Movies starting with
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If the questions were What The Bleep or Waking Life, then one of the answers surely must be Naked***, which is full of intelligent talk (though not wall-to-wall like those linked above), mean-spirited life and sex, and — a certain sense of serious quirk. At first I hated the repetitive music, later it seemed to fit nicely. I didn't like the characters at the begining, either. Didn't until the end. Then I just wasn't sure.

Narc**** is on the dark, far side of Noir, colorful, fast-paced from the get-go, stylish (although I'm getting tired of blue scenes in movies and question their appropriateness — in another decade or so this technique is going to be embarrassing — "Oh, yeah, that looks like an Ought Two flick."), intelligent, excellently acted, directed and edited. Vicious, fast and strong. Gritty.

Negotiator*** is a great playoff between dual stars Samuel Jackson and Kevin Spacey. Both are police negotiators, and the movie was a good cop getting set up vs. bad cops stealing money detective story. Psycho-drama, lotta violence, lotta beautiful cinematography, lotta tense close-ups of faces and lotta great B-movie actors plus the two stars. Smart, tense, action thriller. NS 1998

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind**** is lovely, touching, adventurous, ecologically astute, smart without getting intellectual, even spiritual. I'm new to good anime but I just stacked a bunch more into my queue. Nice.

Nelly & Monsieur Arnoult **** A gentle but intelligent comedy / tragedy about two people who love each other but just can't quite connect. Very smart. Gently funny.

The Net ***/ is a loose drama about being caught up in computers and the Internet almost entirely lacking a human network of friends and family, plus a big bad enemy. 1996 

Bill Maher's New Rules*** are impressive and were probably a lot funnier the week what they're mocking happened (I still don't have cable, and won't get it, because I have a couple other things I need to do in life), but in retrospective, they're still funny.

Happily, I did not recognize the historical importance of The New World***/ until near the end, when I finally recognized his name. I must never have heard hers, or surely I would have snapped to that. It's an unfamiliar take on very familiar history, I suppose. But more than that, it's mystical, an achievement few works achieve. And many try. Beautiful, spiritual, realistic, fascinating. A long, slow romance with few met expectations.

Next Stop Wonderland***/ is full of near misses and if-only's in the dating games. Cute, smart, pretty. Vaguely like Sliding Doors. Great date movie, if the guys can laugh at themselves. And we might as well. We're either pretty funny or kinda pathetic. Sweet flick. NS 1998

A lot of movies from 1975 are seriously dated and getting into them takes time and the ability to forget time. Gene Hackman in Night Moves***/ sucks us into the detective adventure rife with personal agendas almost immediately, and except for the cars, there's nothing to hold us into thirty years ago time. The acting is superb, nuanced and subtle, with remarkable performances by very young James Woods and Melanie Griffith (who shows a lot of breast). Intelligent, involving and, as they say, action packed.
  

Thanks to the idiot hype of NetFlix I rented Night of the Hunter*/, which it described as one of the most frightening movies of all time. Ha! Full of cardboard characters, lame acting and a simpering story brimming with Bible quotes, this mid Fifties flick makes me wonder about all that decade's movies, which is a sub-theme I'll be investigating this year.

I grew up in the Fifties, and I saw a lot of movies then, a rare few of which still simmer in my mind. So it will be fascinating -- to me, at least — how those treasured movie moments rewind this year. Hunter features less-than-sterling performances by both long-time fave badguy Robert Mitchum and the semi-comatose acting of a young, slim Shelly Winters. Neither help this miserable flick much. It feels like a movie made of a popular novel that a lot of people already cared for and about.
  

The Ninth Gate** has Johnny Depp but doesn't use him for much. It has special effects, too, but fails to put them to any use, either. There's lots of murder and mayhem. And the story could have been compelling, but it doesn't go anywhere, either. Too bad. 2000

Though in almost every respect controversial, Noam Chomsky: Distorted Morality***/ densely layered conclusions are in no way complex or unreasonable. Using the U.S.Governments own definitions and policy statements, and hewing a consistently conservative (though perhaps not Conservative) line, Chomsky carefully posits that the U.S. government (we the people) is The major terrorist organization in the the world today.

A kick in the pants to America's wars on terrorism and drugs. This very intelligent speaker, logician, writer and philosopher stands at a podium on some college campus in front of an audience of college students — and a least one baby ocassionally squalling and a couple of cell phones (in the background) and speaks the truth about recent and critically unreported United States history.

An aging hippie radical, I'm blown away by the power of his logic and the force of his observations. Startling revelations and understandings of governments and who is really responsible. Of course — We have met the enemy, and it is us. Ooof!

 

Noam Chomsky - Rebel Without A Pause*** is perhaps too much about Chomsky and not enough about his ideas, which continue to thrill for their quiet, intellectual understanding of the basics supporting the American Way of Life — politically and socially. Really smart guy. I wanted to hear him just go on and on. His earlier DVD was one, hour-plus lecture on politics. This covers more territory in less detail, including answers to unheard questions in different places, so he begins to repeat himself. Still, I listened to every second, including the extensive additional material. He understands what everyone else seems intent upon ignoring. And makes it make sense.

I saw Nobody Knows**** as an unreleased preview flick at Talk Films in Dallas. At two-and-a-half hours, it was way too long, especially on a Sunday morning. Maybe an hour's worth of chopping would get this bleak film about a the family of children abandoned by their too-young, alcoholic mother in Japan viewable, but all those excruciating details were wonderful storytelling. Marvelous character development, luscious Cinne, superb acting.

