The Big Lebowski

A case of mistaken identity hurls an unemployed burnout (Jeff Bridges) along with his blowhard, hair-triggered bowling partner (John Goodman) into a serpentine kidnapping plot and a series of vignettes featuring a crippled millionaire (David Huddleston), his haughty artistic daughter (Julianne Moore), a Hollywood porn producer (Ben Gazzara), and many other Hollywood weirdo types. Episodic and championed cult Coen brothers film features a great Raymond Chandler inspired screenplay with dialogue that just keeps turning back onto itself, a starring role for Bridges he was born to play, and Goodman stealing the show in virtually all of his scenes. This isn't a criticism of the movie, but some of the humor has worn off after so many viewings.

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

Celebrity

A bored travel journalist (Kenneth Branagh) leaves his wife (Judy Davis) and his line of work to pursue celebrity interviews and a life of hedonism while stepping all over the beautiful new women in his life. Meanwhile, she meets a too good to be ture TV executive (Joe Mantegna), producer of daytime schlock, and finds herself reborn, also as an assessor of the rich and famous. With sleek black and white cinematography by Sven Nykvist and a pretentious story on the vapidness of stardom, Woody Allen again enters Fellini territory which doesn't really mesh with his standard fare, though there are many fine moments and the movie is perfectly watchable. Branagh does his best Woody impersonation and Davis, an Allen regular, finds her best role in one of his pictures. Many stars appear with Leonardo DiCaprio, Charlize Theron, and Donald Trump being the most memorable.

** 1/2 out of ****

Primary Colors

A idealistic, small-time staffer (Adrian Lester) is recruited to join the Presidential campaign of a magnetic Democratic Southern governor (John Travolta) and, after quickly believing he may be the real deal, signs on as campaign manager and even more rapidly finds himself covering up his new boss' sexual escapades. When their opponent unexpectedly (and fortuitously) exits the race, an old hand politico (Larry Hagman) steps in, galvanizes his position, and leads the campaign on a muck finding mission led by a deranged but brilliant former ally (Kathy Bates) which leads to dark, compromising places of the American political abyss. Based on a novel by Joe Klein (originally published under Anonymous) detailing Bill Clinton's 1992 run, Primary Colors is an exemplary political satire. With a funny, adept, and ultimately sorrowful script by Elaine May and sharp direction from Mike Nichols, the film knows its territory and contains deeply invested, humanized characters. Travolta's performance is one of his best, Emma Thompson is excellent as the Hillary cipher, Billy Bob Thronton hilarious in the James Carville role, and Bates and Hagman both heartrending in standout performances.
*** 1/2 out of ****

The Prince of Egypt

All but forgotten recent Disney retelling of the Exodus story and the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt is a straightforward presentation with surprisingly strong animation and a fine cast of voice actors led by Val Kilmer as Moses and Ralph Fiennes as Rameses, though the picture is dogged by a lacking Stephen Schwartz soundtrack that heavily and humorously knocks off Les Mis.

*** out of ****

Dark City

In a futuristic world resembling the past where foreign beings of a higher intelligence control human thought, a man (Rufus Sewell) wakes up in a dingy hotel bathtub with no memory of his previous life with a dead body alongside him on the bathroom floor. A fugitive from justice, he begins to piece together the fragments of his memory while coming to the realization that he now possesses powers rivaling that of his controller. Alex Proyas' Dark City is a visionary work both inspired by the great science-fictions (and also noirs) of the past and carving out its own place as a great genre entry with mind bending sets, a serpentine, well-plotted narrative, and fine performances from Sewell and William Hurt as a dogged veteran detective.

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

The Terrorist

A teen-aged girl, the top member of her guerrilla combat squad, is selected to be a suicide bomber and target a top ranking government official. Santosh Sivan's modestly budgeted Indian export is incredibly well directed, making great use of closeups, symbols, derived from an insightful, poetic screenplay, and thankfully employs a restrained use of violence.

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

He Got Game

A prisoner (Denzel Washington) currently serving out a manslaughter rap for the accidental death of his wife is given a proposal from the warden: during a week's furlough, convince his estranged son (Ray Allen), the nation's top recruiting hoops prospect, to sign with the governor's favorite college and earn himself an early parole. He Got Game is overlong, obvious, and made with the same explicit racism that mars many of Spike Lee's films. The movie tries to cover too much thematically without conveying much of anything, Allen, at the time a sensation with the Milwaukee Bucks, is an impossibly bad actor, and the ending is anticlimactic. In its defense, the picture is well filmed with several powerful scenes and the Aaron Copland soundtrack is a really nice touch.  Also, it contains what I personally found to be one of the truly fine and nuanced performances from Washington's career.

