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The problem with "based on a true story" movies, especially ones that are based on the lives and times of crooks is that it is never clear wear the "based on" starts and the "true story" ends – or vice versa.. After all, if you're telling the story of a man of lies, then why should you stick to the truth, especially if the material is far-fetched and the main character is a stranger to reality. If the protagonist is a habitual liar then there is everything to gain by making him a lovable scamp who does no real harm and not have him come off as an utterly despicable creep with no respect for the integrity of the trusting fools who cross his path.

And therein lies the central problem with I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS: not only does the film have to sell us a potentially likable ticket-selling hero, but it also wants to serve up a politically correct gay love story which serves as the main motivation for the characters' actions. PHILLIP MORRIS is based on the criminal escapades of Steven Jay Russell, whose activities bounced him in and out of prison for a couple of decades. And it could have just told of his various scams, downplaying all sex entirely. But the film rather pointedly highlights his relationship with Phillip Morris, his mild-mannered cell mate who he drags into his life of crime -- making it play like a gay love story with a criminal subtext. Whether the film is a gay love story, which got made because it has a comic criminal subplot, or was a caper movie that had to have the gay plot included, is irrelevant. But the film is being sold because of its gay element and almost didn't get released because of the romantic plot. Yet when Steve's first wife, an ultra-Christian follower, asks if there is a connection between his being gay and his being a criminal, she is stared at because of her seeming stupidity, even though that seems to be a point the film itself is trying to make. Is it, just as Steve argues, that taking up a life of crime was necessary because being gay is so expensive? So, is there a connection between the two sorts of deviant behaviors? And for that matter, is Phillip really so naive that he fails to realize that Steve is involving him in his scams? And was George W. Bush actually involved in bringing Steve to justice or is that a dimwitted way to pump a bit it heavy-handed politics into the story, a back-handed, last minute attempt at painting a scoundrel like Russell as a victim of homophobia? Little elements pop up throughout the film raising questions as to their own veracity and casting shadows on the honest of the story as a whole.

There is a clear indication that as Steve, Jim Carrey is making a rare attempt at playing a character role and not just hamming it up as a comic character. Yet despite his best effort, his protagonist never quite reflects a reality. His southern accent as Russell isn't too broad and may be even quite realistic, but in the end it seems fake. While on the other hand, Ewan MacGregor's softer, less forced accent may not be as authentic, but his Phillip rings true. The two acting styles don't quite blend convincingly; their love affair does not convince. The film's frequent attempts at comedy don't gel with its obvious attempts at romance and poignancy, so the whole point of the film doesn't come clear. Is there genuine romance in Steve and Phillip's relationships or is Phillip being used as a pawn and being owned as a pretty young object? The scenes that attempt to establish the romance are clearly sincere, but they are undercut by the bumbling tries to make fun of the conman's broadly humorous con jobs. And the melodramatic efforts to play AIDS for both laughs and tears only leave a nasty taste. The various elements and contrasting intents do not blend smoothly, or even try to. Thus, you are left at the end with a curiously unsettling feeling for what the characters had for motives or how you are supposed to feel for them. Is Steve Russell just a career criminal or is he/was he motivated by feelings of abandonment as a child or was he an confused outsider with no real identity because of his homosexuality.

And should we even care? It would seem that the gay angle is little more then an excuse he uses to justify living an amoral life -- just as it is a flimsy excuse for making the movie at all. His targets may seem to be part of the straight world (bigoted businessmen and insurance companies) but he also targets innocent people (gay lovers and his ex-wife and little daughter who he abandons, supposedly to lead a more honest life as a gay man). In the end, he just seems to be a habitual liar with no desire to keep his repeated pledge to lead a decent life. If the film had been played as an out and out comedy -- a typical Jim Carray farce -- it might have worked. But every lie Steve tells is aimed at the audience as well. There are some laughs scattered through out PHILLIP MORRIS, but there is little joy.

Nic and Jules have a good life. Nic's a doctor. Jules is a landscaper – or at least trying to get a landscaping business off the ground. They've lived together for nearly two decades. They share a lovely old house and also share two seemingly normal teenage children, by way of a sperm donor. They care for the kids with unqualified love. Nic and Jules aren't married, but they may as well be; they quarrel and disagree and tease each other as any typical happily married couple would. A modern family, to be sure. And they are lesbians , so marriage is not an option -- at least not yet.

Their pleasant suburban life hits a snag when their youngest child -- a 15-year-old boy named Laser – decides he wants to meet his real father and enlists the aid of his 18-year-old sister, Joni. They go behind their mothers' backs, find him, introduce themselves and discover he isn't such a bad guy. And he finds being a sudden father isn't that bad either. But even though Jules (Julianne Moore) likes the father/sperm donor, Nic (Annette Bening) isn't so sure. While the new man in their life, Paul,(Mark Ruffalo) seems like a good hearted, perfectly likable, open minded, liberal-thinking, loving individual, something doesn't seem right to Nic.

So far, so good.

But here is where THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT goes wrong. Not all wrong, but wrong enough. Jules agrees to landscape Paul's garden. They work together and find they are attracted to each other. And they fall into a breathless, uncontrollable affair. And what had begun as an amusing, likable, family comedy/drama, with a honest, convincing, gay-positive message, becomes a Hollywood movie. You see, in a Hollywood movie, there can't be a couple in a longterm, monogamous relationship without one of the couple having an affair. In Hollywood, marriages are made to be broken, or at least shaken. Two individuals can't meet without uncontrollably lusting over each other. And if the main couple is of the same-sex variety, then the affair must be with a member of the opposite sex. You see, within every gay person there is a straight person struggling to get out. According to Hollywood, there aren't really any gay people, only straight people in disguise. So if one member of a same-sex couple gets it on with another member of the opposite sex, well, no big deal -- promiscuity is to be expected in same-sex relationships.

So, what starts out as gay film about a modern gay family, suddenly becomes a heterosexual film with a little bit of gay on the side. It doesn't ring true and the audience should feel as betrayed by the film as Nic feels betrayed by Jules. After establishing she loves Nic, never once does Jules' lust seem true for Paul. And for that matter, never once does Paul's lust seem logical or honest for Jules. This is not a relationship made in heaven, it becomes a hackneyed relationship made in the mind of a Hollywood writer – actually two writers, Stuart Blumberg and director Lisa Cholodenko. Jules and Paul have an affair solely so he can intrude on Jules and Nic relationship. It exists solely as a plot device. And this is dishonest for the film, which one can assume was supposedly about "the kids." Jules and Paul are practically family. And not only is Jules being unfaithful to Nic, she is cheating on Laser and Joni, as well. And so is Paul.

Now if the filmmakers just had to have some heterosexual coupling in the story, then they could have had both Nic and Jules both fall in love with Paul, seduce him and adopt their menage a trois as a part of the family. It might not be any more realistic, but it would at least take a fresh approach and take the story and the family in an intriguing direction, a three-parent, mixed-gender parentage. And it is established that Nic and Jules do enjoy watching gay male porn when they make love, so the interest is there.

Or to introduce conflict, make Paul not such a nice guy and a bad influence on the kids. He is, after all, intended to be the film's villain. Or make him a conservative Republican or a devout Catholic or a righteous Mormon so he will challenge the family's social and political beliefs. Or make him such a nice guy that he wins the kids over and they want to live with him. Or challenge the prevailing notion that a father is unnecessary to a modern family and make Paul become an essential part of the household and the one thing missing that keeps the kids' lives from being perfect. Let the unconventional family become a little more conventional. There are so many directions that THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT can go that it is just plain insulting for the filmmakers to fall back on that tired old "nice to meet you let's have and affair" plot twist.

On the good side the film's acting is fine and almost makes the contrived plot believable and the film itself makes no attempt at being pro-gay propaganda, just a film with the pretense of honestly being about gay people. So why does it swerve so drastically off course to misrepresent those people? But sex sells and there are more heterosexual ticket buyers out there than gay ones, so there you go. And THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT gets to have its straight cake and sell it's a gay dessert. It just has to sell its integrity to do so.

If ever there were a working example of the word "whimsical," it would be the works of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll), i.e.: "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass." The stories, stuffed with clever word play, non-sequiturs, train-of-thought chaos and general silliness, are not exactly funny, so much as just being playfully amusing. The reader – like Alice – takes a trip of wayward, unpredictable imagination. Tim Burton's film version (or re-imaging) of Carroll's tales likely will never be accused of being whimsical. Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find a trace of whimsy in any line of dialog or overwrought image. Burton's film, while certainly being visually stunning, is also dark, and at times just plain depressing.

Burton has said that he never felt emotionally connected to the "Wonderland" stories because they seemed like they were just about a young girl wondering around meeting unusual characters. Which is exactly what they were about. Their unpredictable nature and inexplicable logic is what made them what they were: engaging, if somewhat high-toned, nonsense. Burton and his screenwriter Linda Woolverton have tried to tame the material by boxing it into clichés and a tiresomely predictable plot. He expertly keeps the visuals more or less right – though he has made it all look gloomier and creepier – but the literary essence of the original material has been tossed aside to make room for little that might be considered funny and even less that might pass for fun.

The story begins with Alice, as a little girl, interrupting her father's business meeting to tell him she has had another in a series of recurring dreams, presumably about Wonderland, and she asks him if the dreams are a sign she is going mad. A few joking and reassuring words temporarily puts her mind at rest, but the film reveals itself; the dream world of the little girl is now to be treated as a nightmare world that may be caused by or will result in mental illness. The story jumps a head over a decade later where Alice's widowed mother hopes to marry her off in an arranged union with an upper class twit. Will Alice wed the twit? Duh! The end is obvious – as is the heavy-handed feminism jammed into the story.

Soon Alice (Mia Wasikowska) falls down another rabbit hole and lands in Wonderland – or is that Underland? But Wonderland is now a bleak and ramshackle place, with most everybody living in fear of the tyrannical Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter). Alice eventually discovers that she is the chosen one, expected to help the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) save Wonderland from the bombastic Red Queen by battling the ferocious Jabberwock. Instead of a bewildered outsider lost in a strange world, Alice is now a reluctant messiah. Few of the oddball characters from Carroll's books have been retained, apparently to make room for an expanded role for Burton's favorite muse, Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter. Depp takes up far too much of the story time for a character who looks far more interesting then he really is. Worse, a hint of a possible romance between the Hatter and Alice rings false.

This ALICE IN WONDERLAND isn't for kids. Of course, the same could be said for the original books, what with their obscure literary allusions and now-dated popular references. Whether for commercial reasons or a sheer lack of imagination, the film is yet another childhood fantasy that has been re-written into an adult horror film. Like the disastrous THE WIZ and Steven Spielberg's overblown HOOK, a gentle and benignly scary fairy tale has been twisted around in order to supposedly explore adult themes. And as Disney did this once before, back in 1985, when they made RETURN TO OZ, a horrible and unwarranted sequel to THE WIZARD OF OZ: they've taken a colorful, playfully perplexing fantasy world and turned it into something unpleasant and uninviting. There's nothing particularly wrong with taking an old literary classic and looking at it through fresh eyes, if the look is truly fresh, but remains true to the original -- as, say, Burton did with SLEEPY HOLLOW.

Like the recent SHERLOCK HOLMES, this ALICE an exercise in dumbing down. Just as the former film takes Holmes and de-intellectualizes him, making him into a rough-and-tumble superhero, the later indulges in victim feminism, turning Alice from being a precocious, adventurous child into a sorrowful, reactive woman. Here Burton and screenwriter Woolverton become regressive feminists, changing a wide-eyed, curious little girl into a repressed, depressed and distressed woman who "takes control of her dream," dons armor and becomes a warrior and ends up being empowered.

And what does this empowerment lead to? She becomes a businesswoman. So much for intellectual whimsy.

George Falconer has a great life. Or, at least, it would seem so. He lives in a fashionable, upscale neighborhood, near cheerfully photogenic neighbors, in a stylish glass-and-wood house that seems directly out of Architectural Digest. He drives a sporty little Mercedes. He dresses in fashionable, conservative clothes. He is articulate and dryly humorous, assets in his profession as a literature teacher at a southern California college where he is liked and respected by his uniformly clean-cut students. And though he is discreet and low-key about his homosexuality, he seems fairly comfortable with his closet door being slightly ajar; surprisingly open seeing as how the time is November of 1962.

