, shows a self-awareness and too-pleased mindset that appears now and again with Anderson's work. This time it stops the movie cold, and at less than ninety minutes, that's a lot.

Out of the Furnace (2013)  ***1/2
I've taken acting classes, and they at least helped me appreciate good acting when I see it on film. We sometimes forget just how close the camera is to the actors. In Scott Cooper's Out of the Furnace, it says something when Christian Bale, Woody Harrelson, Sam Shepard, Willem Defoe, and Zoe Saldana, in her best performance to date, are all able to shed their cinematic baggage and become part of a place. That place is somewhere in Appalachia in a small town with one mill where the majority of the population has worked or is at least associated. The smokestacks symbolize former times, solidarity, yet watch the smoke: change is in the wind. 

Change is instigated when a local fight manager (Defoe) goes against his gut and allows the brother (Casey Affleck, in a solid performance we've come to expect from him) of the main character (Bale) to enter a fight. They come into contact with Harlan DeGroat (Harrelson), and things spiral from there. One of the tricks to this film is that when we see act three coming, we sure enjoy the journey by way of these actors evoking pasts, a trapped, strained present, all with little looking to the future. Roger Ebert once said Harrelson is the kind of actor who walks into a room and you have no idea what he'll do. It is so true, and he's the key to making this story work. Nineteen years after Natural Born Killers (1994), we still don't know what to expect from this guy, let alone Bale, the center of the movie, thirteen years after American Psycho (2000). 

Cooper slows things down toward the end, and we're still wrapped up in what's happening when he skillfully avoids a cliche of a one-on-one chase through an old industrial site. Then he gives us a last shot which, when we think about it later, ties up everything perfectly. This director is currently filming Black Mass about Whitey Bulger. Cooper is a director working today that we cannot wait to see what he does next, and it probably won't be what we expect from him either.

Homicide (1991)  ***1/2
Not that I'm on a 1991 kick, but this, David Mamet's third feature as director, kind of slipped under the radar. There's some reason for that, especially with what can be read as an ambiguous ending. What many missed, I think, was the great performance by Joe Mantegna as detective Robert Gold. Mantegna had quite a year, with this opening in October and a strong role in Bugsy two months later. He was on the rise, and I expected him to be bigger in features, but I also suspect he is a man of integrity and chooses parts that interest him. He certainly is an actor of such.

Mamet has said in his book on directing that he believes film should be with uninflected images. He frequently starts a scene here with a shot of a wall, stairs, or a door before the action starts, and sometimes the actions are little. These seconds alone draw us in. Even when Mantegna is standing around, shots of him are a little different, the pose and lighting a little more angular (we see this later with Gene Hackman in Mamet's 2001 film Heist). Structurally, Mamet knows how to build suspense, lead us in what we think is a linear direction or to an abstraction, and spring a surprise. This last aspect comes late this time, as this story is all about the process of self-discovery. Speaking of structure, it's occurred to me that the greats know when to drop characters from th story, when they've done their part and are not essential to the conclusion.

This is even when the story is all about the process. We're curious about underground movements, especially those that tie to the past. This one has dangerous territory, with Jewish people allegedly smuggling guns that goes back decades. As for Gold, the character arc here is a little like Mamet's most recent film Phil Spector. We see the process, one outcome, and perhaps not the resolution we wanted. But boy did we think along the way and were rewarded.

The Last Boy Scout (1991) **1/2
Shane Black is one of those writers, I imagine, has been tracked on those message boards that appeared in the early '90s when people first started tracking writers, directors, and related storytellers. Black broke rules with his screenplay format for Lethal Weapon, one of the best action movies of that decade. He sold his script for this movie for $1.75 million, according to the DVD credits. From my interview with Tom Malloy, we know what we're getting with one of his scripts, and we see the structure here. What's missing is dramatic needs of the story and characters, a mounting, pressing Act Three that goes through the motions and ratchets up the violence, and a little less asides demeaning women. Okay, okay, the last listing can be misconstrued as they come from certain characters in certain situations; still, it's often enough.

I mentioned Act Three: it feels slapped together. The need for redemption for Bruce Willis's character falls to the side. Does he ever reconcile anything with his daughter after a great scene in Act Two? Saving her life is enough? I say yes and no. The beginning, quite the inciting incident, is never explained. Willis also slugs a person of power at the end, something he would, ahem, never, ever get away with, and if cinema is but a dream, well, that's one thing. Reality is quite another. Tony Scott, the recently deceased director, did the underwhelming Days of Thunder a year-and-a-half before this, and moved on to True Romance two years later. He cranked out the actioners, but if dramatic, psychological need was missing, his climaxes fell short.


The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)  ****
Now this is storytelling. This movie is also why I like the cinema. So many aspects of filmmaking are conveyed in this 1973 masterpiece, starting with the dialogue, which a friend said a while ago is "dead these days." Dialogue has its moments, but in the midst of summer blockbusters, especially in light of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the talk doesn't add much spice. In this classic, the talk, doublespeak, inferences and references reveal everything about these people, the time, the place. These people inhabit a world and stay just ahead of us, but we get drifts. 

The Friends of Eddie Coyle is set in the suburbs of Boston in the fall, heavily leaning toward winter. Against these New England buildings and houses, four men follow a smartly dressed businessman to work. This is such a quiet opening, and then the dialogue starts along with the musical score by Jazz legend Dave Grusin. The characters are introduced one at a time, and many don't talk much at first but we sense they all know of and have at least heard of each other. The meetups are crucial: we see a place, a car enter the frame, and gradually the full location is shown, and they are usually two or three streets off main drags, not a coincidence. We also observe reactions during negotiations, along with that extra look Robert Mitchum gives Peter Boyle toward the end.

Mitchum holds this movie together; his air of disinterest is intact, but he holds back and releases buried emotions in a rhythm that's outside everyone else. He's surrounded by character actors we've seen many times since. Then there's the framing, sometimes sloppy until we realize it's part of this world and reflects these men going through it. It's a cold world, a shade beyond recognizable, and interesting start to finish. Having just read George V. Higgins's book, Paul Monash, the screenwriter and producer, kept much of the dialogue in, and provided a perfect and different ending to the book, which also had a perfect ending.

Think of the title, then watch the movie, and consider it again. Then consider that the film runs 102 minutes. It doesn't overstay, or overstate for that matter, anything. We've all seen movies over two hours that accomplished little. We see this one, and juxtapose it with our own, sometimes former, friends.


The Americans - Pilot (2013)  **
This pilot episode starts great, with a man and a woman in a bar. We can't hear the conversation, and a seduction occurs simultaneously with a kidnapping, both involving the same character. Ah, Washington, DC. In this extended sequence, the music sets the drumbeat of clockwork, and we're prepped for a plot-driven tale of espionage carefully set in 1981. Unfortunately, the balance of plot and character don't keep up with each other, propel action, or peek our curiosity. Neither do the domestic scenes with the kids, who aren't really given characters but are at service to the two leads.

Keri Russell can be very good (TV's Felicity, Leaves of Grass) and Matthew Rhys grew on me. Their scenes together are effective, and Noah Emmerich is perfectly cast as a new neighbor. Even the flashbacks are well inserted. The plotlines and setups are for a great espionage thriller. This episode lacked the emotional release, the power of suggestion, and ideas of a great one. Consider the last scene: instead of the camera slowly backing away to reveal someone hiding in a room, it simply cuts to a character holding a gun. Where's the surprise and suspense?

Alexander Revisited (2007)  ***1/2
This is the first film, I think, that director Oliver Stone has approached the story as whole. The chronology jumps around more than any other epic I've ever seen, yet we are never confused and witness themes develop and bloom. It's as if Alexander is recalling what matters to him, though the central performance by Colin Farrell, for all its high points and nuances, is least believable in creating a sense of crazed urgency and vision, which are the parts of our hero the director celebrates the most. The supporting performances, on the other hand, are terrific, with a career-best by Angelina Jolie and second best by Val Kilmer. They are pitch-perfect in creating demons that haunt the young Macedonian, in illustrating a distant, dysfunctional relationship between each other, and showing all sides of Alexander's parents. This film is as much about family as it is about the son of a king leading an army across southeastern Europe, through Persia, and culminating in Northern India in one of the best battle sequences of recent memory. Throughout all these scenes, Stone and his cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto, who's among the top ranks of his brethren, never overlight the landscape. The outdoors feel natural in stark contrast to the interiors, which are clearly shot on stages.

I barely made it through the first version of Alexander in 2004. That film seemed hesitant, dropped hints at what it was about, then moved on. This is Stone's third cut of the film; only Natural Born Killers received further treatment from the director after a theatrical release. Both versions are better than the originals, but this one more markedly. All the more astonishing is how the filmmakers handle the homosexual undercurrents with the King and his lieutenants, and which fully surface in a nice sequence where the film slows down. That's just it: Stone and co. know to slow down before ratcheting up the action, and balance it all with philosophy and verbal confrontations. The end drags on a little, and the filmmakers really hammer home how awesome they believe our hero really ("The greatest of all") was when they don't need to. I'm glad, however, the director revisited this material, and viewers won't be sorry.


Homefront (2013)  **1/2
Any movie that transplants the locale from Minnesota to Louisiana, that has Outcasts as the name of a motorcycle gang, that has "Agents Real Name" on a person's official file (without the apostrophe on "Agents") cannot be taken too seriously. Jason Statham has been cranking out a few movies a year, some good (The Bank Job) and some good and surprising (Killer Elite). This time he's plugged into an action movie as a former undercover cop named Phil Broker, who's involved in killing a bicycle gang leader's son. The revenge plot is set, before we tie in the usual family history tensions, the "different ways of doing things 'round here" statements, the sheriff we're not sure who's side he's on and abides by unwritten laws, and the child caught in the middle of it all. All the scenes involving Broker's daughter, played by Izabela Vidovic who is a natural actress, have willows and daffodils blowing in the wind with almost every color present. Eventually the themes of family, corruption, and innocence take a backseat to the showdown between the cop and James Franco, who plays dark very well. A budding romance set up in three scenes with a laughable school psychologist is completely dropped. All gives up in the face of a whirling, disco-like camera.

The director, Gary Fleder, has had an interesting track record. He appeared in the '90s with Things to do in Denver When You're Dead and Kiss the Girls. He did solidly with an adaptation (The Runaway Jury) but his films don't have longevity. His camera moves so much, I was reminded of my interview with Gil Bettman with the rise of the snoopy cam. Still shots take up about ten percent of the movie, along with recycled tough guy lines, and no wonder: Sylvester Stallone wrote the screenplay. He knows how to structure a story, so this is a cut above the others. That isn't saying too much.


Ray Donovan Episode 3: "Twerk"  (2013)   ***1/2
Again we end with an "Ahhh!" and a question. Jen Grisanti's observation holds, and the ending prompts several questions, especially with the steely stare of Frank Whaley, whom it's great to see on the screen again. He's in two scenes, and if the late Alec Guiness characterized acting as doing nothing in front of the camera, Whaley's less-is-more approach is perfect. 

This episode is a tad uneven. It's the first by director Greg Yaitanes, and some scenes he doesn't seem sure where to put the camera. Still, under his swift pacing, different tensions pile up, and for that it is very effective. For all the awkward camera angles, the one-shots stand out. At this point Ray pulls back from us, or us from him? The plot development involving teenagers doesn't feel urgency, yet, but that's why some of these shows work: we don't see the character arcs, events, action, and motives coming. Here it's flat, so it better pay off.

Ray Donovan (2013) Episode 2, "A Mouth is a Mouth"   ***1/2
This episode indeed starts with a question, and we wonder what's transpired. The filmmakers are again intelligent to pass time between episodes--at what time did the wife fall asleep? How did the evening that left us hanging at the end of the first episode conclude?

If there is a theme to this episode, it is asking, how will people react? Even when it starts with Ray and his two accomplices watching footage we don't what it's about, we're watching them. We know Ray's will be muted; remember, he flatly asked without missing a beat in episode one when a man says he wakes up next to a dead woman, "Did you kill her?" But the character hurdling a wall to a private mansion, who the driver was, sets him in motion. Earlier, we're thinking of his reaction when one character, whom Ray doesn't want around his family, spends an entire day with his family, including playing hooky with Ray's kids. Steven Bauer, whom it is indeed good to see again in an understated performance, eventually gets through and calms Ray down.

This series sticks to its tone even when juggling the order of events; we know and sense agendas moving forward off camera, and we await to see what propels these people after they discover what's happened. We're hooked.


Ray Donovan Episode 1, "The Bag or the Bat" (2013)  ****
Liev Schreiber has been steadily emerging over the last fifteen years or so. Remember him in the thankless role in A Walk on the Moon? He moved up to supporting status in The Sum of All Fears. His presence was enough, and his physicality is what Ann Biderman, the creator, banks on. His eyes are slits. His mouth moves grudgingly. Jen Grisanti, in our interview, said each episode ends with a question. This one starts with a question, of course, as an old man is let out of jail. We know we'll see him again. 

Then we see a man wake up next to a dead woman, and that's how we meet Ray after a series of sweeping, zooming camera shots over L.A. Ray's wife complains about the neighbors playing thumping music. These east coasters are fish out of water, and the director, Allen Coulter, photographs them frequently from low or waist-high angles. If the plot is heavy as it hurls one event or revelation after another at Ray, who stands his ground and we wonder when he'll break, we realize how much the plot has grown out of these characters. Biderman and Coulter are smart not to play up the Hollywood angle of this show; they know how curious we are. So when we start from and remain on the inside or outskirts of the main scene, they keep our wonder going, and isn't it all the backroom deals that peak our curiosity anyway?


Loving Lampposts (2010) ***1/2
This movie really does matter. We've heard for years that autism is on the rise, many speculate how to use the condition to that person's advantage, to our advantage as a whole, and how broad the spectrum is. Of course there's how to handle such a kid in the classroom. Now comes the definitive documentary Loving Lampposts, a few years old, and screened at Carlton College's reunion, where I saw it. Todd Drezner, the writer, director, editor, and narrator, has a child with autism. The title comes from the child's fondness for lampposts when the family goes walking in a park in New York. This image, of a child with such a condition, we've seen before, or something like it, and the word "unnatural" occurs to us. 

