Reviews

The concept of MANON ON THE ASPHALT — the effect a woman's life had on those around her in the moment she dies, as seen by the nearly departed — is slightly affected and literary, but the execution as visual and emotional little film. Of the five live action short Academy Award nominees, this is the only one that choked me up. Like AMELIE, Manon (we barely know her, actually) is a spritely Parisienne with a wide range of friends, neighbors and family, all of whom care about her. What's remarkable, of course, is that neither Manon nor those in her circle are "special" — they are just like everyone else, as complex and human and quirky as anyone. The film taps into a universality of life with clarity and heart without becoming cloying. I can't imagine someone not nodding in acknowledgment or familiarity at many of the events and personalities. My vote for the Oscar.

Few films are more annoying than those that are emotionally dishonest, badly paced and redolent of trite characters is predictable situations,and by that score, A GOOD YEAR is clearly one of the worst films of its year.

You might not expect such a misfire with Ridley Scott directing Russell Crowe, but don't let the pedigree lure you in — or the presence of new Oscar winner Marion Cotillard. Plodding, horribly plotted and acted without a trace of passion, this is easily Russell Crowe's dullest performance. As a stiff banker softened by visiting his childhood haunt in Provence, he's predictably priggish. Nothing about it rings remotely true.

Worst of all, as a foodie, I'm always looking for good movies about wine and cuisine. I think I'll just watch RATATOUILLE again.

It's been nearly 20 years since the last SUPERMAN movie, and that one -- SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE -- was such a low-tech, silly muddle that it doesn't even seem fair to count it among the first two. (SUPERMAN III was nearly as bad.) Yet somehow, the Man of Steel has kept his place in our hearts. Who does have at least a curiosity about how the new film, SUPERMAN RETURNS, will fare? Certain the special effects have advanced considerably since the 1978's original tagline promised us "you will believe a man can fly." And here, you do. The FX are great and convincing. But... what else? Does it deliver? The answer is a mix of "yes" and "no." SUPERMAN RETURNS, as much as Clark Kent himself, seems to have a split personality. Is it a sequel (as much of its dialogue and title suggest) or a remake (as its style and plot choices indicate)? Well, it's a little of both, and in that conflict lies both its fatal flaw and its salvation. The storyline and tone so closely mirror the original -- especially in the comic flair exhibited by Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey, predictably delicious) and his relationship with ditzy cohort Kitty (Parker Posey). Superman (Brandon Routh, who often appears to have been extruded from a solid piece of manhunk)has been missing for five years and suddenly returns to earth to continue doing good deeds (why he left and why he returns never really make a lot of sense). Meanwhile, Luthor has a plan for world domination that includes, once again, a giant land-grab (even the 1978 jokes about this are recycled). Back at the Daily Planet, Clark continues to pine for Lois (Kate Bosworth), who still can't spell. Then there's Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, Ma Kent -- all the usual suspects. Lois has a boyfriend and a son, too, which is one of the few changes from where we last saw them.

There's so much the same that to speak ill of the film is somehow to dishonor its predecessors. But there was a lot of room for director Bryan Singer to improve and reinvent the story, not feel beholden to another 30-year-old movie. But his efforts smack of folly. There are a fair number of moments to enjoy in SUPERMAN RETURNS, but they require an unusual amount of pretending not to notice the obvious. Does it bother anyone else that a 23-year-old (Bosworth, who looks all of... 23) was THE famous Lois Lane -- the same one who Margot Kidder portrayed at 30) when she was 18 years old? (The story makes numerous references to the first two films, including the "My Night With Superman" article that we are now meant o believe was written before Lois could vote.) Or that a 26-year-old (Routh) left the earth at an age when he would still be considered SuperBOY? Or that Lois' son -- who, in the time line, has to be no more than four -- looks to be at least six? Doesn't this all strike you as Hollywood at its franchise-minded worst? At more than 2.5 hours, SUPERMAN RETURNS doesn't need to be as long as it is, and would have benefited immeasurably from a tighter script. But as an entertainment, there have been worse. It's just this one could have been much better.

