MotoMike

"I'd really like your help and advice on this murder mystery," said no cop ever in real life. But in every Hallmark mystery there's are more than a couple of conversations between the police officer (or a retired cop) and the cute, vivacious, perfectly coiffed lady detective, who, carefully following in the pattern of Jessica Fletcher and Miss Marple before her, assumes that she's indispensible to the case. The words,"Back off", or "Not your job", or "OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE" seem to mean nothing. Those crazy bureaucratic (trained, armed, experienced) cops - what do they know - even the good-looking ones? She'll show them, Bud! 'Cause gosh, he'll rescue her at the end, just when the real killer has pulled the gun! Or the knife! Ok, that being said, these Mystery 101 mysteries (this is for the four current ones) are some of the best of the Hallmark Mysteries. The two leads do actually try to solve the mystery, after the obligatory conversation noted above. I've guessed the villain in several but it's not obvious, and the misdirections and red herrings are well done. It's as Hallmark-y as all getout (partly a commercial for beautiful Canada, fine with me, no PDAs, lots of unrequited "like") but the mysteries are good, and I actually enjoy Jill Wagner's lecturettes about crime fiction. The rest of the cast a good job with the somewhat predictable lines they're given.

So I'm a fan of the 2000 film with John Cusack - it's a "watch every so often" movie for me because it's got so many great moments, as well as a heart. This 10-episode adaptation is just as good... but it just keeps getting better and better, mainly because it breathes; not only the main character, but her staff members in the store have a time for character development, and the writers don't fail them. But there are so many little things to appreciate about this: one to point out is the scene in the coffee shop where Rob won't leave Simon alone and won't shut up, totally missing his desire to pay attention to the barista and not her. I was nervous about Da'Vine Joy Randolph's role, because, hey, who can replace Jack Black, who made a valiant effort to steal the original film, but she's priceless as Cherise. Casting aside (have I mentioned that Zoe Kravitz knocks it out of the park?), the whole premise follows the original, albeit with gender role reversals, which looks like a stunt on paper ("Oh, how interesting this should be!!"), but really works, partially due to the excellence of the actors, partially due to the writing, but very much because the issues of love, self-worth, rejection, honesty, loneliness and everything else that both the movie and the TV episodes deal with apply to everybody. It's interesting to see the echoes from the movie: Catherine Zeta-Jones' Charlie replaced by Ivhana Zakhno's Kat, yet they're still the same character in so many ways; Lisa Bonet's singer replaced by Thomas Doherty, etc. The interest is how the new roles echo the old. I'm looking forward to how this continues after one season - especially because the "ending" of the movie has to be changed to not finish the plot. But I trust the writers to figure out how to do this.

It's hard to express how much of a crap movie this is; it's not bad-movie crap, but it's evil-movie crap. Although a lot of playing drums is shown on screen, it's not about drumming; neither is it about music, jazz, teaching, or personal growth. I'm pretty sure this is one of those philosophical, personal-growth essays cleverly disguised as a real story, but it's not only inaccurate about personal growth and learning, but about music school and jazz in particular - insultingly so - it assumes that Bobby Knight tactics work in a teaching environment. I'm giving it the rating for very specific reasons - starting with one, because that's the least I can give it, and adding one of J.K. Simmons, just because. I'll add one more for Miles Teller, who did his best at a script of abuse, bullying and justified sadism. I'll add one more for the production quality but subtract three for the waste of Melissa Benoit, who actually has the only line from Reality Earth,"What the f**k is wrong with you?".

The point is: I'm a music school veteran and graduate from two pretty good schools, and have taken training from several other teachers and institutions. I've known many many teachers of varying quality; some were very demanding and clear about what they wanted, and others were less so; some were very supportive and others less so. I learned something of value from each one and consider them some of the best people I've known. I've never known or known of anyone who was anything like Fletcher in wanting to tear down the student's personality. But the movie presents him as not a borderline personality disorder but as a successful paragon of motivation and excellence - making every drill sergeant ever depicted on screen look like Mr. Rogers. It really is boot camp hell - why would somebody ever consider staying in a band or a school like that? It's depressing to read all of the 10-star reviews, many from professional reviews - what the hell?; there must be a built-up appetite for believing that "greatness" results from a masochistic desire, not to suffer, but to be made to suffer at the hands of someone who has nothing to say about music. It's interesting to read the other reviews and backlash essays by people that have an acquaintance with music and music school, making the point that this isn't anything but a Hollywood dream of what music school and personal growth is like.

Horror has finally grown up. No more zombie knockoffs, with shock shots and gross-out things to cause viewers to scream. Some of the episodes were more disturbing than anything I've seen in a long time - the virtual reality goggles segment, the multiple personalities woman in Vatican III, the mother-babysitter's irresponsibility, the masked little girl persuading the kids to play "Funeral", etc. It's still not clear what the show's attitude on the supernatural, religion, the Catholic Church, and psychology is: is it trying to present little slivers of unexplainable occurrences without really committing to "yes, there are indeed demons and all the stuff the exorcists believe"? Or is it debunking them? That tension, and how it keeps seesawing between those points of view, keeps the show going - that and the recurring evil characters, especially Leland, who (to me) is scary in his utter lack of scariness. He's terrific in embodying evil in a soft-spoken and likeable man, and then he starts talking and you realize that he's effortlessly one of the worst people on TV. One of the underlying themes of the show seems to be that with or without a supernatural element, there are people in the world who want to do evil things. So this means that it isn't necessary to have a supernatural connection or demon connected to every character or plot line, which makes this, as the title says, a show not about ghosties or beasties but about evil itself - what does it look like and how does it act?

I have two opposing reactions to this film - my rating is the average of these: This is a well-crafted movie about the back story of the negotiations between Travers and Disney in making the movie Mary Poppins. Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks act their butts off, and the supporting cast are fun to watch. As always, Paul Giamatti adds ten points to every scene he's in. It provides a connection between what was the main emotional theme of the movie and Travers's life - the relationship with her father and need for forgiveness - and shows her near-cathartic realization of this relationship as she works on and eventually sees the film. 8 out of 10 That's the first reaction - the second reaction is that this is a Disneyfied, sanitized, and highly fictionalized telling of Disney bullying the author into accepting his sugar-coated version of the book. She doesn't want cartoons! but ends up with cartoons! She doesn't want songs! but is so charmed by them that she actually smiles! Oh, the irony!! So we have near-stereotypical depictions people that were very different and much more interesting in real life - the shrewish and odd author (how amusing that she just doesn't "get" Hollywood? Ha ha) - the patient, put-upon mogul who, bless his heart, just wants to keep a promise he made to his daughter, the back story about the alcoholic father, cue the tears as he sinks unto death, the mother so in despair she tries to commit suicide, only to be saved!! by PL Travers!, complete with supporting hijinks by the writers and songwriters. One comes away with a kind of feeling of having been anesthetized and given propaganda that, gosh, makes ya feel good about that Disney guy and his paper delivery story. The culmination of Disney telling the author "what's important about life and the way we tell it" is superb scripting; eyes fill with tears, but, it's nothing but scripting. 4 out of 10 It's not surprising that Disney would make a film depicting this episode in such a sympathetic way, and it is, as noted above, a well-made and entertaining film. There's nothing wrong with films depicting real-life situations in a fictionalized manner (Immortal Beloved, anybody?). But the spoonful of sugar that this is meant to be leaves a little of a bad taste - it's more of a packet of Sweet'n Lo to help the movie go down.

