Saving Private Ryan, Ship of Fools, Sherman's March ...Martin Paule's Micro Movie Reviews collection for Shelterbelt Cinema Channel, gotop10.com, world cinema page; movies from india china japan; European films, African Cinema; top 10 cinema academic film journals sites

At times infuriatingly slow and ponderous, this final film by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky is a mixed blessing. The unforgettable cinematography of Bergman cameraman Sven Nyqvist and a somnolent score with Western classical and Japanese shakuhachi music are both perfect. The film raises searching spiritual questions that are ultimately ineffable. On his birthday, Alexander, a retired journalist, actor, and amateur philosopher living on a remote Swedish island, plants a withered tree and contemplates his own mortality—it is clear that he will not live to see the tree flourish. He faces the ultimate existential questions when, during his birthday party, nuclear war breaks out. He makes a compact with God—he will forsake his own existence if the war can be retracted. This is demanding non-entertainment that is likely to appeal to those who appreciate Bergman’s more cerebral work.

A small film that makes big points, Spring Forward’s script is brimming with illuminating guy talk that comes across as a slightly pastoral version of David Mamet’s dialogue. The story is minimal—an older park maintenance worker (Ned Beatty) takes a recently released prisoner (Lieve Schreiber) under his wing, and over the course of the four seasons a friendship develops. Some may find this subtle story of ordinary guys dealing with life’s vagaries too talky and slow. Others will find this male variant of the chick flick engrossing and moving.

Val Kilmer plays a tweaker—a meth amphetamine addict—involved in playing some very dangerous games with a parade of nut cases that all seem to be escapees of Tarantinoville. Rife with dark humor, preposterous dialog, and very funky crash palaces, this will prove a satisfying watch for folks who like their cinema served up edgily.

Todd Solondz who directed the controversial Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness (both reviewed here) knows how to make us squirm. His films mercilessly mine the most perverse and fatuous aspects of suburban Americans without a shred of sentimentality, yet somehow, Solondz is able to register sympathy for his characters and their dilemmas. As acidic and wickedly funny as they are, the laughter often dies on our lips as the director manipulates us into empathy. Composed of two asymmetrical stories titled "Fiction" and "Non-Fiction", the first tale concerns a young college woman who after being spurned by her cerebral-palsy suffering boyfriend has a brutal sexual encounter with her writing professor, a sadist in the classroom and bedroom. It is that scene which threatened the film with an NC rating. Solondz refused to sanitize it for censors, instead placing a large red block over the offending naughty bits. (The DVD offers the option of watching the R or unrated version sans the red blotch.) The second story concerns a young man whose so-called life is the subject of a verité documentary. This segment lacks the sharper focus of Solondz’ other work but is nonetheless engaging in its sharp ear for vapid dialog and self-delusion. For those who enjoyed the director's earlier films, Storytelling will be a treat. Others should proceed with caution.

Inevitably this film must be compared with the equally excellent In the Bedroom which deals with the same subject: the devastation that descends on a happy family upon the death of a son. Both films handle their task without descending into mawkishness and both are exceptionally heart wrenching. This film is a departure from director Nanni Moretti’s usual work that tends towards the Woody Allen realm, focusing on Italian neurotics. The Son’s Room is subtle and knowing and dispenses with the director’s penchant for quirkiness other than in the portrayal of patients treated by the grieving father who is a psychiatrist. Though much of the dead boy’s home life is seen to be idyllic, there is an unsettling undercurrent that concerns the father’s inability to help his patients. There is also a low-key sense of dread pervading mundane family events leading up to the accident in which the son dies. I found the resolution, in which the family begins to recover from its grief, coming as it does from an unexpected quarter, highly believable.

Though its story of homesteaders versus ruthless cattle barons is a hackneyed one today, this is well worth a look for its solid performances all round and spectacular Western scenery. Alan Ladd plays a retired gunfighter who befriends a farmer (Van Heflin) and sticks around to help against a bullying cattle rancher. Jack Palance shows up midway through as a gun-slingin’ baddy and makes a memorable job of it. My only beef is that child star Brandon DeWilde’s constant yowling after the star, “SHAAAAANE,” and his non-stop barrage of questions grows wearisome.

Breathless pacing and outrageous stunts together with a mad bomber played with gusto by Dennis Hopper distinguish this entertainment from similar efforts. A city bus is wired with a bomb that will explode if its speed falls below 50 MPH setting up a kinetic sequence of events. Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves serve adequately as action figures in a movie with minimal brains and plausibility and plenty of gasps plus some mordant humor.

In this 1960 British “Angry Young Man” film, Albert Finney, then a newcomer to the screen, put the world on notice with his performance as a disaffected working stiff who turns the lives of his two girlfriends upside down when he strikes out against society. Director Karel Reisz’s realization of novelist Alan Silitoe’s script is both intelligent and grim serving as a harbinger for the coming disturbances later in the decade.

The tremulous lives of meth amphetamine addicts are targeted in this raucous, rough-and-tumble comedy-drama. Mickey O'Rourke is especially authentic playing a crank chemist who periodically blows up motel rooms when his production methods get a little sloppy. With more than a nod to the design of Requiem for a Dream, Spun walks a perilous line between being a cautionary drama and a flippant comedy that exults in the drug-addled lifestyle.

The action plays out over the course of a few L.A. days in which a loose-knit group of young bachelors, intent on making it big in entertainment, carouse, visit trendy bars, nurse each other’s bruised egos, have heart to heart chats in coffee shops, and hunt the next romantic conquest. The story centers on Mike, a transplanted New Yorker still moping over the loss of his girlfriend after six months, and Trent, his confident, brash buddy. Jon Favreau who stars as Mike and wrote the screenplay clearly understands this milieu and peppers his dialogue with understated humor and irony

Set in Budapest, this 1940 film is a sweet-natured comedy about a pair of store clerks who unknowingly carry on a romance by mail while going at each other’s throats at work. Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan have great chemistry and the supporting cast of Hollywood character actors is top-notch. This story has been remade several times, most recently as You’ve Got Mail.

If you’re up for something with subject matter and tone all its own, Secretary should prove a rewarding sit. It concerns a neurotic young woman (Maggie Gyllenhaal in an eye-opening turn) who has been into self-mutilation most of her life and who lands a job with a strange, soft-spoken attorney (James Spader in an ideal role) occupying an office decked out in Buñuel cum Disney opulence. Their relationship is a strange one in which their respective S&M tendencies soon come to the fore. Spader begins vigorously spanking Gyllenhaal when she commits typos, and she loves it, finding real emotional and sexual fulfillment for the first time in her life. Though the subject matter is unabashedly bizarre, the relationship blossoms into one in which both participants discover identities with which they can grow and we end up actually caring for them and their lives. The story’s single liability is that all the peripheral characters are without exception also nutty, muting the distinction between the central couple and the rest of their world.

