Caché (2005)

A local celebrity and his wife receive a series of videotapes. At first the recordings contain nothing but hours of footage of the front of their home. They're naturally confused, but they're not actually being threatened. The tapes get progressively more worrisome (i.e. footage of the husband's childhood home, spare drawings of bloody heads), yet police are helpless as no law has been broken.

The acting is superb and the couple seem incredibly real. The lack of a musical score made it feel less like something staged and more like we were glimpsing actual reactions. Despite these precise choices in the look and feel of the film, the story left me frustrated. I was solving a mystery -- changing my mind about what I thought as bits were exposed. I mean, the whole movie appeared to be designed as a "whodunit and why." Without eventually providing solid answers to those questions, there's no longterm satisfaction.

Still, it's effective for every bit of the time spent watching. It's only in the aftermath that irritation sets in.

B

My Cousin Rachel (1952)

Nice, creepy vibe in which I was nervous for the lead and confused about how someone can be so suspicious and blind at the same time. I liked the ambiguity, though I wound up feeling slightly manipulated that a major string didn't get fully tied off. There's a big lie that turns out to be harmless -- or was it?? I like a bit of something to chew on after the credits roll, but I don't enjoy feeling as though information I've been given means the story can't make sense.

Reminded me of "Rebecca" -- as well it should, since the two stories share an author. Simply couldn't measure up to that marvel of storytelling, but I still think it's well worth watching. Richard Burton is so impossibly young here!

B

An Unfinished Life (2005)

Jean (Jennifer Lopez) is forced to return to her hometown after her luck and cash run out. She's been avoiding it because, more than 10 years back, she was driving when her husband was killed in a one-car accident. Her father-in-law, Einar (Robert Redford), is a rancher turned bitter in the aftermath of his son's death, for which he blames Jean. Jean's daughter is surprised to find out she has a living paternal grandfather. Jean's father-in-law is surprised to find out that he has a granddaughter, conceived before the accident. Let the healing begin!

This is a beautiful looking movie, but it's full of forced sentimentality: i.e. Einar's best friend was mauled by a bear and spends the bulk of the movie concerned for its welfare. He forgives the bear, dangit! Can't Einar forgive his daughter-in-law?

It's really not bad, but neither is it memorable.

C+

Something New (2006)

Unfortunately, none of: "Something Funny" "Something Sexy" and "Something Interesting Enough that People Would Rather Watch It Than Read a Book" apply.

Uptight accountant who "doesn't do dogs," wears power suits, goes power walking before the rest of the neighborhood is awake, and has an all-beige color scheme in her home gets set up on a blind date with a free-spirited landscaper with a big shaggy dog and a clunky pick-up truck. Guess what happens? Yep -- she gets a new couch.

C-

The Dark Angel (1935)

Kitty, a spirited child, spends her days with awkward Gerald and stuck-up Alan, cousins. She looks about seven but is quite bold about the fact that she plans to marry Alan as he rolls his eyes about it.

Fast forward about 15 years and both Gerald and Alan are crazy about Kitty and she loves them both -- but agrees to marry Alan, just as the two boys are headed back to war. Despite the fact that they can't procure a marriage license in time, the two spend the night together. This leads to misunderstanding, which leads to tragedy.

It's a weepie that left me dry-eyed, due mostly to the fact that I liked neither Kitty nor Alan. They both seemed cold to me while the heart of the story, Gerald, was pushed into the "suffer in quiet dignity" role.

C

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)

I sure like this movie's moxie. It's got Robert Downey Jr. doing droll narration, Val Kilmer as a P.I. who goes by the name "Gay" Perry (guess why?), a game of name that faux celebrity (e.g.: "Brazilian Billy Bob Thornton"), and an updated noir vibe. I mean, it's hard to dislike a movie that could make me yelp with surprised laughter when I was least expecting it.

Unfortunately, the plot is pretty standard. I felt like I'd seen various pieces of it scattered throughout other movies and episodes of Poirot on PBS. But the actors work their butts off to sell it and, doggone it, I'm buying.

B

Green Street Hooligans (2005)

What I don't know about soccer -- oops, I mean football -- is, well, everything. So I was dang surprised to find myself so into this movie.

