2010 MOVIES AND DVDS

2.27 Poldark (DVD)
2.26 The Boys Are Back (DVD)

2.2 Crazy Heart
1.31 Gone With the Wind
1.23 Up in the Air Very good–very polished. For USA Weekend, director Jason Reitman told me that like Ryan Bingham, the character George Clooney plays, Reitman is an obsessive flyer, and that a lot of the character’s quirks—how precisely he packs his suitcase, how exactly he handles his rollway suitcase, the driven way he collects frequent flyer miles—come from him. “One year I had accumulated just under the number of miles I needed to bump my membership to the next level, so I flew to Chicago, turned around, and flew back to Los Angeles, just for the miles. I went out and got a Giordano’s deep dish pizza while I was there, but basically, it was for the miles.’’ It’s kind of amazing that Jason Reitman is such a good director, and that his father Ivan is such a hack.
1.23 New in Town (DVD) Pretty dismal.
1.14 The Hangover (DVD) Dreary. Not a laugh in it.
1.12 Young Victoria Excellent! Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend were quite good.
1.8 Invictus

2009 MOVIES & DVDS
12.29 The Cambridge Spies (DVD)
12.28 Avatar. A rather conventional story (Dances With Wolves, The Last Samuri, A Man Called Horse, et al) of a warrior who learns not only to identify his enemy, but to respect his way of life over his own people’s, but James Cameron has told the tale with incomparable visual tour de force. In the not too distant future, all films will look like this, and we will remember Avatar as the groundbreaking film, something like the first talkie. In an unrelated note, I spoke to actor Sam Worthington for USA Weekend, who told me this amusing tale of working with Cameron. “In the first week of production, the cast and crew went to Hawaii to shoot reference scenes. As soon as we got there, Jim grabbed a camcorder and tossed me a thong and said `Let’s go into the bush.’ So there I was nearly naked, jumping around the jungle, when all of a sudden, a police officer pulled up on a motorbike and asked me what I was doing. `Making a movie, mate,’ I said, and he said `With who?’ asked the cop. `Jim Cameron,’ I replied. `Wow,’’ says the cop. `He’s sure come a long way down since Titanic.’’
12.26 Battlestar Galactica: The Plan (DVD) The cupboard is bare
12.25 Sherlock Holmes
12.22 Did You Hear About the Morgans? When I spoke to director Mark Lawrence for USA Weekend, he told me that the most memorable part about working on this comedy about an estranged couple who go into the witness protection program was the experience of working with Bart the Bear. “It was shocking to to see him,” says Lawrence. “He’s enormous, and initially, we were all terrified. His trainers had all assured us that he was a very nice bear, but you couldn’t help thinking, `What if this is the day he decides not to be nice?’ But as the day went on, he seemed like just another actor–a little neurotic, and concerned about his performance, about doing what he was supposed to do. You could see that. His trainers put up wires, and I don’t know what happens to Bart, but he doesn’t go near the wires. One time we put a mark on the ground where we wanted him to be for the camera, and I guess it was a little too close to the wire, because he moved it.”
12.18 Taking Woodstock (DVD) Unlike the original Woodstock festival, which took place in August, this film was shot in October. Two months made all the difference when it came time to shoot the celebrated mud scenes, as Demetri Martin told me when I spoke to him for USA Weekend. “It was very cold, and even though the crew mixed grease in the mud to make it more slippery, it was very uncomfortable. There were a lot of bits of rocks mixed into it. Emile Hirsch took off his shirt and slid through it, and afterwards, his skin looked like it had been rubbed with sandpaper.’’
12.18 Sugar (DVD)

12.15 An Education, again. Still delightful. Really got into Rosamund Pike this time. She was very funny as the dumb blonde Helen. Is there a more beautiful woman in film? Fun to compare Emma Thompson’s cameo here with her a bit more like Helen cameo in Pirate Radio (one of the best things about that movie.)

12.11 Me and Orson Welles Pretty good of its kind; the screenwriters’ portrayal and Christian McKay’s performance as Welles elevates otherwise just okay work (an unsteady B for Zac Efron, but gosh, the boy looks like Tyrone Power!) Makes me want to go see the genuine class of this genre, Shakespeare in Love. For USA Weekend, director Richard Linklater told me this story about shooting the film in an old theater on the Isle of Man, in Irish Sea. “Welles used a lot of effects,” Linklater told me, “including having actors appear on the stage through trap doors. This theater had the appropriate kind of space under the stage, but everybody who went down there noticed that there was this funky smell. Later, we learned that there was a longstanding tradition, dating back more than a century, for actors to instruct that their ashes be deposited under the stage of this theater–a hundred or so had done so. When we heard that, our initial reaction was this was kind of creepy, but in no time we realized that we were making a movie about actors, and here we were among actors who chose this theater as their resting place, and it seemed kind of cool. Never have been among people who went from `eeuuuw!’ to `oooooh!’ as fast.”
11.26 2012 Well, I got my $10 worth of disaster porn! Just what I expected! For USA Weekend, screenwriter/producer Harald Kosner told me that he and Roland Emmerich began working on the script in late 2007. “Since a lot of the story takes place in the White House,’’ says Kosner, “we thought, based on what was going on, that the president should be a woman. But I remember being on my laptop that day in January 2008 when the results of the Iowa caucuses came in, and going out to the pool and saying `Roland, maybe we ought to rethink this. . . ’’’ Danny Glover got the job, and is pedestrian.
11.24 The Blind Side Very good Sandra Bullock.
11.21 The Proposal (DVD) Yecch