This B film directed by Anthony Mann concerns a mad scientist who, in a novel twist, is a woman. Made on a minimal budget, imagination stands in for clever special effect while some good noirish touches and aneat surprise ending makes this a worthwhile sit.

Ray Winstone delivers a convincing performance as a retired British gangster living out his days in the luxurious setting of a Spanish villa. His reverie is intruded upon when a former cohort from London (Ben Kingsley inhabiting his thoroughly repellent character with great gusto) shows up to recruit him for a robbery back home. With resonances of such Brit gangster films as Get Carter, The Limey, and The Long Good Friday, this is a tremendous showcase for the two leads and is rife with stomach-turning physical violence and psychological tension that isn’t quickly dismissed. Disregard the inept title and discount the caper-film trappings—it is a powerful character piece with some very imaginative production design and some playful moments that hit their mark flawlessly.

This early Brian DePalma low-budget effort owes a lot to Hitchcock and offers plenty of suspense with decent performances. The story concerns a pair of conjoined sisters, one evil, one good. There is nothing remarkable here; just solid performances and a nerve-racking score by Bernard Hermann, Hitch's former music director.

Director Bille August’s output has been patchy with his 1998 adaptation of Les Miserables being a particular low point. However, he redeems himself with this 2001 film about a composer and violinist, Martin and Barbara, both in their 60s, who suddenly fall for each other, leave their respective spouses, marry, and take up an idyllic life of musical collaboration in a charming cottage. All starts coming apart when Martin is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and rapidly disintegrates. The two leads, Sven Wollter and Viveka Seldahl deliver superb, heartbreaking performances and the script avoids the melodrama of many similar malady-based stories.

Directed by Alexander Payne who created the highly affecting About Schmidt, (also reviewed here) this too is a wonderful piece of screenwriting illuminated by four sensational leads. Paul Giamatti plays a high school teacher trying to market a heartfelt novel while still shuddering beneath the weight of a divorce. His pal played by Thomas Hayden Church is an actor reduced to doing commercials and addicted to womanizing in order to stave off middle age. The Church character is about to be married and the pair head off on a tour of California wineries as a final bachelor fling. Hooking up with a pair of waitresses (Virginia Madsen in the best work of her career and Sandra Oh) the two guys become enmeshed in misadventures and affairs of the heart gone terribly wrong. Full of wistful insight, trenchant dialogue, and lots of belly laughs, this is among the best films to have appeared over the last few years.

Inevitably linked with Hotel Rwanda (also reviewed here), this film that originally aired on HBO, takes a different tack in recounting the horrific events that swept across Rwanda in 1994. Told in flashback, the film begins on the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan civil war and focuses on two Hutu brothers, one a teacher who was married to a Tutsi woman and who preached tolerance, the other a government radio personality who used his microphone to incite the violence. The brothers have been estranged since that time and the former DJ is now on trial for his role in the genocide. The storyline is occasionally wobbly as it moves between the present and past, but the docudrama approach is powerful and in the end we come away with a clearer understanding of the madness that swept across Rwanda, if such a thing is possible. Unlike Hotel Rwanda, there is more ambiguity here; the characters are less neatly defined as heroes and villains and the film registers as both a more personal story while at the same time it offers a wider view of the war.

Anthony Mann directed this low-budget second feature about a woman scientist (Brenda Marshall) who comes a cropper when she begins experimenting directly on herself with a new anesthetic. Despite its miniscule budget, this is stylish stuff.

In the tradition of such sleaze-and-tease classics as Valley of the Dolls, Showgirls stands out as being among one of the most awful big-budget Hollywood films ever. So awful in fact that it’s a lot fun for those of us enjoy watching mega-bombs that transcend their genre by virtue of unintended hilarity. It is hard to imagine that director Paul Verhoeven and writer Joe Esterhaz managed to keep a straight face while making their contributions to this $40 million disaster about a girl with a mysterious past who comes to Las Vegas to become a dancer. (The lip gloss budget alone must have accounted for a significant part of the total—the female leads—Elizabeth Berkley and Gina Gershon‑both have enormous lips that seem to be slathered in the stuff) Berkley’s performance has to be seen to be believed, her emotional range, as they say, runs the gamut from A to B. Thanks to a lot of nudity and simulated sex, the movie got an NC17 rating which tended to overshadow its central delight: over-the-top performances, impossibly illogical plotting, and dialogue that is often unintentionally side-splitting. And you’ve gotta love a film that manages to actually make Vegas seem even more cheesy and sleazy than it actually is.

The fine Spanish actor Javier Bardem plays Ramon Sampedro a right-to-die advocate and quadriplegic in this thoughtful film that dodges the disease-of-the-week syndrome. Based on actual events, the film demonstrates the paradoxical, energizing effect he has on the healthy people around him and also is a fine vehicle for Bardem who is limited to movement above the next (except for some stirring moments of fantasy).

Steve James who co-directed the excellent Hoop Dreams seems to have created this documentary as a means of exorcizing the guilt he feels in connection with the title character. When James was a college student in southern Illinois, he became a Big Brother to Stevie Fielding, a troubled kid suffering the consequences of abandonment and neglect. In 1985 the director moved to Chicago to pursue his career and lost touch with Stevie whose life went from bad to worse as he was shuttled between foster homes. In 1995 James visited Stevie and his family and realized that his former “brother” would make an excellent film subject. Reestablishing a relationship, he began to document Stevie’s life. Then in 1997 his subject was accused of sexual molestation of a little girl throwing Stevie and his family into rounds of turmoil and denial. What makes the film especially fascinating is the director’s ongoing introspection about his own motives which he enunciates in voiceovers throughout the film. Steve James often appears on camera and interacts with all the key players setting up a dynamic quite different from the role of the traditional documentary filmmaker whose role is one of objectivity. It is instructive to compare this approach to that of Tarnation (also reviewed here) that also explores the issues of child abandonment.

David Mamet’s serpentine story of corporate greed and industrial espionage is equal parts Hitchcock and Kafka. Joe Ross (Campbell Scott) has invented a new process (the McGuffin of Hitch’s classic films) that will allow his company to control the market. He has begun to suspect that the firm is about to screw him out of his share of the rewards when he’s approached and wooed by a wealthy stranger (Steve Martin in a strong, out-of-character performance) as well as by an attractive young woman who works for his company (the comely Rebecca Pidgeon—Mamet’s real-life wife). Events begin to take on a nightmarish quality as Joe moves to protect his rights. Full of Mamet’s patented, stylized dialogue, some of the plot points at first seem to be a bit outlandish, but the desperation of his man-on-the-run story coupled with his abiding theme of corruption versus ethical conduct score points. You may find the wrap-up a bit facile, but what precedes it is an icy thrill ride that will appeal to fans of Mamet’s earlier puzzler House of Games.

Though it’s not up to the standard of his Citizen Kane, Orson Welles’ The Stranger offers plenty of noire satisfaction of its own. Welles plays a Nazi war criminal that has resettled in a quiet Connecticut and is about to marry when a Federal investigator (Edward G. Robinson in an unusually restrained performance) gets on his trail.

