‘X-Men: The Last Stand’. Rest easy, ‘X-Men’ fans. This was meant to be the final leg of a trilogy but there are innumerable and unsubtle hints that there’s going to be more, much more after the curtain falls on ‘The Last Stand’. Despite the cinematic deaths of major characters, mutant life will go on. And possibly on and on. We’re not really given hints as much as mallets to the head emblazoned with the message ‘we’ve got lots more where this came from’. But the final hints are delicious . The visual effects are as big as $110-million can buy; its neato seeing the Golden Gate Bridge levitate, float over the bay and land on Alcatraz!

DVD Review. 'Mommie Dearest: Hollywood Legend Edition’ 1981. Over the top, excessive, wooden, and salacious - all good descriptions of this biopic of the late great, big shouldered Joan Crawford. It’s wildly dizzying account of ‘The Queen of Hollywood’ based on her adopted daughter Christina’s sensational tell-all written just after she got shut out of Crawford’s will. Some say it’s a gross exaggeration of Crawford’s maternal behaviour, which Christina said included ’midnight raids’ on the childrne to get out of bed and scrub the bathroom floor, cut down the rosebushes, whatever madness the actress concocted on any given night. Christina’s revenge fantasies knew no end – she even accused Crawford of murdering her last husband, Coca Cola executive and milquetoast Alfred Steel. All seedy stuff that will never be proven. Making it all the more Dunaway’s Crawford is a spider woman with big teeth and red claws.

'The DaVinci Code', directed by Ron Howard, starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Taotou. There is much to support the film version of Dan Brown’s spectacularly popular detective story. The balance of esoteric quest and car chase is more successful than in the book which seemed to discover there was a screenplay inside, if it could find a reason for squealing tires and the occasional righteous beat down. The script is remarkably clean, juggling a laundry list of facts and theories with emotional elements. If words trouble audiences, then this film may be avoided. Explication is not offensive in a movie, even if the film is a thriller.

DVD review, ‘Kate Bush Under Review’. Kate Bush is an exceptionally reclusive artist. She says it’s not deliberate but more evidence over the years says it is. A child genius on piano, Pink Floyd’s help and encouragement got her heard at EMI and ultimately tied to them for her entire working life. As a teenager she expressed concerns and disgust with fame and rarely comes out to speak. She rarely produces an album – eight in 28 years. Bush did a single concert tour, and has never come to North America to do publicity, according to EMI, because she fears flying. All of which is a shame because Bush ahs established herself as a superb singer and great artist. She was always first to jump on the technical bandwagon, using electronics long before others. Electronics companies send their new wares to her before most other people for preview, and were put to inventive use in her magical music. Bush studied under avant garde dance and mime legend Lindsay Kemp whose influence is seen in her videos, almost all of which utilize modern dance. In some she wears the neck brace microphone, mistakenly believed to be a Madonna first. But Bush invented it in order to give herself freedom to move onstage. All by way of saying that Bush is an enigma, but she’s also an important artist who should be studied. But she’s not talking anymore. So Sexy Intellectual Productions has crafted a documentary using guerilla footage, obscure interviews and a gallery of photos, alongside commentary by a panel of experts, in a search for the core of her music. The disc contains snippets from her best known songs – ‘Woman’s Work’, ‘Wow’, ‘Cloudbuster’, ‘Running Up That Hill’, ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Army Dreamers’. Her prodigious talent is a marvel, and this DVD reminds us why she is of major importance in the history of contemporary music.

DVD Review, Father’s Day Roundup. Oh, boy, dad! Maybe a couple of testosterone fueled action films will appear next to your morning coffee on Your Day. There are enough of them being churned out to mark the occasion and they’re good - more contemporary than the Westerns and War films on the shelves last year. ‘Black Hawk Down’ an intense military piece takes us through war torn Mogadishu in Somalia as American soldiers face relentless attack by well-armed rebel forces. It seems highly realistic and shreds nerves. Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor and Eric Bana star under the direction of the masterful director Ridley Scott. Will Smith and Gene Hackman star in ‘Enemy of the State’, battling federal agents to survive as their every move is tracked on extreme high tech gadgetry. It seems like a cautionary tale in 1998, talk about paranoia! Especially interesting considering recent news that three US phone companies have been tracking cell phone useage since 9/11. Smith established himself as a worthy dramatic actor in the film, filling out his resume of hip hop and a TV sitcom. Gene Hackman gives his signature muscular performance. ‘Con Air’ features Nic Cage as a con with a heart of gold on a plane ride to freedom after a long prison term. Naturally he was wrongfully imprisoned! A psychopathic murderer played by John Malkovich hi-jacks them, taking special glee in his evil. It’s extra intense in the claustrophobic plane cabin with nothing but criminals as far as the eye can see and Cage longs for his family. Officials want them stopped and plan to shoot the plane out of the sky (sound familiar?) but know that would be political suicide. The stellar cast includes Colm Meany, John Cusak, Ving Rhames and…Dave Chapelle?... under the direction of Simon West who went on to direct ‘Lara Croft’. Gene Hackman dominates again in ‘Crimson Tide’ co-starring Denzel Washington, Viggo Mortenson and James Gandolfini (Tony to you). Hackman and Washington duke it out for command supremacy aboard a submarine with lean and mean efficiency. They’ve been ordered to launch nuclear missiles, which would result in chaos and war. Each film has been digitally improved and extended.

DVD Review, ‘Crime Dramas – Brilliant But Cancelled ’. Universal has come up with a terrific idea for a DVD series called ‘Brilliant But Cancelled’. It’s a nice compilation of dramas the creators think were taken off the air too soon and are missed. The current run includes a disc of ‘EZ Streets’ where Ken Olin went after the hit ‘Thirty something’ was retired. Critics called the show ‘too good for TV’ following the gritty adventures of cops in the city. Olin is joined by Joe Pantoliano, Jason Gedrick and various players who went on to ‘The Sopranos’ and ‘Law and Order’. The series is co-written by ‘Crash’ hero, London, Ontario’s Paul Haggis. The show was pulled after one season, without the chance to find its audience, which happens often.. A second disc contains four eclectic series thrown on the scrap heap by impatient TV executives – John Cassavettes is “Johnny Staccato’ a jazz playing, part time detective who frequents Greenwich Village’s smoky hangouts filled with bohemians and mobsters. Elizabeth Montgomery plays a sultry femme fatale, before finding her niche as sweet Sam in ‘Bewitched’. Judd Hirsch stars in the literate and tough ‘Delvecchio’ in the title role as a Los Angeles cop studying for bar. He knows the law but sometimes ignores it in his zeal to stop crime. Great series, great scripts and great performances. Lou Gossett Jr. plays ‘Gideon Oliver’ an anthropology professor who helps cops solve crimes by applying his knowledge of human behaviour. Some wags say the show, which only aired five times, was too challenging for the average viewer. The final offering on the second disc is the 2004 short lived ‘Touching Evil’ featuring a policeman returning from the dead to solve problems, thanks to his new insights into the mind. Kinda kooky, but a good watch. The entire series should be celebrated and we should all write in to ask for our favourites. There is a companion website www.brilliantbutcancelled.com launching at the end of May.

DVD Review, Chick Flicks ‘Baby Boom’, ‘M r. Mom’ . On Mother’s Day we paid fond tribute to the ladies who raised us as well as all the other mothers out there. Sony’s releasing a two for one set that celebrate mothers and they’re both terrific. The first is ‘Baby Boom’ starring Diane Keaton and Sam Sheppard – a funny, warm story about a dedicated career woman nicknamed ‘the Tiger’ whose life is turned upside down by the arrival of a baby she inherits from a deceased relative. Her first response is to hand the child in for adoption, but her long dormant heart emerges and she takes her back. She loses her job because of the baby and heads off to Vermont to begin a different life, meets the handsome local veterinarian and takes baby steps into a new world. Keaton’s zany charm and slapstick are wonderful to watch. Then her old boss comes calling. Michael Keaton puts a twist on the whole mom thing by becoming a house husband when he loses his job. The stay at home father was a relatively new phenomenon in 1983, but his wife (Teri Garr) is now the sole breadwinner. He too takes baby steps into a different world where his previous identity and skillset as an executive mean nothing. The big laughs come as he comes to the sometimes painful conclusion he doesn’t know what he’s doing! Even the vacuum is against him. What his wife made look effortless and fun is HARD. So we have two takes on the meaning of Mother’s Day, and loads of laughs in these adorable films.

'Poseidon’, s tarring Kurt Russell, Emmy Rossum, Richard Dreyfuss and Jimmy Bennett. Directed by Wolfgang Petersen. Scenes are overlong and attention wanders as the escapees look for hatches to go up in the ship and reach the air. They seem to traverse the same air shafts over and over again. Granted, one air shaft looks like another but we need visual stimulation too. It’s like they blew their budget on the wave and settled for tins traps from then on. God bless Shelley Winters.

Mission Impossible 11 1. Eyes are plastered all over this one, and star Tom Cruise, whose admiration factor is abysmally low, as he endures constant chatter about his career plummeting. M: I: 111 has to be good to save his ass. Personal life aside, Cruise must maintain his lock on power. Following a bumpy two year ride in the tabloids and on the Today show, staring down Matt Lauer, he has to come back big and authentic. M: I: 111 is awesome, but it doesn’t have much to do with him. Although he was a good, if reckless egg for doing much of his own stunt work. It’s all about wunderkind J.J. Abrams. It’s all about his inventive direction. His visual sense and action shots are simply stunning in their daring.

DVD Review ‘Leave It To Beaver’ The Complete Second Season. Oh, to return to Mayfield! Fond memories of the one of the most popular domesic sitcoms on TV are common to at least two generations of fans. And what a package this is – the four disc set features 39 episodes from the second series, a startling number considering most series these days are about 13 episodes. Jerry Mathers, whom I had the great pleasure of interviewing, may be typecast as The Beav forever, but what a great thing to be – the innocent and imaginative tyke interested in fair play and fun, decked out in a cap and toothy smile. His journey through childhood is the food of the series, but it’s also about family, an old-fashioned type that sits around the dinner table for all its meals. Hugh Beaumont who plays Ward, the knowing and wise father, was a B-film and horror film veteran before he changed his ways for sweet TV comedy fare. Barbara Billingsley as June, famous for her pearls and good meals, was her own woman, sometimes deferring to Ward, but not afraid to speak her mind. The boys, Wally and Beaver, have a strong fraternal bond created over empathy and compassion and a strong desire to look out for each other as well as themselves. In the second season, Beav has a new teacher, Miss Landers, who guides him through the hills and vales of school and but gives him the heebie jeebies when she came to his house for dinner. It’s rare, but in Season Two Wally throws a temper tantrum, yelling at his mother then sulking in a closed bedroom. It’s also the season when the Cleavers started house hunting. Their massive Colonial with seven second floor rooms, for some wasn’t enough to allow Wally and Beav separate bedrooms. The Cleavers needed more space ‘for growing boys’. Beav had his share of upsets about the move, imagining he’d never see his friends again. But he survived and in the final episode of the season, they pack up to go. So there are life lessons for young viewers of all ages. But it’s mostly the oldies with soft spots for the series who appreciate its simplicity and nostalgia value. Who wouldn’t recognize the front room and staircase, not to mention of the oft-used kitchen? Oh, and recently, I turned the page from April to May on my Leave It to Beaver calendar.

Just My Luck, d irected by Donald Petrie. Lindsay Lohan is a capable comic actress and a supple physical, slapstick kind of gal. She’s been in show business since her 1998 double debut as the twins in ‘The Parent Trap’ remake and has learned her professional lessons. She seems like a hard worker and throws herself into every kind of situation. And she goes for the gusto here as a lucky lady who loses it all one fateful night. It’s not her fault ‘Just My Luck’s so lame. The screechy sounds ‘Oh my Gosh!’ and ‘Ohmigawd’ are still ringing in my ears, the constant refrains of this tedious reverse Cinderella movie. And my head’s spinning from the succession of predictably formulaic bromides. help shape girls’ views of their own futures.

DVD Review, ‘Ronin’ 1998. Robert DeNiro, Jean Reno, Stellan Skarsgård, Natascha McElhone, Sean Bean, Skip Sudduth and Jonathan Pryce – what a stellar bunch, banding together to find a briefcase. They are Ronins, Samurai warriors with no master, who have fallen from grace and are destined to freelance as killers for whatever temporary master they can find. This gang is assembled by an Irish woman working for some unnamed power. She won’t give them any information about the heist, except to ‘improvise’ and that they will face 5 – 8 men coming in 2 – 3 cars who want very much to retain the case. That’s it. Although David Mamet is not credited, he did a rewrite on the screenplay that bristles with Mamet’s signature no-prisoners word attack. It’s wordy, clean, lean and effective, as a group of men sort out who’s the boss in a primal way. That’s Mamet’s shtick, as seen in Glengarry Glenn Ross’, ‘House of Games’ and ‘Heist’. ) This it the backdrop against which violent intelligence games are played out, with car chases, ambushes, double crosses, leaving us unsure of the truth. DeNiro’s brilliant of course, as a tired looking, but sharp-eyed American assassin / alpha dog to whom the others answer. He negotiates a 500% pay raise for the crew and off they go to carry out the mystery mission. Weak members are identified early and left behind. The chase scenes are rock em sock em as are the weapons scenes – there’s a lot of testosterone run rampant an the action’s fierce but the greatest satisfaction is the language. Largely overlooked when it was released eight years ago, it bears searching out. It’s a double disc, loaded with features.

'United 93’Written and directed by Paul Greengrass. This intensely powerful film is a real time examination of what happened on board the United 93, the fourth plane in the September 11^th terror.British filmmaker Greengrass has been asked if it’s too soon, five years after the fact, to release a major 9/11 feature film. He says he approached the families of the victims and every single one gave their approval to his project. He tells the story simply and profoundly, with handheld cameras, without narration, music or sentiment, just laying it out as it happened. As though we are there.

‘Don’t Come Knocking’, starring Sam Shepard, Jessica Lange, Sarah Polley, Tim Roth, directed by Wim Wenders.^{Shepard wrote} and stars in this gently moving road trip movie about an ageing cowboy film star who realises his life has amounted to nothing. He has lots of casual lady friends and a trailer filled with bottles and cigarettes, and film star status, but his heart is empty. Wenders, the German auteur filmmaker with an impressive list of international art and mainstream films, is fascinated by the American West. This film is in love with the land formations of Montana, the dusty trails, the hardy people and the life that looks so small beneath the big sky. Don’t Come Knocking’ is a beautiful soulful film that moves at its own pace. The pace seems old fashioned but we come to luxuriate in the slow beauty.

‘The Sentinel’, starring Michael Douglas, Keifer Sutherland, Eva Longoria and Kim Basinger, directed by Clark Johnson.It’s a perfect film – perfectly formulaic, perfectly predictable and the ending is a perfect mess. On the plus side, it’s a kind of postcard from Toronto as the climactic third act takes place down at City Hall. Eagle eyed audiences will notice bits and pieces of Hamilton, Sherway Gardens mall and a host of other local backgrounds. I t’s about a traitor in the ranks of the President’s Secret Security detail who plans to have his boss assassinated with help of a drug cartel. ‘The Sentinel’ rides merrily along for the first hour, offering a web of deceit and plenty of shocks and tension. But it falls like a bag full of pancake batter when it rally counts.

3 Needles’, sttarring Chloe Sevigny, Stockard Channing, Shawn Ashmore, Lucy Lui, Suk Yin Lee,Olympia Dukakis, Sandra Oh, written and directed by Thom Fitzgerald.American born filmmaker Thom Fitzgerald lives in Halifax, Canada where he’s shot three films. His stunning story ‘Wild Dogs’ was shot in Romania, and so was his thriller ‘Wolf Girl’. Fitzgerald spans the globe in his newest film ‘3 Needles’, a haunting anthology that moves between South Africa, Montreal and China, following the trial of needles.

DVD Review, ‘Law and Order: Trial by Jury – The Complete Series’.The fifth series in the enduring ‘Law and Order’ franchise takes the point of view of prosecutors as they prepare clients and cases for trial by jury. The series is led by strong female characters, tough, brainy and equal to the other series’ legal leads, Jack McCoy.(‘Law and Order’) and Robert Goran (‘Law and Order: Criminal Intent’). Broadway actors Bebe Neuwirth and Amy Carlson knock it out of the park and the stories are as exciting as anything on TV. Why NBC or creator Dick Wolfe canceled the series after broadcasting twelve episodes, I’ll never know. Special guest stars include Angela Lansbury, Alfred Molina, Lorraine Bracco, Candice Bergen, Tony Bill, Annabella Sciorra and Jerry Orbach in his final run as Det. Lenny Briscoe. It’s a hard hitting series memorable also for Neuwirth’s frequent pearls of wisdom including my favourite ‘Everyone lies’. And she’s not above that either. Her preparations of witnesses for the stand are fascinating; how she trains them to look, deliver and speak their piece to obtain a certain outcome. There’s no little cynicism either. We see glimpses of juries deliberating behind closed and the frustrations and compromises they face. In all, a terrific, if short lived series. The killers remain at large.

DVD Review,‘The Passenger’ 1975, starring Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, w^{ith commentary by Jack Nicholson.}This groundbreaking film has become on of my favourite films of all time. I hadn’t seen this 1975 jewel until it was recently released for the first time in North American theatres. It is a masterpiece especially today, a standout amongst the junk that fills theatres and DVD shelves. It’s deliberate, challenging, quiet and devastating. Jack Nicholson is David Locke, a reporter who arrives in a desert country in Africa to investigate a rebellion. The landscape is vast and clear and provides a constant reminder of our place in the scheme of things. Locke meets a British reporter on the same story, who bears a striking resemblance to him. When the man dies, Locke assumes his identity and begins a journey to keep all his appointments. Turns out the people he meets are dangerous. His companion for part of the journey is French actress Maria Schneider who was riding high after ‘Last Tango in Paris’ with Marlon Brando, before disappearing from public life shortly after ‘The Passenger’. Antonioni provides us with no narrative or voice over explanations about who the characters are, or what’s going on. The camera allows us only to see what they do and from absolutely minimal dialogue, so we draw our own conclusions. Even the jaw-dropping climax is subject to interpretation. And audiences must do double duty – as the end also provides an incredible single dolly shot of more than seven minutes. A knockout.

DVD Review

‘Mel Gibson-The Patriot’,with Heath Ledger, directed by Roland Emmerich. Sony is releasing a whack of period war pieces this week – Brian dePalma’s ‘Casualties of War’, Nic Cage in ‘Windtalkers’, Bruce Willis in the chilling ‘Tears of the Sun’, Denzel Washington’s tour de force ‘Glory’ and ‘The Patriot’, a nearly three hour epic from Mel the Man. It takes place during the American Revolutionary War as a widowed farmer Benjamin Martin (Gibson) sets off to avenge the murder of his son by British enemy forces. Turns out, he’s a killing machine, earning the nickname the Ghost for dispatching twenty redcoats by himself, moving so fast as to seem invisible. His eldest son (Ledger) has gone to war so Martin must train his very young sons to aim, shoot and develop their fighting instincts. It’s a world turned upside down, as in most wars. Martin is non-violent, a reaction to the unspeakable war crimes he committed years earlier (and here we are cheering for him) but revenge puts him in the war’s crosshairs. It’s an old-fashioned big budget epic with big battle scenes, ambitious storylines and iconic bad guys. But there are significant problems. The enemies are one dimensional, it’s formulaic and derivative, the opening scenes are sugary and the ending is flat. But it’s also good, rollicking, satisfying fun. Gibson is a vastly gifted actor and provides enough gravity to avoid the film sinking under the weight of excess sugar. The budget was $110-million and it has reaped many times that amount since 2000, a major success for Gibson who actually went on to trump that with ‘The Passion of the Christ’.

DVD Reviews‘Mona Lisa’ and ‘The Long Good Friday ’, st arring Bob Hoskins. Just so we don’t forget two brilliant English gangster pictures from the ‘80s’, Anchor Bay re-releases them for a new generation. These coldly sharp films first brought Hoskins to our attention. His brute power is evident in both performances along with top rate supporting players, the brute presence of a square figured Joe Pesci with double the talent. ‘Mona Lisa’ features Michael Caine, Robbie Coltrane and the onetime ‘it’ girl Cathy Tyson, while ‘Friday’ co-stars future biggies Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan. The first film concerns Hoskins’ gangster George has just been released from prison to discover his family refuses him and he’s lost all his ‘hand’ in the crime world. He accepts a job as a driver for a pro who frequents rather swish people and places. But they soon find themselves in irreversible trouble with a psychotic local drug dealer. Tyson’s amazing but has been absent from North American screens for years, working occasionally on British TV dramas. ‘The Long Good Friday’ concerns Hoskins as a wealthy gangster whose territory is being stolen by another powerful man – it’s bloody and violent but a vivid portrayal of a certain kind of power broker and his ‘explosive’ lifestyle. It’s considered one of the finest films of any genre to come out of England and I agree – it is riveting and original. No one does gangster films like the British! Here’s proof.

‘The Devil and Daniel Johnston’, directed by Jeff Feuerzeig. The events of Daniel Johnston’s life are not only mythological and unbelievable; they are true, as an ex-girlfriend tells us. Johnston is a forty-five year old West Virginia Baptist who lives in his parents’ basement and tries to write music. He is severely manic depressive and exceedingly talented in writing music, art, animation and imagination. His songs have been covered by Pearl Jam, Tom Waits, Beck, Wilco and Sonic Youth. His songs are usually about broken hearts, hopelessness, his first girlfriend Laurie and his ongoing battle with Satan. The documentary is a multiple award winner and with good reason. It’s a powerful look at the overlap of creative genius and mental turmoil. It’s an old idea, but it never fails to fascinate.

'I Love Lucy' Season Six

^{Season Six was the last season for the series, and the most poignant.} The Ricardos move to the country to fulfill Lucy’s dream of a rural life –in real life, Lucy and Desi owned a working chicken ranch in California. The Ricardos move to a charming rustic home in Westport Connecticut, followed soon by the Mertzes who become their hired hands. While Ricky continues to commute into the city, Lucy and the Mertzes decide to become egg farmers with hilarious results. Once when Lucy’s hiding eggs in her shirt and Ricky insists they rehearse for their big tango number, the eggs smash all over her, launching the longest laugh in TV history. But back to the start of season six. Desi’s fame at the Copa grows, and big stars make special appearances - Orson Welles, Harpo Marx and Bob Hope – and give him the cash to move into a big house after years of scraping by. The Ricardos head off on a Florida vacation for dipsy fishing (deep sea fishing in Ricky parlance) and get a big fright running into fierce natives on a desert island. Back in New York, Lucy pines for life in the country. Westport offer loads of new opportunities for Lucy’s schemes and new hobbies, like raisins tulips and getting involved in the community. The poignancy is all about the country episodes, made during Lucy and Desi’ real life split. Those on the set say that Lucy often burst into tears and Desi was extremely withdrawn. The final episode ‘The Ricardos Dedicate a Statue’ was particularly difficult. The four disc, 27 episode set is especially well-produced with flubs, commentary by guest stars and crew and the original Lucy Desi commercials for Lilt Home Permanent, Sanka and Philip Morris cigarettes. The big heart in the opening and closing credits was not on the original shows, but was added in reruns in 1958.

DVD Review - Chick Flicks ‘Baby Boom’, ‘Mother’s Day’. As Mother’s Day approaches we pay tribute to the ladies who raised us as well as all the other mothers out there. Sony’s releasing a two for one set that celebrate mothers and they’re both terrific. The first is ‘Baby Boom’ starring Diane Keaton and Sam Sheppard – a funny, warm story about a dedicated career woman nicknamed ‘the Tiger’ whose life is turned upside down by the arrival of a baby she inherits from a deceased relative. Her first response is to hand the child in for adoption, but her long dormant heart emerges and she takes her back. She loses her job because of the baby and heads off to Vermont to begin a different life, meets the handsome local veterinarian and takes baby steps into a new world. Keaton’s zany charm and slapstick are wonderful to watch. Then her old boss comes calling. Michael Keaton puts a twist on the whole mom thing by becoming a house husband when he loses his job. The stay at home father was a relatively new phenomenon in 1983, but his wife (Teri Garr) is now the sole breadwinner. He too takes baby steps into a different world where his previous identity and skillset as an executive mean nothing. The big laughs come as he comes to the sometimes painful conclusion he doesn’t know what he’s doing! Even the vacuum is against him. What his wife made look effortless and fun is HARD. So we have two takes on the meaning of Mother’s Day, and loads of laughs in these adorable films.

'Uganda Rising’, by Alison Lawton, Jesse James Miller and Pete McCormack. We know precious little about what happens in remote lands in Africa. From the two year genocide in Darfur to wars in the Congo and Kenya, the Sudan, we now learn about the child terrorists of Uganda. Some children are forced into sexual slavery for the personal use of the LRA. The children of the LRA have been listed officially as terrorists despite the fact that most are around thirteen years of age and they had no choice in the matter. Its powerful, ugly and raw, but that's been life in Uganda for some time.

'The Notorious Bettie Page’, starring Gretchen Mol and ‘Kinky Boots’ starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, directed by Mary Harron. ‘The Notorious Bettie Page’ celebrates the fifties pin-up queen, a church going nature lover from Nashville, who leaves her sad past for a new life in New York. She discovers she has a knack for posing for photographers and enjoys complete naïve joy in posing in the buff. The film recounts the wild contrasts of her life . Page reportedly still does missionary work in her home somewhere in the southern US. ‘Kinky Boots’ is a feel good film from England, inspired by the true story of a men’s fine shoe company facing bankruptcy that finds a new niche market in shoes and boots for drag queens. It’s an adorable tale with a wondrous performance by Mr. Ejiofor as a drag Queen Bee and a man named Simon. The films are merry, outrageous and based on things that real people do. And Bettie Page? There are dozens of websites devoted to her and her fifties image, she stars in two comic books and you can buy a mug, a motorcycle or bathmat embellished with her image.

‘The Wild’, Featuring the voices of Keifer Sutherland, James Belushi, Eddie Izzard, William Shatner and Don Cherry. The film’s computer generated graphics are astonishing, especially the details of the animals features and the landscapes. Each character is so well drawn that even in the short screen time each has, there is a strong sense of personality and familiarity – that’s the beauty of Disney animation since day one. And parents – there are enough witty lines to entertain you as well.

‘Brick’, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Lucas Hass, w ritten and directed by Rian Johnson. Remember that cute little kid from ‘Third Rock from the Sun’? Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Well, he’s all growed up now, and a gifted dramatic actor. Under his belt, searing performances as a severely mentally ill teen (‘Manic’) a gay hustler (‘Mysterious Skin’) and now, a high school loner called Brendan investigating the drug-related murder of a student. ‘Brick’ is pure film noir, indebted and faithful to the genre of inexpensive mystery films that crowded theatres from the 30’s to the mid-60’s. They’re characterised by disorienting camera angles, moody lighting contrasting with daytime brilliance, tight, dangerous spaces and an overwhelming sense of bleakness.

‘Take the Lead’, s tarring Antonio Banderas, Alfre Woodard. Antonio Banderas plays real life dance instructor Pierre Dulaine, whose idealism and unflagging faith in ghetto high school kids resulted in a national craze for teen ballroom dancing. Sound familiar? The documentary on Dulaine’s story, the multi-award winning ‘Mad Hot Ballroom’ started shooting well after ‘Taker the Lead’ and beat it into the theatres. So the original story doesn’t feel as original. Ray Liotta helped steer this film from the idea to the screen, inspired by the story of a man who taught mean street kids to find meaning in ‘corny old dances’.

‘Lucky Number Slevin’, starring Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Lucy Liu and Ben Kingsley, directed by Paul McGuigan. A mystery within a mystery, a noir thriller, a gang saga and a Kansas City Shuffle, all rolled into one. A Kansas City Shuffle, explains Willis’s rock faced Goodkat to a stranger, while sitting in a wheelchair in an airport waiting room, is a manoeuver for winners. It’s the act of going right when everyone else is going left. But a Kansas City Shuffle requires a dead body. So Goodkat twists the man’s neck and stows him in the back of a truck. So begins a tale of revenge that spans 29 years and started with a horse race. .

‘Sophie Scholl: the Final Days’, s tarring Julia Jentsch and Fabian Hinrichs, directed by Marc Rothemund. T his is the second film version of the true story of a Protestant German girl executed for distributing anti-Hitler leaflets in 1942. Sophie Scholl was raised in a politically and socially conscious family with strong Christian faith. She had been an adolescent member of Hitler Youth, but grew disenchanted with reports of extermination camps and the murder of women and children by Nazi soldiers. Sophie, her brother Hans and a friend Christoph Probst formed ‘The White Rose’ a secret resistance society that spread the anti-Nazi message any way it could. They printed off thousands of fliers describing the Third Reich’s horrors, distributed them at the local iuniversity with disastrous results.

‘Basic Instinct 2’, starring Sharon Stone, David Morrissey, Charlotte Rampling and David Thewlis. Directed by Michael Caton-Jones. ‘Basic Instinct’ (1992) was a singular sensation, introducing audiences to a maddeningly enigmatic, bisexual predator and murderess, played by Sharon Stone. That was fourteen years ago. This film veers to ‘Mommie Dearest’ awfulness, and could reach cult status with its tawdry sex scenes and dumb lines wrapped around smouldering looks that are more repellant than come hither. Maybe they meant it to be so bad it’s good; a cult melodrama for slumber party laughs and quiz shows.

'The Inside Man’, starring Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, Clive Owen and Christopher Plummer. Directed by Spike Lee. ^Lee starts off this ambitious suspense thriller in usual films in traditional Spike style – showing us sweeping vistas of the neighbourhood in which the film takes place – in this case, Wall Street’s financial district. Threatening gargoyles look down from on high, guarding the institutions of democracy and commercial endeavour, ready to smash interference. But interference does come in the shape of painters with shotguns under their overalls. It’s soon clear that they are working from a minutely detailed plot to overtake the bank. Lee’s thriller is masterful and consistently riveting. He manages to add another Spike Lee tradition, the dolly / pull focus shot, which by now I find distracting, but comes as Washington’s character finally reaches the boiling point.

‘Thank Your for Smoking’ starring Aaron Eckhart, Katie Holmes and Rob Lowe. Written and directed by Jason Reitman. Ivan Reitman’s son has struck his first major feature right out of the park. Jason Reitman’s brilliantly funny and subversive ‘Thank Your or Smoking’ is a gentler but effective companion piece to ‘Bowling for Columbine’ and a direct slam against lobbyists and corporate USA. The tone and script are right on. What makes the film palatable is its wicked humour. The script is breathtaking and the performances are as confident and supple. The only chink is Holmes, whose sex scenes were cut at the request of Tom Cruise. She’s not skilled enough for this brainy outing.

‘These Girls’, starring David Boreanaz, Amanda Walsh, Caroline Dhavernas, Holly Lewis. Written and directed by John Hazlett. John Hazlett’s dexterous handling of this play-based film raises it from what it could be – a smutty teenage sex romp to a truly touching and clever coming of age story.

‘Niagara Motel’, starring Craig Ferguson, Peter Keleghan, Wendy Crewson, Anna Friel, directed by Gary Yates. Take a shabby motel on the main strip in Niagara Falls, Ontario, not far from the tourist traps, people it with some truly troubled losers, watch them for ninety minutes and call it a trip into despair. Comic music plays obtrusively throughout, which somehow underscores the pathos, as though the subjects are just a joke, a kind of tragic circus. ‘Niagara Motel’ has its light moments and certain playfulness. But it’s a downhearted world with little hope of redemption for the inhabitants. There just isn’t enough humour.