11.17 Whip It Once again, Ellen Page is just great.
11.12 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (DVD) Awful. Matthew McConaughey has a very limited range; when he stays within it, as in We Are Marshall, he can be very effective; when he wanders beyond it, he is as phony as a three dollar bill.
11.12 Year One (DVD) Horrid, although it has a couple of moments, most of them involving Oliver Platt producing enough ham to sustain Jimmy Dean’s Pork Sausage for a year
11.10 Coco Avant Chanel
11.3 A Serious Man
10.30 Law Abiding Citizen
10.27 Fantastic Mr. Fox

10.6 Zombieland. Very funny. A very very funny comic performance by Woody Harrelson
10.2 Sunshine Cleaners (DVD)
9.29 Bright Star Abbie Cornish is very beautiful, and very gifted
9.25 The Informant! Disappointing. Not a well-structured script.
9.19 Rudo y Cursi (DVD)
9.15 My One and Only
9.5 Duplicity (DVD)
9.5 The Baader Meinhoff Complex
9.4 Inglouious Basterds
8.29 The Great Buck Howard (DVD)
8.29 The Edge of Love (DVD)
8.28 Rififi
8.27 Pirate Radio For USA Weekend, writer-director Richard Curtis told me that with just a few exceptions, all the sixties bands whose music he wanted to use gave permission, but with a couple caveats. “Oddly, it was those performers that you’d most associate with drug use who were adamant about not using their songs in scenes showing drug use.” Curtis told me that the younger actors in the cast were as familiar with the music as the middle-aged performers–“Pop music is now omnipresent”–but there were three songs that were discoveries to the youngsters: Crimson and Clover by Tommy James and the Shondells, Friday On My Mind, by the Easybeats, and Eleanor, by the Turtles. Eleanor deserves oblivion, but Friday on my Mind gets better each time I hear it.
8.25 The Hannah Montana Movie (DVD)
8.25 Adam
8.22 Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29 (DVD)
8.21 The Watchmen (DVD) Incoherent
8.20 Adventureland (DVD)
8.18 I Love You, Man (DVD) Awful
8.17 Khartoum (DVD) Horrid
8.15 District 9
8.13 500 Days of Summer Zooey Deschanel is a peach. On another matter, director Marc Webb told me how much effort went into finding unique romantic settings in Los Angeles. “We went out of our way to find older, perfectly aged buildings, parks and lofts, all the distinctive places mentioned in architecture tours and guidebooks. But after all that effort, the very first article written about the film began `Set in San Francisco….’’’

8.12 Woodstock (DVD) many good performances, but if I had to pick one, it would be that of Michael Shrieve, the drummer for Santana, who was 19 years old at the time, the youngest performer at the festival.
8.11 Funny People A surprisingly good Adam Sandler, a surprisingly thoughtful, sensitive film about time, mortality and ambition, at least for the first three quarters, until a different and less effective movie about relationships gets attached.
8.9 Grand Prix (DVD) The AJ Baime film festival is completed with this stew. Great race footage, great scenery, wooden acting, underwritten characters–that John Frankenheimer can really direct.
8.8 Le Mans (DVD) Not much for Steve McQueen to do, but with great understatement, he totally commands the screen.

