Netflix allows for mini-reviews of movies in 300 words or less, and here are some of mine over the past year:

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
One of the best comedies of the last few years, far better than US products that re-cycle SNL skits. This film works on so many levels that the word "ambitious" is (British) understatement. Mockumentary a la "This Is Spinal Tap," with homages to "Adaptation" as a movie about an unfilmable book. It is also a send-up of the British classic lit / movie industry. An ongoing joke is that no one has actually read the 18th century book, except one PA /AD, who is also the only one on set who spouts "cinema" art concerns. Steve Coogan plays himself as the "star" as we always suspected - vain, self-deceiving, pretentious, neurotic. Slowed only slightly by a few lazily edited improvised scenes, over all it is out loud laughs almost all the way.

Lucky Number Slevin A stew made of body parts from other films: plot tropes from "The Big Lebowski," "North By Northwest," "Pulp Fiction," plus Hwd's favorite persona, the Hitman, today's gunslinger. Smarten up stylized dialogue. Toss in a snippet of screwballish romance subplot, check your brain at the door and just let it wash over you.

Lower City
The love triangle in an exotic or desperate setting is the oldest of movie forms. As in depression era films, the struggle of the buddies for survival is threatened by the girl, whose passion offers temptation and redemptive love at the same time. The world of Brazil's slum life echoes ours in violence and impending tragedy, and also in its vibrant pulse of life. That love can survive in such a world may be a sentimental notion, but here it is convincingly portrayed and remains a gripping universal theme. Alice Braga is a star in the making, playing the prostitute who may have a heart after all.

Stay Re-title as "The 6th Non-sense." All style and no substance, a disappointing waste of starry talents. A jigsaw puzzle with all the best pieces chewed up by a dog. A "thriller" with no thrills, just arbitrary visual and editing gimmickry, an exercise in ego driven drivel.

Bitter Moon Polanski's life and films, like Woody Allen's, can't be separated easily. Like Picasso, their art and life interact. Polanski's current wife, Seignier, becomes a sex toy and an avenger in this opera buffo soft core fantasy about risky emotions released. The movie is an indulgent mess, but so is the artist's life and fantasies.

Mini's First Time "Wild Things" was a trash smash hit, capitalizing on the allure of sexy teen femme fatales in training. "Mini's" tries for the same tone, but fails miserably after Act I. The plot twists are tired rehashes of old noir bites, Baldwin's stepdad / lover patsy becomes drearily foolish and whiny. Luke Wilson is wasted, allowed no ironic dark humor that is his meat. Nikki Reed lacks the extra star presence needed to keep our interest and credibility past Act 2.

Casanova A period satire that flops on Saturday and every other night. It aspires to "Shakespeare In Love" bred with "Tom Jones" and lacks the wit, originality, passion and smart anachronistic edginess that those classics had in spades. Ledger is tepid, Lena Olin's fire is wasted, Sienna Miller has nothing much. Even foils Jeremy Irons & Oliver Platt, both comic talents are adrift in stylistic fog - not enough sex or laughs.

Freedomland Proof that good ideas dont insure a good movie. I like the theme - good intentions are not enough to dent the insoluble mess our society is in. So polarized are we that every "event" re-affirms our prejudices, no matter The Truth. A grim assessment, but insightful. "Communities" are islands of turmoil, ready to explode. Compassion and human scale emotions are left behind in such a world. Like "Crash," and "Syriana" these dramas are bleak, not entertaining, but contain more than a few glimpses of sad truth.

Everybody Wins Could have been "Blue Velvet" or "Twin Peaks" in hands of Lynch. Subject is ripe for noir - detective (Nick Nolte) with a past falls for a sexy hooker (Debra Winger) with a past to solve the crime. The corrupt town, the wrong man, the suspects. With irony, the world is not to be changed. Everybody's happy with a half truth. Okay, what's wrong? The director has no style, no pace, no tenstion, no consistent mood. Nolte & Winger are lost in character, with no help. Will Patton chews scenery. Pity.