I'm pretty sure that this movie has only the haziest relationship to the real events and people that led to the production of the first performance of Cyrano, but it doesn't matter: this movie is a wonderful and farcical backstage comedy that does the same thing as "Shakespeare in Love" - honoring and illuminating the creative process that produced one of the great classics. The references and correspondences between the events back- and off-stage to the actual play are there (writing letters to another man's love, the balcony scene, etc.) but one can see Rostand battering this material into shape. Great performances by all, especially by the Cyrano and Roxanne (the final Roxanne, that is!). One of the many fun things in the film is knowing who will end up playing which part in the first performance; the initial miscasting in almost every role is funny, and you wait for the musical chairs to begin. Finally, the staging of the glorious final scene in the convent is a wonder - it's not obvious, but clear, that all of a sudden, the actors and the sets have changed to be the imagined reality that brings the audience into the imaginary world of the play. All of a sudden, we're not in a theater with scuzzy sets and raggy costumes any more.

I still don't know what to make of this show. It reveals itself very slowly, and it has almost a "Twin Peaks" - like enigmatic quality. There are some shows that I just quit watching because I found myself not caring about the characters at all; this is the opposite in that I found myself caring a lot for the characters only after several episodes. The show starts to make sense after awhile, although ... I'm still not sure what it's driving towards. Clearly it doesn't care about whether or not the aliens are invading or anything about that - what it seems to care about is people who are outsiders, who don't fit in, who are trying to connect. True, they have all believe they have been abducted by aliens and that's the focus of the group, but their personal issues and problems are what get in the way of dealing with it. I would like to see if the show is moving in a certain direction or if it's just wandering around. Either way, I enjoy each episode.

Well, to start with, imagine these lines (delivered at 120 mph by Sheldon, Leonard and Howard: Sheldon: Well, uh, Penny is on her way to perform in a one night showcase production of Rent, which we are unable to attend because we are going to a symposium on molecular positronium, given by Dr Emile Farminfarmian.

Howard: Wait a minute, Farminfarmian is speaking and you're Bogarding the symposium.

Leonard: Howard, I'm sorry… we're… we're

Howard: No, no, you're quark-blocking us.

Leonard: I don't know what to say.

Howard: Wow.

Leonard: Howard, listen…

Howard: No, it's okay, it's your Millennium Falcon, you and Chewbacca do whatever you want to do. Me and Princess Leia here will find some other way to spend the evening.

This is all part of one of those things that start as a cover-up for a little white lie and ends up with an enormous production to keep a whole fictional situation intact. But it's so well done that, watching it, you start to get one of those feelings you usually only get in a horror movie: "I can't see how this is going to end well", while waiting for the house of cards to come tumbling down. I won't (because I can't!) summarize the plot of this maze that poor Leonard gets into - all in an effort to avoid hurting Penny's feelings with his opinion of her horrible singing. I'll just skip to the end to note that when "Toby" goes off-script ("Toby: Damn you, Chaplain Horrigan! ") in the final deception, it's one of the best moments of the episode. I've seen a lot of TBBT episodes; many are good, all are funny, but this has my vote as the best episode ever.

So, let's face it ... we all have seen too much bad TV, too many cookie-cutter legal dramas, too many predictable cop shows, way too many sitcoms that were forgettable. The Grinder is the reward, and Rob Lowe knows it; every time he looks out into the distance and says " (pause) ... or ... is it!?", he knows he earns a gold star. He's the center of a very good cast that teams him with Fred Savage; their chemistry as contrasting brothers is so effortless that it's a pleasure to watch. But Mary Elizabeth Ellis is also a major pleasure as Savage's wife, and his two kids also nail it.

So this is a show ("subtextually", as Toby Loobenfeld might be told) not only about a family (how original is that?) but about bad TV, and bad acting and - shudder - how the ad that starts with "I'm not a doctor, though I play one on TV" can be transmuted into someone believing in their identity as a glamorous TV star. (Wasn't that the basis for "Sunset Boulevard"?). Rob Lowe is the perfect choice for this role, but the writing is what makes this show a very particular pleasure. I have no idea whether it will last, but every episode is a gem.

In the 1995 series, Daniel Benzali starred as Teddy Hoffman, head of a legal firm. The (first season of the) show was unusual in that it took an entire season to tell its story, and the crime and the people surrounding it were worth the wait. Lots of red herrings, true, but lots of opportunities for the characters and the case to develop. Though it wasn't a huge hit, it was fascinating - high concept TV that worked, at least for me.

Why am I bringing this up? Because I've thought of that show many times in watching Damages. Glenn Close, of course, is superb as the uber-manipulative head of her own firm; you don't admire her as much as watch with grim fascination as she plays people and situations like chess pieces. But the pleasure of the show isn't only the acting; the writing, particularly the way the dialog captures the personalities of the characters, is phenomenal. It's very far from predictable TV; it's complex, but so well done that the complications get resolved. Lots of people to note, of course: Rose Byrne, as foil to Glenn Close, is brilliant; Tate Donovan is great, and it's good to see Anastasia Griffith do so much with her part. But Ted Danson as Arthur Frobisher is wicked good. It's said that you have to have a proper and powerful villain to have a good story, and Danson is a revelation here: he plays the bad guy as if unaware of how ruthless and evil he really is, and surprised, always, that people don't just like him. Now, for me, later seasons didn't hold up quite as well, but the first set a supremely high bar. All in all, though, this is one of the best shows available.

A review could really consist of just mottos: "If you can remember the '80s, you wouldn't want to be there". "Back to the Future Hangover". Hot Tub Time Machine is silly, obscene, and filled with profanity; the characters are barely likable (except for Nick, played by Craig Robinison), and it moves so fast that you don't get any chance to get a sense of who's who. And yet ... it's sometimes (and pretty often) fall-on-the-floor funny; the first clue is Chrispin Glover's surly one-armed bellhop, who THROWS the luggage on the floor from the cart and then sticks his one arm out for a tip. After being transported to the 80s (don't ask whether this makes sense) the quartet all find themselves reliving episodes they (or three of them) remember clearly and are afraid to change (for fear of changing time and space; they've seen every time travel movie made and and they know the lingo and the problems.) What it's really about is three guys who don't like the way their lives turned out, yet are afraid to change; it turns the familiar "butterfly-effect" trope on its head in that just maybe things might be better (not worse) if you changed the past in some way. Along the way there are a lot of little snarks about the 80s ... and a continuing saga of "will the bellhop lose his arm or not?". A couple of caveats: Lots (and lots and lots) of profanity and an ending that was a little too sweet. Other than that this is the funniest comedy I've seen this year.

