Monsieur Hire

While being accused of the murder of a young woman outside of his apartment complex, a well-mannered, immaculately composed peeping Tom (Michel Blanc) observes the daily rituals of his neighbor (Sandrine Bonnaire) who discovers his voyeuristic behavior and seems to return his affections. Patrice Leconte's Monsieur Hire, from a novel by Georges Simenon, is elegantly made and exactingly directed, with a wonderful score from Michael Nyman, and a plot that takes a surprising trajectory for such a simple premise.

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

License to Kill

James (Timothy Dalton) and Felix (David Hedison) decide to nab a drug lord (Robert Davi) right from out of the sky before parachuting into the CIA operatives wedding. Soon, the ruthless kingpin bribes an American officer, escapes, and badly maims 007's pal leading him on a hellbent quest for vengeance. Dalton returns for his second and final Bond outing with another against the grain picture this one a harsh, violent revenge flick. The movie gets bogged down by a sloggish midsection, overlength, but the stuntwork is spectacular (including the phenomenal diesel truck finale), and the special agent meets his match in charismatic Carey Lowell and sexy Talisa Soto. Davi makes a nasty villain.

*** out of ****

Mystery Train

Three stories involving foreigners, their stay on the same night at a rundown, fleabag Memphis hotel, and the presence of Elvis Presley who seems to hover over the proceedings. Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train is a little to sparse in its storytelling but is passively engaging with are strange and amiable characters.

*** out of ****

Enemies: A Love Story

At the close of the 1940s, an unnerved Jewish immigrant (Ron Silver) lives in Brooklyn with the simple-minded Polish girl (Margaret Sophie Stein) who hid him from the Germans during the war and carries on with a sensual fellow survivor (Lena Olin) across town when, out of the blue his thought dead wife (Anjelica Huston) resurfaces in his life. From a novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Paul Mazursky's Enemies: A Love Story is a cruel spirited and even unimaginative film with an inadequate Silver in the lead, although the women are exceptional.

** 1/2 out of ****

A Dry White Season

When his gardener's son is beaten by police and imprisoned, followed by the gardener himself mysteriously disappearing, a school teacher (Donald Sutherland) can no longer turn a blind eye to the prejudicial legal system in Apartheid governed South Africa. Topical in its time, message movie drawn from Andre Brink's novel really lays it on thick while indelicately drives home its point. Sutherland is unconvincing as an incensed South African and Susan Sarandon is underused playing his wife. Worth watching for Marlon Brando's minor role as an irascible but impassioned attorney.

Santa Sangre

A seriously disturbed young man takes refuge in a tree on the grounds of mental institution and refuses to descend. Flashbacks depicting how he ended up in his current state, including how his philandering knife throwing father relieved his acrobat mother of her arms following their circus act, prove not to be nearly as strange, nor tragic, as events to come. Alejandro Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre is an audacious, colorful, complete and consistent original psychadelic-horror vision, although this doesn't always necessarily translate to compelling viewing. Replete in production values, the finale is a knockout.

*** out of ****

Say Anything...

A directionless senior (John Cusack) wants nothing more out of life than to practice karate and woo the gorgeous, good natured, and seemingly unattainable valedictorian (Ione Skye). Cameron Crowe's Say Anything... is funny, innocent, intelligent and on an entirely different plane than most similar fare. Having never been much of a Cusack fan I have to admit that he boasts definite appeal here. Skye is absolutely adorable and John Mahoney is strong in a supporting role as her doting father.

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

Henry V

After bearing insult from King Charles of France, King Henry V galvanizes his outnumbered troops and leads them into glorious victory in the Battle of Agincourt. For his directorial debut and only 29 years old at the time, Kenneth Branagh also wrote and starred in this gritty and captivating Shakespearean adaptation and does stellar work both in front of and behind the camera, with all culminating is the moving and absolutely riveting St. Crispin’s Day Speech. The film is somewhat marred by Derek Jacobi’s anachronistic narration, which plays like a Monty Python sketch, and as for the climactic battle, it serves more as a digression, leaving us longing for the resplendent, powerfully conveyed dialogue.

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

Do the Right Thing

On the hottest day of the year, racial tensions boil over in the predominantly black Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood with Sal's, the Italian owned pizzeria, serving as the epicenter of the conflagration. Spike Lee's heralded and controversial film is thought provoking, generally well made, self-indulgent, and with its exaggerated performances and hyper-stylized treatment, had probably dated the day after its release. It features Ernest Dickerson's excellent photography and fine performances from Danny Aiello and Ossie Davis. With Do the Right Thing, there are so many conflicting ideologies on hand and Lee and many of his supporters would have you believe he paints a completely fair and honest picture, but I can't see how its deliberately inflammatory finale, which has divided audiences to this day, can be seen as anything besides a call to violence, and senseless violence at that.