8.4 The Girl from Monaco, starring Louise Bourgoin
7.28 Cheri
7.26 Lawrence of Arabia (DVD) Caught a weird gay, or perhaps camp subtext I never saw before. I wonder if it was visible to audiences at the time.
7.22 The Deal (DVD) Stephen Frears‘ production of Peter Morgan’s screenplay about the relationship between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Fascinating for those who care (like me), boring for those who don’t (like Ginny). A prequel of sorts to The Queen.
7.17 The International(DVD)
7.14 Public Enemies
7.13 An Education
7.11 The Hurt Locker As she was preparing to shoot the first scene involving an explosion in this film about an elite army unit that disarms bombs in Iraq, director Kathryn Bigelow asked her special effects team to make the explosion as realistic as humanly possible. “I told them, `Let’s really capture the tension,’’ she says. “And boy, did they take me literally. As you’ll see in the movie, the blast was gigantic. Smoke floated four hundred feet in the air, and I think the whole city of Amman stopped to look. Thankfully, nobody was hurt; not even a window was scratched. Still, the next time, I told `Let’s dial this one down a notch or two.’’’
7.8 Confessions of a Shopaholic (DVD)
7.1 Last Chance Harry (DVD) A small two-hander that turns into a very nice surprise. Dustin Hoffman plays a New Yorker of a certain type known to me–Ed Kosner, Pete Bonventre–who is sympathetic but not always likable. Emma Thompson is always welcome although somewhat underused here, until a climactic aria that only the rarest talent could pull off. Highly enjoyable.
6.30 Easy Virtue– Colin Firth and Kristen Scott Thomas are priceless
6.28 Z
6.28 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (DVD) I hated it.
6.24 Taken (DVD)
6.18 Battlestar: Galactica, Razor (DVD)
6.18 Battlestar: Galactica, Season 4 (DVD)
6.17 In The Loop (DVD)
6.13 The Taking of Pelham 123
6.12 Battlestar Galactica, Season 3 (DVD)
6.7 Amacord
6.5 Battlestar Galactica, Season 2.5 (DVD)
5.28 Battlestar Galactica, Season 2 (DVD)
5.25 Battlestar Galactica, Season One (DVD)
5.26 The Brothers Bloom
5.19 Management
5.12 The Soloist The return of Free Movie Tuesdays!
5.10 Star Trek This prequel was filmed during last year’s Hollywood writers’ strike. “The picket line was set up a couple hundred yards from where we were shooting,’’ says producer Brian Burke, “close enough to kind of see and hear what we were doing. So they would watch and wait, and when the director yelled `Action!’, they would begin chanting, and when he said `Cut!’, they would stop. This was ruining the scenes. But they couldn’t see that well, and eventually we got the idea to use code. So when we said `Cut!’, we started rolling, and when we said `Action!’ we’d stop.’’ Burke said he admired the picketers for their cleverness. “They had funny chants, not all of them repeatable. My favorite was when they chanted `We Want Shatner!’’’
5.3 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
4.23 Away We Go ) “My greatest day on the set,’’ John Krasinski told me, “was also my worst day ever.’’ In one scene, Kransinski needed to startle Mya Rudolph while they were on a plane. He and director San Mendes agreed that Kransinski should leap up behind her seat and scare her. “I leaped up with all the conviction with which I used to go after rebounds in high school basketball’’ says Krasinski. “Only I never thought what might happen when somebody who is 6’3’’ jumps up in a space that is only five feet off the ground. I literally saw stars’’ Kransinski finished the scene, all the while hearing offset shrill, high-pitched laughter from Mendes. “That’s why I say it was the best day,’’ he says. “I have never made anybody laugh so hard.’’
4.18 Vicky Christina Barcelona (DVD) I don’t think I would have given Penelope Cruz an Oscar for this
4.15 The Graduate Fun to see a dirty print on the big screen with late-sixties lighting
4.10 Pineapple Express (DVD) I really like James Franco
4.9 The Day The Earth Stood Still (DVD)
4.7 Gomorra
4.6 Frozen River (DVD)
4.4 Sword of Honour (DVD) A BBC miniseries of an Eveyln Waugh potboiler, elevated above the norm by steady, subtle performance by Daniel Craig.
4.4 Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist (DVD) Maybe I would have liked it when I was 17 and dreamy
4.1 Smiley’s People (DVD)
3.18 The Girlfriend Experience
3.17 The Wrestler

3.1 The Tudors, Season 2. (DVD) Big, overripe piece of cheese, but unmissable in its hammy way. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is the worst Henry ever, all presentation and no persona, but Natalie Dormer as Anne Boleyn was good, and James Frain as Thomas Cromwell was all lawyerly focus, and brilliantly so.

2.21 The Class

2.7 The Wackness. (DVD) Pretty good. “I see the dopeness, you see the wackness.” How true.

2.6 Gran Torino

1.24 How to Lose Friends and Influence People.

1.22 House Bunny. (DVD) Kind of cute, actually.

1.20 Defiance

1.13 The Reader

1.10 Righteous Kill (DVD) DeNiro was DeNiro, Pacino seemed subdued, and the movie was awfl.

1.9 I Remember Nelson (DVD) Painfully stagey.

1.6 Rachel Getting Married. I really liked this film about the relationships in a family. Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt (whom I always liked in Mad Men) and Debra Winger were especially good. Jonathan Demme’s direction–his patient, authoritative pacing–was terrific. How good was it? It was like a seventies film!

1.3 Proof Good performances, excessively stagey. I was disappointed in Father Flynn’s defense of himself. And the breakdown of Sister Aloyisius at the finale was a disappointing failure of imagination.

2008 MOVIES & DVDS

12.31 The Dark Knight (DVD)

12.30 Valkyrie

12.25 Eagle Eye (DVD)

12.25 Slumdog Millionaire

12.19 Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (DVD) Not a hideous thing to see during a snowstorm

12.18 Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (DVD). Dreck, but what can I say? I’m a sucker for Georgian/Regency England.

12.10 When Did You Last See Your Father? (DVD)

12.2 Entourage Season 4. “You must be desperate.” “But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

11.20 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (DVD). The plot meanders, but Alec Guinness is amazing. The impassivity of his face is astonishing, and then when he smiles, he just lights up.

11.28 Four Christmases. A couple of laughs, but not more. Vince Vaughn’s fast-talking act seems funny with men, but sort of pathetic with women. And Reese Witherspoon was good, but when you see her next to Kristin Chenoweth, she doesn’t seem like she has quite the comedy chops. Renee Zellweger would have done a better job. As would have Chenoweth.

