The Fountain

A doctor (Hugh Jackman) ignores his dying wife (Rachel Weisz) in an obsessive attempt to find a cure for the cancer ravaging her body by way of a life sustaining substance. Meanwhile, she is struggling to finish her novel about a conquistador (Jackman) on a quest to find the Tree of Life for his queen (Weisz) during the Inquisition while, 500 years in the future from the present day, a spaceman (Jackman) is bringing his wife's remains to a far off nebula in the hopes of renewed life. The Fountain is ill-conceived, overornate, and self-serious with artificial looking special effects. Though containing potential, writer/director Darren Aronofsky doesn't know how to culminate its lackluster stories. Jackman is strong but strained and the soundtrack is excellent.

** out of ****

Casino Royale

After committing his final two, decidedly messy kills to achieve “00” status, Bond (Daniel Craig) is set on the trail of Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), a bloody eyed money launderer for terrorists, which culminates in a high stakes Texas Hold ‘em style poker tournament in Montenegro, where he is monitored by a beautiful and tortured British Treasury agent (Eva Green). Casino Royale, a reboot to the long running series, is one of the best in the line thanks to a moody, vulnerable Craig, a gorgeous, similarly conflicted Green, meaningful dialogue, strong plotting, the usual set pieces, and a great villainous turn from Mikkelsen, who ranks in terms of the best Bond baddies. The film is also functional as a pretty decent poker movie.

 *** ½ out of ****

Scoop

A somewhat dippy, aspiring journalist (Scarlett Johansson) is picked out of the crowd of a hokey magician's (Woody Allen) London act to enter his mysterious vanishing chamber. Inside, a recently deceased newsman (Ian McShane) relays a tip he picked up in the afterlife: a respected socialite (Hugh Jackman) may in fact be the Tarot Card Killer preying upon the city's prostitutes. Allen has been down very similar terrain before (see Manhattan Murder Mystery and Shadows and Fog) and other over familiar elements are present as well but its still amiable fun with great cinematography showing off the city.

Pan's Labyrinth

In the early days of Frano's Spain, an adolescent girl, lost in a fantasy world of books (and indeed seeming to be actually living out her own fable) relocates with her mother to a wooded compound where her new sadistic army captain step-father is rooting out the few bands of remaining rebels. Meanwhile, she is visited by a mysterious faun and given three tasks to complete, tasks which will have tragic and otherworldly repercussions. Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth is dumbly written and realized, clumsily welding together fairy tale and violent realism elements, and not nearly as imaginative as many give it credit for.

** out of ****

Rescue Dawn

A German born American Navy pilot (Christian Bale), who has dreamed of nothing but flying since witnessing the Allied bombings of his hometown as a child, is shot down during a secret bombing mission in Laos, captured, and immediately plots an escape plan with his sickly fellow inmates. After profiling Dengler's remarkable exploits in Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Werner Herzog dramatized his story in this effective, offbeat POW tale that starts to drag in the last act with an out of place ending. Bale's aloof performance is likable and Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies are strong in support.

*** out of ****

Babel

6/4/10 Babel represents the final entry in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's so called trilogy. All three films are hyperlink films, meaning that they contain multiple characters who are linked with a plot that is weaved back and forth through time. Babel is his most successful and most ambitious work to date and it tells the story of how four seemingly unconnected groups of people are connected through one event and how each group struggles with a language barrier: a man trying to find aid for his injured wife in a foreign country, a Mexican woman trying to explain an awkward situation to border control, and a deaf Japanese girl struggling with a tragedy. The film is beautifully shot and well acted with Brad Pitt standing out in a talented cast. However, it is unsuccessful at pulling these four threads together and maintaining its theme. I felt I was watching four different albeit well-made stories, which were not at all related by plot nor theme. Also, and again the hyperlink movie has become tiresome and I think that although Inarritu has established himself with this genre, that he has done all he can with it. He recently debuted his new film at Cannes with great success and I look forward to that film with great interest.