What we haven't seen before is this balance of perspectives between the medical field, academics who study it what is probably best described as a sociological view, parents who raise a kid with autism, and fully grown autistic adults. Drezner is exploratory in nature, raising questions between sustained sequences of interviews. This may drag for some, but the commentary is recognizable and sheds light on people's experiences. You bet we get the parents who want the best for their child, conferences who sell hyperbaric chambers designed to help, and obliterate the one-size-fits-all view of autism. Drezner keeps his exploratory tone, and hears his subjects out which increases how personal this film is. What we do from now on appears to be up to the person and all the data out there.


The Secret Life of Walter Mitty  (2013) **
In the first ten minutes of Ben Stiller's new film, which he directed and stars in, especially the first five, we notice the wide angle shots and are braced for filmmaking using film to its fullest. The first time Walter dreams is a curveball we don't see coming. The next five times this happens we're not surprised, as when he and a new corporate boss go head-to-head in a fight involving skateboards down the middle of a New York main drag. The scene isn't funny, suspenseful, and for all the effects, barely entertaining, which I hate to write because Stiller, nineteen years after Reality Bites and seventeen years after The Cable Guy, is such a capable director. He knows how to pace, satirize, and play off others on screen. This time, a broad-sided joke at The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, is simultaneously funny and belongs in another movie. I laughed, then wondered why that scene was in there and not a straight-up comedy such as Zoolander.

This is Stiller the storyteller branching out, and I don't know many people who've been to Greenland, but he and cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh (The Piano, Boardwalk Empire)capture the faraway land in all its glory, and we're a tad annoyed at the occasionally choppy editing, in and outdoors. There's a bar scene that starts so funny and concludes so wanderingly, we're left to breathe a little too much. Then comes the message again: this man should go, though we're not sure there was much of a dilemma before he embarks on his adventure's next phase. This guy branches out and...what do you do with it? A storytelling book once said to have a goal for a character in each scene. There are several, starting with one with Shirley Maclaine (about fifteen minutes into the film) where we wonder this.

That said, we don't get Walter's insights or growth along the way, a good portion around the world. This guy, with one of the most watchable and comic actor's around, needs depth, spirit, and obstacles outside of an old hit by The Clash. 


In a World... (2013) ***1/2
Sometimes a movie comes along that is purely enjoyable. I remember watching Flirting twenty-one years ago when a college friend put that film in that category. Here is another, about the voiceover world in Los Angeles. We meet a gallery of characters and spend just enough time with them, with just enough improv, before the plot moves in out of the characters' agendas and world. Things feel authentic. We laugh at the true nature of these L.A. eccentrics, their insecurities, and how we identify with them, even when they're trying to connect with others, usually through attempts at humor, and miss, sometimes barely, sometimes by a lot.

Transitions are location shots of buildings in L.A.: these people are insular, interesting, probably never to break out of this sprawling urbanity. As the place is specific, it is universal to more of us than we care to admit. Lake Bell wrote, directed, and starred in this movie, and chose familiar yet unfamiliar character actors; we sure do recognize but can't quite place the ageing male pro (in a male-dominated industry), the studio technicians, or the passerby with the kitten voice who turns out to be an attorney who wants to do voiceovers. Like Get Shorty, many characters want what they're not getting. Two couples break up and get back together, yet the story doesn't feel tidy. It's a snapshot, this film, well worth taking.

All is Lost (2013) ****
I knew about twenty minutes in to All is Lost that this one was worth the top rating by its sheer brevity. Roger Ebert was disappointed with Cast Away for not going the full nine yards on a person lost at sea and reconnects with society. This one does, in an all-consuming solo performance by Robert Redford in the vein of the main character in many Roman Polanski films: we almost always know what he's thinking, and when we don't, we're curious and still want to watch this person after an hour and a half. How many cinematic characters can you say that about nowadays?

This is commentary on so many things, and perhaps most of all on decisiveness, indecisiveness, ignorance, commercial society, and the consequences of persistence when we do face problems alone. We're always told the rewards are great. In this story events happen, we react, and we watch a seventy-five year-old barely react, though his emotions aren't muted; they're real alright, and true to his nature as we grow to know him. He passes a series of tests, and we know little about this guy at the beginning and end, yet what happens in between is enough for us to follow him. Rolling Stone magazine listed the writer-director J.C. Chandor as one to watch. After Margin Call, the best mainstream movie about the 2008 financial crisis that pushed actors such as Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore, and Jeremy Irons in new directions, and this, he is someone in control of his craft.

Storytelling themes abound: the inciting incident, a great pull-and-push near the end, and then we reflect on the beginning. When it happens, we think of it as the conclusion and that we're about to see a flashback. Think again, and know that less is truly more on a few levels.



Oldboy (2013)  *
One of the most interesting things about Spike Lee's career is that all his films have been so different. When he started right out of the gate with She's Gotta Have it (1986), School Daze (1988), and Do The Right Thing (1989). The '90s treated him fairly well, especially with Malcolm X and the overlooked Clockers; he was easy to be pegged as the mainstream, African American filmmaker. One could easily forget his visual style, his risks with the camera, and his honest dialogue. The New Yorker reported that Lee's box office over the years has steadily gone down, and this didn't help.

Boy, is this movie different from his other work, and that's probably because the first half an hour builds up a character imprisoned for twenty years after establishing he's a terrible husband, absentee father, rage-filled alcoholic, and slimeball in an advertising meeting. That last scene, in a bar, with quick editing and closeups of the character's faces, braces us for a taut thriller. Then come the single-room-imprisonment sequence, and we're ready for redemption and revenge. We are not, however, ready for sadistic violence. Who is this guy anyway? How does he feel, outside of angry, about all this? Was he violent before? We sense not. 

His accomplice with unflinching loyalty is so flimsily established and carried out that when we uncover the plot and backstory of a big, powerful family being killed, it feels like gossip, not a deliberate, ingenious revenge plan. This all goes down in a prolonged, hyperviolent sequence that belongs in another movie because it takes up so much time and we don't know these people from Adam. What went so wrong boils down to the fact that events occur, and reactions, given so much attention in the first act, stop altogether. Warren Etheredge of Seattle's film school said that events aren't drama, reactions are. Lee desperately needs to revisit that.


Oldeuboi (2003)  ***1/2
Simon Sinek wrote a great book about that, and had one of the best TED Talks. Here's a classic South Koream film that is all about why. The how we get along the way, with a series of little reasons that add up. We don't know who would go to such lengths to imprison one man, Dae-su Oh, who looks around forty, for twenty years. The concept is so far-fetched, and executed so well in the first thirty minutes or so of this movie, we forget how preposterous the premise is. Some say it is at that moment of the pitch when you know you have a movie idea.

Chan Wook Park's film has expert editing, and therefore pacing, and consistently interesting visuals. Man, do we put with a lot of investigative scenes of people looking at screens, looking menacing, and often looking just past the camera. Beneath it all is originality in a foreign country few have visited, and I was lucky to live in for a year. Plot takes a firm front seat, yet we're not allowed sympathy for Dae-su. He is a mystery, though his mission remains pretty clear, and he is a man of action who's not too surprised at obstacles and violent characters thrown his way. 

We've seen this mystery man at the center of a story before, as well as powerful men exercising bizarre tools and arrangements to get what they want, but never quite like this. Park's story gets a tad drawn out and excessive toward the end, but there is indeed a resolution on more than one level, and a single smile means everything. I just finished reading Pamela Jaye Smith's Symbols, Images, and Codes, and we see cultural specifics in colors and locations, and are left in awe. Doesn't get much better than that.


After Earth (2013)  *
This is not the fault of the actors. This whole thing, a boring, tedious, waste of time, falls on the shoulders of M. Night Shyamalan. This guy used to make us think, and wonder, about the frames of the picture--what lay just beyond made us awake, aware, but never indifferent. It also occurred me that it must be increasingly difficult to do sci-fi. Here we get the militarism, family conflict, tribal loyalty, spiritual teachings grounded in Eastern philosophies, and some commentary on environmental catastrophe. Like so many movies these days, I couldn't recall one line of dialogue, but I remember Will Smith saluting his son at the end, just as an injured soldier did to Smith near the beginning. If that's one recalls outside of a slam-bang, provocative opening shot, what does that say about a sci.-fi. movie about a young boy's journey to a volcano where he battles various monsters?

Speaking of those monsters/aliens, the filmmakers avoid that trap, but not entirely. How Kitai (Jaden Smith) slews the monster is not creative in any way. In fact, he remembers and deploys the one warrior and life lesson tactic taught by his father. Hooray. Maybe the filmmakers aimed for minimalism, which can affect, be memorable, and matter to an audience. Remember Life of Pi? Last year's heralded All is Lost? Unfortunately, this long slog of a journey through what looks like Redwoods, which we sense know will end well, is all pedantic structure. We wait for surprises and payoffs, and instead get cold, distant acting with mundane, trite dialogue, which isn't their fault.

I remember Shyamalan on the cover of Newsweek in 2002 with the headline, "The Next Spielberg." Spielberg, some industry professionals say now, started moving the camera. That and a lot of other things have cemented his legacy. M. Night sure has his style; now he needs a story stronger than the earth's gravitational pull, and Spielberg still makes us laugh during Lincoln, or emotionally pulls us in during Warhorse. Perhaps Shyamalan should try a comedy and swing way beyond his comfort zone.


2 Guns (2013)  **
You have to hand it to director Baltazar Kormakur: from Iceland to the Southwest, he's embraced Hollywood, and vice versa. After adapting two of the internationally prominent inspector Reykjavik novels to the screen, he quickly did Contraband starring Mark Wahlberg, to mixed reviews. Now comes their second collaboration, and Wahlberg shares the screen with Denzel Washington, usually a good sign. Now all three of them need a better script.

Raymond Chandler double-crossed with sly, crisp dialogue that kept you guessing agendas, motives, and methods. The steely stares were contained, reticent, yet revealing intent. 2 Guns gets the double-crossing right, but about halfway through, one character inexplicably visits another character's abode, and the latter is inexplicably expecting and tracking the former. Where there were twists and turns with Chandler (Think Double Indemnity, or The Big Sleep), there was a single plotline accompanied by a single throughline, and both were in plain sight. The rest was the gravy and we ate it up, even though most of it occurred in claustrophobic canvases such as a nondescript office or a single house.

The sprawling palette here is the American Southwest, and veteran cinematographer Oliver Wood knows how to photograph our two stars and dueling outlaws, border patrols, and DEA agents against the rich red sands and searing sky. Then the wisecracks sound like rehearsals from Lethal Weapon. In an interview, screenwriter Blake Masters said he mentioned Sam Peckinpah among other things and got the job. The only real parallel with this film and Peckinpah is that Sam knew why characters existed, how to weave backstory into unfolding conflicts, and create scenes and schematics we wouldn't forget. Some things feel cut out: the ham-handed ending shootout is perhaps a homage to the battle at bloody porch, the climax of Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, which is till one of the greatest Westerns ever made. No one could have survived that battle, and we saw clearly what happened to the main characters, and more importantly, knew why they were there, where they were in their lives, and what values were at stake. With this movie's climax, there are so many backdoors, horse stalls, and corrals surrounded by motorized vehicles, half the extras could easily have driven away and this would have had no impact on the main characters at all.

Which leads us back to motives and agendas. Denzel in an interview said, laughingly, that if you could find a point in this movie, it's...be nice to people, or don't be mean to bad people or...he sort of trailed off. Outside of gratuitous violence, I'm not sure that's what the filmmakers set out to do other than entertain. I'm a sucker for heist movies that start in a diner across the street from a bank, with a Walter Hill-like (Johnny Handsome, Extreme Prejudice) bank robbery with rubber masks. But if the people are going through the motions, who cares?


Inequality for All (2013)  ****
Anyone who reads Robert Reich semi-regularly, or non-network news, will hear messages he's said before over the last five years. Fortunately for us, with this ninety-minute documentary, Reich, most famous as former President Clinton's first-term Secretary of Labor, gives us the best illustrations I've seen for the consequences of wealth inequality. One visual dominates the movie, a two-tiered bridge with a deep trough, showing the gap in equality closing after the stock market crashes of 1929 and 2008. At one point Reich says he's asked what country we should imitate to get back on track regarding this economic disparity, and his answer, after praising the investment in education and innovation of other countries, is still us.

The second illustration is really how economic trends are connected, in a circular pattern leading to recession when spun one way, growth in the other, is called the Virtuous Cycle. This is the centerpiece to how economic swings, just how interconnected purchasing, hiring, and taxes are, to Reich's message. He also deftly ties in the decline of unions, and clearly shows the importance of workers' voices. The bridge picture we're shown just enough, and we are appalled at the parallels and conclusions he draws after studying our country's economics for decades.

The film ends on a positive note, with him wishing fruitful futures to a packed seminar at UC Berkeley. We finish wishing he were leading the way, with a few brilliant minds, perhaps from his class, not likely always disagreeing with him, at his side.


Don Jon (2013)  *1/2
My high school English/film teacher pointed out that John Ford loved repetition. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's directorial debut, Don Jon, takes that notion to the hilt. We get the same five locales with the same six or seven shots about eight times. We also see the arc a mile away. From Shrek to Hitch, we meet a single guy who has a good life--just don't ask him to fall in love. Those movies, however, took place in the real world, or a real world, and had supporting characters with personalities and agendas who talked the main character through his troubles along the journey. 

The people around Don have no ambition, and he has a pretty good life taking classes, living in a nice apartment, visiting his family, the gym, the church, and the nightclubs. Speaking of the clubs, this movie undermines itself the whole way: if this guy is so addicted to porn, finds it much, much more gratifying than sex itself, why is he out trying to pick up? A power thing? Seeking dominance? Some people are just addicts, and I liked how the movie skipped that part, so we meet Don and he is who he is. But there are no consequences. This guy isn't lonely, has few if any battles, loses a girl he says he loves (Scarlet Johannson), and yet...we're not sure what this guy wants out of life.

