Duplicity

Universal Pictures let DUPLICITY down. The studio clearly didn't know how to market the movie, going with advertising that hammered on the theme of "sexy sexy sexy." Yeah, well, we have the Internet now. We don't need to go to the movies for sexy. The marketing theme should have been "story story story."

Clive Owen is a Bond manque (as usual) who seduces Julia Roberts at an embassy party in swinging Dubai. She drugs him, steals some documents out of his briefcase, and disappears. That's the opening credits, and that's your setup for a charming spy vs. spy story that's a touch THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR and a touch ADAM'S RIB. Writer/Director Tony Gilroy knows how to create mature, enjoyable dialogue and situations, and he knows which actors to keep in check and which to let run. There are some supporting players here whom you will know but who didn't make the marketing the effort, and they flat-out steal the show. In fact, days later, I'm still chuckling at one of them.

DUPLICITY isn't laugh-out-loud funny, and it does cheat a bit at the end, but it's clever, it's fun, and it's a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours. Throw it on while folding laundry and your chores will be over before you know it.

Marnie

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

MARNIE is the film about a poor, helpless felon who needs a repulsively self-satisfied man to trap her, rape her, and control every aspect of her existence until he cures her through the power of his manly will. It’s like THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, but in this version, both combatants are horrid criminals. Marnie’s signature line is, “Oh, Mark. I don’t want to go to jail. I’d rather stay with you.” That, kids, is romance.

The film stars Tippi Hendren as a woman who is so disconnected from her true self that she appears more blonde automoton than an actual human being. Or perhaps that’s just Hendren’s acting technique. Sean Connery plays the repulsive, sadistic rapist as, basically, Sean Connery (Interesting side note: his character, Mark, is from Pennsylvania, yet he has a Scottish accent. His father has an English accent. So much for the Pennsylvania Dutch!). These people have never been less interesting.

Alfred Hitchcock directed MARNIE, yet the film has all the polish of a poorly made rerun from Sunday Night at the Movies. Between the annoying use of red filters to show Marnie’s near-total paralysis at the sight of the color red (Really, what does this woman do when she menstruates? Curl up in a corner and scream for four days?) and its ridiculously amateurish in-n-out zooming at a moment of moral crisis, one can only forgive Hitch by assuming that he was on heavy psychotropic drugs throughout the process of making this movie and give him a pass.

Some people love MARNIE. But hey, some people love balut. I don’t ever need another go at either.

Watchmen

The print version of WATCHMEN always struck me as Reagan-era sour grapes hippie bullshit. Sure, it was famous for its deconstruction of the superhero comic, but I don’t care about superhero comics, never having collected ‘em as a kid. So I was wary of the filmed version of the story. After G.W. Bush’s parody of conservatism and THE INCREDIBLES’ brilliant study of the superhero genre, what did WATCHMEN, in any form, have to offer?

Not much, really. It’s still hippie bullshit and its “post-heroism heroes” conceit has nearly become a genre staple. But y’know what? It’s really good hippie bullshit, and it’s really good genre criticism. It looks great, hits its marks, and moves right along, and it does something the print version doesn’t: it actually makes me care about Rorschach and the Night Owl and Sally Jupiter and all the rest. The reveals feel less forced. The characters feel more organic. The political and artistic commentary works as part of a unified whole.

Had this film been released ten years ago, it may have been revolutionary. It’s too late for that, politically or artistically, but WATCHMEN is still a good story well told. Peace out, bro.

Waltz With Bashir

WALTZ WITH BASHIR is a visually striking, deeply personal film that did nothing for me.

The film, which makes brilliant use of animation to shift between times and places, follows the journey of a man who doesn’t recollect much about his time in the Israeli Army during the 1983 Lebanon War. As he interviews old friends and colleagues and fleshes out his memories, we see what he sees and experience his revelations.

I think the film didn’t work for me because I happen to have a sound knowledge of this particular conflict, having studied it in graduate school. Its revelations revealed nothing to me; I’d already plumbed its dark secrets. Even its devastating closing montage only revisited material I’d seen before.