But George isn't happy. His lover of 16 years, Jim, died suddenly eight months previously, and George has been walking around in a fog of bereavement ever sense. On the particular day that A SINGLE MAN is set-- November 30 -- George is planning to end the evening and his life by committing suicide. That is pretty much what A SINGLE MAN is all about, George spending the day trying to tie up the loose ends of his existence so that his death won't leave behind too much of a mess – well, no more of a mess than a bullet though his brain would surely cause.

Directed, co-produced and co-written by fashion designer Tom Ford, based on a book by Christopher Isherwood, A SINGLE MAN is a tasteful, somewhat understated, occasionally amusing slice-of-life (or slice-of-death?). George, as played by Colin Firth, tries to go through his day doing all the things that are expected of him, while working out the bits and pieces of business necessary to carrying out his suicide. Like cleaning out his safety deposit box and buying bullets for his gun. He has a pleasant, but lively dinner with his gal-pal best friend (and one-time lover) Charley (Julianne Moore). He has a nice friendly chat with a Spanish male prostitute (Jon Kortajarena) who casually tries to pick him up. And he has several encounters with Kenny (Nicholas Hoult), a handsome, preppy student who is all too obviously flirting with him and also all too obviously eager to consummate their relationship. Indeed, the aggressive, persistent and sweetly sincere Kenny looks as though he could be George's rescuing angel. Maybe, or maybe not.

All of this is told in quiet, elegant good taste. Ford captures, if not the feel of the 1960's, then at least the feel of early 1960's advertising. George's neighbors look as though the are posing for ads featuring typical Americans from Life or Look magazine. Scenes are frequently shot in choreographed slow motion. Sudden close ups suggest new wave cinema. Ford has an eye for a certain artful look. Perhaps it is just a bit too artful for it's own good, as it never really gets very deep into either the mind or the soul of George. Ford tends to fixate on the superficial look of George's existence. If the film didn't pause now and again to work in flashbacks of his life with Jim (Matthew Goode), it would be difficult for the viewer to immediately realize George's ultimate goal.

But you do care for George. He is a nice man, a decent man and a truly sympathetic character. Firth's subtle performance gently seduces the viewer. As the entire film is designed to build up to his final choice – will he or won't he end it all – - it is clear where our sympathies lie. Making the film's twist ending all the more disagreeable. George makes his choice – then the story mocks that choice. A story that would have been complete and satisfying with a shot of George's suicide note to Charley burning in the fire place, instead continues on to show us that George's decision just didn't matter. Just as George is cheated out of the power of his choice, the viewer is punished for being foolish enough to care. A story about a gay man trying to take control of his destiny instead shifts gears suddenly to be a tragedy about life's cruel indifference to fairness and the ultimate fragility of existence. Whatever point the ending is trying to make is lost in the film's misplaced sense of irony. What could have been a bittersweetly uplifting drama instead becomes just another example of a gay man dying as apparent punishment for this sexuality. And what could have been inspiring, ends up being as retro in its thinking as it is in its sense of style.

He's lean! He's mean! He's a kick-ass crime fighter and the baddest dude this side of Pickadilly Circus! He's Holmes, Sherlock Holmes!

Huh?

When it was announced that macho director Guy Ritchie was going to make a Sherlock Holmes movie, with the intention of turning the renown sleuth into a rough and tumble action hero, there were more than a few eyebrows raised. With the announcement that the part would be taken over by the very American, very sardonic Robert Downey Jr. further puzzlement followed. The mystery being "Why?"

Holmes is a legendary character, and his iconic image is firmly implanted in our pop culture. The continuing respect for the character is rooted in that image, not in the actual quality of the mysteries that were devised for Holmes to solve by his creator Arthur Conan Doyle. The prevailing image of Holmes as being tall, slender, somewhat solemn and the epitome of Edwardian gentlemanliness is hard to shake, whether the actor in the part plays it stoically (Basil Rathbone), neurotically (Nicol Williamson) or comedic (George C. Scott). The decision to give us a Sherlock who is violent, belligerent and of questionable hygiene is the biggest mystery in SHERLOCK HOLMES – if Ritchie didn't like the traditional Holmes, then why did he bother to make a film centered on him?

In fairness, Doyle's Holmes was not above resorting to physical violence and using a firearm now and again. But those were on rare occasions, the traditional Holmes had intellect as his primary weapon and that sufficed quite nicely. Ritchie's detective comes off as a pistol-packing hooligan who frequents Fight Club matches, whose residence at 227B Baker Street could best be described as squalid and whose personal appearance could generously be called perpetually scruffy. While the traditional Holmes was of the upper class, but who could move around among the lower classes, it is unlikely that this Holmes would be comfortable or be accepted among the titled. In essence, the filmmakers have taken the less savory aspects of the Holmes adventures and moved them to the forefront, for reasons that just aren't clear. Maybe the filmmakers thought a character with genteel qualities would just be too uncommercial for modern audiences. That is rather sad. There just was no call to re-imagine Sherlock Holmes as being down and dirty.

That is not to say that Downey gives a bad performance as Holmes, only that he comes off as being Holmes in name only. He gives us a passable British accent and plays the part with a degree of shifting moods. Indeed, had he not been playing Sherlock Holmes, and had instead been cast as an original character, say, an Irwin Smithers or a Nigel Butterworth, then maybe his work wouldn't seem so vaguely disappointing. A bit more of his impish sense of humor – which added so much to IRON MAN -- would have been a welcomed addition and helped ease in the character as a tongue in cheek homage.

But to pretend for a moment this isn't a Sherlock saga, how is the film? Well, Holmes' attempts to sabotage the impending marriage between Jude Law's Dr. Watson and his future bride, Mary, gives the film an unexpected homo-erotic subtext that is amusing and rather sweet. Beyond that, with it's impressive sets and CGI effects, elegantly overplayed supervillain, colorful assassins, overly choreographed out-of-nowhere fight sequences and a long-winded and convoluted narrative about a super secret organization and a megalomaniac's plot to take over the world all makes the film seem less a Sherlock Holmes adventure and more like an Edwardian version of a James Bond movie. In the end, it would seem that Ritchie tried to tackle one British literary icon and inadvertently made a film about another one -- though still as a grungy and unpleasant recreation.

The box office success of SHERLOCK HOLMES could inspire other nefarious re-imaginings; like Jackie Chan as martial arts master Charlie Chan. Or maybe Jean-Claude Van Damme as an intense adventurer named Hercule Poirot. I can see it now: "She's hot! She's sexy!! She's the Hell-raising Mistress of Crime!!! Angelina Jolie IS Miss Jane Marple!!!!"

Well, maybe not.

It is said that, when Federico Fellini was making "8 ½," he placed a piece of tape on the camera that read "Ricordati che è un film comico " ("Remember, this is a comedy"). One wonders if Rob Marshall, the director of NINE, the film version of the Broadway musical based on "8 1/2," placed a message on his camera that read "Remember, this is a soap opera." Fellini's film is a beloved motion picture, particularly by filmmakers, because it is a film about making films. It is about a filmmaker and how the people around him -– mostly females -– affected his ability to bring meaning to his work. NINE is more about the women in a filmmaker's life and how they affected his movies. The subtle shift in emphasis from the man to the women -– no doubt the result of the stage musical's need to provide each female character with a potential show-stopper production number –- also shifts the focus of the story from being Fellini's pseudo-semi-autobiography to being a rather mushy soap opera. A film about a man's look inside himself becomes a musical about glossy surfaces and overwrought displays of emotion through song and dance.

In fairness to director Marshall, he did have his work cut out for him. Fellini constructed "8 1/2" out of a his own life of turmoil and his own task of living up to his reputation as a renown filmmaker. It is, in effect, a film about itself getting made. Marshall, on the other hand, got this material third hand, perhaps even forth or fifth hand. Fellini's personal story, co-written for his film by him and three others, was adapted into an Italian play by Mario Fratti, before it got the glitzy Broadway musical treatment by Arthur Kopit, which Michael Tolkin and Anthony Minghella adapted into a screenplay for this glitzy motion picture adaptation. Unlike others, such as Bob Fosse with ALL THAT JAZZ and Woody Allen with STARDUST MEMORIES, who remade Fellini's story as personal statements made during uncertain times in their careers, Marshall seems to bring nothing personal to the project. But having passed through so many other hands, it is understandable how it might lack a personal touch. Perhaps Marshall hoped to make a universal statement about the creation of art, but the result is less universal than generic. And the director is neither of the stature or at a pivotal point in his career to be dealing with the same issues as Fellini. Or Fosse. Or Allen.

Repeatedly, characters in NINE talk about the great influence the filmmaker had on the world, but the greatest influences on the film itself seems to be Broadway (especially Fosse) and MTV. Despite being indirectly about Fellini and being based on one of his most important works, NINE only now and again tries to represent Fellini's view of the world, mostly in flashes of black and white imagery which are too fleeting to carry much impact. For instance, Kate Hudson's production number, "Cinema Italiano," which sings the praises of the beauty of Fellini's striking black-and-white visions, keeps switching to bold and brassy color, making it all seem less like a tribute and more like a trendy cosmetic commercial. Perhaps that is the point of the number, how Fellini's style has been misinterpreted as being only a matter of style; but that seems to be the point of the entire film. Plus, Fellini, who made all the world his stage with his Italian neo-realism, is pushed into the background as Marshall locks down most of his musical numbers on one massive set on a sound stage. Unlike in Marshall's CHICAGO, a film about a woman who dreams of being a stage performer, thus making the stage a natural home for the dream sequences, the decision to confine Fellini's imagination to a single stage seems to violate Fellini's world view. For all their glitter and attempts at glamor, the dream sequences only seem to weigh the film down; neither continuing the story nor commenting on it, they bring the drama, such as it is, to a standstill.

Okay, forgetting for a moment that the film is about Federico Fellini, but is instead about Guido Contini, a fictional Fellini-esquire filmmaker, NINE is still a mess, but not in the chaotic fashion of a Fellini film. The story itself seems to exist to connect the musical numbers and as such seem false and melodramatic. Yet, the dream sequences don't seem to blend into the narrative so much as they seem wedged in. As Guido, Daniel Day-Lewis gives a solemn subtle performance, though a charismatic, larger-than-life one might have been better suited. His impressive cast of female costars (Marion Cotillard as his wife, Penelope Cruz as his mistress, Judi Dench as his confidante and collaborator, Sophia Loren as his mother, Kate Hudson as a groupie, Fergie as romanticized sexual memory and Nicole Kidman as an idolized and idealized leading lady), all do okay with the material given to them, though each seems to do their piece of business, take their bow and leave. Scenes happen, but don't build to any great climax. Even the ending, where Contini opts to make small meaning films rather than grand epics about big subjects, seems incongruous with a film that otherwise tries to be a grand epic about big subjects. Despite its aspirations, NINE just doesn't succeed because Fellini's "8 1/2" was about something – or someone; NINE isn't about much of anything.

It is said that Woody Allen wrote the script for WHATEVER WORKS back in 1977, with the intent of casting Zero Mostel in the lead role, the "Woody Allen" role. Unfortunately, Zero died. Dusted off, updated and filmed three decades later, the film now stars Larry David. But if you use your imagination and listen carefully, you can hear Mostel saying the lines, and with his grandiose, over-blown delivery you can see how the sometimes bombastic material could be funny, or at least amusing. And for that matter, if you can imagine Allen himself delivering his own lines, with his uniquely whiny brand of self-deprecating sarcasm, you might be able to get into the material and story and appreciate the tone, if not the content. Unfortunately, the part of Boris Yellnikoff went to writer-turned-actor David, whose sour apple outlook gave a toxic tang to TV's "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm." The problem is that David the actor really isn't all that funny and he makes the character unlikable, but not in a funny way.

Of course, the character is suppose to be disagreeable –- and condescending, bigoted, rude, snide, self-centered and misanthropic. But you can be all that stuff and still be unlikable in a likable fashion. Like Mostel in THE PRODUCERS or Woody in DECONTRUCTING HARRY. David just can't pull it off. As he schleps around spouting his mean-spirited insights about the meaning and value of life, while constantly reminding everyone who will listen that he is a genius who was almost nominated for a Noble prize, his Boris is petty, not pious, more abusive than abrasive. And not funny. Boris is not the story's only character, but he is the central character and thus, the voice the film, so that his unceasingly bitter brand of liberalism comes off not being cantankerous, but just plain mean.