Even his decision to play basketball instead of lifting weights alone toward the end...what does that mean? He's now even more socialized? For a movie centered on self-discovery, we're not sure who the main character is. Happy little lives can be provincial, but they also progress, and we can connect the dots. 


Lovelace (2013)  *
You know a movie is bad when the parents of our hero, played by Sharon Stone and Robert Patrick, are on screen maybe ten minutes and give the best, most memorable performances. The movie asks the driving question, "Who is Linda Lovelace?" in the first two minutes, and an hour in we have no idea of her sensibilities, interests, or, shall we say, values. What is this story about anyway? Coming of age? The price of stardom? Leaving home?

A few points are pounded home: she'll be a star, she has "it" that will make her a star, and her boyfriend Chuck is a jerk (though without him there'd be no movie). The porn scene we've seen done before (Boogie Nights) so this is nothing new. The directors, producers, audition cracks we've seen. The backdrops of Florida, New York, and particularities of the early '70s era aren't fleshed out. The filmmakers go halfway in on all these fronts and have no idea who our star is as a person.

I reckon that Amanda Seyfried needs a strong director. She can display feelings, even evoke moods. Now she needs consistency. Oh yeah, about forty minutes in the movie becomes a mystery before jumping back and forth in time without titlecards, and we lose track. This film doesn't even inspire a what could have been feeling. We don't care.


Jagten (2013)  ****
Some movies just nail a message, or a sensibility, at the core of human nature. These are the stories that stick with you, that show, don't tell, a quality we know, don't like to see, and think about from time to time. Come on: since Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," a play so widely regarded, we know this part of social strata is present and persists. We're scared, especially when it comes to children, when they're in public places, when they have misunderstandings. We frighten easily, react differently, and the pursuers never admit how little they've investigated the truth of a matter, heard all sides semi-thoroughly, and in this case, assume they have an understanding based on a glimpse of a situation.

That's all it is: a snapshot taken by the weak-willed and even weaker-minded, who seek support or comfort in the form of shared fear that quickly becomes support, and then the social undercurrent broadens in a tiny Danish village. This story is all based on a feeling. That's what matters, and we're off and running, or in this small town, people are off saying things. The stories of an incident change the facts a little, but take on a life of their own, and are enough to spark fear.

How to structure a story like this takes mastery. A man, played by Mads Mikkelsen in his best performance to date, works in a Kindergarten, that noblest of jobs. Communication is misconstrued, he is ostracized by his community, and we are with him every step of the way. His son, Marcus, appears, and looks about fourteen, so he's in the thick of pushing boundaries almost no matter what country he's in. Marcus's visit to a longtime friend's home, his interaction with former family friends are crucial, confrontational without being overt or attempting to get to the bottom of the matter. The camera is almost always at eye-level. Are his dad's events ever really forgotten? Moreover, this movie touches on a buried theme in movies and life, that the unseen and imagined is scarier than the visible.

I mentioned the structure: a legal procedure is dropped. The last scene suggests a larger, prevailing culture will continue, and we're not sure if all is forgotten, forgiven, or swept under the rug. A scene between two principle players is left dangling, and breaks that legendary John Cassavetes's rule of not cutting away until a scene is finished "because life isn't like that," he once said. The last twenty minutes or so are riveting if incomplete. We don't know if things are patched up, and maybe the characters don't either. Yet the ending doesn't feel ambiguous. We've journeyed an entire world, and when we're done, think back to the beginning. There is a comradery and community that persists in light of our personal foibles. This from what is often one of the happiest countries in the world.


Fast and Furious 6 (2013)  **
At this point, the characters better change, and "settling down" to start a family is about the only direction a few of these characters can take, twelve years after the first Fast and Furious. Then, of course, they're called back into action. I'm always curious about female roles in these films: they are supportive, seem to possess more wit than they reveal, before turning real tough. 

Like Cars 2, this is even bigger and more international than Furious Five. Whoever sees this will get what they expect, and even though humor doesn't always surface, charisma does. Still, Mamet it ain't, and we sense his talent for structure and mixing genres missing from stories like this. Then again, most people behind movies like this make a lot of money given market demand. As I was underwhelmed with director Justin Lin's first two movies, he's chosen a profitable career path and at least knows how to shoot a car chase. Imagine him with a great writer.


Side by Side (2012)  ***1/2
Side by Side is most effective in two ways: it inputs the technological advancements and transformation from photo-chemical film to digital, and is equally weighted in its discussion of each kind of filmmaking. Keanu Reeves, the interviewer and narrator, talks with directors, cinematographers, VFX Supervisors, and a few executives of studios or camera companies. These cover the perquisites of the filmmaking process, from directing actors, aligning shots, and most notably, reviewing dailies. Shooting digitally sure does impact the process, and if anything, this documentary runs a tad long, and it definitely covers the bases for anyone looking to enter the film industry.

Some notable comments: Robert Rodriguez says that technology pushes art and vice versa. David Fincher reviewing what the cinematographer's done, reacting from "Brilliant!" to "What the *#%&?" George Lucas discusses Star Wars Episodes one through three with digital cameras, and when posed a question of altering reality with digital, James Cameron duly retorts, "When have you been on a film set that was real?" Throughout the film, the didactic insertions work, especially showing the resolution of SD and HD cameras. One of the last, the work of the DI Colorist and how that person can change the story and reality really show how the process can get away from your average auteur. Martin Scorsese says the real auteur is the projectionist, who determines how a film is shown in the theater. In the cinema, whom one person calls the church of the twentieth century, our moviegoing experience can boil down to a regular job.

As stated, this is essential to any filmmaker entering the industry, especially with the explosion of digital projection screens over the last ten years. One filmmaker says the biggest challenge is to outpace imagination and make things more real. Like so much of life, we don't know where we'll end up, but as the Chinese saying goes, we do live in interesting times.


Ender's Game (2013)  ***
Having read Orson Scott Card's book fifteen years ago, after hearing what a classic it was, I was pleasantly surprised how well this screenplay was structured and paced. Gavin Hood, a South African director famous for Rendition and Tsotsi, splits empathy while propelling the plot forward. This movie is plot-heavy, and like all good science fiction, insists you go with it.

As all characters are at the service of the plot, usually a negative, we get what we want and need out of Asa Butterfield. We also get the strongest performance from Harrison Ford in years and a subtler, yet just as strong work from Viola Davis. Then we get Ben Kingsley among his worst with from what I can tell is an Aussie accent. The acting aside, we feel the efficiency and balance of plot and character, which a producer, Ken Atchity, once said that there is no difference between the two. He'd like this movie then. We are inspired, and feel the chaos of war, and certainly don't feel that the open-ended ending, usually clearly aiming for a sequel, is contrived. 

This is a solid adaptation, creating a world and taking us through it, especially if that's what you remember about the book. The story's big surprise is gratifying here, even if you know it. So why not more stars? Not many lines are memorable, and some gaps in the battles, where the characters know a lot more than we do, with that joy of discovery, would resonate more.

Frances Ha (2013)  ***1/2
Staunchly independent filmmaker Noah Baumbach's latest,Frances Ha, is very New York, and as the dramatic saying goes, the more specific something is, the more universal, and the more accessible. In this movie, relationships form, break, and develop on and off-camera over about a week, sometimes days, as Frances (Greta Gerwig), a struggling dancer in the city, tries only to get by and pursue her dream. She isn't desperate, just searching, lurching from one situation to the next in a stagnant life we imagine many artists lead. She'll also pay hundreds of dollars just to crash on the couch of a guy she flirts with (we think) and barely knows. What starts as a story of affection between two women centers on Frances's interactions, off-kilter reactions in conversations, and ventures to California and France. 

This may sound like a lot for a movie that just clears an hour and-a-half. Not a shot is wasted, so Baumbach makes this work. The photography is in glorious black and white. We are with Frances the entire time, wondering what makes her tick, and other characters will enter and exit scenes, locations, and wherever our main woman ends up, yet we don't feel slighted. How many times do we interact with acquaintances, walk away, and feel we know enough about a person? More than we realize sometimes, and often more than we admit without sounding like we're making snap judgments. After all, for those who don't settle down right away, one's twenties are for exploring, meeting others from across the land, sometimes the globe, and pursuing a dream. Baumbach understands this, and human nature, on such a deep level we await what he pursues next.


The Spectacular Now (2013)  ***
I can only imagine how hard it is to write a teenage film these days. The John Hughes's films of the '80s really set the standard, are still watched today mostly because, according to the documentary "Don't You Forget About Me," those movies "were about people." This one comes close. It is about people, yet doesn't resolve one main issue and tidies up the rest way too neatly. 

There are indeed two things that are hard to do in movies: write teenage dialogue, walking the tightrope of sincerity, (sometimes false), and aware of yet testing the world. The other hard thing to do is end a movie. This one echoes "Good Will Hunting," only it's not a twentysomething driving across a country, but a high school graduate driving up to the girl he's betrayed at college. They meet on some front steps, and the movie ends. We don't know her quite well enough to know what happens next, and a story that spends ninety minutes searching and grappling with late-teen issues such as alcohol, family, sex, and prom, leaves so many things hanging, we forget how good the performances are.

One especially stands out: Kyle Chandler (Super 8, Zero Dark Thirty, The Wolf of Wall Street) is fast becoming one of our best supporting actors. Here he shows a range and depth in the maybe ten minutes he's on screen we haven't seen before. The leads, Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley, are solid and believable. And yes, that's Jennifer Jason Leigh as a mom. The nailed truths: it takes big, pivotal events to get adults to tell teenagers they love them, and whether the latter hear it is another matter. Teller plays a ladies' man who says all the right things, is slick on the surface, and ignores what's buried.

The first half is the best: these are high school people we've known and remember, and may know in your average office environment, both of which are on the verge of adulthood. People barely show what they feel, and we're let in. That doesn't, however, mean we're left wanting more.

R.I.P.D. (2013)  *
This movie does not succeed, and maybe not for the immediate reasons you think. If, according to William Goldman, "it's all in the casting," which can save a movie or at least make it float, this could win. Jeff Bridges was described by Pauline Kael as the perfect movie actor. You have the always-reliable Mary-Louise Parker. Then, one of the more prevalent young stars of the decade, Ryan Reynolds. About that guy, mark my words, he's likely this decade's Josh Hartnett. 

Reynolds headlines the movie with a S.W.A.T. team, is killed in action after the movie quickly establishes a cover-up he decides he will report. This honorable move usually gets us to quickly like or admire a character. In this story, Reynolds's bland, minimalist facial expressions don't convey much of anything, so we care about this buy for five minutes. Jen Grisanti, in my interview for her book Change Your Story, Change Your Life, talked about characters changing goals. Here the hero's goals change about every three minutes with almost no impact on him.

One enormous set of rules that is not clear is the world's rules: people hit cars, the R.I.P.D. officers leap tall walls, bounce off buildings, and since they masquerade as different people, the human world reacts differently in many scenes to extraordinary events. The pointless shots of showing the two cops in the deceased world and as they are seen by live people start to add up to one big confusing effect on us, the audience. When on screen, Bridges does what he can, as does Kevin Bacon in a stock character role as the nice villain who cozies up to Reynolds's widow not two days after he's dead. (All the female character needs, she says, "is her husband.") There are also no stakes. Just as we realize this, the screenplay piles them on: world demolition, heaven or hell...and will these two cops solve the gold crime or not? Does Reynolds really miss his wife? Does he want revenge for his own death?

I know many thought this movie ripped off Men in Black. That's just the start of the problems.

Passion (2012)  ****
Act Three of Brian De Palma's Passion builds like so many don't. And I mean many. We think the story has come full circle, and in a way it has, and then it keeps going. We think certain sequences have been done, fulfilled their part of the story, and they come back. This starts out as office politics and becomes a thriller, and had more surprises in the last thirty minutes, culminating in a yell from yours truly when the screen went black. I knew we'd seen the last shot, that logic, story, and character had accumulated. The last time a movie had that affect was "Winter's Bone" in 2010 and starred a rising actress named Jennifer Lawrence.

There were certain expectations: when a dreamlike sequence starts, we're not surprised, given Raising Cain, Femme Fatale and other De Palma works. But there is a logic here. The rules of cinema and story gradually evolve. Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace hit the ground running with their roles. A man toggles between them romantically, and then one character slowly takes on significance. Surprises are real and inevitable, and several of De Palma's signatures are in full view and used to full effect. This is partly why I've followed the director for twenty-seven years: he reaches, pushes himself, and defies expectations among many other things.

I mentioned more than a few things in this story coming full circle. We finish the movie and think about what we've just watched. The characters are more complex than we realize; more real, natural, and recognizable. The dialogue seems weak, then we accept that as real: this is, after all, advertising. The office spaces of Koch Image resonate after appearing on the screen. In the end, there's a finality, and we can't quite define it. We're mystified, and that is certainly one of the powers of cinema.


Stories We Tell (2012) ****
Most families I've come across, on the surface, look pretty good: fairly happy and getting along, especially the survivors. Especially on camera, people put a good foot forward and are personable. That also goes for strangers they've just met. It also goes for the deceased, in this case one's mother, who is remembered fondly in the early parts of Sarah Polley's Stories We Tell. Polley's mother, Diane, who died more than thirty years ago, is at first seen as outgoing, friendly, always having fun, and fun to be around, especially at parties.

Then comes the truth, recollections, and the discovery that at least one adult in Polley's mother's life was not who he thought he was, another was not what he seemed, and the identity of Sarah's father, whom we meet in the opening scenes, is forced to chime in on something that would make many uncomfortable. This movie goes a shade too long, but holds us right to the end. The cast is listed as storytellers, not characters. They also have varying points of view of past events that still affect them in ongoing ways. In this way, and a few others, the Polleys are like many families: some end up on the wrong side of another family member's decision, or do they? People also deal with the cards they've been dealt, sometimes with grace and consistency, and others seem to fall apart, only to carry on in their own way. None, however, escape the consequences of choices made by others in a family. That is but one of the themes in one of the best documentaries in recent memory.