11.27 The Promotion (DVD). Bleh.

11.15 A Quantum of Solace

11.14 Casino Royale (DVD)

10.25 88 Minutes (DVD) Horrid

10.25 Don’t Mess WIth The Zohan (DVD) Awful

10.25 Young At Heart (DVD) What’s impressive is not that it’s cute to here the older people sing, but that the older singers bring an unexpected depth to the songs–a new interpretation

10.25 The Good Shephard (DVD)

10.25 Almost Famous (DVD)

10.24 Body of Lies. Unimpressive

10.18 The Politician’s Wife (DVD) Worse than this type of thing usually is. It’s no First Among Equals, that’s for sure!

10.17 W.

10.9 Waltz with Bashir

10.8 Casablanca (DVD) It’s still the same old (well-written, beautifully constructed) story. . .

10.3 The Duchess. Hard to argue with Keira Knightley in period dress.

10.2 Milk

9.29 Smart People (DVD)

9.28 First Among Equals (DVD). A 1986 Granada TV mini-series of a Jeffrey Archer novel about ambitious Members of Parliament. Full of wonderful melodrama and scenery-chewing British actors (not known here, with the exception of Tom Wilkinson.) . It’s not good, but I loved it (I blush to say.)

9.26 Ghost Town. Ricky Gervais is funny, Greg Kinnear is smooth, and Tea Leoni is, as always, wonderful. There’s a couple laugh-out-loud moments, but on the whole, it’s less than the sum of its parts.

9.22 Generation Kill (DVD) Finally got through all 7 episodes. Boy, David Simon really knows how to make compelling television. I started off hating the show; by the end, I found it gripping. A star-making performance by Alexander Skarsgaard.

9.15 In the Family

9.13 Son of Rambow (DVD). Cute!

8.29 The Traitor. Good Cheadle, as usual.

8.20 Man On Wire. Most interesting in the last ten minutes, the last rush after the walk. How did I not know that this walk occurred on the morning of Nixon’s resignation speech? The summer’s Nixon theme continues!

8.16 Tropic Thunder Pretty funny. Robert Downey Jr. was good. I don’t think Ben Stiller has a large enough persona for the role. He was quite good in Meet the Parents playing an average beleaured guy, but he is not a larger than life person, and playing a larger than life figure merely shows up his limitations. I’m sorry people are calling this film controversial; it’s controversial only among those who are self-appointed professional victims who get aggrieved for a living. It’s a good satire about Hollywood–a fairly easy subject to mock.

8.9 Enemy at the Gates (DVD)

8.7 Nixon

8.1 Shine A Light (DVD) Nothing new.

7.30 Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (DVD) Awful–apart from the scene where they get high with W., it is without redeeming quality whatsoever

7.27 American Teen

7.22 Tell No One A really excellent thriller from France, adapted from a novel by Harlen Coben, directed by Guillaume Canet and starring Francois Cluzet, among others, notaby that famous French actress Kristen Scott Thomas. Excellent work all around!

7.20 Mamma Mia! I would have liked it better without the Abba songs.

6.29 Encounters at the Edge of the World

6.26 Easy Living (DVD)

6.22 Mongol. Excellent adventure, excellent storytelling. I didn’t expect a love story.

6.21 Get Smart. Anne Hathaway–yeah!

6.20 The Decline of the Roman Empire. (DVD) A colorful pageant, but static and boring. Stephen Boyd was a stiff actor, and Sophia Loren was turgid here. Alec Guinness and James Mason showed some life in their scenes together.
6.16 War, Inc. This very good dark comedy succeeds in attaining one of the very hardest goals of a successful satire: establishing a tone and sticking to it. I much admired that accomplishment. The acting was good–John Cusack, as usual; Marisa Tomei, in a thanklessly one-note role Hilary Duff, in a striking departure into a grown-up role; and Joan Cusack. Oddly, though, it could have been funnier–perhaps Cusack’s moral dilemma brought the mood down. Perhaps the character should have just been a true believer. But quite a good effort.

6.14 The Happening Scary movie, though the climax was a little disappointing. Good Mark Wahlberg.

6.13 The Other Boleyn Girl (DVD) Not good. Can Scarlett Johannsen act?

6.8 Divorce Italian Style

6.2 El Cid (DVD). Awful

6.1 Untracable (DVD). Terrible.

5.25 Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. (DVD) Still holds up.

5.23 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. They needn’t have bothered.

5.16 Darkon (DVD)

5.10 Recount (DVD)

5.3 27 Dresses (DVD). Interesting to see the formula at work. Katherine Heigl is a good comedienne, but James Marsden, who is usually quite strong, seems too pretty for his character. He doesn’t get away with playing against type.

5.2 Iron Man. Fun! Robert Downey Jr. is a star.

4.25 Into the Wild (DVD) Movie about an idealistic kid leaves me feeling confused. One wishes the lad had some common sense. Nature is relentless and remorseless. I don’t know how to feel about a boy who was fatally naive. Sympathetic? Angry? Smug?