Boris was once a respected –- if medicated –- physicist. But having forgone his meds and failed at marriage and suicide, he now scrounges out a living teaching and verbally abusing little children whose parents want them to learn chess. One night, in a particularly unlikely twist, he lets into his life and shabby apartment a teenage urchin named Melodie (Evan Rachel Wood), who has abandoned her family and home in Louisiana to live in the streets of New York City. He treats her with bemused contempt and she responds with wide-eyed adulation. They eventually marry. The question is supposed to be what would a teenage girl see in a 60-something-year-old man. The real question is what could a wide-eyed and optimistic woman like Melodie possibly see in a shallow, contemptuous jerk like Boris. The film's only explanation is that whatever works is what works. It works in the film only as a lame plot twist.

After setting up the Boris and Melodie union, the story expands with the addition of Melodie's parents, Marietta and John Celestine (Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley Jr.). The Celestines are cardboard stereotypes of Southern Christians, prone to dropping to their knees in prayer with the slightest inspiration. Having cured Melodie of her religious inclination with remarkable ease, Boris (or, rather, Woody) find similar means to rid Marietta and John of their Christianity as well –- the preferred method being getting drunk and having casual sex. And that is pretty much the whole film: Stupid Christians are won over to a New York bohemian lifestyle by learning the wisdom of self-indulgent liberalism. Allen doesn't even bother debating the issue: the Christians are ignorant by virtue of their traditions and beliefs and Boris is the smart one, despite his unending stupid blather, because he is a left-wing Gotham liberal. At least in his earlier films Allen would attempt to establish a verbal give and take between opposing views, even if he stacked the deck on one side; but here he doesn't even take the time to make his characters seem real, even in a Woody-Allen-movie sort of way. Allen doesn't bother treating the Celestines as real people because to him they aren't; they don't belong to his hermetically sealed clique of intellectual urbanites that have long populated his life and his movies. He could just as easily have written them as space aliens.

Woody has never been hesitant in expressing his atheistic ideas in his films, but they were usually encased in a cautious air of agnosticism. Here he is openly contemptuous of religion, and Christianity in particular. While noting that the teachings of Christ were base on good ideas, he adds that so were those of Karl Marx. I suppose the message in WHATEVER WORKS is that the Celestines were saved from the closed-minded bigotry of their religion by virtue of the open-minded examples of New York liberalism. But since Allen never even considers the possibility that there might be value and wisdom in the Celestines' beliefs, it would seem he is the one showing his bigotry. He never gives a thought to the idea that the "whatever" that works for some people just might be something he has never even considered.

It is said that screenwriter Carl Foreman wrote HIGH NOON as an angry allegory about McCarthyism. The basic plot of HIGH NOON is fairly simple: In the western town of Hadleyville, New Mexico, word arrives that bad man Frank Miller is out of prison and headed back to town aboard the noon train. The just retired sheriff, Will Kane, puts off his plans to leave town with his newlywed bride in order to face the returning outlaw and his gang. But Kane can't put together a posse to defend the town; all the townspeople, while largely respectful of Kane, are either too afraid or are otherwise sympathetic to Miller. Thus, Kane is left to stand alone against the Miller gang and their threats of apparent violence.

In Foreman's vision it can be assumed that the Miller gang represents the House Un-American Activities Committee and all the conservatives who took an overtly pro-active stand against the threat of communism. Kane represents the few outspoken liberals who stood up to the bullying and found themselves alone in the street as the cowardly masses (the townspeople) hid in fear. Thus the irony is that Foreman wrote an allegory hoping to promote subliminal leftist propaganda as a means of rebuking the conservative assumption that liberal filmmakers might introduce subliminal leftist propaganda into their work.

But quite unintentionally, the film illustrates the flawed thinking behind McCarthy-era hysteria and behind any noble and/or sinister plans that Foreman might have had. The film can just as easily be re-interpreted so that the Miller gang represents the communists and their sympathizers, with Kane symbolizing bravely patriotic conservatives –- left standing alone in the street as the cowardly masses hid in fear. Indeed, this so-called communist western is rife with elements that are strongly, if not uniquely, American; not the least of which is the central character of Will Kane. Strong and determined, albeit also fearful and uncertain, as played beautifully by Gary Cooper, Kane stands as a noble symbol of tough American leadership –- be it liberal or conservative. Driven by a sincere sense of responsibility, Kane bravely stands his ground, even as many of the citizens of Hadleyville encourage him, indeed, beg him to leave. The socialist image of strength by the uniting of the individuals is pretty much brushed aside.

Thus, there is the flaw: Make it too obvious and the propaganda becomes too weighed down in its profundity. Make it too subtle and it might not even be noticed. Make it too generic and it becomes so open to interpretation that the message might be meaningless. In the end, the propaganda is only as successful and meaningful as an audience will allow it to be. Thus, as a "message movie," HIGH NOON is of minimal value; it is embraced for exactly the opposite reasons that its creator intended. But as a western movie, the film both embraces and rejects the ethos of the genre. In the end, there are many things to admire about the film -- and things that justify John Wayne's notorious disgust with it -- but being pro-communist isn't one of them.

To some extent, HIGH NOON is the thinking man's western. Until the very end, there isn't much action in the film; but there is a lot of discussion, bargaining, theorizing and explaining. To some degree, the story would work as a play. As Kane goes from one to another, all the townsfolk have their reasons for not standing with the sheriff: some are afraid, some have families, some too old, some too weak. Some just don't see it as their fight to fight. The cowardly masses aren't so much cowardly as reluctant to look for trouble. In a way, Kane isn't just the last defense against encroaching trouble, he is the lightning rod that attracts it. The war with the Miller gang is his battle, it is part of a war that he took on, even if it was on behalf of people who ultimately turn their backs on him. His feelings of betrayal by his fellow man are just, made all the worst by the realization that he really can't argue with them and has no means to force them to help. And that, oddly enough, is what makes the film so American.

In the traditional western, such as Wayne's RIO BRAVO, they might be reluctant to take up arms, but in the end the citizens would stand up for what is right. And they would do so for their own reasons. In HIGH NOON, the citizens refuse to help, also for their own reasons. Wayne's view of America might be more positive and Foreman's more negative, but they both see the same America; a country based on the right of individuals to decide for themselves, free of the heavy hand of governmental power. It is that freedom, which for better or worse, makes America. Foreman sees that as a flaw, not a simple American reality. The townspeople may be wrong to refuse to help, but it is their right. Whatever the consequences.

HIGH NOON is a revisionist western. John Wayne's beloved image of the west, wherein the sharing of hardships binds the citizens together is supplanted by a new image, where the successful establishment of a town separates and disunites the citizens. Brave as he may be, Will Kane is also foolish in believing that by making their battle his battle during dark days that they will continue to follow his lead when times are good. In giving the townspeople the safety of civilization, Kane has also given them the freedom to question his wisdom and to say no to his pleas. In the end, like so many leaders, Kane leaves town, bitter and forsaken; feeling his sacrifices are unappreciated, his victory empty.

Is it any wonder that HIGH NOON is the favorite film of American presidents, be it Bill Clinton or George W. Bush?

The McCarthy blacklisting era was a most peculiar time in America. On the one hand you had conservatives who felt fully justified in defending the rights and freedoms of Americans by supporting an ad hoc system that stripped some Americans of their rights and freedoms without any sort of due process or legal avenues. On the other hand, you had liberals who defended the rights and freedoms of those who advocated a political system that by its nature would strip Americans of their rights and freedoms. And there were quite a few people who were trapped in between, forced to choose either their freedom to think for themselves or their right to live their lives in peace.

The only people not greatly effected it seems were the source of the confrontation, the communists. Though few in number and largely ineffectual as a group (at least, in America), they no doubt sat back and amused themselves as the country was being forced into two bitter camps. Had they had any real power within the United States, all the hub-bub about the communist influence might have served a purpose. But in reality it was hysteria over a non-existent threat, or a barely existent one. In hindsight, the panic over the Red Menace seems like the premise for a comic farce.

THE FRONT isn't such a farce. Though it does star Woody Allen during his "early, funny" years and it is structured like a comedy, THE FRONT is a drama. It uses the talents of many who were blacklisted –- director Martin Ritt, screenwriter Walter Bernstein, and actors Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi, Joshua Shelley and Lloyd Gough -- and it tries to focus on those in the middle who lost their livelihoods and reputations because they were considered "pink," ordinary citizens whose paths crossed those of others who may or may not have been communists. Guilt, or at least proof of it, was irrelevant; the mere suspicion of being a communist sympathizer was enough to deny individuals the right to work in their chosen field, the cost being their careers, their families and even their lives. In the view of the House Un-American Activities Committee, you were either on their side or a threat to the very fiber of the American being. It was mostly played out in the political arena, but as with most politics it seeped into the pop culture. Perhaps because the government had relied so much on the media for propaganda purposes during WWII, the fear of its power was strong.

In THE FRONT, Allen plays Howard Prince a part time bookie. When a friend of his, a writer for a network TV show, gets blacklisted, the friend persuades Howard to act as his proxy. The writer will create the scripts for the show, but Howard will submit them under his name, for a cut of the commission. The scam works so well that soon Howard is fronting for several other writers as well –- and Howard's reputation as a prolific and versatile author starts to grow. The complications come when Howard is expected to do on-the-spot rewrites of the material, and when he is suspected of red ties due to his friendship with the real liberal writers. As he sees first hand the dangers of the blacklisting, he also grows a conscience. Not a bad premise for a movie, even a comedy.

One would think, with the involvement of those who were scarred by the blacklisting playing such a prominent role in the film, that THE FRONT would pulsate with a certain degree of rage. But it doesn't; the film isn't so much angry as it is wistful. It is not a question of the honesty of the material so much as the quiet feeling of hopelessness that pervades the story. The story unfolds in a slow, deliberate fashion, occasionally sticking in a joke or two, but mostly just reliving the past in a sad monotone. Perhaps it is supposed to be a reflection of the era the film is about, the 1950s, an era of passivity. Or maybe it is a reflection of the era in which the film was made, the 1970s -- after the chaos of the 1960s, maybe McCarthyism had just lost its power to scare. Either way, neither Ritt nor Bernstein inject much passion into the tale. Likewise, the characters lack depth; the bad guys who support the blacklisting are cold and mechanical (heaven forbid they might be acting out of genuine patriotism), while the good guys are either pure and passionate in their left-wing leanings or guileless innocents bewildered by it all. Thoughtful and low-key, THE FRONT is certainly sincere, but it isn't insightful and doesn't carry much of a punch.

Even the big finale lacks power; after playing an ineffectual verbal game of cat and mouse with a HUAC subcommittee, Howard drops the "F-bomb" in a moment that is supposed to be shocking. Though it is jarring, it is because it is so pointless as a gesture. Did Ritt and Bernstein really think that uttering the F-word would jolt audiences in 1976? Even now, are we suppose to see such a foolish gesture as an act of courage on Howard's part? It is a key moment in the story and comes off as being just, well, stupid. In the end, Howard ends up going to jail, presumably on contempt of court charges; but is Howard's childish act of defiance really an heroic action? He takes a stand, but doesn't make much of a point. And neither does the movie.

If you are in the right mood, BARBARELLA can be viewed as an amusing piece of campy silliness. If you aren't in the right mood, in may come off as a stupefyingly insipid piece of soft-core almost-but-not-quite-porn. BARBARELLA was pretty hot stuff for it's time, with a broadly played comic book approach, mixed with a touch of the psychedelic, it rather boldly exploited sex in the spirit, if not the style, of Playboy magazine. Whether its low-budget tackiness is a result of its design or a result of actually having a low budget isn't clear, but certainly its amateurish quality gives it a distinctive style – which is either part of its charm or part of its curse. Depending on your mood. An amusing distraction while watching it might be trying to determine what part of it is the cheesiest: the sex, the special effects, the set design or it's cheerfully chirpy musical score. My vote would go to the costume design; no doubt created to make Barbarella look outrageously sexy, all of Jane Fonda's many changes in wardrobe look as though they had been borrowed from a particularly low-rent/high-tech strip club.

The story takes place in the 40th century, where Barbarella is some sort of agent from the Republic of Earth. She is ordered to go to the planet SoGo to find Dr. Durand Durand and to stop him from using some sort of weapon he has invented. That's not much of a plot, but it is enough to get Barbarella started on her real agenda, having sex.

