I've Loved You So Long

This picture got mixed reviews, but I had to see it on the strength of its title. I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG sounds so plaintive, so fraught with history, that I had to find out what the film was about.

Kristin Scott Thomas has just served fifteen years in prison when her sister picks her up at the airport. Thomas is damaged, reserved, isolated, and nearly incapacitated. Her will is broken, and she's making up for it with anger and bravado and any armor she can muster. But prison was then and this is now.

And so we spend two hours with Thomas, her sister, and the family her sister has built. We get to know them, and we watch as Thomas slowly grows real strength under the shell of that anger and withdrawal. The actress carries this film with her performance, for it's a picture with few distractions. She carries it well, and we believe in her and her journey because she makes us believe.

This is a careful film, an empathetic film, and a worthwhile film. I'm glad I saw it.

Night and the City

Poor Harry Fabian. He's a sap, a sucker, an opportunist and a two-bit hustler. And he's the lead character in a noir picture, so you just know things will not go well for him. He begins the film on the run. Even in the opening moments, you know he's used to it.

As played by Richard Widmark, Fabian is calculating and naive, manipulative and painfully innocent, and nearly always in way over his head. Here's a guy who desperately wants to be somebody, to provide a life of ease and plenty to the one he loves. But he doesn't understand that ease and plenty are words that do not go together.

Fabian lives in London, photographed in beautiful black and white by Max Greene. This is a London of menace and long shadows, of big dreams and big friends and betrayal in, of all things, the sunlight. Under the direction of Jules Dassin, NIGHT AND THE CITY dares Fabian to guess what's around that next corner, what's going on behind peoples' eyes. Poor Harry, poor poor Harry. He isn't any good at it at all.

NIGHT AND THE CITY works because he feel for Harry, scoundrel that he is, and we root for him to find that life of ease and plenty. But this is a noir picture, and we know how things go. So we root anyway, and we try to look around the corners and behind the eyes, and we revel in a job well don.

Easy Virtue

EASY VIRTUE, based on the Noel Coward play, starts funny and gets serious. By the time it does so, we’ve so bonded with its characters that we care why things got serious and find ourselves invested in how things turn out.

Jessica Biel, interesting for the first time in her career, stars as the earnest American bride who accompanies her new husband to his country estate somewhere outside of London. She wants to join the family. The family wants to consume her. Only one side can win. Kristin Scott Thomas is the mother, horrified that her son hasn’t married the aristocrat next door. Colin Firth is the father, back from the war but never really back from the war. And the sisters, well, they’re going to have line up behind somebody now, won’t they?

And there you go. The film rocks along pleasantly for an hour and a half. I laughed a few times, smiled more, and generally enjoyed it. Not bad.

Big Man Japan

So, BIG MAN JAPAN. Hmm. Errg. Umm, well, uhhh.

What the &^(% was that?

I mean, WHAT THE &^(% WAS THAT?

Here’s a mockumentary about a complete loser whose job is to absorb 2.5 gigawatts of electricity and turn into Big Man Japan V, a gigantic loser who fights kaiju monsters in the cities of Japan. The Japanese people hate him for wasting electricity, breaking stuff, and getting chubby. He’ll never be as cool as his grandpa, Big Man Japan IV. I think we’re supposed to laugh at him, but I just felt bad. I think we’re supposed to laugh at the fantastical monsters he battles, but they just creeped me out.

Nevertheless, there is a lot going on here. BIG MAN JAPAN cleverly criticizes Japanese and American cultures and the fusion of the two. It laments the devolution of kaiju from the reflection of a nation’s fears to silly, cheap kids’ entertainment. It probably mocks Japanese figures with its idiosyncratic monster designs, but I’m insufficiently familiar with Japanese culture to get the jokes. But more than anything else, it baffles me.

The next morning, my nine-year-old (who’ll sit through all the subtitles in the world if there are giant monsters battling above them) started querying me about the film pretty much from the moment his head left the pillow. Being the sophisticate he is, he was trying to parse the criticisms of Ultraman from those of Power Rangers. Me, I couldn’t do it. It’s two days later, and the best I can come up with is, “What the &^(% was that?”

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

I once went to Rome. When my wife asked me what I thought of the city, I told her, “It’s as if there’s been a part of me missing all my life, and I never knew it until I came here. It’s the part of my that has been to Rome.”

THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR (MUMMY 3, or M3, hereafter) is like that. There had been a part of me missing all this time, and I never knew until I saw this film. Now, however, I have seen a yeti kick a field goal. I feel complete.

Never before in the history of mankind has there come a time when a man or woman has had to decide whether or not he or she is the kind of person who is willing to plunk down good money to see a yeti kick a field goal. But I have to ask, if you aren’t the kind of person who’s willing to see a yeti kick a field goal, then what kind of person are you? What chill winds blow through the bleak corridors of your soul?

Of course, M3 offers more than a yeti kicking a field goal. It features Michelle “I jumped a motorcycle onto the roof of a moving train” Yeoh swordfighting Jet “I don’t need a moniker because I’m Jet Li” Li. Sure, the scene’s so poorly edited that you’d think you were watching two anonymous stuntpeople instead of master practitioners of their craft, but still. The movie has silly jokes and outrageous action and everyone involved appears to be having a great time. What more do you want in a movie entitled THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR?

I mean, beside a yeti kicking a field goal.

Whatever Works

It's been a long time since I've had the pleasure to write that a Woody Allen film was laugh-out-loud funny. WHATEVER WORKS breaks the drought.

The film begins with Larry David (the guy from "Curb Your Enthusiasm") having coffee with some friends at a sidewalk cafe. He's holding forth on his theory of life, when he decides that his friends just aren't sharp enough, or interesting enough, to keep up. Perhaps, however, his audience is. He turns toward the camera and lets us have it, in a riotously funny monologue that sets the tone for the film while bringing tears to our eyes.

From there, WHATEVER WORKS takes us on a tour of Allen's philosophy of life, or at least the one he's espousing for these 90 or so minutes. The film feels stagey at times, and we're often reminded that we're watching actors mouth the words of another. But these are funny, incisive, biting words; they're worth hearind, and they're delivered well.

I laughed. I thought. I laughed some more. I can't wait to see this again with the one I love.

The Brothers Bloom

THE BROTHERS BLOOM doesn't want you to suspend your disbelief. Rare, that, and it creates an opportunity to tell a story that revels in its storyhood. It has a trustworthy-sounding narrator, outlines its chapters, and offers a world richer, more exotic, and flat-out more fun than our own. It tells its story with relish, for how can one not relish small touches like Maximilian Schell play a veteran con-man and thief who favors Turkish garb?

This is a con movie. As such, you can expect to spent part of your time guessing at the nature of the con, part of the time feeling proud of yourself for figuring out the con, and part of the time delighting in the surprises in the con. It's a pleasant way to spend an hour and a half, made all the more pleasant by the presence of likeable and capable actors, a sure hand on the camera, and beautiful locations both inside and out.

Is it slight? Yeah. Is it flawed? A little. Will it put a smile on your face? Absolutely. This is a fun little movie.

Blood: The Last Vampire

Vampires. Samurai. Ninjas. Do I have your attention? How about vampire samurai vs. vampire ninjas? And I'm not asking about your creepy Japanese schoolgirl in a sailor costume thing, but what if one of those vampire samurai was a Japanese schoolgirl in a sailor costume? That's right - BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE is a movie about a vampiric samurai schoolgirl. She fights other vampires, some of whom happen to be ninjas. She has one of those awesome mountain senseis with a wispy white beard. Oh, and you just know there's a magic sword and the fate of mankind hangs in the balance and so on.

Ah, but here's the thing: I've just seen two legitimately great films: MUNYURANGABO and BALLAST. How can I possibly evaluate a genre picture like BTLV after that? It comes down to this: how lustily is the genre picture a genre picture? Does it embrace its premise? If we accept that a vampire hunter movie isn't trying to compete with the aforementioned films, then all we have to do is discern whether it's a good vampire hunter movie.

My answer is yes, BTLV is as good a vampire hunter movie as one could want. Gianna Jun (a Korean, but that's not important right now) isn't much of a martial artist, but she's shot, edited, and CGIed well enough to keep the suspension of disbelief rolling along. The movie does a decent job of recreating late-60s Tokyo, the monster effects look good, the action sequences pop, and the climax is exceptionally well handled. So some of the performances, especially the American ones, are a bit creaky - that's par for the course.