I thought, as the movie started, that I'd seen every Paul Newman movie out there. Only about three-quarters into it did I recognize a beat-up old house that reminded me I probably have. Already, I'd settled into Nobody's Fool***/, like a well broke in pair of old boots. It's a gentle little movie with lots of soft quirk. Interesting but not entirely fascinating characters that do their bit without getting in the way. No action, hardly any passion. Humor's dry but human. Slow, easy, almost european pacing. Only a very little violence, and the pig deserved it. A nice movie like they usually don't make anymore. Sweet without the bitters. Nonconformist without unkindness. So glad I saw it again.

Normal**** is about being normal, then not being normal, until the end, and then it's still not really normal, but it's good enough. Transexualism finally movied right and good. A little tear-jerky, marvelous acting, eminently believable with a little bit of redemption.

Not sure how I missed Northfork**** when it came out, but it's one strange movie. Surreally mixing three distinct story lines with quirky characters and characterizations in a setting that as weird as it is is real as it is on the edge of this edgy film. It's about transitions, change and forced change, love and resurrection; set in the 1950s more or less; in Montana.

I'd read and loved the book, The Notebook** and was eager to show off the movie DVD, but what a disappointment. The wrong actors — except James Garner and Gena Rowland, the wrong characterizations, the wrong story in the wrong order — all the magic of the original gone, gone, gone. In place is this dreadful, drippy dud, filled with bad acting, bad directing and gorgeous cinnematography.

Perhaps the ultimate 50s romantic comedy adventure spy thriller, North By Northwest***/ is certainly a classic, but so dated, in absurd high contrast color, nothing ever out of focus, studio lighting everywhere, even in exterior night scenes, and broadly comedic drunk driving, cop and courtroom scenes. Still, it's entertaining, well put together, though never really credible. And the actors are fun to watch.  

No Such Thing*** is the quirkiest Beauty and the Beast yet. The acting is not perfect, but neither is the execution in this bleak little jewel that's alternatively broodingly serious and broadly comic. The story, however, is quirkly as a millenia old Icelandic monster. 2002

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There's nothing overtly funny about No Man's Land***/ except the absurdieties of war that pile up through the movie. After a long while the obvious realities come through as hilarious, though there's no comedy. The stupidities of command pile on the stupidities of enemies who have way more in common than two men bent on killing each other, which pile on the stupidities of the "Peacekeepers" who d. I kept hoping against hope that the guy stuck on the bouncing betty mine would roll over and let that mine kill everybody in sight. Later, while thinking how wonderful this movie was, I realized that I'd hardly noticed it was entirely subtitled. 2002

Not One Less** is about a 13-year-old substitute teacher who leaves the rest of her class in turmoil while she tracks down one who's gone to the big city to work. Primarily a Chinese propaganda flick, this lilting loser is fascinating for its insight into life in China but almost entirely lacking in plot. It just went on and on and on, carefully sidestepping Hollywood clichés. 2000

Somehow in the five decades of my active movie watching, I managed to miss Alfred Hitchcock's spectacular Notorious****, but now I've finally caught up. Great, now hackneyed spy plot, amazingly carried out in a gothic post-war mindset. Scrumptious, sumptious black and white sets, gripping plot, spectacular acting and everything else. Wow.

Notting Hill*** was pleasant, much better than I thought it would be, although I don't remember much else about it less than a month later. I have returned to NetFlix — I just couldn't stay away.

Nurse Betty**** is quirkier than Pulp Fiction, funnier than anything this year or last, and utterly unpredictable. It combines a zany selection of film genres — the road, the relentless bad guys chase, the mistaken identity, the amnesiac, the striving young actress, etc. Laugh out loud funny, ironic as hell, dark and light and heavy, often simultaneously. 2000

I was all excited about Nurse Betty*** when I saw it on the big screen, but it sorta falls apart on second showing. I like that her flipped out unreality turns into reality, and the father-son, killer team are a riot. Dad the philosopher, and junior mean and kinda stupid. Nice fantasy romp.

Nutty Professor ***. Okay, Eddie Murphy's back. He's finally funny in this one. And fat is funny 1996
  

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I saw the soundtrack for O Brother Where Art Thou***/, read the ingredients, and bought it without listening. The music is old timey original, bluegrass and spiritual, cornball country of the highest order, real sing-along serene — and fabulous! After that, the movie — quirky, goofy and oddly surreal, with characters to match — seems more of an excuse to string all that fine music together than anything else. But what a fun romp. Based on the Coen Brothers' strange sense of humor and Homer's Oddessey, this flick is uniquely original. 2001

Ocean's Eleven**/ was another disappointment. Lots of razzmatazz, more intricate plot than I could follow or believe. Most of the actors looked like they were having fun, although Julia Roberts looked more like she was in pain. Made me want to see the original again. The Rat Pack, at least, was fun, inter-involved and thick with plot. Except for Brad Pitt and George Clooney, who had actual chemistry, most of this eleven were two-dimensional and pasted together by studio hacks. 2001

October Skies*** is pleasant, based on a true story, attention-holding, an over-dramatic father/son struggle, heart-warming and tear-jerking, 1999

Cindy Sherman's Office Killer**/ is goofy, black, dark (noir). The titles are great. The acting is steps below what we've come to expect, probably because Cindy is directing and hasn't ever before. The story is wildly improbable and full of holes. The movie truly is "outrageously gruesome," but it's sorta fun as well as funny. 1998

I wouldn't recommend Oldboy**** to anyone. Twistiest plot I've ever encountered. Strange, beyond quirk, well into crazy. Violent. Vicious. Mean-spirited. Evil. That's the bad guy. Our hero sporadically engages in much of the same, is confused, controlled, loses his edge near the end, goes bonkers himself. Then lives happily ever after. From Sixth Sense we learned that movies need obey their own rules. This movie makes up the truth as it goes along, so we never have any basis of reality. It comprises an experience, not any sort of reality.

