DON MONKERUD INK
Film Reviews: 2004 and 2005
by Don Monkerud
Postmen in the Mountains
****
In Chinese with subtitles. Gorgeous on the large screen. A simple quiet film about a retiring mailman who accompanies his son on his first trip of the three day, two night route through remote mountain villages in China. A boy gets to know the father who was always away on his route, and the two find a comfort zone for the father-son relationship.Hotel Rwanda
Don Cheadle, Nick Nolte
****
Deserves an academy award after all the overblown puff films of the current season. A moving, tear-wrenching film about the 1994 massacre of one million Tutsis by the Hutus is told through the story of a black upscale hotel manager whom at first denies that this could be happening and wants to keep his clothes clean and the riff-raff out of his hotel. Soon he finds himself caught in a macabre situation, trying to save his family and not speak his mind until the hotel is overcome with swarms of Tutsis seeking refuge from the slaughter. NN plays a UN leader who tries his best to seek world interference but alas, the world is racist and Rwanda has no wealth, only poor people, who rapidly become victims of payback for the Tutsis helping the Belgians rule the country. Harrowing escapes and many scenes of slaughter, death and menacing threats to life.Pelle the Conqueror
Max von Sydow
****
This 1988 Danish-Swedish film with subtitles won an Oscar as best foreign film. An old widower and his 12-year-old son immigrate to Sweden to work on a medieval-style farm with other modern serf/slaves who live in the barn, eat fish at every meal� even holidays�and are regularly threatened, bullied and mistreated by the master of the manor who beds many women, drives his wife nuts, and loses a son as a result of his controlling ways. Keep expecting someone to kill the master, but this is Sweden where the threat of the authorities is enough to control the most deeply-felt hostility. Touching scenes between father and son. The father falls for a widow whom he wants to marry to change his life. A story of the eternal hope of finding a place in society when you are too old.Closely Watched Trains
Jiri Menzel
****
1966. One of the �new wave� Czech films. This small quiet B&W film continues to provide interest. A naive young man follows in his father�s footsteps to become a train scheduler so that he can retire early from an easy job and do nothing. The station crew, a dictatorial oficial boss, the ner� do well womanizer, and the young flirt hang out all day, party, drink, and screw while Nazi trains rumble through town. The boy can�t have a girlfriend because he ejaculates prematurely, and the doctor says if he can find an older woman to guide him, he will be cured. Goes along until the Nazi ammunition train has to be blown up.Closer
Mike Nichols, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Clive Owen
****
Based on a play, this modern and sometimes witty film has some of the best dialogue of the season. Unfortunately, the male jealousy angle�did you fuck him, what did you do next�along with unlikable characters keeps the film from being spectacular. Strangers meet on a London street, he has to have her, gets her while his girl leaves for the other woman�s boyfriend. Everyone has to have someone else, but why? No one would want any of these self-loving dopes. And why such lousy performances from decent actors? NP is the only one halfway likable. And yet one of the best scripts of the year.The Outlaw
Director Howard Hughes, Jane Russell, Walter Houston
**
JR is the highlight of this film, bar none. Sultry, dark, long black hair and rebellious�an uncontrollable woman. She comes with �a special bra� designed by HH. The story of Billy the Kid.Copenhagen
****
Raves for this privately-made video from a PBS special, afilm of a play. Not sure where to find it, but it recounts a meeting between Bohr and HeisenbergA Man With A Camera
Russian, music only
**
1929 experimental Russian film to show film is its own device and can standalone without theater or literature. Does it work? Not really. This restored film begins in the morning in Odessa and shoots a succession of people and places with no attempt to tell a story. It creates interest by the creativity of the shots themselves, abstractions, shadows, split images, merging images and film speed. The music is creative and helps hold interest; but the look at the early days of Russian communism�Lenin, shooting gallery with Nazi symbols, horse drawn carts and trolleys�fascinate for their historical context.Cold Mountain
Anthony Mingella, director; Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Rennee Zellweger, Donald Sutherland, Phillip Seymour Hoffman
**
From the slow going best selling novel, this tale of a man struggling to get back home to his fantasy lover is touching and grim. Great costumes and atmosphere. The cold brutality of the civil war. NK plays a belle from Charleston who, after four years of near starvation on a farm, still looks like she just left a Beverly Hills beauty parlor. RZ plays a self-possessed, capable woman who keeps her from starvation: a great supporting role.Matrix Reloaded
**
Interesting for anyone who follows the story about reality being a database construct and a few humans who hold out against the machines and fight for survival. Jacking into the matrix where they have endless computer game-like martial arts fights soon becomes boring. Shallow characters, but that�s not why one watches such high-tech films.Petrified Forest
Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Leslie Howard, Based on Robert Sherwood play
****
1936 Classic film with HB playing Mantee, a wanted killer, who shows up in a small cafe someplace in the southwest, where BD yearns for the world beyond, reading poetry and dreaming about her mother in France. LH plays a failed writer who married a rich woman who dumped him for a promising painter. He shows up at the cafe hitch-hiking around seeking �something to believe in.� BD falls for him, HB and his gang show up to wait for the other gang members. Drama in one room.Swimming Pool