The Internship (2013) **
Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn have been in several movies together, and many people I know can't recall all of them, though Wedding Crashers from 2005 is probably the top of the list. This one focuses on time, and these two actors are now in their forties with still very little responsibilities in life. So down and out are the two men that they take an internship at Google, as we can guess from the multi-colored title on the movie poster. As we know these two actor's mannerisms and deliveries pretty well and there is mystique about Google's campus, we better have characters we care about, a plot that inspires, or an environment that is different and unique.

The opening dinner goes on way too long, as does the party scene, the team-building scene, the intramural sport scene, and a main character's stint as a mattress salesman with a cameo by Will Ferrell. Whatever happened to start a scene as late as you can and get out early? Why not up the stakes and really make this a mid-life crisis movie? Or have the two rejected by their uber-smart colleagues? I also stopped counting at six the number of shots of Google's main campus building. Through it all, Vaughn shows his assets: improvisation and attentiveness. We get Wilson's clowning followed by sincerity. We also get many references to other films: Stalag 17 from 1953, Deliverance from 1972, The Fly from 1986, and an offhand remark on Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000-hour rule from his book Outliers. There's a lot the filmmakers think we know.

An author told me several years ago that everyone he knows who works in the tech. industry hates it. From my experience, many do, and these characters waltz in and out of this story as heroes at the beginning, middle, and especially at the end, where they succeed on all levels and are liked by everybody. What's their agenda anyway? To get rich? Have families? At least we remember the "A nerd saw me naked!" line from Revenge of the Nerds. We can't take too much of two cool, even perfect, guys in nerd camp. Sure, we'd all like to be the catalysts for change, get techies to "open up," to laugh and smile more. But we have to have humanity beneath the technology, or raise the stakes in some form for us to be drawn in, entertained, and after two hours, be fulfilled.

The Grandmaster (2013) ***1/2
This is the best photographed and edited movie in a while, especially when it slows down after an opening fight scene that is so rapidly shot and cut we brace for an assault. Then comes the story, a much needed feminine presence (Ziyi Zhang), and the Asian if not universal themes of loyalty, dealing with the past, and codes of honor. We also think this movie will be about two masters and ends up being about a right of passage centered on one character and South China. 

Wong Kar Wai has long made his stamp in Asian cinema (In the Mood for Love,  My Blueberry Nights) and worked with western actors (2046) in visually strong films. Amidst action, he slowly draws us into the personal stories, gradually reveals true motives and emotions after showdowns. One scene near the end reveals a layer we sensed was there all along before events happen. We're rewarded, and leave wondering how countries and people reconcile with pasts and arrive at the present.

Escape Plan (2013) **
I hadn't seen Sylvester Stallone on a screen in maybe 15 years. Yes. He's pretty good, an he succeeds at two things: making himself likable (and therefore we cheer for him) and always thinking that more is coming from him. He turns sixty-seven this year. As far as a story, this one at least advances in terms of events, and doesn't slow down until about two-thirds of the way through among the plotting of escape by multiple prisoners we don't know much about and really don't care about. They exist only to help sly and the other aging action hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

It's also at about that point in the movie where some backstory is revealed, that the heroes have severe powers that be against them, and that security cameras are everywhere except inside the walls. These walls are wide enough for Sly to crawl around in, and Arnold wins sympathy from the evil warden (played by an understated Jim Caviezel, now ten years after "The Passion of the Christ") at the right time.

This movie, and many like it, could be more. The wit is almost there, and these are almost hits. This cost $50 million to make and grossed $24.6 million U.S. It probably did okay overseas, and the elusive strain of inspiration, revelation, and ideas keep it from breaking out.


Le Deuxieme Souffle (1966) ***
Jean-Pierre Melville, I wrote months ago, made at least six good films before passing away in 1973 at the age of fifty-five. This is among the top of his list, and is all about the work and principles of being a criminal, which doesn't seem too bad a life in France in the '60s. I also wrote I was loving working my way through the first two. This one, at 150 minutes, we feel like we've seen before, and has a few too many shots of guys standing around. Once again there's an expansive plot, this one on the scale of Shakespeare, involving an escaped criminal, a heist that pulls the ex-con back into old relationships, and pursuits of honor, money, or simply a quest to stay true to oneself when all else fails. It's good, just too much, and yet the hats and trenchcoats in glorious black and white still work.


Du zhan (Drug War) (2013) **
Sometimes movies can ride a great start the whole way, or at least stay interesting. Johnny To's "Drug War" has that, and he photographs his characters as larger than life. It's "The Wire" and like the masterpiece, "Infernal Affairs," which inspired "The Departed." "Drug War," however, lacks inspiration in its last half. I will not reveal a crucial plot point, other than to say one character makes a big decision that reverberates. Unfortunately, that decision comes after we've lost interest in him, been introduced to many minor players, and had the same scenario played out a few times.

Now, maybe that's the point. The story takes place in South China, long a business and smuggling hotbed and, I think, not a place too many foreigners know too much about. To's prior film "Vengeance," a film I liked a heck of a lot more, gave us an airtight plot and revolved around character motives and agendas. This time Act two takes too long to develop despite a well-staged drug deal at a traffic light. Through this, and the last half-baked shootout, we don't know enough about these people, or enough to care. 


The Silence (Das Letzte Schweigen) (2013)  ****
I guess I'm just lucky to have slogged through the slightly klunky Jan Costin Wagner book (It was a translation, so we're flexible) and be rewarded with one of the best thrillers of last year. Unlike the book, this movie doesn't focus so much on one character, a retired detective, as structure its screenplay around two events, done on the same exact date twenty-three years apart. The title refers to how people interact on limited bases, not much is said, yet much is communicated. "The Silence" also covers people's indecisiveness, how they regret their past, reconcile with their fetishes, shortcomings, or afflictions in the present. This movie is so even-handed, we never feel shortchanged with emotion or events. Things just happen, are communicated a certain, specific way, and we have time for that thing called atmosphere with rolling fields, forest, wind, you know, that particular effect cinema can have in taking us to another world. 

Even though this movie deal with grief, it is not depressing because we know reality and real people when we see it. Especially on the screen, and with possibilities that people react, and interact, with on a daily basis over many years. Films like this aren't often considered for the "Best Foreign Film" category come Oscar time. Maybe the thriller genre, one of the audience's favorites, should have its own.


Supernatural - pilot episode (2005) ***1/2
After a few times where the interviewee says the most cutting edge filmmaking is occurring in TV, one starts to wonder, if not see. "Supernatural" started in 2005, has run for 195 episodes and is in its tenth year, and gets an 8.8 rating on the IMDB. This first episode certainly has the best editing and, oh heck, plotting in the form of planting ideas and advancing stories I've seen since "House of Cards." The actors, two brothers who have a tumultuous childhood event in the first scene, have their goals and loyalty clash with outside events, and isn't that true with most of us? In their twenties, they solve one mystery, and leave two others out there for us to await. Their relationship is just enough to stoke our curiosity. That the entire episode, with British Columbia masquerading as California, centers around family, quests, and other mythological elements hurling through paranormal events shrouded in mystery, doesn't leave anything hanging, is a huge accomplishment.


Blackfish (2013) ****
Like all good if not great documentaries, "Blackfish" does not overstay it's welcome, touches on many different things, and maintains its focus: the treatment of Orcas by watershows, namely SeaWorld. It starts with the frequent captures of Orcas in the 1970s, with regret expressed by one of the capturers. From there the interviews of workers at Seaworld in San Diego and related ventures in Victoria, BC and Lono Porque in the Canary Islands in Spain, where Orcas were trained in the U.S. and then transported there, are just the right length. None of them are flattering toward the animal treatment.

It is the animal treatment where the film visualizes a straight-to-prison like pipeline. One whale, Tilicum, is separated from his mother shortly after birth, exhibits aggressive behavior, and eventually kills a trainer. Whether this tragedy occurs out of wrongheaded playfulness, or downright mean-spiritedness, we cannot say. What we can say is that SeaWorld, which refused to interview for the film, is evasive and deflective in the legal case against training and caring for the killer whales. One recalls a Robert Reich column a while back, where he bluntly said that big businesses don't pay taxes and don't care about anyone, let alone the common good. What also makes this movie fascinating is that the trainers aren't mean-spirited, but humans who have participated in and dealt with morality in an inhumane system. The closing shots, with Orcas in the wild, dorsal fins upright and proud, don't hit us over the head, but are meant to leave an impression with what to do next. That does not include a watershow.

Prisoners (2013)  **
Like many directors, the Canadian Denis Villeneuve (of the Oscar-nominated Incendies) knows how to start a film, and we're confident he knows where he's going. For the first hour, Prisoners, with one of the best casts of leads and supporting players of last year, starts promisingly, and we're ready to get close to these people. Then, the movie becomes one of those thrillers where the characters, after establishing a presence onscreen, seem to do absolutely nothing off-screen. That's not good for a thriller about time, place, and kidnapped little children where the adults are understandably flying off the handle, blaming the police, blaming themselves, torturing a suspect behind the backs of the cops, all in a small town of I'd say ten to twenty thousand people.

That last part is a pretty big deal when you think about it. I didn't know quite how big this town was. It's mostly residential, but boy do people get around easily with barely any traffic. John Dahl (Red Rock West, The Last Seduction, Joyride) knew how to paint small towns and make them intimate yet big enough to stage awkward confrontations which are key to this genre. This one has people go the hospital and apparently stay there for hours while one goes alone to confront the killer. Also, one character tortures another at night completely unbeknownst to his wife (taking many pills) and fifteen year-old son. Another teenager is completely dropped from the investigation and storyline. 

I mentioned that one character confronts the killer. We actually enter this "Silence of the Lambs" territory twice, first with a cop approaching a suspect in his home, the other with a large, imposing man approaching a woman. This kind of repetition wreaks of familiarity, and not a good kind. This movie tries for "Zodiac" crossed with "Silence," but if logistics don't make sense, it doesn't seem real, and that's fundamental to one part of the moviegoing experience. We actually believe, but not for the first hour alone.


Iron Man 3 (2013)  **1/2
As third installments go, we can do much, much worse. This one improves on the second, and that is almost sheerly due to Shane Black. He was hired for his wit and one-liners, his exchanges where barbs match. Think of Riggs and Murtaugh walking across the dark garage in the first "Lethal "Weapon," which Black sold in his early twetnies. When I read he was taking over the Iron Man franchise, I was relieved.

What Black has in zingers, witticisms, what have you, he lacks here in structure. For plot construction, the villains feel brought in, though one twist halfway through, that a foreign threat is fabricated by a local rival, works. For photography, Black's framing is straight-forward, sometimes cinematic yet just as often it feels as though we're watching a comedy sketch. The framing is always simplistic, which is a nice contrast for people meeting, talking, versus the action setpieces. People are overwhelmed by events and machines much bigger than us. One scene where Tony Stark's (Robert Downey Jr.) house is assaulted by air, Tony escapes, and the whole scene evaporates. We know he and Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow) will live. We want quiet, and we get it, in small-town New Jersey. Once again a superhero is stripped away of his armor, though we don't get much cunning or planning from him as a character to see what he's made of. The anxiety is a nice tough, and ties back to the one-liners.

Funny how many movies, especially in the action genre, lack wit, then we get it, and we need more. Black might do well to team up with a structuralist par excellence, feed in character development through backstory, and they, and we as moviegoers, would be off and running.


The Way Way Back (2013) *
Sometimes during a movie you imagine the pitch session: coming-of-age story at beachside house in a small town where fourteen-year-old works at a waterslide park where he learns the ropes from an older male lifeguard. Necessary to this plot are the dumbest adults in years. The kid's mom's boyfriend, in a great performance by Steve Carrell (there is much to be plundered here in future roles), is having an affair with another woman (Amanda Peet) right next door. Gradually this is revealed even though six or eight people spend the vast majority of their time together. The kid works at the waterslide park which he bikes to every day. I think this goes all summer. The mom, and nobody else, know of the kid's job, until the very cute girl follows him there and doesn't even breath hard. This kind of adult stupidity, with a kid who's rites of passage are eyeing girls in bikinis and doing a waterslide stunt he hasn't worked at and one a six year-old could figure out, leaves us bewildered. We're supposed to admire? All this is supposed to sink in during the most overused folk soundtrack in recent memory. How much time passes here anyway? Long enough for the kid to be employee of the month behind his parents' back. What do they do all day long? We find out the kid's age toward the end of the movie. This lack of clarity symbolizes.

This movie has many epithets on growing up while being confused about its relationships. The girl right next door keeps giving this guy chances that result in one peck on the lips. Sam Rockwell, in an over-written yet funny role as the lifeguard mentor, flirts, puts off, then makes up, then infuriates, his fellow female lifeguard played by Maya Rudolph. Allison Janney has one speed as the fun-loving alcoholic mom next door. This is so jarbled, with so many characters fleshing out their lines and no tests of endurance, we think back to the best coming-of-age stories on screen. "Stand By Me," "Almost Famous," and "The Sure Thing" had structure, wit, and clear motives in hilarious situations. Sometimes self-knowledge is indeed the greatest thing.


The Conjuring (2013) *
If we want horror, we'll go to the time period The Conjuring by the famed Malaysian director James Wan is set in. This is an amalgamation of The Excorcist, Amityville Horror, and many other sub-standard fare. A family moves into a big, spooky house that turns out to be possessed. They don't move out because "Not many people want to take in a family of six for a long time." So they stay, get possessed, recruit a local Demonologist and his telepathic wife, and get that devil out.

Along the way we get the oldest cliches in the book, especially the woman-in-peril and especially the mom going into the basement by herself in the middle of the night because she hears something. There are many scenes of children in peril, all of them girls. Animals mysteriously die, people see ghosts here and there...I know how profitable this genre is, and are the accounting machines the only thing that have changed in this genre the last forty or so years?


Star Trek (2009) ***
You know when something happens more than once, it ain't a coincidence, and in the movies, it's a theme. This is especially with mainstream blockbusters, so where does that leave franchises? Aside from rich, the people behgind these seem pretty smart. The Batman franchise got a complete makeover in 2005 with "Batman Begins," character roots and a story stuffed with villains. Now the "Star Trek" franchise, with its tenth movie, goes back to character roots, which for James T. Kirk means Iowa. Spock is his home planet Vulcan in rock caves. 