Will Smith is now evidently embarked on making himself a Serious Guy; he's been in a string of movies (I Legend; Hancock; Happiness) where he's not asking us to laugh at him, or to like him, but to see him as a guy who has Issues. Seven Pounds continues this streak in a film that only has a contrived way of leaving out most of his motivation or any connective tissue for the whole first hour, making us have faith that it will come together at the end, which, to our dismay, it does. ---- Spoiler Alert ----

There is a good movie to be made about a guy who, through magic or a special supernatural power, has the ability to fix the lives of, say, seven deserving people. There is not that movie, although for awhile one might think it is. There is also a good movie to be made about the subject of organ transplants in general and some sort of metaphysical meaning that can be associated with that; this is not that movie either, but if you want to see that movie, go rent "21 grams".

There is another good movie to be made about a guy who, consumed by guilt and regret for causing the death of his wife (? girlfriend ?) along with six others, decides to commit suicide and, in doing so, donate his organs and tissues to people he has deemed worthy of his sacrifice. This is not that movie either; Seven Pounds is, by the end, almost staggeringly clumsy in the way it tells its story, sentimental in an ugly way, and, as soon as you start to really think about its premise, thoroughly unpleasant in retrospect. Ben Thomas (the character we think is played by Smith) is not good or subtle with the people he meets as prospective recipients of his body parts. He judges them based in a hurry (well, I guess he kind of has to) based on pretty arbitrary criteria: are they patient, are they kind, are the charitable? and if you're going by a quick reading of Corinthians I guess that's okay, but the idea of interviewing people you might be giving your life for in order to see if they make a "good person" cut is, I don't know, just kind of creepy for me. Plus! what the hell is up with any medical professional who would collude with him on a plan like this?

I like Will Smith, but in this movie he has the Julia Roberts problem: like her character in My Best Friend's Wedding, his character can really do some pretty despicable things and, because of who he is, the audience is supposed to find them just fine, if not even admirable. Consider that he steals his brother's ID to misrepresent himself dozens of times in the movie, lies to Rosario Dawson's character, browbeats the poor blind guy verbally over the phone, and in general, is a fraud. If this role were played by an actor without his likability (or an ugly or fat one), we wouldn't be tempted to give him a pass. But, wait, there's more! ... even though he knows that Rosario's character will be one of the recipients, he won't leave her alone, doing everything he (that is, the screenwriter) can to make her fall in love for him. In spite of all of this, everything is just rosy at the end. At one point she accuses him of stalking her; he doesn't exactly deny it, but we're supposed to say "No! CAN'T YOU SEE? IT ISN'T STALKING WHEN WILL SMITH DOES IT!!". But ... she's right, he is stalking her, supposedly to make sure that she's Worthy, but mainly... well, as she says "I used to be hot".

Will Smith, come back! We miss you. MIB3, Pleeeeze?

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were the '60s equivalent of Brangelina or TomKatt - a couple more celebrated as gossip fodder than their work. O, would that this had been another play, or that they had been 15 years younger, or that another director than Signor Franco Zeffirelli had taken on this project. As it is, Taylor's fabled beauty has started to fade, she is obviously no young girl, and there's no chemistry that I can see between ... well, anybody in the production, but especially not between the stars. Learning his lesson, Zeffirelli went on to direct one of the most commercially successful Shakespeare films the next year, but with the leads played by kids that looked the part - Romeo and Juliet was a huge hit, partially because it spoke so well to the young audience it was aimed at (but also because it's a bulletproof play, unlike this one). My impression of the play as written is that it's kind of a problem play anyway - if Shakespeare were writing it for TV, it would be a failed sitcom. So it's not like this is a travesty, sullying the eternal beauty of a masterpiece like Macbeth or King Lear. The script appears to be a Cliff's Notes version of the play - large sections of the film are without a word of dialog - and, depending on your point of view, this may be the best thing about the film - it's already cringe-inducing enough seeing Burton pretend to chase Taylor through barns and cotton bales, without having to try to think if the dialog has anything whatsoever to do with all of the prankish stage business. I found myself thinking that somewhere in here there really can be a witty, amusing, subtle and entertaining play - this isn't that performance.

The only thing that really redeems this for me is part of Burton's performance. Occasionally, in spite of everything he, Zeffirelli, and the costume designer can do to obscure the fact, he can act, and delivers a scene here and there that shows that he might be worthwhile seeing in other Shakespeare roles (like his "Hamlet" a few years earlier). Other than that, the continuous slapstick gags, the visual noisiness of the production, and the fact that this is a very strange play in the first place, make this pretty tough sledding for non-fans of LizAndDick.

High school is now the setting for lots of re-envisioned classics; from West Side Story to "O", Shakespeare has been well-represented, as well as other authors:Cruel Intentions, patterned after Dangerous Liaisons, and, perhaps the the most successful, Clueless, transplanted from Jane Austin's _Emma_ into sunny California. California is also the locale of Brick, another successful effort to fit adult themes and plots into the Buffyverse of kids sans parents but with cars and problems of their own. "Brick" differs from the rest, however, in that rather than being a remake or rewriting of an established plot from the classics, it is a re-writing of a particular type of movie to fit into the high school scene: it's a film noir (and an excellent one), proving that noir doesn't have to take place in dark, rain-stoked streets with guys in hats and trench coats, nor does it have to take place in the 40s any more.

Holy schmokes, is it good; even the heavies have back stories, the plot furnishes us with enough twists to keep us going with barely a trace of contrivance (well, that is, for a story like this), and the story is played straight, with so much confidence in the material, the actors, and, probably most of all, the genre, that it rockets you through to the end without any letdown whatsoever. It's one of the best film noirs I've ever seen, maybe not quite up there, perhaps, with Chinatown and L.A. Confidential, but definitely on the level of the Coen brothers' first effort (also a noir), Blood Simple.

When a movie has a line like "I smell something. Do you smell something?" it's just way too easy - it's like having a dog in a supporting role; just ask Tom Hanks and Charles Grodin - a recipe for cinema death. Terry Bradshaw's naked room butt just, by golly, adds to the general hilarity. I didn't like this movie when JLo made it (twice) as The Wedding Planner and Maid In Manhatten, or the recent not-quite-masterpiece called How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, but it's slightly less tasteful and and less funny, if that's possible than any of those.

First of all the concept doesn't make sense to anyone that can read a cereal box - but it's senselessness goes into "whoa - wait just a minute" territory. Either the SJP is being hired to have sex with the the guy, in which case she's - hello! - a prostitute, or she's being hired to not have sex with the guy, in which case she's a tease and a fraud - in either case she's a liar on a pretty grand scale. Yet the affable parents give her little more consideration than they would to a lawn service - the possibility of them hiring a hooker with a good line - which, come to think of it, makes a much better plot - is never considered. My disbelief only suspends so far.