DVD Review. ‘Undertaking Betty’, starring Brenda Blethyn, Alfred Molina, Naomi Watts and Christopher Walken. This is a charming, hilarious, but unsung film that puts the ‘fun’ back in ‘funerals’. No kidding. Walken plays an American undertaker in a tiny Welsh town, and that’s your first clue. Blethyn is Betty, who is too sweet to notice her politician husband is having a torrid affair with a home wrecker, played by an exuberantly skanky Watts. There are two undertakers in town and the other one called Boris (Molina) has been in love with Betty for thirty years. When her mother in law dies, she shows up on his doorstep and over a funeral home ballroom dance, they fall in love. But what about Betty’s rotten husband? Boris suggests they stage Betty’s death and run off to the south Pacific. So, they develop a foolproof plan, which we all know will go wildly astray, involving a community dance, a cliff side pavilion and a willing coroner. The laughs pile on fast, during the funeral, the burial and the subsequent haunting. Back to Walken, a Brooklynite trapped in small town Wales. He’s nothing short of spectacular, and even gives us a taste of his storied song ‘n’ dance skills during a Las Vegas style funeral home send off. ‘Nuff said, get out and rent ‘Undertaking Betty’!

DVD Review, ‘Chicken Little’. Did you know Chicken Little was originally a girl? Disney’s first ever fully computer generated film was originally intended to star a chicklette. But as we all know, Zach Braff took on the role of the sweet little feathery mite. The DVD in stores in time for Easter features the original opening, the boy chick opening and a third! The film’s big appeal besides the adorable animation, is the vocal talent, from John Cusak, Joan Cusak, Steve Zahn, Patrick Stewart, Patrick Warburton (Puddy), Adam West (Batman), Catherine O’Hara to the late, great Don Knotts. The Cheetah Girls and Barenaked Ladies provide music videos and there are loads of games, including trivia and karaoke. As always, Disney provides behind the scenes footage of the making of ‘Chicken Little’ and interviews with the stars. The chicken who cried ‘the sky is falling’ plays a game of wolf, because finally, it does. From baseball hero to alien warrior, Little leads the way to fame and glory in this hilarious cartoon caper. You’ll listen to those wonderful vocalizations and watch all the animals over and over again.

DVD Review, ‘Time Management from the Inside Out’, Julie Morgenstern, PBS Home Video. Time management expert and author Julie Morgenstern knows a thing or two about making productive models for us, the overworked and underproductive, to adopt. She offers comforting maps; steps and choices that make our time look reclaimable. She also addresses the things that can foul up the best intentions and discipline. One of my favorite tips is in the realm of diminishing our work – instead of being a full time perfectionist, be a perfectionist 20% of the time, and the rest of the time, be good enough.

‘Ask the Dust’, starring Colin Farrell, Salma Hayek and Idina Menzel, directed by Robert Towne based on the book by John Fante. The depression in Los Angeles was no better than anywhere else, except that it was warmer. Grinding poverty extends to all the characters of this remarkable film; they roll cigarettes out of toilet paper and fight over a debt of fifteen cents. There is hopelessness set against a blindingly sunlit city.

‘Joyeux Noel’, starring Gary Lewis, Benno Furmann and Guillaume Canet, directed and written by Christian Carion. This remarkable film was nominated for Best Foreign Language film at this year’s Academy Awards and received a twenty minute standing ovation when it opened at the Cannes Film festival last may. Since then, it has broken attendance records in France.'Joyeux Noel’ is a keen study of innocence lost and joy recovered, and is based on a true story. The soldiers suffered the wrath of their superiors, but the humanity they represent is remarkable.

‘Omagh’, starring Gerard McSorley, Michele Forbes, Brenda Fricker, directed by Pete Travis. On August 15, 1998, a bomb ripped through a quiet town in Northern Ireland, killing twenty nine civilians and injuring 300. The Real IRA, a radical offshoot of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, opposed to the peace process of the Good Friday Agreement signed in April of that year, were immediate suspects. This excellent film focuses on the Gallaghers, an ordinary middle class family that lost its only son in the blast and their quest to discover who did this evil deed and why.‘Omagh’ tells of a group of victims’ families who lobbied for justice. But it wasn’t an easy ride. In the second half of the film, they organize to uncover truths which prove to be as dangerous and stunning as the blast itself..

‘The Shaggy Dog’, starring Tim Allen, Kristin Davis and Robert Downey, Jr., directed by Brian Robbins. This reworking of 1959’s highest grossing film is a real kid pleaser. There was a constant chorus of high pitched giggling and laughter at a recent advance screening jam packed with little tykes. They were smitten by Allen’s physical comedy and that he made such a darn good dog, scratching, fetching, and running – it was like they were living through him and looking at the world from a dog’s point of view.

DVD Review‘The Shaggy Dog’, Starring Fred MacMurray, Tommy Kirk, Tim Considine, Kevin Corcoran and Annette Funicello.‘The Shaggy Dog’ was the top grossing film in 1959. It starred Disney’s royalty, including Walt’s personal friend, former noir star MacMurray and the Disney serial kids, Considine, Kirk and Corcoran. Annette was TV’s ‘It’ girl thanks to her appearances on the Mickey Mouse club. So they were all gathered together to star in a film about a boy who turns into a dog. ‘The Shaggy Dog’ was Disney’s first live action feature length comedy, and later, the first film to be colorized, so in many ways it is a ground breaking film.

‘The Libertine’Staring Johnny Depp, John Malkovich, Rosamund Pike and Samantha Morton, directed by Laurence Dunmore. This is a grim little tale, concerning the debauched life and death of John Wilmot, the 2^nd Earl of Rochester, an alcoholic, syphilitic poet, in the patronage of King Charles II. Depp is a terrific actor, but the film misses the mark. We’ve been hit over the head by the same messages dozens of times, and as far as doomed rock star-esque figures go, Rochester is really nothing new. How about Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Sid Vicious and the rest?Same story, different century.

‘The World’s Fastest Indian’, starring Anton Hopkins and Diane Ladd. Written and directed by Roger Donaldson. Anthony Hopkins loses his hauteur and accent as New Zealand speed bike enthusiast Burt Munro in this heart warming road movie. It is Donaldson’s follow-up to his 1972 documentary on Munro called ‘Offerings to the God of Speed’. Burt’s personal odyssey is exceptionally well told by the filmmakers and thoroughly drenched in good faith and humanity. It is unassuming and heart-tugging.As an added bonus, there are breath-taking speed biking scenes.

‘Rhinoceros Eyes’, starring Michael Pitt, directed by Aaron Woodley. ^{David Cronenberg’s nephew’s} big feature debut is visually interesting and features an interesting star, Michael Pitt. Woodley borrows important Cronenberg trademarks and re-imagines them for young audiences – but he depends on elements of style over content. Rhinoceros Eyes’ is filled with quirky and kinky characters and truly funny moments, but takes us places we’ve been to before.

DVD Review ‘Policewoman’ 1974, starring Angie Dickinson and Earl Holliman. Angie Dickinson’s smart and sexy cop was the inspiration for the series ‘Charlie’s Angels’ a few years later. NBC broke new ground by putting a police badge on a woman for prime time. For a while it paid off. The series was considered controversial because Dickinson’s Pepper Anderson was tough, a man’s woman, and cool as a cucumber. She was the equal of her detective colleagues. It didn’t hurt that she was gorgeous and had dated Frank Sinatra for years, either. But feminists jumped all over the series because of its sex-based storylines and Dickinson’s skimpy wardrobe.

DVD Review, ‘Buster Keaton Collection’. Buster Keaton is regarded as the most innovative of the early comics, outdistancing even Charlie Chaplin in sheer ingenuity and risk-taking. ‘The Great Stone Face’ was athletic, and threw himself around in comic frenzy, doing stunts you’d never seen today, because they are so dangerous. Studios want to protect their assets by providing stunt people today. Keaton was an early Jackie Chan, doing it all himself, never complaining about broken bones. He began his vaudeville career at age four, developing his rubbery shtick that is shadowed in ‘Seinfeld’s Cosmo Kramer. This great collection features a reproduced script, with Keaton’s handwritten notes for the short ‘She’s Oil Mine’ one of the ten shorts in the four disc set. There’s also a biographical feature with comments from Keaton’s granddaughter. Also of interest, great physical support from his regular co-stars and fellow athletes, Elsie Ames and Dorothy Appleby, who whiz their way through hair-raising choreographed break neck routines. Even his titles are funny ‘General Nuisance’, ‘Mooching Through Georgia’, ‘So You Won’t Squawk’ and ‘The Taming of the Snood’. This is innovative and pioneering comedy and it’s terrific that it’s being brought forward again for a new generation of fans.

DVD Review ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’, Starring, written and directed by George Clooney. This is a bare bones disc, featuring a single extra, audio commentary from Oscar winning Georgie boy and his film partner Grant Heslov. It’s not high on bells and whistles, but the movie is good enough on its own. Shot in stark black and white, in a few rooms and a bar, it tells a strong cautionary tale. CBS’ revered newsman; Edward R Murrow made it his business to lift the veil off Senator Eugene McCarthy’s Communist witch-hunt that ruined so many live in the fifties. David Strathairn, an Oscar nominee for his portrayal of Murrow, exudes his discipline, intelligence and fair-mindedness, and especially grace under fire as his career and the careers of those who supported him was in the balance. Clooney plays CBS producer Fred Friendly in his inimitably easy, flawless way, never allowing us to see him act and inhabiting the man completely. There are fine performances from Ray Wise (Twin Peaks), Robert Downey Jr., Patricia Clarkson and Frank Langella as CBS chief William Paley. It’s one of last year’s finest films and deserves a spot in everyone’s home library. It’s an exciting story about fighting injustice and per capita has the strongest performances in any film in recent memory.

DVD Review, 'I Dream of Jeannie; the Complete First Season’, starring Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman.What a ground breaker this series was, but in 1965, NBC didn’t realise how much ground they broke until it was too late and the show was off and running. An unmarried man and woman living together, something not done on TV. And she had a navel right in plain sight. No on else on television had a navel. And in the heydays of feminism, she called him ‘master’. The first episode sets us up, as Captain Tony Nelson is stranded on an island after his rocket malfunctions (Sidney Sheldon says he made the leading man an astronaut to give him cache and timelessness) and finds a bottle with our Jeannie in it. An Air Force shrink assures him it’s not unusual to fantasize on an island that one has a beautiful woman to serve ones needs. And this beautiful Jeannie is gaga for him. He’s the first man she’s seen in 2000 years, so she stows away when he returns home to Florida. How does Capt. Nelson explain her to his fiancée and her father, the General? Their adventures were silly and merry, with a mix of sensuality and innocence that made it an international hit for five seasons. The show defied the odds and won. A movie based on the series appears to be stalled in pre-production, maybe the things that so shocked the sponsors in 1965 aren’t so fascinating any more. And the TV series is magical in its own way. This four disc set is available in colour or black and white for the purists.

’16 Blocks’, starring Bruce Willis, Mos Def and David Morse. Bloated, deeply lined, scraggly bearded, downhearted – that’s Willis when we meet him as Jack Mosley. The transformation from rock-jawed action hero to struggling alcoholic cop is thorough and convincing from the way his shoulders droop to his look of loss.This suspense thriller offers lots of goose bumps and twists and turns, heightened by the confined space of the journey, a kind of ‘Phonebooth’ on wheels.

‘Dave Chapelle’s Block Party’,Starring Dave Chapelle, Kanye West, The Fugees, Jill Scott, Mos Def. An infectious and joyous doco of a Brooklyn block party the TV comedian threw for himself in 2004. He was rich, loved, respected and enjoying every minute of it. Chappelle is truly a naturally gifted comedian rivals Chris Rock for smarts and Jerry Seinfeld for funny. He is a captivating performer with his own unusual style of cultural observation.This is a sensational and historically significant film that mixes high end rap and comedy with Chapelle’s personal charm and influence. The film’s not for kids as there is lots of colourful language, but most others will feel the beat and joy of that afternoon in Bed Stuy.

DVD Review ‘The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till’, a documentary by Keith A. Beauchamp.In 1955, a young black boy of fourteen left Chicago to visit his grandfather in Mississippi. he came back in a coffin that was nailed closed. Fun loving, good natured Till was kidnapped, tortured, wrapped in barbed wire and thrown into a river. He had committed a crime in the bigoted south of that era – he whistled at a white woman. Three nights later, a group of men invaded his grandfather’s home and grabbed the boy. Chicago and Money, Mississippi were worlds apart. Boys visiting that state were warned that there was no help or protection for them there that they had to watch their p’s and q’s. It was a dangerous place for a black child. The visit was a last minute thing for Till and his mother believes she didn’t properly warn him. Beauchamp, a young documentarian who saw a picture of Till’s remains as a young boy, has spent years investigating the case. He discovered that the white half brothers who committed the crime boasted about it after being acquitted, protected by the double jeopardy law. The release of this film launched a federal investigation last year and the case is being reopened. Till’s mother died at age 81 last year, knowing Beauchamp was doing his best to bring the perpetrators to justice through her onscreen testimony and eye witnesses Beauchamp tracked down. It’s a powerful and chilling film that may result in conviction of five people four men and a woman, who are still living and believed to have been involved.

DVD review Three’s Company; Season Six’. The Emmy award winning and wildly popular sitcom introduced a new girl in season six. Priscilla Barnes as Teri was the antithesis of Susanne Sommers’ dumb blonde Krissy. The show depended on its central blonde character, as a fish depends on water. The show was a hit in North America, and it also blazed a trail around the world, as countries scrambled to franchise and make their own versions. Disc four contains an episode from the Polish version ‘Lokatorzy’, intercut with the US that really needs no translation. Frame for frame, angle for angle, it’s the same, and even features some of the same set dressing. The Polish version of Mr. Furley, played so ably by the late, great Don Knotts, lacks Knott’s rubbery comic charm but that’s a small quibble. And Lucille Ball, the TV comedy pioneer, hosts a Best of show also included. ‘Three’s Company is a bubbly confection that enchanted viewers for years, doing what the theme song invited us to do ‘come knock on our door’.

‘Running Scared’, staring Paul Walker, Cameron Bright, Chazz Palminteri. I’ve seen lost of violent films, lots of them in twenty two years watching films professionally. Well, there is violent and there is ‘Running Scared’. There should be a new word coined for this movie – not just violent, but way beyond violent, like triolent, or friolent or megalent or something. It is that violent. And it’s based on a very graphic, graphic novel. This will turn off audiences wondering what take their date/families to of a weekend. ‘Running Scared’ is not for kids, even though two ten year olds are central figures.

'A Good Woman’, starring Helen Hunt, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Wilkinson.As I like to go into movies cold, I didn’t know ‘A Good Woman’ was based on Oscar Wilde’s famous play. I was amazed that the filmmakers had crowded so many clichés into the script – and then it occurred to me, they were the real things! Seems we’ve used Wilde’s deliciously sarcastic and ironic words in our everyday language to the point of banality.But that’s not a complaint against the film as much as an observation on Wilde’s enduring popularity. Hunt and Johansson are top notch in these difficult roles. Both seem to soak up their characters’ essences, making an old play throb with contemporary meaning.

‘Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story’, starring Steve Coogan, Rob Bryden, Gillian Anderson, Jeremy Northam Hilarity, scathing wit, cow’s naughty bits, great literature, wonderful performances. Surely ‘A Cock and Bull Story’ is the funniest, fastest film since ‘The Wedding Crashers’ which is also focused on two guys, friends and rivals, except here, it’s not for bridesmaids’ sexual favours, it’s for a bigger screen presence. We’re treated to a crew shooting the ‘unfilmable’ novel by Laurence Sterne, so we’re watching the actors watching themselves making a movie about a self-obsessed man. And there’s nothing funnier or more ironic than navel-gazing for mass audiences. The film’s greatest success is the choice of actors to play the real and reel life characters; some of Britain’s finest, including Stephen Frye, Shirley Henderson and a wack of stage actors, and familiar faces from British TV. They flow together but retain their shape, while speaking some of the funniest lines between 1760 and today.

‘Why We Fight’ (Documentary)A film by Eugene Jarecki. This is a smart companion piece to ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ for its clarity in depicting what caused the Bush family wars on the Middle East. Unlike 9/11, the filmmaker never intrudes or manipulates or even offers his voice. Its pure documentary told through news footage and interviews with principals, like Gore Vidal, John McCain, Dan Rather, weapons dealers, peace brokers, corporate figures and ordinary folk in the US and the Middle East. years, and interweaves them with today’s climate. Indeed, in 1961, in his final speech as President, Dwight Eisenhower warned of the threat posed by the ‘military industrial complex’.

‘Little Fish’, starring Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Dustin Nguyen. Rarely have I been so anxious to leave a theatre and breathe the fresh air. ‘Little Fish’, an offering at last September’s Toronto International Film Festival, stinks. The stars came to town and grabbed plenty of red carpet coverage but no one mentioned the film. Hosts must be polite. Now the film is out and my job is to tell you to save your money. Back in Australia where it was made, ‘Little Fish’ won five Australian Oscars, including best actress for Blanchett and actor for Weaving and thirteen nominations. But its charm evades me completely. Here we have the Oscar winning Blanchett, ‘Matrix’ icon Weaving and the always excellent Sam Neill in a story that should have been thrown back into the ocean on completion.

‘Dear Wendy’, starring Jamie Bell, Mark Webber and Bill Pullman. Directed by Thomas Vinterberg and written by Lars Von Trier. ^Bell is the gifted British actor dancer who played the title role in the delightful musical ‘Billy Elliott’. And he’s all grown up. Now twenty, Bell plays orphaned teen Dick Dandelion in ‘Dear Wendy. He’s an idealistic mining town boy who is too sensitive to mine, in this jaw-dropping coming of age story. ‘Dear Wendy’ is a stylish and scathing jab at the American gun culture and a blistering condemnation of American law enforcement. Filmmakers Von Trier and Vinterberg often show betray their repulsion/fascination with the US in their films. Von Trier has never been stateside, so presumably, this fascination is fed by newsreels, anecdotes and pop culture.

DVD Review. ‘Lady and the Tramp; Fiftieth Anniversary Edition’.A wonderful piece of news this week – Disney is reviving the art of hand drawn animation next year with the release of ‘Enchanted’ and expects bi returns. And why not? It only takes a look at ‘Lady and the Tramp’ the delightful 1955 feature making its 50^th anny comeback this week, to see that handmade is better. Look at the richly detailed main characters, Lady and Tramp, as pups; in wide eyed, long-lashed adorableness and you’ll be sold. No computer can give such soul to a painted cell. Ahh! Spaghetti was never so romantic!

DVD Review, ’50 Movie Mega Packs’ From TVNow.com.There’s a fab site for entertainment, TV and film news called www.tv-now.com which offers free screenings of TV shows and films from the past. I watched a very young Betty White in ‘Life with Elizabeth’ for free – a real clunker. But you can also watch Marilyn Monroe sing ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President’ to JFK, a comprehensive collection of fifties and sixties TV shows, daily entertainment news, a TV listings grid and its own movie info. database. But more to the point, TV-Now (out of North Carolina) offers public domain films from the early days and boxes them in affordable, packages of 50 films on 12 discs. For $32 American dollars! I ordered the Mystery Set which arrived in a few days. The packaging is basic but the quality is pretty fair and the movies range from big hits to the kind of below the radar stuff I like so much. Other genres offered by TV-Now in its Mega-Movie DVD collections are Horror, Western, Comedy, Family Classics, Hollywood Legends, Classic TV and Classic Serials. My Mystery set includes Bulldog Drummond, the Topper Mysteries, The Shadow, Nancy Drew, Sherlock Holmes and a whack of film noir tidbits. What fun! For the genre you want, type in TV-Now, slash, and the first three letters, followed by DVDs, i.e. www.tv-now.com/mysdvds, or www.tv-now.com/hordvds (horror).

DVD Review, ‘Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber’, Starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. A cute confection of a film based on a chick-lit novel of the same name, and it is not for kids. Twenty eight year old Katya, apparently an Anna Wintour, Martha Stewart and Leona Helmsley wannabe in training, has a lofty position in an ad agency based on her ability to sell, sell, sell. Including ‘contact lenses to the blind’. For now she’s living on her laurels, obsessing over gaining entry into San Francisco’s social event of the year. But she’s been barred for having a liaison with the hostess’ husband, at their wedding. Katya’s bad to the bone, adopting an African orphan for the tax break and taking surreptitious compromising pictures of people who cross her. She enlists her gay best friend and the mousy office temp in her scheme that involves advanced climbing…While its pure low brow schmaltz, it’s the kind of low brow schmaltz studios like to release in February – cheesy, light, easy to digest and mildly tasty. Except for the stereotypes, of course, but in general, easy viewing from the folks at the Oxygen network. While ‘Confessions’ isn’t caviar, it’ll do till the real thing gets here

DVD Review, ‘Movies Make It Better – Snow Days’.Universal Collection. Universal has put together a series of DVD theme packages to amuse and entertain on blustery winter days when we’re forced to stay home. When the snow’s up to here and our ‘get up and go’ has ‘got up and went’. You know. We all have ‘em. And clever collections these are – double sets for all kinds of tastes at special low prices. Whoever invented this series deserves a snow day and a big, fat hot chocolate. For teenyboppers, there’s a double Hillary Duff set of ‘Raise Your Voice’ and ‘The Perfect Man’. For their little brothers there is a 3-D, double disc duo of ‘Sharkboy and Lava-Girl’ and ‘Spy Kids 3-D’. And it’s all Jet Li, all the time with a two pack of ‘Hero’ and ‘Unleashed’ that should have the kids tempting fate by trying out his eye popping fight choreography in the basement. Romantic comedy fans have their pick of two Jennifer Lopez vehicles in one pack - ballroom dance or the in-law dance of death with ‘Shall We Dance’ and ‘Monster-in-Law’. Tough guy fans will eat up the original 1993‘Carlito’s Way’ with Al Pacino and Sean Penn and the 2005 prequel, ‘Carlito’s Way; Rise to Power’ with the king of the character actors Luis Guzman, Sean Combs, you know, Diddy and Jay Hernandez, who currently faces a murder rap in the real world. Conspiracy buffs – and there are plenty of you – will relish the intrigue in ‘The Interpreter’ with Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman solving a political murder connected to the United Nations and Kidman’s mysterious past. It’s packed with the terrific Matt Damon suspenser ‘The Bourne Supremacy’ as he’s forced out of hiding to re-up his cloak and dagger ways.

'Vers le Sud’ (Heading South)Starring Charlotte Rampling, Karen Young, Menothy Cesar.Directed by Laurent Cantet. The sad day in sexual cinema has come. English actor and sex icon Charlotte Rampling, who has played dozens of sensual leading ladies, and even a sexual sadist and a lover of chimpanzees, is now ‘too old to attract men’. Over the hill, alone and paying for companionship on the beaches of Haiti in this exotic drama. ‘Heading South’, set the in pre-AIDS 1970’s island, takes place at a luxury beachside hotel, where single women from all over the world come when they get lonely. It’s a startling story, not for the faint of heart that has all the tension of a political thriller. It is truly set in paradise, at least as far as the tourists can see. But then they can’t hear the locals whisper behind their backs ‘Tourists never die’.

'Match Point’ Starring Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. A Woody Allen Film. Luck. The thread that holds our lives together, according to the characters in this thought provoking and exceptional Allen film. Stupid, random, meaningless luck, like the tennis ball that lands on the net and could either go forward and you win or fall backward and you lose. Luck is what has allowed characters in several of Allen’s films to get away with murder. Its familiar Allen territory and it makes one wonder why he revisits it time and time again. It features another familiar type - the poor outsider who is taken in for his ‘spunk’ and then betrays his rich mentors.

‘The Passenger’ 1975, starring Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider.Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. An astonishing and brilliant film from the Italian auteur director who created the art films ‘Blowup’ and ‘Zabriskie Point’. ‘The Passenger’ is making its North American debut in the original directors’ cut thirty years after its European release, and it’s not to be missed. The simple story of espionage and double identity plays out in a few key locations, following the fortunes of David Locke, (Nicholson) a wandering documentary reporter. .

‘The Matador’ Starring Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear and Hope Davis.A clever and bitingly satiric jewel starring the latest ex-Bond in all new kind of role. He’s enormously funny, gleefully playing a burned out contract killer. Nothing suave or sleek or Bond-like about this hardened assassin who can’t kill anymore. The only thing remotely Bond-like is his fondness for cocktails. After ten years portraying Ian Fleming’s iconic spy, it is a relief that Brosnan stepped out of the mould and survived. Like William Shatner, he has blossomed from wise authority figure to silly fun lover. Irresistible, brave and a sign of tremendous confidence.

‘The White Countess’ Starring Natasha Richardson, Ralph Fiennes, Vanessa Redgrave, Lynn Redgrave, John Wood. Directed by James Ivory. The James Ivory lush touch saturates his latest work. The master of English and European period dramas directs this piece set in Shanghai 1932, in a squalid apartment of a family of ex-patriot Russian royals. Thrown out of their homeland with nothing, the Prince, Princess and Countess Belinsky live in darkness and meanness, a far cry from their glory days in Imperial Russia. Five sleep in one bed, usually with empty stomachs. Lrical and hopeful..

‘Hoodwinked’ Featuring the voices of Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close, Xzibit, Andy Dick, Patrick Warburton and Chazz Palminteri. Written and Directed by Cory Edwards and Todd Edwards. A true family holiday gem! This hilarious, sly and witty animated feature from the Weinstein Company is chock a block full of wonderful characters and references to famous films. Check out homages to ‘Mission Impossible’, ‘Fletch’ for the oldsters and loads of fun stuff for the youngsters, like a squirrelly squirrel who’s consumed too much coffee and an adorable bunny no one trusts. The plot is lifted directly from the classic Japanese art film ‘Rashomon’, as seven witnesses tell their version of a crime. In this case, a bandit has made off with Granny’s award winning sweets recipes.

‘Last Holiday’ Starring Queen Latifah, L.L. Cool J., Gerard Depardieu, Tim Hutton. Directed by Wayne Wang. Just a fun and sweet princess fantasy for girls of all ages. It’s about a working class southern girl who suddenly joins the Euro trash elite, lives in splendor, knowing she has just three weeks to live. The plot is dicey of course, and totally implausible, therefore, it rests on the shoulders of the actor playing Georgia Byrd to give it street cred. Enter the glorious, talented, hugely charismatic and multi-award winning Queen Latifah to take charge, flavouring the entire enterprise with realism and the human touch. It’s based on a 1950 play by J.B. Priestley in which small town girl makes good under the pressure to make her last moments count.

DVD Review ‘Disney Rarities’ Four Volumes A gorgeously packaged, brushed aluminum four box collection features best loved and less well known characters and ephemera from Disney’s silent era up to the sixties. The early ‘Alice’ shorts featured a live action girl, played by Virginia Davis, superimposed over animation sequences that allowed her to visit endless magical fantasy places. There’s an accompanying interview with Davis today. Also included are the famous cartoons ‘Ferdinand the Bull’, ‘Pigs is Pigs’, ‘Paul Bunyan’ and ‘The Truth About Mother Goose’. The second box ‘The Chronological Donald Duck’ looks at the mouthy, excitable fella from his introduction in 1942 through his incarnations as a Hitler-hating G.I., his clock making period, blacksmithing period and bellboy days – What a career! What attitude! The human portion includes the third and fourth boxes. The TV series ‘The Swamp Fox’ and ‘Elfego Baca’, both based on Walt Disney’s favourite true life heroes of the American Revolution and Civil War eras feature Annette Funicello, Robert Loggia, Ramon Novarro and Leslie Nielsen in starring roles. Slightly closer to our time is the wildly popular teen series ‘Spin and Marty’ making up the fourth disc. Boomer Alert! ‘Spin and Marty’ was required daily viewing on The Mickey Mouse Club and made huge stars of Tim Considine and David Stollery. The stories hold up in terms of adventure and discovery even though the pace is slower than today’s offerings. Another inspired set from the nostalgia department at Disney.

DVD Review ‘Junebug’ Starring Ben McKenzie, Amy Adams, Embeth Davidtz, Alessandro Nivola. Directed by Phil Morrison. Worlds collide in profound and wonderfully evocative ways in this tiny film. A recently married couple heads from Chicago his childhood home in North Carolina. The trip co-incides with her desire to sign up a backwoods artist for her gallery. On their arrival, chinks start to show in their marriage and in the family dynamic – his younger brother’s struggling with anger problems and a new baby o the way, one he doesn’t seem to want. His mother’s cold and dismissive and his beloved father’s in la la land. During a Sunday service, his wife’s in wide-eyed disbelief as he sings an old fashioned hymn; she never knew he had a religious thought. In this staunchly conservative household, she unwittingly gives the wrong impression from the get-go – she’s too pretty, thin, urban and smart, in short ‘too good’ for the family. And they mistakenly believe she’s trying to seduce the young and impressionable father-to-be. The visit sets off a chain of emotional events that leave the family and the newlyweds on thin ice. The story unfolds slowly and naturally, showing us that people are never what they seem to be. McKenzie does a remarkable turn as the ill-tempered and mentally challenged younger brother, a far cry from Ryan, his character on ‘The O.C.’ and Adams won the Critics’ Choice Best Supporting Actress Award as the expectant young mother.

‘Hostel’ Starring Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson and Eythor Gudjonsson, Written and directed by Eli Roth, a presentation of Quentin Tarantino. Supposedly released as an antidote to holiday season sweetness and light, this exceptionally well-made horror film is frightening. Allegedly inspired by ‘facts’, which although yet to be proven, pointing to the existence of murder holidays for the curious wealthy. The root of the horror is that the story unfolds so naturally and realistically, that it seems plausible. That’s scary.

‘Munich’. Steven Spielberg managed to maintain secrecy while making this fact-based film about the 1971 terrorist murders at the Munich Olympics. It’s being released without press interviews or news conferences. It’s the story of what happened after the 1971 Palestinian kidnapping and murders of eleven Israeli athletes. Many will remember that iconic historic news footage of a masked man leaning over a balcony in the Olympic Village, guarding eleven Israeli athletes who he later helped kill. Eric Bana leads a fine ensemble cast as a Mossad agent, assigned by Golda Meir to assassinate the Palestinians responsible for athletes’ murders. Spielberg has created another political masterpiece, right up there with ‘Schindler’s List’.

'Casanova’ It can sometimes be fresh and amusing when modern jokes make it into an olde tyme movye…but slacker humour doesn’t really fit classical Venice, I mean come on, man. The Casanova tale, based on a real fella, concerns his satyriasis and society that won’t let him be himself. What he is, is a despicable liar and cheat who is handsome and irresistible to women, even a convent full of nuns. The feds are after him and he lives on the run. But everyone else in Venice, including rulers, clergy, society and commoner is worse, so shed a tear for poor Casanova. He is merely misunderstood and ahead of his time. So why did I enjoy Bob Hope’s take on the rascal (‘Casanova’s Big Night’) to this bloated, over pretty cotton candy cone? Because Hope’s playboy is ironic and dare I say it, more human.

‘Transamerica’ Felicity Huffman well deserves the many awards nominations she’s earned playing a man undergoing ‘gender reassignment’. Her performance, especially the voice she created, is remarkable and unforgettable. In effect, her voice becomes a man’s voice learning to be a woman’s. It’s a strange sound, mirroring the strange predicament she is in. Her physical acting is subtle, as she rigidly begins to assume feminine qualities. Her sojourn takes her from wooden to woman, judging her success on whether she is ‘made’ by casual observers.

‘Mrs. Henderson Presents’ It’s in pre-war London. Dame Judi’s Mrs. Henderson is burying her husband. She is oddly placid, enduring the well-meaning remarks made by friends and family. Next, she’s rowing a boat off into the middle of a nearby lake for a good cry. On her return, she hosts a lunch for funeral goers and pronounces herself bored with widowhood. Such is the whimsical and flighty nature of our heroine, a woman used to be being pampered and obeyed thanks to her class and outlook. This is a jolly confection of a film, about a warm and winning and exceedingly eccentric woman spreading her sunshine all over the war torn city. It’s tinged with the sadness and all the tragedy that entails, a clever balance of emotions by Frears, in a fact-based story. It’s sweet, stirring and sentimental, and beautifully suited to holiday viewing.