As he did with Lone Star, director John Sayles weaves a complex tale with a murder mystery at its center. But this story of an inept senator’s son running for Colorado governor is far more than just that—aside from being a not-so-veiled slam on George W. Bush, it casts a jaundiced eye on the machinations that go on in both federal and state politics with a retinue of operatives including a slimy campaign manager, an amoral lobbyist, and a venal land developer intent on putting up a new town on a toxic waste site. The interleaved storylines require considerable attention and Sayles doesn’t neatly tie up all the threads in his final act. But that is as it should be, given his message that the big business lobby in concert with sellout politicians is a force that the little guy can’t easily upset. A big, solid cast that includes Danny Huston, Maria Bello, Chris Cooper, Billy Zane, Kris Kristofferson and a surprisingly dead-on Daryl Hanna delivers the goods in what may be Sayles most political and despairing movie to date.

This pitch-black comedy composed of 46 discontinuous episodes is set in an unnamed European capital where systems and institutions are all collapsing. Mordantly surreal in the manner of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, this is an ingenious work that caters to a rarified audience. It steadfastly tiptoes on that thin line that divides pathos from absurdist humor so that if you liked Being John Malkovich or perhaps Eraserhead, you should enjoy this. Director Roy Andersson uses a totally static camera, very carefully worked out staging, and above all, uniquely posed deadpan humor that you won't soon forget.

A brilliantly staged cat-and-mouse game starring Laurence Olivier as a mystery writer who loves games and theater and who draws his wife's lover (Michael Caine) into a diabolical and brilliant plot. Superb writing, performances, and sets.

Though it lacks the acidic wit of This is Spinal Tap, this story of a 70s British rock band attempting a 90s comeback offers some great performances, a decent script, and music that seems authentic. These aging rockers, still holding onto feuds and foibles from their salad days, offer dollops of laughter and pathos as they creak across Europe in a struggle to resurrect their glory.

Not for the squeamish, this is the true story of a performance artist who died at 43 from cystic fibrosis after a lifetime of suffering from this disease that floods the lungs with ropy mucous. Some of the adjectives that come to mind in attempting to describe this documentary are repellant, heartbreaking, funny, tender, and upsetting. Composed of footage from Flanaganâ€™s performances, interviews filmed for this documentary, home movies, and much more, we come to an appreciation of how the artist embraced pain as a way to deal with his difficult life and a body that was attempting to kill him.

The idea of involving a mystery writer in a crime is hardly a new idea in movies. Nor is the blurring of reality and fiction is it going on in the writer's head, or are the events we are seeing real? This English-language film by French director Francois Ozon employs both riffs yet it does so in ways that don't seem cliched. Charlotte Rampling (who starred in Ozon's previous film Under the Sand‘ also reviewed here, a shares much of the feel and style of this effort) plays a burned-out mystery writer who retreats to her publisher's French country house. At first the setting is ideal as a place to write her next book. But her tranquility is soon disturbed by the arrival of the publisher's hyper, promiscuous daughter (Ludivine Sagnier). It is here the mysterious aspects of the film begin manifesting and it requires careful attention to figure out just what's going on. This is a well-made mind teaser with a couple of solid characterizations.

Carla is a deaf secretary stuck in a drab, routine life that is turned on its ear when she hires Paul, an ex-con who is completely unskilled yet charismatic, as her assistant. The relationship is one seething with repressed sexual energy and as he helps her realize her career aims she finds herself aiding him in criminal pursuits. Superb acting and a well-conceived script that merges elements of a thriller with a thoughtful drama leave a lasting impression.

Director Julio Medem has a fascination with stories that work like mobius strips turning in concentric circles. As with his Lovers of the Arctic Circle (also reviewed here) we are constantly kept off balance with indistinct time lines and blurring between reality and the stories written by the protagonist, Lorenzo. Unlike Lovers, Medem's story is clunkier here; in the end it's pretty much impossible to figure out what's been going on. Having said that, this is very stylish fare with some extremely graphic sex between highly attractive people that should serve as recompense for many.

A documentary that tracks the fates of a handful of National Spelling Bee finalists doesn't sound at first blush like a promising premise. Contrary to those expectations, it is a wonderful and human story that follows these kids from their local competitions through the intense training and on to the climactic finals in Washington. Along the way we learn a great deal about these kids and their wildly divergent backgrounds, families and personalities. (The DVD version includes several other competitorâ€™s stories that didnâ€™t make the theatrical releaseâ€™s final cut are very nearly as interesting.)

Unlike so many of the flagwaving features of the WWII era, this is a film that deals with war in a sober and thoughtful way. Based on the experiences and columns of war correspondent Ernie Pyle, the film follows a company of soldiers from their first taste of combat in North Africa (and an ignominious retreat in the face of superior German forces) to their march on Rome following a withering standoff preceding the capture of Monte Casinoâ€”a pivotal battle in the Italian campaign. Burgess Meredith plays the unassuming Pyle who suffers along with the troops while Robert Mitchum is cast as an infantry captain who struggles under the moral weight of his command. For its era, this is gritty, visceral stuff: soldiers cry and break down and project a sense of emotional and physical weariness and grunge that are palpableâ€”the viewer is left wanting to take a hot shower.

Joan Crawford is a wealthy playwright who, after marrying an actor she once fired (Jack Palance), discovers he is scheming to kill her. Using her writer's imagination, she formulates a plan to stop him. This is a well-crafted suspense story that takes unexpected turns and includes a wonderful scenery-chewing performance by Mommy Dearest.

In 1963, a fumbling trio of amateurs snatched Frank Sinatra Jr. from a Lake Tahoe hotel and extracted a $240,000 ransom from his famous father. Quite accurately based on reports of the actual crime, this made-for-cable feature recounts the laughable missteps of the crooks. Especially good are David Arquette as the "mastermind" and William Macey playing a reluctant but fascinated henchman. The film does an effective job of re-creating early â€˜60s L.A. despite having been made in Vancouver, BC.

Isabelle Huppert delivers one her strongest performances ever as Dominique, a wealthy, self-possessed fashion designer who becomes obsessed with a boy-man (Vincent Martinez) she encounters in a nightclub. Quentin, as he calls himself, is from a much lower strata of French society and supports himself in sundry ways working as a bartender and offering his sexual services to both women and men. She soon brings him home to live with him and their relationship becomes centered on power and carnalityâ€‘â€”there is no apparent love. Indeed their age difference is not much of an issue; after all this is a French film. Instead the story concerns itself with the class differences between Dominique and Quentin. The primary pleasures of this film are its well-written screenplay based on a novel by Yukio Mishima and the sensational work by Huppert who veers between steely self control and abject collapse with complete believability.

Directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have created an austere, rough film that dispenses with the niceties of a score, fancy lighting, or elaborate sets to examine its dual themes of forgiveness and revenge. Olivier is a taciturn, phlegmatic carpentry instructor at a vocational school. Suffering from the brutal death of his son in a car burglary some years earlier and the divorce that apparently occurred in its aftermath, he becomes aware that the boy who killed his son has enrolled in the school. Only Olivier, who initially refuses to take the boy on as a student, is aware of the relationship. He then relents and accepts the murderer as a student. It is apparent that Olivier is unclear about his motives and there is a sense of festering anger coupled with a certain tenderness. The film has minimal dialogue and primarily tracks Olivier through his day-to-day life from the perspective of a hand-held camera that is often focused on the back of his head. I was reminded throughout the film of those dreams in which our view is frustratingly obscured. This is an emotionally demanding work beneath its simple faÃ§ade and should be well-received by admirers of the Dardennes brothersâ€™ earlier films La Promesse and Rosetta also reviewed here.

This is a fictionalized account of the rise and fall of Stephen Glass, the hot-shot New Republic reporter who resorted to faking his sources and later inventing his stories from whole cloth when his prevarications escaped the notice of the magazineâ€™s fact checkers. Director Billy Ray avoids the easy choice of painting Glass as a bad guy. Instead he portrays a pleasant young man with highly advanced schmoozing techniques and a powerful ambition to rise in his field. The detailed accounting of his exploits has thriller-like elements that should keep you completely involved.

This moving, sympathetically-made documentary chronicles the last days of Robert Eades, a former biological female and now a male who never had a hysterectomy and is now ironically dying from ovarian and cervical cancer. Because trans-gender female-to-female people are a rarity, Robert confounds a medical community that is reluctant to treat him. This is an ultimately humane portrait that depicts a Southern man who lives in a trailer in rural Georgia and defies all the stereotypes. He is thoughtful, articulate, sensitive, and remarkably objective about his predicament. In the course of the film we meet Lola Cola, Robertâ€™s girlfriend and trans-gender male-to-female as well as a small network of other trans-gender people for whom Robert has become a sort of role model. This is no freak show; instead it is a kind and humane look at the fringes of our society and a useful gut check to determine our level of tolerance.

A decade later, Steven Soderbergh’s debut film that was released in the late ‘80s holds up awfully well. Preoccupied with themes of sexual repression and dysfunction as well as lying and voyeurism, it was made for chump change, and against all odds did great box office. Revisiting the film on DVD, I was impressed all over again with its exquisite casting. Andie McDowell is a neuorotic, sexually withdrawn hausfrau; Peter Gallagher is her philandering husband; Laura San Giacomo plays her sister and his illicit love interest; and perhaps best of all, James Spader is Gallagher’s former college roommate who tapes the sexual confessions of women. The Spader character is the linchpin in the story introducing a fourth corner to the love triangle. Spader’s understated handling of his character is a delight. The DVD includes a highly worthwhile director’s commentary by Soderbergh joined by Neil LaBute, director of In The Company of Men, in which they chat about the vagaries of indie film production and Soderbergh recollects lots of piquant details about how the movie was made.

Based on the excellent novel by Rohinton Mistry, this story set in 1971 India during the Indian Pakistan war of that era, succeeds magnificently in capturing the Dickenisian ironies of the novel. Dealing with politics, family, religion, and above all the sheer difficulty of living in a nation filled with chaos and grinding poverty. Wonderfully atmospheric with transcendent moments of sadness and joy.

The Macbeth story is hilariously transplanted to 1970s Pennysylvania with the action focusing around a small-town burger restaurant in which the dullard fry cook and his ambitious wife scheme to knock off a local fast-food tycoon. James LeGros and Maura Tierney are terrific as the murderous couple and Christopher Walken puts in a singular turn as a vegetarian state cop trying to unravel the murder mystery. Shakespeare breaded and fried—just the way you like him!

A Self Made Hero aka Un Heros Tres Discret
Structured as a psuedo-documentary and told in flashbacks interjected by
modern interviews with the protagonist and his associates, this is the story
of a young man who during WWII takes the easy way out by steering clear of
the Germans and the resistance. Following the war he invents a new identity
for himself as a former high-level operative in the French underground. He is
treated as a hero and is put in charge of prosecuting French collaborators.
After falling in love with a co-worker, he is tortured by his inability to
tell his girlfriend the truth about his past. An intelligent examination of
identity, and the notion that with the right degree of chutzpah, we have the
ability to make ourselves over into wholly different people. There are many
moments of suspense and laughter in this unusual film.

Smiling Fish and Goat on Fire
The title of this slight but charming romantic indie comedy refers to
the names given two brothers by their Italian-Indian grandmother. One
brother is a worry wart accountant, the other is a happy-go-lucky would-be
actor.
They live together in their childhood home in L.A.'s Fairfax district,
and as the film opens, we find each dealing with woman trouble. Their
lives continue in parallel; each finds a more meaningful, mature
relationship. Though expendable, there's a sweet subplot with veteran
character actor and jazz singer Bill Henderson playing a retired sound
man who worked with Paul Robeson in the first all-black film company.
Shot for $40K, the on-target humor and solid performances by a cast of
unknowns eclipses much pricier fare in the same vein.

Snatch
>From slam-bang director Guy Ritchie, this more recent heist flick
shares with his earlier "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" a
disjointed plot, a cellarful of fascinating and creepy characters, and
above all, frenetic pacing. With plenty of hard-as-nails dialogue, a
solid lineup of character actors from both sides of the Atlantic, and
an intent to outrage at every turn, the movie succeeds. Brad Pitt
sparkles in a smaller role as a wacko bare-knuckle Welsh fighter who
issues forth streams of completely undecipherable dialog. The plot too,
is fairly well incomprehensible, but that clearly isn't the point with
Ritchie's films.

Startup.com
In decades to come this documentary will likely help people understand the
madness that was rampant at the end of the twentieth century when the
marketplace was saturated with investment venture capital and bad business
plans. This is the story of two long-time friends who launch a web site
intended to aid people deal with local governments by helping them pay
parking tickets and suchlike. In the 20 months documented, the two
entrepreneurs run through a heap of money and seriously damage their
friendship. The filmmakers were given complete access to their
subjects and have dutifully recorded them, warts and all.

Sugarcane Alley aka Rue Cases Negres
The story of an 11 year-old boy growing up in 1930s Martinique where
his poverty-stricken grandmother sacrifices everything so that the
talented boy can attend a decent school. There are certain disconnects
in the episodic plot structure, and some of the acting is amateurish,
but the central story of haves and have-nots is powerfully and honestly
told.

State and Main
This comedy of a Hollywood crew trying to shoot a troubled costume drama in
a pastoral Vermont village is quite a lighthearted departure for
writer-director David Mamet. Riddled with wisecracks and fueled by quick
pacing, the laughs come hot and heavy. But Mamet hasn't abandoned his
fascination for characters with hidden corruptions and agendaÃ¢â‚¬ï¿½everyone in the
film shifts allegiances at will in this comedic delight.