But I think this film could be quite effective for the viewer who is unfamiliar with its subject matter. Filmmaker Ari Folman poured his heart into the production, and it shows. I respect WALTZ WITH BASHIR, even if it didn’t speak to me.

He's Just Not That Into You

Look , I get that HE’S JUST NOT INTO YOU was not made with me in mind. I didn’t expect to see any stuff get blown up real good, nor did I expect to see anyone kick anyone else in the face. But I sat down for it anyway: a friend recommended it, and I like to tell myself that I don’t believe in guy movies and chick movies, but only good movies and bad movies.

This movie begins with a “girl talk” voiceover about the nature of relationships that effectively announced that not only was it not made with me in mind, but it was made with a mind to specifically exclude members of my gender and orientation. This movie was just not that into me.

And that’s ok. I’ve been out with my wife and sat drinking my coffee while she talks with her female friends or relatives. I get that things don’t need to cater to my tastes to have value. But while HE’S JUST NOT INTO YOU is professionally written, photographed, and acted, it’s an intellectually dishonest film that spends 7/8 of its running time advocating for a world view that it abandons when it’s time to put smiles on faces before the closing credits.

I can forgive a film many flaws, but that kind of dishonesty is not among them. HE’S JUST NOT INTO YOU is a liar. Don’t get into it.

Valkyrie

VALKYRIE is the saddest film I’ve seen in ages.

Had the conspirators depicted in VALKYRIE succeeded, Germany could have thrown off the shackles of Nazi oppression and redeemed itself. It could have saved countless lives in the camps and on the battlefields. It could have prevented millions from living and dying under the boot of the Communists.

But, of course, the conspirators failed. Modern Germans still wrestle with the legacy of Nazism. Memorial walls carry the names of the countless victims of Nazis and Communists alike. Eastern Europe still struggles to catch up with the West.

Amazingly, VALKYRIE infuses this elegy with sympathy and tension, keeping us engaged and hoping, though we know how things end. It does so through the canny use of all-star casting, leveraging the recognizability of players such as Carice Van Houton, Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, and Tom Wilkinson to build instant rapport with and sympathy for a cast so large it might be easy to lose track of who’s who. It does so through the efforts of Tom Cruise, a man who has been criticized for his offscreen behavior but who remains among the most gifted and charismatic stars of his generation. It does so by leveraging our knowledge of the broad outlines of history against our ignorance of the details: we all know things went wrong, but wmost of us don't know how.

This film largely succeeds in portraying its time, its place, its people, though it missteps in failing to recreate the paranoia that the all-seeing Gestapo engendered at the time. Its period details feel right, as does its grasp of German culture. While VALKYRIE, with its serious subject matter and foregone conclusion, may not appeal to everyone, it meets it goals.

If only its subjects had met theirs.

Happy-Go-Lucky

Here’s a review of a film that happened while I was writing it. I opened a blank page thinking that I knew what I was going to set down, but once the writing process forced me to give HAPPY-GO-LUCKY serious consideration, the film grew and turned into something quite remarkable. I liked HAPPY-GO-LUCKY when the credits rolled. Now that I’ve thought it over a bit, I see it as a laudable achievement.

Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is one of those people who chooses happiness. She’s quick with a smile and a laugh and a silly quip, and she borders on irrepressible. She’s so relentless that, for a while there, I thought there was something wrong with her. If there weren’t more to Poppy than meets the eye, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY wouldn’t be much of a movie. In revealing her, however, the film doesn’t go where I thought it would: into an inner world of pain or sorrow. Rather, the film does something marvelous: it explores the depths of her goodness and the reach of her will to happiness.

Think about that for a minute. Think about the difficulty of the art of joy. How many films focus on desperation, or revenge, or depression, or greed, or fear, or any one of the myriad traps we may encounter on our lives’ paths? How many filmmakers (and audiences, for that matter) confuse darkness with maturity, desolation with wisdom?

Depression is easy. Anyone can write the blues.