Put simply, BTLV delivers on its premise and delivers an hour and a half of good, vampire-hunting fun. What more could you ask for in a movie about a vampiric samurai schoolgirl?

Ballast

BALLAST reminds me of FROZEN RIVER. Not because it’s about poor people, or because much of the action takes place in tiny houses, or because it’s a winter film. BALLAST reminds me of FROZEN RIVER because it’s a film about people first and story second.

That’s not to say that BALLAST has no story, or that its story isn’t a good one. But there’s a difference between characters who live in service to the story and a story that operates in service to the characters. Like FROZEN RIVER, BALLAST puts characters first and allows the story to flow from them. And like FROZEN RIVER, BALLAST delivers an engrossing experience, one that makes us feel that we know these people and makes us care deeply about who they are, what they say, and which choices they make.

I’m three paragraphs in, and I haven’t offered a synopsis or even a jumping-off point. I don’t want to. BALLAST doesn’t reveal its secrets up front, and I’m not about to spoil events that occur even in the film’s first five minutes. So this is one of those movies for which I’m going to ask you simply to take my word for it. BALLAST is one of the best films you’ll see this year. Do yourself a favor and seek it out.

Munyurangabo

MUNYURANGABO is flat-out brilliant.

Rwanda: ten years after the genocide. Two teenaged boys walk the road. One has a machete.

That machete, its mere existence, creates enough tension to turn what might be another ethnographic bore into an immersive and compelling story about these boys, about Rwanda, about Africa, about humanity's compulsion to divide into groups and find reasons to kill its own. This beautiful film draws us so completely into its world that we can sit, rapt, watching a family hoeing a field or two people repairing a wall. With the machete in the back of our minds, our attention never wanders. Surely, that's enough to commend the film. But MUNYURANGABO does more. It lays bare the heart of Rwanda, celebrates its culture, laments its past, and hopes for its future. Toward the end of the film, a poet looks at the camera and recites his work, a painful yet hopeful verse about where his country has been, where it is, and where it can go. The poet delivers his recitation in Kinyarwanda, the nation's language, and I came to believe that Kinyarwandan has a place among the world's most beautiful spoken tongues.

Do not miss this film.

Outlander

How do I say no to a Vikings and Aliens vs. Monsters movie (scratch that - *the* Vikings and Aliens vs. monsters movie), especially when it features Ron Perlman, John Hurt, and Jim Caviezel? And what's this? The monster lives under a lake? And it's - wait for it - it's a mom? And the alien Outlander (Jim Caviezel) has to ... hey, wait a minute, I read this book in the seventh grade!

That's right, folks, OUTLANDER is _Beowulf_. With spaceships. Friends, you can't screw this up.

And the people behind this movie didn't screw it up; not really. In fact, if you gave me fifty million dollars, some time, and some freedom, I couldn't make a Beowulf with Spaceships movie as good as OUTLANDER. If you gave me a decade or so to learn the craft, fifty million dollars, some time, and some freedom, however, I could probably make a Beowulf with Spaceships movie as good as OUTLANDER. This is a professional film: the script is tight, the photography pretty, the monster well-designed and realized, and the acting fine. But it's an average work by average professionals. It has no soul. Its story is too tight. Its sound design and score merely echo, not underline or expand. Its editing is so pedestrian that it seems like it came from a textbook. It's like some guy pitched "Vikings and Aliens vs. Monsters from the Public Domain," everyone got excited, and then they just sorta thought they could cruise by on the concept.

And they sorta do. I mean, really, y'know, it's fine. If you like monsters, aliens, Vikings, and epic poetry, it'll be right up your alley. But at the end of the day, it's no "Forth he fared at the fated moment, sturdy Scyld to the shelter of God."

Tulpan

Roger Ebert loved TULPAN, a film about a young sailor, recently discharged from the Russian Navy, who returns to the steppe of his native Kazakhstan to find a bride, buy a yurt, and settle down to herd sheep. In his review, the critic writes, "What does this sound like to you? Ethnographic boredom? I swear to you that if you live in a place where this film is playing, it is the best film in town. You'll enjoy it, not soon forget it, and you’ll tell your friends about it and try to persuade them to go, but you’ll have about as much luck with them as I’m probably having with you. Still, there has to come a time in everyone’s life when they see a deadpan comedy about the yurt dwellers of Kazakhstan."