Somehow I missed Once Upon A Time in America***/ the second time it came out. Big movie with a plot so big it doesn't quite all fit even in this behemoth. Gangsters with a lot of violence, even a vicious rape. Plenty not to like, but a strong story till near the end of friends and lovers and the business of crime.

Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior* is just the sort of stupid little dumb-ass movie about violence and kung-fu fighting that got Chan and Lee before him into the market where they could eventually make real movies. Don't know if this guy's style is all that unique, but I wouldn't mind seeing him in a semi-intelligent movie some time. He must have some sense of humor, he made this bomb.

Operation Condor* — I was prepared to like this. Jackie Chan's a great stuntguy, but he's a tasteless director. 1997

The Operator**/ never quite breaks the bonds of reality or credibility, but soon as I recognized the city as my own Dallas, I was hooked. A morality tale of a driven lawyer at odds with humanity, tamed by a Zen telephone operator. Or something like that. Fun, not exactly funny, not always intelligent, but engaging — a little like a distant cousin to Sneakers by way of Jumping Jack Flash (the one with Whoopie). 2003

Essentially, The Opposite of Sex***/ is about and narrated by a young woman who is mean-spirited, self-absorbed, manipulative, vicious and a bitch. But the movie is superb, hilarious and scary. It has to do with sex, of course, even has some in it, which is a break from a recent trend. Gay sex, bi sex and hetro sex, it hardly matters. The narrator offers asides, so the flick is self-reflexive as well as abusive. It's also very smart and out to teach us all several fine, less than subtle lessons. The guy sitting a couple rows behind us who laughed big, nervous guffaws at all the gay stuff got (verbally) nailed by the narrator near the end of the movie. A movie that can do that is special, indeed. 1998

Ordinary Decent Criminal** has Kevin Spacey and some other now famous actors (including the lady DA from The Practice), but it's a goofy, unrealistic, sometimes downright stupid, caper flick that's not nearly as smart as it thinks it is. 2003

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I'd hoped to get Ordinary People**** to watch with my parents, too. But it arrived too late. Robert Redford directs this fascinating yet ordinary story pitting Donald Sutherland against Mary Tyler Moore in the only serious role I ever her saw her do. Moore was scintilating as the stone cold bitch, incapable of loving after her favorite son died. Gradually, her other son and husband dealt with the untimely death and came together on the other side, but she never did. Wonderful psychodrama that made it okay for a lot of us to seek professional help, it also put Pachebel's Canon on the popular hit parade.

The Original Kings of Comedy*** is a bizarre, cross-cultural experience that is hilariously human through the first half, then gradually gets less funny and more viciously violent — often toward children — toward the end. Mostly it's a documentary of a concert by four Black comedians, although there's a few slice of life snippets thrown in for transitions. I went, because it's by Spke Lee. As such, it's a rude awakening and remarkably strong statement that refuses to bridge the gaps between the races with wicked humor. And it's often a hard movie for whites to understand. Subtitles would have helped for about half the dialog. Harsh language and rude behavior often make this strongly musical film play a raucous comedic tune. But experiencing this film in a mixed race audience marks the differences between the races in a noisily telling way. 2000

The Others*** is a pleasant little horror flick with fine characters and characterizations, a real, intelligent plot, and intriguing twists and turns all the way to the end.

Out of Sight**/ is about stupidity in criminals and cops and about intelligence any way, and what it'll get you. But it never sinks to actually being stupid (until the end). Meanwhile, it's glossy and big and put together carefully, if not exactly chronologically. (Not chron, lots o' logic). This flick has glitz and glam and buckets of that elusive stuff called Style. It's an almost-good movie that's mostly smart, beautiful, has enough action, barely enough steam and is fun to watch unfold. 1998

Owning Mahoney**/ was hard to watch, because gambling scares me. Phillip Seymore Hoffman is good, of course, but I could hardly wait for this sucker to be over, and now, a week later, I don't even remember how it did, but I was so glad it was, it hardly matters.

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I haven't figured out Todd Solondz' Palindromes***/, either. A set piece on the topic of bearing and aborting children, love and excuses for it, in a surreally unreal connected disconnect of, and related to. without ever quite making it all the way to reality. Disconcerting that the actresses for the main character kept changing significantly — we especially liked the little Black girl with the lazy tongue. But that was hardly the only disconnect. Strange. Thoughtful. Weird.