Sugarbaby aka Zuckerbaby
German director Percy Adlon ("Baghdad Cafe", "Rosalie Goes Shopping")
makes small, off-kilter comedies that often feature the zaftig actress
Marianne Sagebrecht. That is the case here with Sagebrecht playing a
lonely morgue attendant who becomes fixated over a subway train
operator. After she stalks and seduces him, a strange relationship
ensues. This is one of the pinkest films you're likely to encounter; it
is as though Adlon has subjected his print to some sort of Barbie-Vision
process.

Smithereens
Preceding her better known Desperately Seeking Susan's, indie-director Susan
Seidelman put this portrait of a New York naif together on what was
apparently a micro budget. Wren is a self-centered, rootless moocher with
aspirations to manage a rock band though she has none of the requisite
skills. Though her abrasive personality is disagreeable, her irrepressibility
is at times touching. Colorful East Village locales and tightly written and
directed scenes, especially one involving a hooker and a chicken salad
sandwich, are marred by a cast that at times is amateurish.

Smooth Talk
Laura Dern is astonishing here in her ability to play an immature
prepubescent one moment, and a sexually ripe woman in the next. This chilling
film, originally shown on PBS and based on a Joyce Carol Oates short story,
is deceptively simple in construction. Connie is a normal girl caught in the
ennui of a long hot summer vacation. She and her friends toy with their
emerging sexuality by dressing up as mall sluts and doing a little relatively
innocent flirtation. She captures the attention of Arnold, an older teenage
boy/man with an unsettling personality which leads her into frightening
circumstances. The film is entirely non-exploitative and chooses not to cater
to a teen audience by omitting the sort of heavy breathing scenes a lesser
film would include. Its central concern is the profound effect that a
dysfunctional personality can have on others.

With the rapid fire rhythms of a 40s screwball comedy and a pair of
exquisitely unaffected leads, this Nashville fable is a delight. Doc
Jenkins (Willie Nelson) is an outlaw country singer and songwriter who is
trapped by money problems resulting from a series of bad business moves
that have left him in the clutches of a sleazy gangland entrepreneur to
whom he owes all his creative output. Kris Kristofferson plays Blacky Buck,
his former touring partner and tour bus lothario. These two exhibit
exceptional chemistry together; they reflect an unalloyed pleasure in each
other's company. Jenkins uses a neurotic booze swilling singer (Lesley Ann
Warren) as a tool to sidestep his commitment to the gangster while trying
to get his personal life, littered with a series of failed marriages, in
order. Rip Torn turns in a zesty performance as a corrupt concert promoter
. Plotlines are sketchy here, director Alan Rudolph leaves it to us to fill
in a lot of the blanks; no unpleasant task.

This is a spare stripped-down story about a Japanese Yazuka who is
dispatched by his boss to Okinawa to intercede in a gangland war involving
an ally. The Yazuka senses that there's something phony about the
assignment but stoically follows orders. Though there are scenes of great
brutality the movie registers as a thoughtful and elegant meditation on the
warrior's life.

Though it's riddled with all the cliches that have become de rigeur
following the success of "The Full Monty", this story of a 70s English rock
act's attempts at a reunion tour still offers some laughs along the way.
Saddled as it is with a couple of sappy love angles, the dialogue is often
a saving grace. A favorite line, as one member berates another for failing
to get over the death of a third: "Yeah, I know, you worship the ground he
vomited on". Added attractions: some fairly decent original music in a 70s
vein together with a standout performance by Timothy Spall, a Mike Leigh
regular, as the roly-poly drummer.

Though I don't think this clever supernatural tale deserves the wild
enthusiasm it garnered, it has plenty on offer. A young boy (Haley Joel
Osment in a fine performance) is persistently confronted by ghostly
apparitions. A psychologist (Bruce Willis) attempts to help him while
struggling with his own demons-a year earlier he was shot by a patient he
had failed to help as a boy who then committed suicide in front of Willis
and his wife. This is much more subdued and subtly colored than most horror
pictures and concludes with a very nifty surprise ending that upon
reflection works seamlessly with everything that has come before. One nit:
can Willis control the smirk that is perpetually smeared across his mouth
or is it a built-in grimace that he can't help? I found that it undermined
some of the sadder moments though his performance otherwise was entirely
natural and down to earth.

Director Richard Linklater's followup to his iconoclastic "Slacker" is a
much more conventional affair. A group of Gen-Xers endlessly hang out in a
convenience store parking lot trying to deal with impending adulthood by
cluelessly trying to support each other. The action takes place over a
single night in which one of their former confreres who has escaped their
suburban wasteland by mounting a rock star career, returns. Based on a play
by Eric Bogosian, the film betrays its stage origins by becoming static in
spots, but the cast of new faces offers good performances. There's nothing
world-shaking here; simply a knowing look at todays "troubled yoot".

Laura Dern is astonishing here in her ability to play an immature
prepubescent one moment, and a sexually ripe woman in the next. This
chilling film, originally shown on PBS and based on a Joyce Carol Oates
short story, is deceptively simple in construction. Connie is a normal girl
caught in the ennui of a long hot summer vacation. She and her friends toy
with their emerging sexuality by dressing up as mall sluts and doing a
little relatively innocent flirtation. She captures the attention of
Arnold, an older teenage boy/man with an unsettling personality which leads
her into dreadful circumstances. The film is entirely non-exploitive nor is
it aimed at a teen audience. Its central concern is the profound effect
that a dysfunctional personality can have on others.

Preceeding her better known "Desperately Seeking Susan", indy director
Susan Seidelman put this portrait of a New York naif together on what was
apparently a micro budget. Wren is a self-centered, rootless moocher with
aspirations to manage a rock band though she has none of the requisite
skills. Though her abrasive personality is disagreeable, her
irrepressability is at times touching. Colorful East Village locales and
tightly written and directed scenes, especially one involving a hooker and
a chicken salad sandwich, are marred by a cast that at times is amateurish.

Peel back the pedestrian title of this neo-noir variation on Columbo murder
mysteries to find a peach of an entertainment. William H. Macy is Terry
Thorpe a thorough going bastard and cable channel movie critic who, during
a tiff, gives his girlfriend a little shove causing her to fatally crack
open her head. Instead of 'fessing up and facing probably minor
consequences, Thorpe attempts to outwit the cops relying on his extensive
knowledge of whodunits. Macy is characteristically brilliant while Adam
Arkin does a creditable job as his police adversary. Macy's soliliquies to
the camera are an overworked device, but Macy uses his face so expressively
that this is hardly a flaw. Donald Westlake's novel from which this is
adapted, provides a terrific, shadowy, noire bad guy, in this case, a
backmailing detective.