Elijah Wood is Matt, a Harvard journalism school golden-boy, who gets wrongly expelled close to graduation. He blindly decides to fly to London to visit his married sister, but his timing is a bit inconvenient as his brother-in-law, Steve, had romantic plans that evening. Steve's solution? Send the American to a football match with his brother, Pete.

Matt's knowledge of the game is about as extensive as my own -- but that doesn't matter. He's seduced, much as I was, by the camaraderie and intense loyalty of West Ham's firm (a rabid group of supporters whose own reputation is more important than their team's record). This reminded me a bit of "Fight Club" -- I could see how putting your body on the line could be intoxicating and how being part of something bigger than yourself can give greater meaning to your days. The violence in the film was shocking and brutal, but it was also invigorating.

At one point, Matt says something like he's learned that there are times to stand up and times to walk away. This film does a wonderful job of showing the importance of both.

A-

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)

I wasn't a huge fan of Bridget Jones's Diary -- but Renee Zellweger was adorable in the title role and I left the theater glad that she seemed to be looking at a "happily ever after."

In this film, Bridget morphs from cute to clingy and the extra weight that Zellweger again gained for the role somehow looks horribly frumpy rather than pleasantly plump this time around. The funny bits are stolen straight from the first film (inept physical fight between the two men/granny panties) and everything else is just tiresome. Even the breathy accent sounds more irritating than endearing -- why in the world would Darcy want this suspicious sabotager of good relationships?

This was extremely disappointing, which is quite a feat considering I wasn't expecting much.

D

Glory Road (2006)

Despite being "based on a true story," this movie feels like a rip-off of Hoosiers or Remember the Titans or even Coach Carter.
Coach Haskins (Josh Lucas) gets offered no money and no respect to leave his job coaching high school girls to come on as head basketball coach at Texas Western. His two young boys and "whatever makes you happy, I'm just here to look pretty and worry about you" wife move into the men's dorm with him and he starts to turn things around by, you know, being stern and demanding and fatherly, whatever each individual case warrants. He inherently understands exactly what each boy needs in order to succeed -- who knows what would happen to them if it weren't for good ol' Haskins and his tough, but fair, training. Along the way to victory, they all face opposition and prejudice because there are black boys playing in a white boys' league.

In other words: if you've ever seen a sports drama, this is cliché city. If you haven't, you might be able to enjoy this -- but I heartily suggest you rent Hoosiers instead.

C

Cellular (2004)

Pretty teacher gets kidnapped and locked in an attic, where she manages to hotwire a smashed landline and connect to a flakey guy.

It's one of those movies that's diverting in a stupid kind of way. It held my interest, even as I was rolling my eyes at how obvious the plot is and how unlikely it was that any of the good guys would be badly hurt or that a single one of the bad guys would get away with their nefariousness.

This film delivers exactly what you'd expect: an hour and a half of fun and excitement that you won't bother remembering tomorrow. And sometimes that's just what I'm in the mood for.

C+

Boomerang! (1947)

Beloved priest is shot down in full sight of several witnesses and a manhunt commences. The town wants a swift conclusion to the crime and finds a fall guy in Arthur Kennedy: a drifter who fits the general description, was in town at the time, owns a gun, and confesses to the crime.

The so-good-he's-almost-boring prosecutor (with an even more boring wife) takes what looks to be an airtight case and picks it apart, piece by piece, until it's just a pile of circumstance which isn't strong enough to combat reasonable doubt. The interesting thing about the film is that they're so careful never to say "the guy's innocent." For all I know he was guilty. But, in order for our legal system to work well, it must examine everything.

It's a decent "based on a true story" drama that is careful not to outright twist the facts, but has no problem giving the viewer a scapegoat that is obviously nothing more than fiction.

B

Infection (2005)

Relies on greenish tint and a heavy-on-the-strings score to convince us that the laughable storyline is scary.

Near the end, there was a twist that almost convinced me the screenplay wasn't as stupid as it appeared -- but, alas, the ending undermined the "sense" the twist momentarily made.

Ridiculous.