Pandaemonium*** is lurid, florid and psyche-relic — a period trip movie. The drug of choice is laudanum, a tincture of opium, choice of poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This is the story (or at least a story) of the creation of the great Romanticist poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan mixed with a nasty complication of characters with William Wordsworth. Oddly engaging, unsettling, downright goofy a time or two. 2003

I'm in the middle of watching a DVD of Paper Wedding****, a lilting story that, when Hollywood redid it some years ago as Green Card, turned from poingnancy to light comedy. I remember liking it then, but compared to the original, it's fluff. I rented it, because I fell for Genevieve Bujold in Dead Ringers. She was less wonderful in Coma, rented for the same reason. But here, she's superb as the woman who does a favor by faking a marriage, so he can be a legal immigrant. They've just passed the exam, and they're separating, we hope not forever, but that's the plan. I'm doling this movie out, like holding myself back from reading a great novel too fast, so it lingers. Every time I start it up again, I find a smile lighting my face. It's a sweet, gentle, slow movie. We get to know the people. They're each a little sad, a lot intelligent and, so far, a least, afraid and holding back, staying alone.

The Parrots of Telegraph Hill**** was a big surprise. Not sure what I was expecting, but it was more than that. A, kind, affecting, intelligent, gentle and interactive story about the wild parrots who live in and around San Francisco's Telegraph Hill neighborhoods — you know, the ones with rickety wood stairways all the way up through a lush paradise of colorful flora — the man who befriends them, studies them, names individual members of the flock and learns more about them than anyone else ever has, got to know them as person- — well, bird-analities. Full of sweet stories about individual birds and their relationships with others in the flock. Beautiful, poignant and utterly amazing. The guy's journal is online.

Anonioni Michelangelo's The Passenger*** fiddles with identity and other errant meanings in a long, dull globe-trotting extravaganza that made so little sense I was joyed to see parts of it set in and on the Catalonian master architect Anonio Gaudi's buildings in Barcelona and Lourdes in soutwestern France, where the BVM appeared to Bernadette — even if it was all in black & white. (Will somebody please explain the extravagently expositional end scene. By then I was too bored to care, and it obviously tied everything together...)

Passion in the Desert**** is elegant, strongly visual inter-species communication without a lot of talk. The best big cat movie ever. A soldier, a magnificent leopard and the dessert. Fabulous story, incredibly fine, big cat action, brave acting. Almost sex (AS). 1998

[In this same category I'd also nominate Paulie***, a lark in eagle's feathers. It's not high art, just good fun and feel-good, and by far the second best inter species communications flick this year.] V

Well, I saw The Patriot*** much sooner than I expected or wanted to. It's long and often beautiful and just as often excessively vengeful and violent — we get to watch a head blown off by a cannonball, lots of people get shot at point blank range and way too many nasty, blood-splattering hackings with swords and hatchets. Historically inaccurate, of course, smarmy in many of the wrongest places, eminently predictable in others. And if you look at all carefully in the backgrounds of sweeping panoramas, you see remarkably bad digital fakery. 2000

Another view of Paulie is just above.

I love interspecies communications, whether it's Flipper, Mr. Ed, Francis, Dr. Doolittle's pals or Paulie***/ — an endearing, sometimes smarmy, usually smart, kidflick about an intelligent parrot with an attitude, some very nice friends and hilarious cameos by Cheech Marin and Buddy Hackett. Saw it again, recently, on video. It's still charming. 1998

I knew Pay It Forward*** was gonna be sappy and was rewarded with nasal congestion and tears. A touching love story with Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt ( who looked more unpleasant in some scenes than Spacey, whose whole face had been torched ). Much fun and funny in the betweens. A strong push against alcoholism, a kid with a great idea, and the love challenge team to become a good but not great movie, seriously marred by killing off the kid in the sappiest of endings. Excellent acting, interesting setting, nice intersticing of time ( Kurt Vonnegut called it chronosynclastic infidelium long before Pulp Fiction repopularized the technique, which was very effective here). Nice mix of lousy and great filming. 2000

Pearl Harbor*** is a belabored romantic triangle set on the historically significant time at the beginning of WWII. Lots of excitement then, though the rest of it just goes on and on. My father flew into the melee that morning, and my neice gave him the DVD. I wonder how he liked it. 2001

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Pecker** is John Waters' very accessible, but lame film about the rise and fall of a young photographer's talent for documenting his odd life and quirky family and environment — and the people who sell him out and swallow him whole. Slightly denser than It's In The Water — and better acting, but thin and predictable. NS 1998

The only major flaw we caught in The Perfect Murder**, which we didn't realize till the credits was a remake of Dial M for Murder, was that these incredibly rich folks' house only has one telephone, and it's nowhere near the waterfall-fed 2-acre bathtub, so naturally she's gotta drip out of the bath (not literally, of course, movie people don't drip, and she doesn't even look wet) to answer the kitchen phone and get attacked. Otherwise, intense, exciting, interesting, mostly smart, with some brief bits of mayhem. Piddly-little sex. 1998

The Perfect Storm***/ isn't perfect. Many of the giant, seething waves in the hurricane scenes are fakey looking. But the characterizations ( except maybe the lead character ), the acting, almost all the other special effects, the story, the continuity, the dialog, the cinnematography, the pure adrenaline, high-energy adventure of it and the everything else is so good, the ocean graphics and Clooney's sometimes distracted acting hardly matter. I was so blessedly relieved to leave that theater and get out into the 106-degree Texas heat, because then I could finally relax. 2000

Humphry Bogart's big chance to act in the movies plays out in The Petrified Forest**/, which must have seemed intense when it was made in 1940, but in retrospect looks goofy, often laughable, although the radio drama story plugs away. It looks like they invested in one tumbleweed and had it blow through four times. This film has not aged well. Bogie seems a caricature of his future self, incredibly and absurdly short, but Leslie Howard keeps the mix intelligent and interesting.