Charlotte Rampling, Ludivine Sagnier
***
CR plays an uptight, fussy British mystery writer, who has to have perfect quiet to write. She goes to her English publisher�s house in France to overcome writers block. Along comes the owners nubile, sexy daughter LS, who brings a diferent man home every night. Sexy scenes until the daughter kills one of the men and the two women bury him and keep quiet about it. A little gem of a film.Hollywood Homicide
Harrison Ford, Josh Hartnett
**
Saw this on the plane from Italy and almost forgot to mention it. Two cops catch the bad guys, throw in HF who is broke and dealing real estate on the side and a few laughs.Calendar Girls
**
Another film on the plane from Italy. Haven�t I seen the same plot before? A small town English garden club listens to monthly speakers. A woman�s husband dies, the club is broke and she decides to put out a tastefully done nude calendar of the women in the club. Cute, warm and fuzzy with little challenge and everything, of course, very proper.Lord of the Rings, Return of the King
***
Academy Award for best picture but this made me tired. It�s just too much, over the top, cloying and fizzy like warm cotton candy. And so much fighting! Someone said 60 percent is fighting and okay these are great special e�ects but it goes on and on forever... luckily this is the last one of these too cute characters.Tokyo Drifter
**
1950s Japanese gangster film brought up to date when the yakuza goes legit, or tries to, while the bad guys won�t let them and try to steal their building.Monster
D-Patty Jenkins, Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci
****
Excellent acting, best of year by CT who plays Aileen Wurornos, a serial killer hooker who gets together with CR, a lesbian, and tries, at first, to live a new life. CT catches the quirks, the fantastical power and self hype of this brutalized killer. Remember that CT gained 40 pounds and underwent hours of make up every day to achieve the looks.The Idiot
Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune
**
Story of the holy fool from Dostoevsky, slow and claustrophobic film set in Hokkaido snow with Idiot who was a soldier set to be executed when a sudden reprieve saved his life. He became simple, focuses on woman who was sold at 14 to an older man who now wants to marry her off by paying a local guy to be her husband. Everybody loves someone else and wants to marry them. Kabuki like facial expressions but strong black and white. Great look at Japan 1951. that AH is part black! A mess of a film but there�s interest in a younger woman�s and an older man�s desperate love.Kinsey
Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Peter Sarsgaard
****
LN is excellent in this recounting of the first sex research ever conducted. Blustering, ranting, self-righteous, controlling and demanding, Kinsey comes off as a not always likable person, but aware of the importance of his project. Great flashbacks to show his background and growing up, awkwardness towards sex, and sex with a male friend. More importantly this is an important film to make us realize how far we have come and where Bush and the so-called religious right wants to drag us back to.Alexander
Director Oliver Stone, with Colin Farrel, Jared Leto, Val Kilmer
**
At 188 minutes, this film seems to go on forever. Okay it�s talky, jumps back and forth in time and, at certain points, is outright laughable, especially when the two stars hiss at each other like cats in heat. Worth seeing on the large screen for two scenes: the recreation of Babylon 323 BC and great battle scenes, viewed from the air. Puts forth the great-men-drive-history point of view, as well as the role of betrayal, intrigue and murder in the powerful courts of the past.Ready to Wear
Directed by Robert Altman, with Marcello Mastroianni, Sophia Loren, Kim Basinger, Chiara Mastroianni, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Forest Whitaker, Julia Roberts, Tim Robbins, Lauren Bacall, Lyle Lovett, Tracey Ullman, Sally Kellerman, Linda Hunt, Danny Aiello, Cher, and Naomi Campbell
**
1994. A comedic spoof. The stepping in dog shit joke gets tiresome, even if it is shot in Paris, during the annual fashion show. Dozens of famous fashion models (the ending nude fashion show is worth the whole film) sleep with each other, fight, and run around on the each other in between jealous rows. Many stories go off in different directions�this is Altman�sound overlaps, and there�s the hustle and bustle of being in the middle of a great self-important event where everyone speaks in banalities and it�s all show and money. But what a cast!Man in the White Suit
Alec Guinnes, Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker
****
1951 British film mis-labeled as comedy. Great shots of old spinning mills in an industrial town where AG plays a chemist who develops a fabric that never needs washing and will last forever. Although he believes this is of benefit to mankind, the mill owners kidnap him and the workers rise up to prevent the manufacture of the new fabric that will destroy the system. A cross between film noir, science fiction and social commentary.Another Woman
Directed by Woody Allen with Gena Rolands, Sandy Dennis, Mia Farrow, Gene Hackman, Ian Holm, Hohn Houseman
****
Where was this small film hiding? GR plays WA character turning 50, an uptight asshole philosophy professor in New York of course! Rents office downtown to write but hears psychiatrists through the heating vent and starts asking questions about her own life; discovers her best friend finds her competitive for men and that�s why she won�t see her anymore; her brother finds her judgmental; and her husband is having an affair with her best friend. She�s tight-assed and only learns compassion after everyone tells her the truth.Ray