But happinesss, real happiness, is hard. It’s hard to live and it’s especially hard to create in film. In HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, Mike Leigh doesn’t give us an idiot or a stunted human being (though we can see how some may regard her as such). Rather, he gives us a woman who sees the world as it is and responds to it with an almost Christlike compassion and love. He does this through a barely perceptible dramatic arc, inviting us simply to spend time with Poppy and her friends, to observe her and those whom she touches. He puts Poppy in a world of bright, inviting colors, surrounds her with cheerful music, gives her real conversations with real people, and watches her try to find what joy there is to be found. Poppy doesn’t always succeed, and she may occasionally have to walk away. But that’s life. The point is, Poppy gets it. How often do we see that?

Mike Leigh has created a wonderful film here. If you haven’t yet seen it, give it a spin. You’ll be happy that you did.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

What would you rather see: yet another movie in which an indestructible superman unflinchingly walks away from a rear-projected fireball, or a film in which a girl stands atop a file cabinet, unbalances it, then somersaults down the slope while it falls to the ground? Would you rather see yet another CGI-heavy revenge picture, or a movie with real stuntmen about an autistic kid who's trying to get money to pay for her mom's medicine?

If you chose the former two out of two, then X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE is the movie for you. I'm sure real stuntmen and real explosives guys and real pilots and such were used in the making of this movie, but the fact is that there's less drama and less entertainment value in animated supermen destroying stuff than there is in real people doing things like sliding under tables and doing backflips.

Unfortunately, limp action setpieces are all this movie has to offer. The gifted Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber are given little more to do than snarl and be thankful that the Actor's Guild doesn't require urinalysis, and the film even manages to take the voice away from the consistently funny Ryan Reynolds.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE simply has nothing going for it. What a waste of time.

Chocolate

Oh my God.

Oh. My. God.

Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod.

Who is this woman, JeeJa Yanin? She has the physical presence of Johnny Depp. She nearly has the onscreen grace of a young Jackie Chan. She works her butt off: two years in training preproduction, two more years during production, and it shows. Muy Thai, Kung Fu, Jeet Kun Do, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kendo, gymnastics, rail fu, chair fu, knife fu, glass table fu (c’mon – there’s always glass table fu), sign fu, ledge fu, ice fu, even neuromuscular disability fu: this woman can do it all.

CHOCOLATE, directed by Prachya Pinkaew of ONG BAK: MUY THAI WARRIOR and TOM YUNG GONG fame, continues the Thai eclipse of the hoary Hong Kong martial arts thriller. Featuring eye-popping stuntwork that’ll make you go “Wow!” showcased by direction and editing that give us space to marvel at the skill and craftsmanship of its performers, and complemented with a score that underlines the action beats just so, CHOCOLATE is a worthy successor to Pinkaew’s earlier work and a must-see for fans of martial arts pictures, dance pictures, and plain old action thrillers.

CHOCOLATE: it’s the second-best film, after FROZEN RIVER, that I’ve seen this summer. It has movie has absolutely everything you could want in an action picture: it looks great, sounds great, features phenomenal stunt work, and just plain rocks. Bring on the JeeJa Yanin / Tony Jaa teamup picture. I’ll be there.

My Best Friend's Girl

MY BEST FRIEND'S GIRL is an affront to God and man. It's a romantic comedy that is neither romantic nor funny.*

It's _Cyrano de Bergerac_ with Dane Cook as Christian, Jason Biggs as Cyrano, and Kate Hudson as Roxane. At least, that appears to be the structure that the film rips off. It deviates from the straight Cyrano story, which is fine, but it fails to give us any reason to care whether any of its annoying, shallow characters live or die, much less find love.

This film's cinematography is boring, its dialogue is boring, its story is boring, and its actors are boring.* I saw this movie for free (It was playing in the background in the place where I'm using the computer), and I still want my money back.

MY BEST FRIEND'S GIRL can take a hike.

*Except when Alex Baldwin is onscreen. When did this guy turn into a comic genius?

Knowing

There are two kinds of people in this world: DARK CITY people and THE MATRIX people. DARK CITY has atmosphere; THE MATRIX has gunfire. DARK CITY has style; THE MATRIX has fetish wear. DARK CITY reveals; THE MATRIX tells.