Personal Velocity**** is superb. Three stories combo that starts out looking like another one of those serrendipity collision courses plots, but except for one line on the radio shared in all three stories and played out in the last, there's no Hollywood drear here. The plot is empowerment and escape, and the emotional content and intellect is palpable, credible and deep. The cinnematography is lyrically leading edgy with lots of stylish yet appropriate movement, and the stories are realistic and human. 2003

Phenomenon ***/ — Nice flick. Gentle, sweet, a little silly. But a crowd-pleaser. Feel good flick of the summer. About a man who gets zapped by the universe into become way too smart for his own good. 1996

Pi**** is Good Will Hunting on acid. In garrish black and white, 1998

Pi**** is Good Will Hunting on acid. In glorious, high-contrast black & glaring white. Color would have been too ordinary. Soft tonalities would have rendered it sweet. Instead, it's jarringly obsessive/compulsive/paranoiac, full of quirky, POV camera work, ultra intellectual plot lines, and superb, symbological "meaning." Pi is a superb, if difficult and sometimes violent movie, startlingly visual, with few Hollywood film making conceits. And it's a gang of Hassidic Jews who are the really mean bad guys here — the best new concept for villains since Twister's Evil Storm Chasers! This flick presents an abstracted reality that engages its audience in intellectual facts and fantasies. About a unified field theory of math and probability, it's a paranoid romp through the mind of obsession, and it's one of the best movies of its year. NS 1998

 

Pillow Book***** is beautiful, smart and surreal with human clarity. A genunine plot — full of passion, obsession, revenge and a bunch of naked male bodies. Visual subplots of proscenia — how we see, with formalist movie presentations, plus lots of apertures, doors, windows and mirrors. A beautiful movie that works on many levels. Almost accessible Greenway, at last. 1997

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl*** with Johnny Depp just goes on and on and on. Swashbuckling, live and dead pirates, a love interest of sorts, all kinds of shenanigans in the playing out, the writing, the special effects. Fun, often amusing, but just as often stupid.

Pitch Black** was a tired rerunning of an ancient sci-fi theme. The good guys crash land their rocket ship on a strange new planet that just happens to provide all the human ammenities, like air and water. Then they're beset by lurid, dreadful beasts when the planet loses its multi suns every once in a while. Exciting, amusing, scary, but plodding characterizations and plot.

Plan B***/ is a poignent story, with quirky characters, intelligent dialogue. it's funny, sardonic and sure. About Being True to Yourself. 1997

Comprising a seeming unrelated series of intimate conversations between and among characters we come to care for, Playing By Heart***/ focuses on love as well as romance without the irrelevancy of a plotted story. Scenes step by step in a progression without linear logic, but in the end we discover their relation. Poignant, wise, humanely funny and beautiful. S 1999
  

Pleasantville****, like many of the best movies on this list, gives us a new way of seeing. It's about a lot of things, very entertaining, thought-provoking, remarkably intelligent for a big Hollywood movie. 1998

Pleasantville**** was an utter delight. I'd seen it before, and liked it then, and I loved it all over again. I thought my monthly movie art group should see it. I took from it the theme for my recent minimalist trip to the Rockie Mountains. Early in my trip journal, I quoted, "There are some places," Bud says in Pleasantville, the visually subversive movie,"where the roads keep going." And that was exactly where I wanted to — and did — go.

Truly subversive a movie.

Some movies are just so close. Then they turn around and fail. Some obvious, others subtle. The Pledge*** is a little of both. Incredible cast; lotta big names. But a little movie, at its best brimming with human warmth. About a retiring detective who sets out to get a child raper. Stoops to gross manipulation. Then still almost pulls it off. The mixed messages and motives does the movie in. Close, though.

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Point Blank***** is a remarkably contemporary movie for 1967. Taut, psychological thriller about a man (Lee Marvin) with revenge on his mind and beautiful women in his life. Smart, subtle acting, sensual cinematography and enigmatic editing. It's vicious, stylish and memorable, mixing the timeless flow of surrealism, gritty realism, lots of violence and a twisting, chronosynclastic timeline. Vivid noir.

Pollock**** was great, not nearly as sad as I'd read, although it is not a feel-good flick. Strong cinematography, excellent acting, I still remember many scenes and just loved watching Ed Harris be Jackson Pollock, especially his painting scenes. Usually pseudo-biographical films about artists don't show the act of creation at all, very rarely this fluidly. 2001

Porco Rosso**** is classic, utterly amazing anime. A way fat swashbuckling World War II pilot against the fascists, his merry band of cutthroat competitors and conspiratorial crew, almost a romance and always romantic in that more worldly meaning. Exciting and beautiful and intelligent.

Portrait of a Lady***/ is beautiful, harsh intrigue. Great story, well presented. 1997

Possession***/ is wildly romantic. It twists and parallels through two time lines two sets of lovers growing their love. Not unlike time travel fiction, we go back and forth, but the separate plot lines proceed. There is no infidelity to time. It's a bit of detective, a bit of evil storm chasers (a la Twister). Only this time, the men in black are competing historians digging up the past. I liked being caught up in the stories. It seemed intelligent as I watched. Since then, its IQ unraveled, and the logic failed. 2002

I thought I wanted to see The Postman*/ despite what I'd heard. But I was wrong. Another Kevin Whoozit washout.