This movie visits roots, accelerates to the formation of the Starship Enterprise, and shows us a villain drilling holes in planets to create black holes. Bruce Greenwood, that invaluable Canadian character actor, shows up as the mentor who sees in Kirk potential, and the cliche of a wild and woolly Captain who has talent but doesn't play by the rules, gets in a bar fight, yet passes training in flying colors slows things a little.

This movie isn't afraid to call a spade a spade, as Kirk and Spock have needed each other all along, and this film actually states the need. Another strength is, as William Goldman said, is the casting. He thought it was all in the casting, and there's not a false note in the crew, especially Simon Pegg as a young Scotty and the comic relief. He's monopolizing these roles, and crossing the Atlantic nicely after his films with Edgar Wright ("Shaun of the Dead," Hot Fuzz") last decade. The best part of the movie is the crew coming together. Cinematographer Dan Mindel's ("Savages") whirling camera knows just when and where to stop. 

One weakness is the climax: all this intergalactic teleportation and battles ends with fistfights. Yet we finish satisfied, ready for the next installment, and not wondering at all why J.J. Abrahams was tapped to reboot the Star Wars franchise. He'll balance plot and character, dig into the past, propel us into the future, and who knows what he'll find.

Dirty Wars (2013) ***1/2
Jeremy Scahill's documentary starts out with an incident in Gardez, Afghanistan, in the aftermath of a family getting killed in a night raid. Scahill, an investigative reporter who's work on Blackwater gained him fame and notoriety revisits the scene, asks questions and reconstructs the raid, though that proves hard to do. These night raids are not news, and Scahill knows we know this. This kind of presumption of our awareness, after all the reports of how ignorant Americans are, propelled his book "Blackwater," which I started out of mere intrigue and ended up reading the whole thing in a few sittings.

This film works best when it leaves Gardez and briefly pulls back, showing Scahill in cafes, his office and on the streets of New York, alone except when he meets sources in restaurants or bars. He mentions it briefly; we are seeing someone who is carrying out their life's purpose.

We go from the Gardez incident to Yemen, where another family is killed on the rolling desert countryside. I suspect the average viewer doesn't know of a war in Yemen, so things get...interesting. We go back to the States where Al-Hawni, a prominent Muslim and American citizen in Virginia, changes his tone during his sermons in the years after 9/11. Scahill, who co-wrote the documentary, notes this, interviews Al-Hawni's father in Yemen. Afterwards the reporter wonders if the U.S. Government would assassinate one of its own citizens. He asks, who is safe? Ultimately, what does this kind of warfare mean for us? It ends with where do we go from here, a question all investigative reporters ask themselves as they uncover information and frame it into a story. For us this becomes a chilling story with an ambiguous ending, which is satisfying.

Now You See Me (2013) **
This is tough. Love at the end? With their swirling camera and rapid-fire dialogue that often is plot-driven and bereft of wit while thinking of itself as witty, really do try for it all. The ending stuck out for a few reasons: a movie based on mystery and magic tries to ground itself in realism, with love, and a character who's been "behind it all the whole time" created a personal because a parent died, say, thirty years ago? More than a stretch. It's stretching the universe, and we can't wonder too loudly because the sequel has already been set.

The plot about the four horsemen, magicians who pull heists, starts off airtight and leaves many, many holes, including the glossing over of many characters not taking action, i.e. seizing thieves when they are twenty yards away. This chance and sequence are completely dropped, as is the most powerful character in the film, Michael Caine, who "owns many, many companies" according to one magician. No wonder Generation Y or Millenials think they can waltz around and do whatever they want. So ineffective is the F.B.I. that an entire team assigned to track the magicians through three huge heists that they lose them in buildings, warehouses, and the Brooklyn bridge. There was however, one amazing trick: Jesse Eisenberg got top billing. 

This isn't one star as there were good twists along the way. Ed Solomon, who wrote Men in Black, is listed after Boaz Yakin and Edward Ricourt. I imagined he cleaned up a lot and had to either add or subtract subplots. It is airtight, now it needs to pick a reality and stay there.

Les Petis Mouchoirs (Little White Lies) (2013) ***
Guillaume Canet made one of the best, most airtight thrillers of the last decade with his adaptation of Harlan Coben's "Tell No One." It hurled and hurdled one surprise after another, stayed one step ahead of us, and was listed in a recent interview with Netflix executives as the only movie impossible categorize.

This movie, about a group of friends coming together for an annual get-together at a seaside cabin complex, a thriller it ain't. It's clearly the same director, though: wide-angle shots have characters just below the top of the frame, people gradually reveal personal faults and secrets to each other and to us, and selfishness drives most of human behavior. Actually, the vast majority. It reminded me of "The Big Chill," Lawrence Kasdan's 1982 film, except the theme of little white lies as the undercurrent adds up to a satisfying ending. It runs two-and-a-half hours, is about twenty minutes too long, and Canet is one to watch. If he heads back to plot-heavy material, he'll probably hit another home run.

Point Blank (1967) ***1/2
Lee Marvin seems to be one of those actors who was never young. He was only forty-two at the time of this film, and appears just on the cusp of middle age. So does John Vernon, who is "introduced" here and is in his mid-thirties, and would go on to play the police chief in "Dirty Harry" and the Dean in "Animal House." John Boorman, the British director, followed this thriller with one of his most famous movies, "Deliverance."

All three were at different stages in their careers, and all come together in a strangely structured film noir. David Lynch once described film noir as coming out of fear, and though we're never too afraid for Marvin, a tough ex-con who is owed $93,000 by "the organization" and wanders San Francisco and L.A. streets looking for it. The movie starts almost in snapshots, with quick cuts back and forth between and heist and its plan. We then follow Marvin, then notice how Boorman cuts away to the girl (Angie Dickinson) helping Marvin by seducing Vernon, and later take us inside "the organization" after Marvin has drawn them out into the open once. We are with him, yet not always looking over his shoulder or directly in his face. We don't know more than him, and the maguffin, toward the end, culminates in a spectacular ending shot. Was this all about the money, or loyalty? When to leave well enough alone? You tell me. Even one of the organization fools us over the phone, and we don't know it's him until the payoff. That's storytelling.

We're The Millers (2013) *1/2
I know how hard it is to write, sell, and make a movie. Indeed, it is sometimes said a very funny comedy is the hardest movie to make. Rawson Marshall Thurber made a great comedy, "Dodgeball," that had real peolple, a straight-faced Vince Vaughn, matched against one of the best comedy villains in a while, Ben Stiller, who owned a huge gym and threatened to buy out Vaughn's much smaller one. It had themes: how far will one to to get physically fit? What about the social circles at those places?Do big business and more money mean better diets?

That has all vanished in "We're The Millers," one of the box office surprises of this last summer. This movie does not give us real people. How many do you know that when faced with eviction, would accompany an acquaintance they don't like to Mexico, approach a drug cartel, and drive back to Illinois? That's what Jennifer Anison, whom I imagine has her pick of scripts, does. Not only that, Jason Sudeikis, a pot-dealer, ropes a teenage boy neighbor, whose mom is frequently out on dates, into posing as his son. And he gets a young gothic woman to go along  as his daughter. Together, all four pose as the Millers because Sudeikis owes drug money. To call this far-fetched is one thing; to give us unlikable people, or characters we care anything about is another. The plot machinations shift into overdrive when they weave in chance meetings with another family in an RV at the border and on the highway, two guys track down the Millers after the cartel realizes they've been duped. This could, I suppose, work. This movie, however, loses a little steam ten minutes in, and a lot more with every contrivance over the next hour.

Behind the Candelabra (2013) ***
It's been hard to realize how good Michael Douglas has been for so long. Even when he was in a star in less-than-compelling fare ("Disclosure"), he always seemed to be unconcerned, solidly do his job, and move on. This is the first time I forgot I was watching him. Douglas disappears into character, and we see a vain, needy, selfish man who makes others around him feel good, for a while.

That person for nine years was Scott Thorson, played by Matt Damon, in another great performance that subtly holds its own with Douglas. These two characters contrast, and Steven Soderbergh, again moving into male sexuality after 2012's summer hit "Magic Mike," moves so economically and efficiently over nine years I wished he'd slow down. This impersonal effect leaves us wanting something, and what is it? I'm not sure. Soderbergh does, working from a script with the prolific Richard LaGravenese ("P.S. I Love You," "Beautiful Creatures") make the camera invisible, a trait covered by Gil Bettman in my interview. The story is also balanced with revealing Liberace's past while he lives on his sprawling estate in Las Vegas. This is all good if not great. Now the filmmakers can tone down the scale, or focus on a central, if not a few subtler, themes.

Phil Spector (2013) ***1/2
David Mamet's dialogue is about the only style that stands out instantly. It is often imitated, but that's where his sense of structure kicks in, and you realize how good he is with that and character development. There was brief, if not that wide, speculation that Phil Spector (Al Pacino) killed a young woman at his home, and the opening shot during the credits, of a car waiting out front, or in back of, a hotel, with a doorman, checking his watch, establishes the atmosphere. We see a hooded figure march slowly to the car, get in, fade out, and cut to a wall-sized picture of a beautiful young woman. A tired, destitute-looking Helen Mirren enters the frame, and we're off: her boss, Jeffrey Tambor, wants her to defend Phil in the case. 

The central relationship of the movie unfolds, and this is one of Mamet's clearest. He's curious about people saying, and not saying, and avoiding, direct questions. As the monologues are half-expected, especially by Pacino, the ending felt brief at first. We're gearing up for a sustained courtroom climax, and then Mamet throws us a curve, prompting us to rethink what this was about. The next day the ending grew on me. This guy still knows what he's doing.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2013) ***
This story about a young Pakistani man, Changez, who goes from poverty and a strong family in his home country to Princeton and eventually Wall Street, I imagine packs more punch overseas. It finally grows about a third of the way in when Bobby Lincoln (a subdued, effective Liev Schreiber) heightens the questioning of Changez and they proceed from a cafe to a rooftop where they are under surveillance. The first forty minutes, however, is explication without revelation.

The novel by Mohsin Hamid was written in first person, and felt more personal. Mira Nair, the director, knows this territory of cross-cultural conflict, yet for all the closeups and swirling shots of our protagonist thinking, holds him at arm's length. Kate Hudson, as a love interest, is given next to nothing to do. Keifer Sutherland plays a tough brokerage firm boss, and does his job. Most of the film does its job, and could've done it more quickly and with higher stakes. It seems always hard to set films in foreign lands. I thought of John Boorman's "Beyond Rangoon" which, set in Malaysia, my friend and I agreed didn't explain the politics well at all. Here it's also left murky, so that when a key supporting player dies near the end, we can't make much of it, though it affects the principals to the core.

Pain & Gain (2013) ***
You know of the secrets to success: keep at it long enough, and good will come, or at least...surface. Michael Bay, he of the "Transformers" trilogy, "Armageddon," and back in the '90s "Bad Boys" and "The Rock," (also starring Ed Harris), finally has a screenplay and a clockwork story. You also know how many movies we can guess the ending about half-an-hour out, or more? This one kept me intrigued for consequences of actions. Like James Franco below, Dwayne Johnson shows range as a recovering alcoholic who abides by the Christian faith. Anthony Mackie ("The Hurt Locker") turns in a solid supporting performance when Bay allows, and Mark Wahlberg rounds out (he shares top billing with Johnson) the cast as a solid if less than fulfilling leading man. He needs the supporting players, as he did with "The Fighter," but here he's the everyman of bodybuilders.

Anyway: there are laughs, the typical macho Bay wit, and subtly the American dream starts jingoistic, and spirals almost into a morality play as the three buff guys kidnap and finagle money out of a wealthy man (Tony Shaloub). There's also the usual Bay objectification of women. The breakneck pace barely allows us to laugh as the characters grudgingly admit their faults among heists, chases, and angry phone calls.

Is this the best of the bad from Bay? Absolutely. And a good story well told that unfolds like clockwork. I mentioned the jingoism which is trite patriotism in the first five minutes. That fits the marketing campaign, which did not endear many. Gene Siskel once remarked that Bay "almost dares us to relax" in "Armageddon." The second half of this movie ratchets up the pace and tightens the screws so busily, that when Ed Harris shows up, he belies it all, and lends credence, stock and integrity to the picture with his steely stare.

This would've been a Tony Scott film had he not passed away, or a Bijou late night extravaganza for me and buddies twenty years ago. For now, though, Bay hurdles us through this story, and never once confuses us, so we go with it every step of the way. Sydney Lumet said in his book "Making Movies," that sometimes the hardest part about making movies is that reality is often stranger. You really can't make good stories up. I imagine the writers, the ultra hot Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, stuck close to the real story, and succeed. So does Wahlberg for his career, as he's re-teaming wtih Bay in next summer's fourth "Transformers" movie. Back to the box office for them.


Spring Breakers (2013) *1/2
There's a movie in here somewhere. The director, Harmony Korinne, said he wanted sights and sounds, approaching a level of transcendence. Except for the last part, he achieved he set out to do. That's all the opening is: not a statement except for "Let's party hard on a beach!" 

Then we meet the bored, jovial, increasingly experimental girls in college, which is also in Florida. These girls are raunchy, and to cut loose hit the road and hold up a bar. I'm not sure what percentage of college kids would do this, and their moral centers, agendas...well, we don't ask. So is this movie fun? Sometimes, and only gets interesting when James Franco appears as a rapper at a beach party, which segues to another especially raucus party. This last one is busted by the cops. The girls spend time in jail, are bailed out by Franco, and he courts them. These scenes play the best. Anyone who's been to Florida see people lazily sitting around on picnic tables, benches, talking about who knows what.

Franco takes them in, and we're not sure where the girls' loyalty lies, until a few break off and decide enough good times. They each leave on buses, and the two who remain get sucked into Franco's approaching fight with an African American gang. At some point they decide they'll do anything for him, and after a series of long montages, people sitting around (this happens more than you think by the poster), the girls and Franco get their revenge, and college resumes. Where were the cops again?