That sounded like a challenge. After reading those words, how could I not see the film?

For my trouble, I got ethnographic boredom. Look, I don't think I'm ever going to the Kazakh steppe. I can't think of a reason why the Navy would send me, Delta doesn't fly there, and I'd rather go to Venice or Tokyo or Berlin in my free time than sign up for one of those bull$#!^ ethnovacations that cater to the Whole Foods Market crowd. So I looked to TULPAN to take me to a place I don't know, introduce me to people whose lives feel foreign to me, and let me walk a mile in their shoes for an hour and a half. The film did take me to the Steppe. It did introduce me to people whose lives felt foreign to me. But it didn't make me walk in their shoes. Why not? Because it didn't give me a reason to care.

Asa struck me as your basic callow youth, with nothing much to make him engaging beyond an ethnographic interest in his culture. His relatives were rough and hardworking, as I'd expect. The steppe looked like the steppe in MONGOL. And that was pretty much it. The film offered me nothing more on which to hang. I didn't laugh. I didn't cry. I didn't wait in suspense. I just sat there, looking at my watch.

Roger Ebert has introduced me to more great films than I can count, but TULPAN isn't one of them. It's all I could do to stay awake.

Yes Man

I liked YES MAN. I didn't love it, but I enjoyed as a lesser entry in the style of comedy I'm coming to think of as the Apatow school. It doesn't have a villain, its third-act crisis is organic to its story, and its characters mean well. Hey, it's even reasonably funny. I laughed three or four times.

Would it have been better with Jason Segel in the lead instead of serial over-actor Jim Carrey? Sure. Am I beginning to despair of seeing Zooey Deschanel in something that requires her to do more than act cute? Yeah. But there it is.

YES MAN tells the story of Carl, a guy who works at a bank in Brea, yet flits from Griffith Park to Balboa Park without a second thought. He's nearly fifty, yet he acts like a guy who's closing in on thirty. His improbably young and attractive ex-wife left him because he always says no. He's about to lose his improbably young and attractive best friend because he always says no. And he's never getting out of his bullet-in-the-head job because he always says no. But one day, he allows a nutty friend (Whom you can tell is genuine because he dresses like a hippie. In American films, genuine people always dress like hippies.) to talk him into attending a self help / quasi religious seminar dedicated to getting people to say yes. So far, so good. I can get behind a life-embracing ideology - I just don't want to smell like patchouli oil. This ideology requires no patchouli oil and it's led by Terence Stamp, which is pretty cool. Further, it requires neither a significant monetary outlay nor kneeling before Zod. Carl chooses well: he goes for it and embrace the culture of Yes.

Before you know it, the guy's in the middle of a full-bloom midlife crisis. He gets a new improbably young and attractive girlfriend. He learns to play the guitar. He takes flying lessons. He goes to all-night parties where one can assume he makes the other attendees uncomfortable because he's old enough to be, like, their dad, man. He's ridin' the groove train, baby, and he's livin' like he'll never run out of Viagra and Motrin.

That's your setup, and it's a perfectly fine frame upon which to hang a series of jokes and gags that should make you smile from time to time, grin occasionally, and even laugh if you're an easy touch like me. But Carrey's gotta embrace the fact that America's tired of watching him mug his way through pictures. Settle down, Jim, and insist on the rewrites that'll make it seem as if you weren't shoehorned into a younger man's story. Do that, and I'll invest much more in your character. And when I really invest in your character, that's when the real laughter comes.

The 400 Blows

You may or may not like or care about the French New Wave. The name François Truffaut may make you feel uncomfortable, like a reminder of some long-forgotten, yet uncompleted, homework assignment. Or maybe you avoid black and white films, or subtitles, or foreign pictures in general.

But don’t skip THE 400 BLOWS because you’re daunted or put off by any of the above, because THE 400 BLOWS is one of the best movies about childhood I’ve seen. Director Truffaut clearly remembers what it is to be a child: to hang on every gesture, every overheard word of his parents because those gestures and words constitute the weft and weave of his security; to feel the frustration and anger of unjust punishment because of one’s powerlessness to resist it; indeed, to make life-changing decisions not because you’re particularly good or evil but because they seem like a good idea at the time and, hey, you’re a kid – what do you know?