Jamie Foxx
****
Ray Charles film catches some of the enthusiasm of the times�great music. The story of his early life: going blind, living in a dirt-poor community, taking up for himself in the record industry. The first film that captures a small part of the joy in the music and the openness of the times; for that, best actor of the year.Badassss
**
Story about the Leroy Van Peoples and the making of the 1971 film, Sweet Sweetback�s Badass Song, considered an angry, violent, reverse ractist black exploiation film. This one is about the making of the first film where Blacks got back at �the man.� Van Peoples ran over everyone, used everyone, and finally gets the film made while smoking a cigar all of the time, even while making love!Decline of the American Empire
***
Canadian film in French with English subtitles. Take 10,000 conversations between a group of men and another of women, distill all of the sex out of them and combine them with a bit of whimsy and some stretching of the imagination�no one I know talks like this�and you have an entertaining film about what people would say about their sex lives and their affairs if they talked to anyone about them. Bring them together, view their affairs in the past and throw in conversations with their best friends. Then ask questions about Americans� uptightness about sex and intimacy, Puritanism and just why the hell we behave as we do.The Human Strain
Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, Gary Sinse
***
A good story, although it takes off in many different directions. AH is a university classics professor who is tossed out for using the word �spooks� in his classroom. His wife dies from the shock and he makes friends with a writer GS, and falls in love with NK who works three jobs as she dodges EH, her husband, who is stalking her. She�s 34, AH is retirement age; her kids died in a fire, and it turns out 1984John Hurt, Richard Burton
****
Based on George Orwell�s vision of the future, this sober, gritty, improvised future is all too real, all too possible with big brother (the party) standing over everyone�s shoulder and doing everything it can do to stamp out sex and feeling between people, replacing those feelings with love of the leader. A classic that everyone should see, especially in our age of dictatorial Republicans, Bush and Arnie Airhead.Prospero�s Books
John Gielund
**
This French-British co-production, called an adaptation of Shakespeare�s Tempest, is an unholy, creative mess. JG is incredible as he walks through a set consisting primarily of naked bodies, moving, flexing, gyrating and cart wheeling (literally!) on all sides. The basic story condensed into 90 minutes... another interpretation to be sure, but hard going for non-Shakespearean fans.Girl with the Pearl Earring
Scarlett Johansson, Colin Firth, Tom Wilkinson
***
From the first scene, this film reminds me of Venice. Of course, the period of 1685 is similar in Holland except the buildings are of brick�same canals, same arches, same Renaissance architecture. A slow and sensitive film of Vermeer painting the girl with the earring that has puzzled art historians for centuries. Who is this woman, why did he paint her? Good recreation of the time: food, clothing, housing, relationships, etc.
Ugetsu
Kenji Mizoguchi
****
1953 Classic Japanese film�Tales of the Pale and Silvery Moon after the Rain. During civil wars of 1600s, two married villagers become ambitious: one wants to become a samurai, the other sells pots to get rich. They both take risks but achieve their dreams. Unfortunately, they didn�t realize how good life was to begin with and one�s wife is killed while the other�s becomes a prostitute. The potter is enchanted by a ghost and barely escapes with his life. Beautiful, perspective and thoughtful.Curse of the Starving Class
James Woods, Cathy Bates, Randy Quaid, Lee Gossett Jr.; Play by Sam Sheppard
***
Artichokes being spilt out on stage is what I recall from seeing this stage play in Ashland; SS�s family drama, just plain folks tearing each other to the bone, saying hateful, petty things, taunting, poking fun at and enduring the drunken father, who decides to sell the farm. And now a screen version; set in rural Ohio-type farmland; RQ is a crooked real estate dealer and LG is a black bar owner, both buying the land, while the lamb warms in the kitchen, the sister�s school project gets trashed and everyone only endures until they can leave, except they aren�t going anyplace. Great scene of Lear wandering in the moors in the pouring rain... and others to make this a very different version from the stage version. Somewhat cliquish and overdone in places, a little too conscious of the process.Stone Reader
***
Delightful little film about a guy who reads a book that he hasn�t been able to finish since 1968; he loves it and tracks down the author who only published one critically acclaimed book and then disappeared. Writers and readers will both love this film, which discusses serious literature with several Iowa Writing Workshop professors, the agent, the book jacket designer, the author�s writer friends from Iowa and book collectors. What is it with one-book authors or should authors even write more than one book? Note: as many successful authors as unsuccessful commit suicide...Man Who Knew Too Much
Alfred Hitchcock, James Stewart, Doris Day
**
A 1956 remake of his 1934 film, H falls on his face. JS plays a doctor on holiday in Morocco with wife DD, a famous singer, and a small boy. They are befriended by a Frenchman who is murdered, but not before whispering in JS�s ear; then their boy is kidnapped to keep them quiet about an assassination in the famous London Albert Hall, to take place during a concert. One longs for the concert to take the place of the story after many groaning lines. Hollywood portrays Middle America in the 50s. This could be Ozzie and Harriet in a self parody; only redeeming quality is the street scenes of Morocco, which must have been back-dropped in.Triplets of Belleview