The biggest shame about BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is that it was, and may forever be known as, the "gay cowboy movie." Is STAR WARS "that space opera"? VERTIGO "that dizzy cop picture"? The phrase simply became a shorthand for the controversy -- an easy way for conservatives to dismiss it, but also for liberals to make it clear that the words "gay" and "cowboy" are not mutually exclusive. Certainly they are not. Gays are everywhere, every style and age and profession; they have a variety of characteristics, from flamboyantly flighty to brutally macho. It is no more unlikely that there were gay cowboys in 1960 than in 2005, merely that no one talked about it back then. That said, Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar are not "gay cowboys;" they are cowboys who happen to fall in love. Does it matter that it is with each other? Haven't stories about forbidden love been around since Tristan & Isolde, or Romeo & Juliet? Isn't the real question, How well is the story told? Does it resonate for the audience? On that score, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is a marvel of storytelling. Ang Lee uses silences as well as anyone this side of Jean-Claude Annaud, telling his story visually, and setting it up so no one person is the antagonist: Society is. This is deeply felt movie-making that transcends the label "gay cowboy movie." It's a career performance for Heath Ledger and a brilliant revelation for Michelle Williams. I hope everyone sees it.

Perhaps the degree of my disappointment with DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE has more to do with expectations than execution, but by any standard this is a mediocre effort under the best of circumstances. While marketed as something akin to a sci-fi/horror film about a predacious fish that overtook Lake Victoria over the last quarter century -- I was thinking MARCH OF THE KILLER PENGUINS -- it's little more than a formless, meandering look at poverty in Tanzania (caused, according to the thesis, by the greed of corporations fishing the deadly Nile perch for mass consumption for rich Europeans). The director spends lots of time letting his camera linger on those trappings of "Feed the Children" commercials: Kids with bloated bellies and flies on their faces, villages bathed in squalor, stagnant ponds and gross-looking food. There is no doubt relevance to the story -- exploitation of the locals by companies, the ravages of HIV, etc. But what it doesn't have is an artistic purpose, a controlled narrative structure. Is the subject worthwhile? Of course. But the end product could be far better.

When I got older, I was surprised to find out the TV series Ellery Queen ran for only one season. It must have been the skillfulness of this pilot TV movie, memorable in so many ways, that made me assume it was destined for a longer run. Jim Hutton, a light comedian of little distinction in film, really hit his stride as the lanky, offhanded sleuth with the brilliant mind who solves crimes shepherded by his father, an NYC police inspector (the great David Wayne). The plotting was top-notch, Hutton's characterization masterfully at ease and the stylistic device of having Ellery speak directly to the camera once he had solved the case a nifty little touch. Catch this whenever you can (the pilot is one of the best episodes, but there are many gems).

First off, the less you know about this movie before seeing it, the better. Go in clean. And just let it such you in. Here are a few things you CAN know. (a) The screenwriter/director, Craig Lucas, is gay but wrote his best known play, PRELUDE TO A KISS, about a straight relationship that has overtones of homosexuality. (b) Patricia Clarkson may be the finest actress of her age. She flits around the first 20 minutes of this movie in a bra and panties, toyingly svelt but with a panther-like quality you only realize later. (c) This is a movie without a protagonist or an antagonist -- or more accurate, a movie in which each of the main characters take turns at being the antagonist and protagonist. (d) Despite the gay aspects, this is really a movie about betrayal, and it is fiendishly mean (but in a good way). (e) Peter Sarsgaard has never looked handsomer. (f) That's all you need to know. See it.

When BLUE VELVET opened nearly 20 years ago, I was in college and studying film. The release of the movie sent shockwaves through the department. Although I have probably only seen the movie once or twice since its initial release, I rediscovered it this week and boy, does it hold up well. Lynch's genius begins in the first shot (opening credits) with the oddly organic curtains undulating to the romanticized strains of Angelo Badalamenti's deceptively perfect score. He cuts to an impossibly blue sky then pans down to an impossibly white picket fence and an impossibly red rose -- the American flag in three dimension. How lush, how patriotic, how wholesome. ... And then he undermines seconds later with a disturbing sequence where a man has a seizure, collapses on the ground and the camera dives underground to the voracious sounds of feeding insects. In three minutes, Lynch wordlessly uses visual and sound design viscerally, while trading on an understanding of American iconography which he satirically undercuts. The imagery, sense of dark humor, deadpan style and individuality of voice continue to influence the best of filmmakers today. I cannot imagine a world without it.

