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In 1968, the Beatles recorded "Hey Jude", a seven-minute song where the main portion is finished in just over three minutes and closes with four minutes of them singing the chorus as the music fades out. It became their best-selling single and is rightly considered one of the greatest songs of all time. "The Teller and the Truth" starts out as a documentary about the real-life unsolved case of the 1974 disappearance of bank teller Francis Wetherbee from Smithville, Texas. The documentary portion of the film finishes up in a little over a half hour, and the remaining 40 or so minutes is an extended montage showing what might have happened. What worked so well for the Beatles in song does not work at all in Andrew Shapter's film.

As I stated earlier, the movie starts out as a documentary/noir about a real-life incident. Most of part one of the film is interviews with Wetherbee's friends, fiancée, and the reporters and policemen who worked the case. As there is not much visual footage of what happened, the filmmakers rely on actors recreating the events. Wetherbee herself is portrayed by Leilani Galvan--a dead ringer for Marion Cotillard. What happened is that a week before her disappearance, the bank where Wetherbee worked was robbed. The main suspect was Oliver Pearce, a drifter who was dishonorably discharged from Vietnam and who also went missing at around the same time.

Once all of this is established, there's nothing factual left to document, and there's not enough material for a feature-length film, so the filmmakers created a "happily-ever-after" scenario and stretched it out until they finally got an 82-minute movie out of it. In the filmmakers' imagination, Francis and Oliver were secretly in love. When Francis learned she was pregnant with Oliver's child, they staged the robbery and disappearance so they could get away from Smithville (described variously as too conservative, too Christian, too isolated and too American for anyone with spirit). They went to India where they became spiritually enlightened (although exactly how is kept rather vague), and ended up in rural France.

This could have worked if this portion had been done as a conventional narrative film, but instead it is done as a 40+ minute montage with no spoken dialog. Instead, the story is told in third person by a female narrator whose identity is not revealed until several minutes into it. And it's not enough for them to establish that they lived happily ever after. They have to tell us exactly how they lived happily ever after. There were several points where the story could have ended, and they kept going past it right up until the present day, when their daughter (who should have been in her mid-to-late 30's, but who is played by an actress who appears to be in her 20's) decides to go back to Smithville to see how it all began.

"The Teller and the Truth" tells a fascinating story that--in the hands of more capable filmmakers--could have been a good movie. Instead, the lurches in tone and content in the second half of the film left me very unsatisfied. 1 out of 10.

I'm in my mid-40's now, but I am still too young to have ever seen Dock Ellis play. In fact I had never even heard of him until I saw this movie. The famous no-hitter that gives the film its title was played 9 months before I was born. And his career ended in 1979 when I was too young to sit still long enough to watch a baseball game. Which is not to say I *shouldn't* have heard of him. The names of many of his contemporaries such as Roberto Clemente, Pete Rose and Reggie Jackson are known to anyone with even a passing interest in baseball. And from what I saw in this film, Dock Ellis should be mentioned in the same breath.

From the 1980's onward, Ellis was known for his admission that he was addicted to drugs and alcohol throughout his baseball career. In 1970, he pitched a no-hitter while flying on LSD--which inspired Robin Williams to do a bit about it more than 30 years later. But when he was actually playing, he was known as the angry black pitcher who wore hair curlers and earrings--which inspired Johnny Carson to do a bit about it at the time.

But the film is not just about baseball and popular culture. "No No: A Dockumentary" succeeds in its goal of providing a complete portrait of this fascinating individual. It uses interviews of friends, family and even two of his ex-wives. And even though Ellis died during filming, director Jeff Radice was able to get a very thorough interview with Ellis, so you don't get the feeling that you're only learning about this guy from others' points of view. It starts with his teen years in Compton. Then it focuses on his 1968-1973 peak with the Pirates, his 1976 comeback with the Yankees, and the 1978-1979 end of his career with the Rangers. And then finally it focuses on the final 25 years of his life as the public face of drug addiction in sports and a drug counselor.

The things I like best about the movie are the interviews, which feel like you're sitting on the porch with your family swapping stories about your crazy cousin. And I like that Adam "King Ad-Rock" Horowitz is able to replicate the psychedelic rock and funk sounds from the period, even though the filmmakers couldn't get the rights to the big hits of the day.

The main problem I have with this film--and it's a minor quibble--is that of all the on-field stories about Dock, the only game they show using old TV footage is the no-hitter. All the rest are represented through still photographs or--in one case--a slide show of comic strip panels.

Dock Ellis was possibly the greatest pitcher of the early 1970's. And his influence extended into the greater culture at large--from his fashion sense that was replicated by the gangsta rappers of the early 1990's (Ice Cube in particular), to his becoming a leading advocate of drug rehabilitation programs in the Just Say No 1980's. The fact that I had never heard of him until now is frankly a shame. He was a great ballplayer, and once he sobered up he became a greater human being. "No No: A Dockumentary" is a testament to this. 8 out of 10.

In the past few years, there have been very good documentaries on great musicians who just missed success. First came "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" about the mentally ill genius of the '80's alt-rock scene. Then "The Story of Anvil" about Canada's greatest forgotten metal band. Then there was last year's Oscar-winning "Searching for Sugarman" about Rodriguez, the '60's folk-pop singer who became an icon in South Africa, but nowhere else. And now there is "A Band Called Death" about an early punk band from Detroit that by rights should have gotten the same recognition as the Stooges or MC5.

Nominally, this is a film about punk rock, but really it's about family. That's because the original line-up of Death was three brothers: Dannis Hackney--a drummer into Alice Cooper; Bobby Hackney--the bassist/lead vocalist who grew up wanting to be like Paul McCartney; and the late David Hackney, a guitarist who successfully tried to create a playing style that was a cross between Pete Townshend and Jimi Hendrix. Dannis and Bobby still reminisce and tell stories about the early days as only family members can. The Hackney family is very close-knit and deeply religious, as well as musical.

It was David who came up with the name of the band and wrote all their songs--many of which had spiritual themes. And it was David who kept them from success during his lifetime. After they recorded their album, they shopped it to all the major labels. Clive Davis of Arista records was ready to sign them if they only changed the name of the group. David refused, and so the band went unsigned. After that, they moved to Vermont where the police would tear down their fliers under the mistaken idea that they were gang-related propaganda. When they did finally change their name, they were still hard-pressed to get gigs because of the religious content of their lyrics. So David left and moved back to Detroit where he developed twin addictions to alcohol and cigarettes, eventually dying of lung cancer in 2000. Meanwhile, Bobby and Dannis formed the reggae band Lambsbread, where religious lyrics are more acceptable.

Fast forward to 2008: Bobby's sons--Bobby Jr, Julian and Urian become aware of these MP3's online from an early hardcore punk band called Death. Already huge punk fans, they (separately) listen to what they think is the best rock music they've ever heard. And when the vocals come in, they realize they're listening to their dad and uncles. So they learn the songs themselves, and form a Death tribute band called Rough Francis. Which inspires Bobby Sr and Dannis to re-form Death with a new guitarist.

As I said in an earlier paragraph, this movie is not so much about the band Death, but the Hackney family. Their love and loyalty towards each other radiates off the screen. One of the main interviewees is their older brother Earl who was not part of the band. They cry when they talk about David. They laugh when they remember what they were like as kids. When their mother dies during filming, we in the audience are nearly as devastated as they are. The only change I would have liked to see would have been interview footage with David. But of course, that doesn't exist, so all we're left with is the awesome music he wrote.