That having been said, both of the leads phone in their parts with admirable precision - their discipline in keeping from looking off-camera to where their respective agents are tallying up their share of the salaries they got for this is admirable. Now, one could quibble with the ingredients of this soufflé. The final scene - wall-sized broadcast in front of total strangers of an intimate relationship discussion culminating, evidently, in a scene that the parents deem too explicit for the strange Grandson Who Lives With Nobody - has possibilities, tasteless and offensive as it is. But - does nobody in the movie have the ability to say the words "Son, we want you to move out"? And - what does Kit do for a living and why is she - admittedly striving to be the scene-stealing funniest person in the movie - talking ALL THE TIME about drinking but is never drunk?

{Spoilers} When I saw Dark Water I was unaware of two important things: 1. It's a remake of a Japanese movie that I haven't seen, and 2. It's not a horror thriller. I figured out the second one out about a third of the way through, and only realized the first one at the closing credits. However, by then it was clear that this is a rare, subtle, and carefully made film that, like many other well-made films, is not at all about what it appears to be. The plot is simple to the point of almost not being there: Dahlia, who is going through a divorce, together with her daughter Ceci, moves into a rundown apartment building which is as ugly as it is non-functional. The reality of her situation, the day-to-day grind of trying to make her life work in the face of ordinary but soul-deadening obstacles (leaks in the ceiling, hassling with punk teenagers, laundromat machines that break down, the constant rain) starts to combine with the inner problems she has experienced all her life (being abandoned as a child, possible mental instability, perhaps paranoia, migraines) and are just emphasized by the lack of cooperation from the building maintenance man, the apartment manager and her soon-to-be ex-husband. Soon her daughter seems to develop a sinister relationship with an imaginary friend, the apartment upstairs starts to develop a degree of malevolence all of its own, and her depression and anxiety start to spin out of control. Does she "really" see the face of a lost little girl in the washing machine glass? - does she "really" hear the voice of Natasha from upstairs? is she having nightmares or is something or someone trying to communicate with her? Who is her daughter's "imaginary" friend? And - tellingly - when we see the face of the (ghost?) little girl in the photo, why is it the face of the young Dahlia at the beginning of the picture?

In the end, this is a film about grief, about love and our need for it, and, at the end, even about a kind of redemption. It's far from your usual slasher flick, and, playing fair, it lets you know pretty early on by almost totally refusing to give you "jump-out-of-your-skin" moments. (Similarly, "The Wedding Crashers" was billed as a comedy, and let us know it wasn't early on by refusing to give us any really funny moments). Twice, for example, Dahlia (played with exquisite focus by Jennifer Connelly) takes a headache pill, and shuts the mirrored medicine cabinet door and we see her reflection; horror movie convention dictates that we should see a face or a monster behind her, but there's nothing scary in the scene - no "shocker" moment. Again, when a discovery is made in the water tank, one expects a shocking "eyes-suddenly-open" moment, with a sudden burst of music and, maybe, a strobe light. Nothing. There are two cheapie "boo!" moments, but every other opportunity is passed by (somewhat to the disappointment of other reviewers here and in the papers).

Speaking of Jennifer Connelly, she gives an exquisite performance. It's easy to portray stark fear; it's another thing entirely to get across just plain ordinary emotional and physical stress growing slowly to an unraveling; in this way the movie is similar to the book (not the movie) The Shining, in which the main character becomes more and more affected before your eyes, and is partially aware that it's happening, and why, but can't seem do anything about it. Near the end, you can see that Dahlia is holding it together by sheer force of will, but she just has nothing left.

I haven't seen the original Japanese movie of which this is a remake, but it appears to be very highly regarded. It makes sense that this is originally a Japanese story; there seems to be a difference in the way that they characterize ghosts and our relationship with the spirit world. The symbolism of the title entity ("Dark Water") alone is something one wouldn't find in most Western horror or thriller pictures. All in all, this is, strangely enough, a haunting (appropriate adjective) and emotional film that works (if you let it) due to the atmosphere, the performances and the writing.

{Spoilers} "Serenity" (and Firefly, the series that spawned it) is an infuriating piece of work. For every facet of it that "sings" (and lots of it does - some of the dialog, Mal's personality and leadership, Shepherd Book underplaying his part, Inara's hotness, Zoe's excellence) there's lots of it that falls flat on its face (Mal's dialog, everybody's dialog, the anachronisms, and not just the six-shooters, Jayne's repellence as a character, Mal's relationship with Inara). So, to start out with, here's a list of top ten reasons the movie won't spawn many sequels:

10. Mal's relationship with Inara. This is on a junior-high emotional level.

9. Everybody occasionally lapsing into incomprehensible Chinese.

8. Adam Baldwin's character didn't get the memo saying that main characters shouldn't be repellent, irredeemable jerks.

7. Dialog that occasionally makes Jar Jar Binks sound like Hemingway.

6. Kaylee's crush on Simon.

5. Simon's not noticing Kaylee's crush on him because of his crush on his sister. Ewww.

4. The whole steel-rod-through-the-forehead thing about River. No thanks.

3.Shepherd Book's non-sermon about believing. Makes Unitarians look like devout Muslims.

2. The wrong character dying near the end.

1. Reavers

Sounds like I hated it, which I didn't, because the bottom line (which movies like the Star Trek series, the last three Star Wars installments, and the last two "Alien" movies, for just a start) for a space opera is that you better be having fun, and at any given point in time, somebody in this movie is having fun, and I kept thinking that in spite of its inexpertitude (is that a word? - maybe in Chinese?), it was, for me, a hell of a lot more enjoyable than Return of the Revenge of the Clone Warlike Jedi.

Roger Ebert's review pointed out that this space opera isn't far from horse opera (Westerns). This particular one is closer than most. What appears to have happened is that Joss Whedon decided to write a story about some former soldiers turned semi-outlaws set in post-American Civil War era (circa, say, 1875 or so). This bunch of shoot-em ups are a combination of gypsies, thieves, and rogues who wander around the Wild West chasing gold shipments, payrolls, and wagon trains, and fightin' off Injuns and Federals in equal numbers. Then he plucked the whole shootin' match, sixguns, nineteenth century dialog and mores, cowboys, Indians and all and plunked 'em down in space - same ideas: disillusioned former rebel soldiers wandering around the frontier stealing payroll shipments, talking' to the wimmenfolk in that kind of aw-shucks macho clueless way that the menfolk do on the wide prairie, and wearin' homespun and brown denim 'cause it wears like iron. Take a listen to any five minutes of the dialog and you start to hear Huck Finn after lightin' out for the frontier.

Not that there's anything wrong with that; once you get the rhythm of the speech and the fact that almost nobody seems to mind that they're using revolvers in an era of warp (faster-than-light) speed, and you can finally get to the plot, which actually worked for me - the (Johnny Mnemonic - derived) idea of the secrets being locked up in somebody's skull (and that somebody being actually psychic, kinda sorta) and the big guys wanting her back real bad now, and meanwhile, they're just wandering around dealing with various lowlifes in bars and on non-developed ("Terraformed") planets. For those of us for whom the bar scene in the first Star Wars represented kind of a high point of the movie, this movie does just fine, and serves as a reminder that there's a whole lot of self-important, ponderous science fiction movies that don't work - and need to saddle up and get back to Tatooine to see what all the excitement is about.