The Libertine How to hook J. Depp onto your project - tempt with any or all of the following: disfiguring make-up to conceal his good looks and force him to rely on skill rather than star presence; require an accent, preferably English; permit him to mine a character we can love and despise at the same time; include the theme of the thrill of playacting; give him some well-written dialogue to poeticize; surround him with challenging actors like Malkovich, Samantha Morton, Rosamund Pike. Then give him the screen for as long as he wants and stand back.

The Proposition To Aussies, this film must be a shocking revelation, exploding myths about their history as our "adult" westerns did to Americans bred on our white hat / black hat myths. Frontier "justice" down under is shown as brutal. Few punches pulled as a lawman tries to civilize. Emily Watson, as the decent woman shocked by crime, demanding vengeance, learns that "right" is not so clear. Flawed by pacing issues but overall a needed twist on the Western genre, which seems to have run its course in American films, with rare exceptions.

Inside Man Act 1 is a standard bank takeover thriller, with some nice Spike Lee-isms, his insights to NY characters and racial irony. Act 3 is a fairly satisfying resolution - tho not in the class of "The Usual Suspects" as a surprise. The problem is mostly with Act 2, which drags with little credible action, contrived tension, and less than gripping characters. The exposition gives away the game, the true motives of the robbers, making the resolution less than satisfying. For better takes, rent "Suspects" or "The Hot Rock."

The Great New Wonderful The new urban angst of 9/11 memories is the subject of this ensemble film that tracks a few days in the lives of disconnected New Yorkers approaching the 1st anniversary of the event. Used to many reasons for insecurity in the city - crime, crowds, the rat race - this latest trauma has them stumped. Each in his / her own way is sleepwalking around the elephant in the room. The cinematic problem is that most of them are not all that interesting as individuals. Their dilemmas and their treatment of them are so "normal" that taking 9/11 ptsd out of the equation changes nothing. This perpective itself is a bit unnerving. If anything did change, it was only an edging up of the urban angst a few more unbearable notches.

Don't Come Knocking "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way," was Jessica Rabbit's famous apology for embarassing us. "Howard Spence," Sam Shepard's alter ego here is another self-conscious star, who is embarassd by his own extravagent outrages - tired of being a phony "hero." Now burnt out, he seeks redemption, finding a son and daughter he never knew he had, accepting the reality of fatherhood which is less than heroic, but with more possibilities for a kind of acceptance if not happy endings.

The Night and the Moment 18th Century Paris must have been a hoot. Crebillon wrote scandalous novels, of which this was one, followed by Leclos, who wrote "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," upped later by a bloke named De Sade. This 1995 effort followed the best of the many versions of "Dangerous Liaisons" (1989). Lena Olin is gorgeous and sexy, Miranda Richardson acts as if in "Tom Jones" but Willem Dafoe is sadly miscast as the upper class rogue in lust with Lena. Mostly "oral sex" i.e, a lot of suggestive talk about licentiousness, and a few titillating scenes, which fail to arouse much interest.

The Rules of the Game
In common with my favorite great film, Citizen Kane, Rules Of The Game is not only a great and profound film, it is also endlessly entertaining and involving, actually fun to watch, not just once but over again as many times as you wish. Both work on many levels, do not pound you over the head with "Art." Renoir, as Welles, loved to perform, do shtick, burlesque, as well as to comment subtly on their times. And both films were under appreciated in their time - as were their creators. DVD comes with a 2nd disc that contains great historical stuff.

The Matador A variant of the hitman-meets-nerd theme so often overused as dark comedy ("The Whole Nine Yards"), Brosnan & Kinnear make a quirky buddy movie with a clever twist into a relative morality parable. Intermittently entertaining, sometimes irksome, both actors seem to be having fun. The oddity of Hope Davis's character, grieving for her dead son, finding laughs and excitement in her hubby's new pal never goes the way we think it will - ie the cliche attraction - so there are some surprises and that's a nice change in a hitman movie (don't see "Collateral" if you want any originality).