‘Breakfast on Pluto’A fact-based tragicomedy of the life of Patrick ‘Kitten’ Brady McCabe, a transvestite and writer looking for a life that’s not so ‘serious’. It’s tough when, as a baby he was abandoned on a Dublin church doorstep, when he is targeted by bigots and the IRA, and can’t find his true parents. Jordan’s artistic flourishes add to the film’s whimsy – pair of robins provide narration and reveal themselves as gossips and nosey parkers, just like the Dublin church ladies. And Kitten’s elegant sense of style puts Nancy Reagan to shame.

DVD Review ‘The Empire of Wolves’ (‘Empir des loups’) with English subtitles, Starring Jean Reno and Arly Jover This French espionage thriller opens with a woman undergoing a series of neurological tests. She is able to identify colours, then shapes and then iconic historical figures including Abraham Lincoln, JFK, Che Guevara and Mao Tse Tung. But she can’t identity a man she’s told is her husband. Her memory is deteriorating and begins a quest to find out what she’s forgotten. Turns out, she’s forgotten a lot – she led another life in the Turkish mountains. But what happened between Turkey and Paris? European superstar Reno plays a jaded ex-cop who is asked to help a newcomer with his own issues, find who has been killing and disfiguring Turkish illegals in the city’s underworld. It’s fast and furious, layers upon layers of deception, politics, mobs and terrorists, linked by this one helpless woman. Paris is anything but gay in spring time. It’s rainy and decrepit, shadowed by extreme political and immigration problems and there is no one to trust.And Turkish terrorists, known as the Gray Wolves, are descending on Paris. Not for a second do we see the things for which Paris is famous – like a small scale ‘Blade Runner’. ‘Empire of the Wolves’ is a top-notch and beautifully made thriller by famed French music video director Chris Nahon.

DVD REVIEW‘Bran Stoker’s Dracula’ and ‘Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein’, Two for one DVD package How fun to be reminded of some great atmospheric films of the not too distant past! These corkers are Gothic Victorian thrillers, based on famous British novels that have entranced readers for generations. Frances Ford Coppola directed the former, with a stellar cast including Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins and a sadly miscast Keanu Reeves. Shakespearean master Kenneth Branagh directed his then girlfriend Helena Bonham Carter, Robert DeNiro and himself in the latter. Both are visually stunning evocations of an imagined time long ago and far away, where peasants and aristocrats believed that monsters roamed the countryside and that it was possible to extinguish evil. Coppola’s film is completely engaging and while Branagh’s is less so, both are well worth seeing and come together in this single DVD offering. A compelling reason to see these films is that they are the last in the non-CGI overloaded monster films we’re likely to ever see again. For that reason alone, I urge you to go out and get this!

‘Brokeback Mountain’ Starring Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway An Ang Lee Film Ang Lee’s gay cowboy masterpiece. ‘Brokeback Mountain’ is an expression of his poetic eye and soul, the director who made the wonderful ‘Sense and Sensibility’ and ‘The Ice Storm’ but misfired with ‘The Hulk’. All is forgiven as he redeems himself a million times over with this stunningly beautiful and heart-breaking film based on E. Annie Proulx’ best selling short story and Larry McMurtry’s screenplay. Lee’s direction is about as masterful as there has been so far this year. The film was shot in the vast landscapes of Alberta, often at the ‘magic hour’ at dusk and dawn when you can’t see the sun, but you can sense it and everything is golden. The rivers of sheep moving through the mountains and valleys are arresting, as we catch a glimpse of another world – another life of simplicity and nature where passionate love is as raw and real as the big sky. ‘Brokeback Mountain; is an exquisitely beautiful and exquisitely sad film that will make viewers review their own lives for secrets kept, hopes dashed and squandered opportunity.

‘The Producers’ Starring Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman Written by Mel Brooks Directed by Susan Stroman ^{This is an entirely different animal from} the original 1968 film version starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. It’s bigger, blowsier and bustier than its predecessor. Okay, the great lines are still there, and many more, but the producers have kicked out all the stops to put on a hellaciously mammoth extravaganza and damn the torpedoes. The film increases its potential for offense one hundred fold with a stinging parody of gays as well a joyous celebration of a Hitler who is gayer than a tree full of chickadees. They meant to offend and they may just get their wish as the film comes out. But Nathan Lane, who clearly respects and admires Zero Mostel’s characterization, is funnier than Mostel. He’s simply more agile and imaginative – that’s what you get when you hire a trained triple threat – actor/singer/dancer. Lane’s simply more agile and able to use his body to express his character’s inner workings. Watch him bow deeply as he works his toadying wonders, and throw himself whole heartedly into lust with a succession of old rich dears. DVD Review ‘The Producers Deluxe Edition’ 1968 Starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder Written and directed by Mel Brooks An hilariously absurd story upon which the now famous Broadway musical is based. We all know the story, a washed up producer/thief and an accountant join forces to stage a Broadway flop in order to evade the taxman. Their vehicle is a jolly and offensive musical entitled ‘Springtime for Hitler’ with high-priced, high-stepping showgirls and onstage pyrotechnics.

‘The Family Stone’ Starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Luke Wilson, Dermot Mulroney, Clair Danes Directed by Thomas Bezucha The Stone family is like every other one, odd and unconventional, depending on your point of view. As kids and partners gather for Christmas celebrations chez Stone, we learn there will be lots of dicey issues – the gay and deaf son and his partner, the pregnant mum of one who has come without her husband, mum and dad’s total dedication to each other and the youngest daughter’s unsettling honesty. There’s even one son who appears ‘normal’, how weird is that? But that’s not the best – the golden boy son is bringing home his new girlfriend!

King Kong’ Starring Jack Black, Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody and the Beast Directed by Peter Jackson. At three hours and some minutes, the newest ‘King Kong’ is far too long. The original film had twice the tear power and twice the special effects (for its era) in about half the time. While Peter Jackson, who gave us the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy is a whiz at dreaming up eye-popping effects and imaginative use of computers, but he falls far short of delivering the beautiful and simple story about the love between a beast and a beauty. The disappointment was sharp as I was such a huge fan of the original. .

‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ Starring Ziyi Zhang, Li Gong, Michelle Yeoh, Ken Watanabe Directed by Rob Marshall, based on the book by Arthur Golden. Marshall, who got the gig to direct the film after the runaway success of ‘Chicago’, seems at home with the intricacies of the book, and indeed of Japanese culture. His film is beautifully shot, a dreamscape that hides the ugliness inside the geisha world.

DVD Review Eagle Vision Classics Series - Ike and Tina Turner, Procol Harum, Stephen Stills & Manassas and Huey Lewis & the News. Eagle Vision pays tribute to these seminal rock bands with a series of live shows from their heydays. The Ike and Tina Turner Revue was a searing live act that was never really faithfully reproduced on album and its here in all its glory forty years later. Progressive rockers Procol Harum (‘Whiter Shade of Pale’), led by Gary Brooker, set the tone for some of the most ambitious and epochal music of the 60s and early seventies and their hits ‘Salty Dog and ‘Simple Sister’ are included here. Stephen Stills welcomes sessions players from the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, B.B. King, and Crosby, Stills and Nash for an amazing live performance. It includes the band’s forays into Latin, jazz, rock, blues, country and bluegrass sounds in a way that was remarkable for its time. And new boys on the block, Lewis and the News, started late (1980) in San Francisco and went on to big things with chart topping songs ‘The Heart of Rock and Roll’ and ‘I Want a New Drug’ among others. Its great music and a great look back at rock and roll roots.

DVD Review ‘Fun with Dick and Jane’ - Starring George Segal and Jane Fonda, Directed by Ted Kotcheff. This comic fable shows what happens to a nice ordinary upwardly mobile couple when he loses his aerospace executive job. It’s ‘Fun’, to be sure and entertaining and sets the stage nicely for the remake coming our way soon, starring Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni. It’ll be interesting to see how today’s take will look.

‘Syriana’Starring George Clooney, Matt Damon, Christopher Plummer, Directed by Stephen GaghanBased on Robert Baer’s book ‘See No Evil’.‘Syriana’ is an actual CIA term for the nations of the Middle East Back in the desert, a Chinese owned oil company dismisses local employees leaving hundreds of young men and teens unemployed. Many try their hand at other jobs, but two young men are especially in especially desperate straights. A charismatic Arab takes them to a settlement where they are educated and inculcated with radical Muslim ideals. They’re told honourable future awaits them. Just one of many fascainting subplots.

'Cake’ with Heather Graham. This shot-in-Toronto-as-Toronto romantic comedy has all the fluff, sweet colours and emotions of the Doris Day / Rock Hudson films oeuvre, and a winning comic performance by a new Day, Heather Graham.

DVD Review Kermit’s 50^th Collection!Disney has restored and remastered four fabulous Kermit and friends movies to celebrate his fiftieth birthday! Fifty years! Now, fifty years includes the pre-Ed Sullivan days when Jim Henson was just building his fabric assembly of characters, long before being green wasn’t considered easy. The charming, zany and witty characters of Muppetland gave birth to the films ‘Muppet Treasure Island’, ‘The Muppet Movie’, ‘The Great Muppet Caper’ and ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’. And now they’re all new for fans and beginners. Naturally Miss Piggy appears in all four films, in high dudgeon and lusting for the patient and caring Kermie. Human stars lined up to appear with the Muppets, presumably for their children and grandchildren, and presumably for fun. Here are just a few: Michael Caine, Tim Curry, Diana Rigg, John Cleese, Peter Ustinov, Steve Martin, Bob Hope, Orson Welles, Mel Brooks and Richard Pryor. Way to go, Kermie. Happy Birthday!

DVD Review‘King Kong’, 1933 Starring Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong and Bruce CabotTo say that the 1933 classic ‘King Kong’ is a landmark, innovative and brilliant film that paved the way for modern special effects and films raging from ‘Godzilla’ to ‘Planet of the Apes’ and many more, is one thing. But the true importance of the film is its total entertainment, inspiring true suspension of disbelief. When a filmmaker heads off to a remote and mysterious island with his leading lady and crew, they anticipate obtaining rare footage of a god-monster called Kong. They had no way of knowing the brute size and strength of the beast. They may have re-thought things. But greed and fortune hunting being the force they are in some people, they carry on, and Wray is captured by the lovesick beast. The film, made more than seventy years ago is as fresh as a daisy; the emotional impact is strong and real. There are many themes in ‘King Kong’, about the co-existence of man and beast, about cruelty and compassion, folly and courage. But ultimately, it is about the wonderful, timeless tradition of story-telling. An absolute must own DVD. Adrien Brody and Naomi Watts star in a hotly anticipated remake due in theatres December 14^th, by ‘Lord of the Rings’ director Peter Jackson.

‘Rent’ Starring Taye Diggs, Jesse L. Martin, Rosario Dawson, Idina Menzel. Pulitzer and Tony award winning musical based on the Puccini opera ‘La Boheme’, a tapestry of stories of destitute artists and street folk, united in their love of the arts and each other. The tunes are irresistibly catchy and emotional, so enduring that the play has run forever in New York, with a vast network of Rent road shows.

'Matt Helm Lounge' Starring Dean Martin. The cheerful cheese of these four films ‘The Silencers’, ‘Murderer’s Row’, The Ambushers’ and ‘The Wrecking Crew’ is limitless. Back I the fifties and sixties, it must have bee provocative for a ‘stewardess’ in a mini skirt to bump into Martin’s agent, fall down and flash underwear. How times change. Martin’s a retired spy, lured back into the biz mostly by the ladies he meets – he is more chased than chaser. the women were iconic sixties sex kittens – Tina Louise, Elke Sommer, Nancy Kwan, Janice Rule, Senta Berger, Ann-Margret, Stella Stevens and Manson victim Sharon Tate. The set up of each film is Helm spying in a foreign location, finding himself in wild car chases, cat-and-mouse games, sexy dame encounters, double identity red herrings, powerful enemies, often with a spectacular weapons of mass destruction, and funny spy gizmos. The best gadget is an old fashioned table top rotary telephone that blows out brown toxic smoke, not too subtle! The Helm spy pics are hilariously inane and filled with dreadful anachronisms, and that’s where the fun comes from. There is joy in listening to Martin singing with that unmistakable mellow voice, as his ladies get in and out of marabou and sheer lace. Kids will hate this. Boomers will wax nostalgic.

DVD Review ‘Murderball’. An astonishingly powerful and unforgettable documentary about a quadriplegic full-contact rugby team and its bid to get to Greece for the Paralympics Games. But of course, big time competition is only a tiny part of the athletes’ battles. Some are newly stricken, others angry and bitter, others as optimistic as the day is long, al facing a life changed and taking new chances every day. Playing the sport is a fierce outlet for their emotions, there is raw brutality and the pimped out wheelchairs are frightening to behold. One player is covered with tattoos, a kind of shield against defeat. But don’t feel sorry for them, they are world class athletes with towering confidence and chariots of fire. It’s an inspiring and awesome documentary that will no doubt loom large in awards season. ‘Murderball’ won the special jury and audience awards at Sundance and a truckload of awards on the festival circuit.

DVD Review All Brad All the Time ‘A River Runs Through It: Deluxe Edition’ and ‘Legends of the Fall: Deluxe Edition’ ^{Brad Pitt has been bewitching} us since he was the trailer trash Casanova in ‘Thelma and Louise’ but these two gentle, rural, period pieces were meant to elevate him and remake and remarket him as elegant and high toned. He worked with, and presumably listened at the feet of, Anthony Hopkins and Tom Skerritt. Robert Redford directed Pitt and Skerritt in this lyrical yet tough look at two brothers on opposite sides of their difficult father. There is the outdoor cult of the individual at work, as we follow Pitt’s character down the slippery slope to alcoholism and back and whose only solace is fly fishing. Only one question remains unanswered – whatever happened to Emily Lloyd the It Girl of 1992? Not much, according to IMDb. As for ‘Legends of the Fall’ Pitt is again the second so of an overbearing father in a period, rural beauty piece. What brings them together here is not fly fishing but secretly loving the other’s ladies. Both films are feasts for the eye and heart, good stories, well told and well acted. Lovely stuff.

DVD Review ‘Old Yeller’ and ’Savage Sam’ Together on DVD A boy and his dog, what a concept, what a crowd pleaser and what a money maker for Disney back in 1957 and 1963. The stars of these two films were Disney heavy hitters, young actors Walt himself mentored, developed and to whom he remained loyal for years. Disney’s own contract family included his female stars like Hayley Mills and Annette Funicello and the males, Tommy Kirk and Kevin Corcoran. The lads starred in both ‘Old Yeller’ and its ‘sequel’ ‘Savage Sam’. Old Yeller finds a big yellow dog that shows up at the Coates homestead, creating chaos and confusion wit local varmints and messing the place up. He bonds with young Arliss Coates and teaches him life lessons, including meditations on life and death. Wonderful stuff. The sequel finds Old Yeller’s son, Savage Sam on the trail of kidnappers who made off with the Arliss lads. High adventure on the high plains as a boy and his dog make the world right. Wonderful stuff, emotion, adventure, the great outdoors and … a boy and his dog. Included on the double DVD are a 1957 Disney archives tour, conversations wit the stars, fan letters, press clippings, TV spots, a feature on dogs and a classic Disney animated short ‘Bone Trouble’.

‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Ralph Fiennes, Emma Watson, Rupert GrintHarry and friends are in their fourth year at Hogwarts, where they meet new teachers and settle in for some fun. Harry’s name is mysteriously put up to compete in the TriWizard Tournament, even though he’s too young. He is allowed to proceed and faces four seemingly impossible missions to complete. But he is plagued by nightmares, in which he discovers shadowy figures planning a murder…his own? The main chemical element is fire, as the title suggests. Fire destroys and new life arises from the ashes of fire; it’s dangerous but necessary. It warms us and it burns us, it’s all in the way it is used, a useful lesson for Hogwarts undergrads.

‘Walk the Line’, Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Reese WitherspoonJohnny Cash, who died four months after his wife, June Carter Cash died in 2003, is the subject of this new musical biopic. Even so, he shares the screen equally, in person, and in spirit, with June Carter, his second wife and life companion. It’s reported that Carter and Cash picked Witherspoon and Phoenix to play them. Good call.Cash never ran out of steam in his career. He always recorded, toured and refused to end to give in to whimsy or sell out. A true American legend. Both Phoenix and Witherspoon did all their own singing, and he learned to play guitar.In all, it’s a spare and emotional story, with great music, great performances and a clean narrative flow. Just one thing, after ‘Ray’, ‘Last Days’, ‘The Doors’ and so many other films about addicted singers, I’d like not to see my musical idols lolling about, out of their minds, disconnected from their creative fire.

‘Perfect Crime’, starring Guillermo Toledo and Monica CerveraA dark comedy set in Madrid’s most exclusive department store, in which staff is vying for the position of Floor Manager. The jockeying for position is so fierce that allegiances form that would put ‘Survivor’ players to shame. It’s like lifting the roof from Holt Renfrew and watching all the little bees swarming, plotting and planning to climb the retail ladder. Its own little society.This is a comedy, and a light-hearted horror film. It’s also a thriller inspired by Hitchcock’s ‘Dial M for Murder’. Certainly, this is one wonky and delightfully off-the-wall film that bears no resemblance to bloated, dumb American horror stories. It’s so zany that it shouldn’t be missed.

DVD Review Seinfeld: Seasons 5 and 6The latest fat offering from TV’s top show, as determined in a recent poll, featuring all the episodes and hours of deleted scenes, bloopers, behind-the-scenes documentaries and even Seinimation, the pen and ink rendering of favourite moments. Seinfeld had something that sets it apart from the rest of TV, a certain piquancy and attitude where there was no hugging or learning. And yet it touched our hearts.

DVD Review Warner Classics Mega Collection 2005^Warning: Expect to pay as much as $5, 000 US for this stellar collection of films from this historically significant studio library. And it can only be ordered online as it isn’t available in Canada. This whopper contains t wo hundred and thirty seven discs to educate, enchant and entertain for years to come, handpicked to ensure quality, timeless films. It’s the supreme starter kit for buffs, and a swell package for film schools, as well as a guilty pleasure for aficionados. It’s expensive, it’s mammoth, it’s comprehensive and it’s decadent. Films star all the greats of Hollywood’s Golden Era, and silent era, in prestigious, award winning films that regularly appear on the Best of…lists. Can’t name them all here but a representative sample includes ‘Gone with the Wind’, North by Northwest’, ‘Freaks’, ‘The Big Sleep’, ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’, ‘The Thin Man’, ‘The Wrong Man’, ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’, ‘Tarzan the Ape Man’, ‘Brigadoon’, ‘A Face in the Crowd’, ‘King of Kings’, ‘I Remember Mama’, ‘Deadly is the Female’, ‘A Christmas Carol’. ‘Please Don’t Eat the Daisies’, ‘Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House’, ‘Designing Woman’, ‘Blood Alley’, ‘The Damned Don’t Cry’, ‘The Master of Ballantrae’, ‘Spite Marriage’ and ‘Love Finds Andy Hardy’. Somehow, I feel better knowing that there collections like this out there if I want them and don’t need food, shelter or clothing.

DVD Review ‘Hammett’ 1982, Starring Frederic Forrest, Marilu Henner, Elisha CookDirected by Wim Wenders for Francis Coppola’s Zoetrope Studios‘Hammett’ was a combination of two big eighties waves. Noir films were being newly appreciated by the growing population of film buffs, and studios were turning out noir remakes, copies and noir inspired films. Home décor and fashion borrowed heavily from the original noir films. Dashiel Hammett’s noir crime novels were back in vogue along with those of Mickey Spillane and Raymond Chandler. It’s quite the yarn, but it feels like satire. The talk is too fast, the conventions just too obvious, the gestures too broad and while it’s not a great film, it is fun to watch as an example of 80’s nostalgia.

‘The New World’ Starring Colin Farrell, Q'Orianka Kilcher, Christian Bale. Written and directed by Terence Malick. It’s an event worth waiting for – Terence Malick’s fifth directorial film is finally done and it’s a masterpiece. ‘The New World’ tells a thrilling and sobering tale of the first white settlers and startled Algonquin Indians on the shores of Virginia, four hundred years ago. It is hauntingly gorgeous and provocative; ‘New World’ re-establishes Malick as creator of masterpieces.

‘Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World’. Starring Albert Brooks and Sheetal Sheth. Written and directed by Albert Brooks. ^{This is one strange ride. Albert brooks plays a comedian} called Albert Brooks, who accepts a government request to investigate comedy in India and Pakistan – to find out what makes the people laugh, thereby opening up communications between the US and the region. From the get go – Brooks complains bitterly about the lack of pomp and circumstance - there’s no official government welcome, the office is unstatesman-like and the locals never heard of him. Next, he finds himself making an illegal midnight border crossing into Pakistan to meet with a group of aspiring comedians. There are set ups, but no pay-offs, promises of laughter and then none. The story is a reflection of the plot – as loopy as that sounds. Brooks the character can’t find any humour because Brooks the writer doesn’t give us any. And we the audience, leave the theatre, still looking for comedy, dying for bit of a chuckle.

‘Karla’ Starring Laura Prepon an Misha Collins Because the only reason this film exists is to exploit the sensational crimes committed by Canada’s Barbie and Ken sex killers – Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. ‘Law and Order’ covered it once before, but the story was diluted for TV’s ‘respectable’ eminence Gris, especially compared to the facts of the case revealed over the past several years. I have yet to hear a satisfactory reason for the project ever to have been undertaken. The publicist told me she respects what the producers say they tried to achieve, to remind Canadians that that a ‘psychopath’ walks around Montreal.

'Nanny McPhee’.Starring Emma Thompson, Colin Firth and Angela Lansbury.Written by Emma Thompson based on the ‘Nurse Matilda’ books. Directed by Kirk Jones.

A-dor-a-ble !!!!!That’s the only word to describe this glorious fairy tale!Thompson, originally a standup comedian, has graced all kinds of films, lending wit, intelligence and self-deprecating humour. This is a tad different, but as funny as anything she’s ever done. The story is simple and direct, children will learn much from Nanny and adults will appreciate the warm lessons, too. It’s visually delightful and the characters while fairy tale dimensional, are likeable, even lovable and we want happiness for them. The child actors are beyond lovable, but never saccharin, and their evil plans are pretty funny. Firth is as usual, easy on the eyes and a gifted, natural actor. Thompson, while she steals the show, never oversteps her function. What a heroine she has created!.

DVD Review,‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ Anniversary Edition. The complex story of former backwoods hillbilly Holly Golightly’s high society Manhattan adventures is based on Truman Capote’s dark tale. It’s difficult to accept that Hepburn and Peppard’s characters led shady lives, making money as ‘companions’. ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ made Hepburn a style icon, with the adoring help of up and coming French designer Hubert DeGivenchy. She remains the ideal to this day and regularly makes best dressed and style lists. The big black hat with trailing scarf, over- sized sunglasses and sleeveless little black dress put her on the map, like the trench coat,Capri length pants and upswept hair. She stayed true to the simple and elegant look Givenchy created for her right to the end. This feature filled pink set contains a fabulous documentary on her that style and features interviews with son, Sean Ferrer, director Blake Edwards and her Tiffany connection from the period. While all of this is wonderful viewing, the best of all is the film’s opening scene, in which Holly finds herself at 6 am on a deserted Fifth Avenue, gazing into the Tiffany’s window, munching on croissants and sipping coffee from a cardboard cup. She’s wearing a tiara, long black dress, gloves, jewels and a look of resignation. She is totally alone.

DVD Review. ‘Love, Ludlow’.Starring Alicia Gorenson, David Eigenberg and Brendan Sexton III. Written by David L. Paterson, directed by Adrienne J, Weiss. An absolute charmer of a film that tells a familiar tale with great delicacy, freshness and skill. Alicia Gorenson, attended the Acting School of Hard Knocks, as Becky on Roseanne, and learned everything she could – she is a superb actor, nuanced and naturalistic. She’s wonderful as the hard shelled Myra, who has a co-dependent relationship with her wacko brother, and is unable to think of her own happiness. She works hard as a temp and blasts anyone who dares come near her with a New Yawk honk that’s unforgettable. But at home, she’s Ludlow’s (Sexton) handmaiden, running, fetching, cajoling and mothering at the expense of her own life. But at the office, where her defenses are major, a shy co-worker, played by ‘Sex and the City’s Eigenberg, asks her out. She shoots him down, but after he persists, she is curious enough to spend a little time, not a date, just time. He persists and visits Myra at home. The evening is ruined by Ludlow, who doesn’t care who he hurts as long as he has his sister’s full attention and all the things he wants. He’s a baby, just a mass of needs and no responsibilities. If Myra gets involved with someone, then he has to fend for himself, so he determines to put the kibosh on Reggie. The script is written in such a way that we feel intimately, warmly connected with these flawed characters. We want a romance for Myra and Reggie. We want Ludlow to stand up and grow up. The direction is delightfully old-school; it gets out of the way of the story and these great actors and allows us to completely immerse ourselves in the gentle emotion. ‘Love, Ludlow’ was a hit at Sundance, and finally it’s available on DVD for the rest of us.

DVD Review. ‘God save the Queen; A Punk Rock Anthology’. A terrific compilation of twenty live performances by some legendary and influential musicians (if you can call them that) of the seventies punk era. There are interviews with the late Johnny Thunders, Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex and Marky Ramone of the Ramones. It’s flavoured with poverty, rebellion and social and political anger. many punk bands formed as a chance to earn money in a time of high unemployment. It’s fascinating to see the variations on the three chord punk theme. The legendary Stiv Bators of the Dead Boys. See the UK Subs set their ‘Symphony of War’ against a film backdrop of blitz era London. Iggy Pop and the Stooges perform ‘Naughty Little Doggy’, underscoring that Pop, the Godfather of Punk, is the second most energetic scenery chewer after James Brown. The Adicts (sic) intercut live footage with street scenes reminiscent of ‘A Hard Days Night’ in their early rock video version of ‘Vive La Revolution’. Also on the disc is an historic performance of ‘Boredom’ by the Buzzcocks. Billy Idol is a fresh faced, pre-snarl kid who looks about eight years old leading Generation X before he broke out with the commercial hit ‘White Wedding’, which ironically was performed at middle class weddings around the world. There are plenty of out to here Mohawks, seventies punk street wear and grainy good times. It reflects an incredibly exciting chapter of rock music that smashed all the rules in response to mediocrity. Its fun, raw and real and of interest historically and as pure entertainment. I’d love to see what they all look like now, the ones who survived that turbulent time.

DVD Review. ‘Love and Respect; It’s Called Cashville for a Reason’.Written, produced by, starring and featuring music by Quanie Cash. This morality lesson hip hop film in the ‘Hustle and Flow’ tradition is a pale reflection of its predecessor. It concerns turf wars in Nashville’s mean streets, where guns and the thug life is all there is. There’s not the passion and poetry of ‘Hustle and Flow’, but there are plenty of ‘lessons’ for the kids, an anti-gang, anti-drug flag-waver, according to Cash, a filmmaker and proud entrepreneur. He shows the money and power that come from hustling and dealing but vividly shows the unavoidable outcome. Cash says that Hollywood doesn’t tell the whole story but glamourises street life. For instance, the film’s street boss is framed and send to prison for life, his wife dumps him and the streets social order collapses as vying factions try to grab control. And prison is a cold, lonely and solitary place. Cash says he wants to inspire kids to do for themselves as he did. He says young people with the entrepreneurial spirit can use their brains, vision and passions to succeed, that they don’t have to be discovered. He’s working on his third film and has established a scholarship programme for Nashville’s inner city kids. As a rapper, Cash has toured with 50 Cent, Fabolous and Li’l John, and performed during Don King’s Fight Night. The film is raw and violent like Cash’s version of Nashville street life. No guitars or country music there

‘Imagine Me and You’, Starring Piper Perabo and Lena Headey. Imagine ‘Notting Hill’, ‘Love Actually’, and ‘About a Boy’. Add a pinch of ‘Brokeback Mountain’, but make the gay cowboys two middle class London girls and you’ve got something close to this sprightly Britcom. Erotic or enlightening it is not. Mildly amusing, hectic and light hearted it is. A girl named Rachel (Perabo) is about to tie the knot with longtime beau Heck; she tells friends she appreciates the comfy shoe aspects of their union, even if the excitement has long worn off. Friends, family and office mates see Heck and Rach as the perfect couple, never a fight or a cushion out of order in their coldly minimalist Thames side condo. There are some staggeringly great one liners, unrepeatable here, and lots of wonky charm.

‘A Simple Curve’ Starring Michael Hogan. A quiet and affecting film shot in the gorgeous Kootenay Rockies of B.C. It’s where draft-dodger and rural idealist Jim (Hogan) lives with his son Caleb (Lemche) in a seemingly idyllic life, creating fine wood pieces and living off the land at their mountaintop cabin. Hard to imagine that there is any strife there. Of course, there is. Jim is so set in his stubborn, ‘artiste’ ways that he won’t entertain the notion of making commercial pieces or big quantities. Business manager Caleb has to deceive him into thinking a local teacher wants dozens of hand hewn chairs, when in fact they’re for a tourist lodge being built across the lake.

DVD Review‘The Cary Grant Box Set’. A surprising and quirky collection of five lesser known films of the man Premiere magazine named the top actor of all time. Grant has never been eclipsed as Hollywood’s smoothest, most appealing leading men – ever! He was once told ‘Everyone wants to be Cary Grant?’ He replied ‘So do I”. He was one of a kind and fans will want to collect Grant’s entire available body of work. ‘Holiday’ (1938) with Katharine Hepburn and ‘His Girl Friday’ (1940) with Rosalind Russell are the best known of the collection as classic screwball comedies. But the rest are rarely shown or remembered. ‘Talk of the Town’ (1942) paired Grant with Jean Arthur reveals her sparkling talent and how well she meshed with Grant’s physical and comic skills. He plays an innocent man facing an arson and murder charge, who hides out in a snappy talking ingénue’s attic. Grant is an airmail pilot in the South America’s Andes Mountains in ‘Only Angels Have Wings’ (1939), a sharp turn to drama, featuring exciting flight sequences that are still admired today. Finally ‘The Awful Truth’ (1937) pairs Grant with Irene Dunne, in a comedy about a married couple who have ninety days to either reconcile after infidelities, or call it quits. It’s hilariously screwball, yet unappreciated. This box set will put the focus on some worthy films for fans drawn by Grants considerable star power. ‘His Girl Friday’ is the most important and successful of the collection, riveting audiences with rapid fire banter, a newsroom expose, and Grant at his funny, exasperated and sexy best.

DVD Review ‘The Blitz: London’s Longest Night’ PBS Home Video. This 90 minute doco-drama features never before seen archival footage taken by London’s wartime Fire Corps. Film Unit on the night of December 29, 1940, when 126 German bombers dropped their deadly cargo on the city. The material was clearly not made available for public viewing until now, presumably to protect the wartime citizens from the anxiety of seeing a square mile of the ancient city go up in flames. The Nazi Luftwaffe rained thousands of incendiary bombs on old London at low tide, counting on the ancient timbers and lack of water to shut the city down. Fifty two people died and the area surrounding St. Paul’s Cathedral lay in ruins. Thanks to the efforts of volunteers with buckets of water, the Cathedral, with its timber dome, managed to stand, surrounded by acres of blackened, smashed buildings. Eye witness and written accounts detail the horrifying night, which if not for bad weather, would have been far worse. German bombers were grounded in France, unable to launch a second razing which would, surely have put paid to London. The footage of the bombs falling and the city in flame is breathtaking. One of the eyewitnesses, leading WW2 painter Leonard Rosoman vividly recalls the events he describes as a wall of red hot bricks fell upon the crew he had just left for the night, which he later painted from memory. Another tells of finding his family dead in an air raid shelter and we hear from two American war correspondents as they make their way to the center of the conflagration. Terrifying stuff, bringing to mind the 9/11 attacks, but so different. The Blitz went on for five months and Londoners did not get to see the footage – until now.