4.24 Hamlet 2 Pretty funny film by Andrew Fleming, although the inconsistent tone (very broad one moment, subtle and satiric the next), though not unique among modern comedies, is disorienting. But Steve Coogan is funny, and the “Father, I Forgive You” theme is oddly touching. In an interview, Coogan told me a good story about one of the scenes. “There’s a scene where I’m typing, and when I get up and go to the refrigerator, the audience sees that I’m not wearing any pants. Or underpants. So, since I knew the audience was going to see my butt, I began to experiment with how my butt should look. I realized that if I stood on one leg, the butt cheek on other side would kind of squinch up, and it would look like it was winking. I talked it over with the director a lot. We really got into the nitty gritty of butt comedy.’’

3.29 Stop Loss Is Ryan Phillippe a good actor? An occasionally good actor? An actor who looks like he’s acting? A charismatic screen presence? I have a hard time telling. Here, as in Breach, and as in Crash, he can be very effective and even subtle, and other times, he looks like an acting student in an exercise. In Stop Loss, of course–an even film that is all emotion, emotion, emotion–his variable performance might be due to deficiencies in the script–the film sticks the Texas good ol’ boyishness of the characters in your face. I wonder how Phillippe would be at comedy? Abby Cornish, whom we first saw in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, is the real deal.

3.28 21

3.22 Margot at the Wedding (DVD) Not broad enough for a comedy, not potent enough for a drama, not really eventful enough except as an elongated character sketch–sketches–yet fairly involving. Nicole Kidman is good as the complex and manipulative emotional disaster Margot, but it is the deeply talented Jennifer Jason Leigh who projects warmth and confusion and beauty as Pauline, the sister who is less complicated and less brilliant than Margot, but who is capable of giving and receiving love.

3.22 The Counterfeiters A very good film about Jews selected by the Nazis to counterfeit dollars and pound notes that would be used to undermine the economies of the US and the UK. Karl Markovics is quite good as Sorowitsch, the criminal whose skill enables the Jews to pull it off, as is August Diehl as the idealistic printer whose stalling tactics delay the implementation of the plan. Excellent moral drama. Devid Striesow is good as the hail fellow well met Nazi who wants to get into “managing people” after the war; you see his decisions, and can only thank God that you haven’t been given the chance to make the compromises he’s made.

3.22 Bridget Jones’s Diary (DVD) Still one of the best-written, best-played romantic comedies of the last decade. Zellweger, Firth and Grant are all top notch. Great use of music.

3.21 In Bruges Boy, do I want to go to Bruges! This little medeival town looks pretty beyond picturesque. The acting in this crime movie meets Waiting for Godot is uniformally good–Brendan Gleason has a haunted ease, and Colin Farrell is very strong as a likable killer. Clemence Poesy is quite a testament on behalf of Belgian girls. Excellent direction by Martin McDonagh, the gifted playwright who also wrote the screenplay, especially the scene where Ralph Fiennes pursues Farrell.
3.16 Love and Cigarettes (DVD)

3.12 The Tudors, Season One (DVD). Sorry–Jonathan Rhys Myers will never make me forget Robert Shaw. Or Richard Burton. Or Charles Laughton. The actress who played Anne Boleyn was pretty good, though.

3.7 The Bank Job Pretty good yarn, though lacking in real suspense.

2.26 Joshua (DVD) Boy, this movie is CREE-EE-EPY. But in a reasonably entertaining and provocative way.
2.24 The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (DVD) Visually stunning indeed, but indulgently paced, unfortunately

2.23 The Jane Austen Book Club (DVD)

2.23 And Then She Found Me (DVD)

2.20 Gone, Baby, Gone (DVD) Really first rate. Ben Affleck’s directorial debut is sure-handed and fast-paced, and Casey Affleck does an excellent job. Amy Ryan deserves all the accolades she’s received–her character is loathesome in her narcissism and immaturity.

2.18 Across the Universe (DVD)

2.9 State of Play (DVD) Pretty good British miniseries with a twisty plot. Good acting in the supporting roles.

1.23 The Apartment (DVD) “This is a movie that takes love very seriously,” Matthew Weiner said to me. A brilliant, not especially obvious observation.

1.21 Persepolis. A wonderful film, a terrific adaptation, funny and wise. In a phone interview for USA Weekend, Marjane Satrapi told me an amusing anecdote about the lavish praise that comes with success. “A journalist told me he loved the film, and then asked me if my mother was still alive. Of course, her death is one of the most important events of the film. I told this story to Chiara Mastroianni, the actress who voices the character of Marjane, and who is the daughter of the actor Marcello Mastroianni. `That’s nothing,’ Chiara said. `Several people have asked me what my father thinks of my work in the film.”’ Marcello Mastroianni, of course, died in 1996.

1.19 There Will Be Blood. Can a film be gripping without being engaging? This is a compelling movie, showing us characters who are at once charismatic, familiar and exotic. We know them and yet we don’t–they are proto versions of ourselves, and it’s strange and wonderful to see how history unfolfing on film. It’s amazing to see these hard men building their fortunes. Paul Thomas Anderson directs the film brilliantly; some of the scenes, like the scene of the fire at the derrick, is as magnificent a moment as any scene in any epic (and one which caused Anderson a lot of anxiety, as he told me in a phone interview: “Our special effects expert told us, `I can start the fire, but I can’t guarantee we can put it out’, meaning that we were going to get one take. In the end it went fine, but the experience made a big impression on me. The fire was quite beautiful, but to see this thing you had built burn was quite sad.”) Also, the actors, notably Daniel Day Lewis and Paul Dano, are stunning. And yet, Daniel Plainview is not a character one is ever drawn to; we never get a moment as clear as the one Scorsese gives us in Raging Bull (“I am not an animal!”), another film about a not so warm and fuzzy paranoid obsessive. The film reminds me most of Barry Lyndon–beautiful, amazing, but it holds you at arm’s length.