Practical Magic*/ ought to be called Predictable Magic. It's truly stupid in so many ways it'd take a long paragraph just to list. Amusing, entertaining but in no way different from Hollywood's usual insipid take on magic and romance. 1998

I love and have loved the two-hour-long nearly every Saturday Prairie Home Companion***/ public radio show for decades, but the movie version is sad, slow and kinda ill, executed in a minor key. It's not funny even when it's supposed to be and almost never wry, and having all those stars replacing real singers and musicians seems just stupid. I was glad to see — and hear — Robin and Linda Williams, but I still cherish the time many years ago, when I saw a live show, even if it wasn't broadcast. 2006

The Preacher's Wife***/ is warm and fuzzy. Good gospel and jazz. 1996

The Prestige**/ was confusing. About magicians and their tricks, stealing from each other, and hating and murdering each other, and it goes on and on and never really gets anywhere.

A Price Above Rubies**** is anything but typical, nor Hollywoodian. Renee Zelweiger charms as a married Jewish lady who finds her own way and the little miracles she meets and makes along the way. Wonderful, joyous, complex, involving, difficult, innovative plot, beautifully filmed, very well acted. A gem. 2003

Prick Up Your Ears**/ could have been about writing or plays or being famous or a bunch of other things but it got stuck on being gay, then didn't say anything new about it, very two centuries ago. About friendship and madness and stupidity. Not much emotion. Not much plot. Not much of a movie.

I liked Primary Colors***/ but had had the book read to me (audio book. My eyes blur out when I try to read more than twenty pages of text). Like the book, the movie made great fun and good seriousness of presidential politics. Despite all his idiotic shenanigans, it made me glad I voted for Bill, skillfully making the point that he cares. 1998

Private Parts*** sounds obscene but it's not, tho there's naked female bodies and tits aplenty. It starts off kinda lame, veers off into social-commentary funny, then steers back somewhere in between. Lotta little laughs. Some big ones, too. 1997

Proof***/ is smart, sharp, a little reminiscent of A Beautiful Mind. She needs proof: she's not crazy like her father certainly was; she is mathematically brilliant as her father was; and she can trust the man who says he loves her.

I tried to watch The Producers* (remake) but I couldn't even force myself to watch this stupid stupid stupid movie, but then I'm not a big fan of musicals.

I'd forgot that Emily Watson was in Punch Drunk Love***/ when I rented it, or that would have been reason enough. Plus, I'd long wanted to see a good Adam Sandler movie. This is. The soundtrack is — probably intentionally — annoying and perfectly appropriate. The movie is also visually intereesting, even quirkesque, almost starring the sun glints and backlit glows and light smears most directors hide. It is also a vicious film, but mostly bloodless (although the ill-directed Ms Watson bleeds a little after the most violent scene) but its endearing character development saves the day.

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Q

The Quiet American**** is elegant, superbly acted, perfectly paced, sexy, adventurous, true to life, historically as well as literarily accurate, philosophical, smart as well as intellectual, gentle, violent and beautiful. Micheal Caine is luminous, but so is Vietnam.

Quills**** is a wicked, yet moral tale, based on the writings of the Marquis de Sade, vividly illustrating the causal effects of art on humanity. It probably has an historical accuracy of minus seven, but it is a lot of mad and frenetic fun. It's sexy, intelligent, bawdy, sacrilegious, bizarre, loony, sometimes over the top, regularly predictable, consistently hilarious, glaringly beautiful, and strikingly cinematic. Of course it takes liberties with the truth, it takes liberties with eveything. It makes us think. And it's a great movie. I was in a one-third full theater, and not a single person talked. 2000

Seeing Quils***/ again was a delight. I remembered it as hysterically and sardonically funny, but I only laughed a few times. Mostly it was shocking and amazing. Deeper than that, though, it was outrageously funny. 2000

 

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R

Random Hearts*** is a little teary and romantic, but nicely done. Excellent story about love and loss while being something of a detective story, too. Nice. 1999

Ransom ***/ — Fast-paced, very intelligent, lots of plot turns, wrenching, tense, violent. 1996

Ray*** is a big, brash biopic about Mr. Charles, his ups and downs, highs, lows and ups again, a tad melodramatic, my big fun with it was figuring out which arrangements were classic and which new for the movie. Great music, of course, and an interesting story, but this sucker is long.

Doesn't happen very often but. Unique plot, fascinating characters, solid cine. Never saw any of it comiing, step by step logical down its own inevitability, obeying the rules. Seen a lot of movies lately, but now, once again, I've truly been movied. Un film de Jacques Audiard. Didn't mind reading the subtitles. Amazing. I'm actually shaking. Truly a visceral response. Yeah, it's a love story and a heist flick, and romance with a dowdy deaf girl and a seedy ex-con. Superb. Those guys are still bouncing through my mind. Read My Lips****

I really only started to watch Real Genius*, which had proved itself mistitled within the first seven minutes. I'd thought it might be interesting to see one of Val Kilmer's earliest films, but I was wrong. This is one insipid flick.

It is so refreshing to see real people, especially real women, in a movie about real people. No svelt starlets with impossible dimensions, flawless faces or perfect hair. No absurdly handsome stars. Hardly any White people at all, for a blessed change. Real Women Have Curves**** is genuine, honest — and smart, too. Contemporary young Chicana learns to love, know, and express herself. Then she breaks with family and ethnic traditions. Heart-warming in the best possible way. Obviously, this fine film was created mostly by women, and though it's not perfect, by any means, it is so very different from every other movie anywhere, it has to have four asterisks. 2003

The Rekoning*** is momentarily volving, e- and in-, a set piece in the face of drama, sad Cher, evil nobleman, a priest in need of forgiveness and a merryless band of players...