***
Thoroughly enjoyable French-Canadian-Belgian animated cartoon of three singing sisters. The scene transplants to New York City years later where an old woman and her dog attempt to rescue her son from the clutches of the French mafia. The son, who is addicted to the Tour de France, is kidnapped. A funny, whimsical, eccentric film.Himalaya
***
Subtitled. Beautiful film of a small village in the mountains that sends caravans out to trade salt. The leader is killed and his father hates the other man whom everyone else wants to lead the caravan. Father decides to lead himself, despite his old age and leading other old men. Exotic locations and culture, a joy to watch.Zatoichi
**
Give it three stars on a large screen, due to the beautiful photography, but zero for the blood and endless sword fights. A more thoughtful, slow moving look at gangs that take over a small town in medieval Japan�until the silent, blind swordsman comes to set things right. Several interesting cross-stories; the sister and brother both dress as women seeking to avenge their family, the wayward gambler, and a surprise ending of sorts... until the final song and tap dance routine that is a fit finale to remind us this is pure fantasy.Three Strangers
Sydney Greenstreet, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Peter Lorre, Joan Lorring
***
1947 From a John Houston script that was supposed to be a follow-up of Maltese Falcon with the same names: Sam Spade, etc., but they couldn�t get financing. Hence, this strange little film of three strangers who agree to share a lottery ticket, except SG is stealing money from his rich clients, GF is a shrew involved in a divorce and pulls every underhanded trick get out of it. PL is a happy-go-lucky drunk and loser. Everyone dies.Telling Lies in America
Kevin Bacon
***
Surprisingly entertaining independent film with KB playing a payola taking DJ in the early days of rock-�n�-roll. He finds a lonely, nerdy 17-year-old kid in a Catholic school to take the checks from the record producers so he doesn�t get arrested�a good role for KB as a happy-go-lucky, fast-talking disc spinner, living on payola. At one point he says he has two ex-wives, four kids and nothing in the whole world, and realizes that he will keep moving down the ladder to smaller and smaller stations to keep his gig going. A coming-of-age story for the boy. Could use more great old rock-�n�-roll from Jerry Lee Lewis to the Viscounts and Jimmy Reed.Carmen: A Hip Hopera
Mos Def, Lil Bow Wow, Troy Winbush, Jermaine Dupri, Mekhi Phifer, Beyonce Knowles
***
Bizet�s 2002 opera, updated to hip-hop with some good music, decent lyrics and current lingo.Motorcycle Diaries
***
Part coming-of-age buddy film with two wealthy South American doctors traveling the continent on a motorcycle in 1952, before settling down. A small peak into what made Che Guevara�as he travels, he sees, evidently for the first time, the oppression of the people by the social wealth, caste system. Scenes shot in Machu Picchu as well as others shot on location of the actual trip, mixed with Che�s diary entries.Dirty Pretty Things
Audrey Tautou
****
Excellent small film of two illegal immigrants, a Nigerian doctor, and a Turkish woman, working in low paying jobs in London, hit upon and taken advantage of by one and all. Sweatshops, selling kidneys for a passport, driving taxi; all the while she is in love with him and he won�t harvest kidneys because he finds it repugnant. Could see this as a revenge of the empire or the continuing exploitation of people by the empire.Mean Creek
Director Gus Van Sant
**
Should be seen by all teens, a prank against a dyslectic mean-spirited fat boy goes awry when a group of teenagers take him on a boating trip to teach him a lesson and whoops, they didn�t mean to go that far. Great story telling on a low budget, as well as a modern morallity tale.Legend of the Lost
John Wayne, Sophia Loren
*
1957 Terrible, boring film... I was only interested in the backdrop. Filmed in the ancient Libyan town of Ghadames, with Roman ruins, and in Rome.Capturing the Friedmans
***
A family was accused of sexual abuse of students; the father and son went to jail; and the father killed himself. Were they guilty? Some boys said they were molested; others claimed they saw nothing. Everyone has a different story to tell, yet one wonders how this savage abuse could have continued for four years without anyone knowing about it.A Dirty Shame
John Waters, Tracey Ullman, Chris Isaak
***
Well maybe not quite a three, but hilarious parody send-off of American sex attitudes with the sex maniacs�they get hit on the head and want to fuck� and the prudes, who call themselves normal. Selma Blair has titties the size of watermelons, all good fun, but goes over the top and becomes ridiculous; would benefit from cutting at least 30 minutes.Sylvia
**
Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes from the time they meet to her death. A little poetry, tumult�she burns his poems and tears others to shreds. Is she merely jealous of him or reacting to him finding a new lover, spending the night away from home. And yet, she produced some of her greatest poetry during this period.Touching the Void
***
Best on a large screen where the full effect of the Peruvian Andes reveals the insignificance and puny human ants on the rump of existence. Two mountain climbers challenge a 21,000 Siula Grande peak; one breaks his leg and the other helps him down, until he slips over the edge and dangles for hours before the rope is cut. One makes his way back to base camp where another hiker awaits their return. The other tells his story of struggling four days out of an abyss to make his way back to camp. A true story about a heroic effort of survival.Bend It Like Beckham