1.18 Four Weddings and a Funeral (DVD) Holds up well. Andie McDowell does a superior job playing a woman who is both inviting and mysterious.

1.9 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day The champagne bubbles don’t ascend quite all the way to the surface, but Amy Adams is again very fine.

1.8 Rome, Season One (DVD) Usually, but not always compelling. Maybe they tried to do just a bit too much

PLUS: Onstage

Rock and Roll, by Tom Stoppard

Legally Blonde

Hamlet

Les Miserables School Edition

The Atheist

2007 MOVIES & DVDS

Charlie Wilson’s War What a terribly underwhelming movie. With Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Mike Nichols, Aaron Sorkin and other gifted people aboard, the movie can’t be bad, but it’s wildly uneven, bumping erracticly between earnest sincerity and over-the-top comedy. Sorkin loads the script with fast-paced, fact-laden dialog, which has long stopped being his signature and is now his crutch. Hanks underplays his character, seldom letting us see the man whom everyone else regards as incorrigible. The best scenes are the loopiest–Hoffman’s tirade at his boss, the door-slamming farce in Wilson’s office when he’s simultaneously trying to deal with the CIA and the US Attorney. The worst scene occurs when the congressman played by Ned Beatty gives a speech at a refugee camp; after having established that the appropriation Wilson sought was to be put though congress secretly; after having established that publicity of US involvement would start World War III; and after taking pains to involve an Israeli arms dealer to `launder’ the weapons deal, here our heroes encourage a congressman to stand up and promise that help is on the way. The Julia Roberts character is shown at her shrewdest best in the scene, which is perhaps why it stayed in. Or perhaps it’s right from the book. But in the film, it makes you say WTF? The camera loves Amy Adams. Emily Blunt makes a sexy appearance, and Traci Phillips as the belly dancer has a memorable moment.

Superbad (DVD) Vile.

Juno What a wonderful movie! One hopes the film makers have the wit to make a Juno movie every decade until the character becomes a centenarian. Terrific direction from Jason Reitman; this, coming on the heels of Thank You for Smoking, signals the birth of a major director. Diablo Cody’s screenplay is vivid and clever and original, although a couple too many of her darlings survived; the line where Juno admits “I don’t know what kind of girl I am” has a particular power, but let’s face it–the girl who charms and excites us throughout the movie with her moxie would never have said that line at that movie to her parents, of all people. Ellen Page is going to be thrilling audiences 35 years after I’m dead; go rent Hard Candy to see an earlier example of her precocious talent (in a phone interview, Reitman told me how impressed he was with Page’s dedication; as an example, he said, “We had two prosthetic bellies made for Ellen. The one which would be used when the belly was exposed was heavy. The one which could be worn under clothing was light. Ellen never wore the light one, but always contrived an excuse to keep the heavier one on. She wanted to live with the feeling. It was a very impressive move for a young actor.’’ Michael Cera gives us the best portrayal of a young man–dreamy, serious, honorable–maybe since The Graduate.

Factory Girl (DVD) Funny to see this on the heels of I’m Not There, with Hayden Christiansen offering his not very compelling interpretation of Dylan, presenting him without charisma or even artistic authority. Sienna Miller was pretty great, even though most of the time her part required her only to smile. Still, she made you sympathize with the Edie, which isn’t easy, given how she completely wasted the money, looks and intelligence life had given her. Guy Pearce makes a viperous Andy. The film would have been 1000 times better if the producers had bought the rights to play `Just Like A Woman’ over the closing credits.

I’m Not There Not Ray or Walk the Line, this is an extremely intelligent film that aims to be the cinematic treatment of the life of Bob Dylan that is as complex as Dylan’s life and music has been. It’s never a comfortable movie, but it sucks you in, dazzles you, confuses you, impresses you, lures and abandons you. Some biopics focus on the art that the artist creates (The Last Waltz, maybe, or Delovely), though most want to show us the person behind the artist. This is that rarest of films, a movie that shows us the artist behind the person.

No Country For Old Men Saw it again with Ginny. I don’t understand those who are critical of it. It is lean, taut, well-paced. Nor do I understand those who wish to believe that Anton Chigur is a ghost. I do not think ghosts are so fastidious. And if he’s supposed to be the representative of that which we can never see coming–well, he doesn’t exactly see it either, does he?

Beowulf Kinda cool, I guess. Scene to scene, everything was engrossing, but the sum of its parts didn’t leave me blown away like I was at 300. Perhaps Beowulf just wasn’t as interesting as King Leonides. Beowulf is about as interesting as, I dunno, John Elway, although I am rather fond of his triumphant war cry after defeating Grendel, which I have been walking around the house intoning in my best Ray Winstone (“I am rippah and teah-rah, mighty strength and lust and powah! I AM BEOWULF!”) And what illustrator worked on the Queen? Whoever it was made Robin Wright Penn look like Jackie DeShannon.