Probably the key weakness with the film is the pivotal miscasting of Fonda as the title character. She is just fine with the central demands of the role, the numerous instances of gratuitous nudity; however Fonda has never excelled in comedy and is even less effective at playing wide-eyed innocents. Fonda just can't play dumb and being at least a bit spaced out is a basic characteristic of Barbarella. Other than a few moments here and there where it is clear that Fonda realizes just how ridiculous the material is, she otherwise plays it straight, which is not to the film's benefit. Fonda's star was on the rise at the time, a starlet winning acceptance as a serious actress, and she was just on the verge of becoming a political activist. Having such a prominent star take a role in such a, well... sleazy production must have been quite a coup – though at the time being the wife of the director, Roger Vadim, no doubt, had a great influence on her taking the part. Even so, you get the feeling that Vadim is exploiting his wife to promote his career, rather than showing much concern for hers.

BARBARELLA isn't without it's nice touches. For one, there is David Hemmings as a would-be revolutionary who can't hide his embarrassment when his technological gadgets don't work right. And John Phillip Law is blissfully serene as a blind, but rather hunky, angel who captures the sense of innocence that escapes Fonda. On the whole, however, (unlike Miss Fonda herself) BARBARELLA hasn't aged well. It's trippy attitude and wishful views of intergalactic politics was naïve then and just dopey now. Yet BARBARELLA is one of those films that wasn't appreciated in its day (and still isn't very good) but has nonetheless achieved cult status. And admittedly making a film so off beat, that blends fairy tales and politics and sex, even if it fails, does take a certain boldness (and possibly certain illegal substances).

The most remarkable thing about Oliver Stone's W. is that it isn't a hatchet job. Coming from full-time liberal and part-time paranoid muckraker Stone, the film would seem to exist as a calculated -- albeit, ill-timed – piece of propaganda, a chance to come out swinging at President George W. Bush, a man who virtually from his first day in office was made a scapegoat for all the world's problems. Stone, a man who never let accuracy get in the way of his interpretation of history, certainly wouldn't be expected to be kind to a president who successfully led the country in a decidedly conservative direction. But in W., Stone seems to be bending over backwards to be fair and impartial, and even respectful of the 43rd president. The key word here would be "seems," because as the film unfolds it often isn't clear if Stone is looking at Bush with benevolent compassion or with an icy, sarcastic gaze. Some scenes in W. are so painfully sincere you can't help but to wonder if Stone wasn't laughing to himself as he filmed them.

Perhaps the film would have been better if had been a hatchet job, or, as the ads implied, a comedy. At least, it might have given it enough of a jolt to keep viewers awake. Liberals could nod their heads in glee at each attack and conservatives could become filled with self-satisfied rage at each inaccuracy. As is, W. is benign and banal. Stone and screenwriter Stanley Weiser don't hold back in their attempt to place blame for the Iraqi war on Bush and his cohorts, but at the same time they resist trying to paint Bush as an evil demon or an incompetent stooge. They conclude that while most of Bush's motives for the war were pure, the ultimate reason was to grab control of all that oil, pure and simple. But they do also fall back on the trite and tedious argument that Bush's actions were all rooted in his feelings of inadequacy and his inability to win the approval of his father, President George W.H. Bush. Thirty years of political chaos in the Middle East, the tragedy of 9/11 and the threat of further terrorism were of secondary concern. Scenes of Bush planning the Iraqi War are counterpointed with flashbacks of Bush's rough and tumble rise to power, with a few silly baseball-themed dream sequences tossed in for no apparent reason. The flip-flopping between then and now never really works as anything other than as a plotting device.

Josh Brolin plays Bush with force and gusto, though you never forget that he is an actor playing a part. It is like he is doing a caricature on "Saturday Night Live," hitting the character's high points and obvious moments, but never convincingly becoming the man himself. Indeed, at times it seems like he's auditioning for a role in THE DUKES OF HAZZARD. At least he is more convincing than Anthony Hopkins was as the title character in Stone's NIXON. But like NIXON, there really isn't much point to W.; you just can't sum up a man's life – good, evil or indifferent in just two hours, let alone gage his historical importance. And as an examination of the Iraqi War, it is like (to use one of Stone's baseball metaphors) trying to call a game in the middle of the fourth inning. Ending somewhere around the end of Bush's first term, the film is as inconclusive about the war as it is vague about Bush himself.

W. was not much of a success at the box office. This is probably because conservatives avoided the film sensing that it would be a hatchet job. While liberals avoided seeing it because they heard it wasn't. As for the vast majority of viewers who swung to neither extreme, perhaps they avoided it out of a feeling of fair play; wisely believing that history is best viewed from a reasonable distance – and with a reasonable degree of objectivity.

You don't review James Bond movies, you evaluate them, rate them according to how well they meet expectations. There are certain things one has come to expect, even demand of a Bond film and each individual effort either delivers or it doesn't. So, here are ten elements that make a Bond film a Bond film and how QUANTUM OF SOLACE rates on a scale of 1 to 10:

Title: QUANTUM OF SOLACE: A bad title? No, a terrible title. And naming the evil organization that Bond is trying to uncover "Quantum" doesn't help. Now "Quantum of Evil" would be a nifty title, because, really, what solace can be found in organized crime. Whatever – is it even worth discussing? 0 points.

Pre-Credit Teaser: A long and chaotic car chase along the Italian countryside opens the film, but accomplishes little beyond destroying Bond's Astin Martin. It is elaborately staged, but the rapid cutting and maddening pace makes it more confusing than exciting. (Note to director: If you are staging a car chase, choose cars that look different, so that viewers can follow the action better. Or better yet, edit for clarity, with pace and rhythm, not just unending flashes of violence. Great action scenes are based on suspense and dramatic counterpoint, not just mindless speed.) 4 points.

Opening Credits: Gone are the elegant and/or sexy and/or silly montages of the classic Bond films, replaced by computer generated images of deserts and slow-motion bullets; it is slick in execution, but amateurish and mindless in concept. 5 points.

Theme Song: Entitled "Another Way to Die" (which would be a better title for the entire film), the opening song is a jittery little tune with a vague rap flavor to it. Unfortunately, it suffers from nonsense lyrics that have no flow, tell no story or even relate to the movie itself. Still, it might have worked okay had it been performed with a slinky sexuality as a pseudo love ballad, rather than in a nursery rhyme style by Alicia Keys and the composer Jack White. The song improves with repeated listenings, but still misses the mark. 7 points.

"Bond, James Bond": Daniel Craig doesn't even utter Bond's signature phrase in this film, which is just as well because he is barely playing James Bond at all. Bond's witticisms and dry, ironic sense of humor are nowhere to be heard in QUANTUM, with Craig mumbling in a lifeless monotone behind a face that rarely changes from a grim mask of cold indifference. For all their attempts to make Bond into a "real man," all they have done is make him seem less human. Craig drains Bond of all of his humor and humanity and makes one long for the days of Sean Connery. Heck, he makes you long for Timothy Dalton. 2 points.

Bond Babes: As the sacrificial Bond Girl #2, Gemma Arterton (as Strawberry Fields), is given little opportunity to be sexy, but manages to be alluring anyway, in a crisp, professional fashion. But other than being easily seduced by Bond and just as casually disposed of by the film, she has little to do. Olga Kurylenko as Camille, a feisty femme fatale, manages to inject a bit of honest energy into the film, though her repeated attempts to hook up with the film's villain, even as he repeatedly tries to killer her, makes her come off as being a bit stupid. But then, how else could Bond repeatedly show up to save her? Olga is a strong character and is nicely played by Kurylenko, but the clumsy screenplay betrays her at every turn. 9 points.

Bond Villain: Looking like Howdy Doody's evil twin, Mathieu Amalric plays Dominic Greene, a philanthropic environmentalist, whose environmentally friendly projects are a disguise for his fiendish plot to corner the world's water supply. It is not one of the series most believable plots. As for Amalric, he plays the role with a subtle nastiness that is a couple of notches below the point where the character would actually be colorful. Supposedly, the filmmakers didn't want Greene to have any distinctive gimmicks or characteristics that would make him larger than life, the better to show how banal evil can be. Instead, they have made him smaller than life, and showed just how uninteresting evil can be. 5 points.

Bond Baddies: The days of Oddjob, Jaws, Baron Samedi and Nick Nack are apparently long gone. Instead we get nameless, faceless stunt men who all look alike and act alike and indulge in elaborately choreographed fights scenes that rely on hysterical editing. Boring. 0 points.

Sinister Plot: Meant to be a direct sequel to CASINO ROYALE, the plot line – as they repeatedly have to tell us – concerns Bond's attempt to avenge the death of his last lover Vesper Lynn. Just how that ties into the rest of the film is never made clear, coherency not being the film's strong suit. 5 points.

Production values: Like all Bond films, the action takes place at various locations around the world. Unlike other Bond films, you get no sense of having been at various locations around the world. There is no attempt get Bond to interact with the local atmosphere, only screen titles announcing that the setting has changed to another place. This is the shortest Bond film of them all, apparently because director Marc Forster decided to cut out anything that slowed the action: humor, atmosphere, character development, romance, etc. As a result, the film is almost as generic as it is anemic. This might not be the worst Bond film of all time, but it certainly is the dullest. 2 points.

Bonus Points: No Q. No Moneypenny. No extra points.

Summary: The film does the barest minimum to get the job done.

Bond-o-meter Rating: 39 points out of 100

The central premise of THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON is that the title protagonist doesn't age, but rather grows steadily younger throughout the film. He is born the size of a newborn, but his body is racked with the ailments of an old man – - arthritis, cataracts, wrinkles, etc. The story follows his seven decades of existence as a backward ride through a forward moving society, until he progresses/regresses and dies as an infant. It is a bizarre and strangely pointless concept, which seemingly would have to carry with it a message about life and living, otherwise, why bother telling it. But for all of its lush storytelling and sometimes strikingly beautiful imagery, BENJAMIN BUTTON is a very long film with nothing of any real relevance to say.

There are several problems here. One, though the film can illustrate his physical change through make up and special effects, it can't – or at least, doesn't – capture the emotional and psychological effects of such a development. To be a child, with all of the expanding wonderment that entails, but to be trapped in a decrepit, aged body, would have to carry with it a remarkable psychological burden. The story, as penned from F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story by Eric Roth, sidesteps this by contriving circumstances wherein young Benjamin is raised in an old folks home. Thus the story gives us a character, who by his very nature is an outsider, but places him in a cocoon during his formative years where his malady is seemingly perfectly natural and accepted. He is an old man raised in an environment of old people. Where is the drama in that? In his middle years, aged twenty to fifty or sixty, his age isn't that important to what he does; and his last years, where he shrinks from a teen to a tot, are rushed through with little concern for their importance.

But the retirement home isn't the only place where the film negates Benjamin's curious condition. The film details his growing younger and the other characters are always noting the change, but no one seems particularly surprised, let alone shocked by it. Though years pass between the times Benjamin sees various characters, there is no questioning that the suddenly younger Benjamin is who he says he is and only the mildest of confusion about the situation. And given the uniqueness of his condition, it would seem that it would be a biological anomaly that would warrant genuine scientific study, perhaps even popular notoriety; but that isn't the case. The story plays out like an unrealistic fairy tale set against a realistic background, yet its only moral seems to be that it is painful to outlive the people you love -- which is true with or without the backward growth gimmick.

For all the purpose it carries, the story could just as easily have abandoned the anti-aging tricks and it wouldn't have had much effect on the events in Benjamin's life; with little change, the same story could have been told had Benjamin aged naturally. Maybe, free of the central gimmick, the film might have been more interesting, or more honest anyway. As is, the film contains little wisdom about the joys and pains of growth and even less about how one's age is reflected in one's environment.

The film's biggest problem however is that Benjamin Button isn't that interesting as a character. At least, not as played by Brad Pitt. The incredibility of the story could be accepted or forgiven if Benjamin was a person worth being concerned about. But there is nothing larger than life about Benjamin; and other than his wartime adventures, there really isn't much that happens in his life that is all that remarkable -- falling in love, losing love, becoming a father, facing the death of loved ones, etc. These everyday joys and tragedies could be powerful if presented as part of the life of a colorful and caring character, but in Pitt's hands, Benjamin is a quiet, polite and even docile person. Pitt gives us a character who is simply rather banal. If the point of the story is that Benjamin's biological oddity is what makes him distant and aloof, then the film does a poor job of making that clear. The most curious aspect of Benjamin Button's existence is that after spending several hours with him, and experiencing all the ups and downs of his life, one is likely to be at a loss to remember him at all.