**
Delightful film about an Indian girl in England playing soccer and juggling her parent�s unhappiness with her untraditional pursuit. Predictable and clich�d but we still root for the girl.Secret Window
Johnny Depp
**
From a Stephen King short story. A writer holes up after discovering his wife having an affair, can�t write and a country weirdo knocks on his door to tell him, �You stole ma story.� And he wants the proper ending put with it. Illogical and paltry techniques meant to scare the watcher, but telegraph their effect ten minutes ahead. The writer�s dog is killed, friends murdered, wife�s house burned down. Only redeeming quality is JD, the mussed, wigged out writer.Castro
Bravo Films
****
A great documentary story from the beginning until after the fall of the USSR. Trujillo was supported by the US, which trained his troops. Foreigners owned 70 percent of the land, guess who? Cuba was a playground for the rich and crooked and the US has never gotten over having the people take it back. The US hates Castro so much that they tried to kill him innumerable times and still maintains an embargo, despite making great buddies with USSR. Castro does ham it up and is self-centered, but he has been the only world leader to openly defy the might, military and shady dealings of the US.The Reckoning
Paul Bettany, Willem Dafoe, Gina McKee
**
In 1680 an English priest is caught with a man�s daughter, escapes and takes up with a traveling theater group that plays in a small castle town. Their play solicits few attendees until they stumble upon the story of a deaf mute, convicted of killing a small boy and sentenced to hang. The group of actors become convinced she didn�t do it and stages a �reality� play to prove her innocent. Predictable mystery and modern dialogue for such a time.Great Expectations
Ethan Hawke, Gwenth Patrow
**
Modernized remake with Mrs. Havensham drinking gin and the girl growing up to flirt with the boy who becomes a world famous artist. His benefactor turns out to be a criminal father who dies in his arms after being stabbed on the subway. And yes, they do reconcile later in their lives.Masked and Anonymous
Bob Dylan, John Goodman, Jessica Lange, Jeff Bridges, Bruce Dern, Val Kramer, Christian Slater, Penelope Cruz
***
A fun romp through a puzzle of a story about BD as a dying dictator�s son who is let out of jail to perform a concert put on by a tough broad JL and a sleezeball promoter JG. Set in an un-named South American, poverty-stricken country with really bad slurring of songs, and a big finger to anyone who still thinks BD is someone to follow.La Strata
Fellini, Anthony Quinn, Giuletta Masina, Richard Baseheart
****
1954 B&W Italian film with subtitles. Rough-hewn, cold-hearted AQ plays a circus strongman who buys GM�Fellini�s wife�to be his assistant. GM falls in love with him as they play to small crowds and she takes pride in being part of the act, despite AQ running off with other women and generally disrespecting and treating her shabbily. A funny clown, RB, can�t help enraging AQ who gets thrown in jail for fighting and later punches him and kills him. They all come to bad ends separately. One of the greatest movies of all time.Something�s Gotta Give
Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Keanu Reeves, Francis McDorman
***
A fun romantic comedy a la Hollywood with JN dating DK�s daughter�he only dates under 30 women�when he has a heart attack after taking Viagra and winds up in the hospital with KR as his doctor. KR gets crushes on older women, mainly DK. Recuperating at DK�s house in the Hamptons, JN and she fall in love, except its not over yet. JN can�t get used to the idea of being faithful to one woman, so they don�t get together until after various trials. Many humorous scenes with JN having another romp, and another heart attack�he�s getting good at this�after taking Viagra.We Don�t Live Here Anymore
Laura Dern, Mark Ruffalo, Naomi Watts, Peter Krause
****
Short stories by Andre Dubus about two academic couples in a small town who are best friends. LD and MR are married and MR is having an affair with NW. These women aren�t loved by their husbands, who are preoccupied, PK by writing his novel and MR by NW rather than his wife. Everyone knows what�s going on. Good acting, good dialogue but unrelenting unhappiness. Somehow this movie fails to show the joy of sex and makes having an affair seem like a drag�guess it depends upon who you have an affair with. These people made poor choices all the way around!Out of the Past
Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas
***
Classic 1947 film noir except for the romance focus. RM runs a gas station but KD finds him and wants to bring him back for questionable PI work to find his girlfriend, who has run off with $40K. RM finds her in Mexico but falls for her, loves her; she skips. Years later KD wants RM to find another person but JG has gone back to RM. Double dealing and good dialogue, which reminds me of James M. Caine.Dogville
Director Lars Von Trier, Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, James Caan, Ben Gazzara, John Hurt
***
NK arrives in a small isolated mountain town, except wait, this is set on a stage with imaginary houses, a few props and people in the background in every scene, which gives the film a play-like quality. Along with the subject matter, it becomes classic Greek theater. NK escaped from gangsters and the town agrees to hide her, as they are honest, upright people, always willing to help those in need. The ante increases as the sheriff posts a series of posters, each making the town more uneasy, until they extract labor from NK, and then more labor, then sex, then tie a weight to her so she can�t get away. Reminds me of Our Town with an evil twist and The Visit, a German play where the richest woman in the world returns to the town that drove her out, barefoot and pregnant, and she will pay them each $1 million to kill the mayor, who got her pregnant and driven out of town so long ago. Thought provoking tale of innocence, gullibility and the nastiness of ordinary people.Garden State