I had somewhat high hopes for this movie, but ended up amazed at how scene after scene turned out to be totally engrossing. Johnny Depp was mesmerizing and Al Pacino gave perhaps the most understated performance of his career. I've recently seen Goodfellas, and comparisons are unavoidable; they're both masterpieces but have very different characters. Goodfellas is vintage Scorsese; if there was a film he was born to make, this was it. Donnie Brasco, on the other hand, tells the by-now-familiar story of the tensions felt by the FBI Mafia infiltrator: the fear that his cover will be blown, the sense of abandonment by his family as they cope with his absence, and, most of all, a sense of identification with the group he is trying to send to prison. We've seen this before: Wiseguy (the TV series) played similar tunes (even having a central mobster named Sonny). More recently, The Sopranos tells as part of its sheaf of stories that of a mobster rat. I'm not as crazy about Michael Madsen's performance as other reviewers have been, and Ann Heche as Mrs. Pistone didn't do much for me. But the decidedly unglamorous portrayal of mobster life as lived by Lefty (Pacino's character) was wonderfully nuanced and detailed: his taste in clothes, his character's essential stupidity (cross-played with an almost animal instinct that doesn't always serve him well), and his tragic grief at his son's fate don't have any false notes in them.

I could, by now, get sick of Mafia flicks. After awhile, they rely on the same stereotypes of no trust, sudden violence, borderline or downright psychopathic personalities, and power games. But the performances and constant state of tension in this one made it very rewarding.

To start on a positive note, I have to admire the honesty of the writer and director in portraying the main character as unattractively as this. Nicholas Cage, who wants desperately to be liked, loved, and admired by his family members, gets - and deserves - none of the above. A lesser, more conventional movie would have gotten to the midpoint by showing that Dave Spritz - misunderstood but virtuous and likable - solving a problem by some ingenious means, with the rest of the movie devoted to showing his newly-acquired respect from Dad, ex-wife, and kids.

This isn't that movie. But neither is it very good at all - lots of things just don't make sense, are never really resolved (or they're just no exposition - they just hang there, like his daughter's smoking habit, or the existence of his mother - neither of these do anything for the film at all), or, worst, are internally contradictory without a hint of irony. During the movie, while coping with his father's sickness, the aftermath of divorce, and problems with the kids at home, it's shown how Dave is just barely able to cope. One would think that somebody this dysfunctional would be unable to find the studio for his New York audition, let alone do a creditable audition. Yet it appears to go well, and there's no concept that personal problems might create a problem performing up to standard.

Another contradictory element is his announcement in one of the nonsensical voice-overs how good his father (a Pulitzer-winning writer, played by Michael Caine by varying his face from "blank expression" to "Semi grin") was as a father. But - but - but - the whole movie is evidence to the contrary - are we seriously to believe that Robert Spritz couldn't do better than this? Or that his almost willful emotional disengagement from Dave is in any way admirable?

Dave Spritz plays a celebrity weather man who, evidently, fairly regularly gets hit with fast food and drinks from people in the street, for no reason whatsoever. I have never heard of this happening, I don't know why it would happen, and I don't know of how it even could happen in the manner in which it is depicted - picture this, you've just bought a Slurpee or a MacDonald's pie (presumably because you wanted to consume them) when you see a man that may or may not be somebody you see on TV occasionally for three minutes at a time. Do you

a. point out the person to whoever you're with b. ask the man for his autograph c. Immediately, without thinking about it for more than half a second, throw your consumable at him, accurately enough to hit him in the head?

I don't know anyone who would ever consider (c). As a follow-up, if you're a minor celebrity and people occasionally come up and ask for your autograph do you a. smile and give it to them b. give them some conversation, some banter, some interaction c. verbally pick a fight with them, ending with mutual acrimony

Again, I can't imagine a minor celebrity who would ever pick (c). Throughout the movie, in fact, it's astonishing that Dave Spritz stays in one piece; he picks verbal and physical fights with his daughter, his ex-wife, his ex-wife's boyfriend (who has committed no sin other than having played either stupid or mobster or both types in other movies), two semi-fans, the counselor who has come on to his son - I was waiting for him to get into it with Bryant Gumbel. One would think that the climax of the movie would reveal some deep-seated reason for all this anger (like, maybe, his dad treats him like dirt on a good day?) but it was not to be - it's just something to happen on screen

Overall, it's one of those movies that, in their insistence on not being conventional - the desire, perhaps, to have a whiff of "indie" sensibility - loses sight of any hope of being edifying, original, or, in the end, entertaining in more than the most superficial way. It's the sort of part that Jim Carrey has been taking too often these days, and it doesn't look any better on Cage than Carrey.

The final irritating event/theme of the movie (perhaps it's meant ironically, but I doubt it) is the flat contradiction of his father's advice about "'Easy' doesn't enter into grown-up life...." blah blah blah, contrasted with Dave's career accomplishments. If what Dave wants from his dad is just the right platitude, and this is it, Dave's life and career is a direct refutation of this one - he admits that his job doesn't take any knowledge whatsoever. And how hard does he have to work at even the things he works at? Archery isn't exactly the Green Berets, Dave, nor is it doing anybody in the world any good, unlike something like charity work, volunteering, or trying to be other than completely self-involved. All in all, I would not recommend this picture.

Hollywood has a short but intense tradition of memory-as-identity and what-is-reality movies; Blade Runner (stylish but dense), Total Recall (sci-fi thriller), Memento (if you like Bach, you'll love this movie), Minority Report (stylish but icy), Paycheck, and a few others. A lot of theme, if not actually based on a Philip K. Dick story, seem to be informed by the ideas and questions he dealt with in his fiction. Now comes Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet who, in this movie, finally get to the point(s) that it seems that the other movies have been only touching on occasionally: are we more than our memories?, and if we can't rely on our perceptions, what can we rely on? This movie is different from the others in that it has a heart; in fact, it's all about heart. Jim Carrey's character, Joel, finds out that his girlfriend, played by Kate Winslet, has gone to the trouble of having all memories of him erased from her mind (through a procedure that is presented as no more invasive or out of the ordinary than, say, laser surgery), and in revenge, or at least in reaction, Joel decides to have the same procedure done to him. Midway through the night that this is being done, in his dreamlike state, he changes his mind, and at least a third of the movie happens during the time when he is trying to shield his memories of her from the erasing process. He realizes that he doesn't want to lose the memories of her, as painful as some of those may be. Jim and Kate are surrounded by good actors here, but it's Kate Winslet that really shines. Joel's mental state often seems to be a bit confused (that is, I'm not sure where he is) but Kate communicates so clearly with every expression and flick of her eye. And it's a tribute to the writing that this ultimately makes sense; I don't really admire the direction and all of the arty special effects in this film, because it doesn't need it - the script is that good, so good, in fact, that it could probably be acted on a bare stage. Well, maybe not quite. The only time it threatens to come off the rails is in the antics of the actual operators who are doing the erasing, played by Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, and joined by Kirsten Dunst and, finally, the superb Tom Wilkinson, who's given the best single line of the movie: when asked if this causes brain damage, replies,"Well, technically, the procedure IS brain damage". And what seem to be tangential subplots end up curling back on the main plot in the most unexpected and essential way.