** 1/2 out of ****

The Last Days of Disco

In the early 1980s, two roommates (Chloe Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale) working as junior editors for a publishing firm nightly populate the swinging and decadent clubs during disco's final days. Like other films by White Stillman, even though his characters are upper class snobs with whom most viewers share little in common and are often off putting to boot, I regardlessly loved listening to the intelligent and unusual way they spoke and ultimately identified with certain aspects of their personalities. Sevigny and Stillman regular Chris Eigeman turn in fine performances, and the film's conclusion is memorable.

*** out of ****

Frank Lloyd Wright

Ken Burns profiles the celebrated and world renowned architect who revolutionized the form with designs ranging from Fallingwater, his home studio Taliesin, and the Guggenheim Museum and left in his wake no shortness of controversy, tragedy, eccentricity, and unmatched genius. Frank Lloyd Wright stands amongst Burns' best work, featuring great footage, commentary, and narrative in his presentation of a brilliant, irascible, and contentious personage.

**** out of ****

Happiness

"Happiness" follows the despondent lives of trio of sisters in working class New Jersey: Joy (Jane Adams) works as a telemarketer and, feeling her life lacks meaning, decides to tech English to foreigners in the city, becoming involved with a brutish Russian cab driver (Jared Harris). Her beautiful sister Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle) is a best-selling author and toast of the family, but finds herself strangely drawn to the weirdo (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who continually directs harassing phone calls towards. Lastly, Trish (Cynthia Stevenson) seems to have an ideal middle class life, yet is utterly clueless as to what kind of a monster (Dylan Baker) she is married to.  Todd Solondz's film is an unrelenting exercise in misery and morbidity which, instead of other bleak, downtrodden movies which you feeling cold in empty, causes you to think and has a strange, cathartic effect.

Elizabeth

Following attempts by her heirless sister Mary to thwart her succession, Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett) takes the throne to command a troubled empire, one on the verge of bankruptcy and with a lacking army incapable of warding off imminent French and Spanish plots. Adding to this betrayal in her own court and the return of a banished lover (Joseph Fiennes), the young Queen learns the ropes of her reign and quickly demonstrates the tenacity which would predominate the following Golden Age of her rule. "Elizabeth" is most notable for Blanchett's whirlwind performance, and Geoffrey Rush is also good in a supporting role as a dubious member of her court. The love story with Fiennes is haphazard, much of the material is dull, and this story really calls for a more adept writer and director.

Shakespeare in Love

Will Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) is at a personal and professional impasse: his theater owner (Geoffrey Rush) is heavily indebted, his girlfriend is having an affair with his benefactor, audiences much prefer the work of his adversary Christopher Marlowe (Rupert Everett), and he is having the damnedest time completing his latest play, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter. After casting the lead actor and discovering he is actually a beautiful and restless society girl (Gwyneth Paltrow) in disguise, he finds his true love and the inspiration for his best known work. John Madden's "Shakespeare in Love", written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard, is a delightful concoction, purported to be more fancy than fact, that nonetheless tells a sunny, intriguing, and exceedingly well made story. Fiennes delivers a finely tuned comic performance and Paltrow is enchanting in the role that garnered her an Oscar. Supporters aid the proceedings greatly, and the standouts are the obvious ones, namely Rush, Tom Wilkinson as his creditor with a secret desire to be on the stage, and Judi Dench who, though only appearing briefly as Queen Elizabeth I, also garnered an Academy Award for her performance.

Rushmore

"The secret, I don't know... I guess you've just gotta find something you love to do and then... do it for the rest of your life. For me, it's going to Rushmore."

So says Max (Jason Schwartzman), our hero at the outset of the film, and so he does, taking of the mantle as editor of the yearbook, editor in chief of the Yankee Review, President of the French club, stamp and coin club, calligraphy club, astronomy club,  beekeepers club, in addition to a member of the debate team, lacrosse team, fencing squad, track and field team, and the model U.N. as well as founder of the bombardment club, to name a few. Despite his unprecedented extracurricular participation, Max finds himself both unable and unwilling to pass his classes, and faces expulsion from the school, and matters grow even complicated when he befriends a wealthy benefactor (Bill Murray) and a beautiful kindergarten teacher (Olivia Williams) at his beloved academy. Wes Andseron's sophomore outing is a sublimely constructed and directed concoction that can at times, as his films often do, get carried away and run off the rails by their own sense of whimsy. Inconsistent is also how I would describe the performance of young Jason Schwartzman, who can be so funny and endearing in some scenes, and so off-putting and crass in others, which may have been the director's intention, but nonetheless leaves a bitter taste. Even Bill Murray's character, though often hilarious, is too dead at times. I did think Olivia Williams was lovely and brought weight to the film, as did Brian Cox as the school's headmaster. "Rushmore"  is enjoyable on so many levels (The scenes involving the Max Fleischer's players are a real treat) but it still bears the stamp of a filmmaker trying to gain his bearings and summon his incredibly talented abilities.