*** out of ****

The Decalogue

A woman learns that the man who raised her is not her birth father. A violent psychopath is put to death. A father bestows in his son to hold science over all else and pays the ultimate price. The Decalogue is a television mini-series, ten episodes, each loosely based on one of the Commandments and revolving around residents of a Warsaw Public Housing Complex. Krzysztof Kieslowski's ambitious, genuine passion project is epic in scope, often engrossing, and features poetic imagery but is frequently impeded by obvious moralizing.
*** 1/2 out of ****

Crimes and Misdemeanors

An esteemed ophthalmologist (Martin Landau) is thrust into a crisis when his needy mistress (Anjelica Huston) threatens to expose their affair to his loving wife, an act of desperation that pushes him to his moral brink. In separate developments, a struggling documentarian (Woody Allen) takes on much needed work from his insufferable, far more successful brother-in-law (Alan Alda) who gradually steals away his editor and girl of his dreams (Mia Farrow). With Crimes and Misdemeanors, Woody Allen offers not one but two great movies, one tragic and thought provoking, the other highly comedic, which despite a partially intersecting finale, do not exist solely and stupidly for the sake of one another as in many similarly plotted modern movies. Landau has the role of a lifetime and Allen and Alda are absolutely hysterical as bitter rivals.

Lonesome Dove

Two retired Texas Rangers and lifelong rivals (Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones) currently running a livery in the sleepy title town decide to go on one last tremendous journey, a cattle run to Montana country and through the dangerous, dying West. From Larry McMurtry's acclaimed novel, Lonesome Dove is beautifully sentimental and a masterful demonstration in long form storytelling. In addition to the rascally Duvall and cantankerous Jones, there are also standout performances from Robert Urich as another ex-Ranger with a dark cloud around his head, Chris Cooper as a small town sheriff seeking his capture, Ricky Schroder as Jones' likely progeny, and Anjelica Huston playing Duvall's ex-flame.

Dead Calm

A naval officer (Sam Neill) and his wife (Nicole Kidman) in mourning over the loss of their infant son take an extended sabbatical on their yacht as they sail around the Pacific in an attempt to salvage their marriage. One day a half crazed sailor (Billy Zane) emerges out of the clear blue horizon on a lifeboat and, upon gaining entry to their vessel, tells a story of how his ship's crew has been ravaged by a case of botulism. When the officer departs to assist the survivors, he soon realizes it all has been an elaborate ruse, with himself trapped on a sink rigged to sink and his fragile wife left all alone to the whims of a madman. Dead Calm is an exceptionally well done thriller and would be a masterpiece if not for the presence of Zane whose laughably manic performance unintentionally turns his scenes farcical and also for a ludicrous ending that would feel more at home in a Halloween sequel. Still, hats off to director Phillip Noyce for his stylish visuals and intense presentation, and Kidman and Neill for their effective and believable turns.

New York Stories

New York Stories is a compendium of three short films from directors whose oeuvre has been largely defined by the megalopolis. Leading off is Martin Scorsese with Life Lessons which details an artist's attempts to lure his ex-girlfriend/muse to stay with him in his studio apartment, allotting him both the opportunity to finish his gallery painting and torment her psychologically. It is a well realized film, written by Richard Price and based on a Dostoevsky short story, and features two nice performances from Nick Nolte and Rosanna Arquette. Up next is Francis Ford Coppola serving up pointless tripe with Life without Zoe which he concocted with his daughter Sofia. It tells a cloying Eloise like story about a young girl living on her own in a ritzy Manhattan hotel. Woody Allen wraps things up with Oedipus Wrecks, a hilarious tale (and my personal favorite of the lot) of an attorney being literally haunted by his overbearing mother following a mishap at a magic show.

Gary Cooper: American Life, American Legend

For a tough guy, maybe the foremost tough guy in the movies alongside John Wayne, Gary Cooper was an extremely sensitive actor. Born to British parents and a comfortable existence in Helena, Montana, he struggled for several years making his name in acting, taking on bit roles before breaking through in the World War I fighter pilot movie "Wings." From there on he used his cool, downplayed image in such classics as "High Noon", "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town", and "Sergeant York", winning two Oscars along the way and cementing his image as one of the greatest and most respected Hollywood actors. "American Life, American" is a film from film critic Richard Schickel has a niche for these clip show style documentaries. That being said, I would have preferred to hear more on Cooper's life and even the comment on his films is minimal (for "The Pride of the Yankees" all that is said is he had to learn how to play ball lefthanded!). The film is also hosted by Clint Eastwood who contributes ultra hokey narration for the man who must have been his hero.