A couple of weeks ago,the Alamo Drafthouse hosted a revival of "Wake in Fright" here in Austin. Many of the reviews (both from the US and Austrailia)called it the greatest movie Australia has ever produced. After watching the film, I would have to say that although I enjoyed it somewhat, that epithet is a gross exaggeration.

The film stars Gary Bond (a dead ringer for Peter O'Toole, but lacking O'Toole's talent) as John Grant, a bonded teacher forced to teach in a small outback town when he would rather be in Sydney with his girlfriend or in London working for a newspaper. During Christmas holidays (the middle of summer in the Southern Hemisphere), he gets on a train to the mining town of Bundanyabba (known to locals as "The Yabba") to catch a plane to Sydney. While there, the aggressively friendly locals insist on buying him drinks and get upset when he says he doesn't want to get drunk with them. Eventually, the locals prevail and he winds losing all his money at gambling, forcing to stay in the Yabba for his entire holiday.

During his stay, he is seduced (the film actually calls it rape) by the daughter of one of his local hosts; is taken in by the cultured, educated, but crazed Doc Tydon (played by Donald Pleasance); and is taken on a brutal kangaroo hunt, where he has to prove his masculinity to his ultra-macho companions.

The film--based on the novel by Kenneth Cook--is reasonably well-written and well-directed by Ted Kotcheff (who would find success in the 1980's with "First Blood" and "Weekend at Bernie's"). And the kangaroo hunt is one of the most chilling scenes ever committed to celluloid.

But the movie is also highly flawed: Donald Pleasance is the only actor in the movie who is capable of subtlety and he is also the only one who doesn't give a completely wooden performance. And there are only two major female characters. The first is the "rapist" daughter who is supposed to be young and beautiful but who is played by Sylvia Kay--an average-looking woman in her mid-30's at the time of filming who just happened to be married to Kotcheff. The other major character is Grant's girlfriend who has no lines, but just plays in the surf in a red one-piece suit. None of the female characters has any depth, but are instead just sex robots. And the scene after the kangaroo hunt where the guys trash a bar is needlessly violent and overlong. All of these, combined with the 16mm camera-work, the cheap sets and the cheesy score combine to give this movie the feel of a grind-house flick despite the filmmakers' clear intentions to make a work of artistic importance.

I did enjoy this film for what it was: a better-than-average low-budget drama that foreshadows both "Deliverance" and the "Mad Max" trilogy. But this is hardly the greatest Australian movie ever. Granted, it's better than "Crocodile Dundee", but nowhere near as good as "The Year My Voice Broke", its sequel "Flirting", "Priscilla Queen of the Desert" or anything Peter Weir has done. 7 out of 10.

There are no spoilers in this review simply because there is nothing in "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" to spoil. There is no plot as such. It is strictly a portrait of Jiro Ono, the world's greatest sushi-maker. He has no hobbies or interests other than sushi. The only major change in his life in the last 40 years is that he quit smoking. He groomed both his now middle-aged sons (somewhat against their will) to be sushi chefs.

The point of the film seems to be two-fold. The main purpose seems to be to assure Jiro's legions of fans that his elder son Yoshikazu will follow his father's recipes exactingly and will make no changes to the restaurant once Jiro dies. And the secondary purpose is to show the importance of sustainable fishing.

If you're looking for a narrative plot-driven film, you'll be disappointed. But if you are a foodie who likes seeing behind the scenes at a fine restaurant, this is the movie for you. Be warned though: You have to see this in a theater near a sushi restaurant or you'll be disappointed in whatever meal you eat following the film.

"Big Miracle" is the true story of how--in 1988--politicians, the media, hunters, environmentalists, big oil, the US Army Reserve and the Soviet Navy all managed to put aside their differences to cooperate in rescuing a family of gray whales from under the Arctic tundra. Something unlikely to happen again in this era of hair-trigger tempers and hyper-partisan dehumanization of those with differing opinions.

The opening and closing narrations are by Ahmaogak Sweeney as a native boy caught in the middle of the excitement, but all other narration is provided by Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and the late Peter Jennings from actual news broadcasts. And just to emphasize that the story is really true, footage of the actual people involved is shown alongside the actors who played them during the final credits.

The main characters in this drama are John Krasinski as struggling TV reporter Adam Carlson and Drew Barrymore as a Greenpeace activist Rachel Kramer who just happens to be Adam's ex-girlfriend. Adam sees the story as his catapult to network news (thanks to his sucking up to equally ambitious Jill Jerard played by Kristen Bell), while Rachel sees it as a moral imperative.

There are also lots of subplots involving Ted Danson as the CEO of a big oil company, Dermot Mulroney as the commander of an Army Reserve unit, Vinessa Shaw as an aide to President Reagan, and Rob Riggle & James LeGros as a pair of inventor brothers. But for me, the most interesting character was Barrymore as Rachel, who has to learn the hard way that you can't convince Inuits to stop whaling by calling them murderers, that you can't get people to care about the environment by lecturing them, and that sometimes you have to work with people you don't agree with if you actually want to achieve anything worthwhile--a lesson the tea-partiers and Wall-Street-Occupiers could use a dose of.

I also really liked Krasinski bringing lots of humor to the proceedings (the eyeball-licking scene had me rolling on the floor). And while this film is rated PG, I didn't really notice any kind of pandering to a kid audience and the mild language didn't seem forced (i.e. there was no clear instance of characters saying "drat" when the screenwriters clearly had an f-bomb in mind).

The film was also a fairly realistic portrait of a time when many didn't have cable, only a handful had cell phones and almost no one used the Internet. The only real anachronism I found was Ted Danson's glasses (back then, big round lenses were fashionable, not the narrow square lenses of today). And a minor detail was that virtually all the men's real-life counterparts had mullets and/or mustaches, but none of the actors had bad hair and only Stephen Root grew a 'stache for the role.

This is not an Oscar-worthy drama. Unless 2012 turns out to be a really bad year for movies, it won't make anyone's 10-best list. But as far as feel-good comedy-dramas and movies "inspired by" true events go, this is above average. Plus it give us a reminder that our differences can be overcome for the greater good if we can just take off our partisan blinders for only a moment.

Evan Glodell is a busy guy. He wrote, directed, edited, produced and starred in "Bellflower". And if that weren't enough, he also was the production designer (under the pseudonym "Team Coatwolf") and invented an app to make DV shots (purposesly) yellow, grimy and only partly in focus. It's quite a debut, to be sure. Like "Mean Streets" and "Resevoir Dogs", I do believe that Glodell and his cast of unknowns will go on to greater stardom in the future. However, unlike the two aforementioned films, this is no masterpiece.

The story is about a Wisconsinite-turned-Angeleno named Woodrow (Glodell) and his buddy Aiden (Tyler Dawson) who are obsessed with apocalyptic movies and comics, especially "Mad Max". They don't appear to have jobs, and when Woodrow is asked what he does, he replies "I'm building a flame-thrower." The duo have also customized a pair of cars. One is a Volvo with a whiskey spigot in the dash, and the other is a vintage Chevelle with flaming tailpipes. (They get their equipment at a salvage store on Bellflower Ave, hence the title of the movie).