What makes BENJAMIN BUTTON a curious case is trying to figure why it was even made. Devoid of an intriguing center in Benjamin and wrapped in an elaborate and meaningless gimmick involving his reverse aging, the film is a harmless, if long-winded trifle. BENJAMIN BUTTON is like its protagonist, a pleasant enough acquaintance, but one that will pass through your life with barely a ripple of difference.

DOUBT is a mystery story. It has a detective who acts on a hunch, and despite a remarkable lack of evidence, pushes and pushes to bring the culprit to justice. But there is a catch, several actually. The detective is a nun and the culprit is a priest. And the culprit might be totally innocent, while the detective might be not only wrong, but emotionally, and perhaps morally, corrupt.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Father Flynn, the gregarious, forward looking priest placed in charge of St. Nicholas parish in the Bronx in 1964. Meryl Streep is Sister Aloysius, the hard-line principal of the church school, who frowns on anything modern, such as ballpoint pens, secular Christmas music and having an open mind. The more Father Flynn strives to make his church more out-going and relaxed, the more stubbornly Sister Aloysius fights to keep the place strictly old-fashioned and demanding. One night over dinner, Sister Aloysius, slyly, almost sinisterly, asks her nuns to keep an eye on Father Flynn's behavior, to look out for anything out of the ordinary. She keeps her suspicions vague. One day, Sister James (Amy Adams), a wide-eyed young novice, notices some odd things in Father Flynn's actions toward a young boy, Donald Miller, the only black child in the school. Nothing that Sister James sees is particularly strange individually, only when taken as a whole.

What develops is a game of cat and mouse, as Sister Aloysius lays out her plan to rid the parish of its young priest. But her every blunt accusation, fragile bit of evidence and determined attack is parried by Father Flynn with simple and logical answers. What the mild-mannered priest can't fight off is the sheer ferocity of the nun's unrelenting sense of righteousness. Whether guilty or innocent, Father Flynn has to face the reality that by simply suggesting impropriety on his part, Sister Aloysius' could scar his career, disrupt the parish and maybe even permanently damage the young boy at the center of the matter.

In a typical story such as this, Sister Aloysius would be proved right. No matter how vicious and ruthless the attacks seem, she would be vindicated by her deeply felt passion. And DOUBT certainly plays on that, both because the detective-with-the-hunch is always right in mystery fiction and because of the sordid history of pedophilia within the church. Indeed, Father Flynn's appearance of innocence all but insures that he appears guilty, such is the demand for irony. But John Patrick Shanley, the writer/director of the film and author of the play on which it is based, doesn't play the game that way. Beyond vague circumstantial evidence, there is no real proof of Father Flynn's guilt, other than the intense certainty of Sister Aloysius' assertions. And certainly the sister is carrying a lot of emotional baggage going into the fray, as Father Flynn represents everything she fears and hates about the new direction the Church was taking in the 1960s. No matter how profound her belief in Flynn's guilt is, it is far from pure. When she tries to drag Donald's mother into the confrontation, it is obvious that Sister Aloysius' concern for the boy is tentative at best – her victory over Flynn is more important than the honesty of the cause. But even so, Sister Aloysius might be right and Father Flynn might be guilty. Or maybe not. That is what is intriguing about DOUBT; it leaves open all the possibilities. All the way to the end and beyond.

To some extent, the deck is stacked against Father Flynn; after all, why make the movie at all if he isn't guilty? Having the part played by Hoffman, given the history of oddball characters he has played, it only adds to the weight of his possible guilt. This forces Streep to overplay her role a bit, but even if she is totally wrong in her approach, Sister Aloysius is right to fight for her belief – and many will leave the movie believing this, that she is a righteous villain. Her means justifies the outcome.

A story like this could be infuriating. It is written in generalities and vague innuendo. Pedophilia and molestation is never stated, homosexuality is inferred. That is because this is 1964 and within the confines of the Catholic Church, where such things just weren't uttered aloud. And that approach works in this story, leaving suspicion as little more than a mist across the landscape. There is no clearcut crime or even a clearcut accusation; only the disquieting chill of "what if."

I can't say that I have ever been much of a fan of Sean Penn as an actor. Despite all the praise he has gotten over the years, he has never been able to convince me that any of his characters are real. Even while watching him in his best films, MYSTIC RIVER and DEAD MAN WALKING, I always found myself thinking "This would be so much better with a better actor in the part." As such, I must grudgingly admit that he is absolutely wonderful in MILK. The awkward method mannerisms that plague most of Penn's work, and make his acting look like acting, are gone; he seems to melt into the character of Harvey Milk, an emotionally soft, but politically tough activist who somewhat reluctantly became the voice of the gay rights movement.

Told in the usual this-happened-that-happened fashion of most film biographies, MILK is an efficiently told story, which nonetheless proves to be deeply moving. As much as it chronicles the growing public life of Harvey Milk, it also becomes the unfolding history of the gay rights movement as it grew in power and purpose during the 1970s. This is just, as Milk is a substantial part of that history; first because he made headlines as the first openly gay man to garner an important elected office, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. And because of his death at the hands of a political rival. His growing influence earned him the title of The Mayor of Castro Street. His untimely death made him the Martyr of Castro Street. To some extent, the film portrays him as the Messiah of Castro Street, a soft-spoken, gentle and fundamentally decent Christ-like purveyor of inspiration.

Castro Street was the mecca of gay life in the 1970s, first for gay people in San Francisco and then for the country as a whole. It was a small section of San Francisco which offered a semi-safe haven for gay people who wanted to feel protected and accepted. Milk landed there in the early part of the decade and opened up a small camera shop amid the gay bars and bookstores. As a gay merchant he felt left out of the system. As a gay man he felt left out of society. Feeling something should be done, he ran for office and, after three failures, won. His low-key, ingratiating style helped to establish him as a high-profile personality and the epitome of "we're here, we're queer, get used to it," a man who could be both forceful and non-threatening. His success at establishing gay rights laws gave him clout across the country, a voice the media could turn to as conservative anti-gay factions formed.

Through the skillful use of news footage and recreation, director Gus Van Sant does a solid job of encapsulating a movement into two hours of cinema. He presents the anti-gay entities, such as Anita Bryant, with impersonal fairness, never resorting to cheap ridicule – though it is clear where his sympathies lie. Dealing with, but not dwelling on Milk's personal problems, the film interweaves Milk's private life with his growing activism, until his public persona overwhelms his personal life. As such, the film does seem a bit superficial in its portrait of Milk; much of the power of the story lies in the newsreel footage and the realization that the extraordinary events that are recreated are true. This leaves it up to Penn to fill in the blanks. He does so with assurance. Penn convincingly shows us Milk as being a quiet, reticent little man who learned to use his non-threatening image as a means of winning supporters, while becoming savvy to the ways of manipulating the media. Though he is supported by an ensemble of fine actors -- James Franco, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, Victor Garber, etc. -- it is Penn who carries the film.

Conventional wisdom suggests that when an American recipe is adapted into a Latin-style dish, the resulting feast should be a bit more exotic, thanks to spices, salsa, peppers and a greater tolerance by Latins for that which is decidedly hotter. Certainly, that was the promise that came with Woody Allen's first attempt at making a movie in Spain. The buzz heralding the American premiere of VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA had it that the film would include a daring "menage a trois" featuring Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, with an added incentive being a particularly titillating liplock between Scarlett and Penelope. But anyone taken in by such advance P.R. would have done well to recall the similar word-of-mouth that preceded Stanley Kubrick's achingly over-hyped EYES WIDE SHUT, another artsy epic that promised taboo-busting sexuality from a director with no prior skill for, or interest in, any sort of erotica.

As it happens, Cruz and Johansson do smooch a quickie, but really do nothing that Madonna wouldn't try on an awards show. And other than this kiss, the sexuality in the film is low-key at best and simply off screen most of the time. We have to take Johansson's word that there is a "trois" in this "menage," because Woody certainly doesn't show much of anything that might be considered shocking.

Indeed, the decor may be contemporary Latin, but the cuisine itself is warmed over specials from the Woodman's standard deli menu. It is Manhattan-lite -- and low-cal at that. That's not to say that VCB isn't edible, just a bit familiar. A serving of pseudo-intellectual chatter, a heaping helping of romantic dissatisfaction with a side order of indecision, all sweetened with witty one-liners and a gentle sprinkle of cynicism. VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA is one of Allen's better recent efforts, but it tastes strangely pre-packaged and microwave ready.

Twenty-somethings Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Johansson) take a vacation in Barcelona to see the sights and to "ooh" and "ahh" over the art work at the museums. But they hardly get their bags unpacked before they are approached by a famous painter named Juan Antonio (Bardem), who invites them to fly off to another Spanish city for a weekend threeway. Cristina eagerly says yes, while Vicky reluctantly tags along. The threeway tryst doesn't quite come off -- carnally speaking, but eventually it is the already-engaged Vicky who ends up doing a one-nighter with Juan Antonio. But Cristina hangs in there and soon moves in with the artist. Juan Antonio's homicidal/suicidal ex-wife, Maria Elena (Cruz) suddenly shows up as well. Complicated love triangles are promised, but Allen's script only sets up romantic complications that he has no interest in resolving. This is a film made up mostly of propositions and exposition and precious little copulation.

As for making the film in Barcelona, that springs less from artistic inspiration and more from financial convenience. There's little here that couldn't have happened in Woody's old stomping grounds of Manhattan. Other than a few music selections and some fiery conversation between Bardem and Cruz (who steal the movie), there is little on hand to remind the viewer that the movie was filmed in Spain. Even the totally unnecessary (and annoying) narration is provided by a stern male Anglo voice. And for that matter, this is a film with two female protagonists, so why doesn't it have a female narrator? Possibly Woody didn't even think about it -- indeed, the narration seems like a dramatic shortcut to avoid putting too much effort into actually filming extra scenes.

As always, VCB is a polished production: the acting is solid, much of the dialogue crisp and the look of the film is slick and professional. But the whole thing is so uninspired. Even within his relatively narrow range of interests, Allen's movies have long been remarkably inventive and he has stubbornly tried to avoid the cliché. Now, he is falling back on his own clichés, doing nothing more than the bare minimum to get the job done. Efficiency is not necessarily a virtue. And though Woody seems to be covering new territory with his recent extended European vacation, the ground he covers isn't dramatic, only geographic.

Say an author describes a man entering a room. And the writer is able to tell you absolutely everything that man feels about entering that room in a mere five words.

Now, say the writer takes five sentences to tell you the same thing because he wants to tell you what is in the room. Or say it takes him five paragraphs, because he not only tells you what furniture is in the room, but goes into minute detail about the color and the fabric of the upholstery and the grain of the wood and the design of the carpet and the images imprinted on the wallpaper. But what if he takes five pages as he writes about where the trees were grown that rendered the wood and the wallpaper; and where the sheep were raised for the wool for the carpet and the upholstery, and how much everything cost, and where it was bought and by whom and on what day and etc., etc.

Now, those final five pages might be eloquently written, accurately detailed and maybe even fascinating in their own right, but somewhere between five poetic words and five rambling pages the narrative ceased to be about the man and instead becomes all about the room -- and not even about the room, but rather about the research the writer did in order to describe the room. Historical trivia takes the place of human emotion. That pretty much sums up the folly known as HEAVEN'S GATE, a slight, potentially meaningful tale lost amid a display of self-aggrandizing, ego boosting pseudo-scholarship.

Michael Cimino's obsession with detail in making the film is legendary -- right down to insisting that era-appropriate underwear be worn by the extras. The writer/director bragged about how such details couldn't actually be seen but could be sensed -- by him if no one else. Of course, such details don't come cheap, whether in time or money or effort; and his manic need to make everything seem accurate and honest was responsible for making HEAVEN'S GATE one of the most expensive films ever made up to its time. The irony is that, though the trivial details might be right, everything else is wrong and that is why HEAVEN'S GATE became the biggest critical and financial flop up to its time. What was supposed to be a faithful recreation of a piece of Americana became instead a ponderous tour of a cluttered, dusty warehouse of arcane bric-a-brac.