Who ever would have expected a G-rated film from the dark mind of director
David Lynch? The true story of an elderly Iowan who undertakes a several
hundred-mile journey on a lawnmower to patch up things with his estranged,
dying brother, the film ascribes to the premise that it is not the
destination but the journey that matters. Richard Farnsworth, a veteran
character actor recognizable from dozens of westerns is wonderfully natural
as Alvin Straight encountering a parade of interesting personalities along
the way. Lynch's film is a spiritual odyssey beautifully realized with
stunning photography and a well-conceived score by his frequent
collaborator, Angelo Badalamenti. Deliberately paced, despite its rating,
the story may be a little too turgid for most kids.

This one isn't out in video yet and will undoubtedly lose impact on the
small screen. Nevertheless, it will, I am certain, stand among the greatest
films that deal with men at war. Following the Allied landing at Normandy
aren the most harrowing scenes of carnage I have ever seen on screen. A
squad of American soldiers are detailed to find the title character, the
last surviving brother in a family of soldiers, so that he can be sent home
to his grieving mother. A superb ensemble cast led by Tom Hanks who proves
himself the Jimmie Stewart of this generation, perilously cross the French
war-torn landscape in search of the nearly mythic private. Such is the
emotional impact of this film that the audience with whom I saw it ushered
out of the theatre with none of the post-performance chatter typical of
moviegoers. There was a somberness infecting the crowd that stands as a
testament to Steven Spielberg's ability to move us. Where I once dismissed
most of his work (e.g. "The Color Purple") as unabashed heartstring
tugging, "Ryan" together with his "Schindler's List" has placed him in my
mind in the rarified atmosphere of Kubrick, Welles and Huston.

I am not generally fond of teen romance stories with their vapid characters
and usually dumb scripts. But this comedy-drama is much smarter than the
norm and sports a fine cast with a charming John Cusack performance as a
self-posessed outsider who woos the smart and pretty class valedictorian,
only to discover that she has her share of trouble.

A disturbed and conniving medium embroils her milquetoast husband in a
nefarious plot to make money resulting in horrendous consequences. The
acting, direction and somber photography are all excellent in this mid-60s
British import.

Al Pacino is at his intense best as a cop going through tough changes after
the breakup of his marriage. He becomes involved with sexy Ellen Barkin who
is a prime suspect in a serial murder case that he and his amiable
sidekick, John Goodman, are investigating. The script is tight, the
plotting is elegant, and the leads are uniformly terrific. The sex scenes
between Barkin and Pacino are as steamy as this sort of thing gets, yet
they avoid the graphic show-it-all approach of many similar flicks.

In the 60s, Italy was the prime producer of earthy, irreverent and (for the
day) scandalous sex comedies. This is one of the best. A smalltime Lothario
manages to get his fiancÃ©e's younger sister knocked up and then attempts to
avoid the consequences. Breathlessly paced and quite hilarious, it made a
great followup to the director's earlier-and equally funny-"Divorce-Italian
Style" reviewed above.

An utterly singular documentary in which the director, loser-in-love and
star, Ross McElwee chronicles his road trip following the title route while
trying to get at what it is that makes Southern women tick. If this oddity
strikes a chord, you may want to check out the director's sequel: "Time
Indefinite".

It may be a little soapy round the edges, but this sea-going variation on
"Grand Hotel" based on Katharine Anne Porter's novel has a striking cast of
characters, each with a story to tell. Set aboard a luxury liner in the
darkening days before WWII, Janet Leigh is a world-weary divorcÃ©e, Lee
Marvin plays a washed-up baseball player, Simone Signoret and Oskar Werner
are secret lovers and Jose Ferrer is a bullying Nazi sympathizer. Acting as
commentator is Michael Dunn, a hunchbacked Jewish dwarf who makes one of my
favorite speeches in the film. He says that he is lucky that his
deformities are right out front (or back) so that he isn't obliged to have
to keep a tight rein on secrets as do his fellow passengers.

Recalling Jean Renoir's "Rules of the Game", this film examines the
foibles, secrets and failings of a collection of British bluebloods who are
invited to a weekend hunt on a British estate. James Mason is especially
fine as the decent and witty host to this generally dislikable bunch. All
about the the friction between the classes, the story is shot through with
intimations of the coming WWI.

Intense and claustrophobic, this is among the most realistic depictions of
men in prison available on film. (The title is slam slang for a child
molester.) Filmed on location in the infamous Tombs prison in NYC, the
solid cast consists of mostly unknowns and curious crossovers such as
Curtis Mayfield and Freddy Fender.

Another French film that explores the artistic temperament, Bernard
Tavernier's direction owes more than a little inspiration to Jean Renoir's
"A Day in the Country" with its painterly technique. It is the story of an
aging painter who was never of the first rank and who now rests on his
laurels while bickering with his family who fail to meet his expectations.

A man suspected of murdering his father plots to fake his own death by
substituting the body of his half-brother. The brothers constantly remark
on their identical looks despite the fact one is black and the other is
white - something to which they seem oblivious. This out of the ordinary
film examines the nature of identity and does so with great style and
luminous black and white photography.

A boorish Sicilian deckhand on a luxury yacht is stranded on a desert
island with his employer-a wealthy, self absorbed Italian woman. There the
roles reverse as he becomes the master and she the servant, her vanity
stripped away by the circumstances and his physical domination. Feminists
may be disturbed by both the film's theme and the frequent beatings
administered by the sailor. But what I perceive is director Lina Wertmuller
having fun slamming all strata of society-the idle rich, the ill-bred
Marxist underclass and the eternal battle between the sexes. Graphically
sexual, this is not suitable for the sensitive.

Perhaps Lina Wertmuller's greatest achievement, she cast her favorite
actor, Giancarlo Giannini with his immensely sad basset hound eyes in the
lead as a smalltime Lothario from Naples who is swept up in the tumult of
WWII and becomes a survivor at all costs. A tragicomedy of epic
proportions, it includes scenes of cruelty, depredation and horrendously
funny sex that are at once unsettling and unforgettable.

An episodic, fictionalized account of an American family based on the
memoir of novelist James Jones' daughter, the film begins in Paris with the
adoption of a young French boy given up by his birth mother. We track the
family through its Paris years in the 60s through their return to New
England in the 70s. This Merchant Ivory production departs from the team's
usual material but adheres to its renowned attention to period detail. The
storyline is told mostly from the perspective of Channe, played winningly
by Leelee Soibieski, the biological daughter, and explores the loving but
often difficult relationships within the family. As a sort of micro-epic of
family life, we see this family positioned well out of the mainstream with
the gruffly affectionate Kris Kristofferson blithely inviting Channe's 17
year-old boyfriend to share his daughter's bed. Anthony Roth Costanza
deserves special mention in a brilliant portrayal as Channe's effeminate,
opera-mad friend during the Paris years.