Live Free or Die Hard (DVD) Fun! The John McClain that Bruce Willis offers us is less smug, more, dare we say, zen? Very good action sequences.

Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead What a privilege it has been to go to the movies over these last decades and see a new film by Sidney Lumet! This is a great one. Not quite as electric as Dog Day Afternoon or Prince of the City or Network, the masterpieces that Lumet made when he seemed to be completely in tune with the changing, unsteady, scary, grasping, muscular, media-saturated New York of the late seventies and early eighties, Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead is a little more suburban–and for that, all the more horrifying. Philip Seymour Hoffman is unbelievably good, showing his character in various vignettes to be a charming bully, a wishful husband, a neglected son, and a homicidal madman. In the thankless role of his weakling brother, Ethan Hawke may be even better; he plays a man whose only resource is playing the puppy dog. With about ten lines and minimal wardrobe, Marisa Tomei steals every scene she’s in.

You Kill Me (DVD) I love everything Tea Leoni does.

Gracie (DVD)

Mr. Brooks (DVD) Better than average. Loved William Hurt and Kevin Costner together. Dan in Real Life, here–Dane Cook has something going on.

Fred Claus Some funny moments. Not a lot, though. But it’s always a joy to hear The Waitresses sing Christmas Wrapping. What is poor Rachel Weitz doing here except collecting a paycheck?

Ace in the Hole (DVD) Kirk Douglas gleefully chews the scenery as a cynical reporter; it’s great to see him taking such pleasure in schooling the cub reporter on the ins and outs of the news game. But why does he get all sincere in the end? I suppose it would have been impssible in 1951 to sell a movie in which the antihero doesn’t learn a sad lesson before coming to a sad end (hell, it was probably impossible at any time except the 1970s), but it’s unfortunate that he lost the courage of his cynical convictions.

Michael Clayton Nice taut film with an impeccably weary Clooney. More and more, he is our Bogart.

The Kite Runner Excellent movie with terrific performances by Khalid Abdalla and Homayoun Ershadi. Unusual to see this sort of portrayal of regular life in a Muslim country. To prepare for his part, Adballa spent an entire month in Kabul, learning about the country, how to speak the language—and how to fly kites. “All the kids know how to do it,’’ Adballa told me in a telephone interview for USA Weekend. “For them it’s as easy as throwing a ball, and they found the idea of a grown-up trying to learn completely absurd. They laughed at me!’’ Adballa eventually acquired the knack, and became so proficient that he got sick. “One day I sent the kite so high up that you couldn’t see it anymore,’’ he recalls. “And then it took me so long to haul it down that I got sunstroke.’’

Dan in Real Life Actress Juliette Binoche emailed me a funny story for an article in USA Weekend: “I wanted to surprise my actor-friends with the best pancake recipe for a scene in the film. During the shoot, I was staying at a hotel in Newport, R.I., so I asked the hotel’s cook if we could invent a pancake recipe together. He agreed, and every Sunday we would rehearse and make those pancakes for the producers, the director and their children, but no actors — they had to wait for the special day. But word spread: Everybody was waiting for the most gorgeous, delicious pancakes. The day finally arrived, everything was ready, everyone was excited. Suddenly, we realized that one of the kids in the cast had allergies, so we had to change the recipe and eliminate all wheat and yeast. And so all day, take after take, the actors had to eat these unspeakably heavy, tasteless pancakes. They were so sick afterward, none of them would talk about it.”
Grace Is Gone
Pride (DVD)
The Savages
American Gangster Sorry–I’m a big fan of everybody connected with this film, but for me, the film fell just short. It’s not an epic like The Godfather, it’s not a titanic duel between two brlliant adversaries like Heat, it’s not a amazing study of criminal life, like Goodfellas. It is a movie in which the always excellent Denzel Washington begins to repeat a few of the tricks we’ve recently seen in Inside Man, and in which the usually excellent Russell Crowe fails to convince as a Jersey cop. New York is made to look convincingly dilapidated, though.

Enchanted – A charming, funny movie. Amy Adams seems like a brilliant comedienne; one wonders what it will take in the future to get her scripts that will showcase that gift. For my article in USA Weekend, James Marsden told me this funny story over the phone: For his final scene in this story of a fairy-tale prince brought shockingly to life in Manhattan, James Marsden had to get run over by a group of cyclists in Central Park. “They were all stuntmen, of course,” Marsden says. “Stuntmen, as a rule, treat actors with great delicacy, and this was no exception. They were just gingerly bumping into me with the bikes. But since this was my last day, I said, ‘Bring it on! Let me know how Peyton Manning feels after Ray Lewis hits him. It’ll be funnier that way.’ So they hit me, and my voice squealed like a little girl’s. It was funnier.”

Elizabeth: The Golden Age. For the first time you can see that Clive Owen, playing Sir Walter Raleigh, would not have made a very good James Bond. Not enough swagger, not enough dash. Film makes it seem that Elizabeth was quite infatuated with Raleigh, although it doesn’t go into the fact that she had him jailed for the last years of his life.