A Real Young Girl
Breillat's work is aggressively feminist. This early effort is raw, influenced by surrealists. But touches on true & deep forbidden subjects - repression, sexual fantasies about fathers & mothers, curiousity about her body & sense of the power of her sexuality and its dangers.

Searching for Debra Winger
Rosanna Arquette + a sisterhood of whining women decry their dilemma: they cant have it all - career, motherhood, creativity, love, fame, privacy - i.e., perfect fulfillment. Uh, too bad, ladies. Welcome to the real world. Oddly, only Debra Winger seems to get it, though she also seems just a bit sad about her choice. Where are the men? And the children? The truth is that actors are pretend people, not like us at all.

Yellow Flower
Experimental and cerebral, Ji-sang Lee strips everything but what he deems the essence of symbolism of New Wave mood. Godard & Bertolucci are the icons he worships. Scenes with packed emotions are all he gives us. Sex, violence, crime, rebellion are casual but treated as the only "real" events worth living.

L'Atalante
In these days when movies are loud and coarse, this simple ancient little film reminds you of the power of a tiny story about people. Dita Parlo's face reveals all: her sweetness, naivete, yearnings for excitement. Today, this urge would have led to a "Fatal Attraction" or "Unfaithful," an erotic fanstasy thriller with her destruction. But in Jean Vigo's human vision, nothing so dramatic will occur. She will not take the fatal step, fate will be kind, her young husband will realize what he lost.

Basic Instinct 2
The trash classic "Basic Instinct" intro'd one of film's most rivetting femmes fatales, Catherine Trammell. She is a great villain: sexy, smart, sexy, devious, sexy, evil and oh yes, sexy. Sure its a parody, over the top with contrived plots dependent on stupid males easily manipulated, but so is "Dracula." Sharon Stone at 50 is amazing to look at and even more alluringly wicked. Check your brain at the door and have fun.

The White Countess
Merchant & Ivory specialize in tasteful English dramas. Passions are so restrained that you want sometimes to smack the characters to life. They like to put their English in passionate places: Italy, India, or here, in Shanghai on the brink of WWII. Ralph Fiennes plays an American, Natasha Richardson, her mom and aunt (the Redgrave sisters) Russians, but they act like they are English. When Fiennes and Richardson are on the brink of passion a spark lights, but the film is too polite to let it explode. Maybe that would not have been subtle enough. M&I are always subtle. Instead, the plot swerves to make its political point, which is not subtle. In the end, we are left not feeling enough about any of it.

La Belle Noiseuse
Though the film is certainly about the artistic process and can be infuriatingly and excrutiatingly detailed, I found another theme that is more interesting. Beart, as the "model," begins as bored and offended, but eventually finds complex emotions, self-realization, power in her role as the artist's muse, his object. She strips herself to the bone, giving herself but in the end proving to be more than her parts.

The Weather Man
As gripping as watching snow melt. Snow gets most screen time as director Verbinski underscores every transitional scene with lingering shots of nasty Chicago weather. We get it the first time — this is the winter of discontent for “Dave Spritz,” the lightweight TV weather man, his soul chilled and numbed by his failed life, yada yada. This is a pretentious and offensive Hollywood pseduo-intellectual view of American life. Condescending Hollywood movie people preaching values. What an oxymoron. See "LA Story" for sharp satire re weatherman; see "Quiz Show" for touching drama re son disappointing smart dad by silly TV fame. See Caine in ALFIE for better take on jerk-heroes.

Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic
This is Sarah's vanity project / audition for stardom. She has her own niche in stand-up, a "J.A.P." for the Gen X / Y / Z er's. Not Rita Rudner, more Lenny Bruce's illigitimate grandneice. Targets are PC no-no's: 9/11, AIDS, Race stereotypes. And her very one Nana, who belonged to that most laughable minority: old, dying people. She's a hoot, hot, wise and should get some acting parts as a result.

Friends with Money
A film in a long tradition - the Hen Flick. From the 30's, "The Women," to "Waiting To Exhale" & "First Wives Club," & even "Sex & The City." As a man, I am fascinated by the depiction of male characters: all clueless, insensitive louts. Feminism & post-feminism seems to leave couples in limbo hell according to these films. Empowered women still unfulfilled. What next?