A grieving widow (Jodie Foster) is escorting her daughter and the coffin holding her husband's body back from Germany to the U.S. While mid-flight, the child disappears... or did she ever exist in the first place? There are really only two places for the story to go -- Jodie's crazy or she's the victim of a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy -- and it doesn't take a seasoned film critic to figure out which direction this one is headed. But while FLIGHTPLAN offers just a few mild surprises, it does so with a fair degree of tension and passion on Foster's part (she's settled into the role of hysterical mother a little too comfortably). The cast features several fine actors who you could say are slumming or more agreeably characterize as giving their all to a serviceable mainstream thriller. This is neither great nor terrible; rather, it is what Hollywood does best: A solid if unspectacular entertainment, a date movie smart enough to eschew pretenses to anything more.

I have several friends -- educated ones, ones with quantifiably good taste -- who expressed bemusement at THE WEDDING CRASHERS (one went so far as to compare Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson to Hope and Crosby). I suppose I just didn't get it. Was this movie anything but predictable, often offensive (but not edgy) jokes and a banal plot with holes you could drive a Mack truck through? Nothing about the film makes much sense: Wilson and Vaughn's characters work closely together but never seem to communicate once a rift develops between them, for instance, without any kind of explanation; and the cheesy cameo if woefully out of place. It's all just part of the cinema of humiliation (MEET THE FOCKERS, THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY, etc.) that has foisted obnoxious and ridiculous situations on men just to make them writhe in discomfort. The only good thing about this movie is that it proves that the best Ben Stiller movie is one that doesn't have Ben Stiller in it.

There are not too many surprises in BATMAN BEGINS in terms of plot -- after all this time, let's face it: We know how things will turn out for the Caped Crusader. No, the real surprises are in the style of the film, which Christopher Nolan adapts from a whiz-bang comic to a modern era. He takes his time developing the familiar story about how billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne (a ripped Christian Bale; his biceps are the size of cocker spaniels) goes from orphan to avenging angel with the help of a mysterious mentor (Liam Neeson). Batman's skills, we learn, are those of the Ninja, and Gotham City exists in a world of its own, neither present-day New York nor some retro-fitted '30s idealized set. The cast is exceptional, the sound design spectacular (although the editing gets a little frantic and confused). It owes more to Alec Baldwin's THE SHADOW in its mythologizing and mystical treatment of the hero, who here is at the center of the action, not peripheral to the villains. In fact, this is probably the Batman movie Tim Burton wishes he'd made: Brooding, contemplative, paced like a novel. Holy prequels, Batman! (c) AWJ

I'd seen this film as a child, but even though I went to law school where you'd think I'd be required to watch it many times over, I had not gotten around to it until today. In terms of filmic technique, it's simplicity itself, not showy in any way. But it also evokes every deep felt feeling and emotion with a cool beauty that brings tears to my eyes. The portrait of life in Depression-era South is painstakingly wrought, from the subtle generosity of inviting a poor child to dinner to the childhood mythology of the "crazy" neighbor to, finally, the finest trial summation ever presented in a courtroom drama, period. It's suspenseful, heartbreaking and comforting all at once. This is a true treasure of American culture.

There's an error or unlikely/ridiculous plot device in about every 30 seconds of this annoying film -- legal/procedural holes, idiotic dialogue and Grisham's namby-pamby, "all business is evil and all plaintiff's attorneys are doing the Lord's work" social engineering. This is a movie without heroes. We're meant to hate the gun manufacturers (who are, quite literally, fat cats sitting in a smoke-filled room cackling away at their own devilishness) and their chief representative, Gene Hackman's jury consultant. But the "protagonists," presumably John Cusack and Rachel Weisz, are bastards in their own right -- trying to rig a jury and playing both sides against each other for money. Any hint at ultimate altruism is undercut by the cravenness of their contempt for the industry, and their "means to an end" attitude about everything. The one redeeming quality is a scene between Hackman and Dustin Hoffman -- the old friends' first scene together in a film. They are both gifted performers; too bad they play such boring stock characters.