Yeah, I’m a DARK CITY guy.

You know what else I am? A Nicolas Cage guy. Ok, not enough of one to sit through NATIONAL TREASURE 2, but enough to forgive him for BANGKOK DANGEROUS. VALLEY GIRL can earn a man a lifetime of cred, as far as I’m concerned.

Thus, when Alex Proyas (the director of DARK CITY) puts Nicolas Cage in front of a camera, I’m there. In KNOWING, Proyas directs Cage as an MIT astrophysicist who unlocks a terrible secret and races to discover its ramifications. Cage is fine in the Nicolas Cage Dressed Up as a Professor role, but what makes this film so enjoyable is its Proyas style. KNOWING just plain looks great, even if it does go full Emmerich at times. Proyas knows how to get solid performances from even his child actors, and he knows how to build a world whose every detail serves to advance his story.

Is this as fine a film as FROZEN RIVER? Few are. Is this a solid thriller with strong supernatural and science fiction elements? Sure is. Is it also better than THE MATRIX? Oh, oh yes. If Proyas and Cage are your cup of tea, you’re sure to enjoy KNOWING.

Taken

A group of actors is about to become unemployed.

There’s a certain kind of actor out there – you know the type. A thespian like Mark Dacascos, say, or Steven Segal or Jean-Claude Van Damme. This guy is a working actor, he’s paying the bills, and he’s turning out one direct-to-video feature after another. In one film, he’s an ex-soldier out for revenge. In another, a kung fu master come down from the mountaintop to get the precious MacGuffin. In yet another, he’s a cop, or a spy, or an accountant who works out a lot. It’s all the same, and it all pays the bills: the actor sneers, he shoots, he kicks people in the face. Then he goes home, cashes his check, and everybody’s happy.

And then, a Liam Neeson comes along. An Academy Award nominee. A marquee name. Darkman, for Pete’s sake! And he makes a movie like TAKEN, in which he plays an ex-CIA agent who is both Out for Revenge and Getting the MacGuffin. Not only does he act the pants off of everyone else in the genre, but it turns out he’s got some pretty good moves in the stunt department, to boot. Hey, Liam, bit of advice: it’s unwise to enter these guys’ territory. They may be desperate men.

TAKEN, then, serves as an exercise in the farfetched: what happens when you take a capable, respected actor, surround him with stuntmen, and tell him to go kick some ass? I’ll tell you what happens: asses get kicked, and they kicked by a guy whose conviction the audience never thinks to question. Liam Neeson takes TAKEN, your standard, DTV-type revenge / MacGuffin thriller, and elevates it to something more: a study in desperation, in love, and in high-class ass-kickery the likes of which you’ve never seen before.

In the process, however, TAKEN calls the entire future of the DTV thriller into question. Will Judi Dench soon play an edge – of – retirement assassin out to do one … last … job? When can we expect Sean Penn to show us his chops as an idealistic former cop who must kickbox his way through a corrupt police force to avenge his former partner? Personally, I’m holding out for the mother lode: Kate Winslet as a post-apocalyptic savior, preferably one with a totally awesome car, or maybe eyes that blink sideways.

It’s only a matter of time. But when that day comes, a certain class of actor will be out of work. It’ll be Neeson’s fault. Perhaps he can hire a few members of the old cadre as bodyguards.

Torn Curtain

Casting is TORN CURTAIN's blessing and curse.

It's a blessing because Julie Andrews and Paul Newman are strong, magnetic performers with whom we feel a natural affinity. It's a curse because Julie Andrews is too powerful to convince as the devoted lover who'll follow her man to the gates of Hell, and Paul Newman is too fundamentally decent to convince as the kind of guy who'd take her there. But hey, give yourself a little extra nudge in the suspension of disbelief department, and you're in for a tight little thriller.