16 Blocks
Willis lets Mos Def riff and steal the scenes while Bruce walks thru a character we know too well to surprise us - a burnt out corrupt cop. They lost me with the nonsensical plot from the jump - I'm a lawyer and can only laugh at the silly premise: DA entrusts snitch wit to cops to transport - the bus scene & escape is a riot. The alternate ending is better, but should have also included an alternate plot.

White
Could be subtitled, "Revenge Of The Shnook." Karol Karol, our "hero," seems victim of a scheming "femme fatale." He seems like a bad "Polish joke," a loser. Just when we're ready to give up on him, tho, he finds backbone, a reason to live: to get back and get back AT his love. Will it be satisfying? The end teases, but leaves us wondering. Also incudes Julie Delpy. 'nuf said.

Fool for Love
Shepard, Basinger, Altman, Stanton. Whoa! Nope, never been much fer th' neo-western trailer trashy motel honky tonk school a' actin' & writn'. But I gotta admit that this group rilly gits yer attenshun. 'Spechully Kim - that gal's jest about the prettiest heifer. Shep's kinda Gary Cooper's illegitimate son, I guess an' the two of 'em make great lovers and siblings, too, jes' like back home in the hills. Yep.

My Life to Live
Filmmakers will always be fascinated with prostitutes. See "Klute" for one of the best. "Belle Du Jour" for another. Godard's social conscience and dramatist's sensibility watches a woman, the radiant star, Anna Karina, as she struggles to take control over her life, no matter the risk and outcome.

Miss Julie
Saffron Burrows is a former runway model who can think and act. She is very very serious about her acting chops. Has given herself to Figgis in at least 3 of his experimental movies ("Hotel" & "Loss of Sexual Innocence"). Waiting for a vehicle that makes her the star she deserves to be. See her in "Enigma," a better film actually than this dated exam of class sexual warfare between upstairs lady and downstairs footman. Who is exploiting who is the question and the answer is not very gripping as we learn how hard it is to be a poor servant with no hope of upward mobility. Really? Saffron tries to show how hard it is to be beautiful, rich, and lonely. Not buying it.

Memoirs of a Geisha
Subtitle: Gone With The Geisha. Scarlet (Chiyo) chases Ashley Wilkes (Chairman) through ante-bellum South (Japan) & post war ruin. Mixed with Oliver Twisty child abuse plot. Bad English accents by actors (Zhang Ziyi / Gong Li - who are great & beautiful Chinese stars) and others whose dialogue sounds phoenetically learned. Ersatz history.

See, instead:

The World of Geisha
A Japanese film that was banned there for years beause of the explicit sex. The sex is not pornographic - it is a power struggle stylishly and tastefully filmed to put you inside the heart of this woman. Geishas here are not the glamorous, timid entertainers of wealthy men. They are desperate to move on up by the only route they have - the love of a "client" tho all the rules, social, professional and emotional - warn them against it, and it is a low probability of success and high chance of pain.

Mrs. Henderson Presents
While we Yanks market only our present culture to the world, the British dwell, as The Beatles, sang, in "Yesterday." And they have so many of them. British law must mandate annual films of Shakespeare, Austen, and Elizabeth I. And their "Finest Hour:" The Blitz. Dame Judy and Hoskins have great fun with class clash and dry English witticisms. Stephen Frears lends his skill and Chris Guest is super. Sure, it's sappy, but stiff upper lip, chaps.

Dodsworth
Proof (as if it was needed) that the 1930's was THE Golden Age of filmmaking. Willy Wyler's genius direction of Walter Huston in Sinclair Lewis' famous novel. (Do high schoolers still read Lewis? "Arrowsmith," "Main Street"? Do they still read?) Huston was a "naturalistic" actor long before Brando co-opted the term. The story's values are worthy of argument & comparison to how it would be handled today (See, e.g., "Unfaithful").