Comparisons with the documentary of a couple of years ago "Hoop Dreams" are
inevitable: this is a much rougher and probably more truthful look at a
team of outdoor court basketball players in the Bedford Stuyvesant section
of Brooklyn. Led by their hotheaded but loving coach Kenny Jones, we follow
his team, the Kenny Kings, through the course of a broiling summer season
and focus on his protege, Ed "Booger" Smith a young man of brilliant moves
on the court and a clouded past and future away from the hoops. Being a
b-ball fan is not a prerequisite for becoming involved in the lives of
these tyros; the seething context of their sport in Brooklyn's grittier
climes is gripping.

A spritely English comedy in which two young men, Dylan a smooth talking
American, and Jez, a British techno-nerd team up to run a succession of con
games on British businessmen. Into their lives comes a gamin of a girl
played with Audrey Hepburn-like verve by Kate Beckinsdale who the guys both
promptly fall for. The pace is hectic, the music jangly and the
performances engaging even if the premise is slight and the total effect is
one of charm rather than substance.

It is an interesting study in film history to see these very different
treatments of similar subject matter-the rise and fall of a hoodlum. In
the original, Scarface, played by Paul Muni is a character modeled on Al
Capone with a well-developed vicious streak but also an incestuous love for
his sister. Fraught with rather obvious symbolism, it makes points for its
powerful depiction of a gangster on the make. The film was initially
delayed by censorship issues-this in the days that preceded the repressive
Motion Picture Code. Brian De Palma's latter-day Scarface is a Cuban
immigrant who has a burning lust to make it in America and will stop at
nothing to achieve his aims. This time the modus operandi is drugs rather
than moonshine and Oliver Stone's screenplay immerses itself in wretched
excess. But the film is made watchable by Al Pacino's over-the-top
performance where he chews on every bit of scenery in sight. The final
scene in which he's still shooting back after being hit with about a
billion bullets is pretty hilarious. Lots of fun for those who like their
action rare and bloody.

Very different from anything else Sayles has directed, this is the gentle
story of a young girl who is sent to live with her grandparents on the
Irish coast. There she learns about the mythical traditions of this wild
place. Had Disney done this, you could be sure of a sentimental piling on
of cute animals and cuter kid stars. Sayles instead treats his subject
tenderly but unsentimentally creating a film that can be recommended to the
whole family-even jaded adults.

The disturbing story of a weak-willed British gentleman (James Fox) who
falls into moral collapse at the hands of his manipulative man servant
(Dirk Bogarde), so that they ultimately change places within the
relationship. The deliberate pacing of Harold Pinter's screenplay may
prove slow for some viewers.

This may be the period piece that portrays the swingin' pre-HIV 70s. Warren
Beatty is an oversexed hairdresser with a long chain of fools who roars
around West L.A. on his motorcycle looking for the next amorous conquest.
Julie Christy and Goldie Hawn are both good as two of his dalliances. A
nice mixture of comedy and drama.

Bernardo Bertolucci's adaptation of a Paul Bowles novel isn't completely
successful but tremendous atmosphere, location shooting and acting all make
this worth a look. A young American couple-Debra Winger and John
Malkovich-travel through North Africa in the 1940s seeking stimulus for
their strange, muted relationship. Many have found the story overly dense;
personally, I rather liked its ambiguities.

Fruit flies, infidelity, madness, alcoholism, melancholic party clowns,
phone sex and alienation are just a smattering of the subjects caustically
touched upon in this mega-pastiche of lives lived in sadness in and around
Los Angeles. Based very loosely on the writings of novelist Raymond Carver,
Robert Altman, as he did in the earlier "Nashville", brilliantly
interweaves myriad plot lines into a compelling portrait of modern life. A
great cast and pungent storytelling combine to create a modern classic of
American film.

Masturbation and incest are the concerns of this little black comedy. A
college student home for the summer is ordered by his domineering father to
forego a vacation job in order to stay home and care for his mother who has
a broken leg.

Though Richard Harris' performances in recent years have been largely over
the top, he delivers a restrained characterization as a Yorkshire coal
miner turned pro rugby player in this landmark of the British kitchen sink
realism school which blossomed during the early 60s. The film begins with a
powerful montage of bodies crashing together in the midst of a vicious game
during which Harris loses several teeth. Beyond the violence of the sport,
the movie touches on themes of love, success and disillusionment.

Based on the life of Victor Hugo's daughter, this is an involving look at
obsessive love. She falls madly in love with a young soldier who is a
womanizer and has no interest in a long-term relationship. Despite his
repeated and cruel rejections, she continues to pursue him all the while
sinking deeper and deeper into madness. Adele is played by the luminously
beautiful Isabel Adjani and the film is lushly shot by Nestor Almendros. A
great achievement by French director, FranÃ§ois Truffaut.

Dustin Hoffman is a paroled small-time crook who tries, briefly, to go
straight. But he's haunted by a sadistic parole officer who rides him
unmercifully. What makes this film is the way Hoffman's character is
initially seen as hapless and helpless-he is buffeted around at the whim of
the parole officer-but later we see him emerge as a bad guy in his own
right.

A hard nosed cinema-veritÃ© look at runaway street kids trying to get by in
Portland, Oregon. They dumpster-dive for abandoned pizzas, sell their
bodies and take what ever drugs they can get their hands on. Though they
tell us that they enjoy the freedom of their lives, this probing
documentary reveals the horrors of existence on the street. It is an
ultimately sad and affecting portrait of kids who have lost their anchors.

Given the rap on Cuba that it is a highly repressive, authoritarian
society, this story of a gay man and his growing friendship with a
straight and fanatically Communist man is a bit surprising. The hetero is
in the dumps over his being spurned by his girlfriend and finds to his own
surprise, solace with the cultivated and sympathetic gay.

The simple yet compelling story of a rural Chinese woman's search for
justice. After her husband is kicked in the stomach by the village chief,
she makes a career of wringing an apology from the stubborn leader. It has
a lot of the same earthy directness that made "Ermo", reviewed later such a
fine film.

This exceptional fantasy-horror flick by Mexican director Alejandro
Jodorowski is nearly impossible to synopsize. It involves a woman who
becomes deified after having her arms whacked off by her brutish ringmaster
husband. Her somewhat Oedipedal son then takes up the role of providing her
with arms. There are several scenes of utterly unsettling pictorial
splendor including the murder and funeral of an elephant. Like Fellini,
Jodorowski loves to sprinkle his movies with a heady assortment of dwarves,
hermaphrodites and other oddities of nature.

The moving story of a young boy from rural India who is banished by his
family. He joins a traveling circus only to be abandoned then ends up
struggling to survive on the streets of Bombay. It is sad, exotic and
ultimately involving. The ravishing, score was composed by the masterful
Indian violinist, L. Subramanium.

A retelling of the Profumo sex scandal that rocked British society and
government in the early 60s. John Hurt in a nicely nuanced role, is an
upper crust society figure who takes up with a German showgirl then
introduces her to a government minister with disastrous results. Very
steamy sex and a literate script.