Here's the setup: Newman is a physicist who has been working on anti - ballistic missile project, since cancelled. Andrews is his devoted assistant and squeeze (there's some talk about a wedding date, but most of it's from Andrews). They're attending a conference in Denmark when Newman gets a coded message, grows cold, and departs in a rush with a lousy explanation about a job in Sweden. Andrews, no fool, checks his tickets and discovers that - gasp - he's on his way to East Berlin. Is Newman actually a communist spy? What's going on?

Since a movie like this relies on twists and turns, I'm not going to say much more about its story. I will say that Alfred Hitchcock, the film's director, could generate tension in his sleep. Even as he chooses sets and photographic techniques that remind us he's merely spinning a yarn, the guy knows how to do it. TORN CURTAIN clips right along, maintains a sense of adventure and danger, and generally does what it sets out to do. Even if it isn't entirely successful, it at least gives us an opportunity to spend a couple of hours with Andrews and Newman. And that ain't bad.

Frozen River

"For me, the human face is the most important subject of the cinema.” -- Ingmar Bergman

Observe the face of Ray. No. First, observe the toe of Ray. It sports an old tattoo, a remnant of wilder times. Now, observe the face. It’s lined; worried. The eyes, bordered in basic mascara, don’t blink away the cigarette smoke wafting from the downturned mouth. They do blink away tears formed in flicker of despair. The face, so near to crumbling, pulls itself together and Ray Eddy straightens, goes back into her single wide, and does her best.

Courtney Hunt, the writer and director of FROZEN RIVER, understands that Bergman was right. Hunt knows how to build a story, inspire pathos, pace a scene, and create near-unbearable tension, and she does it by focusing on faces. Whether we’re watching Ray, brought to life in an Oscar nominated performance by Melissa Leo; Lila, played with quiet assurance by Misty Upham; or the people who need them; we care about them because their faces compel us to do so.

Because of this, FROZEN RIVER takes a place among the most compelling films I’ve seen this year. This film hooked me in its first five minutes through the extraordinary power of the human face, and it hasn’t let go of me yet. Its dilemmas, its characters, its milieu feel absolutely real as I dwell on them, and I find that its power grows with greater consideration.

This is Courtney Hunt’s first film, and it’s a masterpiece. IMDb tells me that her next feature will be called Northline and, though I have no idea what it’s about, I plan to see it. This is a woman who knows what she’s about, and who understands that it’s all in the face.

Winning

WINNING is a lousy movie. It’s poorly constructed, features a show-stoppingly bad performance from a major supporting actor, and fails to excite even in its centerpiece racing scenes.

The film, set in the world of stock car racing, begins with Paul Newman winning a race. He has a few drinks at the victory party, wanders around town, and charms a local floozy. Three or four scenes later, they’re married, and the rest of the film depends upon my investment in their relationship. But here’s the thing: for a love story to work, we have to fall in love (even if it’s just a little) with the characters. With WINNING, I don’t even know who these people are, much less have a reason to care whether or not they make it as a family. There’s your weak foundation. The film is poorly shot and edited; with jagged and wobbly camera movements competing for your distraction with montages and transitions of such jarring mediocrity that it’s hard to believe this is a feature film. Finally, Dave Grusin’s dead-jazz score is so limp that it distracts us with its mediocrity.

While Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, and Robert Wagner are all as fine and professional as you’d expect, Richard Thomas (in his debut role, playing Woodward’s son) is remarkably bad. Now, I like Thomas. Some years back, I saw him do a “King John” in which he absolutely nailed the role. But here, just starting out, he so overacts that I felt like it was all the more seasoned professionals could do to refrain from smacking him.

So you’re got your bad construction and your distracting performance, but it’s a racing movie, right? The racing must be pretty good. Nope. It’s just a bunch of shots of cars and closeups of eyes, with an announcer telling me what’s actually happening. I admit that I’m not a race fan, finding the sport to be even more boring than golf. But a good racing movie should have drawn me in nonetheless, made me feel the rush when the good guy passes the bad. Nope. I fell asleep during the climactic race.

As performers, I like Newman, Woodward, and Wagner. I’d have loved to see them together in a better film. Unfortunately, this isn’t it. WINNING is a loser.

It Happened One Night

Actually, it happened over a series of nights. But that's not important right now.