Rumor Has It
It's time to admit that Jennifer Aniston doesn't have big screen star appeal. She's tried several matchups - Ed Burns, Kevin Bacon, Jake Gyllenhaal, not Mark Ruffalo & Keving Costner. None work - its her fault. She's not Meg Ryan for the new century - certainly no Jean Arthur or any of the golden age career girl / stars. Time to find another sitcom, Jen.

The Lake House
All romances demand a suspension of disbelief and an arc that ends in an inevitable happy ending. The problem here is that there are so few surprises once the time bending issue is established. I found neither lead character very compelling. Sandra Bullock was far more appealing in "Two Weeks Notice" opposite Hugh Grant and Keanu Reeves remains uni-dimensional at most. The contrivance of letter / conversation with voice overs becomes boring quickly and the plot turn leading to the ending is predictable from miles away. A film that relies heavily on a dog for smiles is in trouble.

The Family Stone
Not a romantic dramedy, but embarrassment humor, the kind that sets up a contrived sitcom family and dumps a stranger in it to quirm and be gallingly skewered. Not that Meredith (Sarah) doesn't rate it - she's hard to sympathize with. Mix in mushy contrived sentiment - mom has a terminal illness, a stable of cardboard "issues," a clumsy stab at screwball wit, and an ending wrapped in the chintziest fuzzy ribbon. Anyone who cried or laughed at this mess is too easy to please.

The Awful Truth
The template for the Screwball remarriage comedy that dominated the 1930's.
The movie that established "Cary Grant Type." Leo McCarey directed him opposite Irene Dunne. Look for the classic scene involving two derbies. Cary gets his laughs, and still looks like Cary Grant while doing it. He repeated this act in "My Favorite Wife" again with Irene Dunne, and in "Holiday" and "Bringing Up Baby" opposite Hepburn, and in "His Girl Friday," stretched it to its limits in "Arsenic And Old Lace" and and practiced a calmer version as late as "Charade." Dunne, the surprise of the movie, matches Cary for sophistication and screwiness. He dignified class was perfectly matched by a lowdown sexy playfulness. Arguably better than Hepburn was in "Bringing Up Baby."


Waking Life
Linklater is a unique artist. Independent, original, literate, philosophical, postmodern, but tapped into pop culture at its roots. This form - rotoscope animation of live performance - using various very talented graphic artists enlivens the talk, permits flights of fancy and subjective imaginative dreamlike atmosphere perfect for the musings of teen student Wiggins. The visual language of graphic novels is a perfect metaphor for pop-postmod life.


Just Like Heaven
Revives a tired formula for weepy romances. The moral is always to live life to the fullest each day. Okay! The new wrinkle is the ghost isn't quite dead, so a happy ending is guaranteed. Oh year, the rom/com conceit that there is a soulmate out there that chance / fate will attach at the fade out. But I kept wondering, what about Ruffalo's dead previous soulmate?

The Notorious Bettie Page
A film that works on 3 levels. 1st, it documents an era we can barely imagine today, when sex was a dirty secret. 2nd, it comments on a postfeminist acceptance of sexuality, women now ok with "objectifying" their beauty. Bettie's innocence now can be seen as her right to choose. 3rd, as an entertainment, it is charmingly naive, straightforward, allowing the irony to flow naturally from the story. Gretchen Mol is perfectly cast, with her angelic face and figure, she foreshadows the Playboy conceit of the all-American girl next door as desireable sex goddess. She also remains an enigma to us - e.g.: given the suggestion of incest, her later free attitude about nudity seems contrary to modern conventional psycho-wisdom.

Syriana
Like most political films, your vote depends on your bias. The message: dependency on oil corrupts. The remedy: drive a Prius(?) Is this really the problem and the answer? The ensemble multi-thread narrative form deprives screen time for the more gripping story lines. Clooney's burnt out spy (a la "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold") is under-written as is Matt Damon / Amanda Peet issue. Matt preaches. Other characters are bare caricatures.