*** out of ****

2/2/17 While rewatching Babel, it is intriguing for awhile but goes on way too long with too many needless, protracted sequences and phony, pretentious dramatics and political correctness ultimately ruling the day while the audience is supposed to ooh and ahh about the quasi interconnectedness of the screenplay.

** out of ****

Jindabyne

An Irishman (Gabriel Byrne) finds the body of a missing Aborigine girl on a fishing trip and decides to carry on with his mates and not report their discovery to the authorities until the excursion is completed, a decision that places undue stress on his already strained marriage to his Aussie wife (Laura Linney). This overlong and unnecessarily expanded adaptation of Raymond Carver's short story "So Much Water So Close to Home" totally misses the point and is intensified by awkward scene transition and a tone deaf performance from Linney.

* 1/2 out of ****

The Wind That Shakes the Barley

In 1919 Ireland, a medical novice (Cillian Murphy) leaves a promising career to fight in a guerrilla unit alongside his brother and fellow countrymen against the encroaching British soldiers seeking to disrupt their bid for independence. Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes the Barley is a two hour socialist sermon from a brilliant and empathetic director, here employing his craft to the finest degree in drafting a powerful, involving, no punches pulled account, and all beautifully shot against a verdant background.

*** out of ****

Idiocracy

An average schlub (Luke Wilson) is selected by the Pentagon to participate in a yearlong cryogenic freezing experiment where he is forgotten of course and awakened half a millennia later to fight himself the most intelligent being among a population of dimwits. Mike Judge's Idiocracy, which has seen a revival during this election season, is a half-assed, barely thought out, rudimentary satire that is not without its laugh out loud moments.

** out of ****

Black Book

Double crossed by Nazi sympathizers and taken in by the resistance, a Jewish lounge singer (Carice van Houten) is passed off as Aryan and sent to infiltrate the Dutch SS headquarters to seduce the charming commandant (Sebastian Koch). Paul Verhoeven's Black Book is overplotted and overlong, poorly acted, and with putrid dialogue. The film is not without entertainment value however and moves at breakneck speed, with inventive albeit ludicrous sequences that resemble Raiders of the Lost Ark in a way. Still, there's something off putting about this light handling of the subject matter.

** 1/2 out of ****

A Prairie Home Companion

Fans gather at the Fitzgerald Theater in Minneapolis for a live folksy, antiquated radio program not knowing it will be the final broadcast, the venue having been sold and the show cancelled. As the performance plays out onstage, drama and intrigue unfold backstage:  a private detective (Kevin Kline) pokes around, an axeman (Tommy Lee Jones) from the foreclosing corporate outfit assesses the situation, the pregnant stage manager (Maya Rudolph) hounds the procrastinating host (Garrison Keillor), and cast members kid, reminisce and say their farewells as a mysterious, angelic figure (Virginia Madsen) looms over all. Keillor’s screen adaptation of his own long running radio program and Robert Altman’s last film as a director is a whole lot of fun on all accounts, successfully capturing the whimsical, folksy, nostalgic feelings associated with the cherished show while crafting a warm, offbeat, and very funny movie. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin contribute excellent performances as a pair of singing sisters with Lindsay Lohan surprisingly game as Streep’s daughter, and John C. Reilly and Woody Harrelson are a hoot as a duo of crooning cowboys.

*** 1/2 out of ****

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

The story of Nascar legend Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell) whose star begins to fade when he is challenged by a fruity Formula One Racer (Sacha Baron Cohen) and his sycophantic best friend (John C. Reilly) starts to question his allegiance. Stupidity abounds in Talladega Nights nearly running the picture off road, and the first half is far funnier then the second, but it still contains more belly laughs than most things passing for studio comedy these days. Ferrell and especially Reilly, along with a lot of the supporters (Baron Cohen, Molly Shannon, Greg Hermann, Michael Clarke Duncan, Jane Lynch, Gary Cole) help keep the movie on track.