Eastern Promises – Very good
Youth Without Youth

The Valley of Elah – Very good. Excellent Tommie Lee Jones.
The Kingdom A simplistic and unconvincing police procedural that culminates in an entirely unbelievable shoot ‘em up involving FBI agents in Riyadh. Exciting but stupid. Saw it at a screening on the upper west side, at the climax of which, someone shouted–disturbingly, not at all ironically–“Kill all the rag heads!” Visually exciting direction by Peter Berg, who did such an excellent job with Friday Night Lights, but the story can’t compete.

Feast of Love—Horrid, although Rhada Mitchell makes a vivid impression.
Shooter (DVD)
Blades of Glory (DVD) Funnier than expected
The Brave One
3:10 to Yuma
Good Luck Chuck – Awful
Death at a Funeral — 4-5 brilliant moments make this work

The Nanny Diaries

The Bourne Ultimatum – Excellent. Is there a better action director than Paul Greenglass?

No Country For Old Men – Excellent thriller, a brilliant film noir. Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem and Tommy Lee Jones are all excellent, and there are smart, pitch perfect performancs from Woody Harrelson, Tess Harper, Emily MacDonald and Barry Corbin as well. Bardem is a psychopath’s psychopath. In a phone interview I did with Brolin for USA Weekend, he told me that he desperately wanted to audition for the part of Llewelyn Moss, but was stuck on set of Grindhouse. He decided to make an audition tape, which may have been the best-credentialed audition tape ever. The scenes were directed by Quentin Tarrantino and shot by Robert Rodriguez, using the lights and cameras employed on Grindhouse. The response from the laconic Coen Brothers? “They wanted to know who lit it,’’ Brolin told me. “They weren’t interested in me, at least not until much later. I was the last person they interviewed. Fortunately, we hit it off.’’ Brolin also told me that the Coen Brothers were so reserved in their praise that for the first couple of weeks, he and Bardem would sit around at night convinced that they were going to be fired.

Hairspray – A lot of fun

The Charge of the Light Brigade (DVD) Awful.

Waterloo (VHS) Fantastic.

Seraphim Falls (DVD)
Goya’s Ghosts
Rescue Dawn – Interesting

Talk to Me – Good (read reaction here)
The Simpsons Movie
The Painted Veil (DVD)

The Namesake
No End in Sight Excellent (read reaction here)
The Hunting Party
Ocean’s Thirteen Impossible for this series not to be fun

War and Peace – Breathtaking (read reaction here)
Spiderman III — Who cares anymore?
Little Children (DVD)
The Good German (DVD)
Nancy Drew
Knocked Up — Funny
Music & Lyrics (DVD)
Waitress — Not so interesting, but is Keri Russell the prettiest actress

Black Book – Very good (read reaction here)

Hot Fuzz – Funny
Zodiac

The Wind That Shakes the Barley – Excellent (read reaction here)

The Lives of Others Excellent (read reaction here)
The Hoax Hope Davis as a book editor in her swirling sixties dresses–she does it for me.

Color Me Kubrick (read reaction here)

Breach Terrific Chris Cooper (read reaction here)

Amazing Grace If you like high-minded costume histories–and boy, do I!–then this drama about William Wilberforce, the man who led the fight to end the British slave trade is right up your alley. Ioan Gruffudd, who makes a splendid Horatio Hornblower in the A&E series, is a little stilted here, which may be true to the character, but isn’t quite all that fun. But the supporting cast provides a lot of that. Ciaran Hinds plays the bad guy, Lord Tarleton (the same dragoon who inspired the character of the villian in The Patriot) with vigor, Michael Gambon is cunning as Lord Fox, Rufus Sewell plays against type as the anti-slavery crusader Thomas Clarkson, the improbably named Benedict Cumberbatch is impressive as William Pitt the Younger, and Romola Garai, her creamy skin set off by a stunning red wig, is exciting as Barbara Wilberforce. To learn more about these people, read Adam Hochschild’s excellent history Bury the Chains.

300 – Excellent “Tonight, we dine in hell!’’ (read reaction here)

We Are Marshall For a male weepie, really quite well done. Matthew McConaughey suffers from his early misadventures onscreen, where he was overmatched by the material. He holds the screen well, and does a good job engaging with others.

PLUS Onstage:

Young Frankenstein A low-grade pleasure. In the first act, it’s Andrea Martin as Frau Blucher and the special effects that hold one’s interest. But the show really comes alive in the second act, when Megan Mullaley arrives like the cavalry, and the big Puttin’ On The Ritz production number (thank you, Irving Berlin!) rescues the show. Saw it with Ginny, Molly and Cara, who liked it quite a bit, even though she’d never seen any Frankenstein movie (except The Rocky Horror Picture Show) and had never heard Puttin’ On The Ritz, or even had an idea what the Ritz was!

Frost/Nixon. Terrific Frank Langella, excellent Michael Sheen. With Ginny.

Romeo and Juliet. In Central Park with Molly.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In Central Park with Molly. Impressive Keith David.

Hair. In Central Park with Molly, Cara and Ginny. (for reaction, click here.)

Journey’s End