The Sentinel
If you haven't "solved" the mystery by the middle of Act 2, you've never seen this genre before. Douglas joins Eastwood, Willis, Ford, as an aging action hero unconvincingly huffing & puffing his way to the end. Recycled action thriller with virtually nothing new or interesting to offer.

Don't Move
The joy in this film is watching Penelope Cruz stretch. Like Kidman, Streep, Theron, Hayek, she revels in the make-up & costuming that conceals her stunning beauty and exposes her inner actress. She overcomes the material and direction which focuses on the less interesting story of her lover. She still waits for a vehicle that will be worthy of her talent and presence.

Arms and the Man
If you want to know where many of the beats of romantic comedy conventions arose, read (or better yet watch) one by Shakespeare, Wilde, or Shaw. While the English recycle their lit often - Austen, Bronte, Dickens, etc, Shaw has been overlooked recently. But they are ripe for updates, being smartly anti war, upper class twits, hypocrites, sexual prudes, bureaucrats, parents - and is irreverent, even shocking - for its time, while being very, very funny with brilliant dialogue for the situations. Would love to see this one updated to a modern war or placed in our civil war, with the servants being slaves - that would be cool.

Strayed
Reminds me of Sophia Loren's "Two Women" in theme - survival of mother and child in war, but far more subtle. Beart endures by clinging to her faith in civilized values, while yielding to base passions exposed by need to survive. Delicate handling of mother and son's attraction to the "manly" wild boy.

Asylum
This genre is an opera with one recurring theme with infinite variations: Life can be so dull and unbearably secure that the need for passion and drama overcomes all reason, inexorably leading to destruction and disaster for all that one loves or cares about or knows is right. Even if you can foresee the end result, you can’t help yourself from continuing down the corridor; you need to feel something, anything — to prove you’re alive, even if it leads to pain and tragedy. Like and opera: (Bass) the boring, overbearing hubby; (soparano) the bored, lonely, sex starved woman; (baritone) the sweaty hunk with danger in his eyes.

Proof
This film is a sure flop: (1) it is full of words, without a single shot fired; (2) it demands concentration for more than a sound bite; (3) it helps if you have experienced some of life's risks: mental illness, creative doubts, grief, children, parents. Paltrow's father died a few years ago and she brings that to her performance along with all the depth her stage work in this piece formed. If you needed it, here's "proof" she can act.

Double Indemnity
Something few note about the noir genre which is the key to this movie's greatness. Walter Neff is not a dupe of a femme fatale. He's a dope, sure, but a more than willing one. He's the guy who is bored with convention, needs risk even tho he knows its fatal. He knows the blonde is absurdly cheap and bad, but he acts from a deeper urge: the thrill of danger - the jerk wants to be cool. That's why Fred is genius casting.

The Woman Next Door
A character says: "they could neither be togethe nor apart." And another says, "every love story has a beginning, a middle and and end." The French call it: "l'amour fou" (mad love) and it is inevitably tragic - you can't avoid the bad end - fate controls.

Shadows in the Sun
What is about Hollywood people and Tuscany? There was Diane Lane's vanity project, "Under The Tuscan Sun," with cute eccentric Italians and other foreigners welcoming the American lady to their - or her bosom. Now, Keitel & teen throbber Josh Jackson play out a trite play about a blocked writer father figure and his eccentric cute Italian friends teaching LIFE to a blocked American guy - only saver is watching CLAIRE FORLANI - but even her subplot romance with Josh is silly & contrived.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
Ebert is on target, comparing to Huston-like subjects. Jones puts his heart and soul on the line - his South Texas roots and passion for the country are evident. Maybe too personal - things he prizes and lingers on may not be shared by many. There are nice picaresque touches - Levon Helm's cameo is super. A very personal story of honor, friendship, values.

10th District Court
[A French documentary showing a day's cases in a courtroom.] I was a public defender for many years and lived in France for a year. I was amused by the familiar echoes as well as the dischordant notes. US Misdemeanor courts are often treated with the same speed, despite pride in our perceived superior recognition of individual rights. Defendants and lawyers for both sides showed the same traits I saw in our courts: the amusing unawareness of the lameness of their arguments, the ease with which excuses are answered, the self-righteous pomposity of prosecutors. French cultural quirks evidenced: precise language, facial gestures, notions of gender character, resort to fatalism, class awareness.