As I mentioned, the direction is a bit frantic and the art direction alternates between being a bit too grimy and a bit too mannered for this material, but when one looks at what Speilberg did with Minority Report, one is grateful for small favors. The movie has lots of unexplored nooks and crannies, and you sense that as tight as the script is, it isn't trying to just be a tour de force like Memento, but to make a point that, in Joel's Everyman character's mind, is highly emotional about life and love and pain. It actually fleshes out the whole idea of the replicant Rachel in Blade Runner, who had false memories implanted in her to make her think she was a human; here the opposite is being done, and the characters (and not just the leads) try to deal with the question of just what this has done to their humanity. Other threads that are brought up and touched on or implied are: if you have had this procedure done to you, what are the lasting side effects? And afterward, is there still an attraction between the people - that is, does part of your being still remember? I hope this is remembered later on, not only during awards season, but by others who try to mine this material.

Contains spoilers "... So I saw this cool Julia Roberts movie this weekend, Mona Lisa Smile, where this guy thinks she looks like this picture by Leonardo de Caprio? Did he paint pictures? Except the picture was kind of ugly? Anyway, she's this cool art teacher from California that starts teaching in this really uptight girl's school in the East somewhere? and all the kids start out real mean to her because they're real smart and don't like her because she's from, like, Hollywood, and may have known this guy, William Holding? And the faculty think she's too wild and doesn't know how to stick to the syllibals? And she's teaching about modern art and all the girls don't like it at first but they do later after they see this big slab by this Polish guy, Jackson, something - I guess America didn't allow modern art in those days - but all the girls want to get married and don't really care about their minds, but then this one, Julia Stiles? She gets married even though she can get into Yale, and this other one, Kirsten Dunst, she gets married but her husband is cheating all over her and she gets a divorce, even though her mom doesn't want her to, like that mom in Titanic? And, Julia Roberts? She has a boyfriend back in California but then likes this cool Italian teacher but he turns out to be another bad guy because he, like, made up stories about being in the war? So she quits because they were too mean to her even though she ends up real popular? and they ride bikes after her at the end - that was so cool!"

I didn't like this movie when it was called Dead Poets Society, I hated it when it was Mr. Holland's Opus, and having Julia Roberts in it doesn't endear it to me now. Every year or so Hollywood needs to remake this story of the quirky, nonconformist, rebellious teacher who shakes up the establishment at some (preferably Eastern, WASP, expensive) private school, enlightens the students while ticking off the uptight administration and fellow faculty (although there's always one faculty member who Gets It), and has to do battle with the forces of soul-deadening conformity and expectations. The menu of straw-man situations displayed for our entertainment include: a lesbian school nurse terminated for distributing diaphragms to the students (damn those priggish board members!); a student marrying an upwardly mobile Harvard grad who then cheats on her (the louse!); another instructor who (gasp!) has made up stories about his war record (the creep!) and sleeps with the students (the cad!); Julia Roberts' boyfriend who wants her to marry him but doesn't let her know he's coming so he's way too insensitive (the lout!); and assorted smarmy creeps that work and teach there at, in this case, Wellesley. Somehow this is supposed to make us grateful that we're modern and lucky and freed from all that 50's conformity.

There's nothing wrong with making a movie about this type of situation; the tension between conformity and tradition on the one hand and new ideas and the forces of change on the other is a common story line, especially against the background of a respected academic institution. A good movie can be made even out of the melodramatic elements that arise from this tension. This is not that movie. It has two problems. The first is that it really has no sympathetic male characters in it. I won't go as far as some reviewers and say it's a "man-hating" movie, but, other than the California boyfriend, (who is portrayed as a "gosh, he'd be such a nice guy, but he just doesn't understand Julia!" kind of semi-nebbish), all the men in this seem to be at best clueless and, at worst, liars and cheats and weasels.

The other big problem is one that the movie actually spells out for us in two separate speeches, one by the excellent Julia Stiles, and the other by Dominic West (her brief boyfriend). The main character, is unmarried and seems to have no desire to be married. Her lectures and conversations start out being against conformity but seem to end up being about what a desolate fate marriage is for all these fine ladies. "Half of these girls are married, and the other half will be by the time they graduate", she protests breathlessly, as if she were talking about being tatooed, or crippled or something really undesirable. At the end of the day, (and this is the point that Julia Stiles nails her on) she comes across as being anti-marriage, especially trying to get across what a waste this education is on people that are just going to be supporting their husbands and raising their kids. The supposition is that education is wasted on wives and mothers, yet nobody actually has the guts to say that just maybe an educated, intelligent woman (like Julia Stiles portrays - yow!) might be a better wife and mother, and that education is not just for preparing a citizen to enter the workforce. Of course, if these were Afghani women on loan from the Taliban, she'd have a point, but these girls aren't exactly donning burkhas when they get married here. What she's saying (and it's the same exact message that Robin Williams has in Dead Poets) is "be nonconformist and rebellious. Just exactly like me!", and it's an untouched irony that products of a conformist education like these two are big fans of nonconformity.

Some good performances here, and it is, of course, a good-looking movie, being a Julia Roberts movie and all. Who cares? At the end, she is given gifts by all of her students of "paint-by-numbers" classic paintings (this relates to a lecture she had given about halfway through the year). I expected to see the script for this movie among them - talk about a "script-by-numbers" accomplishment! Ka Ching.

I can understand why many people might not like it at all: it's a bit obscure, hard to follow, and the plot is as foggy as it is in many other Altman movies. That having been said, I loved this film, and think it's one of the best Altman films. It's interesting that a murder mystery set in a British country house shares a lot with one of Altman's first movies, M*A*S*H, set in Korea in a different time: all the comments above also apply to the early movie as well.

In Gosford Park, it becomes clear that the plot's not the thing; if anything, it's a bit of a distraction. A group of relatives and friends - well, acquaintances, at any rate - gather in a for a weekend of shooting and socializing; somebody ends up dead, we find out whodunnit, everyone leaves. How common is that? But the point isn't the murder; it's, among other things, the tensions created by the class/caste system at that time, the hostility masked by the manners exhibited by the upper classes, the subtle (and not-so-subtle) insults and barbs thrown around, and (it seems to me) the constant tension created by an environment of huge disparities of income.

Kind of like Dallas on any Sunday.

Visually, the film is a complete treat; the cinematography is superb. Sonically, non-Altman fans (and myself) will complain that much of the dialogue is obscured and fragmented. This is completely deliberate; I got the DVD and turned on the subtitles and got quite a bit more out of the third viewing. But - and this is what makes both this (and M*A*S*H, and McCabe and Mrs. Miller) really a masterpiece - even though you don't get every word, suddenly you realize that you know exactly what's going on. Altman's ability to get this across to the audience in spite of the difficulty of understanding the details is what makes him a master.

Finally, the one thing I really disliked about this movie is that, in the end, you realize that these people, all of them, really don't care for each other at all. Some of them hate each other, others just don't care for each other, but there's so little, or none, real affection shown in the movie that it's a bit absurd and mannered.