*** out of ****

F for Fake/The Hoax

In 1977, author Clifford Irving shocked the world when he announced he had access to Howard Hughes, the eccentric playboy billionaire who had kept himself in seclusion for nearly twenty years. Securing a million dollar book deal with McGraw Hill, he shocked the world once more when, following the book's publishing, he admitted it all was a sham and wound up serving over two years in prison. Before Richard Gere portrayed this ballsy fabulist in Lasse Hallstrom's 2006 film The Hoax, and even before these improbable events took place, Irving appeared cavorting with a lowly art forger who was the subject of Orson Welles' pseudodocumentary F for Fake. Welles' film, the last one the great provocateur completed as director, is a brilliant assemblage, almost too much to follow at times, and is a whole lot of fun (especially a spurious bit involving Welles' mistress seducing Pablo Picasso) to watch the interactions of these well matched charlatans, Welles included. The Hoax mostly tells Irving's wild story well, but the picture lacks air and though Gere is enjoyable to watch and suited to playing a wily character always thinking on his toes, supporting players Alfred Molina and Marcia Gay Hardin hardly add anything to the production.

Clifford Irving in F for Fake

Breaking and Entering

While personally investigating a string of break-ins at his new office building in Kings Cross, a site chosen in hopes of stirring urban renewal, an architect (Jude Law) embarks on a plutonic relationship with a sagacious and unorthodox hooker (Vera Farmiga) and a physical one with a beautiful immigrant (Juliette Binoche), who is also mother to the teenager responsible for the burglaries. Breaking and Entering is a pretentious,  dialed down drama in what would be the last film from Anthony Minghella, the usually vital director who crafted such sweeping epics as The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Cold Mountain. Here he again teams with Law, who is solid as usual and manages to carry the picture while receiving fine support from Binoche and Martin Freeman, who plays his business partner.

The Departed

Two members of the same graduating class of the Massachusetts State Police are thrown into a dog-eat-dog cat and mouse game, one (Leonardo DiCaprio) sent deep undercover to take down a Boston crime lord (Jack Nicholson), the other (Matt Damon) a mole in the department for the ruthless gangster. Based  on Infernal Affairs, a 2002 picture out of Hong Kong, and also on the exploits of organized crime boss Whitey Bulger (whose trial just played out in spectacular fashion), Martin Scorsese's The Departed is one of the great cinematic juggling acts with William Monahan's screenplay right on up there with Casablanca, The Third Man, and Chinatown. There are purists who defend Wai-keung Lau's picture, and while it's never fair to knock an original, especially one that's very good in its own right, when comparing it to the remake it is like checkers to chess. As for the acting, I think this is Leo's best work (his scenes with Vera Farmiga are incredibly powerful), Damon is stalwart and carries much of the picture, and the supporting cast, which also includes Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Alec Baldwin, and Mark Wahlberg (aside from his over-the-top introductory scene), is phenomenal. The one exception, sad to say, is Nicholson who is at his creepiest, screen gnashing worst and barely successful in the fearsome way the film intends.

The U.S. vs. John Lennon

As the war in Vietnam continued with no discernible end in sight, John Lennon, residing in the States at the time, became the poster child of the anti-war movement and a proverbial thorn in the side of the Nixon Administration who sought to take legal action to deport the peace loving icon. The U.S. vs. John Lennon is a muddled documentary that rehashes well known historical points with uninteresting less known ones, concludes with harebrained conspiracy theories, and features an insufferable Yoko Ono commenting throughout.

Woody Guthrie: Ain't Got No Home

Born into poverty in Oklahoma, where things would turn even more dire in the latter years of the Dust Bowl, and named after the President, Woody Guthrie would go on to become an American in the truest sense. By championing the poor and forgotten and writing scores of inimitable ballads, including the iconic anthem "This Land Is Your Land", the often irascible rabble rouse would go on to become one of the country's greatest folk heroes. "Woody Guthrie: Ain't Got No Home" is a fair biography, featuring interviews from friends, family, contemporaries, and musicians he inspired. However it is made in such a lurid way, similar to that of an A&E biography, that is frankly not up to the standards of the other entries in the American Masters series.