Gentleman's Agreement
A historical document of film culture. Part of Hollywood's liberal guilty conscience in the post war about our failings: racism (see "Home Of The Brave"), etc. Ironic fact: Elia Kazan won Oscar, then later trashed the film for being too "weak" - yet he soon named names to HUAC's "leftist" cleansing (a term that inferred more than a little anti-semitism) that destroyed careers, including his film's co-star and close friend, John Garfield.

The Story of Qiu Ju
Like a fable, a shaggy dog story, or a gag about "fighting City Hall," Zhang Yimou and Gong Li entertain us with amusing characters and educate us about Chinese culture. This is the essence of "story telling," a Chinese Preston Sturges movie about country folk meeting complexities of modern life.

Design for Living
All contemporary romance comedy filmmakers should be forced to memorize every beat of this movie and then forced to make their movie sans gross gags & sex scenes as a test before being given any financing. Like a good book, like a radio play, like a silent film, Lubitsch proves imagination makes the best sex scenes. Hopkins languidly sprawled on a divan, breaking the menage's "gentleman's agreement" of no sex, sighing, "Unfortunately, I'm no gentleman," followed by slow fade out is as good as you're gonna get it.

Edmond
No original thoughts coming from Mamet's stylish pen here. His everyman coping with moral ambiguity, personified by perfectly cast Bill Macy, is severed from his middle class mediocrity for no good reason and has no center to keep him sane. He acts like a naif thrown into hell, completely ignorant of the rules, trying to apply "decency" to harsh reality. When he is victimized, he crumbles into insane violence. The whole voyage is unpleasant to watch and leaves you with no feelings for him - he squandered our sympathy with his foolish rants, nonsensical conclusions, and his predicament is wholly his own fault - or rather, Mamet's, who fails to convince us that this is a tragedy.

Viridiana
For those who think of Bunuel as obscure, dark, "arty," this film is a pleasant surprise. (Not unlike "Smiles Of A Summer Night" for Ingmar Bergman phobes.) It has less in common with the high ideas of Dali and Karl Marx than with the low comedy and satire of Mel Brooks and The Marx Brothers. Bunuel makes fun of dogmatic religion, do-gooders, every class, self-sacrifice, altruism, sexual desire in all its forms, the presumed nobility of the poor. The dining room scene with the revels of the poor, trashing their benefactress's table, parodying The Last Supper, is as funny and gross as any Coen Brothers film.

Gloomy Sunday
A wonderful surprise. Holden, critic of "NY Times," misses the point entirely when he ridicules the "suicide song" idea. It is not the song that kills, but the mood of hopelessness it evokes in people who have every real reason for desperation - they are about to be plunged into hell, and they see clearly how their peculiar arrangement for love will be destroyed. The love story of Ilona, Andras & Lazlo is heartbreaking, portrayed in human scale and much insight and compassion. Even the Nazi Weick possesses human traits. This is a story that might have happened.

Lie with Me
Bold & brave try for new look at sex & love for our times. Works on many levels. Dilemma of kids freed from past sex taboos now are emotional children despite their sophisticated sex attitude. Also thematic is effect of all this on post-feminist girls, empowered, but like children with explosive toys. For director, a bold try to avoid porn while being raw and explicit in a traditional romance form, modeled on "Last Tango In Paris." It works, more than titillation here, evokes real feelings for the characters. Last scene, not a cop out, but credible possibility of hope.

Firewall
Things I have seen too many times in a thriller: the endangered child who needs medication; the sadistic but intelligent mastermind; the criminal computer nerd; the crime team member with a heart; the crime team member who leers at the captive hot teen daughter; the hot teen daughter; the spunky wife; the 60 yr old hero dad who acts like a one man SWAT team, killing the much younger & supposedly deadly psycho kidnappers. This one will appeal to computer geeks who never saw any of the 50 prior movies exactly like this.