At a bar one night, he meets Milly (Jessie Wiseman), and it's love at first sight. She turns out to be even more into apocalyptic stuff than he is. So much so, she refuses to go to a nice restaurant, instead making him drive all the way to Texas to the nastiest diner he knows of. Then she makes him trade the Volvo for an "apocalypse" motorcycle ("apocalypse" in this instance being an adjective meaning so ugly it looks like a prop from "Escape From New York"). And finally, she makes him grow a truly heinous beard (an aside: I have a beard, as do my brother, father, and stepfather. And I feel on behalf of all bearded men, I must apologize for Glodell's disgusting facial hair).

Then one day, Woodrow discovers Milly's male roommate Mike (Vincent Grashaw) is also her "friend with benefits". He storms out of the house, crashes his bike and winds up in the hospital for some time.

After that, it gets hazy. It's fairly certain that he has revenge sex with Milly's best friend Courtney (Rebekah Brandes), but either he becomes a violent misogynist with peaceful fantasies about leaving LA; or he stays grounded, leaves LA with Aiden, but has blood-soaked revenge fantasies. The audience is left to choose what--if anything--actually happens after the motorcycle crash. Even the revenge sex may just have been a fantasy.

Altogether, this movie is a mixed bag. It's certainly well-acted and well-written. And I like the idea of the final act of the movie being ambiguous as to what is real and what isn't. However, I found the camera-work I mentioned in the first paragraph to be grating after the first half-hour or so. I also don't share the apocalypse-mania of the three lead characters, so I really had a hard time empathizing with them. Plus, none of the characters appear to have jobs, so I wonder how they can afford to live in these nice Hollywood bungalows. And there is never a scene in which one or more of the characters isn't drinking, smoking or doing dope. (I'm sorry, but bacon and beer is not a healthy breakfast.) Evan Glodell is a talented young actor, screenwriter and director. I am sure one day he will be a sought-after talent. "Bellflower" is a good start to his career, but that's all it is--a start. 7 out of 10.

"The Dilemma" is the exact sort of film I try to avoid seeing: It bills itself as a comedy, but the laughs are few and far between; I haven't liked Vince Vaughn in anything else except "Swingers"; I don't care for Kevin James or Queen Latifah; and the movie's basically a two-hour commercial for the Dodge Challenger. Nonetheless, when my friends dragged me to see it, I actually sort of enjoyed the movie.

The basic plot of the movie is that best-friends-since-college Ronny and Nick (Vaughn and James) run an engineering firm that is vying to help redesign the engine of the new Dodge Challenger to be more eco-friendly without losing the macho factor. Ronny is nervous about wanting to propose to his girlfriend (Jennifer Connelly), and then finds out that Nick's wife (Winona Ryder) is having an affair. The next 90 minutes Ronny debating with himself on what to do with this knowledge, punctuated by some rather lame slapstick.

There are--however--plenty of redeeming features that save this film. First is that director Ron Howard--although not a master craftsman--is a capable, professional director and rarely misses a chance to insert a funny cameo from little brother Clint. Second is the script from Allan Loeb, which makes each of the four leads a believable three-dimensional character rather than some by-the-numbers cardboard cutout. And finally, there are also the performances by the two female leads: Jennifer Connelly has always been great, going back to her years as a child actor; and Winona Ryder (who I had a crush on in the early '90's and who is as beautiful as ever pushing 40) looks ready for a career comeback in her biggest role since her shoplifting conviction.

As an aside, I also want to say that there a couple of scenes with a very subtle political (pro-tea-party) undercurrent that I disagree with. However, unlike most politically aware movies since "Roger & Me", the filmmakers don't try to bludgeon the audience with their beliefs, so it doesn't detract from the film as a whole--for which I am grateful.

"The Dilemma" is not Oscar-caliber. It is not a great film. I will not buy it on DVD. It's crassly commercial and the "funny" bits just don't work. But as far as mainstream Hollywood early-year releases go, it's actually okay.

I generally dislike disaster movies. Either they are like the recent "Sanctum", which imperils two-dimensional characters that I can't connect with and therefore don't care about. Or they are like the overrated "Titanic", which gives so much time to the story of the romance-novel characters that the actual disaster seems perfunctory. But "Unstoppable" gives us three-dimensional characters with realistic back-stories, but it still keeps its focus on the plot.

You may have noticed that I never used the word "original" in the opening paragraph. That's because, although well-written and realistic (considering that it is--after all--based on a true story), all the characters and plot points easily fit templates that have gone before in prior movies: a young rookie (Chris Pine) is partnered with a grizzled veteran (Denzel Washington); one is newly separated and not allowed to see his child, and the other is a widower with two grown daughters; the boss (Kevin Dunn) is a control freak more concerned with the bottom line than doing the right thing and keeps making boneheaded mistakes; the runaway train narrowly misses crashing into hundreds of schoolchildren on a field trip; etc.

But I like the fact that action-master Tony Scott never gives us cookie-cutter variations of the stock characters. He casts the film with good-to-great actors who take pride in making us believe their performances, and the screenplay by Mark Bomback never feels lazy or forced (except for the awful last two lines of dialog).

If you're looking for a genre-busting game-changer of an action flick, go rent Hitchcock or Tarantino. But if you want a solidly done McGuffin-free disaster film that puts the story over hackneyed romance and acting ahead of FX, this is the film for you--not "Twister", "Pearl Harbor" or "The Perfect Storm".

There's this great movie about a handsome, cynical journalist who makes a coast-to-coast trek with a beautiful young heiress who is trying to get to her father and fiancée by the end of the week. Due to various plot contrivances, they can't take the plane or train, so they get on a bus, then wind up hitchhiking. After lots of adventures together, they fall in love. That movie is called "It Happened One Night". "Monsters" has a nearly identical plot, but instead of old-fashioned jokes, it has high-end monster-movie special effects.

The reporter is played by Scoot McNairy and the heiress is played by Whitney Able. The film's publicity has made much of the fact that McNairy and Able are a real-life couple. And I believe it because--like most real-life couples who act together--they have almost no on-screen chemistry. I believed these two characters could be friends, but not lovers. That being said, the characters are well written and the acting isn't bad. They just don't click with each other like--say--Bogey and Bacall, or couple-no-more Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson.

The best thing about this movie is the special effects--of which there are precious few. Partly, this was done to create suspense for the few times when we do see the creatures, but mostly--I'm guessing--to keep the budget low.

"Monsters" is not a bad movie. And it isn't all that derivative of other horror flicks. However it is very derivative of a much superior romantic comedy from 76 years ago.

Ned Vizzini's novel "It's Kind of a Funny Story" is an incredibly accurate portrayal of what it's like to live with hyper-anxiety. I should know. It's a condition I've had as long as I can remember. Unfortunately the movie adaptation is a little lacking.

Co-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck seem to want to do a film that does for mental hospitals what Wes Anderson's "Rushmore" did for prep schools. Like "Rushmore", "Funny Story" gives us quirky characters, a wink-nod style of editing, and an eclectic soundtrack. However, Boden and Fleck lack Anderson's wry sense of humor and his willingness to make his characters unlikable.

In the Jason Schwartzman role is Keir Gilchrist as Craig, an over-stressed 15-year-old who checks himself into a hospital for suicidal depression. Unfortunately, the teen psychiatric wing is under construction and he is put into the adult section. In the Bill Murray role is Zach Galifianakis as Bobby, who becomes Craig's best friend and mentor--largely because they both see themselves at a different age in each other.

The acting is superb all around. Especially Galifianakis. Like Bill Murray in "Rushmore", he shows the dark underside of his comic persona. This is not to say the viewer won't recognize his shtick from other films. His funniest moment (I thought) was lip-syncing the David Bowie part to Queen's "Under Pressure".