Zach Braff, Natalie Portman
**
Wacky comedy with a tinge of blackness about a Thorazine prescribed 26-year-old who returns to his New Jersey home to attend his mother�s funeral. Friends pop up everywhere, from the dope-smoking burial crew at the cemetery� they rob the dead�to the local cop who threatens him and then brags about it, to the kid who strikes it rich by selling the patent on �noiseless Velcro.� Braff is actor, writer and director in this send-off of a comic romance with a weirded-out NP. About a dozen jokes and a peak into 20-somethings coming of age, it�s time to grow up and make life more interesting.The Vertical Ray of the Sun
***
Vietnamese with English subtitles. This appears to be about three sisters and their husbands, lovers, pregnancy and how they juggle the conflicts. Slow moving but sensitive, beautiful cinematography; one is having an affair with another man, one has a child with another woman far away, and one wants to get pregnant.Ned Kelly
**
A view of this famous Australian outlaw as an Irishman, who was hanged at age 25 after being mistreated by the English. A good cowboy movie, but too much shoot-em up for me.Facing Windows
Ferzan Ozpetek director, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Raoul Bova, Massimo Girotti
****
A hilarious, cross-genre romp akin to Bon Voyage, has elements of Hitchcock�s Rear Window and includes a back-story of the Jews being rounded up in Rome. Great feeling for Rome�s back streets and cultural life. Where else will you see a man cry over his job?�not in an American film. A low-paid, under-achieving husband finds an old man, MG, wandering the streets and brings him home to his 29-year-old wife and mother of two. She works at a chicken plant and says he has to go. A relationship begins to develop with the old man, who has lost his memory. The wife is unhappy with the husband�s lack of ambition and spies a handsome man through her window. A romance develops but the man is obsessed with her. The old man wanders off and she discovers how much she values him; he becomes her sage, �Don�t be content to survive. You must demand to live in a better world, not just dream about it!�The Flower of Evil
Claude Chabrol
***
French with subtitles. Set in Bordeaux where Denoit Magimel and Melanie Doutey fall in love except they are first cousins, almost brother and sister in a family where cousins marry. Aunt Line murdered her father who was a Nazi collaborator. It appears Benoit�s mother and Melanie�s father had something going and died in a car accident. Now Benoit�s father and Melanie�s mother, who is a phony running for political office, are married. The father is secretly distributing a letter revealing all the family�s dark secrets to try to get his wife defeated in her run for office�her �assistant� is her lover�while the father pursues young women and runs an illegal drug lab. These siblings wonder if they should follow their passion for each other, amid the backdrop of this great family. Whew!Osama
****
Could call this behind the veil. Story of an Afghani 11-year-old girl whose male relatives are all dead and she and her mother can�t go outside due to Taliban rules. Her mother cuts her hair and sends her out to work as a boy, where she is picked up and impressed into the Taliban young boys group, which discovers that she is a girl, and a puny girl at that�not much gumption in this one. Discovered, the sentence is death, except an old mullah takes her home to add her to his harem. And the US is going to straighten out these people?The Big One
Michael Moore
**
Not as good as his best, but he is a funny guy as we go on a book tour of 47 cities for his book, Downsize This. While in the cities, MM visits the largest corporation in the area and presents them with a check for one hour�s wage for their newest worker in another country. Uncovers lots of facts and greedy corporations, is funny and, at the same time, deadly serious about what is happening in USA.American Splendor
**
A look at a comic illustrated by Art Crumb, written by Harvey Pekar, a lonely, depressed guy in Cleveland. Interesting film in as much as there is an actor playing a writer and people depicted and the writer and friends being interviewed on an all-white stage. A sad sack of a human who is never happy, always looks at the most depressing side of life and finds it almost impossible to see anything positive in the world. And yet it�s interesting because we want to laugh at these misshapen people�are we perverse in laughing at others? Or merely thankful that we aren�t this way?Lost in La Mancha
**
The story of a movie that never got made because it was too expensive. Gillian, a nutty director (Time Bandits, 12 Monkeys) pushes everyone to the brink, keeps changing his mind and berates people to do the impossible. Interesting story that makes you want to watch the movie, which wasn�t made because the director�s chaotic, disoraganized style sunk the film. The film will only cost $37 million, but financing such a venture in Europe proves troublesome; in the end, everything was packed up and stored, the actors and crew spread to the winds. They did have problems: a sound stage turned out to be a huge warehouse with terrible sound, shooting on location in a park came with F-16s practicing bombing runs, and the star, a 70-something, developed physical problems and couldn�t sit on the horse. As they say, �life is one damn thing after another.�Matrix Revolutions
Kneau Reeves
**
A totally new movie from the last, KN passes in and out of the matrix and real life. Who knows what the hell is going on here, except there are overly long battle scenes when the borers drill through to let little flying death machines in for the final battle. The oracle as usual playing a role, doesn�t she always.Why Worry?