Antoine Doinel, 13, serves as the film’s subject. He’s a lower-class kid. His mother’s a tramp and his stepfather’s a nice enough guy who, at some point, ignored his own best judgment and married a tramp. At the beginning of the film, his martinet of a schoolteacher punishes him unjustly. He resists in the only way he can and gets caught. And away we go.

But the key to this film lies not in its story, interesting as that may be. The key lies in its observation of Antoine’s viewpoint. Watch him watch his parents, his teachers, his friends. Watch him decide whom to follow and whom to betray. Watch him realize (slowly though the realization may come) that the real world is upon him and the time for games is just about over. Watch him prioritize and decide, and watch his developing relationship with honesty.

Watch it all, and remember how it was for you. Imagine how it is for your kids. Don’t let the pedigree or the vintage or the foreignness deter you: THE 400 BLOWS is worth your time.

Sugar

Recently, I read book entitled Odd Man Out, by Matt McCarthy. The author had played college baseball at Yale and was recruited by the Angels. He survived spring training and made it to Single A. When the season began, he pitched to win. By the time the season ended, he was pitching not to lose. The next year, he was in grad school.

SUGAR’s like that, but with a critical difference. Its pitcher is an undereducated Dominican. Grad school is not an option. His family is counting on him. He’s desperate not just to make it, but to not fail. And minor league baseball is like a death march, an endurance contest where one injury or one bad month or pissing off the wrong guy means the eponymous Sugar is just another loser selling third-rate cell phone chargers on the one corner of his dusty little Dominican town. Every time a guy quits, or gets fired, or just disappears, we hear about how he’d “had enough” and was “looking forward to freedom.” But once you’re off that train, it keeps rolling and you can never get back on.

SUGAR captures that desperation and ambition and pressure. It feels like a documentary and its understated approach adds to its drama. Its actors seem unstudied, its places realistic, and its sense of how it feels to have the world riding on one’s shoulders absolutely true. This is a compelling, honest film about baseball and about being young, talented, and desperate. I’m glad I saw it.

Before the Rain

We humans, all around the world, we have so much in common. We love to divide ourselves into tribes and find reasons to kill one another.

BEFORE THE RAIN is a film about people killing one another in Macedonia. The Christians hate the Muslims for atrocities committed under Muslim rule. The Muslims hate the Christians for atrocities committed under Christian rule. UN observers observe, and they bury the dead, and people in nice places like London natter on about standing up for peace. But as one Macedonian observes, “Look around the world. Peace is the exception, not the rule.” And you know what the saddest part is? This film could have been set in Sudan, or in the Kashmir, or in the Colombian mountains, or on the wrong side of the tracks in virtually any major city in the world.

BEFORE THE RAIN tells its story in three parts. The first, “Words,” centers on an Orthodox monk and the refugee whom he shelters. It’s about what we say and don’t say, and how the right or wrong word is life or death. The second, “Faces,” tells the story of a London photo editor and the men she loves, and why. It speaks to the gap between the civilized and uncivilized worlds, and how that gap is often smaller than we wish to acknowledge. The third, “Pictures,” is about intentions and the conflict between human aspiration and human nature. The chapters work as individual stories, but together they create a heartbreaking film about not just ethnic strife in Macedonia, but about elements of the human condition that have been rending hearts ever since the first primate picked up a stick and used it to club some other primate from the next tribe over.

What a sad, beautiful, compelling movie.

Goodbye Solo

An old man gets into a cab. He gives the driver $100 and tells him that he’ll pay him $1000 to pick him up in one week, drive him to a cliff, and leave him there.

The man is William, played by Red West with all the wear and all the fire that one might expect from Elvis’s old fixer. The cabbie is Solo played by Souleymane Sy Savane in a performance that takes a standard issue Noble Immigrant role and fills it with life.

The film is a quiet study of two men, one fatigued and one indefatigable. Their scenes together, in the cab and out of it, are filled with a quiet power. Demonstrating once again that the human face is the most interesting subject in the world, GOODBYE SOLO takes the time to allow us to get to know these faces, get to know the people behind them. It works, for we find ourselves hanging on every word. We find ourselves hoping, for both men.

This is a good movie, sure and steady, with organic developments and a strong sense of place. I’m glad I saw it.