I'm not one to harp on one film for committing the sin of not being another. (Criticism of Gangs of New York seemed to think it unforgivable that Scorsese hadn't done Goodfellas again; the recent praise for The Aviator seems like a false front, making up for being wrong about Gangs, as Aviator is in every way an inferior film, messy and repetitive without any more personality than Highes himself.) But this film seems to invite comparisons to Taxi Driver, from the era (mid 1970s) to the character's name (Sam Bicke vs. Travis Bickel) to the creepy voice over narration to, most obviously, the disturbed loner who operates in his own world with only a foot in reality, and who explodes in an orgy of violence. It isn't that Assassination is BAD -- as a character study it has many good moments -- but I'd prefer to see Taxi Driver on video again. Penn is convincing as a man overwhelmed by hypocrisy and the stresses of his life, but there's little to get excited about here.

One observation: When the police arrive at the home of Vera Drake (Imelda Staunton) to confront her about the allegation that she has been conducting illegal abortions, she and her family are celebrating her daughter's engagement. When the cops enter the room, the camera freezes on Vera's face. Over the course of about 45 seconds in which she doesn't say a word, Staunton's face registers every possible emotion: Joy, confusion, concern, fear, disgust, anger, guilt. It's heart-racing just to watch, and it's what acting -- great acting at least -- is all about. Staunton's is the one female performance of the year not to miss. (On the men's side, check out Morgan Freeman in MILLION DOLLAR BABY.)

Ostensibly, this is a documentary short about a gay man nearing 50 who decides to adopt a child. That's all well and good -- gays should adopt, and the man here has been in a relationship for 15 years. But it seems clear that he wants a kid for all the wrong reasons: To make himself complete, to fill a void, to give him a chance to prove he's got what it takes to be a dad. And his partner has NO interest in becoming a father at an age when most families are emptying the nest. The result is, we aren't really sympathetic but a little disturbed at the business-like, totally self-involved way the process advances. "What if he's not cute?" he asks without any irony (he's no Jared Leto himself). "I have to have AT LEAST a cute baby." When choosing between two infants from Vietnam, never once do we hear him ask, "which one is in greater need?" merely, "Let's have the guys in the office vote on the cutest and go with that one." The film itself is drawn out, boring, and even insulting (the music they play in place of dialogue during the Saigon sequences sounds like cheap atmospherics from the cliché soundtrack). Let's face it, if the man about who it is made weren't gay, there would be no hook (nothing happens) and this would never have been made. What a wasted effort on the real issue of gay adoption.

I can't express how phenomenal a film this is. Partly it is Jessica Yu's superb, understated direction. But a large part is Mark O'Brien himself, whose abiding intelligence and evocative poetry are electrifyingly cinematic, despite his being confined to an iron lung. I saw this film almost a year before it won the Oscar, and I have rarely been as happy as I was then. When I heard he died several years later, I was genuinely saddened. I watched it again today, when it was announced that Christopher Reeve had died. It reminds you how truly special some people are -- sometimes not because of what they do, but simply who they are. Which, when you think about it, may be the same thing. Don't miss it.