Where the movie falls short is that--probably to keep the film PG-13 so teens could see it--all the references to pot-smoking from the book are gone and the sex is very toned-down. Also, there is the issue of racial political correctness in the casting: In the book, Craig's psychiatrist Dr. Minerva is a Greek immigrant and his unrequited crush Nia is half-Asian-half-Jewish. In the film they're both African-American, played by Viola Davis and Zoe Kravitz respectively. And I was disappointed that Asif Mandvi was limited to one scene as Dr. Mahmoud. In the book, he's the most important non-white character, but in the film, most of his lines are given to Jeremy Davis as Smitty the volunteer. (If there is any justice in the world, Asif will be the next "Daily Show" star to blow up.)

But my biggest complaint is that they didn't include what I thought were the book's biggest concepts: "tentacles" (responsibilities that breed even more responsibilities that often conflict with each other), "anchors" (things that can be enjoyed just for themselves without complication), and "the shift" (the hoped-for moment when the anxiety goes away and one can live a normal life). Without these concepts, it's impossible to explain to an outsider how Craig feels.

"It's Kind of a Funny Story" is a wonderful book that answers the question that I heard too many adults asking when I was in my teens and 20's: "Why would anyone want to kill themselves when they're too young to have any real problems?" The film is a well-acted piece that unfortunately only scratches the surface of what the book has to say.

I like French-produced nature documentaries. I thoroughly enjoyed "Winged Migration", and I liked "March of the Penguins" even more. But I didn't much care for "Oceans". And in the wake of the recent disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, I was more depressed by all the pretty pictures than enthralled.

The first thing you need to know about "Oceans" is that it's not for all ages. It is specifically geared towards grade-school and preschool children. If you've had a 7th grade biology class, you won't be learning anything new. And it has the annoying habit of the old Disney nature docs of assigning cute human traits to sea animals.

Another annoying aspect was Pierce Brosnan's ethereal high-pitched, half-whispered narration. It made me wonder how anyone thought this guy was an action star.

But I would recommend letting your kids see this one. If they're under 12, they might actually learn something. And to those not born yet, you can show it and say "This is what our oceans looked like before human greed and willful ignorance ruined it." But to present-day adults, this is an unintentionally depressing bore of a movie. 6 out of 10.

I've always been cautious about seeing Swedish films made in the last 30-40 years. The reason is that--unlike America, Britain, Germany, China, Mexico, Italy or Australia--there is almost no controversy over who is Sweden's greatest filmmaker. And thus nearly every Swedish film I've ever seen not directed by Ingmar Bergman has either been a rip-off of the great man's work or just shallow trash. (Substitute "Kurosawa" for "Bergman" and you'll know why I also tend to avoid Japanese cinema). Nonetheless, I kept hearing about this film and the book that inspired it. As a lover of mystery novels and film noir, I decided that I need to at least give this movie a chance. And I'm glad I did. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" owes almost nothing to Bergman and everything to the novels of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Ross McDonald.

It begins when a sickly, elderly billionaire industrialist who knows better than to trust his awful family wants to investigate the 42-year-old disappearance of his niece--the only relative he ever loved (think "The Big Sleep"). Through intermediaries, he hires Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace)--a hacker/private investigator with a troubled past and a large dragon tattoo on her back. Her assignment is to vet disgraced leftist journalist Mikael Blomqvist (Michael Nyqvist) to see if he's up to the job. Eventually Blomqvist agrees to do the job and quickly realizes that he needs Lisbeth to help him. Revealing much more of the plot would be unfair.

Aside from the serpentine plot (involving Nazis, serial killers, and a clandestine romance), the thing I liked most about this movie was Rapace's performance as the inscrutable Lisbeth. Maybe there's a pattern here, or maybe it's just me, but--along with Kristen Stewart in "The Runaways"--my two favorite female performances of 2010 thus far have been portrayals of angry, leather-jacketed bisexual young women. Without changing facial expressions, Rapace is somehow able to show anger, fear, love, sadness and embarrassment at the appropriate times. And I feel the scene where Lisbeth is raped by her parole officer ranks just as high if not higher than the scene in "The Accused" that won Jodie Foster her first Oscar.

According to this site, there is already an American remake in the works. I don't know how that's going to work. Parts of the plot are fairly Euro-centric (i.e. jail-time for libel, a local Nazi movement run by Hitler himself). Plus, the film retains novelist Stieg Larsson's radical anti-capitalist, anti-government views, which most Americans would find unpalatable.

The future of Swedish cinema rests on movies from that country being watchable without giving up their artistic merit. Swedish filmmakers need to step outside the notion of becoming "the next Bergman" because there will only ever be one Bergman. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is a great first step along that path.

There is a very good reason why most art-house fare is drama. For a comedy to be successful, the people involved have to be willing to let their hair down and be silly. But the people who make art-house movies take themselves and their films quite seriously. As a result, when art-house filmmakers try their hands at comedy, we get god-awful pretentiousness and instead of actual jokes we get quirky characters taken straight from "New Yorker" cartoons with dialog full of obscure literary allusions. I have only seen six movies that have succeeded in being highbrow art films without sacrificing funniness ("Love and Death", "Slacker", "Barton Fink", "Henry Fool", "Being John Malkovich" and "Stranger Than Fiction") and all of them poke fun at their own pomposity. Plus Woody Allen, the Coens, and Charlie Kaufmann all started out doing straight comedy and only got into the art-house stuff later in their careers, so they already knew from funny.

"The Brothers Bloom" is not a successful art-house comedy. I realized it from the opening sequence with third person narration from Ricky Jay. We meet the two brothers as kids in an upscale small town. While the rest of the kids dress normally, the brothers have Beatle cuts, wear dark suits and wear hats that went out of style in the 1930's. The narration reveals writer-director Rian Johnson's ax to grind when it sneers at the "happy, well-adjusted, stable playground bourgeoisie" (God forbid anyone be middle-class *and* happy!). Older brother Stephen gets revenge on the local kids (and sets up younger brother Bloom's unwanted ability to seduce any woman he talks to) by constructing an elaborate con that gets all the kids' clothes dirty and earns the brothers $30.

Fast-forward 25 years. The Beatle cuts and third person narration are gone, but the brothers--now in their middle 30's--still wear dark suits and old-fashioned hats. Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) is still constructing elaborate cons that also function as great literature (pretentious, no?) with Bloom (Adrien Brody) and mute Japanese munitions expert "Bang Bang" (Rinko Kikuchi). Bloom wants out because the cons invariably lead to women throwing themselves at him, which he is extremely uncomfortable with. Eventually he gets up the courage to split for Montenegro and leave the con game behind. But Stephen tracks him down and gets him to agree to the hackneyed One Last Job on a sheltered heiress (Rachel Weisz) who is fluent in multiple languages, can play any musical instrument, and makes homemade cameras all because she was never able to leave her house until both parents died when she was already past 30.

The rest of the movie doesn't make any sense. This could be forgiven if the film was actually funny. And since all four leads are good enough actors that they have been Oscar winners or Oscar nominees, they do their best with the material they're given. But the funniest moment is when Stephen quips "I'm not sure he's really Belgian." The rest of it is silly hats, quirks, and pointless explosions. And at 113 minutes, it's at least 20 minutes too long for a comedy with no jokes.