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (Capra, 1934), is a romantic comedy / road movie starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Gable's the hard-drinking reporter whose dissolution hasn't yet caught up to his body and mind. Colbert's the spoiled society girl out to spite her father by running off to be with some pansy gyrocopter pilot. Circumstance throws them together in the back of a bus, with Gable telling Colbert, " Excuse me lady, but that upon which you sit is mine." "I beg your pardon?" Well, it will be soon enough.

The two most interesting things about IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT are the dialogue (Colbert to Pansy: "Promise me I'll never get off." Bet on it, sister!) and the power dynamics. Released just months before rules requiring new releases to have the Hayes Code seal of approval came into force, this film seems innocuous, but has some real adult humor going on just beneath the surface. The power dynamics are an interesting combination of gender and class conflicts, with one message sent to women (Submit!) and another to proletarians (Revolt!). Just get a load of this line, spoken by Gable's "man of the people" to the Colbert's millionaire father: "What she needs is a guy that'd take a sock at her once a day, whether it's coming to her or not. If you had half the brains you're supposed to have, you'd done it yourself, long ago." Dominance and insouciance, apparently, made for successful mainstream entertainment back when the Greatest Generation was in junior high.

But hey, don't watch this picture for material to gripe about at your next meeting of the Working Woman's Collective. Watch this picture to see Gable and Colbert, performers at the top of their respective games, bang out dialogue with near-scientific precision. Watch it for Joseph Walker's cinematography and marvel at the way light plays off a white silk dress in glorious black and white. Watch it for Capra, who knows how to get the most out of even his bit players. Most of all, watch it because it's funny. Watch it with a loved on and bring down the walls of Jericho.

Underworld: Evolution

UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION is impressive. It boasts imaginative set, costume, and makeup design. It weaves CGI and practical stuntwork into a rousing whole. Its set pieces are creative and interesting and, while it never manages to rise above being a bunch of actors and stuntmen hamming it up on increasingly complex movie sets, it’s a bunch of good actors and good stuntmen hamming it up in a fantastic (if barely plausible) world that’s an entertaining place to visit.

I first mentioned the set design because it really is remarkable. From the rustic inn where the first film’s Scott Speedman learns he can no longer eat normal food to the functionally baroque headquarters of franchise newcomer Derek Jacobi to the multilayered, rich-with-possibility crumbling ruin of the climax, every inch of the screen is filled with detail and imagination. Well done.

While I still can’t get past the idea of the leather corset as functional combat wear (Where does Kate Beckinsale hide all those weapons, anyway?), the leatherwork has details that relate to the decorative flourishes in the costumes of heroes and villains, suggesting a deeper mythology behind the story of this film. It’s neat, carefully crafted stuff, and indicates an attention to detail far beyond what one might expect in a vampires vs. werewolves movie.

The makeup, particularly that of the villain in full monster mode, is not only scary and convincing, but also bears marks of the costumer’s design sensibility, with patterning in the monster’s back that, you guessed it, shows up in the corset, Jacobi’s coats, and even the film’s Maguffin. It’s crazy; it’s lavish; it’s just the thing.

The action sequences (which comprise most of the film) build from the exaggerated to the just-plain-crazy, but that’s not their best quality. Not only do they blow lots of stuff up real good, but they actually advance the story and keep us in the loop of who’s doing what to whom and why. Sure, they defy the laws of physics and aerodynamics. So what? It’s a v vs. w movie. I went with it.

The whole thing combines to make for a film that’s better than its predecessor. It doesn’t share insight into the human condition, no, and it doesn’t make us laugh or cry. But it looks great, it sounds great, and it’s great fun.

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but bring on UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS.

Just Another Love Story

JUST ANOTHER LOVE STORY is one helluva thriller.

No, it's not one of those movies where cats jump out of closets or knives make a sshhhhkkktt sound when they're pulled from a block. It's a movie with a supertight screenplay, spot on performances, and a score that makes notice its beauty without pulling you out of the film.