For 94 minutes, this isn't worth our time, and promises a heck of a good time on the poster. Franco keeps it interesting--this guy is stretching, and there's a reason for his rise to stardom since a supporting role in 2002's "Spider-Man." He'll be around.

The Hunger Games (2013) ***
I got through this book, not biting on the teen soap opera so much as the politics and media commentary. Those parts worked, and we're toyed with, but not, as someone once said, not merely being toyed with. We also cared about the characters and feared for Katniss. There were also layers: the natural beauty of Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence, in a deserved starring role after "Winter's Bone") in the cosmetic and natural worlds, the media manipulation of grim reality, the separated wealthy elites. A friend's friend who is a psychologist said it was one of the best books ever written. Then again, another friend said if you don't find a psychologist to support what you're saying, you're not looking hard enough.

This is a triumph in sets and art direction, though not in camerawork. Perhaps the director, Gary Ross, was unsure of how to gradually reveal the district worlds. Depravity, you betcha. Then come the the Capitol. Ross handled this transition before with 1998's "Pleasantville," about characters deciding whether or not to embrace another world. We've also seen directors slowly reveal foreign strangeness in sci-fi.: think of Paul Verhoeven's "Total Recall." Still, it persevered and convinced us Katniss was in for a fight. Norman Jewison's "Rollerball" from 1975, with death as entertainment and over-glitzed, overhyped lifestyles of professional athletes now seems a precursor to this one. This one works, mostly because of, yes, the star, and Woody Harrelson and Elizabeth Banks steal scenes. Let the sequels begin. 

Mud (2013) **1/2
Movies like this are easy to like at first, you slide into their worlds, involved with the characters, their relationships, then bam: a series of uneven scenes coupled with the literal dumping of a character complimented by a closing shot that doesn't mean much, and we feel betrayed. Jeff Nichols, a native of Little Rock, Arkansas, knows this territory. The opening shots of the land, river, the boat lots and diners quickly establish where we are. We've seen these places before, and when a fourteen year-old boy named Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and his friend Neckbone, meet Mud (Mathew McConaughey), a man hiding in a boat up in a tree, we feel treated. This is an unfamiliar story in familiar territory.

McConaughey has been on a run. After the recent "The Lincoln Lawyer," last year's "Magic Mike" last year, the current "Dallas Buyers Club," he's taking on roles and getting recognition he deserves. Even in his breakthrough seventeen years ago in "A Time to Kill," he was better than the material. He commands here, as does everyone. Nichols gets great performances, and populates this story with too many characters. In addition to the man and two boys, we get Sam Shepherd as the old man who lives across the river, a few throwaway scenes with Michael Shannon, who acted for Nichols in "Take Shelter," one of the overlooked gems of 2011. That movies stuck to its theme.

But back to the characters and story: we get the threat from afar. Mud has done something bad, angered Texans, and they come lookin' for him, culminating in a ludicrous shootout where ten or twelve men can't take down four holed up in a house. It was here, with its unconventional staging, lack of combat technique, and dramatic payoff that I knew the movie might have been edited in post-production. Or rewritten on set. And did I mention Reese Witherspoon is also in the movie? She's given a character, a dramatic pull, and no rewards, consequences, or resolution for what she does three quarters of the way through the movie. A similar thing happened in the Australian film "The Square." The first hour was a great setup with socio-economic undertones, then one character is relegated to sitting around, calling on the phone, saying, "So when are we leaving?"

Nichols will be back, currently filming with Shannon on another picture. My guess he'll go through an agonizing creative process, stick with his story, and come out ahead.

No (2012) ***1/2
Movies like the Academy Award-nominated "No" about the campaign to oust General Augusto Pinochet in 1988 insist we go with them. It ain't visually spectacular, but stories like this draw us in with politics, advertising, and the predominant political climate in Chile, of which I knew little going in. Also, maybe handheld shots are no longer a distraction.

Neither is the editing. Quick shots of guys on the phone with their backs to the camera point to democracy's ambiguities. There are quite a few shots of people looking around nervously, trying to work, or just thinking. This focuses, galvanizes us. We are from the outside looking in as Gabriel Garcia Bernal, a Mexican actor who has sustained a career for over ten years now since "Y Tu Mama Tambien," is hired to run the "No" campaign. He's in the thick of it, is separated from his wife, and tries, and succeeds, at being a good, caring father. 

Working the campaign also comprises a group of men meeting a powerful financier on his farm. They walk around fields like vultures trying to settle on an approach with horses in the background. Earlier there's a seaside retreat where they have to decide on a slogan. With the song recording in the studio, we are reminded of "Wag the Dog." Political campaigns are indeed packaging with a product and building an audience; people have to believe and belong. The last shot is ambiguous as Bernal presents a video to prospects. His clam, centered demeanor--we wonder what he's thinking. He is surrounded by people with straight-forward emotions, and he begs us to question where he, and we, are headed when campaigns end. That's a good, and tough, question, and far harder to answer.

We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks (2013) ***1/2
If you've reasonably kept up with the news, seen headlines and read snippets, then there are not many surprises here. This  documentary starts strong, almost obliquely, in Iceland as Julian Assange, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and colleagues hole up in Iceland and investigate one of the country's biggest banks entering bankruptcy. Then, with the introduction of Bradley Manning, things slow way down as Manning isn't that interesting of a character yet should be. We sense this, and are glad to move on to interviews with Michael Hayden, the former NSA Director, and other figures who circled the Assange story and say, matter-of-factly, that yes international espionage is about secrets. Shocker.

New allegations against Assange, who never shies away from the spotlight, involving Swedish girls lead him to seek and receive extradition at the Ecuadoran embassy in London, where he still is. Our press has pretty much moved on. What this movie does do, and where "The Fifth Estate" apparently underachieves (not fails), his linking the scope of these interlocking story around one enigmatic person, who claims to start nobly, and is exposed to be quirky, perhaps like the rest of us in some ways and at some times.

A side note, Alex Gibney, the Oscar-winner, remains one of our best documentarians, and "The Fifth Estate" is already out of the box office top ten. This just might reflect the same trend as Oliver Stone's "W" five years ago, where by the time a feature film roles around, no matter how good it is and the talent behind it, audiences have had enough.

The Newsroom - Episode 1 (2013) ***
We notice right away that Aaron Sorkin is the creator of this series, and writer of the first episode. There is much back-and-forth with people circling back to a topic dropped a few lines earlier. The opening is truly great with a broadcaster (Jeff Daniels) declaring America is no longer number one in the world, unless you count adults who believe in angels. 

It's when the show rests, and Thomas Newman's music swells, that we feel the story's power. It is also a masterstroke of storytelling to unveil the story's date halfway through the show, as the outside world invades. This episode hurls us through a single day, and throws a few too many exchanges that slide into sophomoric behavior. But Daniels is in the performance of his life, and he's surrounded by the always reliable Emily Mortimer, old reliable Sam Waterston, and a bevy of new faces. When this show slows down, we feel its punch and urgency.

Trance (2013) **
After many tours with Danny Boyle, the architect of the last Olympics' opening ceremony, I feel it's time to find new territory, or a new style. He has, however, stuck to his own turf, the U.K., and ventured in a new direction with putting characters (and new actors) in tight situations. "Trance" stars James McAvoy as a con artist, part of a team that steals paintings. It starts as a heist film, introduces romance (or fly-by involvement), and ends a psychological with a cat-and-mouse thread. This is all whimsical, and images with a techno-score that sounds self-satisfied at the cliche ending, is a turnoff, especially as one of the main characters we started the story with exits, and we are left with one character we don't know much of or care about. The other, an enigma, leaves everyone in the lurch, including us. Still, Boyle has his style. Now it's time for real people and not just flashes of them, or give us time some down time with them.

Fame (1980) ***1/2
I seemed to grow up with Alan Parker, who's big in the U.K. and Europe. He surfaced on our shores with this film and "Bugsy Malone" in 1976. He clearly takes an interest in young people performing for others, showing themselves to the world, subjecting themselves to us and us to them. This film, which won two Oscars on the musical front, is where Parker hits his stride. Everything is musical: editing, photography, and as a filmmaker Parker is painting a picture. We gradually get to know the school and the characters through the auditions. The structure of the film is straight-forward, taking us through four years of high school in a little over two hours. Yet isn't that how high school feels at times, for those of us who graduated and occasionally look back? Parker approaches his subjects as whole, and gives us truly a mirror, or prism, of what he sees.

As I feel I matured with Parker's films, he went on to do "Shoot the Moon," "Pink Floyd: The Wall," "Birdy," "Angel Heart," and "Midnight Express" throughout the '80s. To say he had a run is an understatement, especially as each film stood on its own, tackled different material, yet carried passion through its story and characters. He hasn't done a mainstream film in ten years, and is much missed.

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013) **
How can you give a movie in which you laughed ten times only two stars? A tough one, and I though of William Goldman's saying, "It's all in the casting." This has comic home run written all over it: Steve Carrell continuing his shtick with ever-present hesitancy, Jim Carrey returning to form, and the generous Steve Buscemi who seems able to lead and carry (Boardwalk Empire) or wholly support (The Big Lebowski) in the middle. It still all boils down to characters' hopes and dreams. They have none outside of being magicians in Vegas. Even starting off in childhood where two characters become friends, dissolves into rivalry as adults, face a common foe, lose one another, then reunite based on lost friendship, and triumph in the end, is trumped by the fact that these aren't real people. We catch them trying to be funny. There's also a woman involved, the often-working Olivia Wilde, who comes across as small-minded as she only wants to be a magician and visit her Grandma. What if she fell in love with a billionaire? Was secretly a spy for the casino, helmed by James Gandolfini? The laughs, usually in the form of sight gags, are there. The memories are not. This team should try again.

House of Cards Episode 13 (1013 ***
A well-paced, satisfying ending to the series, or is it? It's the first overtly religious dabble of the series, and we get back to atmosphere with rainy night meetings, haunting music, on the edge of film noir. In fact, the soap opera disguised as film noir has been increasingly thin-veiled. After thirteen hours, however, we're still asking, what next? And we always wonder what's waiting for us when we come home from a late-night jog. 

House of Cards Episode 12 (1013 ***
After a terrible opening where the already-strong characters appear needlessly strong and an outsider is aloof and unresponsive, this twelfth hour recovers and builds momentum. Once again the cliffhanger from the previous episode is dropped; this one picks up a month later and people have moved on, already a statement of present day.This one is so plot-heavy with Congressman Underwood's new assignment to vet a candidate for V.P., you almost wish they'd slow down. The crossfire dialogue, however, takes over and carries, with Kate Mara's stillness weighing on us at a midnight meeting. Michael Kelly is the right-hand man you want, yet there's not quite enough humor in this one. Granted, the last installment was hard to top, but a new director, Allen Coulter, with Tim Ives as cinematographer, have been handed a tough episode. They fulfill, and leave us hanging, which is what we want and expect.

House of Cards Episode 11 (2013) ***1/2
Hoo-boy: expectations, rumors, and especially in light of my recent interview with director John Badham, those pesky characters. By mentioning rumors, I think this is THE episode friends had told me they'd seen and couldn't speak of the following day, Harry, yes. Still well-executed, paced, and slows way down before delivering the punch. The setup from last time proves again to be solved quickly. The filmmakers don't leave us hanging, and this adds realism. Life moves on, right? This is also the first episode to have a voice-over during the closing credits. It's what's beneath these lines that resonates.

Carl Franklin directs his second episode, this time with three writers including Beau Willimon the creator. They take it slow, a little too slow, build steam, and this time the story bogs down a little too much. They have, however, set things up to continue next time. The filmmakers also show willingness to go over the top. After living in DC, I wasn't surprised, and cannot speak for everyone else.

House of Cards Episode 10 (2013) ****
I've cheered for director Carl Franklin ever since his "One False Move" in 1992. That was nearly flawless, only dragging as a romance was revealed and explored toward the end. I raised my arms in triumph to see his name attached to this episode, the best in a while. Franklin's films always feel balanced with plot and character. This time his camera (with the same cinematographer throughout the series, Eigil Bryld) is low, then cuts close in confrontation. But back to the storylines: the setup from Episode 9 is solved quickly. Then another subplot develops, and I'm not sure when it started. It builds steam, then has a payoff rife with possibilities. There's a romance we could see coming, which ties back to balance. There a curveballs, then fastballs straight across the plate. Underwood (Spacey) is in yet another bind, but would you bet against him? The genius of this episode is we imagine how the angles set up by the cliffhanger will play out. We are sucked in, speculate, and at this show's mercy while using our imagination. It doesn't get much better than that.

Heist - Who Stole the American Dream? (2012) **1/2
A solid little documentary that is repetitive. It's strongest with its case studies of Richmond, California demanding Exxon Mobil pay taxes. Or, seeing people support others in the Occupy Wall Street rallies. The rest you've probably seen in headlines or books. Still, the stories of how right-wing economics started, this time unveiling Lewis Powell's memo. You learn something new, and a good documentary knows when to move on to something else. The fact it felt too long at 76 minutes says something.

The Dead Zone (1983) ***1/2
David Cronenberg sort of warmed up to the North American market with low-budget thrillers seldom seen in the late '70s. Stephen King burst onto the literary scene in that same time, and his stories were quickly adapted to movies. His career was in the stratosphere when he wrote "The Dead Zone" in 1979 and it was the first of his books to reach the top ten of bestseller lists. My cousin's wife recently said that bad books make good movies, and the opposite holds true, too. I got through half of King's book before throwing in the towel and viewing the movie.

Glad I did--this is Cronenberg at his best, where he focuses on stories, single shots of actors, and though straightly told, his movies take on a structure of their own, and are still developing right up until the climax. His horror roots will pop up; we expect them to. He's not pandering to us, and Walken embodies his character so much we're not sure what to expect from him throughout the film. The filmmakers skip the books inciting incident, and we meet Johnny Smith as an adult who has head pain. He has his own pivotal event as an adult, and the movie takes off. About two-thirds of the way through politics are introduced almost from an oblique angle--we're not with Johnny for a few scenes. But it's faithful to the story, a sign of the times, and original.