The Marx Brothers' movies for Paramount and the Monty Python films prove that you can make a laugh-out-loud comedy that's also intelligent. And Woody Allen and Wes Anderson have proved you can also add melancholy and a sophisticated film-making style without sacrificing laughs. But "The Brothers Bloom" falls into the same trap as "Box of Moonlight", "Love and Death on Long Island", "I Heart Huckabees" and "Little Miss Sunshine": the screenwriters and/or directors are unwilling to do anything that keeps their movie from being taken seriously, which defeats the whole purpose of making a comedy. 5 out of 10.

I suspected as much when I saw "Spider-Man 3", and it's been confirmed with "Drag Me to Hell": Sam Raimi has forgotten how to make fun movies. This is not an easy thing for me to admit, as I have been a Raimi fan ever since I first saw "Darkman" in college at the Texas Union theater.

When I heard from numerous critics and fans that "Drag Me to Hell" was Raimi's return to his early style, I bought my ticket enthusiastically. Unfortunately, that enthusiasm was misplaced. The unabashed silliness that made the "Evil Dead" trilogy and "Darkman" such fun to watch was seriously muted. Instead of the over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek acting styles of Bruce Campbell or Frances McDormand, we get Alison Lohman and Justin Long in the lead roles, both playing it straight. This wouldn't be so bad if they weren't such mediocre actors.

And instead of the comic-book-style dialog that I have come to expect from Raimi's films (especially now that he is best known for the "Spider-Man" trilogy), the movie treats us to stifling discussions about mortgages and bank policies, and a serious debate between a psychology professor (Long) and a fortune teller (Dileep Rao) about the respective merits of Freud vs. Jung.

But the real disappointment is that there was no splatter! When I see a Sam Raimi horror flick, I expect various body parts to be severed and lots and lots of blood. Instead, this movie settles for an off-screen animal sacrifice. The only truly funny part was at the wake for the evil old crone (Lorna Raver as Mrs. Ganush was the only actor to get into the spirit of things). And the only truly scary part was the séance near the end. The rest of the film's horror set-pieces rehash what was done before (and better) in "Poltergeist".

Judging from "A Simple Plan", "The Gift", and the non-FX parts of "Spider-Man 2", I know that Sam Raimi can do serious drama as well as anyone else. But when I see his name attached to a horror flick, I expect ultra-violent, unapologetically goofy fun. And Bruce Campbell! 6 out of 10.

We all know that chocolate makes you fat & pimply and rots your teeth. But it's still enjoyable as an occasional snack. Low-budget Asian martial-arts films (with the notable exception of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon") are the cinematic equivalent of chocolate. They are lacking in writing, acting and plausibility. But they're so much fun to watch. "Chocolate" is no exception to the rule.

The movie starts with the forbidden love between Thai gangster's moll Zin (Ammara Sirapong) and Masashi (Hiroshi Abe) from a rival Japanese gang. Prior to the opening credits, we assume this will be a Romeo and Juliet story, but the two lovers are separated quickly and forcibly by Zin's gang. But not before Zin is pregnant with Masashi's daughter.

Fast forward some 15 years. Zin's daughter Zen (Yanin Vismitinanda) is an autistic savant, but not with math or music as real-life savants are, but with martial arts. She is cared for by her mother and adopted brother Mangmoom (Taphon Phopwandee). When she is not displaying her skills for handouts, she sits at home popping little chocolate candies (hence the title of the movie).

We soon learn that Zin is critically ill with cancer and needs money for chemotherapy. When Mangmoom discovers a list of people from Zin's past who owe her money, he decides to go with Zen to collect. And if you've seen a Shaw Brothers movie (or Tarantino's "Kill Bill"), you can guess the rest of the plot: one by one, Zen has to face off with various criminal gangs, each one more skilled in martial arts than the last, and each fight scene more complexly choreographed than the last.

What's amazing is Vismitnada's skill as both an actress (she is completely believable as an autistic girl), and a martial artist. The fight scenes are reminiscent of Jackie Chan at his peak, before he came to America.

"Chocolate" was rightly passed up for any Academy Awards and went straight to DVD in America. It is not a great movie by any means. But darn it, it's fun to watch. 7 out of 10.

I have never been much of a Ben Stiller fan. I have always thought that when he succeeds, it was more due to the people surrounding him than any actual talent. This has been true from his earliest days on MTV (Janeane Garafolo, Andy Dick) through his late-'90's commercial peak (Cameron Diaz, Robert De Niro) up to today (Will Ferrell, Owen Wilson). "Tropic Thunder" does not change my opinion. What sets "Tropic Thunder" apart is that this time one of his more-talented collaborators is cinematic genius Ethan Coen, who co-wrote the script.

The plot of "Tropic Thunder" is fairly thin, so I won't go into much detail except to say that it is about the filming of a Vietnam War drama, and fans of "Platoon", "Apocolypse Now", "Born on the Fourth of July", "Hamburger Hill" and "Full Metal Jacket" will see scenes from these movies all spoofed surprisingly well.

I should say something about the characters. Ben Stiller plays Tugg Speedman, a cross between Tom Cruise and Sylvester Stallone, a middle-aged, washed up action star trying to go back to playing the sorts of roles that got him nominated for Oscars back in his twenties. Jack Black plays Jeff Portnoy, a cross between Eddie Murphy and Robert Downey Jr, a drug addict trying to break out of slapstick comedy roles. Downey himself plays Kirk Lazarus, a cross between De Niro and Russell Crowe, an intense Australian method actor who has undergone surgery to make himself black for the role. Brandon Jackson plays Alpa Chino, a gangster rapper with a secret, whose sole purpose in the movie is to point out that Lazarus's attempts to be black are offensive. And finally, there's Tom Cruise as Les Grossman, the amoral studio head who has all the best lines (all written--I am convinced--by Coen).

As a director, Stiller falls into the usual trap: There are way too many close-ups of him making a not-that-silly face and speaking in a not-that-silly voice. I didn't find the "Simple Jack" stuff offensive so much as just annoying.

But I will give credit where credit is due. Downey actually deserves his Oscar nomination for this one. Jack Black has never done a comedy in which he wasn't funny or gave less than 100%, and this is no exception. And Tom Cruise steals every scene he is in. Each time he was on screen, I nearly died laughing.

Overall, "Tropic Thunder" is the funniest movie of 2009. It is Stiller's funniest work to date, even if it doesn't live up to Ethan Coen's previous comedic standards ("Raising Arizona", "O Brother Where Art Thou"). 8 out of 10.

It's been said that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. I don't know about the literal fire-and-brimstone place for unrepentant sinners, but "Fireproof" is a truly awful movie made for what writer/director Alex Kendrick and producer/star Kirk Cameron must have thought were all the right reasons.

"Fireproof" documents the declining marriage of a fire captain (Cameron) and his hospital administrator wife (Catherine Holt). Fortunately, this fire captain's best friend (Ken Bevel) is an Evangelical Christian, and his father (Harris Malcolm) has recently also converted. When Dad hears his son is seriously considering a divorce, he gives him a 40-day journal. Each day has a step for saving the marriage and and accompanying Bible verse. I won't give away the ending, but then again I don't think I need to.

The first and foremost problem I have with this movie is that it is so poorly written. The dialog is so bad, it gives "hackneyed" a bad name. And the Kendrick brothers write out the various situations which plague the marriage with such broad strokes that they seem like caricatures. And when they try to be funny, it just fall flat. Plus, they portray the town of Albany, GA as completely lacking in crime, drugs, racism, gays and liberalism. Having myself grown up in a conservative Southern suburban town, I somehow doubt the real Albany is like that.

