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Martin Paule's Micro Movie Reviews: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z-

Nine Queens AKA Nueve Reinas

Recollections of The Sting and House of Games are inevitable while watching this Argentinean movie about a convoluted swindle being run by a pair of grifters in which it is impossible to tell until the final frames who is screwing whom. The story is largely about a scam to sell a counterfeit sheet of nine rare stamps But nothing is as it seems. I found the early going in which the older con artist demonstrates to his younger henchman a repertoire of low-rent scams especially fascinating. The action is fast and furious and every time we think we have an inkling of what’s going on, the rug is pulled from beneath our feet. If you enjoy maze-like plotting, Nine Queens is not to be missed.

No Man's Land (2001)

The Bosnian civil war of the 1990s was a Balkan catastrophe about which we understood little, and for which many Americans, cared even less. This near-allegorical story of that war concerns a pair of Bosnian soldiers who find themselves sharing a trench in no man's land with a Serb. Oscillating between savage violence and brooding, bitter humor, the situation grows more tense when UN observers and journalists become involved. This is a sad and wry depiction of the irrational hatred that poisons the lives of so many.

The Naked Kiss

Made in 1964, this is a strange and wonderful film by that auteur of B movies, Samuel Fuller. It is the story of a hooker who has been brutalized and exploited by men all her life and who decides upon moving to a new town to go straight. She takes a job as a nurse working with crippled children and embarks on a romance with the town's most eligible and very wealthy bachelor. Things seem to be too good to be true, and they are. Indeed, this movie never ends up where it seems to be going; Fuller's apparent melodrama is a highly creative examination of feminism and the exploitation of women. Due to the constraints made by censors of the day, there is a great deal of loopy, double-entendre dialogue dealing with sex and prostitution that at times is howlingly funny.

Napoleon Dynamite

A plot synopsis suggests that this little gem resembles countless mindless teen comedies: a geek helps his buddy try to beat a nasty popular girl to become president in their high-school elections. But Dynamite has a sensibility all its own. Dead-pan humor, hilariously arch dialogue, and one of the oddest complements of characters you’re likely to ever encounter make this an unalloyed delight from start to finish.  

Notting Hill

This surprisingly enjoyable romantic comedy and meditation on fame stars Julia Roberts as a big Hollywood star (go figure) and Hugh Grant as a London bookshop owner. They meet by chance and are immediately smitten, leading to an on-and-off relationship resulting from the Roberts’ celebrity. The stars, each with an uncanny ability to produce heart-melting smiles, are extremely likeable and right in their roles, there’s a good supporting cast, and lots of the dialogue is fun. Unfortunately the central romance lacks conviction. Often it seems our stars have fallen in like rather than love.

Naked States

Photographer Spencer Tunick has made a career out of shooting naked people against what are often oddly juxtaposed backgrounds and settings. Although it at first seems that he is merely one of those “artists” who trade in any genuine aesthetic for notoriety, the power of Tunick ‘s photographs ultimately speak for themselves. And it’s a lot of fun seeing how he cajoles subjects in all 50 states into doffing their duds for him. 

The Navigators

The British director Ken Loach has an abiding concern for the working class that has recurred frequently in such films as Riff-Raff, Raining Stones, My Name is Joe, and Bread and Roses. The Navigators follows the declining fortunes of a group of Yorkshiremen whose lives are set into turmoil when British Rail, the government railway for whom they work as maintenance men is privatized. They're suddenly inundated with vague mission statements and vapid training films in which the former values of safety and security are jettisoned on the name of "customer satisfaction." Layoffs quickly follow and soon everyone is scrambling to survive. Loach is even-handed in his treatment of the events; there are implications that under the old regime there was much idleness and featherbedding, but with privatization any pretense at a humane workplace is gone. Working with a group of unfamiliar faces, Loach draws wonderfully natural performances from his cast.

DVDs To Your Doorstep!

A Nos Amours
A 16 year-old French girls enters into a succession of sexual flings with
relative strangers as a way to blunt her unhappy home life in which her
uncaring, bitter parents perpetually fight. Starring the beautiful Sandrine
Bonnaire in her film debut, the movie could have easily been exploitative.
Instead we have a memorable (if somewhat disjointed) portrait of a troubled
girl forced into precocious maturity set against the context of enervating
French lower middle class life.
 

Naked

Another Leigh film that's quite different from his others, but equally
absorbing. It's about an alienated drifter who shows up without warning at
his ex-girlfriend's apartment. It is at once funny, bleak and dark.

A Nos Amours
A 16 year-old French girls enters into a succession of sexual flings with
relative strangers as a way to blunt her unhappy home life in which her
uncaring, bitter parents perpetually fight. Starring the beautiful Sandrine
Bonnaire in her film debut, the movie could have easily been exploitive.
Instead we have a memorable (if somewhat disjointed) portrait of a troubled
girl forced into precocious maturity set against the context of enervating
French lower middle class life.
 