Deja Vu

On the first Mardi Gras following Hurricane Katrina, as the city of New Orleans struggles to rebuild, a terrorist detonates a massive car bomb on a ferry, killing hundreds of reveling passengers. An ATF agent (Denzel Washington) participating in the investigation identifies a connection between the bombing and a beautiful woman (Paula Patton) found murdered the same day.  Soon he is working with a federal agent (Val Kilmer) and his team who have at their disposal a high tech satellite system which allows them to reconstruct, at any singular point, the events four and a half days in the past. It becomes clear though, that this is a much more powerful tool and that it may just be possible to alter the past, save the girl, and prevent the massacre on the ferry. Tony Scott's "Deja Vu" doesn't bear close scrutiny. In fact, it actually bears no scrutiny, and is frankly downright preposterous. However, it is a fun movie, and when disbelief is allowed to be suspended, it even has a few clever tricks up its sleeve. For longtime Scott collaborator, Washington delivers one of his finest performances and it is to both his credit, as well as Patton's, that they are able to invest such weight in their charcters' tenuous and surprisingly heartfelt relationship. When Tony Scott sadly and shockingly took his own life last month, I felt a lot of the obituaries were over the top in their praising of his work. Watching "Deja Vu", and thinking of some of his other films I've liked ("Unstoppable", "Crimson Tide", "Man on Fire"), I realized how much he excelled at his craft, and considering who remains in the arena, how deeply his loss will be felt.

Prime Suspect

Prime Suspect 7: The Last Act (2006)
On the cusp of retirement, Jane draws the case of a missing teenager which she refuses to let go until the killer is brought justice. Simultaneously fraught with personal strife, including her father's illness and her own alcoholism, Jane becomes drawn to a young girl central to the case, a smart and fiercely independent sort that reminds her of herself. With "The Last Act", Prime Suspect and star Helen Mirren go out on a high note, one that could have been a masterful one had it not been for some tacky plot choices, the kind of which have marred other episodes in this series. It goes without saying that Dame Mirren is excellent once more here, and its superfluous that I'm even stating so.  Director Philip Martin does an excellent job directing, which sort of continues the new style employed by Tom Hooper in the previous outing. There is also a really nice touch in the return of series veteran Tom Bell (who died before release and to whom this installment is dedicated) and his prickly, chauvinistic chief inspector. In closing, Prime Suspect was a series that both revolutionized the modern crime series while also inspiring the cliched, unworthy elements that plague it today. In also never featured anything less than perfection from its inimitable star.
*** 1/2

Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness (2003)
Jane once again finds herself bucking her superiors, who now try to force her into retirement, as she investigates the murder of Bosnian refugee, leading her on a journey to the Balkans and a ruthless war criminal. The sixth entry is the Prime Suspect series doesn't break any new ground as far as material is concerned, and follows the same blueprints as its predecessors, but is notable for the exceptional direction of Tom Hooper, who brings his distinct visual style to the series. Of course, Helen Mirren is excellent once again, following a long gap since the previous installment.
***

Prime Suspect 5: Errors of Judgement (1996)
Jane has been reassigned to a high crime district, but is being underused in her commission as a community liaison officer. When an aboveboard drug execution presents itself, she sees it as an opportunity to impress her commander. Things, of course, are not as straightforward as they seem, and the lead suspect proves extra wily and it soon becomes apparent there is a mole in the police department. "Prime Suspect 5" is more of the same with Helen Mirren carrying the rest of the overwrought and routine affair. An engaging supporting performance from Steven Mackintosh as the mad dog suspect help keep things in order as well.
** 1/2