And if the writing wasn't enough to ruin the film, the acting is atrocious across the board. The actors playing the various firefighters--including but not limited to Cameron--seem unable to tell the difference between acting and over-emoting. And the rest of the actors seem to be reading off cue cards without regard to the emotional honesty of the scene.

But what I really found offensive was the basic message: Only Evangelical Christians get married for the "right" reasons, and the source of all marital discord is a lack of faith in God's word. I have no beef with conservative Christians (unless they walk up to me uninvited when I'm just getting out of my car and try to convert me right there in the parking lot). But I have known plenty of Evangelicals who have been divorced multiple times, and I have known atheist couples who have stayed together, happy and faithful for decades. Having witnessed my own parents' divorce, I can tell you the root of their problems was not that they didn't go to church often enough.

Many of my Evangelical friends say that movies like this have to be made and can't be screened for critics, because Hollywood and the mainstream media are hostile to Christianity. But Hollywood has always been able to make money off of Christian-themed movies such as "King of Kings", "Ben-Hur", "The Ten Commandments" and "Forrest Gump". In the past decade alone, "O Brother Where Art Thou", "The Passion of the Christ", "Walk the Line", and "The Chronicles of Narnia" have all had Christian messages and all have had commercial and/or critical success. What I say to my Evangelical friends is they need to see "Doubt", which has a Christian message, but warns about seeing everything in black and white. Plus, it's a million times better than "Fireproof".

Kirk Cameron and the Kendrick brothers--I am fairly sure--felt this movie needed to be made. Their intention was to show couples how to fix their marriage through Christ. But if that was their goal, why didn't they just publish a book of how to save your marriage in 40 days? It would have been less expensive and less of a target for derision from people like me. I was strongly tempted to give this only one star since there was nothing I liked about this movie, but I am giving it a second just for the nobility of the filmmakers' goals.

My parents are curious people. They are both native Texans. My mother never set foot in Europe until she was in her 50's. My father still has never gone further from Texas than Alaska. Yet both of them seem to feel more attuned to Great Britain as it was between World Wars than they do to modern America. Growing up, I was surrounded by books by P.G. Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, and Noel Coward. Musically, I was exposed to lots of Gilbert & Sullivan. And when we watched TV, it was generally "Masterpiece Theatre" rather than "Moonlighting" or "Miami Vice".

So I was pretty sure what to expect when I went to see "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day", and was not disappointed. The music was jazz standards from the 1920's played by an English music hall combo. The decor was nothing but art deco. Older characters dress in drab black and brown, have stiff upper lips, and smoke oddly shaped pipes--the men, that is. Younger characters dress in snazzy jazz-age outfits, call each other "old chap" and "old bean", and smoke cigarettes in foot-long holders--the women, that is. And the humor is very dry, as the writers want you to chuckle a bit and smile, rather than laugh out loud.

The basic plot is 24 hours in the life of Guinevere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand), an incompetent nanny who has an unfortunate habit of losing track of her charges, and is paranoid about Germans and criminals. She has just been dismissed by her latest employer after an argument about the morality of alcohol, tobacco, and swearing (she strongly disapproves of all three). Miss Holt--who runs the placement agency--tells Miss Pettigrew quite frankly that she is unemployable.

Desperate for a new job, she steals a card from Miss Holt's desk and winds up at the apartment of Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams), an American actress hoping to make it big in London so she will be noticed in Hollywood. Her existence is chock-full of booze, smoke, swearing, adultery, and even an ex-con.

Eventually she makes the acquaintance of dress-designer Joe Blumfield (Ciaran Hinds), and there is an obvious mutual attraction. But unfortunately, he is engaged to Edythe Dubarry (Shirley Henderson), who is blackmailing Miss Pettigrew because she spied Edythe having sex in an alley with another man.

What sets this apart from most British period comedies, is that it acknowledges the grim realities of the Great Depression and World War II beyond "Sir Ashleigh Futzbottom needs to raise a thousand pounds if he wants to marry Lady Flibbertigibbet's niece," or "If old Jerry tries anything, we'll give 'im a good sound thrashing". Miss Pettigrew is homeless, and has a hard time feeding herself (one of the motifs is that each time she is about to take a bite of food, she is interrupted by something). And the day the movie centers on happens to be the eve of the London Blitzkrieg.

I liked this film reasonably well, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't already an Anglophile. But if you're like my mother and think of Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster instead of Dr. House, you'll enjoy it. 7 out of 10.

A few weeks ago, I spied a headline stating that the oldest Americans are also the happiest. I didn't read the article to see exactly why this is, but I suspect that "Young @ Heart" provides at least a partial answer. In this smile-inducing documentary, we see a group of retirees between the ages of 73 and 92 getting together a few times a week to sing songs they don't know and bond with each other in a way most of us without excessive free time can't conceive of.

Bob Cilman is the the leader of the Young at Hear chorus of Northampton, MA. He is a stern but sympathetic taskmaster who once a year gives the choir new songs to learn--mostly R&B and soul classics from the '60's through the early '70's, and punk & new wave tunes from the mid-'70's to the present. At first this seems funny and weird. The film plays off of this expectation by opening with the oldest choir member doing a deadpan rendition of the Clash's "Should I Stay Or Should I Go", and including a tongue-in-cheek video of the choir's version of the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated".

Although most of the songs the choir performs are over-familiar to those of us under 60, the choir members grew up before the dawn of the classic rock era, and aren't familiar with music created after 1959. Their tastes in music range from classical to show tunes, not R&B or punk. But they participate not only for the camaraderie, but to keep their minds limber in their old age. They know as well as anyone that it gets harder to learn the older one gets, and after about 55 or so it becomes impossible unless one acquires good mental habits, such as doing puzzles, journal-writing, or trying to sing songs one doesn't really know. And this is why Cilman chooses the songs he does. The R&B tunes (which the choir members love) are rhythmically complex, but have simple lyrics. And the punk tunes (which the choir members hate) have complex lyrics, but simple rhythms and melodies.

The main focus of the film is the choir's trying to learn three new songs: "Yes We Can" by Allen Toussaint, "I Got You (I Feel Good)" by James Brown, and "Schizophrenia" by Sonic Youth. But the emotional core of the film is their learning of a fourth song--"Fix You" by Coldplay--after the deaths of two choir members (a third member died during post-production).

I laughed, cried, and smiled throughout the whole film. And it was a bit jolting to know that in just a few years, the thought of old people singing rock music won't be such a novelty. After all, their repertoire include Allen Toussaint, James Brown, and the Jefferson Airplane--all of whom were born seventy or more years ago. The only bits I didn't like are where director Stephen Walker tries to get a laugh at the expense of the choir: He flirts with a 92-year-old woman and sneers at the driving skills of one of the few choir members who still has his own car.

But overall, this is a tribute to the power of music and friendship to transcend age, infirmity and even mortality to make the end of life worth living. 9 out of 10.

During the early 1990's--my college years--Austin and the rest of Texas were not all that far apart politically. Both were generally moderate and bipartisan. Texas had a governor from the liberal wing of the Democratic party (Ann Richards), and Austin had a moderately conservative mayor (Lee Cooke) and city council. But in 1992, things began to change when developer Gary Bradley with the backing of Freeport-McMoran announced plans to build subdivisions over the Edwards Aquifer, which feeds Barton Springs in South Austin and is the source of most of the potable water for Austin, San Antonio, and their suburbs and exurbs. The citizens of Austin rose up and passed the Save Our Springs (S.O.S.) ordinance, which would have curbed the development of these subdivisions, which caused great controversy statewide. "The Unforeseen" is a documentary showing what led up to the controversy and its aftermath.