Terminator Salvation

If there’s something McG wishes he could retcon out of the original TERMINATOR, it must be Kyle Reese saying, “The Resistance was winning. We were overrunning SkyNet when the machines sent back a Terminator to kill you before you could bear John Connor. And John Connor sent me back to save you.”

See, TERMINATOR SALVATION is all about an assault on SkyNet. And we know that the Resistance doesn’t overrun SkyNet until Kyle Reese is at least in his late twenties. So it can’t work, right? Right?

Still forget that niggling complaint. And forget the facts that CGI stunts are (by definition) dull, one of the heroes is a murderer, and Christian Bale’s “gruff guy” schtick is getting old. Anton Yelchin and Moon Bloodgood have great screen presence, and Sam Worthington makes for a fun hero even if his role forces him to retread stuff that Battlestar Galactica did three years ago. The goods balance the bads in this picture, leaving us with a reasonably effective action picture that achieves its goals of (a) blowin’ up stuff real good and (b) giving us all another opportunity to bask in the glory that is Michael Ironside.

So, y’know, TERMINATOR SALVATION is ok. Not great, not terribly bad, and worth the money if you see it for free. I’m not complaining. I got what I paid for.

Crank: High Voltage

I’m not gonna tell you that CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE (CRANK 2, henceforth) is a good movie. I’m not gonna tell you that I liked it anyway. But I am going to tell you that I respect it.

CRANK 2 is loud, jumpy, vulgar, violent, sexist, racist, crude, and offensive in nearly every imaginable way. I respect its absolute dedication to loudness, jumpiness, vulgarity, violence, sexism, racism, crudeness, and offensiveness. CRANK 2 does nothing by half measures: it goes so far over the top that it forgets where the top is and shoots for the moon.

As faithful fans may recall, CRANK ends with its hero (Chev Chelios: what a great movie name!) falling 1000 feet out of a helicopter. And blinking. CRANK 2 goes from there to a world of kaiju heroes battling in a world of miniatures, severed heads kept alive in aquariums (with voice synthesizers that say, “$^%& you, Chev Chelios!”), and ridiculous amounts of nudity and violence that I’d term gratuitous if nudity and violence weren’t the whole point of the movie.

If this sounds like your thing, have at it. I saw it for two reasons. First, it was free and I had nothing else to do. Second, I grudgingly respected the first installment for its dedication to being just plain wrong. So I’ll be there for CRANK 3. I know it’ll be bad. I know it’ll be offensive. But some train wrecks I just can’t help watching.

All About Eve

I’ve been expanding my horizons.

I’ve noticed that I see an inordinate number of guy movies. Advertise something in which some stuff blows up real good, or somebody kicks somebody else in the face, or someone intones, “I’m getting too old for this $#!^,” and it’s likely to find a place in my rental queue. Some of them are quite good. But it’s not enough to only seek out that which seeks us out. Thus, I’ve queued up a number of films that skew female. And I’ve learned that most chick movies go on my nerves.

So many chick movies, particularly romantic comedies, aren’t about women at all. They’re about stunted children, little girls in women’s bodies who still believe in ridiculous, destructive Brontean romanticism. How does that not get old?

Imagine, then, the thrill, the delight of seeing ALL ABOUT EVE for the first time. Here’s a movie about women, actual women, the kind of women you can sink your teeth into, the kind of women who can sink their teeth into you. Bette Davis, in the performance of a lifetime, is Margo Channing, a queen of Broadway and monarch in life. She’s smart, she’s proud, she’s tough, and she knows the ropes. She’s also too old to play the romantic lead much longer: her cheeks are starting to sag and all those cigarettes are catching up with her. Anne Baxter is Eve Harrington, who begins the story as what we’d refer to today as a stalker. She’s pretty and young and bright. She worms her way into Margo’s life, studies her, becomes her. Fasten your seatbelts. We’re in for a bumpy ride.

Pawns and victims include critic Addison De Witt, played by George Sanders in an Oscar-winning performance; Celeste Holm; Hugh Marlowe; Thelma Ritter; and even a very young (but already sparkling) Marilyn Monroe. These people feel like real people, with real problems and agendas of their own. Seeing them clash and jostle in the wake of powerhouses Davis and Baxter adds depth and texture to the story, making every minute of this film’s 2:18 length feel vital and real.

Movies about women don’t have to be chick movies. ALL ABOUT EVE proves that. Bring on the next.