Michael Moore's films can be entertaining. He likes to use stock footage and silly music to make his points, and he's a funny guy. You can't help but laugh at what he has to say sometimes. But I wouldn't trust any of his "fact based" films any farther than I could throw his orca-sized frame. You can't take a word he says at face value; you have to analyze his films, not watch them, to see where the fiction begins (usually in the first frame) and the fact ends. It's difficult reconciling Moore condescending tone with his claims to be the voice of the common man. Fahrenheit 911 begins with a sardonic diatribe that Moore makes sound as if every American is naive about his government, and he puts in details without, well, details. For instance, a big point in his Bush-has-ties-to-the-Bin-Laden-family rant is that "a half brother" of Osama had some contact with a colleague of Bush's a number of years ago. Half-brother, wow -- pretty close, huh? Well, it might be... only Moore forgets to mention that there are FIFTY FOUR Bin Laden brothers and sisters. (This is a SAUDI family, not the Cleavers.) That's more siblings than the total relatives in MY family, most of whom I barely know. I can hardly imagine that, if one of them committed a murder, MY relationships would instantly become suspect. Most of the connections that Moore portrays as the essence of obvious corruption are, to a well-informed viewer like me (I didn't vote for Bush in 2000 and won't in 2004), completely unpersuasive. Moore then portrays Marine recruiters are somehow evil in their use of (effective) recruiting techniques. ("You wanna be am athlete? David Robinson was in the service before the NBA... Did you know Shaggy got his start playing in the Marine Corps band?") Are we supposed to blame the GOP for the service trying to get people to sign up? Isn't that their job? If this weren't wartime, would Moore have any problem with it? Moore correctly points out that the Bush Administration did not allow flag-draped coffins to be photographed (a horrible decision), then self-aggrandizingly says that the media have completely ignored the stories of the wounded and killed soldiers. (I listen to NPR every day, and they are ALWAYS telling the human-interest profiles of fallen soldiers.) How is it that, somehow, the White House flaks getting their make-up applied before going on-air is portrayed as vain and shallow (is Moore saying that none of his sympathetic interviewees primped a little before going on camera)? I have a feeling that, if a Republican were to use images from 9/11 in a movie which celebrated Bush's leadership skills, Moore would be the first to call it exploitation. How does his bald use of such things equate to "noble" propaganda? The movie is so deeply flawed (not in its politics so much as its structure) that any educated person with access to Google could debunk virtually every claim made, or at least point out Moore's grave omissions and mischaracterizations. As entertainment, maybe this is a B; as a "documentary," probably a D.

It only takes about 15 minutes to decide whether you will hate this movie or simply not care at all about it. Although purporting to be a deconstruction of the Arthurian legend, it feels put together by someone who had never picked up a history book or even read the legend. The current-day remains of Hadrian's Wall show that it was originally 15 feet tall with loose stones; in the film, it's 30 feet of fine marble craftsmanship. One character is referred to as the bishop of Rome; he, in turn, refers to his boss the pope. But the bishop of Rome IS the pope. (Let's not get into how oddly powerful the church is; considering Hadrian's Wall was abandoned by 383 AD, this film must take place no later than that. Since Christianity was not declared the official religion of Rome until 380, that was a fast rise to power.) Don't think too hard about how a snow storm can come out of nowhere so fast that a lake freezes over in just a day, but it's not cold enough for people's breath to condense when they speak. (But apparently not so cold that a few minutes later, everyone is in lush, verdant fields in the middle of spring.) This is terrible filmmaking -- boring, repetitive, lacking any good gore scenes with exposition that is hard to follow and confusing geography and convoluted action scenes. Easily the worst film of the summer -- and that includes Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. (c)

The only real undeniable quality of the original Tarkovsky film of SOLARIS is that is it SO impenetrable and pensive and "felt" that you couldn't say much about it aside from whether you liked it or didn't -- it's not something to be understood, but appreciated for what it is or not.

Why, then, did Steven Soderbergh -- an exceptional director -- decide that he could remake it, remove the long, contemplative, meaningless MASS that was Tarkovsky and by trimming it down by an hour make it better? It is not a situation where the original was too good to be remade; rather, it is that to the extent the original worked at all was a miracle, and lightning had no way to strike twice. Soderbergh has nothing to add, no meaning to impose or new kinds of style to perk it up. He's merely taken one boring, pointless movie and made a shorter boring, pointless movie from its dropping. There are no revelations that fill in the blanks, no explanations of character or plot, or even any good action or sex to supercharge it. This SOLARIS is stolen style without substance -- or, what substance there is, just as impossible to find. It is anti-cinema of the worst kind, with lifeless performances and heavy emotions, all floating as rootless as a tree in a cyclone. Keep your head down, you don't want to get beaned by it.

You can't separate the film itself from the setting -- an attraction at the wonderful Universal Islands of Adventure theme park in Orlando. There's a magic to the presentation of this multimedia extravaganza, which combines projection onto a screen of water, fire and water effects and many more aspects of theater. As a film, it couldn't stand on its own, I suppose, but in its context you can't deny the magic.