"The Unforeseen" begins and ends with Gary Bradley, the developer at the heart of the controversy. He grew up in West Texas, a land of droughts and tornadoes, where nature is seen not as a treasure to be protected, but as an enemy to be overcome. He mentions that he enrolled at the University of Texas in 1972, and the movie shows archival footage of Austin during that time, when it was still mostly a college town. Back then, Austin was known as a place where you could call yourself a left-wing hippie *AND* a redneck at the same time (of course Willie Nelson is briefly interviewed).

By 1980, Bradley was a successful developer with dreams of building a self-sufficient subdivision in Southwest Austin called Circle C Ranch. In 1990, he had just won approval from the city to start building, when the S&L collapse hit, sending the country into recession and putting the brakes on the funding for the project. Eventually, though, he was bailed out by Freeport-McMoran, but by this time, the citizens of Austin were in near-unison in their opposition to the project. Footage is shown of the contentious city council meeting where Freeport CEO (and non-Austinite) Jim Bob Moffett arrogantly declares "I know more about Barton Springs than anyone in this room!" In 1992, Austin overwhelmingly passed the S.O.S. initiative to limit development around Barton Creek and over the Edwards Aquifer. This led to incredible resentment among landowners in the outlying areas because it led to the devaluation of their properties. Eventually they hired a lobbyist (whose name I sadly can't remember from the film) to craft Senate Bill 1704, which said that development only has to follow the rules that were in place at the time it was approved, thus effectively nullifying the S.O.S. ordinance. The bill had strong support from pretty much everywhere in Texas outside the city limits of Austin, but Governor Ann Richards vetoed it anyway. In 1994, she was defeated by George W. Bush, who signed SB 1704 into law. It is not shown in the movie, but ever since, the Republicans in the Texas Legislature have never tired of trying to punish Austin for being unlike the rest of the State, and Austin adopted the unofficial motto "Keep Austin Weird" to show our refusal to be homogenized.

I thought the film was fairly good. Director Laura Dunn tries to see all sides of the issue. She makes sure that she gives full voice to the opponents of S.O.S. instead of just a straw-man argument. Gary Bradley is the main interviewee, and he comes off as sympathetic and humble (the fight over Circle C forced him into bankruptcy), but not apologetic. Occasionally, he flashes anger. In one spot, he shouts "What the hell do you know about being a Texan, Berkeley lawyer Bill Bunch?" (Bunch is the guy behind the S.O.S. ordinance, and although he may have gone to school in California, his accent betrays that he grew up here.) However, there is no doubt where her sympathies lie when she interviews the lobbyist behind SB 1704. His face is rarely shown. Instead it shows his hands building model warplanes while he goes on about how backwards Austin is by placing environmental issues ahead of property rights.

However, I do think that the movie is quite flawed. Most of the environmentalists interviewed are new-agers who talk about Barton Springs being somehow sacred (it's very special, but ultimately it's still just a swimming pool), or hippies who reject the American work ethic. And entirely too much screen time is given to Robert Redford, a washed-up semi-talented actor-director, who is not as profound as he thinks he is. And the bit at the end where unchecked growth is compared to cancer is a bit much.

Ultimately, the films greatest strengths are interviews with the late Gov. Richards and William Greider--who both make strong pro-environmental arguments based on fact rather than sentiment--and a portrait of a family recently arrived in Hutto (an Austin exurb): They are excited to be living in a growing community, yet they hope that it doesn't get crowded and bemoan the shortage of potable water. They are happy to be living in a small town far from the city, yet whine about the long distance to the nearest Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, these two great strengths are given short shrift. I think the film would have been better if it had been more fact-oriented and had talked more about our contradictory desires as humans to be connected to the conveniences of cities, but have the isolation of the countryside. Instead we have a paean to a South Austin swimming pool, and the community that thought it was important enough to protect from suburban sprawl and big money. 7 out of 10.

Normally, I don't like gimmicky movies. All right, I'll admit that I enjoyed "The Third Man", "Vertigo", "Psycho", "The Usual Suspects", "The Sixth Sense" and "Memento". But usually when I see something like "Persona", "Miller's Crossing", "Jacob's Ladder", "Mulholland Drive", "Lady in the Water", or "The Prestige", I want to throw something at the screen because I feel the writers and directors of these movies are either insulting my intelligence, or displaying a lack thereof on their part. "The Nines" is that refreshing sort of gimmick-film that shows intelligence on the filmmaker's part, but doesn't insult the viewers'.

The film is divided into 3 distinct chapters, each starring Ryan Reynolds as the protagonist, Melissa McCarthy as someone who clings to Reynolds, and Hope Davis as someone who is trying to pull Reynolds away from McCarthy using the phrase "Look for the Nines." And each chapter ends ironically in a way that partially reveals what the catch-phrase means and connects the chapter to the other two.

In chapter one, Reynolds plays Gary, an actor under house arrest for buying crack. Since he doesn't have his own place, he is assigned to live with his hyper-perky publicist Margaret (McCarthy) in a house belonging to a TV producer, currently in New York shopping his new show. Gary and Margaret eventually develop a flirty relationship, even though "flirting" tends to involve viciously insulting each other. Eventually, the idyll ends when next-door-neighbor Sarah (Davis) takes an interest in Gary, and tells him that since he is a nine out of ten on the attractiveness scale, he should dump the overweight Margaret and "look for the nines".

In chapter two, Reynolds plays Gavin, the TV producer who owns the house where Gary is confined in chapter one. He is in New York shopping a new supernatural series starring Melissa McCarthy (playing herself in this chapter) as a mother who is left sitting in a car with her creepy mute daughter (Elle Fanning) while her husband looks for help. Test audiences love the show, but want him to replace the overweight McCarthy with someone more conventionally attractive. Gavin resists because of his feelings of loyalty towards McCarthy, and eventually network exec Susan (Davis) steps in, and tell him he needs to see how the test audience voted from one to ten and "look for the nines" and see what they have to say about the show.

The third chapter is the drama that Gavin was producing in chapter two. Reynolds is Gabriel, a software designer out for a drive in the woods, when his car runs out of gas. He leaves his wife Mary (McCarthy) to care for their creepy mute daughter Noelle (Fanning), while he looks for help. Eventually he runs into Sierra (Davis) who leads him on a wild goose chase before finally telling him what the phrase "Look for the Nines" really means, and why he has to abandon his family.

I like that each chapter has its own genre. Chapter 1 is a musical romantic comedy shot conventionally on film, with lots of close-ups. Chapter 2 is a pseudo-reality-show shot on shaky-cam DV that never gets particularly close to the actors. And Chapter 3 is a thriller with cinematography that splits the difference between the first two chapters: It's shot on DV; and when the characters run, the camera shakes; but in the still moments, the camera is still; and there are plenty of close-ups of people's faces.

I also like that when the secret of "The Nines" is revealed, it doesn't feel forced or like writer-director John August has pulled a fast one on us. And I thought it was cool that the female lead went to someone who doesn't fit the conventional body type of a Hollywood actress.

The only complaint I have about this movie is that the acting, directing and camera-work were merely adequate. Only the writing was truly exceptional. But good writing can absolve a multitude of sins far worse than what this film is guilty of. 8 out of 10.