Fight Club (1999) ***1/2
Goodness, how to rate this movie. David Fincher's "Fight Club," what many consider to be his breakout movie, or his first signature effort, I first saw on my friend's dinky computer monitor. That was in 2001. I was overseas and as the film drew mixed reviews, shied away. Just last year a friend told me of fight clubs surfacing in Northern Wisconsin and how a few clogged ERs. Last fall an 8th grader wore an FC t-shirt. I instinctively asked, "Have you seen that?" He blandly nodded.

So, where does it stand as a film? Pretty dang amazing. It's a forerunner to Fincher's "Zodiac" with it's interrogation rooms, dank and drab colors, and characters often looking small in large rooms. Now, I was also aware of the big plot twist involving the two main characters. Even then, I caught the yin-yang motif, and was most consumed by the performances of Norton, Pitt, and Carter. For all his technical prowess, Fincher gets great performances here and in subsequent films. The opening credits on the big screen were worth the price of admission, plunging us head-on into this world. Movies like this insist you go with them. This is a classic, and made me reflect on the fall of 1999: "Three Kings," "Being John Malkovich," "The Insider," and "American Beauty." What a season.

Stoker (2013) *1/2
Why more than one star, I cannot say. I can only counter that I watched this to the end and didn't turn it off, but I watched parts on fast-forward with subtitles, a technique my mother in-law showed me. It must be hard as Park Chan-wook, to have a big name on the international film scene, to assemble a talented cast and have an editor who jumps around while, it appears, you foray into Roman Polanski territory. Only thing is, Polanski lets us warm up to characters. This movie left me wondering much about motives, behavior, and most of all, accountability. With revenue cuts, where are the police anyway? I know we shouldn't ask such questions the majority of the time, but they are at least visible, working, or active human beings on some level. There is also the supernatural, the tortured past, the long-forgotten relative who appears to counteract a deed long ago by another family member. This family member turns out to kill a few times, with little impact on the others who, if they didn't figure this out or react like somewhat normal persons, we wouldn't bother. The ending, a framing technique, did not uplift or inspire, set and match.

House of Cards - Episode 9 (2013) ***1/2
Creator Beau Willimon, who co-wrote this episode with Rick Cleveland (unknown to me), has seized on and made a story of how divorced your average American is from the political process. My high school English teacher commented on how distant people are from it. How many people actually watch House or Senate votes trickle in live on a screen?

Here it's the grand climax, and this segment ends with a closeup of Underwood: "I wanna know who lied." Off, there we are. Back in the director's chair is James Foley, and this time there's more back-and-forth dialogue, with the camera framing two listening to a third, central person. The V.P. is more fleshed out, more interesting, and carries an interesting angle on the campaign trail. We see how the higher-ups can stump for and influence candidates. Corey Stoll, as Congressman Peter Russo running for Governor, shows his range; does less at times, evokes more, and appears generous as an actor. Spacey commands, plays similar notes, and still dominates, while Kate Mara, sorry to say, is almost withdrawing in her performance. Who to blame? Perhaps the writing, not the dialogue, but more to work with. Young people move to DC and start a career--I went to try it out. What becomes of the majority o them?

House of Cards - Episode 8 (2013) ***
We get it: there are a few cutaways and shots of expressions here that insinuate, imply, and reveal just enough. With no transition I could see, we are back to Underwood's roots at his military academy where a library is dedicated to him. This territory is ripe for growth, yet the episode slows--a little too much barbershop quartet. 

Then comes the groundwork: Underwood is bothered by something during his speech. Enough is said, implied, between him and an old friend at a drunken binge the night before, that we wonder. This section of the story, in its eighth hour, slows after the first ten minutes. It lacks punch, and momentum leading to the ninth as Underwood starts plotting again, heading back to his car. Robin Wright is lonely, which we sort of knew. Still, we wonder where things are going, which is more than can be said for some stories at this point.

House of Cards - Episode 7 (2013) ***1/2
As blogged, some openings don't grab us like they used to. Not that juxtapositions have to be obvious, but if there is one, plain and right in front of us one frame at a time for a few minutes, even seconds, we're grateful. Such a scene occurs at the beginning of Episode 7, with an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting setting up that is inter-cut with the oval office before a press conference.

Many things in this episode are good. Kate Mara's trajectory slows as she works another angle of her job and a Congressman decides to run for Governor. There is a nice scene with a veteran reporter interviewing the Congressman--a wince goes a long way. House Whip Underwood (Spacey) holds us in his power, as does Michael Kelly as his assistant. The Vice President, however, in his three scenes, doesn't. The ending, however, says more than meets the eye. For all the talk, this is a series about actions, withholding information, and as Underwood says toward the end, what we reveal to each individual around us is who we are to each of them. Hence the broad appeal of this story.

Les Doulos (1962) ****
Sometimes things are in such plain sight. Events are deliberate in everyday life, one thing happening at a time. I am working my way through Jean-Pierre Melville's works and loving every minute of it. I think today's viewers would too. The one thing about most films is they do run 1.5-2 hours, and if shots and scenes have purpose, good and great ones are worth your time.

Then there's the experience. This film catches Melville in plotting mode, yet plot does not supercede character in any way. So much happens off-camera, simultaneous events that lead to later ones, that revelations occur after seconds of silence. Toward the end, one of the principals is driving on the highway. Rain pounds the windshield. He has suddenly asked to borrow someone's car. We don't know why. He is racing on the highway to music. Many might find this boring. Then comes the reason he's speeding to a particular place. 

A few moments later another character happens along the same scene. He stops to pet a horse in a barn. This has no particular reason, except for I can only surmise that it builds suspense, and that these are real people. Why not stop and pet a horse, smile, then move on. It's these little details that separate this film from so many others, that we are left wondering if something like this can be made, or even appreciated today. 

Then there's the dialogue, almost purely plot-driven. Or, if this is even a phrase, world-driven. Stories like this transports us back to France in the early '60s. That's part of what makes it so special.


Lincoln (2012) ***
This movie picks a specific time, the last four months of Abraham Lincoln's life, and widely leaves out the event that ended his life. We see the reaction. The opening scene, the civil war raging, has been done. We quickly move to the scenes in Washington, and the resonance of today unfolds. After working in Washington, DC, and more illuminatingly reading Robert Kaiser's book "So Damn Much Money" and seeing "House of Cards," the majority of this movie is what we need to see. 

"Lincoln" feels like Tolstoy, with one scene unfolding then stumbling onto the next. The screenplay by Tony Kushner, who's initial draft apparently ran over 500 pages, feels balanced, structured, and reveals a complicated man who had a profound impact on our country. Daniel Day-Lewis turns in another robust performance. The president weighed everything on his psyche--we know he felt the effects of war. Toward the end as he rides in a carriage with his wife Mary, "We've both been miserable for so long." This couple suffered in triumph, and that's part of the reason I welled up at the end.

The supporting performances fill out the rest of the story. Sally Field is wrenching as Lincoln's wife Mary. Tommy Lee Jones wins every scene, is on the cusp of generosity and knows just when to hold back, or Spielberg and his longtime editor, Michael Kahn (he did "Raiders of the Lost Ark"), know when to cut away. His character's arc is second to Lincoln's, with a twist at the end that reveals Thaddues Stevens's personal life I'm not sure how many knew.

This is one of Spielberg's best. We forget he recently opened "The Adventures of Tintin" alongside "Warhorse." He shows us exactly what to do when we have expectations thrust upon us as Lincoln dealt with the war: keep working, wrangling, and persist. Some scenes felt too short, or that the director cut away too quickly. At this stage in his career, he could slow down a little.


House of Cards - Episode 6 **
The bigger they are...you know. I guess at about hour six, some things have to give. This is the first episode where the actions don't match the characters, and the first written by Sam Forman. Joel Schumacher directs again, and pretty mercilessly. I say "pretty" as most scenes build, others, the first in the series, fall flat. There's no trajectory for Kate Mara here, and is that what's really missing? Maybe. Or, there aren't reactions to big events, notably ours. A homeless man makes a symbol, a gesture toward a powerful figure, and it feels contrived. 

Things start promisingly with a security man getting roped into a scheme. We find this out later, and it's a neat, shrewd little move on the part of another powerful figure. This could have played out, where the corridors of power enter the neighborhoods. When I worked in DC, a Senator would job by my apartment block four days a week as I walked to work. Things never spoken entered my mind. I always wondered if this guy ever harbored ambitions during his "down" time. Ambitions are what "House of Cards" need. The above-noted powerful figure ropes another character into a power struggle later. The players in DC aren't above that, but it doesn't feel natural here. Which ties back to believable ambitions.

House of Cards - Episode 5 ****
The tough talk keeps on coming, and the framing is back to front-and-center, as is the director, Joel Schumacher? He of the brat pack films of the '80s and less-than-reassured work such as the two Batman films of the '90s? So we began.

Though Schumacher proves no slouch, the strength stays in the writing. This is the first episode written by Sarah Treem, who according to the invaluable IMDB is a writer and producer. We see people wavering, and characters take on purposes inside the story: Corey Stoll is humanity, Kevin Spacey the machine. Every scene offers possibilities as characters' demise and resurrections. Our imaginations run a tad wild and are constantly going in this plugged-in world. Looking at computer screens is supposed to kill tension for an audience. Here it's a tool of the characters and takes seconds of screen time, an adjunct to these people's lives. We also see improvisation as a survival tool: a hotel ousts a high-roller party, so they have it outside, wielding veiled threats. Treem starts some scenes right in the middle of confrontation, then gets out as quickly as she can with the next conflict starting right away. This may not be the most realistic drama ever, but it might be the best TV drama ever.

House of Cards - Episode 4 ****
As I noted today on the blog, this series continues to astound. I've spent five hours viewing this show, the majority of which are people, working white-collar professionals, navigating, I realize only now, office spaces. It's always their looks that carry this show, at each other, just past the camera, at each other--we wonder what they are thinking. Someone said about Roman Polanski's film, "The Ghost Writer," that one of his achievements is that we know what the protagonist is thinking for the whole two hours. This series' achievement is that we might think we know what the characters are thinking, wonder what that is, and conclude every scene wondering what they will do next. Throughout we are pretty sure we are on the right track, and that's some comfort.

One possible theme of the entire series so far is "What breaks people down?" It's a central question a writing teacher offered nine years ago and has stuck with me. James Foley directs again, and again things are framed plainly. It's clear what we should be looking at, and each character establishes one emotional zone after another. It's also a tribute to the writers that one character's kids just appear in this fourth hour, interact with adults as most kids do, ask direct questions, and check out how the adults react. Check out the over-the-shoulder shot in a hearing when a character is pent up inside: the person is in focus, the rest of the frame, inches away, is not. Michael Mann used that shot in "The Insider." (Eric Roth, the co-writer of "The Insider," is still on as Executive Producer) It is emblematic of our peaked interest in what these people are thinking so far along. One thinks back to the book "Microtrends" by Mark Penn, where this slice of life, so small in location, so sprawling in humanity, keeps inviting us back, and taps into a resonant reservoir that affects many more than we think.


Bob Le Flambeur (1956) ****
There comes a point about three quarters of the way through Jean-Pierre Melville's classic where we are not sure if the main event will go forward, and we're not sure if the characters are either. The event is around which all the characters revolve--that's done these days as well, but this time it's in a particular time and place of which I know very little, and glean a lot from this movie.

We are always aware of the camera; it's angles, how it photographs the characters together and apart. One scene, and many of them are brief, toward the end has Bob questioned by a policeman across a cafe table. The camera on the policeman shows him composed, astute, then cut to Bob and we are inches from his face, showing only his face and neck straight-on. It is he we are curious about. Bob is a man of action, takes care of people and always seems to know better. He gives his cleaning lady time off, offers his abode to a nightclub hostess/performer, yet keeps her and everyone at a distance. 

All the other characters are of action to, no matter what side of the law they're on. This film is about a particular class, how people move, drift among each other, calculating, always understated except when passion is at stake. This capsule also serves as an influence on De Palma, Scorsese--we see their inspirations.

Detropia (2012) ***
At dusk three twentysomethings stand around a fire they've made from scraps. One of them asks, "Where does this stuff go?" Another answers, "I don't know, we sell it to China, they make stuff, then sell it here for more." Then comes the graphic about scrap metal being one of Michigan's biggest exports to China. A kneejerk reaction might be to look down on the people of Detroit--their refusal to move, (one idea is to consolidate the people within city limits and turn large tracts into farmland) develop new skills, whatever. Then we interact with the three youths, and spend more time with Tommy Stephens, a retired teacher and current owner of the Ravens Lounge. We sense he's worked hard, and hasn't slowed down much running his bar for local patrons, of whom he knows many. He sees the big picture too, especially when perusing the North American auto show. Stephens sees the Chevrolet Volt selling for $40,000 next to the one from the Chinese car company, Build Your Dreams (That is actually the name), selling for $28,000. Tommy knows your average American won't look closely to the differences between the cars and look only at the price tag. Later a family member reminds him that they have a worse standard of living in China and that we'll have to lower ours in order to compete, to which he responds, "Americans aren't going to like that."

Such scenes are what sets "Detropia" apart from other docs. A friend of mine recently said we live in a golden age of documentaries, and I'm starting to believe him. We can meet characters such as Tommy, or a young couple who are urban artists, have recently moved to Detroit and get a studio for $25,000. They don't quite lighten the movie up. Another real person is Crystal Starr, a video blogger who dares Detroit's citizens to be proactive and re-build the city. For the set we have the Detroit Opera House which exhibits top talent and gets 70% of its funding from corporate donors. The abandoned streets don't have to be built--Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady have 139 square miles to work with, and they have American Axle workers at the mercy of the company, which requests wage cuts from $14.35 to $11; the workers don't even vote, send it back to the company, which later closes the plant. So where's our faith in humanity? We have to look elsewhere. 