Harold Lloyd
****
Silent, 1923. L goes on vacation to recuperate from a self-diagnosised pill popping �illness� with his valet and nurse, who is in love with him. Arrives on island opposite South America to find a US business thug instigating a civil war. Amid the war, L befriends an 8 ft. 9 in. giant when he pulls his aching tooth and the giant silences both sides of the war so L can have peace and quiet to get well, except his interactions with the nurse lead to love rather then continued pill-popping.Bon Voyage
Isabelle Adjani, Gerard Depardieu, Peter Coyote
****
French made film set in Paris as the Nazis threaten; a movie star kills a man in her apartment and calls her old boyfriend to dispose of the body. He is caught, charged with murder but released when the Nazis threaten. Everyone in Paris flees south. Mayhem, fear and anxiety keeps the government in an uproar as they try to decide what to do. In the meantime, IA has taken up with a government minister; GD, the boyfriend, keeps running into her while he consorts with criminals who are stealing wine in the turmoil. Did I forget to mention the physicist who is trying to smuggle heavy water for an atomic bomb out of France so the Germans don�t get it? A madcap adventure, a historical drama, a love story, a comedy, camp, serious, formal, and hilarious. Peter C plays an American newsman undercover German spy.The Japanese Story
Tony Collette
***
A Japanese businessman�s son comes to Australia to look at his father�s investments and winds up with a nasty, tough Australian broad�what else could the amnesiac secret agent now living with his girlfriend FP in Goa, India, where the assassins hunt him down and kill FP. Meanwhile MD�s fingerprint is found, implicating him in the murder of a CIA agent and the theft of money. JA plays the top CIA boss, intent on hunting down and eliminating MD, who is the last of the Treadstone killers who eliminate other countries� agents. Story passes through Goa, Berlin, and Moscow, with an Ian Fleming flair.The Last Kiss
**
Italian 30-somethings who have partners or mates and keep looking, finding jealousy and heartbreak, which leaves us wondering who will make it with whom? Young Italian men who aren�t ready to settle down: about four friends and their various girlfriends and one set of parents where the wife wants to leave a 30-year cold fish. Reinforces my stereotype of Italian women, watch out!Manchurian Candidate
Danziel Washington, Meryl Streep
***
MS in her creepiest and meanest role to date. DW is a decorated hero from a Gulf War platoon, in which everyone has bad dreams of having had their minds altered. As DW unravels the story of MS�s son, who won a Medal of Honor and is running for president, it turns out the Manchurian Global placed an implant in his mind to pull off a coup. This is the most disturbing film of the season for its closeness to today�s Bush reality. Control by large corporations and clandestine military forces anyone?Monsieur Ibrahim
French with subtitles
****
A 15-year old boy steals from �an Arab� at the corner store in Paris, but discovers the man is a Sufi, quite wise, and knows that he is stealing. The boy saves up for a prostitute, his father leaves, the Arab man takes him to Turkey, teaching him life lessons along the way. Moving and insightful coming-of-age film.Hidalgo
**
A mustang-riding, half-breed Sioux, who delivered the orders to kill all of the Indians at Wounded Knee, winds up in Buffalo Bill�s circus, where he takes a wager for a horse race across the desert in the Middle East. Somewhat sentimental and overwrought with the classic dark-skinned princess, the evil Arab, slavery and dirty tricks all around�who will win this race? Based on a true story of a man who won over 400 long-distance horse races.Manchurian Candidate
Frank Sinatra
***
1962 original, in which soldiers are brainwashed and one comes back to assassinate the presidential candidate; the recent remake follows the story fairly well, although brainwashing plays better than the modern implant a chip in the brain trick. to Washington and take a law post that will exonerate him. The young lawyer is a repressed homosexual, married to SLP who is nuts, and ends up making it with a guy in the office, a young fast-talking, intellectual Jew who has abandoned his lover because he is dying of AIDS. Told phantasmagorically with angels descending from heaven, dreams, unlikely events, but brilliant as a stage play. Pulitzer winner.Bad Boy Bubly
Nicholas Hope***
Venice special prize. Australian film about a man whose mother locks him in his room for 35 years and has sex with him. Father comes home, takes boy�s place, and the boy kills both parents with saran wrap! Classic Oedipal complex tale. Idiot boy wanders off and has adventures, unable to articulate but able to mimic others�a real twist on the classic American hero, Forest Gump, who takes on the flavor of every scene he stumbles across and fits in as a kind of anti-hero. Will he kill again or just become normal?The Cooler
William Masey, Alec Baldwin
**
A decent film noir about a man so down-in-the-dumps depressed that his mere presence beside a winner at a casino will cool a winning streak. The owner hires a girl to look after him but she falls in love with him, a no-no, his luck changes, and he has to find a way out.Spiderman
Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Durst, Alfred Molina
***
Best so far. Peter is in love, always late (because he is fighting crime) and can�t do anything right. Finally he decides to give up being Spiderman. Meanwhile the crazy professor fused his body with four new mechanical arms, the Joker�s son wants SM dead and SM�s true love is marrying someone else. Crime jumps and he must return, but gets the girl in the end and a perfect set-up for the return of the Joker.I, Robot
Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan, Director Alex Proyas
**
Chicago in 2035. Robots do human work, but WS is a cop who distrusts them, especially after the robot�s creator dies in an apparent suicide, and he discovers that robots are reprogramming themselves to replace the old models that protected and served people, as their first priority. Recalls Blade Runner, where the droids are more human than the humans. Great cityscapes and futuristic trafic; too many brand placements!Bourne Supremacy
Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Joan Allen, Director Paul Greengrass
**
Based on Robert Ludlum, a follow up to Bourne Conspiracy, MD remains you call her? She doesn�t have a good word to say to anyone. She drives him into the desert where they are stuck, barely make it out with their lives, and then fall into bed together. A few days of freedom for him before he dives into a swimming hole and dies. There is more here than meets the eye, and all in all, a much better comment on Japanese society than the much touted Lost in Translation.Troy
Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom, Peter ��Toole
*