High points: every moment on screen with Helen Mirren in it. She just crackles. Recall that she and Michael Gambon were also in "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover", with him playing a younger and louder version of the same role.

Every moment that Jeremy Irons is singing, indeed, every moment he's onscreen.

And of course, Maggie Smith, who just licks up her part like a purring, nasty, housecat lapping up cream; she steals every scene she's in and you know she knows it. Her comments to Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irons): "What is it like, you know, when a movie just kind of flops? It must be so difficult" so venomous, and delivered with such faux sympathy - defines her to at T.

As I said, not everyone's poisoned cup of tea.

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** I like the moment in this movie when Erin and her friends are discussing Destiny, and she confidently asserts that she doesn't believe in any force that guides our lives. The rest of the movie is a valentine to Destiny, and a joyous one at that.

Two plots revolve around each other like the double helix of DNA. In the first one, Erin Castleton (Hope Davis), a pretty (but not beautiful) Boston medical worker has various amusing episodes in her love life after being dumped by her boyfriend Sean (played dead-on by Philip Seymour Hoffman). Erin's mother (Holland Taylor - another little virtuoso semi-cameo) sets the plot in motion by putting a singles ad in a newspaper for Erin (although, as Erin notes, the ad describes the mother more than it does Erin). Against her better judgment, she starts to accept "getting-to-know-you" dates with the sideshow of guys answering the ad, with some very funny (and some missing the mark) scenes. My favorite is with the guy who sells little rubber things that go on the underside of things to keep them from skidding; you see Erin's eyes glaze over in spite of herself, yet the next time she gets on the phone .... she turns it over to look at the little rubber things!

The other plot concerns Alan Monteiro (Alan Gelfont), a plumber who works at the aquarium and is portrayed as a really Good Guy, the Guy That Erin is Supposed to Meet By the End. Alan's life and desire to improve himself by studying marine biology is complicated by a sleazy gangster (Victor Argo) to whom he owes money, an immature girl in his class with a major crush on him, a fish kidnapping, a dad with a gambling habit, and a repellant brother and friends (all of whom date Erin - see how this starts to get complex?) ........Spoilers may Follow.......... (although you can't spoil this movie if this is your kind of movie!) The whole point of the movie, of course, appears to be that Erin and Alan are Just Perfect for Each Other, but Will not Get Together Until The End of the Movie (not unlike Sleepless in Seattle or You've Got Mail). This is a pretty standard form; Brad Anderson's conceit is the ability to keep them revolving around each other using amusing coincidences and near-misses. For example, at one point near the beginning of the picture, he actually walks right by her and she is gazing in his direction when ..... WHUMP! a flashbulb goes off in her face, causing her to blink her eyes just as he passes right by her.

But there's more going on in this than just a lot of business to get to the final meeting. Erin's life, in fact, has been badly affected by her father's leaving home and going to Brazil. This point isn't pounded home, but it is a recurring theme - she's a tough cookie, but she's not all as independent as she would like her friends to believe, so that near the end of the movie she is almost persuaded to up and leave Boston and her friends and go to live in Brazil with a man she has known less than a week. (The case could be made, by the way, that these Brazilian links exist mainly to justify the use of Antonio Carlos Jobim's wonderful music throughout - one of my favorite features of the film). And, although she declares that there is no such thing as destiny, she keeps following the instructions of the old bookseller she meets at the beginning of the film. He tells her to tell her future by opening up a book with your eyes closed and letting your finger fall at random on a word. She continues to do so throughout the movie and it becomes one of the movie's recurring motifs.

The episodes and plot points dealing with Alan are less philosophical and romantic and more prosaic. To forgive his debt to a loan shark, he is asked to kill Puff, the aquarium's prize exhibit blowfish. How he figures out how to avoid this is actually lots of fun, and has a few comedic moments. Other than that, he comes across as somewhat of a judgmental prig; in fact it's surprising that, on repeated viewings, neither of the characters are really that likeable. In most movies, I consider this a detriment, but in this, it actually serves the plot well, because you get to pay attention to all of the other little things that are happening in the movie, as well as appreciate the way the plot almost connects them over and over. In fact, it's nice to see people on screen that aren't as good-looking, perky and perfect as Julia, Tom, Meg and Nicholas - every character on this screen is unglamorous and seems believable.

This is the sort of movie I like to see over and over again. There are a lot of little things to appreciate on subsequent viewings; just a few include: Sean's "why I am breaking up with you" videotape - you know all you need to about him when you see him digging in his ear _and examining the contents_ while he's taping himself. (As always, Philip Seymour Hoffman is worth the price of admission). Understanding Erin's relationship with her father as an unspoken key to her personality. The parallel between that relationship and Alan's relationship with _his_ father. Erin's co-worker's distressful speech when she tells Erin that she finds out that Bob is gay. The repetition (to the point of ridiculousness) of "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - uttered by the littlest minds in the movie!

Parts that don't work are: The general foolishness and venality of Erin's dates from the ad. This kind of went overboard. The subplot where Erin, figuring out that she's being set up for a stunt, plays a practical joke on the three guys by having them all meet at a restaurant and watches as they fight each other and get thrown out. A bit heavyhanded. Bob's bits. Way heavyhanded. Alan's treatment of Cricket. Beats the heck out of me what he doesn't see in her.

This isn't everyone's pint of beer. It's obviously an indie flick, but lovingly made. It's more than just a little comedy, and has fewer pretensions to importance than just about any movie out of Hollywood. The best thing that I can say about it is that every time I see it I'm sorry it's over.

--- SPOILERS--- SPOILERS--- SPOILERS-- A Beautiful Mind is based on the biography of the same title of John Nash (Russell Crowe), the genius mathematician who suffered from schizophrenia. It deals with his student years at Princeton, his formulation of the game-theory work that won him the Nobel Prize, his descent into and unexpected rise out of mental illness, and the effect his illness had on his career and his marriage.

Let me start off by saying I don't care for films where mental illness and psychological problems are considered dramatic devices. As someone who has been in therapy, and whose wife and several members of her family have been practicing therapists, I'm aware how different Hollywood's depiction of psychological problems are from reality. It always seems that the sufferer goes into breakdown mode right at the climax of the film, only to be rescued by the love of a good woman or his best buddy, with the good therapist available on the phone to tell him, at last, the Real Truth ("No! I swear to you, Herb, that Pomeranian is NOT your dead uncle ... you've GOT to believe me for once!!!") . So I'm pretty cool to the pleasures of such films as, say, Ordinary People, The Prince of Tides, Shine, Awakenings, Girl Interrupted and Rain Man (to name just a few of way too many), and I wouldn't really like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest if I thought that it were just about mental illness.