The number of Latin American immigrants and native-born citizens who speak Spanish as a first language is increasing in America everyday. So it is only natural that Hollywood would try to capitalize on this phenomenon by making popcorn movies set in America, but with all-Spanish dialog. "Ladron Que Roba A Ladron" is the first such film. (One might point out that Robert Rodriguez has made Spanish-language features for the past 14 years, but they are all set in Mexico).

The plot should be familiar to anyone who has seen "Oceans 11" or "The Italian Job": wily veteran thief assembles a team for the "perfect" heist; complications ensue. In the Frank Sinatra/Geore Clooney role is Miguel Varoni as Emilio, who has immigrated from Argentina to Los Angeles to plan and supervise the robbery of infomercial con-man Moctesuma Valdez (Saul Lisazo). Fernando Colunga has the Dean Martin/Brad Pitt role as Alejandro, whose "day job" of selling pirated DVD's has made him wealthy already. Rounding out the crew are getaway driver Rafa (Ruben Garfias); his beautiful daughter Rafaela (Ivonne Montero), who acts both as auto mechanic and "distraction"; Miguelito (Oscar Torres), an unemployed actor who has to pretend to be a powerful union leader one moment, and a lowly waiter the next; Julio (screenwriter JoJo Hendrickson), the computer whiz; and Anival (Gabriel Soto) who does all the heavy manual labor.

The gist of the plot (and why the movie can't be re-made in English with gringo actors) is that since immigrant laborers are so taken for granted in America, they can pretty much come and go as they please without notice. As the film goes on, we also learn that this heist is not a crime of profit. And that Emilio and Mocte have a shared past. And that not all the characters are who they seem to be. And how things that seemed like mistakes in the second act weren't really mistakes after all.

Aside from the immigrant factor, there's nothing especially original about this movie. But that doesn't keep it from being fun. Despite the cast of unknowns, I actually preferred this movie to "The Score" and "Oceans 13".

I predict that within the next ten years, we will see a Spanish-language blockbuster on the scale of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". And after that, roughly 25% of Hollywood's output will be in Spanish. "Ladron Que Roba a Ladron" may not be a masterpiece, and it may not be doing blockbuster business, but I believe it is a portent of American cinema to come. 7 out of 10.

Ever since "Better Off Dead", John Cusack has specialized in comedies from independent-minded writers and directors where he plays neurotic intellectuals. And nearly every time he has worked outside that zone, he's fallen flat on his face (e.g. "Con Air", "Runaway Jury"). In "1408", for the first time in his career, Cusack has made a good movie that can't be labeled indie or comedy, although he still plays a neurotic intellectual.

Cusack plays Mike Enslin, a writer of haunted hotel tour guides. Prior to his current career, he wrote a critically acclaimed novel that sold poorly and is now out-of-print. He learns of room 1408 in the Dolphin Hotel in New York and is intrigued. When he tries to check into the room, the Dolphin's manager Gerald Olin (Samuel L. Jackson in another in a series of silly wigs) warns him that nobody has spent more than an hour in the room and lived. They have a heated argument that reveals the crux of the rest of the film: Enslin admits that he does not believe in ghosts or haunted rooms, and Olin accuses him of not believing in anything outside of or bigger than his own ego. This is important because once Enslin gets inside the room, in addition to the standard horror-movie tropes of slashers and ghosts, he is forced to relive his painful past: At one time, he was a happy family man with wife Lily (Mary McCormack) and daughter Katie (Jasmine Jessica Anthony) and they would read the Bible together. But when Katie died, Enslin renounced God and left his wife. And we also learn that Olin is in control of room 1408's supernatural evil.

Normally I don't like the washed-out look of DV, but in this case it worked in helping to create a dream-like environment inside the room. Also--unlike all too many horror films--nobody involved is slumming. The script by Matt Greenberg and Scott Alexander (from a short story by Stephen King) is well-written in the vein of an episode of the original "Twilight Zone". The acting is also uniformly good. Special mention must be given to Cusack, as he attempted another haunted hotel movie with "Identity" and failed. In that film, he just wasn't credible as a heroic ex-cop. But in "1408", I completely believed him as a cynical writer with a troubled past.

I didn't care too much for the fact that director Mikael Hafstrom stole all his visual cues from the greatest Stephen King adaptation and haunted hotel movie of all (Stanley Kubrick's version of "The Shining", which King himself hates). And Samuel Jackson should have been banned from wearing hairpieces after "The Negotiator". But the main reason I only give this film 7 out of 10 instead of 8 or 9 is the fake ending, where the audience is tricked into thinking this was all a dream. That may be fine for "The Wizard of Oz", but it has no business in a film aimed at grown-ups (David Lynch, this means you. I'm still mad at you for "Mulholland Drive"). Fortunately it's a bit like the Monty Python sketch where a man stands in front of a Soviet firing squad and suddenly wakes up in his mother's arms. "Thank God it was all a dream," he says. To which his mother replies, "No, dear. This is the dream, you're really about to be executed."

Overall, "1408" is a good thinking person's horror film, like "The Exorcist" or "The Sixth Sense". Although it doesn't quite measure up to those two, it is a far sight better than the usual teenage slasher fare out there. 7 out of 10.

I am the only person I know over the age of 10 who liked the first Fantastic Four, so I went into the film with an open mind. After all, it has some of my favorite actors: Andre Braugher, Michael Chiklis, Laurence Fishburne, Julian McMahon and Kerry Washington. And although the first one was kind of silly, it was at least as good as the first "X-Men" and more fun than "The Incredible Hulk". Unfortunately, this film is even dumber than the original and plenty boring.

It starts off with the impending nuptials of Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffud) and Sue Storm (Jessica Alba) coming right when the Four are recruited by General Hager (Braugher playing an idiot for the first time in his career) to stop an intergalactic force that has wiped out life on all other planets that it has come into contact with. It is always heralded by the Silver Surfer (Fishburne). The Surfer comes to Earth right when Reed (aka Mr. Fantastic) and Sue (aka The Invisible Girl) are set to take their vows. Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) is sent to chase after the Surfer, but the Surfer wins their fight and gives Johnny the ability to switch powers with anyone he touches. Later on, the Surfer visits Latveria and attacks Dr. Victor Von Doom (McMahon). The attack heals Dr. Doom's scars, but leaves his superpowers alone. And so Gen. Hager, the Fantastic Four and Dr. Doom team up to fight the Surfer before the Earth is destroyed.

Aside from the inherent stupidity of the plot, I didn't care for Fishburne's performance, nor the fact that he's an English-speaking alien named "Gordon" with a girlfriend named "Alicia" (in the comics, his name was "Norrin", so perhaps this is a tribute to "ALF"?). I also had a problem with Johnny (aka The Human Torch) and Ben Grimm (Chiklis) acting like spoiled children when Reed and Sue consider splitting off from the Four to have a normal marriage. I was unhappy that Kerry Washington--so good in "Ray" and "The Last King of Scotland"--was given nothing to do except stare into space and tell Sue how much she loves Ben (aka The Thing). The fact that all of these great actors are stuck with such bad dialog is depressing. And I can't be the only movie-goer weary of Stan Lee's cameos.

On the other hand, the CGI effects--while sub-LOTR--still look pretty cool. And Andre Braugher gives his all to a bad role that most actors would have sleepwalked through.

But overall, this a bad film, not worth the time or talent that these otherwise gifted actors bring. I hope that Braugher, Chiklis, Fishburne, McMahon and Washington work together again, but just not for "Fantastic Four 3". 5 out of 10.