Poor Hayden Christensen is such a pretty, bland, sweet-natured kid, you almost instantly forgive him for being a complete nothing as an actor. He's never delivered a wholly believable line reading - not spewing out the drivel of George Lucas' Star Wars fiascos or even the overly-praised touchy-feely crud of Life as a House. But the great secret of Shattered Glass - the terrific inside joke - is that he's as bad an actor as Stephen Glass was a journalist. But you still buy him in it. Christensen fools movies audience in precisely the same way Glass fooled his editors and readers: By pretending to be something he's not, in such a gosh-darned charmingly ineffectual way you feel compelled to fill in the gaps for him. He's no actor, but he's perfect for this movie.

Shattered Glass moves at a surprisingly brisk pace for a film about writing (a boring subject visually) set in the drab, emotionally gray magazine offices (The New Republic) of a drab, emotionally gray city (Washington, D.C.). It is there, amid the ivory towers of young policy wonks, all of whom are certain they are more honest and intelligent that everyone else (not just in government, not just in D.C., but in all of journalism) that Glass, a 24-year-old kid who lands a prestige job, was able to cultivate his career if not his skills. In the telling, Glass became a star, popular with the staff and his co-workers, by affecting an aw-shucks persona. Nothing he writes is very good, he says at editorial conferences, even when everyone is sitting on the edge of their seats, breathlessly waiting for him to tell them another story of his exploits - the time he posed as a pop psychologist for talk radio, or the drunken bacchanal at the Young Republican convention, or the teenaged computer hacker who infiltrated a company's records and extorted a job and comic books out of them. His pieces are far more interesting that the dry, starchy reportage offered by Chuck Lane (Peter Sarsgard), whose detailed stories are more likely to concentrate on the Haitian political situation than the almost gossip, vivid things Glass comes up with.

Of course Glass' stories were more interesting - they had the advantage of being complete lies. By the time he was unearthed, Glass was found to have faked all or most of the vast majority of his New Republic pieces. He wasn't even very good at it. The doors came off the Glass house when a reporter at another magazine (Steve Zahn) wanted to do a follow-up on the hacker piece and couldn't find anything to support it, not a witness, not a convention, not even a person who worked at the company that was at the heart of the tale. Glass' lies were transparent and sloppy, but easily made it into issue after issue because no one at The New Republic could fathom that such an affectless little Boy Scout like him had the courage, balls or creativity to make up all that crap. When it came down to it, no one trusted Stephen because he was so conscientious; they trusted him because they liked him, and couldn't believe they were so easily duped by a charlatan.

Which is why Christensen works so well in the part. He has the mien of a movie star, the trapping, but not the soul. He poses and plays the wounded puppy dog when he should be exploring the character, thereby leaving the onus on us to complete the performance for him. (Glass did the same. When people questioned him on his reporting, he didn't play it as indignant but as a hurt child. `Are you mad at me?' became him knee-jerk refrain for anyone who treated him casually. He forced people to assuage his fears, and made sure they saw him wag his tail happily when they did. He coddled them into being his friends.) Christensen doesn't play lost, he is lost - way in over his head, and clearly frightened of the demands of real acting. He just gives himself another character's name, and behaves like he would on a reality TV show.

Anyway, with Sarsgard around, who needs the leading man to be anything more than window dressing? Sarsgard is an intense, mushy actor who would probably prepare for weeks if his role was just to read off the ingredients in a box of baking soda. His face is almost featureless, which allows him to disappear into any part. Vocally, he calls to mind John Malkovich in his early films, before he got too prissy and smug. He deserves to be a bigger star than he is, but he most likely won't be. He'd seem out of place saving the planet from marauding space mutants or playing a doe-eyed glamorpuss opposite Jennifer Lopez.