Of course, a desire for authenticity is all well and good, and is generally to be applauded; but in this film's case it just seems like hollow hypocrisy in light of just how dishonest the rest of HEAVEN'S GATE is. For one thing, the film supposedly documents the Johnson County War, a nasty little range war in Wyoming in 1892. A few people died unjustly and the federal government had to step in to calm things down. It could be the basis for a decent little movie -- or at least a 30-minute episode of "Death Valley Days." In Cimino's hands, however, the "war" ended up being a tale of the mass slaughter of hordes of nameless, faceless immigrants, building to a major battle rivaling anything in the Civil War. Little of his bombastic version has anything to do with historical fact.

Okay, Hollywood long ago gave up any attempt, let alone claim to historical accuracy (see John Ford's THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE for insight), but usually it came with the suggestion that trading fact for fiction would reveal a greater truth. HEAVEN'S GATE fails here too. Though built around a nominal love story -- good guy and bad guy love the same woman -- HEAVEN'S GATE is all too obviously a heavy-handed anti-American, or at least anti-capitalism, allegory. The rich cattle barons (American capitalists) are evil; the poor immigrants (the Third World) are pathetic little victims. It is the same pompous propaganda Hollywood often embraces, though Cimino seems to think it is an original insight. But, as is the case with so much Hollywood liberalism, it isn't even Rich versus Poor or Oppressor versus Oppressed; rather it is Rich Conservative versus Rich Liberal. Though he crowds his frames with teeming masses longing to be free, as Cimino depicts them they blend into a pitiable mass, indistinguishable as individuals. Few of the immigrants are even given names, let alone identities.

Cimino no doubt thought he was speaking out against injustice, but his view of the poor is soured by condescension, they aren't important except as a concept, a symbol of a liberal indignation. Rather than focusing on one or more of the poor fighting for dignity, his chosen hero is Kris Kristofferson's James Averill, a rich, educated, liberal do-gooder from the East who turns against his wealthy brethren in the name of the immigrants. HEAVEN'S GATE doesn't recognize the humanity of the poor, but rather salutes the arrogance of those who pity them.

Cimino rode into HEAVEN'S GATE on a tidal wave of acclaim created by the success of his masterpiece, THE DEER HUNTER. Faced with the need to prove that DEER HUNTER wasn't a fluke, and that he really was a genius, Cimino no doubt immersed himself in the endless preparation and the tedious search for detailed perfection just as a way of avoiding actually completing the movie. Like the filmmaker, the film never really seems motivated to even get started, and hustle and bustle are substituted for actual drama. Thus, the film plods along, expecting the viewer to be inspired by the majesty of the Wyoming locations, to absorb the wisdom in the banal, long-winded dialogue and to be in awe of the authenticity of all the production design. But, it is like a bad joke with no punch line, there ultimately is no point. And Cimino ends up saying nothing other than "See how hard I tried."

This movie version of GET SMART has at least one good gag. At one point, Steve Carell as superspy Maxwell Smart tries to steal a succession of cars; the joke being that the cars -- a Sunbeam Tiger, an Opel GT and a VW Karmann Gia -- happen to be duplicates of the three that Don Adams, the real Maxwell Smart, drove during the course of the original TV series back in the 1960s. Most viewers won't get the joke -- or appreciate the irony that the best things in the film have simply been stolen from the TV series.

The problem with making new movies from old TV shows is that they exist because of the nostalgia for the old show but must be made to satisfy younger filmgoers who likely feel no great nostalgia for the originals. That's why most of them fail so badly; they usually ignore or trash the essential elements of the beloved originals, aliening one segment of the audience; while desperately trying to capture the fickle attention (and greater box office clout) of a different generation who likely won't quite get the jokes.

"Get Smart," the television show, may not be entirely a relic of the past -- it has after all been in syndicated reruns for some forty years, but that doesn't mean that it is all that fresh in the public's mind. As one of the smart-dumb sitcoms of 1960s American TV, it holds a warm spot in the heart of many a post-baby boomer, who remembers it's cheeky silliness as something fresh and original. But, while subsequent generations might have a passing acquaintance with the material, they likely have their own favored pop culture icons, which, no doubt, greatly overshadow "Get Smart" reruns.

As such, there wasn't any great demand to revive "Get Smart," yet again -- no more so than there was a demand for big screen versions of "Bewitched," "Lost in Space," "The Avengers," "Car 54," "The Honeymooners," "The Wild Wild West," or any of the others on the seemingly endless list of disastrous remakes. Yet, this is the fourth attempt to resurrect the series, following a previous theatrical movie in 1980, a made-for-TV movie in 1989 and a subsequent short-lived revival series in 1995. They all failed to one degree or another, but at least they had one thing in their favor; the participation of some of the people who made the original work so well. This 2008 version lacks not just the late, great Don Adams and his lovingly bemused costar, Barbara Feldon, but even any attempt to recapture their marvelous comic chemistry. Carell opts not to imitate the distinctive style of Adams, and as such there is nothing at all particularly interesting about his interpretation of Smart. He delivers Max's trademark one-liners ("Would you believe...?" "Missed me by that much!," etc.) without a hint of Adams' cocky self-assurance, repeatedly missing the opportunity to get a sure-fired laugh, or at least a meager grin of recognition. Perhaps to avoid making Agent 99 simply Max's straight woman, the role has been beefed up so the character is now sort of Max's mentor, an awkward nod to feminism that denies Anne Hathaway a chance to recreate the coy, sardonic charm that Feldon brought to the part. As for Alan Arkin as "The Chief" and Terrence Stamp as archvillain Siegfried, neither actor seems to be aware that they are indeed in a comedy; especially Stamp whose whole performance makes less of an impression than the welcome five-second cameo made by Bernie Koppell, TV's Siegfried.

Like the embarrassing PINK PANTHER reboot starring Steve Martin, the film thinks it is necessary to do the unnecessary, reintroduce everything. We already know that Maxwell Smart is an idiot, but not a complete idiot, and that Agent 99 is both his somewhat smarter partner and love interest. So why does this film waste so much time with formula plotting about Maxwell earning his credentials and going on his first assignment, followed by all the romantic comedy shtick showing us Max and 99 meeting, becoming rivals and then falling in love? We know all that -- and even if we don't, it is preordained anyway. And once the story does finally get going, it is a tiresomely contrived been-there-seen-that story about a plot to set off a nuclear bomb and kill the president. But rather than using these formula clichés as the starting point for satire -- like the TV series would have -- the clichés are the story.

On it's own, GET SMART is not too awfully bad; that is to say that if you could forget about the TV show, the movie is as perfectly professional and perfectly forgettable as any unsold TV pilot. But, coming on the heels of the AIRPLANE! movies, the NAKED GUN movies, the HOT SHOTS! movies, the Austin Powers movies and the sundry other parodies and spoofs that owe a great debt to the MAD Magazine mentality of the original "Get Smart," the movie is depressingly tame. Rather than gleefully being absurd and surreal in its approach, GET SMART is closer in tone to the James Bond movies than to the TV series that was designed to mock the James Bond movies. It is a cliché-riddled movie, based on a TV series that existed to mock cliché-riddled movies. It doesn't just fail to be as funny as the series, it actually seems to be trying to not be too funny. And that may just be the most absurd and surreal thing about the whole film.

Okay, VANTAGE POINT is a gimmick movie. It is not a psychological study or a piece of political propaganda or even a serious drama about, well, anything. But it does embrace its gimmick wholeheartedly and runs with it. It is a popcorn thriller, and if it can be viewed from any serious perspective it would be as a study on the use of editing to tell a story and to manipulate an audience.

The film begins with TV coverage of a presidential visit to Spain, where the Commander-in-Chief will be attending a summit on global terrorism. A P.R. stop before a cheering crowd leads to an assassination attempt and a terrorist bombing. This is all in about the first 15 minutes of the movie, at which point the story stops and literally rewinds to repeat the action from a different vantage, only now focusing on a single character. Then the film does it again and again, telling the story from a half-dozen angles and as many different people. Each segment becomes increasingly longer and more complex -- as well as increasingly more exciting and progressively more absurd.

VANTAGE POINT has been compared to both RASHOMON and GROUNDHOG DAY, though neither comparison is truly accurate. It does not tell the same story from conflicting points of view like RASHOMON, nor does it tell the same story repeatedly with differing outcomes like GROUNDHOG DAY. Rather the story is told again and again, with each version adding to and altering the reality with new information. If anything, the story owes the most to episodic TV: Each cycle of the story builds to its own shocking cliffhanger, with each subsequent segment beginning with a recap of what has come before -- the ticking clock building up to the 12 noon starting point could easily be accompanied with a stern voice-over announcing "Previously on ....!" The film begins seriously enough, with Sigourney Weaver as a TV news director covering the events that lead to the shooting and the bombing. It is a marvelous start to a geopolitical thriller, allowing the viewer to grasp the story the way most people view world events, in sound bites and film clips. But each restart of the story -- from the perspective of a Secret Service agent (Dennis Quaid), a tourist (Forest Whitaker) with a video camera, the President (William Hurt), etc. -- strays a little bit more from reality. When it is mentioned that the President has a security "double," it pretty much becomes clear that the film has no intentions of seeming like a documentary. And though it never becomes a comedy, it does become a lot of fun if you just let the story unfold in unexpected plot twists and unlikely action sequences.

With generic terrorists (their nationality, cause and intentions are never really made clear) and main characters who constantly seem to be literally on the run, it is left up to the actors to somehow create three-dimensional characters out of thin air. They meet the challenge well enough, though they are really at the mercy of a story pieced together out of chaos and frantic editing. Screenwriter Barry Levy may have chosen a ridiculously complicated way to tell the story, but with the help of Peter Travis' fast-paced direction the film doesn't become really all that confusing. After the fact, you might find yourself quibbling over plot details, but the film itself moves too fast to allow you to dwell over the minor questions.

Perhaps, in these times, it is wrong to make such a frivolous movie about terrorism and political assassination, but if such a movie has to be made, it could be far worse than this. And quite honestly, an absurd piece of fiction is always preferable to a dishonestly sanctimonious piece of shallow propaganda like SYRIANA. VANTAGE POINT is good, old-fashioned entertainment, geared to push buttons, not change minds. So from one angle, it may not be a smart movie, but from a different vantage point, it is certainly a clever one.

A bowling pin.

A bowling pin is used as a murder weapon at the end of THERE WILL BE BLOOD. It proves to be a perfectly effective means of committing a killing, but you have to ask "Why a bowling pin?" At it's center, THERE WILL BE BLOOD is about a confrontation between the rewards of capitalism and the glories of religion -- the material versus the spiritual -- so of all the possible symbolic weapons that filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson could have selected for the killing -- a crucifix, a golden trophy, a mining tool -- why would he end his film using such a mundane thing as a bowling pin as a weapon? Maybe it is not that important, but it is strange that a film that carefully builds in mesmerizing power in the first half, only to see its sense of grandeur slowly dissipate in the second, would ultimately end in a scene so grim, yet unintentionally comic. What could have been and should have been one of the most powerful scenes in the film ends up being just curiously odd, with the horror of the action sapped by the lack of irony in the selection of the death tool.

The film deals with Daniel Plainview, who rises from being a turn-of-the-century, dirt-poor prospector to being an oil tycoon. From prospecting for silver to striking oil to building an empire and helping a city rise out of the desert, the film reflects the building of America during an era when the Duponts and the Gettys and the Rockefellers grew into titans, slowly dragging the rest of the country up the ladder of prosperity with them. Director-writer Anderson generates both a sense of awe and giddy exhilaration as he charts Daniel's wheelings and dealings and manipulations, going beyond wealth to raw power. It is the American Dream in all of it's thrilling glory. The first half of THERE WILL BE BLOOD is masterfully told.