I hesitate to write much about the screenplay, other than to say that though it was written in Denmark and produced in 2007, it would have felt right at home in the Hollywood of the '40s and '50s. It's good noir, as good as you're likely to find, with dangerous women, crafty villains, and men who should now better.

Rebecka Hemse plays Julia, a good girl gone bad, with just the right combination of vulnerability and danger. Nikolaj Lie Kaas is Sebastian, nothing but trouble and charm. And Anders W. Berthelsen is the crucial element so many noirs, the sap. It helps that I hadn't seen these actors before, but not for a moment did I not believe them or believe in their challenges.

"Ok," you're thinking. "I've never heard of this movie and you've given me nothing to help me decide whether or not to queue it up." Problem is, I really don't want to tell you anything about it other than to say that if you liked OUT OF THE PAST, if you liked DOUBLE INDEMNITY, if you liked STRANGERS ON A TRAIN; then you're gonna like JUST ANOTHER LOVE STORY. Take a chance, give it a spin, tell me what you think.

I can't wait to hear.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

First, a note about the trailer for 2012: not even Chiwetel Ejiofor's name on the poster will put my butt in a seat for that one. Second, a note about the following comments: I assume that, by now, you know who the established characters are. Consequently, I'll not try to bring you up to speed.
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE begins with Harry Potter, bloody and exhausted, facing a media onslaught in the aftermath of the battle of the Ministry of Magic. Professor Dumbledore puts his arm around the boy, shepherds him away.

And then we're off, swooping through London with the Death Eaters, in a dazzling and frightening sequence that sets our hearts to racing even as it defines the stakes of the coming war between the forces of Voldemort and Dumbledore.

Back to Harry now, on a personal level as he navigates the currents of late adolescence and learns that, yes, he's pretty good at flirting, too. But Dumbledore appears and there's work to do.

The rest of the film is about a number of things, the story not least among them (Um, Spoiler Alert: Voldemort's up to something and it's up to Harry and friends to stop him.). And that's fine - it's a perfectly good story. But what makes the film worth watching, what makes it race right by, is the way it's also about finding oneself both in big and small ways, about the immediate pain of adolescence and the continuing process of growing into onesself.

Of course, there are a number of movies that address similar themes, and many do it well. What makes HPHBP unique is that it's a Harry Potter movie, a movie that lets us wander around fiction's most marvelous real estate and dazzles us with magic that ranges from mundane to whimsical to downright epic. Additionally, it lets us wander around with a group of actors we've come to think of as our own nieces and nephews; cute kids who are growing up all too fast, even as they make us proud. It supports these young actors with brilliant adults, including at least one who Can Do No Wrong. And it revels in its composition, unafraid to make the fantastical fantastic.

For these reasons and many more, HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE is a flat-out great time at the movies. This one is worth catching on the big screen.

W.

W bounced on and off my Netflix queue a number of times. I knew that Oliver Stone is a major director, but I didn't particularly care to sit for a two-hour tomatofest directed at our 43rd president

Yep, I expected a hatchet job, and some blademarks are clearly visible: Dick Cheney's Strangelove moment in the War Room, the mannequin that stood in for Condi Rice. But the movie got at what I perceive to be the fundamental nature of its subject: a good man out of his depth. Josh Brolin was phenomenal, making us believe in his character at every step in his journey, and taking all those Bushisms and weaving them into the natural language of a guy whose brain often outpaces his mouth.

While watching the film, I wondered why it needed to be made in 2008. I think there's a difference between a sitting president and and an alumnus, no matter how recent. As the Obama team has learned with the lack of traction of its "blame Bush" public strategy, unless the last guy in the job was a towering figure, he may as well be Jim Garfield. W was urgent during 43's presidency because then, he formed a member of our perceived "circle," those people in our daily lives who have the greatest impact on us. Now, he's like a member of that circle who has since moved away. He's a person in whom we're still interested, but that interest lacks the immediacy it once had.

Immediacy aside, W is still a film worth watching. It's a take on a man and a time by a master filmmaker with a surprising point of view. It looks great, most of the supporting cast is terrific, and it was over before I knew it.