Billy Ray, who wrote and directed the film, projects a no-nonsense attitude that does not get bogged down in ponderous ruminations on ethics or meaningless back-stories. (We see Chuck Lane at home with his family, for

instance, but aren't bored by long discussions with his wife about whether he can trust this Young Turk writer of his.) He makes a real mystery out of what seems like a foregone conclusion: We know going in that Glass was a phony, so how does he keep the audience from rolling their eyes at how easily he manipulates his colleagues? But Ray does it. Even when the evidence begins piling up against Glass, we understand why everyone assumes he was the victim of a fraud, not its perpetrator, because Stephen is so sincere in his lies. (In the film's one off-handedly brilliant storytelling devices, Ray tricks us into trusting Glass even when we know we shouldn't, and doesn't reveal his subterfuge until the end.) This is one of the finest scripts of the year.

Shattered Glass has the look of a low-budget art-house flick but the feel of something much grander. It isn't heady and intellectual, although it deals with the kinds of issues that lend itself to that. It is as if Ray wanted to make a film that was the antithesis of what he sees The New Republic as being: Grounded, practical, straightforward, refreshingly entertaining. Those facts check out.

C-AWJonesJr

Mystic River is about killers, and not all the human kind. It's also about the things that kill us, little by little, from negligence more than malice: hatred, suspicion, even our personal histories. The first murder victim in this sad, moving film is not a person, but the innocence of a young boy who is abducted by two pedophiles and brutally raped for four days. When he grows up, that boy, Dave Boyle (Tim Robbins, looking like a sack of discarded laundry), is already damaged goods. His childhood best friends have pulled away, themselves tortured by the guilt of allowing him to get in the car who men they believed were police officers. One, Jimmy (Sean Penn) has spent time in prison; the other, Sean (Kevin Bacon, all ghostly and beaten), has achieved outward success as a Massachusetts police detective, but his personal life remains a mess. When Jimmy's daughter is murdered, Jimmy investigates, and Dave begins to look guilty. It is something of a misnomer to refer to the action of the film -- not a lot actually happens during its 140 minute run time, other than the emotional strip-mining of this clannish, woefully misguided Boston community of Catholic street toughs who have never quite matured into full-fledged human beings. The director, Clint Eastwood, seems to be saying few of us are truly evolved, that errors in judgment plague everything we do. Penn and Bacon give fully-realized performances, but Robbins is a walking wound, a laceration that has never scabbed over, so bedeviled as to break your heart. Laura Linney, as Penn's wife, has the steelines of Lady Macbeth, which she is only able to display in her limited screen time (she drops of the face of the earth for a full hour, without explanation). Only Marcia Gay Harden, frequently brilliant as an actress, delivers a poor performance as Celeste, Dave's mousy and annoyingly unsympathetic wife. As usual, Eastwood overdoses on the chiaroscuro lighting, casting every night scene in the half-light of a Caravaggio painting, but that's because he doesn't want you to see everything at once -- life isn't as simple as that. We only catch glimpses, by and large, of the big picture. And if there is a tragic message to Mystic River, it is that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing in the hands of the human animal.

After seeing this film in 1979, I realized that critics don't know everything, and nothing could stop ME from being a critic too. It also go me interested in Ripperology AND Sherlock Holmes. I remembered it fondly, but had not seen it. Then FROM HELL came out, which stole liberally from this story, and my interest was renewed, so I was glad to see it on DVD, and bought it. There's always the risk that we remember something more fondly than our modern eye would agree with. But I find the film still very solid, largely because of Christopher Plummer's commanding but understated performance and James Mason's brilliant comic timing. The two interact like an old married couple, and the combination of history, literature and speculation is terrific. A little clunky in parts, but beautifully made.

As soon as the movie was over, my partner and I spent the next hour recounting every scientific flaw, stupid plot devise, banal piece of dialogue and character inconsistency peppered liberally throughout this actioner. And we then concluded that, yes, we still had fun. If you look even slightly close at the details -- like, how does lightning arc through the concrete of Rome's Coliseum? How can a pressure suit, made out of soft fabric, protect them against thousands of pounds of pressure? -- your mind will number faster than it would after 10 minutes of YuGiGo or reading a Grisham book. But it's also easy to get caught up in the excitement of it all. It pushes button with rote efficiency, and if it is rarely sensible, it is just as rarely dull.