A nice companion piece to the above, made by the guy who directed
"Trainspotting", it's also set in Scotland. Three rather vicious yuppy
types share an Edinburgh flat into which they admit a fourth tenant who
promptly OD's leaving a suitcase with loads of cash. The relationships
between the three head south as they become extremely paranoid about the
situation. Very funny, bloody and grim.

Inspired lunacy from John Candy and Eugene Levy as a pair of ludicrous
polka musicians who hail from the fictitious central European country of
Lutonia where they hang cabbage rolls from their Christmas trees. Hilarious
from start to finish, these two characters were originally created for the
brilliant SCTV series, and as just one measure of their idiocy, they each
pronounce their surname differently!

These are two people you probably wouldn't want to know: Sid Vicious of the
infamous Sex Pistols and his whining girlfriend Nancy Spungen. Somehow
director Alex Cox (of "Repo Man" fame) manages to take these two repellent
characters and their self-destructive lifestyle and spin a story through
documentary-like techniques that is actually quite engaging. Stoked with
impressionistic dream sequences and uncannily real-seeming performances of
the punk rock band, the movie leaves an enduring impression.

Two brothers, one fleeing from a bungled stickup and broken romance, the
other seeking their fugitive, 60s-radical dad embark on a very twisted road
trip...

Practically plotless, "Slacker" looks at the subculture of Austin, Texas
featuring a motley cast of non-professionals ranting about all manner of
bizarre stuff. Particularly memorable are a highly-caffeinated conspiracy
theorist and a woman who claims to have Madonna's pap smear which she's
attempting to market.

Kurt Vonnegut's time traveling novel is brought to the screen with all its
outlandishness and oddity intact-which is no mean feat. This big-budget
production is rich in detail and image and hooks the viewer into Billy
Pilgrim's dilemma. He's become unstuck in time flying back and forth
between past, present and future. I found that a second and third look at
this movie continued to increase my appreciation.

Turturro has a tiny but brilliant role in this story of a film student who
comes back from the West Coast to shoot a low budget documentary about the
characters in his old 'hood. Steve Buscemi's got a walk-on part in it too.
Ultra low budget and very funny in spots. Someone described it as the Marx
Brothers Meets Mean Streets, which is pretty apt.

One of those truly wacky British comedies somewhat in the vein of the Carry
On series. A young couple inherits a fleabag movie theatre and sets about
reopening it in the face of a spiffy new competitor down the street. Peter
Sellers is priceless as a tippling projectionist. Lots of hilarious gags
and a great cast of Brit character actors guarantees plenty of laughs.

Orson Welles is a Nazi war criminal on the run from G-Man Edward G.
Robinson in a, for him, rather subdued role. The Welles character has
settled down in a small college town where he becomes engaged to the
innocent Loretta Young. Quite different from any other work by Welles, it
has genuine moments of tension.

Not to be confused with the similarly-titled bust by Demi
Moore-"Striptease", this is a wonderfully trashy confection from the
studios of Roger Corman whose been cranking out cheap exploitation movies
for four decades. This one's set in The Zipper Clown Palace, a tawdry
stripper bar at closing time. A psycho wanders in off the street and holds
the place at gunpoint coercing various patrons and dancers to do all
manner of depraved things. Rick Ford who plays the nut is a genuinely
chilling and unique character with psychoses that could be stretched across
the Grand Canyon. For the liberal-minded only.

A professor of Russian literature becomes romantically involved with one of
his students who is won over by his erudite classroom manner and isn't
prepared for the more carnal aspects of his personality...

Taken from a John Cheever short story of the same name, over the course of
a hot summer afternoon a virile, middle-aged man makes his way home
through a series of his affluent Connecticut neighbors' swimming pools.
Each pool generates flashbacks of his life which we slowly come to realize
has gone terribly awry. Subtle and evocative in the telling, this one
stiffed at the box office but deserves a second chance.

A recent minor comedy with some great characters and situations. A couple
of self-styled studs from L.A. decide to hit Lost Wages for the weekend
where they attempt to bullshit their way into comped rooms and action as
well as into the hearts (and pants) of a couple of waitresses. It all
backfires in predictable but hilarious ways.

Anyone who has witnessed a parent making an ass of himself from the
sidelines of a Little League game will find resonances in this film about a
young boy who is a chess phenom. His father enters the boy in a chess
tournament failing to see how the stress undermines his son's personality.
A fascinating tussle ensues between two chess coaches with vastly differing
styles who vie to teach him. This is far more than a mere story about
chess; it looks at the notion of nurturing rather than forcing nascent
talent. Based on a true story.

One of Hitchcock's lesser-known but highly effective thrillers, Joseph
Cotten is Uncle Charley, an easygoing guy who dotes on his niece. Over time
she comes to suspect that her uncle is perhaps a very wicked guy-the
perpetrator of a series of murders. With a fine middle-American backdrop,
this is one of the master's quieter but most convincing works.

Robert Walker plays a psychopath who meets tennis pro Farley Granger aboard
a train and the latter jokingly agrees to a plan to exchange murders-each
will get rid of someone for the other, and without a motive, escape
detection. He soon finds that Walker is deadly serious... Another classic
Hitchcock entry.

A box office success that was richly deserved, this is the tale of a couple
of cops assigned to guard a woman. One of them (Richard Dreyfuss) falls in
love with their charge with entertaining results. Though the situations defy
logic and the plot line is a weary one, sharp performances and crackling
dialogue are prime redeeming features along with costars Emilio Estevez and
Madeleine Stowe.

Here are a couple of movies that deal with political assassinations in
markedly different ways. The first was a pet project of Paul Newman in
which he stars as a cynical drifter who takes a job as a DJ at an
ultra-conservative radio station in New Orleans. Buoyed a by a strong
supporting cast, the sinister agenda of the station's owners slowly come to
light. The setting of "Suddenly" is a little town of the same name in the
California hinterlands. The President's train is due to make a connection
there and the Secret Service asks the cooperation of the local sheriff
played by Sterling Hayden. Matters get tense when a psychopathic Frank
Sinatra and a couple of henchmen show up together with a high powered
rifle. Gripping and compact, (it runs just 77 minutes) this was a superior
50s second feature.

Considered very controversial upon release in 1971 this is a love triangle
with a twist: a bisexual man is pursued by two lovers, Glenda Jackson and
Peter Finch, both of whom render superb characterizations. Finch is
especially good in the part of a homosexual Jewish society doctor in a
restrained performance. The film is also strongly evocative of the social
and economic upheavals in full bloom during that era in Britain. The only
weak spot: a so-so performance by Murray Head as the object of their
affections.

A group of Gen-Xers take a Mafia bigwig (Christopher Walken) hostage as a
bargaining chip when one of their sisters is kidnapped. At times, "Kings"
has some trouble figuring out what it is-a taut drama, a black comedy or a
caper flick-but somehow manages to keep all these genres juggled in a
winning way.


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-