I watched Rebecca***/ with my mother. She knew and loved Alfred Hitchcock's most successful movie well and would foretell telling moments all through it. I may have seen it on Saturday afternoon TV years ago, but it was mostly new to me. We loved hating the evil maid, still devoted to the eponymous first wife, whose death — and life — was the mystery throughout this second wife tale.

Rebel Without A Cause**** - James Dean in an American original, which I was startled to learn, was not in Black & White, although early reels of it were shot that way. Apparently, the studio caught on quickly that it was not just another teens in trouble — we called them JDs back then ( Juvenile Delinquents ) — flick. Boy Howdy.Here's a film that started its own genre without succumbing to cliches, even now, it flows and follows naturally, doesn't even seem all that dated. Amazing really, for a flick that's nearly fifty years old.

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I chose to see Recruit*** because it has Al Pacino and it's a spy flick. I don't read much about movies anymore, since I don't see them in theaters. So I don't know how well this one did. But I'd bet it didn't do well. Too many forced switchback "twists" and a mangled story make this flick not completely predictable — just mostly.

Red Dragon*** is not nearly as moody or bleak or scary as the original version of this Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal prequel, but it's slicker and much more predictable. 2003

Besides a great, riveting, high adventure story, realistic acting, beautiful sets and scifi special effects, The Red Planet***/ has simple, direct, fictional science, the perhaps too-obligatory artificial intelligence gone mad bad guy, plenty of adventure, tension, human foibles, character quirks, basic humanity and a glued-on romantic interest. Best of all, it's great escapism — and Val Kilmer stays largely on the lighter side of his sometimes gloomy characterizations. 2000

The Red Violin*** has the grand sweep of history, fine acting and an engrossing story following one superb instrument through the ages switchbaking to the present. A little goofy at the end, but beautiful cinematography and fascinating detail. 1999

Reindeer Games** has one of those plots that Hollywood writes to sucker audiences. It sorta makes sense, but more than that it messes with our heads. It's not as smart as it thinks. Worse, it's violent and mean. 2000

I guess Hollywood is just figuring out this country got integrated sometime last century, but they haven't quite got to the understanding that we're still major racists. In Remember the Titans***, we watch a redneck town go from hating to loving Blacks in one, long school year after the new team wins every game. I know the story isn't true. The school was already integrated before the championship year, however. But that's the highly fictionalized — replete with endless postscripts — story in this tear- and knee-jerking liberal flick. Denzel's pretty good, but he's been better, too.

Acting's good, story's a tear-jerker. But the cinematography and direction is seriously lacking. We're always tipped something new is about to happen, becaue the visual set-up is too different from everything gone before. It's a good story with endearing, if never quite credible characters. But I'd sure hoped to find a better flick to break my all-time record with... 2000

I hadn't seen Repo Man*** in a long time. Decades. Expected much more. Maybe it needs an audience. When I watched it again with the commentary, it came alive. Usually those things just bore me. And this commentary was less than spectacular. Just took me back to where I was when I first and second saw this low budget gem. Goofy characters, simple (!) plot, glow in the dark spiritualism, Absent Minded Professor special effects. All pretty laughable. Which is plenty.

In the same Cable TV vein — only this one hasn't yet been cancelled, yet, Dennis Leary's character-driven Rescue Me**/ at first seemed fascinating — following NY firemen after 9/11, then rolled quickly downhill into utter predictability. Perhaps irascible, but after two disks of six episodes and the pilot, I don't care anymore.

The Return***/ was long and deep. Two boychildren, a mother and mother's mother in the background, this is the two boys and their estranged father, gone for ten years, now back without explanation for leaving or coming, dealing badly with his sons. We're pulling for the kids. Dad's on a secret plan of his own involving a buried treasure but that's almost insignificant compared with all the psychology with father and sons. Long, slow paced Russian film by a first-time filmmaker, visual, seering and nuanced. Smart.

  
The only thing I didn't like about Requiem for a Dream**** is the title. There's not much dreamy about this scintilating, innovative, hard-edged movie that tracks addiction like few flicks have. Silly frillies like 28 Days pale in comparison. This is more in the vein of Trainspotting, maybe crossed ungently with The Cell and Sid and Nancy. I'm talking gritty, realistic, yet still overboard enough ( same director as Pi, after all ) to be fantastically real.

The performances here are first-rate. Ellen Burstyn is truly great as the mom drowning in the diet pill and downers rollercoaster. And the kids are fine on their own, sweat-laced, hard focus downer dive to the physical and emotional depths of white powder. The cinematography is kinetic; the story rides the choppy rails of close-up details, all edited together in a unique and viscerally visual, sometimes even surreal, cinemtic flow. Certainly one of the best this year. 2000

Revenge* is a long and tedious film about, guess what, yeah, revenge. At the time, it must have been a  particualry good and important (he says sarcastically) place for the Dances With Wolves actor to put all his money, and then some.

Revenge of the Sith*** had too much of everything. I rarely knew why what was going on was going on, but I didn't really care. It was in focus, digital, crammed to the gills with excitement, except that the politics and the romance (if that was what it was) seemed to go on forever. I'm sure kids love it. I just didn't much care, but it was a pleasant way to while away a big chunk of a Sunday afternoon.