The Newton Boys
Director Richard Linklater's off-center 1991 indy feature "Slacker" was
followed by the much more conventional high-school comedy "Dazed and
Confused" (both reviewed earlier). Moving further towards the mainstream,
this is a bit of forgotten Americana as well as an above-average bankrobber
picture. "The Newton Boys" chronicles the nitro-fueled exploits of four
Texas brothers (Matthew McConaughey, Ethan Hawke, Skeet Ulrich, Vincent
D'Onofrio) who robbed over 80 banks in the 20s culminating in a train
robbery that remains the biggest in American history. And they never killed
anyone; they just stole massive quantities of cash and blew it investing in
dud oil wells. A likable cast, tight direction and lots of momentum are all
strong plusses.
 

Naked Lunch

I thought before seeing this that the William Burroughs book from which it
is drawn was unfilmable. Director/screenwriter David Cronenburg is to be
credited with working a miracle through an amazing array of special effects
coupled with ideas taken from the life of the author to create a
phantasmagoric, hallucinatory experience of a movie. Nearly indescribable,
its one of those flicks you've just got to see for yourself.
 

The Nasty Girl

The striking (and true) story of a Bavarian girl who attempts to enter a
German essay contest with her "My Hometown During the Third Reich" which
leads her on a long term crusade to discover the truth. The heroine,
played by Lena Strolze, is shown very believably maturing from puberty
through womanhood in a film that boasts a highly distinctive visual style.
 
 

Neighbors

John Belushi was cast against type in his final role as a suburban
milquetoast who becomes the victim of couple of very bizarre neighbors (Dan
Aykroyd and Cathy Moriarty) who destroy his comfortable, predictable
existence in this black comedy that was thoroughly trashed by many critics.
Though clearly not for all tastes, I found it darkly delicious.
 
 

Nashville

Robert Altman's sprawling movie examines the lives of 24 people all of whom
have some connection with an upcoming political rally in Nashville.
Freewheeling in style with countless superb vignettes, the stories
masterfully interconnect as the cataclysmic conclusion draws near.
 
 

Nil by Mouth

British actor Gary Oldman's directorial debut is a relentlessly brutal and
honest appraisal of a dysfunctional South London family in which the father
is a weeping, alcoholic bully, the mother a silent, battered woman and the
son is a nihilistic junkie. Having read an interview with Oldman about the
making of the film, it becomes clear that this was a labor of catharsis for
him, being largely autobiographical. As a prop, he even used the chair
that his father sat in while getting shitfaced. The film opens with a
scene in a pub in which the relationships of the various characters is at
first unclear, but as it unfolds, we come to fully realize the horrific
pain that has been inflicted. Though it is often grim and the London
dialects may be somewhat tough for Americans to follow, the brutal honesty
merged with tough glimpses of humor add up to a film that ranks among the
best that have come out of Britain over the last couple of decades.
 
 

Night of the Iguana

Probably because of the notoriety surrounding the troubled marriage between
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor at the time, the qualities of this John
Huston-directed movie based on a Tennessee Williams play were overlooked.
Shot on location in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Burton plays a washed-up
minister who now conducts tourists on Mexican bus tours. He's great as a
reprobate romantically entangled with several women at the same time.
 

Nico Icon
 

Christa Päffgen was a member of the Andy Warhol coterie of the 60s and 70s
who appeared in some of his films and sang, in a manner of speaking, with
the Velvet Underground. A former model, born in Germany, she led a self
destructive lifestyle that is the subject of this intriguing documentary.
She bore a son by the French actor Alain Delon who she later hooked on
smack, making her a dubious choice for mother of the year. The film
consists of archival footage, interviews with Warhol and his cohort Paul
Morrissey as well as interview conducted with the subject a couple of years
before her death in 1988. This is a horrendous but fascinating biography of
a haunted and enigmatic woman.
 
 

Night Falls on Manhattan
 

Sidney Lumet's film about a New York City Assistant D.A. enmeshed in a
police corruption scandal has special resonance given recent incidents in
that city. Andy Garcia playing the embattled prosecutor finds himself on
the horns of a wicked dilemma when his cop father and avuncular buddy are
implicated. Steering clear of this genre's cliches, the film presents a
challenging series of conundrums that mirror cases splashed across our
press daily. Is it better that bad guys go free rather than that we
tolerate corrupt police work?
 
 
 

Nixon

During the first few minutes, I had a little trouble buying Anthony Hopkins
as the great non-crook. But his performance is so compelling that after
those few minutes, I stopped noticing that there had only been a minimal
attempt makeup-wise to have him resemble Tricky Dick. The script cleverly
moves back and forth in time painting a very distinct portrait of a
political rogue. One of Stone's best films in which he avoids some of the
enormous historical liberties that he took in "JFK" . Joan Allen is very
good as Pat Nixon in a thankless role that gives her little to work with
and Bob Hoskins is right on in every way in his portrayal of Henry
Kissinger.
 
 

Night of The Shooting Stars
 

A very moving story about a group of Tuscan villagers trying to survive
during the closing days of WWII. Beautiful images and textures fill the
screen as the peasants try to dodge the ironies and tragedy of war.
 

No Way to Treat a Lady
 

A tour de force performance by Rod Steiger as a flashy lady killer is equal
parts comedy and horror show. From a literate William Goldman novel of the
same name, director Jack Smight treats his subject with an intelligent
balance.
 
 

The Nutty Professor (1996)