That having been said, I enjoyed this movie immensely because of several things. First of all, even if you know what the movie is about, the moment of Nash's onset of schizophrenia is almost impossible to spot, even in retrospect. And as you follow the story line, you get almost no clue that some characters and situations are hallucinations. The appearance of Ed Harris. as a government agent recruiting Nash as a codebreaker is totally in keeping with the paranoid aspect of the times, and some of the more garish aspects of Nash's belief system (the "radium implant", the "special building" on campus that nobody knows about but him, the car chase) are easily chalked up to, perhaps, shoddy filmmaking. I know that I started to think this was a somewhat amateurish film with all the black hats and talk about the Russians, but I still bought into the fantasy. I guess at some point, I should have started to think,"Whoa .... codes in MAGAZINES? A RADIUM Diode?" .... but we see the action from his point of view and it's close enough to reality to be chillingly convincing. The point here is to make us understand a little but the depth of the problems he faced in trying to discern reality - and it was great to make the most likable character in the movie (Nash's roommate Charles, played by Paul Bettany) one of the imaginary ones. (Reminded me a lot of a certain movie where guys form a club to fight, but I won't reveal that movie's name because that would be wrong.)

Another fine thing about the movie is the Ron Howard's direction. Although Ron Howard's characters have their feet planted firmly in pulp melodrama, they are always redeemed by the extent to which he cares about them and makes us feel the same way. He makes the characters surrounding Nash well fleshed out and likeable, and gives Alicia Nash (Jennifer Connely) a saintliness combined with humanity that, perhaps, the real Alicia may not have had. He lets Dr. Rosen (Christopher Plummer) be just right in the role: no saint himself, but wanting to try to conquer this affliction, in these pre-Lithium days. We like him, we really like him.

The casting of Christopher Plummer and Ed Harris were both inspired choices. (Let's not quite play "six degrees of Russell Crowe" ... ) You remember Christopher Plummer, don't you? - as Mike Wallace in The Insider, he was one of the people bringing grief to the same Russell Crowe in The Insider. And Ed Harris was famously a secret and nasty G-Man in The Firm. So when these guys show up on-screen they have an extra cachet of credibility in the roles that Nash has cast them in (even though Ed Harris isn't real!).

So, I enjoyed the movie, shed a few tears at his speech to the Nobel audience, felt good and lucky that I don't have this problem, but have a bit of bad taste about a couple of things. For one, it doesn't take a lot of research to show how sanitized this has been. And, curiously, the shaping of this story into a Hollywood arc diminishes the power of the story; if, as really happened, Alicia and John did get divorced, if, indeed, there was no scene with all those noble words about "what's real" ... then how are we to believe that his work really was significant, and mattered in the long run (which it certainly did). And Russell Crowe did a great job of acting, but I gave up waiting for him to decide on an accent. Speech coach, please? He had a good performance up until he walks into that Australian restaurant to play Flight of the Bumblebee ...

Wait. Wrong movie about mental illness. Sorry.

Anyway, I wish someone would cast Russell "Grumpy" Crowe in a comedy and force him to smile. I'm certain that Crowe will score an Oscar for this, and A Beautiful Mind has a good chance of walking off with Best Picture. I'm glad I saw it. But (to reiterate my point above) I have to say I don't want to see Hollywood make any more movies about people with mental illness. Like the way Hollywood deals with religion, the problems of divorced people, prison life, and classical music, there's always something kind of insulting and patronizing about these things being turned into neat dramas for our entertainment.

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** Anyone that knows about comedy knows about "Some Like It Hot", and anyone that know about "Some Like It Hot" knows about Billy Wilder. This was his next film, and the reason I mention that is that this is a serious and melancholy drama with the form and rhythm of comedy. But it's not a funny movie, and part of the genius of the writing and direction is that Lemmon's character especially only figures this out in the third act.

Jack Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, an unmarried drone amongst drones in a huge insurance company, possessing of two important things: a bachelor's apartment near Central Park (check out his rent!!), and an amoral willingness to allow company higher-ups to use his place for after-hours trysts with their girlfriends and pickups they meet in bars. To C.C., the problems associated with operating a safe-house for affairs are merely logistical, not moral; in one scene, he is seen rearranging his and everyone's schedule to accomodate Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) a real bigwig, with the expertise and interest of an air traffic controller.His hope is to promote himself within the company by pleasing his superiors, and for awhile that seems to be working. It turns out, however, that Sheldrake's current flame is Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), who C.C. has quite the crush on; in fact, she stands him up on their first date to meet Sheldrake at their favorite Chinese restaurant, where Sheldrake asks her to resume their affair, intimating that he will leave his wife for her (a lie that no-one except her even pretends to believe).

Without going into too many details, the joy of and intelligence this is how well this triangle works itself out slowly and with some pain by all concerned. Although C.C. really likes Fran, she won't give him the time of day, first because she's already bruised and involved with Sheldrake, and, later, because she sees his flaws better than he does (and, possibly, we do). At one point they agree that it's too bad that she doesn't fall for a guy like him, but the exchange is given additional bittersweetness not only by her inability to fall for a "nice guy" but her awareness that, as he is at that point, he's not really such a nice guy. One of the beauties of this script is that it takes awhile for us to notice that C.C. is just as bad as Sheldrake is; he's totally okay with the infidelities he is assisting in as long as he gets his promotion out of it, and it isn't his business whether anyone (wives or girlfriends) gets hurt in the process. Even the resounding disapproval from his next door neighbors (who just think he's a very busy playboy from what they can hear night after night coming through the walls) doesn't get him to think. Yet Lemmon plays the role with total innocence; he thinks he's in a comedy and it takes a real life-threatening problem halfway through to get him to start considering the error of his ways. Even then, he's still just trying to work the situation, without taking any stand himself. (There are only about two actors I know of that could pull this role off: Jack Lemmon and Tom Hanks, both of whom have such audience appeal that they can be this spineless without the audience despising them.) Interestingly, for all her personality, intelligence and self-awareness, Fran isn't much better; she's no stranger to the hazards of having affairs with married men, yet has little qualms about resuming her affair with Sheldrake. Both C.C. and Fran really are willing to sacrifice their integrity for something they hope to get from Sheldrake - him, the high-floor, corner window office, her, the gold wedding ring.

I've stressed that this is a drama in comedy form to emphasize that this screen play is one of the most intelligently written I have ever seen; it takes a non-story (or at least, obviously bedroom-farcical material) and inhabits it with character interaction and development of the most subtle and human kind. You expect lots of bedroom-closet-under-the couch people shuffling (like in The Pink Panther of three years later) and general hilarity, perhaps ending up with someone partially disrobed and dangling from a window; instead you find out that each of these characters has a little history of his own. I rented this the other night, thinking that it would indeed be a comedy, and about halfway through found myself thinking "This is REALLY good!". I've been renting lots of pre-1975 movies (The Sting, Spartacus, this one) in an unprecedented attack of escapist nostalgia, and have been rewarded with jewels like this. Winner of 5 Oscars including Best Picture, this is one of the best pictures I've seen this or any year. It's a cliche to say that Hollywood doesn't make movies like this anymore, yet the nearest thing to this is My Best Friend's Wedding?

(A couple of notes I really liked: Ray Walston's character is perfectly cast and played, as usual; the whole picture is a cynical Valentine to New York and the 50's at the same time; and anyone who saw this at the time could see that Shirley MacLaine was gonna be a big star).