Reversal of Fortune*** was a lot better than I expected, even though I''m a major Jeremy Irons fan. The mixed message legal team that finally got the eccentric character off was worthy of several me-too TV shows. Wonderful Roshomon look at possible scenarios. Marvelous storytelling. 2001

Richard III ***/ makes it difficult to understand Shakespearean language. Stunning visuals. Rather too simple. Intriguing adaptation set in Nazi-invaded England. Way over the top. I loved it. 1996

I didn't believe any of the characters or any of the situations in Riding in Cars with Boys*** until tw-thirds through it. Then I still didn't believe it. Like the Heroin addiction that the filmmakers just slipped in on us without a hint all the way through. Uncredible. Still, I liked the story, the characters — especially at the altogether too happily ever after ending — and the results. Go figure. 2002

The Ring***/really is scary. And stays scary past the feel-good ending all the way through the horrors of it all. Out of the Blair Witch school of scares. Remarkably good plot that actually goes somewhere. Good enough acting. Solid plot themes, intriguing, chilling central video imagery. Nice and scary. A fine fun flick. 2003

Ringu***/ is, like they say, much scarier than the Hollywood remake. Grisly, gutsy, original. Scary but not fascinating.

Rivers and Tides**** is an amazing little film about sculptor Andy Goldsworthy who makes intuitive art — he says so in probably the only bit of gratuitous exposition in this gently beautiful film. He's talking to his wife, who probably already knows, and we figure it out as he goes about creating his art — in Scotland and in America. This is a deeply intelligent, even moving first-person singular film about an artist. It's about process. We watch the idea spark, his actual step by step work. We even get to see him fail as well as succeed. Some of the more beautiful scenes are of his work in situ, in rivers and tides and the wind. Stunning in its simplicity. Luscious three-dimensionality and his understandings of what he is doing and why — almost never what I might have expected. Exquisite film about making art.

The Road to Perdition***/ is smart, sharp, beautiful, exquisitely gentle and humane for a bunch of paid killers, but violent, too. Great actors acting well. Solid story, cinematography, plot, etc. 2003

The Rock ***/ — High adventure on Alcatraz with Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. Goofy plot with lotsa holes. Fun, tho. 1996

Robots*** was goofy fun. A lot of visual information very fast. In slow mo I could probably count dozens, if not dozens of dozens of film homages/rips, which means it would be rewarding on reviewing. Important for kids — and me. I stopped and backed it up often to catch those fleeting glimpses. Not perhaps a great film, but a real hoot.

Romance*** shows anything but in this dark (as in gloomy) view (as in lots of male and female frontal nudity and overt sex acts, including a supposed rape) in the meandering tale of a woman who is verbally 'loved' but not physically by her verbally abusive boyfriend, and the strange cast of men who love her in other ways.

I am once again utterly and completely fascinated with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead****, and I expect to watch it in snippets and whole gaping chapters again and again whenever I bore of everything else. It'd been about ten years since I last indulged in this magnificent bit of flying existentialism, and it might be half that long again till I do again, but what a lovely perversion.

The Royal Tennenbaums***/ was quirky, and often funny, though a little too goofy around some corners. Great characterizations, amusing ruse of an excuse for a movie. Terrific soundtrack that not only intruded into the visuals but made them more exciting, helped make the movie truly different, advancing the craft in intriguing ways. 2001

Rounders** is Good Will Hunting plays poker. Smarmy and derivative. Ed Norton is his sleazy, low-life friend, "Worm." That's as inspired as it gets. Worm loses Will's money. Will has to earn it back before the bad guy kills him. Will is a compulsive gambler and his movie ends all hunky dory. Ho hum... NS 1998

Rules of Engagement** was utterly predictable, although I liked Ghandi briefly as a sniveling ambassador to a fictional middle eastern county. 2001

Anybody in America who still thinks justice is free hasn't been paying attention. Runaway Jury***/ (shot in old New Orleans) may be an extreme case and a tad on the Hollyweird side of drama building into tension and release. But with Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, John Cusack and a bunch of other actors we'd recognize if not exactly put names to, we're likely to believe it. Wickedly smart with a fiercely twisting plot, superb acting and strong cinematography, this film reminds us of just a few of the ways criminals — here a gun manufacturer, but it's the same for Big Tobacco, Big Oil and other special interests — pay for their own justice.

Run Lola Run**** is a frenetic, Groundhog Day plot in which Lola runs to help her boyfriend out of a jam. Just as she gets where she's running, she's chroned back in time to start over. Along the way she learns from her mistakes, and plot twists reconnect in intriguing ways, providing a visual and intellectual delight. 1999

The local paper called Rush Hour**/ smart. I try not to read newspaper reviews, just concentrate on the headlines and number of stars. However, this may well be Jackie Chan's best movie role yet, but it is truly and incredibly stupid, nonetheless. 1999

The Russian Ark**/ seemed like a great idea — one, whole movie long, camera on, drag it through a large building that holds the cultural heritage of a nation, with lots of costumes and acting and history and dancing and color, etc. all the way through, then turn the camera off at the end. The spectacle of it was pleasant enough. The story — if one can call that a story — baffled me. I liked looking at the building and traveling back and forth in time (sorta), but overall, I'd rather they had edited together a bunch of different takes like most other movies do.

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