But, as is the way with most visions of capitalism in Hollywood, the dream (or the dreamer) must be destroyed in the second half. That is to be expected; but as skillfully as Anderson shapes Daniel's rise, his means of destroying the dream is clumsy and lacking irony. Like a balloon that doesn't pop, but merely deflates, the second half of the film just shrinks to nothing. Daniel goes mad, but for reasons that are neither clear nor well articulated. The big gusher that secures Daniel's mega-wealth coincides with an accident that causes his adopted twelve-year-old son to go deaf. Despite his love for his son being unquestioned to this point, Daniel abruptly rejects the damaged child and embarks on a series of random plot twists. Nothing in the second half really flows logically, other than the assumption that success has driven Daniel insane. When he is shamed into reclaiming his son and manipulated by greed into receiving baptism, two things that might redeem him, they instead drive him further into madness. The film suggests that if religion is an opium to the masses, it is sheer poison to Daniel. That glib explanation isn't enough.

But as poorly plotted as the film becomes, the biggest weakness in BLOOD is in the handling of the religious theme. Daniel's adversary throughout is Eli Sunday, a teenage preacher in the small Texas town that Daniel buys up and takes over. Though played well enough by Paul Dano, Eli is a weak character, not just morally but dramatically. The rivalry between the two is one-sided and no matter what Eli does, we never feel he will get the best of Daniel. I think Anderson sees the concept of religion as being just as corrupting as greed. He wants us to know right off the bat that Eli is, if not evil, at least fraudulent. He wants us to dislike him immediately and that is what Dano does with little subtlety, playing the boy evangelist as arrogant and devoid of charm, grace or sincerity. If we lose sympathy for Daniel, we never feel it at all for Eli, even when we should.

Thus, the final confrontation falls flat. Going in we know that Eli is a false prophet, so when Daniel humiliates him and crushes him, there is no surprise and no sense of justice or victory on Daniel's part. Had Eli been established as a seemingly strong and noble character, and then Daniel succeeded in bullying him into denouncing God, that would have been a devastating climax. Or if the apparently weak-willed Eli had unexpectedly stood up to Daniel and confirmed that his belief in the power of God is stronger, that could have crushed Daniel and that would have been a powerful climax. But, as is, Anderson gives us a surprisingly violent ending where one evil character destroys another character of lesser evil, thus proving nothing about either greed or religion.

Even with Anderson's craftsmanship behind the camera, the film is almost a one-man show, with Daniel Day-Lewis as Plainview propelling the story through even the sluggish second half almost totally on the strength of his dynamic performance. That alone guarantees that the film is never dull. Yet, for all of this forcefulness, I don't think Daniel Plainview ever becomes a three dimensional character. The film suffers from a dearth of interesting supporting characters for Day-Lewis to interact with, but more to the point, in showing how isolated Plainview is from others, the film never lets the character reveal himself to the viewer either. It is a big, glorious performance of a character who remains surprisingly small and empty.

Anderson clearly wants THERE WILL BE BLOOD to be an epic just as much as Plainview wants to amass wealth. But just as Plainview finds that wealth without purpose is meaningless, Anderson shows us that the same is true about style without insight.

When some movies are over, everything is tied up in a neat little package; for better or worse, someone worked really hard to make sure there were no unanswered questions. Other movies aren't so considerate. Others may be messy, but the good ones leave you asking key questions about the philosophy of the story. They may make you wonder "What would I do in that situation?" "Was the hero really a hero?" "Do I agree with the film's moral?" etc. These films draw you into the story, to the point where the ending is really the beginning of the film's lasting power. Sometimes messy is good.

Bad ones, however, leave you questioning the story itself: "Why did he do that?" "What happened to so-and-so?" "Did that make any sense?" "What did I miss?" Such films make you see the holes in the plot, not the story that surrounds them. When the film is a huge critical or commercial success, the pertinent question may well be "So, what's the big deal?" NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is a "so-what's-the-big-deal" type of movie. It is undoubtedly THE film of 2007, an Oscar-winning, critic's choice, top ten darling. Yet, for the most part, it is an utterly conventional modern day western; so predictable that Charles Bronson could be resurrected from the grave and plopped down into the middle of it without missing a beat. It is adequately directed and decently acted, but otherwise -- for the first two-thirds -- it is largely without distinction. Perhaps, because the filmmakers work so hard to seem unconventional in the last third, the defenders think they see something unique in the whole.

The set up is routinely plotted: A poor, but relatively honest young man, while hunting in the west Texas desert, stumbles on a drug deal gone bad. While callously rooting around amidst the dead bodies, he helps himself to over two million dollars in illicit cash. He takes off and is soon pursued by a relentless, but relatively insane mob assassin -- and they are both -- sorta -- pursued by an honest, but relatively ineffectual local marshal. Leaving a predictable trail of dead bodies along the way, the film seems to be promising a confrontation where any two or more of the protagonists should face each other in a traditional showdown.

At least, that is how the writing/directing team of Joel and Ethan Coen set things up. It could be argued that Coen brothers are playing around with the audience, mischievously creating expectations that they have no intentions of meeting. But in side-stepping the obvious tried and true plot twists and dramatic confrontations that such a climax normally would offer, the Coens don't really replace them with anything better. The last third of NO COUNTRY is shocking and challenging only because it is so vapid and devoid of drama. Characters die off-camera with only the vaguest explanation, while other characters' fates are left an obtuse mystery. The finale peters out into three separate and pointless conclusions: the thief dies, the killer apparently gets away and the policeman quits, never to cross each other's paths. And the audience isn't given much reason to care about any of them.

The anemic narrative wouldn't matter so much, I suppose, if the film were instead a incisive or compelling study of one or more of the characters. Though the actors give decent enough performances, they can't flesh out the characters beyond ciphers. Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss, the hunter turned thief, is a solid presence, a modern day twist on the iconic figure of the strong, silent and resourceful cowboy. But beyond the good-boy-gone-bad tradition of the western, the film gives Llewelyn little backstory and no particular depth beyond being both foolish and yet smarter than one would expect. Ed Tom Bell, the gruff, world-weary, retirement-bound, small-town sheriff, is played by Tommy Lee Jones as a safe and comfortable stereotype; only denied by the uninspired script either the traditional age-cultivated wisdom or the opportunity to be even vaguely heroic. He spends most of the film wistfully longing for the good old days.

Javier Bardem's much praised work as the tiresomely inscrutable and indestructible hit-man Anton Chigurh is largely a one-note performance -- Oscar win notwithstanding. His persistence, in lieu of any personality, has been inexplicable interpreted as having mythic dimensions as the embodiment of cruel fate or death incarnate. Only desperation to find meaning in the slight story justifies such heavy-handed symbolism. Lumbering through the film with all the emotional complexity of a slasher movie serial killer, Chigurh is little more than a lazy gimmick; with his over-sized weapons (one requires he lug around a 30-pound tank of compressed air!) and arbitrary flip-a-coin sadism, he is a ludicrous character who survives only due to the manipulations of a generously contrived script.

But, it is no wonder the film focuses on Chigurh, who like Coens' films, embodies a cold, dispassionate emptiness. It is not that they don't do compassion (let alone passion) well, they don't even try. In their best effort, BLOOD SIMPLE, the chill of their drama is counteracted with a coy air of satire. Even FARGO is unpleasantly empty as far as emotional depth. You can tell a lot about filmmakers by how they treat even their minor and incidental characters; most characters in Coen films are disposable plot devices. It is no wonder a key character is killed off screen; the Coens don't care about his fate and assume we shouldn't either.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN builds to one of the least satisfying conclusions of all time. The film is ultimately riddled with gaps in logic and figure-it-out-for-yourself ambiguities; things that the audience may not need to see, but have a right to expect to experience as part of the drama. NO COUNTRY isn't just weak film-making, it is an act of bad faith. The final question facing the viewer might well be "Is that it?"

An intriguing thing about Woody Allen's CASSANDRA'S DREAM is the presence of actor Phil Davis. The movie deals with a plot to kill Martin Burns, the character played by Davis. The character isn't particularly interesting and the reasons for wanting him dead remain mostly unclear, but, as Burns -- if you don't look too closely and from a distance -- Davis bears a vague resemblance to Woody: same thinning gray hair, prominent eyeglasses, gaunt face, skinny physique and taste in casual sport coats. The character gets precious little screen time and Davis gets very little opportunity to give Burns anything suggesting a personality, so the similarities are purely superficial -- but then, the resemblance CASSANDRA'S DREAM has to a Woody Allen movie is also vague and superficial.

It is, admittedly, unfair to criticize a filmmaker for not making a movie that fits neatly into a previously constructed mold, to try to do something different. And Woody has two established styles -- absurdist comedy and dark, oh-so serious melodrama. In his prolific career he has managed to run the gamut between the extremes, occasionally mixing tones, yet still creating films that have a distinctly "Woody Allen" quality. But, as was the case with the equally banal (and vastly overrated) MATCH POINT, the problem with CASSANDRA'S DREAM is that it is not only devoid of Woody's style, but of any style. As always, the film is technically proficient and slickly done, but there is a coldness, a lack of purpose behind CASSANDRA. Like many of his films, it is essentially a dramatized short story, but it lacks either his rambling, cynical sense of humor or a pointed moral that makes its serious tone have a bite. Even his tired trademark rant about the futility of life due to the absence of a benevolent god is given only slight attention.

The story is relatively simple: In London, two close, working-class brothers find themselves strapped for cash and seek to borrow money from their wealthy uncle. Uncle Howard is more than willing to oblige, but there is a catch; the boys have to earn the money by killing one of Uncle's business associates, the aforementioned Mr. Burns. From there, the story could go in two directions: a comedy of errors as the two hapless amateurs try to commit the crime or a suspenseful drama as the two get drawn deeper and deeper into a dark world that neither wants nor is prepared for. Allen takes the story in the latter direction, though unfortunately, as he has shown previously, he has no skill for creating suspense or directing scenes of violence.

CASSANDRA'S DREAM isn't a bad movie, but rather an inadequate one -- or more accurately, an incomplete one. The performances are just fine, with Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell as the brothers, Ian and Terry, doing their best to flesh out thinly drawn characters. Indeed, the actors could easily carry the material were it not for the weakness of Allen's poorly contrived narrative. Even accepting as a given that Ian and Terry are amateurs, their plan to kill Burns is embarrassingly simple-minded and illogical: If Uncle Howard is the one most likely to want Burns dead, wouldn't his poor nephews' sudden display of unaccountable wealth seem suspiciously convenient? The story needs to be fleshed out with believable complications and should build to an ironic twist that delivers a bang and not a mere whimper.

The screenplay that Allen offers is not without its merits. The two men played by McGregor and Farrell, are basically decent blokes, but their need for money and the way Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) manipulates them to go bad in the name of family loyalty pushes them to rationalize their behavior. Further, Ian is ambitious and Terry is a gambler, and Allen subtly defines Uncle Howard as an ambitious gambler in his own right. But, the story also shows that Ian and Terry have parallels to Burns as well, similarities the script would have done better to explore with much greater interest. As is, the battle between good and evil as Allen lays it out is exceedingly lame; the "we-can't-do-this / we-have-to-do-this" dialogue is not backed up -- or hyped up -- with any dramatic tension. When the boys actually meet Burns and they (and we) find him to be a nice, friendly man who seems undeserving of his fate, the dramatic tension should be kicked up a notch. We are barely allowed to care for Terry and Ian to the point where we don't want them to commit the crime, but we should certainly care as well whether their innocent victim dies. As in MATCH POINT and CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (and to some degree even MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY), Allen can't seem to muster up much interest, let alone sympathy, for the victims of the crimes he concocts. A recurring theme in so many of his films is characters who rant and rave about how unjust and cruel our supposedly godless world is, yet when Woody creates little worlds for his movies, the god he plays isn't any more compassionate or caring. What's missing -- and I know it is a tired complaint -- is Woody's sharp wit that not only blesses his best characters with the quirks and charm that make them humorous, but humane as well. When Woody defines his characters through wit, they come alive; when he defines them by their bitterness and discontent, they remain stagnant and uninteresting, and worse, largely one-dimensional. All of Woody's laborious moralizing dialogue never has as much power as one of his well constructed pieces of casual sarcasm.

The trick to creating a good, solid mystery story is as much a matter of timing as its about plot contrivances, colorful characters or surprising twists. Anyone who has ever labored in frustration with an un-finishable Sunday New York Times crossword knows that any puzzle that takes too long to solve ceases to be any fun. The best murder mysteries, be they on film or in print, are slight affairs that get to the point, spell out their clues, line up their suspects and, hopefully, zap us with a few surprises; being complicated without being unduly confusing. And they play fair; on second, third and fourth viewings of the clues and red herrings we should be just as pleased to marvel at how well it all comes together as we were at being surprised in the first place. Indeed, good thrillers should get better on repeated viewings as we anticipate the double and triple crosses.