Then we see three people lazily sitting on a porch, scoffing and laughing at the idea of turning land into gardens. One of them jokes at holding up someone at gunpoint, saying, "Drop the tomato." Here lies the crux: are these people going to reinvent themselves? Move where jobs are, as their forebearers once did? A neighbor told me just today that, well, yeah, when you rely on one industry for so long, what then you gonna do? That's what we ask ourselves by the end here. 


Visions of Light (1992) ****
One can easily think that only movie buffs will get something out of a documentary on cinematographers. Hoo boy. One could name-drop ad nauseum, and the bottom line is the Director of Photography listed so prominently in the opening credits of a film, is crucial. This doc takes you through the teens and twenties, showing how the forerunners had photographed stars, invented their own equipment, and worked within the studio system. It imparts how black and white takes us to the abstract and removes us from reality with a natural tone for drama. This is also a survey of all the prominent cinematographers working with the directors of the '60s to the landmark '70s films. Toward the end, with three-time Oscar winner Vittorio Storaro, stating that cinema has no nationality. Not many docs get this far below the surface with how cameras are used and why. This one covers so much ground in its ninety minutes you wonder it ain't mandatory for those in all visual arts.

Stand Up Guys (2012) ***
Pacino commands, Walken is still, and Arkin does his job. It's Walken's that holds the film together: he is still, projecting, regarding everything around him. There's just enough plot to carry them, and once the story is introduced after a great opening title sequence, and lets the characters sit and talk, we can watch for hours. It's almost as if the editor had to work hard to get through the greetings, interactions, and introductions outside the big three. 

Check the dearth of technology: they use payphones, walk a fair amount, and it all takes place in one night. And it works. Unlike other flicks (see next review) where it's been done before, as this story builds towards a climax, we really do wonder how it's going to end. After all, many things can happen in these abandoned streets, warehouses, and shadows. With these characters in them, many things do, and we're grateful to return to these places.

Dead Man Down (2013) *
The structure is in place: a man is a  loner on the inside of an organization with a tragic past finds a single woman, also a loner with a similar past. This leads to the worst scene in the movie, cranking up the music, which should ratchet up the tension. It doesn't, and you know why? We don't don't know him. We see his expression, but the stakes? He might die, is put in a troublesome situation, and this scene is so badly handled it's hard to forget. Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace press on with the story, and their strained, take-your-time relationship. Boy, do they take their time. What are their motives? Actually, we get them. Yet the menacing scenes, mostly with Terrence Howard, creep on. We've seen these before. For some reason, wit is absent in these, and would uplift, well, every other dramatic arc present. It would also make them memorable.

This movie combines melodrama with realism, and many shots of Farrell leaving and arriving in his truck. And he looks at others, a lot. In fact, he has some of the best scenes of just looking and listening to others, an observation from an acting class I once took. The first half is slow, and in the second half, with the romantic thread just getting going, and the stars going on dates while the screws are tightening as one character's identity might be uncovered, the screws aren't really tightening. The cinematographer, Paul Cameron, who's worked with Michael Mann, knows how to photograph New York's streets. I fear the director, Niels Arden Oplev, of the superior first installment of the Swedish"Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" trilogy, was afflicted with production problems. The falsely dramatic ending didn't help. So the structure is there, all we need is motive, reason, and consistent realism.


The Central Park Five (2012) ***
Sometimes documentaries are shot and cut together so well we see art unfold right before our eyes. The night shots of central park and New York skyline in this film portend beauty, decay, shadows, and ominous anonymity. The editing provides almost everything, from the forbidding city to the interviews of five teenagers who were rounded up and accused of raping and torturing a woman in April 1989. Intercut with these interviews, for a time, is the backstory of New York City in the 1980s, with mounting racial tensions and an African American working class shut out of the '80s surging prosperity. Former Mayor Howard Koch, who served from 1978-89That class was an easy target for the status quo, which here includes Manhattan North Detectives office, the two female prosecutors assigned to the case, and the detectives who interrogated the suspects.

Four of the five young men, all not white, talk to the camera with one only lending his voice to recount what happened. The detectives played the five (early) teenagers off one another, got them to sign confessions that as one of them says, "a fourteen year-old doesn't talk like this." When you see the film, it rings true. We don't know a whole lot about these five guys, but for their part in the case, the film proves them not guilty, though they may be symptoms of "Wilding" back then, and probably today.

Luftslottet som sprängdes (The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest) (2009) ****
A more than satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. I liked this better than the second installment, which I felt was heavy on plot instead of character, even though we were introduced to new characters. This time we get more, and what's particularly effective is how the characters immediately announce their intentions seconds after they appear. We know why they are there, and we are with Mikael, Lisbeth, and others at the filmmakers' choosing. The characters are, however, not instruments of the plot, but lives who drift in, and affront us and the two main people. 

Also, the framing is better--we never tire of looking at these people in their office spaces, the stark stairwells, abandoned buildings, or cafes. In a welcome development, the two main groups on either side of the law show similarities--Fritz Lang's "M" comes to mind. The continuing theme of how women affect men propels us, and when we expect content, the pacing, letting us breath now and then with the sense that trouble has beset pristine, stoic Sweden, we absorb. We didn't know how untouched this country was before, but it's locked in a battle with a foreign entity, a chink in the armor, and that's many places nowadays.

One German character, Niedermann, resembles Anton Chigurgh from "No Country For Old Men." He's an unstoppable force, omnipresent, and we get just enough of him. The story unwinds like a John Grisham thriller and gunfire invades a cafe, it's a result of agendas, so we care. For once courtroom scenes are not bogged down in evidence, but arguments. The script stays tight to the end, and we see it's about people doing what they can. The last shot, for once, is no accident. One of the best third parts of a trilogy ever.

The Gatekeepers (2012) ***
Winner of Best Documentary at this year's Oscars, The Gatekeepers is about people on the inside of an organization. The Shin Bet, the Israeli secret police squad, are headed by men who have never been interviewed before this film, which toggles back and forth between showing them as schemers, fixers, betrayers, and partial traitors, if that's even a phrase. The longest-serving director, Avraham Shalom, from 1980 - 94 (I believe) shows an intelligence chief who must make hard decisions, some where heads rolled. We imagine he is forceful. He avoids questions slightly with volleys back to the questioner. We get he and the other five interviewees have seen, heard, and done much to incriminate themselves, and they've, probably in their minds, acted diplomatically for the "greater good," or some relative of that idea. Chronologically, this film jumps back and forth; tying events, strategies ("There are no strategies, just tactics" is one section's title) and personalities together can confuse, but this enriches. A college friend once pointed out that we barely know who the number two, three and so on people are at the CIA, that its structure is so secret, tacit. One can easily juxtapose that notion with this film, where government insiders in closed rooms, late night. sometimes in other countries, make big decisions and quietly get things done.

Flickan som lekte med elden ("The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest") (2009) ***
With a new director, this sequel feels more plot-driven. The shots aren't quite as interesting: Mikael sitting at coffee with his colleague, the slow pan of a burning barn after we know its been lit. We have a new writer on board, too, and Lisbeth's half-seen, half-hidden life is shown yet not revealed. The first movie showed us how she worked, navigated, and conducted professional relations that spilled ever so slightly into the personal. I recalled a writing instructor saying one of the secrets to the first Godfather movies: we want to know more as we watched. That happened with the first movie (see below). Though we have new characters here including a reticent, mountainous hulk who pounds people and meet more of Lisbeth's family, and Lisbeth comes close to death, the screws on her and Mikael are not quite tightened enough. The first film used family, history, and all revolved around a mysterious disappearance which could have been murder. We don't have that here, though the international vein is still present. It's worthy, just not quite as fresh and fulfilling. Word on the street there is a script for a sequel to the American version which David Fincher is interested in--he would be wise to stick to his roots when tackling this story.

Män som hatar kvinnor ("The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo") (2009) ****
I first saw this at the dollar theater with a family friend hacking up a lung next to me. I almost moved, tried to focus on the screen, knew what I was seeing was good, great, then swore to see it again in a few years. Two years later I read the book the month before the American version came out. The book rang true. The U.S. version, with all its talent, fell flat. I waited another 18 months and am now working my way through all three Swedish films, all three copyrighted 2009. 

On a second viewing, it's the stillness, the held looks between the characters, that stands out. In Northern Sweden, people need each other, don't interact as much with an outside world and amidst horrific events. When Mikael Blomkvist visits Lisbeth Salander in her apartment, she opens the door, after some pushback, lets off the chain on her door. The woman in her bed doesn't get an introduction, doesn't need one, we don't care--Hitchcock understood this. It says enough about her life. Mikael comes in, she knows why he's there. He asks if she has coffee. She doesn't answer. He picks up a coffeepot, hears the slosh, cackles a little, and pours himself a cup. It's the silence in between lines that makes the scene.

Later in the movie, when Mikael really does go to Australia, this story leaps. That's the magic of movies: we go from Northern Sweden to the outback, and this ain't a stretch. Check the reactions of other characters in the outback when a name is called, that person stands, hesitates facing the other direction, then slowly turns. She holds her gaze, and they cut back to Sweden. As Sidney Lumet once wrote in "Making Movies," convince us this is really happening. The silences, the held looks that linger in our minds; we really do think this is happening, and these characters' reluctance and contemplations among events is how life sometimes is. 

House of Cards (2013) ****
I approached the Netflix-produced "House of Cards" with skepticism, until I saw the talent behind it: Kevin Spacey, Beau Willimon, and especially David Fincher directing the first two episodes. Coming off the American version of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," I was ready for him to return to fresh material. Washington, DC indeed looks fresh with his dark tones. The atmosphere of DC makes him the right choice: the steely looks, the frequent shots of characters sitting or standing, always thinking, plotting the next move, the weight of the world seeming to accelerate the ageing process. The first episode is all framing, ending with a shot of Spacey sitting at a ribs joint just off a main drag. The closeups of Kate Mara as a journalist forging a link to Spacey, a House Majority Whip passed over for Secretary of State, show her breaking in while Spacey, in the face of rejection, not breaking down. Robin Wright, who heads what appears to be a lobbyist group entitled the Clean Water Initiative, coldly looks at everyone, though she leads a noble cause. That, in case you missed it, is DC in a nutshell. The second episode ends with her brief look of humanity, a twinge of insight and glimpse of compassion, before moving back to the cold world. At least out there, inside the beltway, that world is everywhere here, and never stops.

The Watch (2012) **
I'm pretty sure the filmmakers of "The Watch" don't regard small-town America with a great deal of admiration. Within the Ohio town where people have nicely kept lawns, wash their cars in driveways, and frequent Costco, there are the four characters led by Ben Stiller, a manager at Costco, who appoint themselves as a neighborhood watch team for what is determined to be a killer on the loose. After this appointment, throughout the film neighbors, acquaintances, and town-folk appear creepy, irritable, and hastily jump to conclusions. Women don't fair well either. We don't even see the wife of Vince Vaughn, the group's second in command, until one of the last shots, and he has a subplot involving his daughter who seeks teen independence. Indeed, this movie lampoons conservative small-town Ohio and then argues, as "Uncle Buck" did in 1989, that parents should intrude and invade teen lives when they flirt with the wild side. This odd sentiment pops up just enough that it creates an undertow and all but supplants the broad comedy "The Watch" wants to be. Stiller and Vaughn have the funniest moments, especially when things go wrong, such as when Stiller says, "Well, we never really did anything." He shows his humanity in the face of failure. This leads back to it wanting to be a broad, even memorable comedy. Released the final weekend of last year and grossing just over 34 million domestically while costing twice as much to make, the premise is there--now we need spirit and comedy rules to consistently be employed.

End of Watch (2012) ****
Gripping start to finish, and it bucks the trend of handheld camera causing nausea, which some forty and up complain about. This camera has uninflected images and we're always sure what we should be looking at and experiencing. I even approached this as almost a tired genre--how many L.A.P.D. movies do we need? If in the right hands such as David Ayer, we'll take 'em.

Red State (2011) ****
There's more than a trace of Kevin Smith, and the dialogue is about it. I see why Quentin Tarantino "*#@(%& loved this movie!" according to the DVD box. Past the violence, the pacing is expert. Smith knows just when to introduce a new character, take his time with them, build suspense with parallel stories, then cut back to Story A. There are a couple of climaxes, and two agents talking to one with memorable Smithspeak delivers what I thought would end the movie. The last scene, probably under two minutes, is the funniest ending I've seen in years. 

Jack Reacher (2012) ***
Christopher McQuarrie started right out of the gate, winning the oscar for "The Usual Suspects" now eighteen years ago. His directorial debut, "The Way of the Gun," was dark, funny, had bits and pieces of Mamet ("There's always free cheese at a mouse trap") and was fulfilling to watch with solid performances. His stories have dramatic arcs and tie together, even if we don't believe everything. 

He's the right choice to adapt Lee Child's "One Shot" which, when I interviewed Child in 2007 on his "Bad Luck and Trouble" tour, the author said had the best chance of making it to screen. ("Bad Luck and Trouble" would make a great film). The opening is first rate, establishing the setting, the plaza, the buildup to the seemingly random event that incites the story. A slightly familiar face in David Oyelowo appears as sincere, calculating, and methodical on the scene. Rosamund Pike also appears that way, and eventually is not given much to do as a lawyer who reacts melodramatically to most things in the story. I like the tough-as-nails female lawyers who occasionally show weakness and humility. The rest of the cast looks familiar and revolve around Tom Cruise who, beyond initial doubts, excellently personifies Jack Reacher.

My high school English/film teacher once described Cruise as "amazingly good," in light of how familiar he is to us after thirty-plus years on screen. He embodies Reacher as the drifter who operates outside the law, does a job, goes home. Isn't that something we sometimes want out of a co-worker? The villains, I hasten to say, appeared more stock, with the exception of the great German filmmaker Werner Herzog. He is most welcome surprise and communicates buried menace.

The climax succombs to some formula: indeed a fair amount of this movie strikes familiar chords, even with a huge car chase in the middle and the plot switching gears between a legal procedural, whodunnit, and a protaganist navigating it all. This is not, however, done in a formula way. Caleb Deschanel's photography and excellent editing that intercuts between scenes of rapid dialogue help the craftmanship of this film all the more. MacQuarrie should stick with this crowd.