DVD Review ‘Elizabethtown’Starring Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom Written and directed by Cameron Crowe.Orlando Bloom’s Drew has big problems – his multi-million dollar mistake may topple the huge corporation he works for, he’s definitely out of a job and his father has died. He is flying to look after the funeral arrangements when Dunst (Claire) corners him and needles him into engaging. Throughout the rest of the film, Dunst’s peculiar behaviour includes stalking him, showing up whenever and forcing him to pay attention to her. Meanwhile, he’s meeting new family folks for the first time – his father had a second family of kooks, primarily. But they have lots of love and give him an alternate way of living family life, without the urban neuroses of his mother and sisters. Cameron Crowe’s work is nothing if not evocatively musical and this is no exception – a wonderful soundtrack to match wonderful set pieces on his care ride back home. Some crix hated it; I enjoyed it and recommend it for DVD home viewing. Keep tomatoes nearby to hurl at stalker Dunst and you’ll have a swell time.

DVD Review ‘36 Quai des Orfèvres’ (subtitled) Starring Daniel Auteuil and Gerard Depardieu. The title refers to the Paris-based law enforcement unit, similar to London’s Scotland Yard. It’s a riveting police thriller, not about catching the bad guys out there, but the bad guys inside. Veteran French actors Auteuil and Depardieu are rivals policing different regions who would rather see criminals go free than work together to bring them to justice. Officially sanctioned competition turns out to be a deadly, ruinous policy. I’ve heard of corporate executives who encourage in-house ill-will and deceit in poorly thought out attempts to increase efficiency. It’s especially important when such policies affect the rule of law and collateral damage is public welfare. This film details how wrong and misguided such thinking can be. Vrinks (Auteuil) and Klein (Depardieu) plot minutely planned strikes against each other, neglecting duty and justice, resulting in total lawlessness. There is no one to trust. The plot is a relentless jigsaw, reminiscent of ‘Traffic’ with quick cuts and overlaps. The mood is pure blue black grit that French filmmakers create so well. The acting styles of the leads are well suited to highlighting moral differences, Depardieu stolid, unjust and inflexible and Auteuil, quick thinking, mercurial and keenly aware of consequences. ‘Finding Neverland’’s Marc Foster is set to remake this for American audiences, starring and produced by Robert DeNiro.

DVD Review‘Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit’Featuring the voices of Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter By Nick Park and Steve BoxOne of the great animated / clay-mated films from the imaginative brain of Nick Park. Appealing to children and adults, this hilarious outing takes place in a small village in which the size of one’s vegetables is of top importance. The truth comes out late every summer with the harvest and ensuring contest to see who’s top of the (compost) heap. Wallace and his dog Gromit are the local pest control arm, called in to discover who has been eating the crops and stop him / it/ her. Its compete chaos as the townsfolk and local gentry Lady Campanula Tottington fertilize in fear and dread. Park calls this ‘the first vegetarian horror movie’. It took years of painstaking work by Park and Box. A few months back, well after the film was completed, all the props were burned in a warehouse fire where they were being stored. The sole exceptions were Wallace, Gromit and Lady Tottington, who were traveling with Park at the time on a world wide publicity tour which included the Toronto International Film festival. So this wonderful film this is truly a rare gem that probably will not be repeated.

‘Pride & Prejudice’ Starring Keira Knightley, Dame Judi Dench, Donald Sutherland, Rosamund Pike. Directed by Joe Wright. Keira Knightly stars as Elizabeth Bennet in this, at least the ninth film adaptation of Jane Austen’s popular 1813 novel. But first time director Wright didn’t want Knightley in that key role because he considered her too beautiful to play the 20-something social-climbing ‘spinster’. But Knightly can’t be stopped (except in the dreadful ‘Domino’) – she’s Hollywood’s English Girl of the Moment, and there is no reason why Gwyneth Paltrow should play all the period English flowers.Of all the ‘Pride and Prejudice’ adaptations Ive seen, this is the most richly detailed and emotionally resonant. From the shabby gilded antique furnishings and broken china on a peasant’s table, to the gorgeous sensuality and plenty of the rich people’s lives, you can nearly reach out and touch the early days of the nineteenth century.

‘Bee Season’Starring Richard Gere, Juliette Binoche, Max Minghella and Flora Cross. This is surely one of the strangest and most maddening films to come along in a while. It concerns the shattering of a family when the young daughter wins a spelling bee. It has nothing to do with honey, or stings, or swarms. It has to do with Jewish mysticism, the mystical properties of words, a nervous breakdown and a tragic lack of communication in a seemingly normal family. ‘Bee Season’ is a beautifully made, beautifully acted gem of a film that is also intellectually and emotionally unsettling.

‘Derailed’ Starring Jennifer Aniston, Clive Owen and Vincent Cassel, Directed by Mikail Hafstrom‘Derailed’ is just the ticket to help get Aniston out of the ‘Friends’ mire. When the series ended, we grieved for the futures of the actors after a lifetime playing callow Manhattanites. The plot is familiar because it’s been done before, and not just once.Train stories are popular these days, ‘Shall We Dance?’, ‘Train 48’, and others bringing a certain naughtiness and misbehavior to the commuter lifestyle. It’s an interesting place- the same faces, the same time to kill, sharing the same space every weekday morning. A mobile Peyton Place

DVD Review ‘Yes’ Starring Joan Allen and Simon Abkarian, Wr /Dir. Sally Potter. An arresting film that didn’t create much of a ripple at the box office last year.The actors speak in verse, although it’s so well delivered its often unnoticed. A maid watches and reports on the action, while obsessing over dirt and souls. ‘Spotlessness is an illusion’. Phillip Glass, Eric Clapton and Tom Waits provide the music, as the lovers meet, fall fast and hard, and then realise what they’ve done. ‘Yes’ is a jewel of film of an authentic story with an intelligent and riveting beat.

DVD Review Marlon Brando Collection. Marlon Brando is the real thing – a superb actor. While he did not use ‘The Method’ he is widely believed at have used, he did study under Stella Adler of New York’s Yiddish theater center. He had a special approach that he says did not rely on using memories of his own emotions and it resulted in a wonderful body of work. He is regarding as one of the finest actors ever to have lived, even though his greatest performances ended decades before his death. The new collection from MGM, features ‘The Missouri Breaks’ with Jack Nicholson, ‘Burn’, a political thriller around slavery in the Caribbean, the South African political drama ‘A Dry White Season’ with Donald Sutherland and Susan Sarandon and my favourite, ‘The Fugitive Kind’ with Joanne Woodward and Italian superstar Anna Magnani.

'Water’ Written and directed by Deepa Mehta ‘Water’ is the conclusion of Mehta’s elemental trilogy, of the previously released ‘Earth’ and ‘Fire’. Although based in Toronto, Mehta’s is considered the voice of the new India. Her films explore the heart and soul of that country, including its social problems springing from ages old traditions standing in a modern world, the remnants of British colonialism and the country’s extreme poverty. When it dawns on little Chuyia that she will not be allowed to go home, she falls into depression, then acceptance and then into rebellion.‘Water’ is Mehta's finest film yet, and that is high praise, considering her previous works.

‘Jarhead’ Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx, Peter Sarsgaard Directed by Sam Mendes. ‘Empty vessels’. That’s what jarheads are, in the American military parlance. Young men, empty vessels, waiting to be filled with testosterone-fired patriotism and blind allegiance to authority. Young men on the threshold of growing up put in harm’s way as ever; wars are fought by children. We spend the movie on ‘suspicious alert’ with the soldiers. Everything happens big. bombs, sandstorms, meltdowns, fires, explosions, the usual film warfare. But Mendes’ vision is so well defined, that it seems that we are there, walking in the same half light the men do, emotionally and morally empty. It is powerful and tears will sting your eyes from the beginning.

DVD Review ‘Titanic: Special Collectors’ Edition’ Director James Cameron says this is the ultimate ‘Titanic’ DVD set – he says this is it, no more will be made. He’s put all his eggs in this sea-worthy basket which includes commentaries by Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart who play Rose in youth and age. Most intriguing, it reveals the original nine minute ending which has never been seen in public. Cameron says he was surprised by ‘Titanic’s success in 1997 (earning one billion dollars to date) as it is a three hour chic flick set in 1912 and everyone dies. Still, ‘Titanic’ made the world cry, earned eleven Academy Awards and created a new tourist industry in Nova Scotia where Titanic victims are buried.

DVD Review ‘Winter Solstice’ Starring Anthony LaPaglia, Allison Janney.A quiet and moving gem about a widower and his two sons, in the months following the death of a wife and mother. The script is a barebones reflection of the way the men speak to each other, few words, things left unsaid, communicating through some others means. It’s a special movie of quiet moments and slices of real, uncandied life. Its pleasure and pain in equal measure, a naturalistic glimpse into the world of men. 'Good Night, and, Good Luck’ Wr / Dir George Clooney. Clooney has my never ending admiration for making this film, on this topic, at this time, when the US administration is having a bad time of it and when we’re not that far removed from the Black List days. Well done George! Get your suit ready for Oscar time!

‘Capote’ Starring Phillip Seymour HoffmanA powerful, gut wrenching and exasperating, but brilliant film on the famous American writer Truman Capote, and his connection to the brutal Clutter family murders of 1959. Capote invented a new form of literature, the non-fiction novel, reporting the facts of the murders of four members of a wealthy Kansas farming family in the framework of their impact on the tiny close-knit community, the backgrounds of victims and the men executed for the crimes. As the film unfolds, audiences will surely find that their fascination for Capote, as brilliantly revealed by Hoffman and Futterman, becomes a bad taste in their mouths. A challenging and rewarding film that shines in its technical simplicity and human focus.

‘North Country’ Starring Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins and Sissy Spacek. Directed by Niki Caro. Based on a true story of a class action sexual harassment suit brought against a Minnesota mining company in the early 80’s, ‘North Country’ is both maddening and terrific. What could have been a great film is flawed by a couple of red herrings, two overlong scenes and inconsistent editing. But is nearly a great movie.The film is devastating to a degree. In the final act, issues with the children slow the momentum and some questions are left unanswered. But the quality of the acting and the story are exceptional. Theron is a breath-takingly talented actor and will no doubt get a second Oscar nomination. Richard Jenkins, as her father, is superlative. All the performances ring with truth and strength and that includes the supporting players.

‘Shopgirl’ Starring Steve Martin, Claire Danes, Jason Schwartzman. Directed by Anan Tucker. This is not a Steve Martin comedy. It is a low key mediation on love in Los Angeles. Rather than being funny and witty, as usual for a Martin piece, it is sad and melancholy. It’s an exceedingly well made movie and the characters ring true, but it’s no comedy. It will make you think and reflect and come out of the theatre struggling with your own private version of their story.

DVD ‘The Wizard of Oz – Three Disc Collector’s Edition’ The original publicity tagline for ‘The Wizard of Oz’ was ‘Gaiety! Glory! Glamor!’. Small potatoes for what the film turned out to be - a timeless classic of epic proportion.Keeping in the spirit of Hallowe’en, a new edition of the beloved story of Dorothy and her friends in the Land of Oz is in the stores. The Wicked Witch of the West, played by Margaret Hamilton, has come into view lately thanks to the hit Broadway musical ‘Wicked’ that depicts her life and times. Turns out she was just misunderstood. The latest DVD set features the 1939 movie, earlier silent versions from 1910, 1914 and 1925 and a 1933 cartoon. There are deleted scenes, Academy award footage, a look at the Oscar heavy year that was 1939, on-set home movies from composer Howard Arlen, talent and publicity shots and campaigns and even a short on a bus load of Texas prize winners who got to go on the set film, greeted by Ray Bolger (The Scarecrow), Burt Lahr (The Cowardly Lion) and the original Tin Man, Buddy Ebsen. Ebsen was replaced by Jack Haley, when he fell ill due to the toxic aluminum powder makeup. Haley’s son later married Garland’s daughter, Liza with a ‘Z’. But it is also much more – it’s a comprehensive look at one of the most important and influential films ever made, and best of all, it’s lots of fun, solid entertainment from start to finish.

DVD 'Bewitched: the Complete Second Season’Starring Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick Yorke. What better way to celebrate Hallowe’en than with TV’s most beloved non-mortal housewife, the reluctant witch constantly trying to fit into Middle America in Westport, Connecticut with her mortal husband and witchy relatives? The second season of ‘Bewitched’, still in glorious black-and-white, looks and feels superior to the later, colour episodes.This is a great series that sadly petered out later in its run but raised the bar on writing early on. Montgomery’s brilliant onscreen charm was the show’s main strength.

DVD ‘Bewitched’ Starring Nicole Kidman and Will Farrell This Collector’s Edition is a nice companion piece to the release of TV’s ‘Bewitched: the Second Season’ also in stores today. While the film received middling to bad reviews, it really wasn’t as awful as all that. Nothing wrong with a little light candy cotton.

'Elizabethtown’ Starring Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon Written and directed by Cameron Crowe This is a nice, smiley faced film about a stalker.Orly is restrained and passive, but that’s okay – he’s been doing so many epics of late, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy and ‘The Kingdom of Heaven’, he can here and give us his actorly chops, courtesy London theatrical training. Dunst has never seemed so confident in a film role, not since she played a tiny spitfire in ‘Interview with the Vampire’. She shines, even if she plays a conniving and manipulative stalker.Rapid, random plot twists are unified by strong musical selections that Crowe relished picking from old blues to Elton John and Tom Petty. It’s a great soundtrack; a better soundtrack than movie.

‘The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio’ Starring Julianne Moore and Woody Harrelson Directed by Jane Anderson A charming, retro, touchy-feely and often deeply moving story, based on the true life memoir of a woman who raised ten children, put up with an abusive and alcoholic husband and found deep and happiness. In fact, her unquenchable happiness was the key to her power. Her writing skills were put to the test in jingle contests for TV and radio that paid off handsomely. She was able to provide for her family when her husband could not. It’s a wonderfully interesting story that is inspiring, sad and sweet but never insipid. ‘The Prizewinner’ was shot on location in Ontario in Paris, Grand Valley, Richmond Hill, and Uxbridge!

DVD ‘Ken Burns’ American Lives’ Ken Burns is the prolific producer of some of the greatest PBS documentaries in recent years. Seven which aired between 1997 and 2004 are gathered in one beautiful boxed set representing a social history of the US. But it’s of great interest to Canadians because our social history is so intermingled with America’s. The earliest is a fascinating portrait of a remarkable man, President Thomas Jefferson, who not only envisioned great things for his country, but wore glasses, wooden teeth and fathered several out of wedlock children with his black mistresses. ‘Lewis and Clark’ examines the route taken by the intrepid explorers in the early 19^th century as they hunted for the Northwest Passage. Their search began in Louisiana under the helpful eye of an Indian guide. If architecture is your thing, you wont want to miss Burns’ ‘Frank Lloyd Wright’ a riveting exploration of a ‘mad’ genius whose great creations influenced middle class architecture to this day, and include Los Angeles’ Ennis Brown House and the Guggenheim Museum as well as low slung prairie dwellings for which he also created the furniture, linens and decorative features. His life was a tragic brew and his genius undeniable. Pioneer feminists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony are unveiled in ‘Not for Ourselves Alone’ and celebrated for their iconoclastic efforts in the recognition of women, which launched the women’s liberation movement. America’s greatest wit Mark Twain is the subject of another of Burns’ films. In it, we see that not only was Twain a master, but his achievement was greater still as he suffered major personal disasters and tragedies. ‘Horatio’s Drive; America’s First Road Trip’ recounts an historic road trip by an early motorist, fascinating stuff. And finally, ‘Unforgivable Blackness’, a heart wrenching doco on the life of Jack Johnson, the first black American prize fighter. This is a superb package that would make a nice holiday gift.

DVD 'Billion Dollar Brain’ 1967 Starring Michael Caine, Ed Begley Jr., Francoise Dorleac and Karl Malden Directed by Ken Russell Cold War indeed! This is the third in the Caine spy films, after ‘The Ipcress File’ and ‘Funeral in Berlin’, set during the cold war period and shot in frigid Finland, with no relief from endless vistas of ice and snow. There is a scene that is supposed to be a Texas barbeque on an oil field, but it’s so obviously shot in a Finnish back lot that it’s a source of much chilly merriment. You can almost see the hoe-downer’s frozen breath, and those aren’t cowboy boots, they’re comrade boots. Francoise Dorleac, Catherine Deneuve’s older sister, stars as a counter spy in her final screen performance. Not long after making ‘Billion Dollar Brain’, Dorleac was killed in a car crash in Nice. There is also a giant, football field sized computer (the billion dollar brain) which has been programmed to wage war against the Communists, the dream of a Texas oilman (Begley). The computer is so big you have to look at your Palm Pilot and giggle. Okay, the story. Caine is a former British spy, now a detective who can’t make ends meet. He accepts a job to accompany some eggs to a man in Finland. Sounds straightforward. But is soon becomes apparent he is inadvertently working for many masters, and Dorleac’s beautiful blonde, is the snare. It’s interesting, if dated, with Caine a less tom-cattish Bond type figure. In 1967, Caine was at the top of his sex symbol phase and while it seems he’s striving for bigger and better things here, his charm is in good supply.

DVD 'The Man with the Screaming Brain’ Starring Bruce Campbell, Steacy Keach Bruce Campbell is an acquired taste, but once you’ve found him, you’ll be hooked. Celebrated as having the best headshot in Hollywood, thanks to his sturdy chin and even features recalling the cartoon Superman, he is also a witty and imaginative screenwriter and spirited, if not hugely talented, actor. Campbell’s films are riotous, and give horror a good name. They are often satirical, tongue in cheek and. unexpectedly jaw droppingly funny. Such is the case with ‘The Man with the Screaming Brain’ a horror flavored thriller which finds our 6’, 2” hero, dressed in fluorescent stripes, with a shaven and scarred head, riding a tiny pink Vespa with streamers flying in the wind. He is an American industrialist in Bulgaria to profit from the fall of Communism. His cab driver is a former KGB operative. When they’re both killed by their lovers, the evil Dr. Ivanov (Keach) uses a drug to meld their brains into the body of the Yankee. He calls his method the Lincoln Logs way. So we have the capitalist and communist duking it out in screamingly funny sequences.’ The Main with the Screaming Brain’ was shot in Sofia, Bulgaria and Campbell makes the most of it in bringing lots of fresh ideas, pumping new life intro a tired genre. A must see.

'Thumbsucker’ Starring Lou Taylor Pucci, Keanu Reeves, Vince Vaughn, Vincent D’Onofrio, Tilda Swinton, Benjamin Bratt. Directed by Mike Mills. An intriguing and bizarre coming of age film about a seventeen year old boy who sucks his thumb. His habit is exasperating to his parents (D’Onofrio and Swinton) who try every method to stop from writing their names on his thumb to pop psychology. His parents are alarmingly so out of synch with their son that there is no hope of him improving while he lives under their roof. It’s a vivid picture of growing up, with ramifications for all our lives.

‘In Her Shoes’ Starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine. Despite what you’re hearing, including director Curtis Hanson’s protests, this most certainly IS a chick flick. Come on, who’s zooming who? Two sisters navigate their relationship, their lives and emotions in a world infused with candy coloured shoes, clothes, Florida retirement homes and retirees. It’s a pleasant and moving picture, full of heart and humour.

‘Where the Truth Lies’ Starring Colin Firth, Kevin Bacon and Alison Lohman Directed by Atom Egoyan. It’s about shifting loyalties, deceit, revenge and hopelessly broken people. It’s complicated, it’s unfocused and it seriously compromises our suspension of disbelief. The film’s had middling reviews since debuting at Cannes, but interest has been renewed by the NC-17 rating. Hmmm.

DVD Review ‘Greta Garbo: the Signature Collection’ marking Garbo’s 100^th Birthday. The Guinness Book of Records once named Garbo the Most Beautiful Woman Who Ever Lived. But what remains remarkable about this Swedish born icon is the total privacy of her final fifty years. After experiencing world wide fame and fortune, Garbo dropped out of sight, living in a New York apartment as a recluse. The films here are ‘Queen Christina’, ‘Ninotchka’, ‘Anna Christie’, Camille’, ‘Anna Karenina’, ‘Mata Hari’, ‘Grand Hotel’, ‘The Flesh and the Devil’, an additional silent version of ‘Camille’, ‘The Temptress’ and ‘The Mysterious Lady’. Also included is a wonderful documentary on Garbo. The collection was released on the occasion of what would have been her 100^th birthday last month.

DVD Review ‘Law and Order: Special Victims Unit – The Second Year’ Starring Mariska Hargitay, Chris Meloni, Richard Belzer, Ice-T, B.D.Wong. The ‘Special Victims’ Unit of the ‘Law and Order’ is in its fourth year now, chugging along with equal strength of the rest of the franchise. Its stories are sometimes ripped from the headlines, sometimes dreamed up by the geniuses of the Dick Wolfe writing camp. But they are invariably fascinating, albeit disturbing, considering the Special Unit investigates the vilest crimes on the New York City police blotters, often concerning sex attacks. Especially memorable is the episode guest starring Margot Kidder and Chad Lowe as mother and son too close for comfort, as they scam wealthy dependants, inspired by the real life Kimes case.

‘Separate Lies’. Starring Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson and Rupert Everett. Directed by Julian Fellowes. The film opens with an aerial shot looking down on a peaceful, green and idyllic English village. All seems right in the world. This looks like a place where people can live lives of gentle contemplation, security and relative ease. A few minutes in, it’s clear that all is not well in this suburban enclave and security is an illusion.. It’s a remarkable film from Fellowes, the brains behind the elegant soap operas, ‘Gosford Park’. It’s a deceptively quiet film, whose fury is released in baby steps. You’ll come out of the theatre breathless.

‘Proof’ Starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, Jake Gyllenhaal and Hope Davis. Paltrow does the best work of her career in ‘Proof’ a role she knows, after starring in the London West End production. Her character believes she has inherited her father’s mental illness and is paralyzed by her fears. Imagine Paltrow playing the role every night, tears falling down her cheeks, feeling the pain of it, especially having lost her own father, Bruce, prior to filming “Proof’. Her acting is so immediate, it feels as though she is sitting next to us and we are unable to help. It becomes painful to watch, her performance is so real. And it will surely bring her an Academy Award nomination, if not a win.

The Thing About My Folks!’ Starring Paul Reiser, Peter Falk and Olympia Dukakis. Paul Reiser has written what he says is ‘semi-auto-biographical’ tale of a father and son thrown into close proximity when the son’s mother disappears, with nothing but a note stuck to the fridge. This proximity reveals that they have nothing in common, that they have barely exchanged any meaningful words in the fifty-odd years they’ve known each other. The film is meant to be a valentine of sorts to Reiser’s father, but whether regular people speak like they do in the script, it is a never ending blame fest, which makes us squirm in discomfort, hoping against hope fathers and sons don’t treat each other the way they do. It’s an ugly and unfunny process, as they try to hash out fifty years of mis-steps and misunderstandings.

DVD Review ‘Ben Hur’. Starring Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd Directed by William Wyler. A gigantic set comprising the entire four hours of the 1959 film version, which won an astonishing eleven Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Heston, Best Director for Wyler and Best Picture. Miklos Rosza penned the still breathtaking score and won an Oscar for his work, including the rowing scene in which the Christian slaves rowed a battle ship in unison under an ever faster drum beat. Ben Hur was part of a trend of epic Bible films of the late fifties that included ‘King of Kings’, ‘Spartacus’ and many more. The sprawling story which is not based on a Bible story, covers episodes from the Bible including the Nativity and the Crucifixion and features a famous, adrenaline fuelled chariot race so real you almost choke on the dust. Two boyhood friends grow up into different men – one becomes a slave, the other, a ruler – who become mortal enemies. The set also includes the 1925 silent version of the story and documentaries on the film’s making and history. It’s sad to think that Heston, who is battling Alzheimer’s disease, can’t participate in the launch of the film that became his ticket to stardom and an icon of epic creative endeavour. It may be apocryphal, but I heard a gladiator’s watch can be seen in the film, as well as an airliner contrail. There is much for the eye to relish in ‘Ben Hur’ and the heart as well.

DVD Review ‘Carlito’s Way’ Starring Al Pacino, Sean Penn and Luis Guzman. This gritty 1993 New York gangster film concerns legendary criminal Carlito Brigante and the final few months of his life. It’s to whet audience appetites for the release of the pre-quel this fall of ‘Carlito’s Way: Rise to Power’ on DVD, but without Pacino and Penn, it will have to be special to beat the original. Pacino really is a force of nature and brings his character world weary wisdom, while retaining his strength. He has been acquitted on four major drugs offenses, thanks to the workings of his shifty mob-connected lawyer David Kleinfeld (Penn). In the tradition of the street, Carlito now owes Kleinfeld. Carlito, a dealer and murderer, has vowed to lead a new clean life, and dreams of a job renting cars in the Bahamas. He just has to earn a little cash. Temptation to return to his prior ways is intense, former colleagues, enemies, friends and even his family urge him to get back in while he still has clout. But he is steadfast. Until Kleinfeld asks him for a favour, which will most certainly end in a return to prison or death. It’s a riveting story with great performances by Pacino, an Afro’ed Penn and various side characters seen regularly on the ‘Law and Order’ franchises. ‘Carlito’s Way’ was largely ignored in 1993, but bears a look today.

DVD Review ’No Direction Home Bob Dylan: A Martin Scorsese Picture’ two discs. One of the most awaited music-related discs has finally landed! The notoriously private Bob Dylan has not only written the first of his memoirs, now there is a filmed companion piece of sorts, put together by Scorsese and documenting Robert Zimmerman’s beginnings to Bob Dylan’s superstardom up to 1966. Dylan speaks at length in his unique poetic and roundabout manner and tells us what it’s like being a living legend. He did not name himself after Dylan Thomas and in fact, has no recollection of why he picked the name, although he suggests he was nothing until the name change. He seems to have little emotional connection to his early years, hence the title, saying he couldn’t wait to get out Hibbing, Minnesota, that he felt he’d been born to the wrong parents. . The double disc includes rare performances, including Dylan’s first radio and TV performances and even a taped song he sang with his neighbour in Hibbing at the age of sixteen.

It’s Heath Ledger Time! ‘A Knight’s Tale’ and ‘Lords of Dogtown’ As Heath Ledger’s star ascends thanks to the upcoming big movies (and Oscar hopefuls) ‘Brokeback Mountain’ and ‘Casanova’, Sony reminds of us his beginnings in ‘A Knight’s Tale’ and ‘Lords of Dogtown’, from the not too distant past. Ledger first got our attention as Mel Gibson’s son in ‘The Patriot’ and through his tabloid fodder romances with Naomi Watts, Heather Graham and now, pregnant Michelle Williams, his ‘Brokeback Mountain’ co-star. As a young Australian who landed in Hollywood, Ledger submitted to all kinds of roles, looking for his strengths. Among his pretty but limited roles were these two films, which cemented him as pretty, but limited. He played respectively, a rock ‘n’ roll knight and a rock ‘n’ roll seventies skater boy which got him noticed, and ultimately got him the serious roles he craved. He finds his stride in ‘Brokeback Mountain’ in a confident and well done performance. This reporter spoke with him in Toronto during the International Film Festival and found him to be reflective serious and keen to be respected for his work. He will be. And it’s a lot of fun to see where it began.

DVD Review ‘The Spiral Staircase’ Starring Dorothy McGuire, George Brent and Ethel Barrymore A nice, tight thriller about a mute servant girl terrorized by a serial killer who may live very close by. It seems someone has been knocking off local girls ‘with afflictions’ in a town in an unknown country at the turn of the century. The mute Helen is the light of the house, with her gay spirit and kind ways and we come to care for her. Her employer, the bed-ridden and imposing Mrs.Warren (Barrymore) warns her to be careful and look about when she leaves the house. The house itself does not feel a safe place to be, as there are shadowy corners and a tomb like basement featuring hidden doors. Mrs. Warren’s two sons live with her. They are as different as night and day and soon our suspicion falls on the less likeable one. Helen dotes on Mrs. Warren and they exchange secrets and aspirations, but when Mrs. Warren begs her to leave the house, Helen refuses to leave her alone and defenseless. Mrs. Warren knows something. And if Helen is threatened, she can’t call out or phone anyone for help. The suspense grows as she climbs down the spiral staircase …. A solid and satisfyingly chilling story that Hitchcock fans should enjoy.

DVD

The 40 year old Virgin’ ^{Steve Carell} is a career movie thief – he robbed Will Ferrell in ‘Anchorman’ and ‘Bewitched’ and stole ‘Bruce Almighty’ from Jim Carrey. As a former reporter for ‘The Daily Show’ you’ve probably seen him playing a Ted Knight-inspired newsman. His wicked, piercing comic style is unique and frankly welcome. He also stars as the horrible boss in the American version of the TV series ‘The Office’. Carell’s life of crime is over – he finally has a feature to call his own. There are so many fabulously funny scenes here – a real treat from the summer’s decidedly unfunny offerings. It’s good just to sit back and laugh at crude but witty jokes, see four male friends bond and track the Virgin’s sex sojourn. But be warned, it isn’t for youngsters. And some adults may be too squeamish to watch with their older kids.

'Last Days’This is Gus Van Sant’s long awaited mediation on the last days of Seattle grunge God Kurt Cobain. There are disclaimers that the story is fictional as are the characters, but it’s not altogether true. Many of the actors in the film play characters with their own names.The film is dedicated to Cobain who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on his estate a few years back, sparking a wave of conspiracy theories. Did his wife Courtney Love order a hit on him or drive him insane? Did his ne-er do well friends kill him because he wouldn’t give them any more money? Watching is a strange experience that only serves to highlight the reality that there are few reasons to get famous. According to Blake, fame will make you lonely, used, psychotic, and scared and ultimately throw you off the stage.

‘My Date with Drew’^Herzlinger is an unemployed documentary filmmaker who wins $1,100 on a TV game show and decides to spend it fulfilling his lifelong dream of getting a date with Drew Barrymore. Ironically, the winning answer on the game show was ‘Drew Barrymore’. He and a couple of extremely patient friends decide to document his sojourn on videotape, with a spending limit of $1,100 and thirty days to do the deed. It’s a two-edged sword. We feel a kind of admiration for someone with absolutely no prospects, pursuing a dream, and a kind of repugnance for this ageing Peter Pan who has roped dozens of people into focusing on his crush on a movie star. Presumably, they’re helping him so they get a part in his doco. They do, too. It’s full of people who have done Herzlinger favours.

'The Aristocrats' Starring One Hundred Comedians from Robin Williams to Bob Saget, and Shelley Berman to The Mime.‘Guy walks into a talent agent’s office.’There’s been more talk about this film than most this year. And with good reason, you’ll either love it or hate it – there is no in between. A huge, stellar cast and one joke, retold at least one hundred times, different every time. And the sum total is – boredom. The film was shot over four years using up to 100 hours of footage. It would have made a terrific twenty-minute short. ‘The Aristocrats’ runs 86 minutes.

‘Rize’A jolting and vivid look at an emerging dance lifestyle in south central.‘Rize’ is peripherally political, but it’s also a joyous celebration of good intention and the life force.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey’ Surely one of the most impressive casts to gather in one spot in recent memory. Oscar winners and massive talents offer much in this film version of Thornton Wilder’s devastating novella. Wilder’s simply told and effective work looks at a priest on trial for blasphemy. He dared to catalogue the reasons for the deaths of five people when the bridge they were crossing collapsed, sending them into a mountain gorge. It is based on an actual event July 20^th, 1714 in Peru. All this star power and a deeply moving novella as the source material and – they wrecked it! The uneven tone and exaggerated language removes the sting from the event and flattens the novella’s intent. Why oh, why can’t they make a decent film out of a Wilder property? Tacking a new ending on ‘Our Town’? Please.

‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ A delicious, delightful confection with a twist of weird, a dollop of Busby Berkeley and the promise of great things. And they only used 244,000 gallons of chocolate. Depp, who doesn’t actually appear until an hour or so into the film, has created yet another extraordinary characterization in Willy Wonka, the chocolate factory owner. He is a devilish cross between Will and Grace’ ‘Just Jack’, Marilyn Manson and a kid-friendly vampire. His fabulous look is timeless, featuring Edwardian costuming, a youthfully plump face and perfect, fake choppers. Tim Burton’s gonzo style and offbeat sensibilities have never been more appealing. The inconsistencies of some of his darker, scarier films have been ironed out in this super-bright happy world.

‘Metallic Blues’ Danny Verete’s life long ambition to make a film that addressed the common man’s view of the relationship between Israelis and Germans comes to fruition here. He says he didn’t want a revenge tale about confronting a 98-year-old Nazi, but something ordinary people could relate to about an extraordinary idea – the relationship between ‘the hanger and the hanged’, those who still process the holocaust, sixty years later. Part of the films appeal is the talented duo of Kushnir and Ivgy, two of Israel’s most beloved and respected actors who can bring tremendous meaning and spirit to small moments.

‘The Wedding Crashers’ Vince Vaughn is omni-present and spectacularly hilarious these days, giving forgettable films a huge injection of cool and wit. He makes an hysterical, uncredited cameo in ‘Bewitched’ and made ‘Be Cool’ and ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ worth watching. Now he’s in leading man country, with his longtime collaborator and co-star Owen Wilson in ‘The Wedding Crashers’. It’s subversively funny and over the top, but its smart, original and tasty. Wilson and Vaughn is an acquired taste for some. There’s in ‘inside quality’ to their chemistry that threatens accessibility at first, but things get ironed out and it’s off to the races.

'Dark Water’ Yet another horror film from a team of writers behind ‘The Ring’ and ‘The Grudge’, who are clearly obsessed with images of black hair and scary eyes floating in dark, deep waters. While ‘Ringu’, ‘The Ring’, ‘Ju-On’ and The Grudge’ worked, ‘Dark Water’ doesn’t. It is a mean rehash of the thrilling elements that made the originals unique. It’s just hair and it’s just water.

‘Heights’ A fascinating and dark ensemble story about four New Yorkers whose lives join to create the perfect storm over the course of 24 hours. It’s not a new format, but “heights’ does it differently, with reverence for storytelling and character definition. We feel like voyeurs as we watch a Meryl Streep-like actor, an aspiring actor/hunk, a photographer and a writer sputter, nearly drown and then decide not to. Figuratively speaking. It’s unusual summer fare, heavy, disciplined and beautifully acted.

‘Come Back Little Sheba’ DVD Starring Shirley Booth, Burt Lancaster and Terry Moore This sad domestic tale based on William Inge’s play will rip your heart out and serve it to you on a platter. Booth won the Best Actress Academy Award, the Golden Globe, the BAFTA and a Special mention at the Cannes Film festival playing Lola Delaney. At one time the prettiest girl around, Lola is now a fat, frumpy and childless housefrau, married to an alcoholic chiropractor with a lot of regrets. As the film opens, Doc has been sober for a year and Lola dotes on him, always making up for her past sins. Things are humdrum, until a flirtatious and manipulative young art student moves in. Doc feels things he hasn’t felt in years, while an unaware Lola looks on Marie (Moore) as a daughter. When Marie elopes, Doc has to face the truth and his future. Lancaster seems woefully miscast, too jaded, handsome and regal for the life he’s living. Booth dominates the film, with a natural and powerful talent honed over decades as a stage actress. We feel her terror when Doc goes on a drunken rampage and her sadness at the disappearance of her puppy Sheba. This is an emotional powerhouse, told in a simple narrative way that is so 1952 and yet so timeless.

‘Marlon Brando Collection’ Another of Universal’s terrific Franchise Collection series on classic film stars. It’s hard to image, almost exactly one year to the day of his death, how brilliant Marlon Brando was. In his heyday, Brando was gifted, slim, trim, dynamic and sensual, with a smoldering presence. In his final years, he was obese and out-of-control, saddened by his children’s sordid lives and finding solace with his housekeepers

The Last Mogul: Life and Times of Lew Wasserman’ Johnny Carson once emceed a Wasserman tribute, opening with ‘Why are we all here?’ He answered himself ‘Fear.’One of Wasserman’s hits was putting Steven Spielberg on the Universal payroll, giving him ‘Jaws’ the biggest success the studio ever saw, despite the fact Spielberg didn’t want it. ‘The Sting’, ‘Airplane’ and helped put Universal pull out of the doldrums, just as Japanese businessmen were taking over. Onetime powerful agent Michael Ovitz had been wooing them for years, behind Wasserman’s back, and Wasserman could not fight back. And then came Montreal’s Edgar Bronfman, Jr. and finally Vivendi, a French power company. His days were done; he was a ‘lion in winter’.This bio is a rarity, as Ovitz actually submits to a detailed interview. Also candid in their interviews are dozens of movers and shakers, from Garth Drabinsky, Jack Valenti, Dominick Dunne, Peter Bart, Alan Ladd, Jr., Richard Zanuck and David Brown, Larry King and lots more.

‘Must Love Dogs’ What a surprise! Since when has Hollywood been doing big budget romances for the 40-plus crowd? Well, now. Real life forty year old Diane Lane plays a forty year old divorce ‘victim’ whose family is so dead set on hooking her up with a man, that they stage an interference, I mean, intervention. Each clutches pictures of friends they ‘know’ she’ll love. Ghastly. There’s a funny moment when one of Jake’s dates, who’s 23, says she doesn’t mind the age difference, after all, isn’t Justin Timberlake dating Cameron Diaz, who is ‘like a hundred or something?’ It’s the last thing you expect from former screen hotties Lane and Cusack, but they, too, are getting on up there, like the rest of us. It’s nice to see a good story out of Hollywood focusing on their lives, even if there are no crashes, high tech gadgetry, random killings or gratuitous sex scenes. There are unfortunately, a few cheesy scenes with heart tugging string instruments working us up into a lather.

‘Bewitched’ Not much substance, not that much is expected, considering the source material. The series and the film are eye and brain candy. Why pretend there it is anything else? And for what it sets out to do, it succeeds. It’s light, amusing, funny, charming and girlish.The star ghost of the film is Elizabeth Montgomery, who photo and videotapes are show extensively throughout the film.

Layer Cake’ A riveting genre picture, directed by Claudia Schiffer’s husband, who took over when Madonna’s husband Guy Ritchie, dropped out. Vaughn’s film is influenced by Ritchie’s ‘Lock, Stock and Three Smoking Barrels’ style and uses some of Ritchie’s ensemble. But ‘Layer Cake’ is a stand-alone, a thrilling and intelligent character study and drama. No one does crime films like the Brits, say I. Check out ' Intermission’, ‘The Fourth Protocol’, ‘Snatch’ and ‘The Long Good Friday’ for starters. ‘Layer Cake’ opens with a hard-hitting narration by XXXX, as he goes about his daily jobs, and expounds on the wisdom of riding above the ‘real criminals’. XXXX, played by the fabulous British actor Craig, considers himself a businessman, whose commodity happens to be cocaine. at that level disgusts him.

‘The Bette Davis Collection’ ‘The Joan Crawford Collection’ Warner Brothers has a healthy sense of irony, releasing five disc collections of films starring two fierce Hollywood rivals, Davis and Crawford and omitting the only film in which they starred together ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?’ That’s the sixties horror exploitation flick in which they finally got to tear each other apart – legally, also a Warner Brothers production. The delights of the collections is hard to beat for sheer glorious, well dressed and over the top melodrama. Crawford, so vain that she was nearly always cast opposite men much younger than she, and Davis, so cool, with such biting sarcasm. Both invoked fear on film sets, both were driven by perfectionist zeal and both gave studio heads headaches. But their films! Absolute delights. The Davis Collection features ‘Mrs. Skeffington’, ‘Dark Victory’, ‘Now Voyager’, ‘The Letter’ and ‘The Star’ shows us Davis’ from imperious ingénue to washed up, broken and drunk actress, Davis nails ‘em all. Crawford’s haughty manner and camera friendly face are underlined in ‘The Women’, ‘Possessed’, ‘Mildred Pierce’, ‘Humoresque’ and ‘The Damned Don’t Cry’ (‘Call me cheap?’ ‘Nothing’s cheap when you pay the price she’s paying!’). Schlock, classic camp, film noir, period drama, it’s all here in these irresistible bundles, two Queens of Hollywood who made it with guts and drive, one from the good side of town, the other from the wrong side of the tracks, who lived long lives and married often. Both with ungrateful daughters who wrote smear bios and both brought down to earth in forgettable horror flicks at the end of their careers. Two five packs show us these ladies at the top of their considerable games.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith

I can’t begin to fathom the film’s body count. It’s somewhere between appalling and dumb. I’d say at least a hundred dead bodies in 120 minutes. Others die or at least drop when hit, but the Smiths just keep on going, hitting, firing, exploding each other and everything around them. They’re walking wounded, and of course, when things couldn’t get any more brutal they But be warned. This is a mean-minded slaughter film and we’re expected to laugh.

Cinderella Man’ ^Even the hardest – hearted moviegoer will be moved by this tale of courage and determination. Jim Braddock was a New Jersey boxer during the Great Depression. He’d been a star, but a humiliating defeat knocked him out of the ring. Russell Crowe looks sickly and thin reflecting the Depression era poverty of the period. But he’s as emotionally agile as ever, in this difficult and complex part.

Mondovino’ A Jonathan Nossiter Film

Former sommelier turned moviemaker Jonathan Nossiter’s riveting study of the globalisation of the wine industry is a sobering tale. So what is wine to launch such passions? According to Nossiter it is ‘the clearest expression of the Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman traditions. Rather than preserving these traditions as rigid artifacts, it keeps them fluid, vital and modern. Wine is a kind of guardian of Western Civilization.’

‘Sabah Sabah is the eldest daughter in a Muslim family living in downtown Toronto. She is her mother’s constant companion, tied for all time to the family, expected to be there, do everything for the others and bury her own life. Renowned Canadian actor Khanjian, who is director Atom Egoyan’s wife and frequent collaborator, is a free spirited kind of gal, but finds something in herself to play this shy, repressed and numb woman.

‘The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’ It’s coming-of-age time in the world of four girlfriends, whose mother met in neo natal classes some 17 years earlier. Their bond is rock solid in this fun film that looks honestly at the way girls interact and grow. Two of the young actresses are particularly good – Amber Tamblyn, Russ Tamblyn’s daughter and the star of ‘Joan of Arcadia’ is polished and professional, making the most of small gestures and expressions. Also noteworthy is America Ferrera, who was a knockout in the film ‘Real Women Have Curves’. Lively is a newcomer who should do well in the California bronze goddess roles, and ‘The Gilmore Girls’ Alexis Bledel, who looks far too young for her part and has some difficulty in making it ring true. ‘Star Wars: Episode 111 - Revenge of the Sith’ Where to start! ‘Star Wars creator and protector George Lucas was quoted as saying he didn’t think fans would like this, the final installment of the 28 year old franchise. It’s too dark and sad, he says, it’s not what the fans have experienced thus far. It is dark and it is sad, and that’s why finally, there is good news about ‘Star Wars’. Episodes 1 and 11 were stinkers, from any angle, and this one, although vastly different, is finally good and worthy of the earlier trilogy. The darkness and sadness gives the franchise a much-needed edge.

Monster-in-Law’There’s much to anticipate here – Jane Fonda’s return to film after retiring fifteen years ago. And Lopez’ chance to prove herself after a string of squeakers. Two divas from different eras – was there tension, jealousy, sabotage? Were there catfights and evidence to support claims Fonda bruised Lopez in a slap sequence? What fun!

‘Palindromes’ It’s a technique that is wonderfully provocative. Solondz uses seven different actors play thirteen-year-old Aviva. Soldonz knew his film wouldn’t be backed by a studio – so he used his life savings , from five previous films, to fund ‘Palindromes’. All his films are full of heart, sometimes disguised, sometimes strange looking , but it’s there, right alongside the filmmaker’s total faith in humanity.

‘Mindhunters’ the latest in the current trend of never-ending, low budget, dumb horror movies. there are some moments of awe in response to neatly choreographed stunts, but one or two of these does not a movie make. Apparently, someone had a clever stunt idea and built a movie around it.

‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ The transference to film makes the written flights of fancy concrete and dimensional. The magic is lost and the movie seems unending. It would have been a better project in its time, because now the Monty Python flavour seems stale and the emphasis on special effects gratuitous. And the wrong reasons to green light the movie in the first place. It is out of step and out of time. .

'The Interpreter’ Sean Penn outdoes himself playing a Secret Service agent, whose wife was killed in a car crash two weeks previous to the action. His face never reveals his fragile state until the character reveals it. Penn is pitch perfect in the role; he has a remarkable gravitas that graces the roles he chooses. Nicole Kidman has done wonderful work as a UN translator who happens to overhear an assassination plot against the dictator of the African country where she grew up. ‘The Interpreter’ is a top rate thriller that is never predictable and relentlessly entertaining.

‘The Ballad of Jack and Rose’ Starring Daniel-Day Lewis, Camille Belle, Jason Lee. Written and directed by Rebecca Miller.

Daniel Day-Lewis came out of retirement for this. He has no plans to make another movie yet – so if you’re a fan, try to see ‘The Ballad of Jack and Rose’. He is mesmerizing, even if the film is not. Lewis’s performance is so beautifully created that he gives the film more elegance and truth than it deserves

'The Amityville Horror'It's a remake of the original film, starring Alanis Morrisette’s beau, Ryan Reynolds and an unknown Aussie actress by name of Melissa George, which tells us something about the film’s budget. It may do well, because there is a generation or two out there that doesn’t know about the Amityville films. However, its just the latest in a series of forgettable films of the same name about unhappy homeowners.

‘Siblings’ It’s not a new story, but ‘Sibling’s tells it in an all-new way. We’ve seen children raising themselves after the deaths of their parents, but none tells the tale with the wallop and bang of ‘Siblings’. To call it a dark comedy is a beginning in the right direction, but it’s also a bitingly astute observations on how the sins of the father, etc…‘Siblings’ is cleverly executed and scathingly funny…a winner.

‘Don’t Move’ A maddening film that takes us from cruelty, rape and disgust to tender love, gentleness and longing. Penelope Cruz is wonderful in the role of Italia, back in her familiar Mediterranean milieu, making art house films with visionary European directors. Cruz has always been good, when she chooses the right films. Check out Pedro Almovador’s ‘All About My Mother’ in which she plays a nun.

‘Saint Ralph’A charming film that dares to be hard headed and feature a kid who breaks all the rules. Ralph Walker, played by newcomer, the wonderful Adam Butcher, wants to run the Boston Marathon. ‘Saint Ralph’ is a beautifully acted film with a terrific ensemble of actors, it’s funny, its teary and it’s got a whole lot of heart.

‘Fever Pitch’ The Farrellys have gone mainstream! Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The Brothers behind ‘Shallow hall’, ‘Dumb and Dumber’, ‘There’s Something About Mary’ have racked up excellent pointage in the teen gross out comedy arena, this time, they’re closer to their own age range, non-filthy mouthed and well, safer. They’ve had such a smooth transition into classier films, which shows that funny guys can grow old gracefully in Hollywood and in Hollywood North.‘Sahara’

Sahara If ever a film pleasantly surprised me this year, it is ‘Sahara’. Judging from the trailers, I expected a big, overblown, rippled muscle–a–thon with swelling orchestrations, a tiny perfect and good heroine and impossible and unbelievable situations. Sahara is all of that, but it doesn’t matter. It’s FUN.

‘The World’ A bold and inventive film that looks at the destruction of the old China as it becomes Westernized and moves farther from its pure Communist roots. We have been raised on pictures and news stories from China showing that the image of a submissive, militaristic population ruled. Not so, according to this film set in a bizarre tourist attraction on the suburbs of Beijing called ‘The World’. Two friends ask each other about their businesses, they joke that they won’t be poor because China is full of people who need things. Suddenly capitalism looks pretty good. The characters are a fascinating mix of low-income western wannabes and born militants who will be quaint in the coming capitalistic version of China.

‘Beauty Shop’ Starring Queen Latifah, Djimon Hounsou, Kevin Bacon, Sherri Shepherd and Alicia Silverstone. Djimon Hounsou, the captivating French born star of ‘Four Feathers’ and ‘Gladiator’ plays nearly the same character he played to great acclaim in Jim Sheridan’s ‘In America’. What a weird thing to do. But he gives the Queen her first onscreen kiss, and it’s his, too. I saw the film in an early word-of-mouth screening and the audience was nearly rolling in the aisles laughing. It’s not necessarily politically correct humour, but it does amuse, and the zany characters and their seemingly mundane lives are rich with spirit and community‘Downfall’ Bruno Ganz as Hitler is astonishing. He studied seven minutes of audiotape of Hitler and chatting after a dinner party and spun off an amazing characterization of the most hated man in modern history. It’s hard to imagine the darkness Ganz and Hirshbiegel must have walked through to get there.As an audience member you walk through that same darkness, distilled into two and a half hours of solid evil. It is very nearly unbearable to watch.

‘the ring twO’ The big difference between ‘the ring’ one and two is that there is more laughter in the sequel - and its purely unintentional. Somehow the lines don’t work as well and the images are retreads. There are a couple of truly shocking sequences, but in all, ‘the ring twO’ is an inferior horror story, that leans too heavily on the original and implodes upon itself.

‘Melinda and Melinda’ A clever idea from Allen about seeing the funny or the tragic side of life. It opens as four Manhattanites discuss theatre and film around a bistro dinner table. Two are writers, one specializing in comedy, the other in tragedy. A third member of the party challenges them to defend their points of view. Woody Allen’s great ear for capturing dialogue successfully blends the two stories without splitting our attention.

‘Guess Who’ ‘Guess Who’ is not a remake as much as a riff on the original landmark drama ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’. It’s not even a drama. After all, Ashton Kutcher and Bernie Mac are no Spencer Tracy and Sidney Poitier. But ‘Guess Who’ is an amiable enough film that’s entertaining and mostly appropriate for the whole family.

Steamboy’ A grand and ambitious anime project set in London during the first Great Exhibition of 1851 in London and the Industrial revolution. Imagine how the advent of machines must have felt to the average person, monstrous iron, ugly, noisy and unthinking giants putting people out of work and dominating the landscape. This Japanese cartoon trades on that sense of dread and the unknown as rival groups of inventors scramble to introduce pressurized steam as the wave of the future. It stands as an imaginative first step in the long journey to where we are today. The rise of corporate greed and the lack of humanity in an ever increasingly industrial, technical society and the waging of wars for the enrichment of the few.

‘Malevolence’ This low-budget horror chiller is thankfully special effects free and tells a story that will have audiences hiding under their chairs. The second in a trilogy of films revisits original ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ territory in its plot conventions and cinematic simplicity. Special affects films are rarely scary or even moving because there is the underlying knowledge that CGI artists have taken the story telling medium and painted it into perfection. ‘Malevolence’ uses just the dim lights of abandoned couple of farmhouses, broken down cars and a handful of characters to achieve its considerable scary success.

‘Diary of a Mad Black Woman’ Writer, director and starring as three different characters, Tyler Perry is pretty impressive. Seven years ago, he was homeless after escaping his abusive father, living on the streets of Atlanta, writing plays. The film’s promising story is severely compromised by the film’s scattered focus. It’s like the weather in Chicago; if you don’t like it now, wait five minutes. It’s going to change. From a morality tale to a slapstick comedy romp to a tear-soaked melodrama and gospel chorus redemption, it’s unpredictable to a fault.

‘The Jacket’ John Maybury directed a small, obscure and expressionistic jewel called ‘Love is the devil’, back in 1998. It looked at the fractured life of painter Francis Bacon. Maybury’s highly stylized use of light and camerawork was arresting. He uses that signature style again in ‘The Jacket’, his first film since 1998, for bosses Section Eight Pictures founders Steven Soderberg and George Clooney. .This convoluted story is just too much work. Other, better films are more work, but ‘The Jacket’ is too heavy-footed for its own good, and the twist and turns become annoyances and finally grievances.

'Bride and Prejudice’ Can’t get this joyous, exciting, sexy and colourful film out of my head. Don’t want to. Same with colleagues who saw the film at an advance screening …how can films so innocent, yet sensual still work today? The film’s the contemporary Punjabi version of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and she gets a writing credit! film is a feast for the eyes and heart. The characters are often eating, singing and dancing, wearing swirling, brightly coloured silks and gold jewelry, enjoying life as we in the urban west often forgotten. Families are tight, and they spend time together. It’s a delicious life.

Katharine Hepburn in ‘Stage Door’ 1937, ‘Bringing Up Baby’ 1938 and ‘The Philadelphia Story’ 1940 JJea Harlow in ‘Dinner at Eight’ 1933 and ‘Libeled Lady’ 1936Warner releases a quintet of not-to-be-missed MGM screwball classics starring two of Hollywood’s most important and influential actresses. ‘Stage Door’ is the only semi-serious film in the bunch, and features Lucille Ball, Ginger Rogers, Eve Arden and Ann Miller and Hepburn as aspiring actresses living in a theatrical boarding house, with all the joys, wit, charm, sharpened nails and shattered dreams that can be dreamed by a houseful of competitors. Hepburn’s natural wit and grace are the keynotes of ‘The Philadelphia Story’ and ‘Bringing Up Baby’ two outrageous comedies that skitter across the screen on fast talk and gorgeous rich folks.Harlow’s wit was also used to advantage in her pictures. She glows as a floozy who dines with a motley crew of industrialists, aristocrats, gold-diggers and thugs and teaches them a thing or two about real people. She is paired with her real life lover William Powell in the delightful ‘Libeled Lady’, in which she is engaged to Spencer Tracy, but falls for Powell when she is forced to marry him to save her fiancé’s paper. Unfortunately, Harlow died of nephritis at age 26 before Bill popped the question. Powell continued his great success in ‘The Thin Man’ series with ‘Libeled Lady’ co-star Myrna Loy. And Spencer Tracy went on to decades of life shared with Katharine Hepburn.

'Inside Deep Throat’ The highest grossing film of all time is not ‘Titanic’ or ‘E.T.’ or ‘Star Wars’ or ‘The Sixth Sense’. No, it is a little movie that took 6 days and $23,000 to make. ‘Deep Throat’, made in 1972 earned $600-million, becoming the most successful film ever made. One hundred and seventeen people were charged with conspiracy in the making and distributing of the film, and the ‘mob’ was implicated in financial improprieties around it. Very colorful indeed. The documentary also posits that orders to shut down the film and the people who made it, came directly from the White House, and President Nixon, who later stepped down for his role in his own little conspiracy - Watergate.

Beyond the Sea - I’m sure there is more to this ambitious project than sheer vanity, but it stinks of it. I like Bobby Darin as much as the next person, And I often admire Spacey’s work. It’s just that these two don’t go together like birds of a feather. “Beyond the Sea” does a fine cultural service, however. It re-introduces us to the scary, brilliant and era-defining song, Darin’s rendition of “Mack the Knife”.

‘Bad Education’ - This is a film noir, in the classic sense, in which his identity and sex changes, in settling a score. Juan, Ignacio, Zahara, Angel, Gael Garcia Bernal plays them all with complete conviction. He is all over the moral map. Each scene offers us a new layer of disguise and secrecy, a new angle on the story we thought we knew. We keep peeling back information and masks to find more.

'Hotel Rwanda' ‘Hotel Rwanda’ tells the fact-based story of Paul Rusesabagina, the House Manager of a cosmopolitan, four star Belgian hotel in the capitol. Don Cheadle has created a character different from anything he’s done before, by changing his accent, vocal timbre, walk and mannerisms. Rusesabagina took care of hundreds of refugees during the civil war and genocide ten years ago in Rwanda. It’s a reminder how isolationist we are, and how wrong we have been.

DVD Review ‘The Sports Pages’ Starring Kelsey Grammer, Bob Newhart, Eugene Levy, George Plimpton, Helen Gurley Brown from Paramount. A hugely enjoyable double feature that’s as odd as it is entertaining.

“Finding Neverland” is a candy-coloured, nostalgic foray into a time we never knew, when things seemed to be nicer, finer and more civilized. It’s sweetly emotional and if you don’t watch out, you’ll be sitting there, tears streaming down your face.

“Lightning in a Bottle” One iconic performer after another, celebrating the blues while, during on night at Radio City Music Hall. It’s a humbling experience seeing these legends do their thing – from Odetta, Ruth Brown, Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown, Solomon Burke, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Honey boy Edwards to Jimi Hendrix.

“Kinsey” It’s an American Dream story. An individualistic man, going against the rules, a renegade, who struggles, makes a huge difference in ordinary lives, and then is brought down by outside forces. Kinsey was a major player in his time, but today, who knows who he is?

‘Alexander’ Oliver Stone’s nearly three-hour epic paints a dazzling picture of the ancient world. Nothing less than you would expect from the seething mind of the director, whose films emphasize and celebrate historic accuracy and excess. In fact, it is a film that is mostly visual and bloated. It’s a big and admirable undertaking, but it requires some restraint. As it is, ‘Alexander’ is exhausting and empty.

War of the Worlds’ ‘War of the Worlds’ is a revelation not only in creating emotion, but also in the art and craft of filmmaking, timing, pacing, cinematography and editing. How easily Spielberg makes us join and relate to the characters onscreen and the huge events they endure. Spielberg is at the top of his already mighty game here, and Cruise is so good in this decidedly anti-mainstream, but big-budget film you forget he is at the centre of a personal and public meltdown. It’s all about performance. Both score major career-confirming points. .

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‘Come Back Little Sheba’ DVD Starring Shirley Booth, Burt Lancaster and Terry Moore This sad domestic tale based on William Inge’s play will rip your heart out and serve it to you on a platter. Booth won the Best Actress Academy Award, the Golden Globe, the BAFTA and a Special mention at the Cannes Film festival playing Lola Delaney. At one time the prettiest girl around, Lola is now a fat, frumpy and childless housefrau, married to an alcoholic chiropractor with a lot of regrets. As the film opens, Doc has been sober for a year and Lola dotes on him, always making up for her past sins. Things are humdrum, until a flirtatious and manipulative young art student moves in. Doc feels things he hasn’t felt in years, while an unaware Lola looks on Marie (Moore) as a daughter. When Marie elopes, Doc has to face the truth and his future. Lancaster seems woefully miscast, too jaded, handsome and regal for the life he’s living. Booth dominates the film, with a natural and powerful talent honed over decades as a stage actress. We feel her terror when Doc goes on a drunken rampage and her sadness at the disappearance of her puppy Sheba. This is an emotional powerhouse, told in a simple narrative way that is so 1952 and yet so timeless.

‘Marlon Brando Collection’ Another of Universal’s terrific Franchise Collection series on classic film stars. It’s hard to image, almost exactly one year to the day of his death, how brilliant Marlon Brando was. In his heyday, Brando was gifted, slim, trim, dynamic and sensual, with a smoldering presence. In his final years, he was obese and out-of-control, saddened by his children’s sordid lives and finding solace with his housekeepers

‘The Brothers Grimm’ The Brothers Grimm’s ghastly fairy tales were nightmares in disguise. Psychological treatises have been devoted to the Grimm horrors of life two centuries ago, somewhere in Europe. If they are deep, psychological and crammed with meaning, Gilliam’s film is a roadside freak show with lost of explosions and high-tech monsters, but nothing to grip, no emotional engagement or meaning. More’s the pity as the Grimm collection is so rich with characters, legends and culture. ‘Batman Begins’ The other Batman films were cartoons; fun roller coaster rides with bright colours and exaggerated drama. This is the real thing. And there is plenty of room for sequels judging by the ending. That’s great news.

'V for Vendetta' starring Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, and John Hurt.Directed by James McTeigue, based on screenplay by Andy and Larry Wachowski. IMAX Colossus Toronto Cinema and Coliseum Mississauga Cinema. It’s worth the wait. The influential Warchowskis went underground for an extended period, refusing to do publicity or be photographed for Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions campaigns following the phenomenal success of the original ‘Matrix’. As a result of their enigmatic ways, more attention is paid to them and focus on their next works is that much more intense. That new work is here, it’s ‘V for Vendetta’ and it is terrific, vastly superior to the shoddy ‘Matrix’ two and three.

Stranger Than Fiction http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/strangerthanfiction/ An intellectually engaging gem, by first time screenwriter Zach Helm, which skillfully blends mathematical theory, emotion, life and death. It’s a profound fable about the things that make us human and our struggles in the face of insurmountable odds. It’s also a tip of the hat to mathematics and theory which seems to give people a soft landing - it seems to give structure and meaning to unknowable things. Meanwhile, it is charming and moving, often funny, with award-worthy fine performances by Emma Thompson and Will Ferrell. Ferrell shows us an impressive range of emotion and ability in his first major dramatic lead. He’s downright loveable as he begins to discover reasons to live just when his life is about to end. He is an appealing dramatic actor, who honours the material. It’s funny and amusing, but this is no comedy. It’s a serious meditation on the big ideas.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, conceived by and starring Sacha Baron Cohen.http://www.borat-movie.co.uk/ How do you talk about a hilarious, barrier busting film with graphic nudity, raging anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim(ism?), that is pro-gun, pro-incest and pro-attacking Pamela Anderson with a Kazakh wedding sack, and have it come off as the sweet, innocent and good-natured film that it is? Search me. It s one thing to say its a blistering tell-all on American culture, at least in some circles, but that is not its strength. It’s all about Borat, Borat, Borat! And that’s plenty.

A Good Year http://www.agoodyear.com/ Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe have gone soft. Former partners in the testosterone business (Gladiator) have taken it down several hundred notches with A Good Year. It’s a quietly amusing bucolic romance, as Crowe attempts to make us forget those phone hurling headlines. He lays on the charm and sweetness until our teeth hurt. He is shameless. If this is the real Russell Crowe, then I am Betty Paige. .

DVD Review - It’s a Wonderful Life 60^th Anniversary Edition.

This 1946 Frank Capra holiday classic is considered sappy and overly sentimental by some. Based on the Dickens tale A Christmas Carol, it is sadly undervalued these days; they’ve even stopped running it around the clock on TV during the holidays. Watching it again, I am struck but how profound it really is, under al the tinsel and fairies getting their wings, there is suffering and redemption for some. Frank Capra was not aiming to choke us with sugar. Because Stewart stars as the one undergoing life and death challenges, we may underestimate its depth. Stewart is a happy, funny star and he may inadvertently have sold it wrong. The film technique is superior, the shots, the depth, framing, clarity and artistry combine to create a great cinematic achievement. The emotion is consistently powerful, surprisingly so. Even knowing the story, watching it now for the first time in years, it pack a punch, it hits new levels of power as we viewers grow older. But the truth is that this is a superior and wrenching film that tackles real questions of our lives when it is most difficult - as the family trims the tree.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

With both Original and Colorized Versions . colorizing a classic black and white film presents problems – it changes the director’s original intent, as his shots were based on there being no colour. Black and white film can be an exceptionally beautiful and artistic thing. Those directors are not here for the most part, to consent to changing their film. Having said that I watched the colourised version of this holiday favourite about Santa showing up at Macy’s Department Store, and was struck by the kind of colour that was used. I wasn’t around in 1947 so I don’t know how authentic the colours are, but the Walker apartment sure was dismal, muddy and based on blue greens. So was the department store, its offices and the street scenes. It was wartime but was colour was frowned upon? Point is, the people who put colour in seem to have tinkered with the feel of the film and that’s an artistic problem. Still it’s a great, solid story that has stood the test of time, and launched a recent remake. Eight-year-old Natalie Wood is a standout as the little girl who doesn’t believe in Santa, and Maureen O’Hara puts a pre-feminist spin on the department store art director. Edmund Gwenn, who plays Santa, won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. It won three Oscars and a heap of Oscar and Golden Globe nominations including Best Picture. There are many good reasons to watch and enjoy. The picture also suggests the coming wave of suburban escape and the ideal of that leafy green big house out there waiting for all of us.