Sidney Lumet's comedy-thriller DEATHTRAP, as derived from Ira Levin's hit Broadway play, is a great example. It moves along at a tidy clip, skillfully juggling its clues, being (almost) totally honest with us (even when it is lying to us) and yet never revealing where it is going (even when it is telling us where it might go). It is less a murder mystery movie in the traditional vane than it is a movie about murder mysteries, derived from a play about playwriting. Rather than going backward -- a murder and then an investigation to explain why everything happened -- DEATHTRAP leads us through the crime(s) step by step, leaving ample room for the unexpected; as the ads advise it is less a "whodunit" than a "who'lldoit."

DEATHTRAP is often compared (unfavorably, oddly enough) to the play and movie versions of SLEUTH, though in reality it has much more in common with SCREAM, the self-mocking essay on teeny-bopper horror flicks. Like that clever film, DEATHTRAP labels itself (a thriller about thrillers), sets it parameters ("a one-set, five character moneymaker") and then proceeds to deconstruct its genre by revealing itself as "the most outlandish and preposterous set of circumstances entertaining enough to persuade an audience to suspend its disbelief."

DEATHTRAP bravely gives us a mystery with only five major characters, two of which are of minimum importance. Henry Jones as a cagey lawyer is on hand mostly for exposition (and to supply us with his penchant for folksy charm) and Irene Worth is all quirks and comic relief as a psychic-cum-sleuth who acts as the nominal detective. That leaves three main characters to be the killer(s) and/or the victim(s): It is a testament to Michael Caine's abilities that as Sidney Bruhl, a down-on-his-luck author of mystery plays, he creates a character who we intrinsically like and trust, even as we recognize immediately that almost everything he says is a lie. As his adoring, if somewhat ditzy wife, Myra, Dyan Canon flirts with being over the top by giving a roller-coaster ride of a performance with a character that by turns seems to be frail or overbearing, crafty or hysterical, timid or bold and uncompromisingly in love with a less than reciprocating Sidney. The third angle of this unexpected triangle is a fledgling playwright named Clifford Anderson played by Christopher Reeve in such a way that we never quite get a handle on just who his character is: enthusiastic preppie wannabe writer, semi-innocent victim or cunningly charming sociopath. As the various character dance around each other, the cleverly dour script adapted by ace scribe Jay Presson Allen manages to be consistently amusing, even as it builds suspense. And even after the final twist (an improvement over the play's finale), it may not be quite clear just who has manipulated who to do what.

Lumet is by no means a master of comedy, so he lets his able cast have free reign to flesh out the characters and they all give sharp, theatrical, yet subtle work, with Reeve being particularly noteworthy. But what Lumet does so well is to work skillfully in tight quarters. As he did brilliantly in 12 ANGRY MEN, he takes a one-set play, and with a minimum of opening up, manages to make what could have been cramped, stagy and stagnant seem endlessly photogenic and spacious. The setting, a country home converted from an old windmill, is relatively small, but as designed by Tony Walton it manages to be both cozy and charming, as well as spooky and treacherous. It is so truly difficult to tell where the studio set and the real country house cross boundaries that to a degree the set becomes a sixth character. And as the scene of the crime, it is a most inviting deathtrap indeed.

The bestseller "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" was a non-fiction book and though it dealt with a true life murder case, it was shelved in the travel section in many bookstores. Indeed, if you read the book, you'd be way past page 100 before any reference to the murder appears. The killing of Danny Hansford by Jim Williams was used largely as a pretext by author John Berendt as an excuse to pen an affectionate travelogue about the city of Savannah, Georgia; it's largely a leisurely tour of the city and a genteel introduction to many of the city's quirkier citizens.

Clint Eastwood's movie version of MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL is only about the murder, more or less, with most of the colorful characters edited out or reduced to crude jokes. And for all the location filming that Eastwood did in Savannah, he could just as easily have shot the entire film on the Universal backlot. Devoid of local color or a quixotic taste for the off beat and amusing, MIDNIGHT ends up playing as though it were an uninspired pilot for an unsold TV series. Berendt's book just begged to be translated to the big screen by someone unconventional like Robert Altman, someone with the knack for and an interest in ensemble dramas and a slightly skewed vision of the world -- not someone conventional, albeit talented, like Eastwood. The book's charm was in its varied vignettes and casual observations about a city straddling two mindsets: clinging to the decorum of the antebellum past while thriving in the pulsating, diverse present. The problem is that in stripping the story down to the basics of the murder trial, it becomes obvious that the trial isn't all that interesting in the first place.

After a quarrel, wealthy antiques dealer Williams kills his young male lover (played by Jude Law and now renamed Billy Carl Hanson) and claims it is self defense. Killing is one thing, but the well-to-do of the city are aghast at just how uncouth Williams' behavior appears to be as the ensuing trial brings to light Savannah's hush-hush gay subculture. Though in Eastwood's hands it is less straight versus gay than rich versus poor; as Williams lies and manipulates to get away with murder, there is more than a hint of plantation owner entitlement in the way he justifies his behavior throughout. The problem is, that as played with his usual unctuous arrogance, Kevin Spacey never makes Williams either likable or remarkable. What made the case notable was that the ordeal was stretched out over several years and four lengthy trials that highlighted Williams' cunning nature and taxed the patience of even the most benevolent of Savannah's citizens, all of which the filmmakers condense into one trial and a handful of cliché courtroom moments.

What Eastwood retains beyond the truncated murder trail is limited in its effectiveness. The book's element of voodoo is present, but done with little sense of mysticism. Minerva, the voodoo priestess played Irma P. Hall, comes off as little more than a crazy old lady stereotype and her midnight visit to the said garden (a cemetery) lacks the power to either give one the creeps or even cause nervous laughter. A huge chunk of the movie is surrendered to "The Lady Chablis," a secondary character in the book and the trial. I suppose Eastwood found it positively shocking to have a black drag queen traipsing around amongst the normal citizens, but in the film the character is less a jolt than a bore. Despite being played by the real person, Lady Chablis (a.k.a. Chablis Deveau, a.k.a. Benjamin Edward Knox) seems woefully miscast and seems more tacky than eccentric or outrageous.

The worse part of the film is its rather blunt homophobia. Having sidestepped the major point of the book -- the gentle weirdness of the characters -- to focus on the trial, the film then tries to make a gay story seem as straight as possible. The Williams murder trial made public an open secret, that a gay world existed behind the facades of the southern mansions and it was discreetly apparent, quietly tolerated, yet never, never discussed. When a prominent citizen kills his male lover, that sort of don't-ask-don't-tell etiquette is difficult to maintain. The filmmakers deal with the gay issues, but someone (Eastwood, screenwriter John Lee Hancock, the studio?) clearly did not want to make a gay film. Thus homosexuality is treated more like a dirty little scandal rather than a naughty little secret; something to be held at arm's length or viewed as a rude little joke, like Lady Chablis. For instance, the gay author of the book, John Berendt, is played by John Cusack as "John Kelso," and the film makes a point of letting us know he is definitely heterosexual and drives home the point by giving him a female romantic interest not in the book (and played curiously enough by Clint's own daughter, Alison Eastwood). Such cinematic bearding is standard issue for the skin-deep liberalism that Hollywood so righteously embraces.

Other than being eager to exploit a pre-sold bestseller, it is hard to figure just why this film was made at all. The true crime element has been fictionalized, it's gay themes sanitized, the quirky characters marginalized and the town itself homogenized into banality. Neither good or evil, a story about a time and a place and a people ends up being a movie about nothing in particular and no one of any interest.

Kenneth Branagh's SLEUTH does something radical right off the bat. While most remakes of classics -- or supposed classics -- tend to be overstuffed and overlong (as if bigger automatically makes better), Branagh and his screenwriter Harold Pinter have taken a sharp scalpel to Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1972 version of Anthony Shaffer's stage play and skillfully whittled it down to the bare bones. It is not just that the material has been sliced down from the 138-minute running time of Mankiewicz's version to a relatively sprightly 86 minutes, Pinter has also trimmed away a lot of the cutesy dialogue and clumsy plotting that robbed the previous film of any sense of suspense or element of surprise.

This sparse approach is evident immediately with the set design; gone are the annoying bric-a-brac and childish clutter that made the 1972 version look as though it were taking place in a Victorian era toy shop, all replaced with a stark and creepy mise en scène. The stately exterior of the Wyke mansion now conceals a cross between Gothic and high-tech, an interior that suggests Caligari meets Kubrick, sort of post-modern Addams Family by way of Tim Burton. The country manor quaintness of the traditional murder mystery has been forfeited in favor of the icy blue-grays of a haunted house thriller. The game of cat and mouse that Shaffer originally concocted remains largely the same, but the setting makes it clear that the pretense that it is a gentlemen's game is effectively shattered. Rather than a hokey comedy of con games, this SLEUTH is intent on being a psychological drama of mind games.

The first two-thirds of the film adheres, more or less, to the outline of Shaffer's original tale: mystery novelist Andrew Wyke invites actor Milo Tindle to his country estate with a business proposition. Tindle is the paramour of Wyke's estranged wife and he has come to persuade Wyke to grant her a divorce. Wyke has other, more sinister, matters on his mind. What unfolds at first is a rather simple scheme aimed at faking a robbery and defrauding an insurance company, but this quickly gives way to a battle of wits based on lies and betrayals. Act one, or rather Round 1 goes to Andrew, while Milo comes back with surprising vengeance to take Round 2, with the deciding Round 3 up for grabs. Either wickedly funny or tiresomely contrived, depending on one's respect for the material, the original story relies heavily on the audience's willingness to accept the men as being either brilliant or gullible, depending on which way Shaffer wants to throw it. The newer version doesn't take it for granted that the audience will be easily seduced into accepting that either man would be so blindly fooled by the other's transparent tricks and expects the stars to be credibly convincing and straight-faced serious while telling their respective lies.

The filmmakers' bravest risk however comes in jettisoning the entire third act, leaving behind the labored battle of wits in favor of a more direct emotional and physical confrontation. In a certain way, this SLEUTH is less like its predecessor than it is like its thematic cousin, Sidney Lumet's version of Ira Levin's DEATHTRAP, as a homoerotic subtext has either been uncovered or totally invented. The mental one-upmanship of who will outsmart who evolves into a smart game of who will out who, all played with a sado-masochistic twist. A story of two male rivals battling for the affections of an unseen -- and ultimately irrelevant -- woman suddenly becomes a predatory mating dance designed to make the viewer wonder if one or both or neither of the men are closet cases as well as mental cases.

Much of whether this type of film works relies more on the actors than the story. Sir Laurence Olivier tackled the character of Andrew in the 1972 version and played the part too obviously as being either archly cunning in the way of a James Bond villain or as a simpering twit. Michael Caine more than held his own as Milo, but here Caine (now the elder statesman of British actors) inherits the role of Wyke and he wears the role with greater ease. Being comfortably condescending when his Andrew is on the attack and believably unnerved when forced to reveal his vulnerable side, Caine underplays deftly. His adversary is now Jude Law. Though roughly the same age as Caine was at that time, Law now skews Milo much younger and plays him as much more of a quixotic, explosive wild card -- and proves to be better at assuming disguises. Caine's grim calm and Law's nervous energy create a contrast that lends their confrontations greater tension -- sexual and otherwise. Caine and Law have much sharper rapport than Olivier and Caine did.

Unfortunately, while being leaner and meaner, the new SLEUTH doesn't hold up to the end any better than the old SLEUTH, because, either way, you still face a tough question -- not of who is smarter than who, but why should we care at all. There is nothing particularly likable or admirable about Andrew or Milo. Despite the fact that the characters beg for our sympathy at various points -- win, lose or draw -- neither film ends with a sense of triumph or a sense of gleeful satisfaction or even an appreciation of the cruel irony. Even if you get sucked up into the funhouse gimmicks and hambone theatrics of the Mankiewicz's version, you still have nothing but a silly, trivial entertainment. At least the Branagh version takes risks by exploring a sexual undercurrent in the story and peels away the surface to find the cold, hard center. But even so, beyond respecting it's sense of style, there is little reason to invest much emotional -- or even intellectual -- interest in the nasty little chess game that unfolds.