Glory

For most of the Civil War, one which was fought largely to eliminate the institution of slavery,  African-Americans were often restricted from service and given abject tasks instead to aid the war effort. "Glory" tells the story of an all black regiment, highly doubted, underfunded, and still given mostly menial and demeaning tasks who, under the command of young, liberal found exaltation the deadly charge of a Confederate fort. Edward Zwick's "Glory" is an impeccable recreation of a little known historical happening adapted from the letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and featuring some of the most rousing battle sequences ever committed to film. It is also an overly preachy movie rife with histrionics and featuring a miscast Matthew Broderick in the lead role. Denzel Washington is powerful in his Oscar winning role, but it is also a performance which has become his standard one, and is hard to take at face value. I found Morgan Freeman and Cary Elwes to be the real standouts here. "Glory" is a painstaking film of great detail and heart, that feels the need to continually overplay its hand, but still winds up being a stirring historical epic.

sex, lies, and videotape

A repressed housewife's sleazy husband is carrying on an affair with her much more liberated sister. One day they are paid a visit by the husband's college chum, whom he hasn't seen in nine years, and whose odd fetishistic penchant throws a wrench into the whole backwards arrangement. Steven Soderbergh's directorial debut helped jumpstart the independent film movement and despite of its scintillating title and set-up is an intelligent and extraordinarily well made piece of adult oriented entertainment. The cast is excellent, with Andie MacDowell and Laura San Giacomo playing sisters of opposite polarity and to great effect while Peter Gallagher portrays that kind of yuppie scumbag he does so well. Then there is James Spader, who is absolutely dynamic as Gallagher's visiting college mate. While watching this, I was thinking to myself, would these films ever even exist without his involvement? "sex, lies, and videotape" is smart and involving, and even more so when the heart of the film is revealed. Soderbergh has gone on to become one of our most versatile directors, but his talent was evident from the outset with this brilliant and well constructed film.

Histoire(s) du cinéma

"Histoire(s) du cinéma" is an ambitious art house project by legendary French director Jean-Luc Godard, made over a period of over ten years, and generally considered to be his greatest work outside of his New Wave period. In a series of eight, 25-50 minute long episodes, Godard offers essentially what the title says, except not only just history of the cinema, but an attempt to explain the 20th century through the history and with images from the cinema...I think. The movie is deliberately vague and extremely obtuse, with Godard meshing images from films as diverse as "Rear Window", "Notorious", "Scarface", "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", with pornography and other bizarre imagery while spouting outlandish and sometimes mad declarations, to what end I'm not sure even its esteemed director could explain. The work is intriguing and even hypnotic, to a point but I would only recommend this to the most adventurous viewer of loyal Godard devotee.

My Left Foot

My Left Foot tells the story of Christy Brown who was born into a large Irish family in the slums of Dublin with debilitating cerebral palsy, leaving him with control only over his left foot. Written off as retarded and helpless, Christy was able to overcome his affliction and personal doubt with the help of an indomitable mother, a supportive family, and a doctor who believed in him. Eventually, he would become a renowned painter and writer, creating his greatest works with only his left foot. Irish director Jim Sheridan brings Christy's tale to the screen with no sentimentality, presenting an honest view of the disease and a not always flattering view of Brown. In a performance that won him an Oscar and brought him into the foreground for most moviegoers, Daniel Day-Lewis gives a remarkable performance, leaving no trace of himself as Brown. It seems almost painful the way he throws himself into the role. Also great is the young Hugh O'Conor who plays Christy as a child. Brenda Fricker is wonderful as well in an Oscar winning role as Brown's mother. My Left Foot is both an example of tremendous acting and how to craft a film about a handicapped person that transcends above the disease of the week stock and becomes something truly wonderful and inspiring.

The Killer

Of the films John Woo made before leaving for Hollywood, people usually mention Hard Boiled and The Killer. After recently viewing Hard Boiled and being disappointed, I approached The Killer with skepticism. However, it turned out to be superior to the other Hong Kong based cop/criminal film and actually a worthwhile movie experience. The Killer also stars Chow Yun-Fat as a contract killer, living by a code and trying to get out of the profession, who has just blinded a singer he admires during his latest hit. In order to pay for her corrective surgery, he takes out one last hit but circumstances lead to him being chased by The Triads, a dangerous Chinese gang, and a persistent, young cop who has recently lost his partner in the line of duty. The Killer is over-the-top as all of Woo’s films are but the action scenes are handled with great style here. The cinematography is also fine, containing some fine scenic shots and not just resorting to the sleazy metropolitan shots that Hard Boiled employed. The character development was handled nicely, and although the final shootout goes on longer than it should, The Killer proves to be a worthy cinematic experience.

***