Grey Gardens 1976 / The Beales of Grey Gardens 2006. Criterion Collection Set. Big Edie and Little Edie Bouvier Beale made headlines in 1975 when the east Hampton New York sanitation department raided their ramshackle 28-room mansion called Grey Gardens. Once the jewel of the ritzy, old money Georgica Pond area, it was an eyesore. There was no water and it was completely overgrown and crawling with cats and raccoons following decades of neglect. The home was only meant to function as a summer home, but The Beales moved in 1952 and never left. Mother and daughter shared a tiny room featuring two single beds, a hotplate and heaps of garbage. The rest of the mansion and its fine furnishings collected dust. Imposing society portraits of the onetime beautiful women lined the walls, reminders of what they had been and done, after all, these were Bouviers, Jacqueline Kennedy’s aunt and cousin. The raid and subsequent publicity shamed Jackie O into cleaning the place and documentarians David and Albert Maysles filmed it. They were surprised to discover that the Beales were the real stars of the story - spirited, lively and frustrated artists. One was a singer the other a dancer. Little Edie wore different ‘revolutionary costumes’ every day and staged little shows for her mother and bickered bout all the men she turned down, including Paul Getty. The film examines their complicated relationship with all its humour and drama. Albert Maysles released ninety minutes of unseen footage last year, in response to growing interest in the Beales of Grey Gardens. Included is a photo of Mick Jagger anxiously waiting to meet Little Edie in her reincarnation, after her mother’s death, as a lounge singer. Rufus Wainwright wrote a song called Grey Gardens in 2001 and a musical of the same name is a hit on Broadway. Grey Gardens, the feature, is being shot now, starring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore.

DVD Review. Crank. Easily the fastest film of 2006. Chev (Jason Statham) has the need for too much speed as he races through to a deadline – his own. He must stay awake and active, indeed, super, mega active to stay alive. He awakens one morning feeling groggy and finds a DVD on his coffee table. It shows a business rival administering a drug into his neck while he was sleeping, informing him he has one hour to live. Chev makes a frantic phone call to his doctor (Dwight Yoakum), who tells him he has to keep his heart in extreme stress mode. And he promises to put Chev on life support as son as he gets back to town – if he makes his flight. So it begins – a piercing, supercharged race to create adrenaline to survive. Chev wants vengeance and to see his girlfriend (Amy Smart) one more time. He becomes an animal, all movement and instinct, no thought, just cunning and fueling his ability to live. This example of contemporary noir suited to a time when we want what we want, now! One eye-popping sequence has Chev free falling out of a plane, while talking on his cell phone ... come on, how often do we see this kind of thing? There is a host of inventive and show-offy visual quirks – subtitles written across the screen backwards, visuals from inside Chev’s racing heart, and inside a pigeon’s heart. Statham must have been exhausted after this one, just like everyone watching. For sheer intensity and invention, Crank is a must see.

DVD Review. Find Me Guilty, starring Vin Diesel, written and directed by Sidney Lumet. Vin Diesel has hair and a thirty extra pounds as the late Giacomo DiNorscio in this entertaining dramatisation of the longest Mafia trial in American history. DiNorscio, a reputed crime boss, was charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, while serving a thirty-year sentence on a drug beef. The RICO case covered dozens of his associates, friends and family, and rather than rat them out for his own benefit, decided to do what he did best. He tried to talk his way out of it. So he became his own defense lawyer. It was a canny move on his part because he was a natural – he had the gift of the gab, something that can’t be taught at law school. DiNorscio soon had the jury eating out of his hand and laughing at his folksy jokey arguments, as his boys cheered him on. The courtroom was his own personal stage. The prosecution seethed, as they seemed to be losing control; they were up against a huge personality, a mobster Teddy bear. DiNorscio created a colourful kind of wily street logic to defend himself and managed to stay ‘on’ and in charge throughout the three-year trial. Diesel moves easily here from action adventure hero to comedic and character roles, a move that could extend his already hot career by decades. The dialogue is extremely salty, but it is taken from court transcripts, so we can’t blame writer director Sidney Lumet. Find Me Guilty is no Twelve Angry Men, but I judge it to be a hoot and sentence it to find its audience.

DVD Review, Haven,starring Orlando Bloom, Anthony Mackie, Bill Paxton. The producers of Crash have created a lesser copy of their Academy Award heavy anthology. Throw in Orlando Bloom and hot up and comer Anthony Mackie, cross your fingers and it seems solid. But it’s bupkis. An oddball of a movie made in 2004 during one of Orly’s breaks from the marathon Pirates of the Caribbean shoot is set in the Cayman Islands and Florida, weaving together several lame stories that eventually comes to some kind of tortured climax. When the final fabric is revealed, it’s full of holes. It implies that people drawn to the tax-free haven are criminals, taking advantage of local people who can’t defend themselves because they’d lose big tourist dollars. Not a single story works, and the style further complicates it – the style of Crash that has since passed, artful shots substituting for dramatic power. Add to this grim dark clouds that dim the potential paradise and you have a few of the reasons it sat on the shelf for two years. The stories of doomed love, family disintegration, politics, corruption make for a lousy two hours viewing, and even Orly’s usually charming presence is made ugly. Edgy – that word for ugly – and depressing. As one character says, ‘it’s not about the beach, it’s not about the ocean, it’s about money and I don’t have any!’. That is because the fortune he stole from a mark has been stolen back. And so are those two hours I took to watch it. What a mess

‘The January Blahs’,Starring Because I Said So and Catch and Release, Two Exercises in Futility, In theatres now. Films at this time of year are generally throwaways; everybody knows that, leftovers, tough sells, bombs, messes. However, we have a particularly stinky and loathsome duo of ‘chick flicks’ landing in the theatres this week and next. First, Catch and Release with Jennifer Garner and then Because I Said So with Diane Keaton. Here we have reasonably popular stars in movies that look appealing in the trailers. The concepts are interesting, and everyone loves a love story. Here is what went wrong. The scripts! The tone! The saccharin aftertaste! It’s remarkable that two such similar films should turn up a week apart, both beating the whole idea of love to death. January has always been a tough month at the movies.

DVD Review, Murder She Wrote; the Complete Fifth Season 1989. There are a few reasons why this detective series was ‘must see TV’ from its debut in 1984 until its lamented demise in 1996. Angela Lansbury was murder mystery writer Jessica Fletcher, the sleuth of a certain age who was quick witted, feisty, no-nonsense and always elegant, never a hair out of place. Reason number one with a bullet. She was the heart of the series. However, there were others powerful factors that made Murder She Wrote one of the most lucrative and popular series in TV history. The stories were simple and entertaining, no one ever felt stupid because they couldn’t understand. There was little or no blood, violence was suggested or off-screen and the characters were identifiable. The casting was brilliant. It was fun to tune in to see who was guest starring each week. Lansbury and her producer husband Peter Fischer hired the cream of the crop. Season five featured veterans Roddy McDowall, Jean Peters, David McCallum, Paul Sorvino, Dinah Shore, promising new talents like Bill Mahr and Megan Mullally and young TV stars of the day - Anthony Geary, Emma Samms, Erin Gray and Adrian Zmed. They dipped into the vast army of retired but talented actors who hadn’t worked in years. The producers spent money shooting on location everywhere from the desert to the mountains to Moscow; no expense was spared in creating a solid show with solid ratings every week. Lansbury continued to make Murder She Wrote specials until 2003 but now works mainly as a voice artist for animated features and commercials. Thanks for the memories Mrs. F.!

Best Picture Academy Award Winners Collection, Paramount. Hotcha! What a collection! The annual game of trying to remember who won Best Actor or Actress or indeed the Best Picture of twelve short months ago, is gallingly hard. Even for those of us on the fringes of the industry. Films that melt into the mists, actors we never think about again until they start to play their own version of the Cuba Gooding, Jr. Curse - the big win followed by the big let down.It can go the other way, too, as a rare handful of Oscar winners remain vitally important. Paramount has compiled a set of seven Academy Award winning films that did make a difference; that took up permanent space in our hearts. Just seeing the names again elicits fond memories – Terms of Endearment, The Godfather, Braveheart, Forrest Gump, American Beauty, Gladiator and that monster doomed love story Titanic. Each one netted an immortal phrase or sequence – ‘Im the king of the world!’, ‘Run Forrest, run’, ‘Never go against the family!’, ’Give my daughter the shot!’ that captivated us over the last thirty years. The discs are well produced, each with a complete pack of special features and voiceover commentary by principal players. Okay, this might seem like a cash cow for the studio during Oscar fever season, but this collection will pay dividends long after the last red carpet stiletto heel snaps in two at the Governor’s Ball.

Babel. Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. Babel is a stunning and brave thematic anthology featuring bravura performances, a profound story and layers of meaning. It recalls and trumps The Red Violin, 3 Needles, Lord of War and even The Butterfly Effect. it traces the significance of a simple event around the world. The film begins its journey at the outside edge of the ripple and works inwards to the core of the story, through abrupt and disquieting edits from a desert village in Morocco to a blaring disco in Japan. The screenplay, the direction and the performances are top-notch and Brad Pitt puts in a passionate, stellar performance.

Death of a President, b y Gabriel Range and Simon Finch. It is October 19, 2007. US President Bush arrives in Chicago to appear at a local business leaders’ lunch. The security detail galvanizes into high alert, however, because they have learned that huge crowds of protesters are in front of the Sheraton Hotel, awaiting Bush with ’extreme hatred’. Shots ring out and the president is hit twice. The film utilises existing news footage and computer generated imagery to create an intense realism. It is hard to spot, but lip-synching is used often. It’s done with subtlety and results re astonishingly real. All things considered, Death of a President show how easy it is to make people believe anything and how easy it is to ‘create’ news that is believable and accepted as fact.

Flags of Our Fathers, directed by Clint Eastwood. The iconic and Pulitzer prize-winning photograph of five US Marines and a Navy corpsman rising of the US flag on Iwo Jima was a flashpoint for American pride in WW2. But the story and aftermath of the release of the picture is a darker one. It’s the basis of this fascinating and disturbing drama. Shot in Iceland where the black volcanic sands matches those of the restricted island of Iwo Jima, Eastwood re-creates a colorless and deadly killing field where fresh faced enemies blew each other to pieces in 1954. Eastwood is masterful and intensely powerful film looks at the effect that photograph had on the three surviving members of the six in the photo.

The Prestige, starring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, wr itten, produced and directed by Christopher Nolan. T he first great film of the year brims with passion creativity and richly coloured history. A pair of deadly rivals, master magicians in London, circa 1900, uses the art of illusion to destroy each other. The film is so dense and rich with detail that it’s impossible to sum it up in a review. A stirring human story, a celebration of the Industrial Revolution, the machine age, seeped in history, the arcane science of trickery, not to mention the beautiful natural backdrops of Colorado and fin de siecle London. We are constantly judging, looking, on our toes, as illusion and reality fail to answer our questions. True and false have no meaning; it is all about the trick, not the disappearance but the re-appearance. The dead and lost return. What is real?

Little Children, s tarring Kate Winslet, Jackie Earle Haley, w ritten and direxcted by Todd Field. Sarah (Kate Winslet) sets the scene as a suburban mother who refuses to join the other moms as they natter and chatter endlessly as their children play. She pretends to be an anthropologist as she watches them. It’s deep into the suburbs and she is not in her element. Sarah holds a masters degree but she is now feels stuck in her home caring for little Lucy, and enduring her husbands online infidelities. She loves her child, but the story line boldly announces that she is bored with the drudgery of motherhood. The film written and directed by Todd Field is a masterpiece anthology similar to Crash in that it centres on one thing, radiating out to destroy peoples lives - the return of a pedophile. You think you can’t take the pain any longer and it gets worse. It’s profoundly, exquisitely raw. The script is dense and brilliant, bringing together disparate elements with ease and wit.

Marie Antoinette, s tarring Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Judy Davis, Marianne Faithfull, Rip Torn, d irected by Sofia Coppola. The most excruciating disappointment this year, the amazing story of Marie Antoinette, the first feature film to be shot on location at Versailles, spoiled. The unimaginably lavish lifestyle of the court of Louis XV, as seen through the eyes of a pretty enough fifteen-year-old country ingénue, is laid out in the first half hour and the rest is just more. Just as things are spicing up and the starving peasant hordes storm and capture Versailles and the King and Queen, the director loses interest. DVD Review, Marie Antoinette: a film by David Grubin. This excellent documentary on the life of Marie Antoinette is an exhaustive and comprehensive look behind the palace walls, at the most fabled Queen of France. It has a brain, unlike a certain film in the theatres now by someone whose initials are S.C, who seems to have more money than sense. Grubin’s film is the scoop on the woman who merged the Austrian and French royal families in 1763 and was guillotined in 1793 for treason. Life in the Versailles Palace during the reign of Louis XV was decadent to a dangerous degree and she loved it. The Royals and their courtiers ate cake, gambled, shot deer, played cards and listened to concerts, but did little else of value. They expected life to stay just so, as it has before them for a thousand years. Grubin places Marie Antoinette in political context, the straw that broke the camel’s back, sparked the revolution and the end of the French Monarchy. She was mocked as Queen Deficit, and blamed for the country’s suffering; her response was to buy fewer jewels. It traces her ascent to the crown and descent to prison garb in intelligent increments, allowing us to see her human struggle properly. Sofia Coppola disrespects the woman and her time by turning her into a rock video fashionista with a glommed on kind of liberal view. Grubin’s well-well-researched TV special was apparently Coppola’s prime source for information and that’s okay, but she forgot the best parts. Grubin addresses Marie Antoinette’s wild ways but frames it in the larger meaning, how her lavish life inspired hatred in the population and led to her demise. Grubin shows us the whole enchilada, what happened, why, how much and the aftermath.

Running with Scissors, starring Annette Bening, Alec Baldwin, Brian Cox. Your mother always told you not to run with scissors. Well Running with Scissors did and it poked itself in the eye. A top-notch cast of Annette Bening, Gwyneth Paltrow, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Jill Clayburgh, Brian Cox, Alec Baldwin and Kristin Chenoweth is not just wasted but criminally wasted. This is a depressing fact-based story of a teenager, Augusten Burroughs (Joseph Cross) ‘a wry traveler through a childhood hell’. Are you hooked yet? Running with Scissors is just so wrapped up in its own misery that running with scissors suddenly seems like a good idea.

DVD review, Nacho Libre, s tarring Jack Black. What a riot! This underappreciated comedy of Ignacio, a Mexican monk turned wrestler by night is a little jewel. The more closely it’s watched the better it gets - Black’s frantic eyebrows and graceful, hefty body language are irresistible. His signature graceful abandon makes him a proud, worthy opponent, with some astonishing choreography. Also dead on funny, and the perfect Black foil, is Hector Jimenez as his dedicated sidekick and wrestling partner. Black’s comedy is more akin to a Saturday morning cartoon character or the Three Stooges rolled into one than he is any contemporary comic. He has created a lucrative persona inspired by them. Forget the story –there isn’t one, but its a constant treat watching the whirlwind that is Jack Black. I find myself rewinding and re-watching his hilarious bits, enduring the ‘plot’ only to see his next lip twitch, eyebrow hoist, and backbone arch. All beautiful stuff. The screen jumps to life every time he appears. The film has the feel of Napoleon Dynamite, also made by its producers. Sadly, Black and White Productions, Black’s banner with Mike White, has stopped production. Extra features include audio commentary by Black, deleted scenes and a look at the creator of the Nacho Libre comic book character. All hail Jack, Nacho Libre!

Infamous, starring Tobey Jones. Rating: 9 /10. It’s magic, alchemy of the most creative and fortuitous sort – Toby Jones, the British theatre actor, as Truman Capote. The voice the mannerisms and the carriage are as strong a depiction of the late great author, as Philip Seymour Hoffman’s in Capote, but Jones’s face and build are Capote’s. The resemblance is unsettling to say the least and readies us to take an unsettling journey. Jones has achieved something special. But this isn’t a movie based on a look-alike. Doug McGrath has created a masterpiece. He pays tribute to the man, his times and his influential circles, from Manhattan’s elite to Kansas’ small town folk of the 50’s and 60’s. McGrath has recreated the era, respectfully and with great relish, to set the stage for the phenomenon that was Capote’s book In Cold Blood.

The Queen, starring Helen Mirren, Rating: 9 / 10. Helen Mirren is Queen Elizabeth the Second in this riveting behind the scenes drama. It’s based on speculation of what may have happened during the week following the death of Princess Diana, a period of crisis unprecedented in the lives of the modern Royal family. The Queen’s failure to address the country’s grieving was a blow to the monarchy. It angered and alienated her subjects. Some felt she was inching the institution of monarchy to its demise, Why, thought the people, couldn’t she be more like Diana, and express emotion. It doesn’t sound like much, but this devastating story plays like Greek tragedy.

Man of the Year, st arring Robin Williams, Laura Linney and Christopher. Rating 6 / 10. Although pre-publicity suggests this is a Robin Williams comedy, it’s really a political thriller that belongs to William’s co-star Linney. She plays a whistleblower whose journey includes the shock of discovery that her company has compromised the presidential election, a drug poisoning, a brave effort to get the information out and a string of important missteps. Barry Levinson’s disappointing film is no comedy, despite the marketing campaign and as political satire; it’s a 90-pound weakling. Not the kind of film that wins the box office ballot.

DVD Review, The Ultimate DVD James Bond Collection, Four volumes. If it is a PhD in James Bond you are looking for, the time is now. TWENTY – count ‘em – twenty James Bond titles will be made available in the next few weeks. 007 fans will be able to follow the worlds leading gentleman spy from 1962 to 2003 in preparation for the appearance of the newest Bond, Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. The four-volume set celebrates everything sophisticated, futuristic, sexy and he-mannish that is Ian Fleming’s long running character. The guy who can fight and love all day long and never muss a hair. The Bond franchise is the most popular and enduring film franchise of all time, the subject of much discussion and controversy over forty years, in it’s over sexuality, state of the art gadgets and methods of death. But the greatest source of discussion is the casting. All Craig’s predecessors are here - Sean Connery, Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan. None entered or left the series without fanfare, some were great some good, some unmemorable. But what a legacy they left. The Bond Girl role has inspired thousands of phone calls from frantic agents begging for the coveted part for their star. Politically and sociologically, the Bond films are firmly of their time. The earliest focus on the Cold War era, then big business, the sexual revolution, and the latest, terrorism. The Bond films open with the title song, performed by the best talents of the day. The art direction, decor and styles are timely, making Bond outings nostalgic trips. However, one of the best-loved elements of the Bond series is its knack for invention. The most interesting and futuristic weaponry and surveillance equipment debuted as Bond’s personal artillery. The bowler with the killer brim, the decoders, push button ejector seats, balloons that allow him to walk on water, all seen here in the films and in special behind the scenes featurettes. Nevertheless, for all his triumphs, Bond has a dirty secret. He liked to smack the ladies. He let them know who was boss, which seems odd in retrospect. Someone as confident as James Bond would not do that, but he shows no restraint in getting what he needs, whether it’s secret information or obedience. Feeling the brunt of his fists were Maud Adams, Jill St John and Lana Wood among other Bond Girls. He generally follows the beat down with a roll in the hay (sometimes literally). It’s a weird kind of dominance ritual, the same he pulls on men. The Bond films have inspired a million rip offs from the Blues Brothers to Austin Powers to Sacha Baron Cohen’s Spyz, proving how enduring and iconic they are. The Bond mystique is as powerful today as ever. He represents the sophisticated international high-living bon vivant, the one with all the most glamourous women, the fun job and international reputation. Pure manly escapism. The series includes documentaries spanning the years, interviews with key Bond figures and a wealth of bonuses. The entire series has been digitally upgraded and enhanced. Notice I didn’t refer even once to the martini, shaken ... you know.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Conceived by and starring Sacha Baron Cohen. How do you talk about a hilarious, barrier busting film with graphic nudity, raging anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim(ism?), that is pro-gun, pro-incest and pro-attacking Pamela Anderson with a Kazakh wedding sack, and have it come off as the sweet, innocent and good-natured film that it is? Search me. It’s enough to know the film is a relentless killer, causing audiences to scream and double over for much of its 88 minutes.

Maude: The Compete First Season. Another iconic TV dame – Maude, right on Maude, delivering sassy scripts that stand up beautifully today – showcasing her left wing liberalism, relationships with her daughter and fourth husband and reflective of changing times. She was bigger than life and just as dangerous then and now. The Norman Lear show hit some sensitive buttons for the times – abortion, menopause, infidelity, politics, racism and most of all, feminism. Carol was the first daughter to call her mother by her first name in prime time TV. The domestic scene was turned upside down, most notably in this season, as Maude and Caro discover they dated the same man. Many viewers found Maude ear splittingly strident. But others admired her honesty and courage, however she came across – the show broke boundaries of conventional television. Maude was spun off from All in The Family, Maude was Edith Bunker’s cousin; the two women couldn’t’ be more different in temperament but they were guardians of justice in their own ways.

DVD Review, The Queen’s Sister. We’ve seen The Queen, now it’s time for The Queen’s Sister. Rumours were out there - the late Princess Margaret was a wild one. A BBC film newly released on DVD, suggests we don’t know the half of it! Was she the Britney Spears of the monarchy? The Queen’s glamourous sister was an enthusiastic imbiber and smoker who enjoyed many romantic relationships – with women, unstable men, men ‘beneath her station’ and hangers-on. She loved to sing jazz and regularly took to London stages after hours to entertain customers. A drag bar was her favourite venue; she was a hit within the gay crowd. I fact, she was rumoured to have had a two-year affair with the daughter of the American ambassador. It’s been said she and Mick Jagger were lovers, but according to this take, they met only casually. But they did own property near each other on the island of Mustique. Margaret’s disappointing romances and frustrations of being royal, sixth in line to the throne, apparently fed a growing substance abuse habit, which became a publicity nightmares for Buckingham Palace. Her marriage to Anthony Armstrong Jones was fragile and fiery; they brawled in front of staff and they cheated openly on each other. Yet she was a stickler for royal formality and had zero tolerance for anyone who didn’t show proper respect. The DVD includes the feature A Royal Scandal, about the stormy marriage of George, Prince of Wales and Caroline of Brunswick two hundred years ago, and a featurette on Princess Margaret’s early life before she became a sixties swinger. Lucy Cohu won the BAFTA Best Actress for her uncanny portrayal of the Princess.

Zodiac The hard-edged nocturnal dread of David Fincher’s Se7en is gone in favour broad, unblinking daylit dread. A stark scene of a young couple stabbed fifteen times, shot from beside them on the ground as they bathe in gorgeous waning sunshine, is beyond horrifying. It takes a second for the reality of the attack to sink in because it seems so out of place. Set against the rolling verdant hills of Napa Valley, two gorgeous kids are on a picnic, drinking in nature’s bounty, certain a goofy guy who wandered by is going to leave them alone and - boom. Robert Graysmith is a real life newspaper cartoonist and cryptogram hobbyist. The film requires strict attention. Vanderbilt has jammed so much information into 160 minutes that it’s not wise to look away. Fincher tosses out the gruesome overload of the past, opting to deliver detailed intelligence accrued through years of legwork, efficiently and respectfully. Despite the weight of the information, he brings agility and rhythmic tension for good balance. It seems odd to release a film as good as this on in the lost cause winter months. The Silence of the Lambs didn’t do so badly back in 1991.

DVD Award Series -MGM / Sony. What a collection! MGM has released a solid array of Oscar winning films to co-incide with this year’s awards. Midnight Cowboy, the groundbreaking film about Ratso Rizzo’s disintegration alongside his only friend, and set to the curiously upbeat theme song ‘Everybody’s Talking’, stars Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman. It won seven Oscar nominations and won three, Best Writing, Best Director for John Schlesinger, and Best Picture. The utterly riveting Misery with James Caan as the bed-ridden victim of Kathy Bate’s violent obsession is one of the most successful adaptations of a Stephen King novel. Apparently, no stars would take the male lead because the feared it would make them seem passive, but Caan ‘got’ it. Bates won the Oscar for her role as nutbar Annie Wilkes. Anjelica Huston won Best Supporting Actress working with her then live in love Jack Nicholson in Prizzi’s Honour. They play assassins hired to kill each other in an intricate mob tale. William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives was a risky proposition at the time of its release after WW2. It was felt that audiences wanted to move on from war-themed films. But it became a hit and won seven Oscars and nine nominations. Shirley Maclaine made her breakthrough as a naive young woman in The Apartment , opposite Jack Lemmon. The film won five Oscars. Kevin Costner – whatever happened to him after Dances with Wolves? He made a hell of an impression with his wild west tale epic, which won seven Oscars.

The Trailer Park Boys: The Movie. The movie continues their TV adventures in Sunnydale trailer park, with new wrinkles like true romance and tableaus of them robbing parking meters with Ricky’s car (with the unprintable name) and in pure wide screen glory. They're planning the Big Dirty, the final crime caper that will net them large amounts of untraceable money – that is, change from a local arcade. They reckon here is a trunk load of loonies and twoonies. The thing that makes the Trailer Park Boys work, against the swearing and juvenile schemes, is that the people of the trailer park are trying to create a family for themselves. It’s about love and tolerance.

The Guardian, Starring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher. Not bad! In fact, rather good! Have we come to mistrust Kevin Costner so since the debacles The Postman and Waterworld that a good performance by him seems impossible? Well, despite the presence of an extraordinarily watery world in The Guardian, it is no Waterworld. Audiences will be pleasantly surprised by Costner’s tough, tender and substantive performance. He pushes all the right buttons, his onetime cockiness has disappeared, replaced by maturity and experience.

All the King’s Men, starring Sean Penn, Jude Law, James Gandolfini, Antony Hopkins, Patricia Clarkson, Kate Winslet.This noisy remake of the 1949 classic has all the elements –a gifted and diverse cast, a proven story and contemporary political significance. Sean Penn plays Willie Stark an honest and diligent hardware store owner who has a political career thrust upon him. He is the heart and soul of the common person and loves his fellow hicks and that was enough for party officials to want him for their own purposes.Soon, Stark has the state eating out of his hand and poof – he’s governor. Soon, his system of personal checks and balances fails him. Its an old story but a good one.The film is based on Robert Penn Warren’s potboiler, inspired by the tumultuous political career of Louisiana governor Huey Long; it’s an idea as fresh and dangerous today as it was way back when. However, the film leaves much to be desired.

DVD Review, Icons of Horror Collection Boris Karloff.He has an imposing presence, and if he looks familiar, it’s because he wore screws in his neck, a tight suit and mannered intensity as Frankenstein in 1931 and the sequels that followed. Boris Karloff (sometimes just Karloff) is indeed an icon. Born in England in 1887, he went on to a brilliant career in Hollywood with more than 200 films and countless TV appearances to his credit. Four Karloff humdingers are offered in this collection, The Black Room, The Man They Could Not Hang, Before I Hang and the comedy / horror farce, The Boogie Man Will Get You. His Mad Doctor shows up twice brewing up anti-ageing and revivifying potions, which he tries out on unlucky victims. It’s stagy stuff but there is a balance of innocence and depravity that intrigues us. Karloff is a refined sort, seemingly gentle, that how he lures in his subjects. And that’s what gets us too – how could Karloff’s personas carry out their cold-blooded machinations? That’s what makes him such an effective an icon of horror – surprise. Karloff‘s films aren’t seen but were once a staple of Saturday afternoon matinees and overnight TV. This collection is a nice chance to experience old-fashioned horror – the kind that inspired countless contemporary filmmakers even today. The double personality, the Mad Doctor, the silent but deadly type – Karloff was there first.

DVD Review The Dead Zone, starring Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams, based on the Stephen King novel, directed by David Cronenberg. Long before the phrase ‘runaway production’ was ever uttered, big American stars were coming up here to Canada to make movies. Their job was to raise the profile of Canadian made films and it was good pay. One of those stars, Christopher Walken, arrived in York and Durham Regions in 1982 to shoot a horror film, called The Dead Zone. It was one of horror director David Cronenberg’s most commercial films, helping cap his international rep. Also on the project was Martin Sheen, hot off his landmark appearance in Apocalypse Now, as a crooked politician, in the style of Willie Stark of All the Kings Men. It was winter when work began. It went late enough for it to become fake winter with manufactured snow. Walken plays a reclusive teacher who awakes from a coma with a super power; the ability to see into the future and change it. He is immediately famous and responds by shutting himself up in a picturesque Victorian home. It’s a pretty good movie with some startles and scares. However, the excitement for us is where it was made - Main Street Stouffville, Orono, Whitevale, and the waterfront at Niagara-on-the-Lake, places familiar to most of us. The houses in the film are typical Ontario farmhouses and grander gingerbread homes of the era. Main streets are nostalgically pretty - living museums of a time past. Bet they look different now.

Crank. Crank is visceral, pounding and urgent, a film heart attack waiting to happen. And stunts and storylines that are ever more outrageous earmark it for cult status among a very specific type of moviegoer. Even though the noir classic DOA and the film Rage, loosely inspire it, Crank is contemporary, a riff on the drug culture that kills and enriches. It’s piercing and dangerous in ways that few films have achieved.

DVD Review, Double Indemnity, Universal Legacy Series. Hooray! It’s film noir time again – and here is one of the best! Universal’s 1944 classic starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred McMurray has been digitally remastered on two discs. Never has insurance fraud been so sexy! McMurray, looking to change his image from comedy leading man to tough guy, and Barbara Stanwyck in her most feral role ever, are thrown together for murder and money. She wants her current husband dead and the insurance salesman at the door could get her an insurance payday to die for. Greed and lust soon devolves into mistrust and suspicion; he believes she’s playing him. Is she? The dialogue snaps and the slanting light through the Venetian blinds, and streetlights, tells us there is danger in the air in the best film noir tradition. The film is clever enough to have withstood the test of time and dwarf the pretenders. The second disc features one of those pretenders, the 1973 remake of Double Indemnity, starring Richard Crenna and Samantha Eggar. They lack McMurray’s simmering manliness and Stanwyck’s suffocating femininity, but those crackling lines still ring true. Wonderful performances by E.G. Robinson in the first, and Lee J. Cobb in the second version as the lead claims investigator whose gut tells him when a claim is a phony. Sensational!

The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, starring Pakak Innuksuk and Leah Angutimarik.Directed by Zacharias Kunuk. Filmmakers Zacharias Kunuk and his partner Norm Cohn have made a second full-length feature set in the endlessly white and barren Arctic. The first was The Fast Runner (Atanarjuat) which won a truckload of awards and nominations in 2001, a remarkable four-hour experience of deep drama. It is spoken in Innu dialect with a few subtitles, but most of the narrative and emotional information comes from the cast’s beautifully expressive and weatherworn faces. It’s the same with The Journals. Set in 1922, its about the beginning of the end for the original Inuit culture. The dramatic unfolding of the story leaves us breathless and shocked. The film is a remarkable look at a time and culture in Canadian history that most of us never knew. We see lives of little comfort but much love. We also see changing times. Old societies are being transformed into modern western life all around the world and that is a loss for everyone, not to mention the poor souls weathering the storm.

The U.S. Versus John Lennon, a documentary by David Leaf and John Scheinfeld.He has been gone so long we’ve nearly forgotten John Lennon. A brilliantly creative and thoughtful writer and natural leader, he was the Beatle that got into trouble. Lennon’s ferocious honesty and insouciance regularly landed him in hot water, but the trouble he attracted in his latter years was deadly, according to Leaf and Scheinfeld. He believed the US government was trying to silence him, by deportation or other means. He knew he was a target. He was right. Former FBI agents talk about its dossier on Lennon and his two years under surveillance. He was wiretapped and followed by agents around the world. He had good reason to be nervous.