D-

Nine Lives (2005)

This is one of those movies with a conceit.

Here we've got nine separate mini-movies, each of which showcases about 10 minutes of a woman's (and in one case, a girl's) life. It's impossible to get a full picture of any of these lives as what we're seeing is shown in a steadicam, real-time shot. Some of the characters pop up in more than one of the scenes, but even those characters don't feel complete -- we're simply seeing them from an additional angle.

But, just as a collection of short stories isn't a novel -- this series of shorts is not a cohesive film. It's interesting and often evocative, but it doesn't fully satisfy.

B

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew From London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes (1965)

Based on an actual event -- the 1910 London to Paris air race -- this is overstuffed with broad, quickly tiresome types: the drawling aw-shucks American, the British fop, the villainous mustache-twirler, the German militants, etc. Each participant has their own running gag...which gets run right into the ground.

To put it in a nutshell: just look at that title. It's unnecessarily long and not very funny, which just about sums up my opinion of the film.

D+

The Big Lebowski (1998)

This was the fifth or sixth time I've seen this and I just don't think it's ever getting old.

Trying to figure out which bit of this movie is my favorite is nearly as difficult as trying to pick my favorite all-time movie. Just as I commit to the part where the joint bounces into his lap and he douses it with his beer...I remember that isn't nearly as funny as him decoding the phone message with the pencil-rub method...and then I'll think of his anti-intruder doorstop device and start cracking up about that. It's just a goldmine.

A

P. S. Eight-year-olds, Dude.

Claudine (1974)

Struggling single mother of six children (ranging in age from 18 to about 6) allowing herself to be wooed by a charismatic garbage man, against her initial better judgment.

This is a pretty decent representation of just about everything it tackles -- and it tackles quite a bit: opposition from children to a parent's new love interest, America's welfare system, militancy, teen pregnancy, deadbeat fatherhood, etc. I was especially impressed with the lesson in how our government's handouts can actually stand in the way of change for the better in the lives of its recipients (and, no, I'm not opposed to welfare).

But the film's impressive range of topics is also its big weakness. It felt rather scattershot -- is this a comedy? A romance? A political screed? I never really got the whole story of any one topic and then the ending felt rushed and slapsticky.

C

Mister 880 (1950)

The Secret Service has been frustrated for more than a decade by a weird counterfeiting case -- file #880. Even though the bills are ridiculously amateur in quality (printed on store-bought stationery; an obvious misspelling on the face), the phonies are single dollars which cashiers just can't be bothered to check.

Burt Lancaster is the star agent newly assigned to the case and Edmund Gwenn is the sweet old junk dealer who only prints the bills when he has no other means of making ends meet. It's a story that's sweet and nutty and so Hollywood-level pat that the fact it's based on a true case is an almost unbelievable piece of trivia.

B-

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1928)

This is the well-deserved first and only recipient of the "Unique and Artistic" Oscar.

Small-town family man gets involved with a city woman who wants him all to herself and devises an "accidental drowning" for his sweet wife. Rather than murdering his wife in the first hour of a bogus daytrip as he planned, they wind up spending the day together.

It's both charming and haunting. The imagery is astounding, dreamlike, and dizzying. Despite a weak first act and a predictable end, this is beautiful filmmaking. It's amazing what a bit of time and reflection can do -- I wonder how many divorces and other cruelties could be averted by simply attempting to love again.

B-

Pinky (1949)

A "light-skinned" negro returns to her southern town after passing for white while studying as a nurse up north.

It was a little difficult to get into the groove of this movie at first. Not only is the prejudice coming from the whites around town, but from the Pinky's own grandmother who tells her she ought to be ashamed for pretending she's something she's not. Which is what, exactly? Every bit as intelligent and worthy of respect as white women? I've never considered myself particularly "politically correct" -- but this movie made me cringe. I suppose it's possible it's accurate, but it also seemed rather ridiculous. One minute Pinky's being treated with respect and concern by shop owners/police/men driving by -- but the minute she identifies herself as colored, disdain and harrassment are in order for the "swamp bunny."

The acting is commendable, and all three of the main women were justifiably nominated for Oscars.

C+