Prime Suspect 4 (1995)
Part I - The Lost Child
Part II - Inner Circles
Part III - Scent of Darkness
The fourth series of "Prime Suspect" is divided into three sub-parts, with Jane working three independent cases. The first part is entitled "The Lost Child" and deals with the search for a missing child and a rush to judgement based on a prior sexual history. "Inner Circles" details the investigation into the murder of a bereft country club manager which leads to a scandal involving a housing complex. The final segment, "Scent of Darkness" follows Jane as a copycat murderer causes her to reopen the file for the case depicted on "Prime Suspect 1". Although Helen Mirren is quite good once again here, the redundant formulas have become glaring where a suspect is identified while Jane is harrassed who goes on to identify the correct perpetrator, usually the most ludicrous person imaginable. And still, "PS4" is nonetheless entertaining with Mirren standing triumphant at the center.
***


Prime Suspect 3 (1993)

Jane has transferred to head a vice squadron where the murder of a young male prostitute leads to a child sex ring implicating a devious sex solicitor, a transvestite, a seemingly noble head of a youth center, and possibly a disgraced recently retired police captain. The third installment in the "Prime Suspect" series is steeped in histrionics and replete with irritating gay stereotypes as well as outdated gay themes, yet it still remains an intricate and powerful series, with Helen Mirren continuing to lead the way with her dazzling knockout performance. I also appreciated the plotting here, and how you can't exactly pin down the plot or foresee where its going. Additions to the cast are strong as well which include David Thewlis, Ciaran Hinds, and Mark Strong, as well as the return of Tom Bell who appeared in the first installment and deftly again plays that oily character. Though maybe not quite on par on the first two entries, "Prime Suspect 3" continues to set the bar for quality television criminal procedurals.

*** 1/2

Prime Suspect 2 (1992)

As racial tensions gather over accusations of police brutality, Chief Inspector Tennison has earned the respect of her peers when a decomposed corpse is found in the backyard of a black neighborhood. To make matters more complicated, a black detective whom Tennison has had a fling with is brought over to work the case for PC reasons. "Prime Suspect 2" is a fine followup to the groundbreaking British series. Helen Mirren is as towering, excellent, and believable as ever and the incendiary plot plays out extremely well (although I though they didn't play fair with the identity of the perpetrator). "Prime Suspect 2" is a gritty and engaging film continuing the trend from its predecessor.

*** 1/2

Prime Suspect (1991)

Police procedurals have always been a standard on television, but especially today crime shows, particularly grisly forensic oriented crime programs, are dominating the airwaves. With the Prime Suspect, an excellent British series revolving around a criminal investigation, we see the bar being set for modern shows of the same nature, few of which succeed in meeting it. In a dynamic performance from Helen Mirren, we follow her character Jane Tennyson, a London investigator who has been passed over for promotion two many times due to her sex. When the beloved lead detective on a brutal homicide has a heart attack and dies, it is finally her chance to head an investigation. As things begin to point in a different direction than the original detective was heading, and the case begins to widen, she faces hostility from her colleagues both out of loyalty to the deceased and shear sexism. "Prime Suspect" functions excellently on several levels: as an investigatory program, as a character study, as an examination of sexism in the workplace, and finally as study of how bureaucracy places barricades in the way of a successful police investigation. Mirren here demonstrates her unmatched abilities as an actress and again the fact that they don't make women like her anymore as she demonstrates grit, determination, and elegance. Also making early acting appearances in the movie are Tom Wilkinson as her husband and Ralph Fiennes in a small part. "Prime Suspect" is a fine example of an intelligent cop movie that many modern ones could learn from.

*** 1/2

Toots

Toots Shor was a hulking, rough looking Jewish kid who came up as speakeasy bouncer in 1930s New York. However, due to his straightforward and congenial nature, he soon was operating the most swingin' saloon in the country, where common folk came to mingle with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Jackie Gleason, Joe Dimaggio, Frank Gifford, Walter Cronkite, and even Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren. Although the kind of establishment is unheard of today, Toots Shor's flourished for until the changing times (along with his bullheadedness)  left Toots bankrupt and broken. "Toots" is an affectionate tribute to the great and largely forgotten proprietor by his granddaughter Kristi Jacobsen, who tells his story with a bevy of stock footage and interviews with friends and family, all of whom remember him with fondness.