DVD Review The Three Stooges; Stooges on the Run, c olour and Black and White. Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk! It’s Stooges time! Moe, Curly and Larry star in four short films on this priceless disc – Dizzy Doctors, Calling All Curs, Disorder in the Court and Pop Goes the Easel – and each is hysterical. The Stooges were vaudevillians, who made a successful switch to films and later television with trademark slapstick genius. The third Stooge changed often throughout the team’s career next to founder Moe Howard and second longest member Larry Fine. Moe’s real life brother Curly, the most popular third Stooge, and Moe’s real life brother, co-stars in these four films. There is a lot going on in Stooges films – layers of meaning for kids and adults, political and social commentary and painstaking choreography. Those eye pokes and triple slaps didn’t just happen – they had to be learned (even so Larry Fine’s left cheek was calloused and numb from Moe slapping him all those years). One Stooge gets an idea, the others understand simultaneously and they act as one unstoppable unit. They run on a single shot through several scenes, doing shtick all the way. Their comedy seems out of control funny, but in reality, it’s nothing but control, inspired, but control and training. The films are offered in glorious original black and white, and digitized colour, which I personally prefer (not a purist) and in chroma so viewers can switch from black and white to colour at the touch of a button. It’s hard to describe the Stooges and give them their due; it is all on the screen. They are a supremely talented group of performers, whose magic comedy served them from 1922 – 1970.

Employee of the Month, starring Jessica Simpson, Dax Shepard and Dane Cook.Okay. That is it! Jessica Simpson must not be allowed to make films. Is she some kind of joke or spoof person masquerading as thespian? It is depressing to think that there is an entire industry of people conspiring to make her a movie star, when she has not a scintilla of charm or talent. Her team is being paid for its follies. Team leader, father Joe Simpson, is the worst offender, blinded by the paychecks she’s earned singing for all these years. He does not see that as an actor, Simpson is an imposition on our good will and taste. And now she’s just trying my patience.

I Think I Love My Wife. It is nice to see that Chris Rock has boldly charged into triple threat territory – co-writing, directing and starring in this edgy romantic comedy.The screenplay is based on the Eric Rohmer’s final offering in His Six Moral Tales Series, Chloe in the Afternoon. Rock has re-worked it for contemporary urban audiences but he’s built in a lifetime of social payback. It’s filled with tasteless jokes, including a long and laboured riff in Viagra. But it still can’t stake its claim - comedy or a drama? Well it’s a rocky road going both places at once. There is a nascent racism – he, his wife, and their friends have a troubling attitude towards whites. Around their kids, they spell out the word W-h-i-t-e. There are instances that make you go ‘huh’? that you will have to find for yourself.

DVD Review, Detectives Who Labour By the Sea.Check it out. Three of the most popular detective shows in TV history are set on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Hmmm. Magnum P.I. and Hawaii-Five-O are in Hawaii, of course. Further east, Rockford works his files from his mobile home on the shores of Santa Monica. The location gives producers the opportunity for glorious, natural backdrops that won’t tap out the weekly production budget, girls in skimpy clothes and in Rockford’s case, the chance of a case involving a movie star from nearby Hollywood. These threes series were top rated shows of their eras, Hawaii-Five-O the sixties, The Rockford Files the seventies and Magnum P.I. the eighties. Each had its own unique style and each lead his signature. Jack Lord was tough, hard-edged Steve McGarrett, reminiscent of Philip Marlowe. Rockford was a new hero – warm, charismatic and wise. Tom Selleck was the heartthrob who fought off the women as he cracked sinister cases, all of them strong-dark-haired leads with less gorgeous but adoring sidekicks who did most of the legwork. Each series features guest stars – always fun seeing aspiring actors paying their dues before hitting it big in their own vehicles. All three shows are well written with interesting cases involving cattle rustlers, political assassinations and plenty of damsels in distress. All to the sounds of waves lapping at the shore and soft palm breezes.

DVD Review, Comedy central Roast of William Shatner: Extended and Uncensored! I just love these ridiculous roasts! Last year Pamela Anderson was skewered – and they’re still hammering away at Canadians. (Too polite to complain)This time it’s Montreal’s own William Shatner – who riper for roasting than this guy? The formerly self-important Shakespearean ‘giant’ is better known these days as the Priceline guy, the fat shell of a Star Trek icon. Roasts are for certain audiences - the language is reprehensible, the taunts are exceedingly cruel but it’s played for laughs and with love – roastees either agree to be roasted or they don’t – so they’re fair game. The language is miles beyond the Trailer Park Boys on their worst day. There are precious few lines that can be repeated here, except this one -‘You play a fat old man with Alzheimer’s on Boston Legal – lucky break!’ Everyone in stand up comedy turned out for Shatner (James Spader or Leonard Nimoy did not come to support their buddy). But a bawdy Bette White was there talking a ‘blue’ streak, so was Andy Dick, Farrah Fawcett, Fred Willard, Jimmy Kimmel, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols. Jason Alexander, with a beard and no hair, hosted. The roast is a time-honoured tradition dating back to 1904 in New York and 1947 in Beverly Hills (founded by Milton Berle) in which the roastee is held captive onstage while comedians shoot hilarious slings and arrows at them– no embarrassing comic stone is left unturned!. Oh to be a fly on the wall!

DVD Review. Sleeper Cell: American Terror; The Complete Second Series.This is an ambitious series filled all kinds of newsworthy plot points. It’s set in Los Angeles and concerns a small group of American Islamic citizens plotting to blow up the city. There is sense of high urgency and intrigue that permeates the stories interlocking these people. One man who owns ‘the finest Hallal butcher in North America’ is an arms dealer, or so he claims, but he drives a cab at night. His son is a US marine’s life, who’s future is at stake if his father actually gets his hands on a missile launcher and delivers it to the sleeper cell. There is an FBI agent in the cell and a Scandinavian woman, a nanny to a wealthy family living in Malibu, who may be the most dangerous member of all. It is exciting and guarantees watching the set right through. However, the Emmy nominated series could be based solely on what we see on TV news. Wouldn’t it be something if there was an actual insider writing? Of course they could not t promote it as such. The terrorists in the series are just the people next door, folks who like rap music, strip clubs, backyard barbeques, shopping at Burberry’s, the rest of it and yet, they are not. Bonus features include Infiltrating The Final Cell, The Enemy Within, Farik’s Story and biographies. All guaranteed to alarm us.

DVD Review,Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Vol. 1,1976. This is one of TV’s oddest entries. Meant to be a spoof on soap operas, it goes way beyond satire. It focuses on life in the Hartman household in Fernwood, Ohio where the ordinary is extraordinary. Grandpa’s a convicted peeping tom, Mary worries about wax buildup on the floor, sister Cathy’s nail polish dominates her thoughts and there’s a serial killer loose in the neighbourhood. Here are sown the seeds of dozens of more recent shows, like Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Hartman’s dissociative thinking is played for laughs and she draws us into her chaotic mind. She’s middle aged with a teenaged daughter who is kidnapped, but prefers to shrug off her worries to make lunch. Mary lives in a dream world, wearing pigtails and gingham puffed sleeve dresses. She is TV’s most enigmatic leading lady in a series that navigates comedy and drama sometimes in the same breath. Louise Lasser stars. She was Woody Allen’s first wife, and according to reports, he was the stable one of the pair. Lasser teaches acting today and rarely appears in mass media. If you like your comedy weird, then this is required viewing. It’s something I personally can’t help but watch not once but twice and three times because there is always something else to see. It’s best known for the episode in which Coach drowns in a bowl of soup at the kitchen table, but that’s nothing compared to the rest of it. Mary suffers a nervous breakdown on The David Susskind Show. Okay its not funny but she turns it into a think piece. Lots of today’s TV stars made their start on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.

DVD Review, Chestnut; Hero of Central Park, starring Abigail Breslin. An earlier film by the adorable Oscar nominated star of Little Miss Sunshine about two girls and their dog. Sisters Sal and Ray grew up in an orphanage run by nuns; they’re perfectly happy with the nuns and their friends. One day they discover a puppy; Sal’s wanted a puppy for years! They smuggle him inside the dormitory and name him Chestnut. Soon afterwards, the girls are adopted and when they embark on their new adventure, Chestnut is right there in their luggage. The girls have lucked out – a loving couple has brought them to their home, a swanky apartment overlooking Central Park, with a big balcony perfect for hiding dogs. But there are big obstacles to overcome, their new father is allergic to dogs and dogs aren’t allowed in the building as per the owner, a despotic real estate baron called Mr. Trundle. He’s a heartless, media hungry fellow with no tolerance for cute kids or animals. Its a feel good drama, a heart-warming adventure with gentle stimulation for children and enough plot and comedy to keep parents interested. Chestnut is sweet, positive and easy, no overwhelming emotions or mature situations. It’s a warm, light filled family friendly story about love and adventure. And the dog, who grows up in front of our eyes (!) is a fine actor! But the heart-tugging-est performance of all comes from that firecracker, little Abigail Breslin, a delightful force of nature.

DVD Review, John and Mary, 1969, Cinema Classics Collection . This is a powerful reminder of the oddity that was the 60’s sexual revolution – the time when all bets were off and AIDS was fifteen years away. It’s about a socially inept man (Hoffman) who picks up a smart but naive woman (Farrow) in a bar. They spend the night together and against their instincts, the following day. Each expects to walk away from the encounter and never give it another thought. The film utilises an unusual convention – the actors’ say what they want to say and then we hear their inner thoughts, what they really meant. Naturally, their thoughts and words bear little resemblance. And as in every other situation in human existence, they won’t ever know. It’s a marvelous tool that carries the film, against their leaden, false dialogue. The film wasn’t kindly reviewed when it came out but I found this DVD fascinating mostly because of the inner/outer expression gambit. I think it works. A young and gorgeous Tyne Daly appears, as does Olympia Dukakis who plays John’s mother even though she was only 38 at the time. Mia Farrow’s an unusual star. She seems so sweet and docile, but I know that she was a tough little brat with onetime husband Frank Sinatra. She wanted and got her way and eventually left him because she didn’t like his elderly friends. These days of course, she the single mother of ten children, one has died and another is married to Farrow’s longtime companion Woody Allen. John and Mary wouldn’t have worked with any other actress. And it’s a nice little time capsule with a twist.

DVD Review Alexander Revisited; the Final Cut. Who has a bigger ego than Oliver Stone? He has no released the THIRD version of the story of the Macedonian warlord because he says it ‘haunts’ him. Perhaps it haunts him that it was budgeted at a minimum of $150-million and earned $160-million. Perhaps it haunts him that no one liked it and he just keeps trying to get it right. After all, it’s been a pet project since he first discussed it with Val Kilmer in 1990. Anyway you slice it, he can’t let this spectacular failure go. He says the two previous versions were not complete. Well, I know plenty enough about Alexander the Great now, enough to be of use and interest to me for the rest of my days. Who keeps paying him to do this work? Apparently, this third version at 3.5 hours, has exhausted all his footage and I say thank goodness for small mercies. He’s asked for our feedback. Don’t go there. Mustn’t encourage vain, egocentric projects that people have said repeatedly that they don’t like. This is no conspiracy, Oliver, it’s the truth. I did like one sequence – hen the Francisco Bosch as Bagoas, dances for the king and his entourage. That’s amazing and all about Bosch’s grace. Colin Farrell wasn’t Stone’s first choice to play Alexander, he wanted Tom Cruise. There are enough doubts about Cruise’ sexuality, why stir the pot? I’ll let Stone have the last words. ‘This is, finally, the undiluted, unrated, uncensored film required by the story itself’.

DVD double-header The Untouchables and Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show. The inevitable truth is that some films and television shows do not stand the test of time. Some are written and produced so well that they will be in reruns and retrospectives forever – I Love Lucy, The Philadelphia Story, Seinfeld and Gone with the Wind are examples of this phenomenon. I was terribly excited to get Season 1, Volume 1 of The Untouchables, the Elliott Ness dramatic series 1959. It’s set in Chicago in the roaring twenties and cashes in on various crime stories and figures of the era – Lucky Luciano, Dutch Schultz, Frank Nitti, Al Capone mob, Ma Barker and her sons, speakeasies, changing society, lots of promise. But the whole thing’s as wooden as table. The roles are stereotypical and Robert Stack’s delivery as the honest cop, is dry as dust. What a disappointment. Also on the downside is this compilation of episodes from the Larry Sanders Show, a fictonalised Tonight Show behind the scenes series starring Garry Shandling, Rip Torn and featuring guests like Alec Baldwin, Ellen DeGeneres, Jerry Seinfeld, John Stewart, the same people who are hot today- what does that say about the current crop of comedians?! The point is, the stories may have seemed boldly shocking and timely for their time, but that’s’ the problem, they are timely for their time, of the moment, ripped from contemporary situations – then, not now, and not clever enough to remain relevant. Not to mention the characters are intensely unlikable.

DVD Review Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief. Grace Kelly and Cary Grant are the definition of cool and sexy, romancing each other against the glamourous Cote d’Azur in Alfred Hitchcock’s spine tingling mystery. They are John and Frances, a convicted jewel thief and a visiting socialite who join forces to find out who’s been making off with tourists’ diamonds under cover of night. John is just out of prison on a jewel theft beef so suspicion naturally falls on him. He swears he’s off that racket, but no one believes him and the chase is on. We follow him inside the fabulous villas of Cannes to the casinos at Monaco and over the breathtaking mountains and sea – its surprisingly tense. Frances is extremely attracted to John, knowing he is a wanted man and a major league risk taker. The attraction is so strong that they just stop running one day to go on a romantic mountainside picnic. Kelly and Grant are a hot couple, smart as whips, gorgeous, and slightly mistrustful of one other. The dialogue crackles with intelligence but their sensual connection is the film’s spine; To Catch a Thief is a two-hour tease with a mystery thrown in. This was Kelly’s third film for Hitchcock; when she became the real life Princess of Monaco and stopped working, Hitchcock hired other cool blondes who allegedly reminded him of her, including Tippi Hedren, Janet Leigh, Eva Marie Saint and Doris Day. Jessie Royce Landis, who played Grant’s mother in North by Northwest, plays Kelly’s characters mother in To Catch a Thief. The actress is Grant’s intellectual equal so they give off heat, too. Ironically, Kelly died in a 1982 car crash on the same stretch of road they travel to get to their picnic spot. The DVD includes a biographical movie on the first costume designer to become a celebrity herself, Paramount‘s Edith Head. Learn why Grant’s all grey attire is no accident.

DVD Review. Cagney and Lacey; the True Beginning, 25^th Anniversary. It’s been called the best drama on television and while I would dispute that, it is up there. It broke new ground 25 years ago by introducing women in tough detective roles. They didn’t need help and they had strong opinions and an admirable work ethic. Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly played appealing characters who did not offend, but who often had to bite their tongues when dealing with their superiors because they had a stronger sense of the street. Two Canadians – Al Waxman and Harvey Atkin played their superiors. The show didn’t focus on pre-conceived notions that women were somehow less able to do the job – it just wasn’t an issue - they just did it. This 4-disc DVD features a two-part documentary called Breaking the Laws of TV, something Bea Arthur kicked started with Maude, Angie Dickinson celebrated in Police Woman and which Cagney and Lacey made normal. Their cases were interesting, believable and news worthy at the time, and stand up well today, also many stars of today made their TV debuts on Cagney and Lacey. But the series’ chief strength was its exceptional writing and performances by the leads. I’ve always thought Tyne Daly was a formidable but under rated actress; her work in Judging Amy was actually breathtaking. Daly and Gless were reunited there for a few episodes. Another fun feature of Cagney and Lacey is its parade of early eighties street fashions.

The Breed. Starring Michelle Rodriquez, Taryn Manning and Oliver Hudson. Even if you’re Goldie Hawn’s son, great roles in great films aren’t handed to you on a silver platter. Handsome Oliver Hudson is an ensemble of five in a nifty, short, entertaining yet ultimately forgettable horror flick. He plays a slacker who finds himself leading the defensive against a pack of wild dogs. Even horror films have character arcs. Okay, its not a great film but still, dogs haunt me. It is about a group of college friends spending a party weekend in a remote cabin (shot in Africa) in a plot heavily borrowed from Ten Little Indians. One by one, the kids succumb to a band of roving dogs, apparently trained to kill on a military installation, the only other place on the island. The Ten Little Indians motif is quite exciting even after all the copycats - Who will be next? How many will fall? What’s that around the corner? The dogs are unthinking homicidal brutes who are simply fulfilling their training by killing the college kids. It’s a match of wits/training that has some great moments. The film is shot in a realistic style, and is not exaggerated; the dogs aren’t magical and the humans are not superheroes. One serious flaw, Rodriquez gets a pole through her leg but manages to climb ladders and jump on a roof! The kids get high marks for ingenuity; horror movies are fun but not if they stretch the limits of belief. Scary is scarier if it seems possible. Its Nicholas Mastandrea’s directorial debut and he seems to have a good shot at success.

P.S. I Love You. It sounded strangely like Premonition (dead husband issues) without the horror, and promised to be sweet enough to make my teeth fall out. But, joy of joys, P.S. I Love You is not a total cotton candy valentine. Instead, it’s a warm engaging movie experience doesn’t ask a lot of the audience and fits the holiday season nicely. One critic I spoke with said ‘Too Christmassy. Too nice.’ Be warned. Too nice. Yikes. What we have here is a tearjerker. I am not opposed to this genre of film and enjoy it from time to time especially if there is real reason to blubber.

There Will Be Blood. Daniel Day-Lewis came out of retirement, an event in itself, to play Daniel Plainview. The Oscar winning actor is known as a bit of a Hollywood rebel, even a recluse. It would have to be a hefty part to get him away from his Irish family retreat to a spot in front of the camera. It is. And what a performance. As for Day-Lewis – he knows how to make a grand re-entry. Another Oscar?

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. We’re talking about a bloodthirsty serial killer gore flick, but Sweeney Todd’s musical mayhem is deliriously fun. Choruses are gone and a couple of big numbers but they are hardly missed given the wealth of eye popping, soul chilling and hilarious bonuses. Depp can sing, kind of, and Helena Bonham Carter totally. It’s wonderful to see the breadth of thespian opportunities Depp is willing to take, learning to sing and barber, while Bonham Carter, who also learned to sing, learned to bake for the split seconds onscreen when she actually does turn human mince into lovely meat pies. Johnny's in skunk Gothic drag and Helena Bonham Carter's looking like an antique porcelain doll, albeit somewhat worse for wear. Both are pale in waxy white makeup that is sinister yet somehow beguiling. Tim Burton has outdone himself and should easily be proud come award season, as should Depp and Bonham Carter. A bloody winner.

Two Lovers

This is reportedly Joaquin Phoenix’ last movie, as he enters a new and buzzworthy hip hop and self immolation phase. If so, it’s a loss to cinema, as he proves in James Gray’s intimate new love story. His beautifully nuanced performance is subtle, powerful and heartbreaking. The prospect of him walking away is a sad one as he clearly has the talent for a long and productive acting career.

Phoenix plays Leonard, a dry cleaning clerk who suffers from bipolar disorder. He lives with his worried parents (Isabella Rosselini and Moni Moshinov) in a claustrophobic flat that you know smells of wonderful Eastern European cooking.

They keep a close eye on him, listening at his door and hovering, in a genuine effort not to suffocate but to rescue him. Each time he leaves the house, the worry begins all over again that he will succeed in killing himself. Their support is total; they never give in to self pity or blame.

But their loving solicitation isn't working. We meet Leonard as he attempts suicide by throwing himself off a Brighton Beach pier. He is saved by onlookers who are baffled, then angry and hostile when he doesn’t seem grateful.

Leonard’s family has arranged for him to meet the daughter (Vinessa Shaw) of a man buying their dry cleaning business. He tolerates and privately welcomes their efforts, driven in part by his desire to please them. Marrying Sandra will seal his future in the dry cleaning company.

But a girl named Michelle, who lives upstairs (Gwyneth Paltrow) appears out of the blue and captivates him. It's clear from the outset that she has troubles. Leonard is, painfully indecisive and enters into relationships with both of them, playing the odds.

Michelle is an addict, an emotional mess and in a doomed relationship with a married man. Sandra is doting and stable and in love with him. Leonard’s affections shift as he manages to keep each girl in the dark about his true intentions.

Phoenix work is deft, real and intelligent, as a sad man looking for happiness, who loves his family but hates himself. Rosselini’s performance is riveting, and while she doesn’t have a lot to say, lays motherhood bare with a movement, a set of the chin and light from the eyes. Paltrow’s to be commended for making a flawed character intriguing and accessible, if not necessarily likeable.

Gray’s story seems simple, but its emotional journey is anything but. It is unpredictable, like real world relationships. The ending leaves something to be desired but seems in keeping with Leonard’s character so it’s all good. The brilliant script and direction makes the tough subject matter palatable; the emotions aren’t sideshow stuff, but are handled with tremendous respect.

Gray’s films are terrific, if not particularly cheerful. “Little Odessa”, “The Yards” and “We Own the Night” are highly personal views of life in the outskirts where there’s not much money but there is love and loyalty. “Two Lovers” is a powerful addition to the collection.

Fanboys

No wonder “Fanboys” sat on the shelf four years, waiting for something, any excuse to invade our multiplexes. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Jamie King, Kristen Bell, Harry Knowles and others, there is reason to release. They are stars – this is their moment. It is assumed people want to see them in ‘the early days” so this worthless piece of celluloid slips under the door.

Unfortunately for them, Carrie Fisher, William Shatner and Billy Dee Williams make cameo appearances, perhaps believing the hype surrounding a low budget, ‘fan boy’- made tribute to the movies and shows that launched their own careers. It was sad to see the brilliant young dramatic actor Lou Taylor Pucci in a dopey doofus role.

It’s always good to see perennial bad guy Danny Trejo, a former recurring prison inmate who turned this life around in dozens of films capitalising on his rough appearance and contrasting big warm smile. And I’m saying it, his presence elevates the film.

The film is based on a short that should have stayed short. Instead, this road film follows “Star Wars” fans and long time friends who devise a scheme to break into George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch and steal a copy of “Star Wars”, so their cancer-stricken friend can see it before dying. Sounds okay, doesn’t it? One was hopeful.

But there are too many problems stacked against its success. The script is a laboured and unfunny mess that passes ‘inside’ references to other productions as original and entertaining. It’s about dull, narrow characters whose significant points of reference come from a science fiction film.

It’s painful to watch the characters lack of self awareness. They are true children of their times because they bought in to pop culture as a guideline for living. How can they help it given the constant pressure from aggressive marketing?

It’s redeeming feature is the relationships between the characters, lifelong friends who care for one another. A few guys and a tagalong girl (the accepted road format) test their friendship and question their lives, albeit too briefly, in close quarters and don’t kill each other. They value each other and work to restore the rifts and rally around their sick friend in positive ways.

Also In its favour, “Fanboys” does let fly the occasional good line. The last one is priceless, but still not worth the ride. It is as dull, narrow and as aggravating a two hours as I’ve ever spent in the movies.

Harvey Weinstein was at the centre of online buzz because he demanded significant changes. Online petitions and the threat of boycott allegedly caused him to back off and sadly, the amateurish results will prove him right – or at least righter than these filmmakers. The man knows movies and he knows junk much of the time.

“Fanboys “is going to hurt careers. It should have stayed put on that shelf. Please Hollywood, save us from amateur keeners with cameras. These are scary times in cinema. The economy and ongoing labour troubles in Hollywood are making it harder for a legitimate film to be made and distributed.

It’s so easy to make a film now, technologically speaking, on phones, computers, personal cameras. Anyone can make one and promote the hell out of it. Viral campaigning can force us into poor viewing choices. People will want to see “Fanboys” based on four years of battling and suppression, to see it it’s really that bad.

Get set for the deluge of cheap and cheerful junk.

And enough already about “Star Wars”.

I Love You, Man

What can you say about a film with a bromance, a dog named Anwar Sadat, a performance by Rush, sexy gossip, gay awkwardness, sophisticated banter, intellect, a Man Cave, rolling laughter, Lou Ferrigno and adorable leads?

Bull’s eye!

I Love You, Man is a hilarious, wise and witty look at sexual politics that will ring true with male and female audiences. It’s good enough to erase the memory of the awful mid winter movies of 2009 and clever enough to be quotable and re-enactment -worthy.

“Hey, my Jobin!”

Peter’s getting married to the beautiful and patient Zooey, played by Rashida Jones, but he can’t scrape up a friend to act as his Best Man. He traveled all his life and never felt the absence of a buddy. But Zooey wants the perfect traditional wedding and she wants him to find a friend.

So with the help of his gay brother played by Andy Samberg, Peter auditions applicants on experimental man dates. None take, but when the super confident Sydney shows up at Peter’s open house, manly sparks fly. They hit it off and embark on terrific, man only adventures. Zooey is ecstatic when Peter brings home a friend, but suffers a wee bit of jealousy when she sees how close they’re getting.

Can Peter and Sydney go the distance and make it to the wedding?

Paul Rudd isn’t just a funny actor, he’s a good actor. He delivers his lines with easy naturalism and allows the funny to arise from the situation without resorting to tricks or beating a line to death.

Jason Segel, a big tall drink of water who looms over Rudd, is appealingly offbeat, the ideal foil as their comedic sensibilities lock into synch. Rudd’ Peter is slightly uptight and fusty, Segel’ Sydney’s manic and extroverted and together – bam! Magic. They are a revelation.

While it’s too much to say I Love You, Man is a chick flick for men; it bears many of the genre’s trademarks. It’s light and frothy, charming, funny, and not as shallow as it seems at first glance. It’s bright, happy, optimistic and sunny in midwinter.

And there are lessons to be learned here about the opposite sex. Women in bunches eventually get around to sharing details of their sex lives. Despite bad press, men will talk about their feelings with one another. And that’s just two things.

There isn’t a dull moment in I Love You, Man. Dialogue rolls along at a fast clip and laughter is hard on its heels. It’s not just the jokes but also a sense of well-being that permeates the film. It is thoughtfully balanced in scripting, performances, tone, direction and editing.

Superlative supporting performances from Jaime Pressly, Jon Favreau, Andy Samberg, J.K. Simmons, Jane Curtin and the dog Anwar Sadat complete this giddily delicious winter confection.

It’s great to enjoy a little old-fashioned sophistication and wit. Paul Rudd and Jason Segel are Cary Grant and Randolph Scott for a new generation.

Duplicity

Here’s an opening sequence that should go down in pop culture history. Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson duke it out on a rain drenched airstrip, watched but not stopped by horrified security detail. They thrash about in a nightmarish dance as only two out-of-shape greedy sons-of-business executives can, in jaw dropping slow motion. Between the clownish spectacle and the shouted insults we lip read, it’s a whale of a start.

But “Duplicity”moves fast from sideshow to polished, sophisticated and wry. It’s a grown up and career-enhancing return for Julia Roberts who wipes away memories of the doe-eyed ditz with maturity and understanding. She shares a witty, caustic but clandestine relationship with rival corporate spy Clive Owen. He’s a crafty Brit of mysterious vintage. They have a complicated history as adversaries and lovers. Their union is utterly lacking in trust but packed with chemistry which very nearly excuses the film’s plot holes and excessive length.

“Duplicity” is a cynical romp that reflects the pre-crash era we once knew just a few months ago. The real star of the show is corporate malfeasance. Like the avarice of A.I.G., Duplicity’s evil corporate world is of Shakespearean proportions.

Giamatti is in a deadly game of brinksmanship with Wilkinson’s character. They are heads of rival deodorant manufacturers in the business of stealing one another’s secrets, driven not to create and develop but to ensure the other guy fails. When one comes up with a new product the other wants it not because it may be good but merely because it exists and belongs to the other guy. No one knows what it is.

The companies hire highly trained security operatives Roberts and Owen, one to protect the product, the other to swipe it. They are formidable, experienced spies, but the personal element threatens to blow their covers. Their seemingly long and colourful history is held together by a secret connection code and a mututal desire to double cross and test the other. It keeps up off balance.

The complicated plot interweaves their duplicitous romance with high stakes espionage. Gilry doles out information in tiny increments, making us believe a certain set of realities and then upending them for another - and so on for over two hours. Delightful surprises from supporting characters add to the mix but close attention is required. The only constant is the love story and it’s not immune from fearsome pummeling.

Gilroy’s followup to “Michael Clayton” is just as slick and smart, but there are no big revelatory moments for our guilt ridden operatives. The corporate world of Clayton is frightening, but “Duplicity”s is kind of dumb. Both films are intelligent, engaging and refreshingly cerebral, and free of the commonplace violence of most adversary films now.

“Duplicity”s final chapter and scene is worth the price of admission, the parking and the dinner. And it’s a nice wee warning to greedy guts all over the world.

Race to Witch Mountain

This re-imagining of the Disney sci-fi family classic Escape to Witch Mountain stars AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig as siblings who suddenly appear in Dwayne Johnson’s cab. They have a fistful of dollars and talk like grownups – well educated and world weary adults. They use proper grammar! They must be aliens!

It’s true. They’re aliens in a fix, stranded in tumbleweed country after their spaceship crashes who’ve landed somewhere far from it. They must return and hie themselves home but the Nevada desert is an alien place full of humans. They must figure out how to accomplish their mission, fortunately, they have super powers and more than a little faith in this agreeable cabbie.

Dwayne Johnson, the Rock, plays a down on his luck cabbie whose dealings with local gangsters may prove fatal. He owes money and they aren’t waiting. They rough him up (The Rock?). Seems like a fine time to leave town so he takes the lost aliens under his wing and into his cab and off they go.

The trio is set upon at every turn by scary locals and scarier government agents who have locked down the perimeter of the crash site. It happens to be at the foot of Witch Mountain a secret government facility dedicated to UFO’s. The sudden appearance of a couple of aliens is most welcome.

Our heroes face the might of military security agents led by the exceedingly frightening Ciaran Hinds. He’s the formidable Irish actor who can’t seem to leave the American desert - “There Will Be Blood” and now this.

Fortunately Johnson had met a scientist played by Carla Gugino some time earlier. She’s a UFO expert enroute to a paranormal convention in Las Vegas, a shamed academic obsessed with aliens. She fits nicely into the gang racing to Witch Mountain. She’s certainly concerned for the ‘children’s’ safety but the possibility of seeing an actual spaceship is irresistible. And Johnson’s a potential love match.

From that point on, the CGI rears up, dwarfing the story and the characters and deafening and blinding audience members. The filmmakers go too far with the effects, and kill off the nice chemistry brewing between the actors. Their roles are reduced to ‘Look out!”, “Hurry!”, ‘Down here!”. It would have been more effective with less ‘wow’ and more personality.

Robb is a terrific young actress whose confidence and ability has grown in the last couple of years since Bridge to Terabithia and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She easily assumes her Witch Mountain characters’ otherworldly braininess. And she’s not eerie like many over achieving youthful actors.

Ludwig does a fine job as an ‘alien’ who uses extreme focus to launch his superpowers. He and Robb have a nice rhythm and convince us they are what they’re meant to be. They even look alike.

Johnson’s appealing screen presence does not disappoint.

Fans of the 1975 film will be pleased to know stars Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann make cameo appearances as the helpful barmaid and the sheriff. Sharp eyed fans will note that the original Winnebago’s back too.

Watchmen

Watchmen has cannily positioned itself as a blockbuster and a news story with its sidebar legal wrangles between two studios. It’s based on a popular graphic novel / comic book. It’s big and bold, a patchwork of Big Moments, and a directorial experiment that leaves nothing wanting technically speaking. It’s state of the art straight up, but set in the 80’s which suddenly looks like a fun era and sets off contempo wizardry.

So why is it being released in the deadly doldrums of early March?

It is problematic from frame one. The opening sequence rushes us through time dramatically on its way to an argumnt or point. None is made, though, except the world’s on the brink of destruction (yawn) and a bunch of superhero yahoos have the key to save us.

Problem is, each of them is an emotional cripple incapable of transcending their own pain. The best plan would have been to explore that, but there’s precious little to go on. We are meant to accept them at face value and somehow care. It makes “The Dark Night” look like a post graduate course in psychiatry.

To the good, Jackie Earle Haley, the narrator and Walter/Rorschach, puts in an electrifying performance. He transcends the material with ferocity and it’s possible that his name could come up in next season’s nominations.