Babe: Pig in the City

Following his glorious victory at the sheep herding competition, Babe returns home to the family farm where he is the pride of farmer Hoggett and his wife. Soon though, his master is injured in an unfortunate well accident and with Mrs. Hoggett unable to maintain the property, the farm soon faces foreclosure. Now their only hope lies in an offer for the marvelous young pig to display his considerable talents over seas, but once they reach the big city, Babe becomes separated from his owner and once again finds himself in a leadership position, this time of stray dogs and abandoned circus animals. "Babe: Pig in the City" is a dark and exceedingly strange follow-up to the delightful 1995 Oscar winning original that eliminates, largely, the two best elements of that tremendous success: James Cromwell and the voice of Christine Cavanaugh. Director George Miller, who produced the first film, opts to fashion a more surreal, dystopian tone and the results are particularly jarring, especially for anyone endeared by the magic of the original.

The Up Series

Tony, a participant in "The Up Series", at various stages of his life

In 1964, a British documentary crew interviewed a group of seven year olds from various economic backgrounds and asked them about their hopes, fears, and lives in general. Every seven years since then, Michael Apted, a member of the original crew, has revisited each of these participants to catch up with them and discuss their lives. "The Up Series", as these programs have come to be collectively known, are an endlessly fascinating form of time lapse filmmaking, as we see each of the film's subjects age before our eyes, as Apted interweaves prior footage into each new film. Keeping things simple, each film is simply a sit down with each person and a catch up on their lives, as they discuss with candid honesty the turns their lives have taken. Apted resists the urge to jazz things up and is straightforward presentation only adds, rather then detracts, to overall impact of these powerful films. The stories that I enjoyed the most include Tony, a young boy who dreams of being a jockey and grows up to be a cab driver, still full of zeal; Suzy, an unhappy young woman who finds solace and happiness with her husband and children; Bruce, a boy with missionary aspiration who winds up teaching in the inner city; John, a boorish snob who remains a boorish snob but becomes involves in relief work in Eastern Europe; and then their is Neil, discontented young man who drops out of school and becomes a vagrant who well, I don't want to spoil that one. "The Up Series" is about as real and engaging a film can get and I eagerly await the next installment, due out soon, as these subjects approach the twilight of their lives.

Here is a very brief description of each installment:

Seven Up! (1964)

A collection of British seven year olds, both female and male, from different socioeconomic backgrounds are introduced and interviewed as they talk about subjects such as school, money, race, and their futures. After meeting them all individually, the children all attend a party and we see how they interact.

7 Plus Seven (1970)

We revisit the subjects at age 14, midway between childhood and adulthood.

21 (1977)

Now 21 years old, the group of people we met at 7 and 14 now have clearer ideas on life and what they want their lives to be.

28 Up (1985)

Maybe its because I am now of the same age as the subjects here, but it is this installment that the series begins to take on resonance, as its subjects have largely settled down with family and careers.

35 Up (1991)

As the subjects move closer towards middle age most are firmly rooted in their lives with a few exceptions as they begin to deal with divorce and death of their parents, and other issues while the most fascinating member of the group continues to fascinate us.

42 Up (1998)

As the subjects have now reached the midpoint of their lives, most are firmly rooted with the exception of a few extraordinary examples, one involving an incredible intersection of two of the subject's lives.

49 Up (2005)

As the hairs have grayed, the hairlines receded, and the waistlines expanded, the subjects approach 50 mostly with contentment as they embrace grandchildren, their partners, careers, and life turns.

56 Up (2012)

The participants return, mostly contented with their lots as they face retirement and brace themselves for old age.