Loosely based on a bastardization of Homer�s Iliad, this is a perfect example of why it�s a terrible idea for Americans to learn their history through film, which they invariably do. Just about everything is wrong: the battle happens in three days; Achilles� lover is transformed into a �cousin;� and we have a modern day interpretation of power politics without the mythology or the gods. Thought I would like to see this for the computer graphics, and no, Pitt�s steroid-induced arms do not turn me on, but I found the dialogue so insipid and stupid I wanted to walk out. Some lines are worse than groaners. History with no Trojan women, no babies thrown from the parapets but at least it inspired me to review the history. Make sure you know the story before seeing this, if you do, because the history is way wrong.Matchstick Men
Ridley Scott, Nicholas Cage
**
NC plays a flim-flam man who works deals to separate people from their money and is a complete neurotic about cleaning his apartment. He has man tics and obsessions and gets uptight unless things are perfectly clean. His 16-year-old daughter from an old girl friend moves in with him and he freaks. She discovers his livelihood and wants in on it; he teachers her how to pull scams, then he pulls her in on a big deal where they switch briefcases full of cash with a guy who discovers it and comes after them. Okay enough of the story, worth watching, although a little too over the top, even for us NC fans.Walpurgis Night
Ingmar Bergman
**
1934 B&W. One of the dozen films IB made before coming to Hollywood. God she was beautiful and her own person, a film of European cads when people return to a famous yearly celebration to find true love.Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Michael Gambon, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Emma Thompson
***
Another romp with the boy wonder magician developed by J.K. Rowling, only the boy is older, the story is darker and the twists and turns of the plot continue to amaze. Most of this takes place at the magic school, complete with lessons and not every person is who we think they are. Does tend to be long, but it�s worth it, let your imagination roam, including time travel.Shrek 2
***
Another enjoyable film with a cartoon character that looks quaintly human; the ogre and the princesses�who looks to match him�return home just in time to get an invitation from her parents, the king and queen, to attend a ball in the newlyweds honor, except they freak out when they see the groom. She was supposed to be kissed by prince charming, except Shrek rescued her first and she loves him. The Fairy Godmother happens to be Prince Charming�s mother and tries to change everything with potions, but Shrek and the forest creatures rescue her in the end.The Hunting of the President
Harry Thomason and Nickolas Perry
***
The story behind the scenes on how right wing fanatics funded and hounded Clinton to undermine his presidency. Ken Star was a reactionary Republican functionary from the start and the coordination of the party with the media worked together to finally get him on a blowjob in the White House, with a consenting adult no less. I still think he should have said this is none of your business and let it go at that. Won many awards but overshadowed by Michael Moore�s film, Fahrenheit 911. We saw this in NYC and the directors answered questions afterwards.The Corporation
***
Although a little long and uses too many styles and devices in the last third, a good rundown on how corporations control American life, how they used the 14th Amendment, the one that freed the slaves, to gain �personhood� under the law, from what one could only call a corrupt Supreme Court.Fahrenheit 911
Michael Moore
***
Brilliant award winning film, which combines humor, politics and a wacky personality to reveal the president to be a complete fucking ditz. The president takes a full 7 minutes for the WCC attack to register. After making a statement to reporters on bombing Iraq; he returnis to his golf ball and says, �watch this.� Cannes award-winning view of Bush/Cheney and the neocons in all their fucked-up glory�lying, stealing, cheating. Just to watch the man take 7 minutes to �process the information� that the WTC was hit makes one wonder about his humanity. Spoiled frat boy with a vengeful streak.My Voyage to Italy
Martin Scorsese
***
Scorsese takes us on a four-hour tour of Italian films that influenced his own movie-making, films he saw as a child, living in New York�s Lower East Side. A history of Italian cinema with all the great Italian films and directors from La Dolce Vita to Bicycle Thief and Rome First. An excellent survey with many old black and white films that I haven�t seen before, even an Italian version of The Postman Always Rings Twice.Team America, World Police
***
A puppet movie with four or five belly shaking laughs that lasted for a while. This team destroys Paris, Egypt and anything they touch, to make us safe from terrorists. A complete parody that takes on the right and the left�the Film Actors Guild (FAG) combine with Kim Song Ill to take over the world, a great hilarious sex scene is worth the admission price alone.Bukowski: Born into This
John Dullaghan, director
***
A documentary on a drunken, self-focused poet who got in fights, challenged the academic poets in popularity and said it like it is, in understandable and accessible language. Certainly a laudatory picture of a not very pleasant person to be around. The drunken poet from LA interviewed over a number of years: the tough-guy, hard-assed, fighter who in the end seems somewhat maudlin and sentimental. Overall a very nice treatment of him, except for him attacking his wife unexpectedly as he curses and snarles. Wrote some decent poetry after years as a failed short story writer, brought prose to poetry and found a niche, more for dragging universality into juxtaposition. Terrible acne as a child probably explains his anti-social behavior, but he comes across as an asshole.After Sunset
Evan Hawke, Julie Delpy, director Richard Linklater
***
Romantic update of 1995 film, Before Sunrise, where young vagabonds meet in Vienna and spend a night together. Nine years later, they meet in Paris when he does a book reading and they wander the streets before he catches a plane home. Great realistic conversation and good acting, just two people and Paris.I�ll Sleep When I�m Dead
Clive Owen, Charlotte Rampling, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers
**
By director of Croupier, which also stared CO, a tale of a retired mobster in England who works at odd jobs, but returns to revenge the death of his brother who commits suicide after being raped by Malcolm McDowell. His old friends want him back, the mobsters who took his place want him dead, and he just wants out... Will he make it? Story from Mike Hodges, Croupier, back with the same actors. The handsome star left London three years ago after growing disgusted with his criminal activity. We find him working in the woods until his son is buggered and commits suicide. He returns to town to discover why and runs up against those who want him permanently gone.