Saving Private Ryan

Following the tide turning yet devastating invasion of Normandy, among the slaughtered masses on Omaha Beach lies a private Ryan, the third member of his family to perish that week. Back in Washington, no less than General George Marshall deems it necessary to pull the last remaining Ryan brother out of combat, despite the fact that he lies deep behind enemy lines in an unknown locale. Leading the mission, along with a band of seven other combat worn soldiers, is Captain John Miller, and after one of their own is taken by enemy fire, the group begins to question the logic of their task. "Saving Private Ryan" is a wondrous technical achievement from Steven Spielberg and a resounding indebtedness to the men who served and died for our country in WWII. Beginning with the astounding opening 20+ minute battle sequence, Spielberg uses all his acumen and resources (which includes collaboration with historian Stephen E. Ambrose) to stage an exacting recreation, a marvel he is able to perpetuate for the film's duration. Although the cast is assembled along the lines of war movie stereotypes, the players are excellent nonetheless with standouts including Giovanni Ribisi as the unit's medic, Barry Pepper as a devout sniper, Matt Damon as the titular officer, and of course Tom Hanks as the group's stoic leader. The film's moralizing grows a bit wearisome after a point, but "Saving Private Ryan" remains a methodical and harrowing ode to our country's servicemen and on of the finest achievement's in Spielberg's predominant career.

The Celebration

Members of a prominent Danish family gather at their gorgeous manor home for their patriarchs 60th birthday celebration, shortly after the suicide of one of his daughters. When the deceased's twin brother rises to toast his father, instead of warm anecdotes and glowing praises, bestows tales of gross sexual abuse which has haunted plagued his own life and led his sister to take her own. Now chaos ensues, where members of the family seek to restore order and censor their loose-lipped brother, all of which leads to a troubling and ultimately cathartic experience. "The Celebration" is a dark family drama from Thomas Vinterberg (who refused a directing credit) that was made under the "pure cinema" rules of the Dogma 95 Movement started by fellow Danish filmmakers. The film laughs in the face of generic American family films and creates something deeper and haunting. Its cast is uniformly excellent and I found Ulrich Thomsen's to be among the best, in the difficult role of the depressed and confrontational son. (spoiler) Most movies involving family reunions offer us cookie cutter characters and easy resolutions. By the time we've endured the stark trials of the unique and dysfunctional family here, we can't help but enjoy their deserved final happy sequence.

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.

Great Expectations

In an update and modernization of the often filmed Dickens classic, we follow Finn (Pip) as he aids an escaped convict on the Florida marshes, becomes the playmate of cold Estella at the behest of of the jilted Ms. Dinsmoor (Havisham), and travels to New York City where he puts on an art show courtesy of a mysterious benefactor and foolishly pursues his childhood sweetheart. "Great Expectations" is well directed by the fine auteur Alfonso Cuarón. Ethan Hawke who I have always found to be an erratic actor does nothing here to change my mind, sometimes hitting the right notes as the naive and innocent Finn and other times hitting notes that are so out of left field you wonder just how he came up with them. His character's narration of the film is unnecessary and does not add to the story. Gwyneth Paltrow does a nice job as Estella and is extraordinarily sexy and the great Anne Bancroft does a good job as Ms. Dinsmoor in a role that is written in all the wrong ways. Robert De Niro and Chris Cooper offer fine supporting roles as well. I wanted to emphasize Cuarón's excellent and beautiful direction, but when you adapt a familiar and beloved work such as this and mesh it with modern music, language, and locations, the result is jarring. Besides all that, there just seems like there is something missing from the picture and in the context in which it is presented, Dicken's timeless story simply does not work here.

A Bug's Life

An ant colony spends its days gathering food for the grasshoppers who provide protection. When an accident prone ant named Flik accidentally sabotages the offering and the evil grasshopper leader threatens to kill the colony if they do not have double the food by the end of summer, Flik sets out on a mission to find heroic ants to protect his kind from the grasshoppers. Instead of heroes he comes back with a band of misfit circus performers who endear themselves to the ants and come up with a crazy plan to rid the colony of the grasshoppers. When I decided to revisit the Pixar films and looked over the digital movies they made, I was surprised that A Bug's Life was an output of that studio. Now having rewatched the movie its no shock that I had disassociated it. A Bug's Life is kind of a lame movie, the type of animated film that blends in with the rest of the crop and doesn't meet the standards that Pixar has set, those standards being endearing characters, intelligent plotting, and material that appeals to adults as well as children. On top of not meeting these criterion, I didn't even find the animation to be very inspired. Also insects are simply off putting and this movie just can't make them likable. I did like some of the sequences in the film, particularly some of the circus scenes and the segment with the manufactured bird. I also enjoyed some of the voicework as well, particularly by Kevin Spacey and Richard Kind as two of the grasshoppers. Still this is not the kind of work indicative of its makers, and considering that it was written and directed by Pixar titans John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton, this one really is a disappointment.

Geri's Game
This was the short that played before A Bug's Life during its theatrical run and is also available on the DVD. I've posted it below as well. It is a nice little Academy Award winning short about an old man in the park contesting himself in a chess game.