The history of the women seems to drive the story, and yet its view of them is fetishistic at best and mysogynistic at least. A graphic beat down of Carla Gugino’s character by a burly cowardly superhero is nauseatingly detailed.

Ever newer methods of killing replace plot and character as in some videogames. It’s violence is breathtakingly over the top. It’s non-stop in that glorified way of stop-motion to better examine the wounded flesh, pain of being alive in that world, the moment of one’s horrific death, the menace of unquenchable rage.

The film isn’t what you‘d call entertaining. It’s more like a challenge to endure its 163 minute length and its crass, morbid infantilism. These are so-called supeheroes with significant powers who alck the intellect to even recognise a better world they’re allegedley trying to create.

It’s a poisonous piece that reeks of death obsession, torture porn, hatred and pain. It refuses to leaven its own weight with ahint of humour or humanity so we never connect. It’s portrayal of women is despicable. If this is the future of superhero films, then be afraid.

Having said all of this, estimates of a $70-M opening are probably right on. There is a market for this film and others that may follow from it. Thre are no women in this market, however, so it’s strictly boys’ night out.

Confessions of a Shopaholic

It is a shame that this much anticipated film, based on Sophie Kinsella’s satiric chick lit series is in release now when financial crisis has turned our world upside down. If would have fared better a few years ago when breathless beauty/label/designer era was in its glory. Shopping is irrelevant today for most of us.

The women who would be attracted to the film are concerned about hanging onto their jobs, finding one or feeding themselves, not amassing $1700 Louis Vuitton shoes, Creed perfume and Gucci bags on credit.

There is a terrible sinking of the heart watching the adorable Isla Fisher as Rebecca Bloomwood, a financial advice writer whose personal spending habits would have had her thrown into debtors’ prison in Dickens time. It’s hard to enjoy our heroine’s financial missteps as we fear them as our own in this harsh economic climate. Harsh? Make that brutal.

Even so, wild audience guffaws erupted throughout a recent screening in Toronto. Fisher is tremendously engaging and funny, in ways reminiscent of Carole Lombard, Lucille Ball and Judy Holliday. She has perfect pitch, great timing and enthusiasm for physical comedy.

She’s joined by high toned talent in the form of Kristen Scott Thomas, breathtaking as a French magazine editor in the way only a gifted, sophisticated woman who has lived in France for two decades can be.

Hugh Dancy plays her rather too young and rather to patient editor at “Successful Saving”. Dancy lacks the authority the role requires and the strength to withstand Beck’s outsize personality despite his lovely Brit-ness.

John Goodman and Joan Cusak share hilarious chemistry as Beck’s happily downmarket parents. Film and stage buffs will enjoy cameos by John Lithgow, Lynne Redgrave, Wendy Malick, Clea Lewis, Christine Ebersole and Julie Hagerty.

Manhattan style stereotypes abound which is no offense. It’s fun to laugh at the store skeletons that disdain the people who buy their wares and the scheming showgirl/intern types we’ve loved to hate since Joan Crawford mowed down civility as Crystal Allen in “The Women” in 1939.

The tone is light and there’s room for a lesson. Cost versus Worth – what are our values? But it’s the faintest whisper of a message. A darker, unintentional lesson is that charm can save the day when all else fails.

The books, which although funny and entertaining, pack a bigger and more complex punch than the film. It ambitiously slams three books into under two hours and goes for the obvious high notes, so there is no complexity or subtext. Hence, we know very little about what makes Becks tireless, desperate money cheater that she is.

“Shopaholic” must find its audience. It’s light as whipped cream but can’t quite shake the negative side of Beck’s problems. It’s based on a phenomenally popular book series but doesn’t bear any resemblance to it. And times are tough.

The best way to see it is as an appreciation of the comic gifts of Isla Fisher.

Che Pt. 2

Steven Soderberg’s film on Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s final act is a mature and intimate work of art. We see the counter-culture idol, revolutionary warrior, pop icon, idealist and murderer in decline.

Guevara was an Argentinean doctor who became politically aware while riding a motorcycle through his country in 1951. He witnessed the poverty and desperation of the people and vowed to change their lives through Marxist revolution.

Using his nickname Che, he joined forces with fellow idealist Fidel Castro who was plotting the overthrow of Batista’s Cuban dictatorship. After it was accomplished, Che became Castro’s second in command.

They shared an idealistic view of Communism and a desire to bring it to people around the world. After the Cuban victory, Castro settled in to recreate the island as the Communist model and “Che” took the revolution to the Congo.

When he wasn’t fighting, he was in hiding, writing memoirs and treatises on politics and military strategies.

Che- Pt. 2 takes up in Bolivia where he leads a small army of revolutionaries in a fight to overthrow the country’s military dictatorship. They lead a brutal, clandestine life, hiding in the jungles without food, water or medicine and under constant fire, fueled by Marxist zeal.

The Bolivians refused to join the rebellion and viewed Che with suspicion as a ‘foreigner’. He assumed a new name and continued to fight as threats against them grew and word of his presence got out.

By this time he was wanted by the CIA and the Bolivian government.

The CIA set up a Special Forces Unit in the jungle similar to ones used in Vietnam, sealing the rebels’ fate. There was no chance of survival against American styled intelligence and operations.

Che's jungle army dwindled under repeated ambushes. Tania, the sole woman fighter, died of an infection. But they persevered despite heat, illness and starvation under his forceful leadership.

Che’s chronic asthma worsened and eventually, weakened and isolated in a jungle gunfight he was wounded captured and imprisoned. A soldier guarding him accused him of killing his uncle in Cuba. He remained steadfast, refused to surrender and was executed.

A mysterious final scene flies in the face of history.

The film is stark yet intimate, keeping us within a hand’s reach of the rebels. We can hear them breathe. Danger lurks behind every jungle thicket. Their lives inevitably shrink with fear and disappointment. We admire Che’s unwavering will, but we know the outcome. The camera disappears, it feels real.

Benicio Del Toro’s Che is a striking figure, thin, haggard, covered in dirt, asthmatic, sunburned and weary, but somehow noble. That’s how some people think of Che, the ones who wear his image on T-shirts or handbags, the pure hearted, noble rebel.

It’s just not the case. Che executed his own men, deserters and informers, as well as enemies, but the film doesn’t show us much of that. Del Toro’s Che is heroic, holy and pure, even saintly. The performance is minimalistic, but so barebones that we know him as an idealist and soldier but not as a man.

Soderberg has outdone himself with this striking two-part film. He achieves a level of cinematic sophistication that doesn’t come along often. He marries the flavour of the greatest political films of the 70’s with the advances in techniques and technologies of today.

It’s a rare artistic event that asks a lot of the viewer and gives much back.

Watch for the Matt Damon cameo.

Inkheart

Brendan Fraser seems bound to other times and places. He makes more than his fair share of time traveling fantasy and action films of the non-Marvel vintage. His latest adventure beyond this plane of ours is “Inkheart”. He plays Mo, a bookbinder who journeys all over the world with his young daughter, Meggy, ostensibly in search of rare old volumes to repair.

It begins in what seems to be modern times, although the important action takes place in an old worlde style fair in a European mountain village. Old-fashioned culture is so alive that we begin to doubt that we’re looking at the here and now.

A strange and frightening figure rises out of the crowd and tears after Mo. He threatens Meggy, launching Mo into protective mode. The scarred figure (Paul Bettany) demands Mo ‘read him back’.

Mo has the gift of a Silvertongue. He is able to bring characters and events out of books by reading aloud. And the scarred figure trapped out of his book, has something to do with Mo’s long-missing wife.

A gang of booked-based villains shows up to put a stop to Mo for fear he’ll send them back into their book. They have learned to love the soft life of modern times.

“Inkheart” is a children’s story about many things, including the love of books and reading, respect for literature and the endless fascination they offer. Characters and events in literature pop up throughout the film, like Tom Sawyer’s raft, which comes crashing through a medieval castle ceiling. Odd lines from books are heard in passing, and visual allusions are non-stop.

“Inkheart” is a filled with literary landmines, just waiting to burst forth and bring readers together in shared knowledge and appreciation of storytelling.

The film celebrates family, honest relationships and fair treatment.

A wonderfully entertaining element of the film is its melding of opposites. Old and new, representing the timelessness of fairy tales and the intrigues of modern life, share the screen.

There is medieval graffiti on castle walls, sharing screen space with cars drive by. Clothing from the middle ages and contemporary Italian fashion houses appear in the same scenes. It’s a cultural mashup.

Fraser enters new territory as a slightly tired action man, who hides his superpower – the ability to bring literature to life - behind a weary body and worried mind.

Young Eliza Bennett is Meggy, a sad little girl tired of their nomadic existence, missing the mother she thinks abandoned her.

Helen Mirren appears as Mo’s crusty and outspoken, book-loving relative who lives in an Italian mansion tucked up high in the mountains. She of course, owns a huge library. Jim Broadbent plays the author of “Inkheart”, the book they’re all seeking. They bring formidable elder wisdom to the mix.

Andy Serkis is wasted as Capricorn, the one-dimensional villain and book hater whom Mo accidentally read out of “Inkheart”. Capricorn knows exactly where Mo’s wife is but he’s not telling for his own wicked reasons.

“Inkheart” is a fairy tale for children but will bring the magic of books back to some grownups. It never patronises children but manages to balance the emotions raised in the search for the lost parent with the joy of discovering the wide and wonderful world of reading and writing.

Some adults may find the film contrived but it’s not for them. “Inkheart” is a film that celebrates and understands children and their close and enduring relationship with books. Not for the cynical.

Gran Torino

Even if Clint Eastwood is a caricature of Clint Eastwood, that’s still much better than the performances some professional actors out there are offering. I am not offended by his gravelly voice, cool and deliberate demeanour or the expectation that he is about to draw a pistol in Gran Torino. I’m not even offended that the film verges into racist exoticism, because it transfigures into something remarkable.

It’s a terrific movie that is tenderly evocative but tense in its two-hour climb towards a realistic and thought provoking conclusion. It feels like an Eastwood cowboy film, only its forty years and times have changed.

The journey’s the thing, as he defines his territory and then embarks on an awkward journey to bridge his own pre-conceived notions. It’s fun to see an old and bitter man who was once something, try to reconnect to life.

Eastwood plays Korean War veteran Walt Kowalski, whose front lawn and tiny, perfect home is his sovereign domain. He sneers at the Asian and African American families who have moved into his hood and will change things forever. Long gone is the Leave it to Beaver world he fought to save.

Walt’s response to nearly everything and the latest catchphrase ‘Get off my lawn’ which is how he keeps the changing world at bay.

He tolerates the Asian family next door but his patience takes a beating when the teenager Thao attempts to steal Walt’s beloved and unused Gran Torino. Thao’s mortified family sends him to work for Walt until Walt says he’s done. Neither is happy with the situation.

But an unlikely bond forms. Walt teaches Thao to stand up for himself. The theft was his initiation test into his cousin’s gang, which is now hitting him harder than ever. Walt learns to open his eyes to new things and reach out of himself.

When Thao is badly beaten, Walt goes into solider mode, launching his own style of vengeance, which incidentally is very Eastwoodesque. Instead of showing his gun, he shows his trigger finger - even that small gesture packs a punch because he carries such weight.

The area’s young priest is one of the few characters to stand up to Eastwood in a film that I recall. He comes to warn Walt not to kill anyone when trouble brews. They have an understanding and a relationship.

But Walt’s most defining connection is with Sue, Thao’ older sister, who looks beyond Walt’s bluster and racism to see the better man.

Its moving and powerful film that dares to be politically incorrect as a reflection of a man of Walt’s years and class. But the good part is that we are given this testament to our ability to change and heal.

Eastwood’s a clever fella. He has now gone successfully into the small, indie film world – sure with Warner’s behind him – to create a gem. And he’s still a gunslinger, only his gun is made of air.

Revolutionary Road

Big noise about reuniting Kate Winslet and Leonardo Di Caprio who symbolized nubile young love in Titanic.

Well, they are together again but they’re much older and wiser, a sad married couple struggling for meaning in suburban Connecticut each hoping for opposing life outcomes.

There’s not much magic left in this union. April and Frank are closing in on the fifties American dream, the white clapboard suburban home and yard every young executive strives for, the wife inside, cooking, cleaning and serving her man. They are ‘successful’ in those limited confines, but truth is, they barely connect anymore.

April wants to escape this unfulfilling world and life and move to Paris where she will work and he will stay at home and write – radical thinking back then!

He seems momentarily keen on the idea. But a promotion scuppers that idea and he decides to climb the corporate ladder, bed secretaries and amass money. To hell with April’s dreams.

Revolutionary Road is more than a slam at suburban domestic life. It’s a scathing revelation of convention and betrayal. The betrayal isn’t sexual, it’s bigger than that.

English director Sam Mendes is working with an outstanding script to which he brings the outsiders’ eye. As is often the case, foreign directors deliver the American story with extra zing.

He deconstructs the American suburban dream, idealised into stupidity, with characters nearly unable to breathe in its stifling conformity.

Mendes revisits the suburban territory he described so well in American Beauty, as a kind of appetizer to the failures of cinematic suburban decay.

April and Frank’s disagreements escalate and before long we’re wondering why they don’t kill each other. It’s a tribute to the filmmakers and actors that the tenor is civilised and restrained, the way it would have been back then, yet deep and meaty.

Michael Shannon plays John, the poor unfortunate who dares to rail against the system. He’s the son of a nervous Nelly neighbour who comes by for tea. He may be ‘crazy’ and just out of the loony bin, but he sees things as they are. His bluntness is breathtaking.

And what a performance! Shannon was totally brilliant in the underrated gem “Shotgun Stories” and this film will bring his talents to a much wider world audience.

Revolutionary Road is extremely intense and uncomfortable, an all too painful portrait of a crumbling marriage that, like many other things, starts with baby steps and finds itself hurtling down the staircase, headfirst.

The performances are equally convincing. Leo’s rather appealingly older now, the baby fat’s all gone and the frown lines that mark the passage of time are badges of well-deserved honour. With this performance more than any other he’s done, DiCaprio shows that he has what it takes to enjoy a long and rewarding career. Winslet’s always good and excellent here and a million miles away from the frosty Nazi prison guard in her other pix in theaters now, The Reader.

They may not reach the romantic heights of the Titanic again, but Kate and Leo have given their all for the bitter truths of Revolutionary Road.

Valkyrie

After all our collective Tom Cruise bashing, he’s turned the tables on us. And he ain’t kidding. He’s good.

His work in Valkyrie and the film itself are top rate. He is restrained and grimly Not Tom as Col. Claus Von Stauffenberg in his most mature work to date.

There are none of the histrionics and mugging sometimes associated with his work. It's plain, straight forward and effective, a selfless performance.

Cruise says he was inspired to play the Nazi officer who led a plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler when he noticed facial similarities in a portrait. Films have been launched on less than that.

Stauffenberg and a group of fellow officers realize that Hitler’s Final Solution is an abomination, that their beloved Germany is ruled by hatred and prejudice of a lunatic.

David Bamber plays Hitler as a hunchback troll with a moustache who is either eerily silent or screaming – a sadistic, troubled man who would rather play with his dogs than allow Jews to live.

The film doesn’t try to teach us more about the man who has been explored endlessly in films. Instead, it takes us on an intense journey into a sidebar of history.

It’s about a handful of men determined to carry out Hitler’s assassination, against a certainty that failure would mean execution for them and their families.

Bryan Singer’s direction is impressively choreographic in some scenes where troops are rallied. They look for all the world like X-Men in Nazi drag massing for battle. Such theatricality works, mirroring the Nazi love of spectacle.

Maybe the Nazis inspired the X-Men.

It is indeed thrilling to observe the quick-thinking team in action, under Stauffenberg’s plan. It’s thrilling to watch the ruses and deceptions develop as the assassination plan builds to a pitch. Every second counts and no one is safe from scrutiny.

It moves quickly, with perhaps less explication than would be ideal, but the speed is crucial to the story’s realism. Speed works for them and against them.

Singer does a great thriller. We are glued to the screen unable to look away for fear of missing something key and subtle. There are indeed subtleties in this epic, on which the whole thing rests.

Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, Eddie Izzard, Terence Stamp are terrific in supporting roles as . Stauffenberg’s fellow conspirators.

But Cruise is the standout. He’s outdone himself and may have a shot at reinventing his acting career. Personally, I think it’s the best thing he’s done since “Magnolia” and “Interview with the Vampire”.

People expecting to glory in some schadenfreude will be sorely disappointed.

Valkyrie was originally intended for a summer release, then it moved to a spring release and is now poised for Oscar eligibility with a December release.

However, in a peculiar convergence, it now joins five other Nazi / Holocaust/ WWII films hitting the theatres Christmas Day.

Happy holidays?!

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

One hundred and fifty million is a big budget for a film especially in these shaky times. Especially for a period piece like “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. The story concept is difficult to grasp. The gorgeous Brad everyone adores is evident in only a small portion of the film. Most of the time he is a wizened old man on crutches or a wrinkly, arthritic baby. And the movie’s long.

Doesn’t sound appealing, does it?

These concerns will fall by the wayside once the public claps eyes on Benjamin Button, a spiritual brother to Forrest Gump, full of heart and soul and wise in the ways of people.

This is Brad Pitt’s Oscar moment. He is superb in a demanding role that has him ageing backwards over more than eighty years, assisted by brilliantly inventive and evocative disguises. His surrender to the odd character is total and we come to love this character.

He grows up - or down - in a New Orleans nursing home where he looks for all the world as though he belongs there. His father was so horrified to see him that he snatched the child from his birth bed, where his wife lay dying, and put him on the back stairs of the nursing home. That was after he was caught trying to drown the boy. And he disappeared.

Benjamin begins life with his devoted adoptive mother - Taraji P. Henson – who considers him a miracle. Life in the nursing home is happy for a long time, until his body begins to change and he begins to long for experiences.

He grows younger and stronger, and soon heads out into the world. He works on a tramp steamer, fights the war on the sea, embarks on an unusual love affair with a woman ‘as plain as paper’ – Tilda Swinton! - and misses his mother.

He has the wisdom of an old man, but he soon copes with the trappings of increasing youthfulness, like strength, sex and love.

He outlives everyone he cares for, and finds happiness in marriage only briefly. He and his childhood sweetheart - Cate Blanchett - who knows his condition, eventually intersect at the right ages and consummate their love.

The story of Benjamin Button is revealed through his diary, read to his ancient sweetheart by her granddaughter, a wonderful conceit that brings together the past and present and shows how one shapes the other.

The film is epic in scope and intimate in emotion. It’s compassionate and funny, tragic and joyful. Button’s acceptance of his place in the world is hard won and learns that happiness or at least positive human experience is possible no matter how strange the circumstances of our birth.

It’s an unusual film for Pitt’s old friend, director David Fincher (“Se7en” and “Fight Club”). It’s anything but modern and cool. It is the opposite of modern and cool. It is warm and emotional; verging on sentimentality but tough minded and experienced enough to be meaningful.

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is one of the strangest contenders in this year’s awards season and one of the oddest, loveliest characters we’ll ever see at the movies.

Doubt

Rarely has existential doubt been as enthralling as in this three hander. John Patrick Shanley’s award winning stage play is adapted into one of the season’s strongest films, with a bravura performance by Meryl Streep and powerful supporting work by Phillip Seymour, Viola Davis Hoffman and Amy Adams.

Streep plays Sister Aloysius, an implacably self-righteous Catholic nun who runs a Bronx parochial school in the mid-60s. A look from her is enough to terrify a young student slouching at church into sitting straight and paying attention.

Sister Aloysius has her fellow nuns similarly under order of terror. She brooks no fuss and adheres to the old ways. No ball point pens will be used in her school! Disobey labyrinthine school and church rules and risk of damnation and worse, her displeasure.

So when novice Sister James - Amy Adams - risks coming to her with half formed feelings that a priest is misbehaving with a student, Sister Aloysius knows there must be something to it. Otherwise, Sister James would not dare.

Now supercharged with righteous indignation based on a contagious ‘feeling’ that wrongdoing has occurred, Sister Aloysius confronts Father Flynn and demands to know if he is guilty.

Father Flynn, played by Hoffman, does something extraordinary, he fights back. She doesn’t like that!

Father Flynn is so subtle in his own defense that we don’t know whether he’s telling the truth or hiding under the protection of the bishop.

But we begin to suspect that the real problem is that thing in Sister Aloysius’ nature that can’t bear change or anything less than immediate obedience.

Or is he guilty? Sister James is now re-examining what she saw. Adams’ innocent look and demeanour anchors her character’s storyline – too green to know what she has set off and too swift to believe what will make her feel less culpable. She is brilliant.

The boy’s mother, played by Viola Davis, has an unusual response to the charges, which turns Sister Aloysius’ moral certainty upside down. Davis, a brilliant actress who has laboured in the shadows long enough, breaks our hearts as the mother of the troubled boy. She is the only character able to meet Sister Aloysius as an intellectual equal.

Doubt is a film of conversation, yet it is alive and robust and takes on the feel of a thriller.

Streep’s Bronx honk is a tad startling and nearly distracts from the picture. But she lays out Sister Aloysius’ emotional, spiritual journey while keeping it within the bounds of the woman’s set-in-concrete personality.

Will that concrete weather the storm?

Hoffman plays with the audience as he so often does, never releasing us from our doubt. He is impossible to read and we must rely on what he says which isn’t always the best indicator of reality.

It is interesting that a film about a parochial school scandal forty years ago can ring so true today. The church has changed and society has changed radically since then. It is a tribute to the power of Shanley’s words and performances by a handful of well-chosen actors.

Whether we learn the truth or not, the unpeeling of seething prejudices in this journey towards communication is more than enough reward.

Frost/Nixon

Frost/Nixon recaptures the zeitgeist of the late seventies, an exciting time when it seemed possible to bring down a hated president and overthrow the establishment. It was a time of greater political activism than now. Similarly, we couldn’t wait to get rid of our presidents – Bush and Nixon.

So there is a certain sense of satisfaction in watching it happen again.

The film reminds us how ugly things get behind the scenes not just in politics but also in television news, both of which ride on extraordinary public connection and money.

Frost had this great idea to interview a deposed king, and pursued it with nothing to back him, no networks, no money and no prospects. He did it hoping for an outlet and payday but wasn’t convinced he’d get one. It’s a tribute to his tenacity and optimism and in the end, an irresistible charm that always seemed to win the day for him.

It was no vanity project, either; it was a chance to create something meaningful. For a man to interview celebrities, stunts people, showcase animals and novelties to interviewing the most reviled man in America requires something very special indeed, an understanding of human nature.

Nixon eventually agreed to be interviewed with conditions. They sat down to begin what became historic debates, at least towards the end, which began badly. It took Frost a while to refocus Nixon from pleasant homilies about himself to the true grit – the Watergate break-in and his part in it.

Nixon didn’t understand human nature, and worked through negative power - intimidation, refusal and contempt. So the interviews are at least interesting as two polar opposites go at it.

Michael Sheen is wonderfully well cast as David Frost. He brings the required sunny outlook and eternal hope to a man struggling to hang on to a television career. Frost’s ambition, warmth and easygoing nature strike a contrast to Nixon’s bulldog temperament.

Despite the hard knocks and battles Frost endured to get the interviews, he always smiled, knowing he was doing something of value. Just as believed, he was doing something of value, entertaining ordinary people with his trick animals, tennis pros and disco stars.

He comes off at times like an innocent farm boy agog at the big strokes of politics and personality. Real or not, it worked for him.

Frank Langella as Nixon is eerily reminiscent of Nixon, not in appearance but in manner. Langella is so convincing that he will figure prominently during this year’s award season.

He takes a man universally despised and gives him something close to humanity. He doesn’t ask us to like or admire Nixon, but simply not to hate him. He shows us Nixon’s pathology, his impeccable manners and sense of entitlement and the paranoia that drove him to break the law and cover it up. We don’t feel sorry for him; he doesn’t take it that far. But there is some poignancy to jahis tragic figure.

There are extended silent scenes of Nixon pondering how to answer a question that would ruin his name forever, in which the slightest movement of the eye or nervous flourish of the hands is both heartbreaking and just punishment.

The dramatic tension of the twelve days of interviews is riveting. It may be just an interview between two different, right men, but it is built with operatic steps. It is sometimes unbearable.

I think this is Ron Howard’s best work as a director. To bring life into what is essentially two people talking, is an accomplishment. He’ll be nominated as will the picture. It asks a lot of us.

Just watching this sophisticated, intelligent cat and mouse game is our reward.

Milk

What interesting timing – the story of assassinated gay rights leader and San Francisco politician Harvey Milk is in theatres just as Obama’s win signals a progressive shift in American society.

Milk raised that same kind of kick ass spirit thirty years ago when he led the battle for gay rights on Castro Street that became a revolution. Milk’s arrival also co-incides with the vote in California to ban gay marriage, leading one to wonder just how far ahead society has come in three decades.

Van Sant’s film is important as it traces the beginning of the Rainbow Coalition, and gay rights movement in something of a history lesson, but a well crafted and beautifully performed one.

Sean Penn’s phenomenal as Milk, a character that’s miles away from the dour folks Penn frequently plays. His Harvey Milk is a happy-go-lucky camera storeowner who dubs himself Mayor of Castro St. and attracts people.

They catch his optimism and join him on his bid to create a new world with civil rights for all. Milk is rarely let down by life, he has confidence to take on an unpopular cause and the political; and personal skills to keep the fight clean and cool.

A sensational performance.

Josh Brolin, who is everywhere this season, shifts things around as middling milquetoast politician Dan White. White is in personal and professional turmoil; he’s ambitious but inept and overshadowed by Milk. He tries to appropriate him as a friend and political ally.

And there may be more to his solicitations.

Brolin plays the fury just below the surface, and lets it bubble when the frustration just gets to be too much. His voice is high pitched and his delivery rather sing song, like someone not too sure of what he’s about to say. That’s all new. Another sharp performance from the W. star.

Supporting players Emile Hirsch, Allison Pill, Diego Luna and Victor Garber hold their own. And special kudos to James Franco as Milk’s longtime lover a man who truly loves Milk but can’t compete with his political enthusiasm and ambition.

He admires the hell out of Milk but feels insignificant set against his lover’s increasing importance as a crusader and winner.

News footage of Anita Bryant’s bombastic anti-gay campaign seems even more outrageous today, and she, a born again Christian, sinful.

I tend to prefer Van Sant’s weirder stuff like Elephant and Gerry, but he proves he can make mainstream, big budget films that are not just well done but accessible.

There’s not much silence in Milk, compared to these meditative studies, but that of course reflects the growing glee of the movement. Re-enactments of the riots are as galvanising as they are alarming and sad.

The seventies look is fun and Milk’s sense of fun are big plusses in what is a moving, joyous and through provoking film.

Sadly, Milk would roll over in his grave if he could see what’s happening to those thousands of California gays who were legally married and now find themselves illegal.

Twilight

Stephenie Meyer’s literary phenomenon ensures that Twilight will be seen and seen again by her hardcore fans, which from the looks of things, is most of the tween age set.

It’s the film to beat in mob popularity.

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are the doomed lovers of the teen novels, he’s a vampire and she’s human. He lusts for her apparently wonderful smelling blood.

He can’t have it of course, because it will kill/compromise her.

He’s a tortured loner who lives with a motley ‘family’ of vampires. He’s seventy years old and doesn’t look a day over seventeen.

She’s a conventional teen, living temporarily with her father.

Their chemistry is immediate as their eyes lock in the high school parking lot. That’s the way they remain for the most part, in a state of chaste longing.

She wants him to bite her to satisfy his craving for her blood, but he won’t. What is this? Honourable? How’s that for a new twist on adolescent movie fare? Not to mention vampire lore.

The vampire/human/werewolf adventures are set against nature writ large in Seattle, where rain and gloomy skies are just fine with the sun phobic vampires. The deep woods lend cover to their hunting trips – animals only – they are ‘vegetarian vampires.’

Okay so the film won’t win kudos from critics, like me, or most non-virgins. There are, I am told, plot holes this big and too little of a couple of the characters like werewolf Jacob (are you Team Jacob or Team Edward?) and the Cullen family.

Director Catherine Hardwicke’s ubiquitous tight close-ups of Edward and Kristen are a bit much especially as Edward’s pale, undead makeup is so amateurishly obvious.

Hardwicke’s ham-handed, in yer face romance is beyond obvious to the point of obnoxious.

Stewart’s slack-jawed, breathy delivery isn’t just lazy, it’s hard to decipher and becomes a source of tremendous amusement. Pattinson is obviously struggling to cope with an American accent.

But these are paltry worthless facts in the face of the absolute adulation of the films by the teenage girls with whom I saw the film.

Each character arriving on scene for the first time got an ear-piercing chorus of screams, same for every ‘meaningful’ book line, kisses and the conclusion. The displays of passion and final credits outburst took adults by surprise.

The screening was late and we were dozing off. But the girls were obviously just powering up to dream of Edward – or Jacob - all night long.

If there ever was a movie that can’t be killed by critics’, this is it.

So how relevant are we when Twilight is excepted to bring in $60-mil on opening weekend? And that’s especially meaty for an independent film.

Flaws and all, Twilight is a sexy lite Goth flick, that should get the parents’ seal of approval and live to spawn three more outings.

Quantum of Solace (B22)

The opening free running sequence of Casino Royale was a corker, a visceral rocket launch to a cool Bond outing. Quantum of Solace – what does that mean anyway? - begins rather differently.

There’s a ruckus on the roads – and it’s Bond, the target in a car chase through tiny, hazardous mountain roads in Italy. But it’s impossible to decipher what’s happening and why.

Cameras are placed at awkward angles, shots are too tight and it’s an eye-splitting jumble. Unfortunately, these poor production values mar chase and action sequences throughout the film.

And a disconcerting formula begins to emerge – the action sequences are the same. Two show simultaneous events – a fight and a dramatic counterpoint – a horse race, an opera, before the descent into visual jumble.

The narrative fights a losing battle with the cinematic style and in the end, it’s the audience that loses. Precious information is discernable in a jumble of dissonant images. There is no spine to hold the fast moving elements together.

There’s a cruel jab at earlier Bonds in a laboured riff on martinis. The drink is never named but it’s lovingly described. It's as ironically funny as a hacking cough. The film’s lack of humour is just another letdown. Humor has always been an appealing element of the Bond traditions of wit and imagination.

This Bond’s superpower is physical ability. The mental and intellectual Bond is long gone. Craig plays a government sanctioned punk who’s as hot to kill as trot.

The two female characters are shamefully wooden with little to do but cower in the chaos while pulled around by big, bad men.

Dame Judi Dench is marvelous as M, a character layered by self-doubt, fear, bafflement and vulnerability. She is smart enough to understand her own weaknesses, especially her soft spot for Bond. But M could use a little humour too.

There are no truly jaw-droppingly impressive gizmos. Another Bond wink bites the dust. Just some agency owned superwalls - think CNN on US election night - and cool cars.

It may be that the emphasis is meant to rest on the story, not the Bond traditions and certainly not the character. There is precious little to think about and less to amuse.

Bond is lacking in dimension of character but high on jumping, rough housing and shooting. Craig’s rougher Bond fails to differentiate himself in the field of action stars today. What originally set Bond apart from the rest was style, wit, sex and class.

All gone.

At the risk of sounding nostalgic, the colours of the film are nothing on what they were back in the day. Bright beaches, ski mountains, the big blue skies, gorgeous places, glossy people and up to the minute clothes are replaced by T-shirts, jeans and a dull grey poverty-stricken Haiti. And Russia.

The film goes out of its way to look depressing.

It’s anti-climactic, especially knowing what came before in Casino Royal. This is no Casino Royale. Quantum of Solace fails to meet the standard set by earlier Bonds.

Director Marc Forster (Finding Neverland, The Kite Runner, and Monster’s Ball) does an admirable job in other genres, but action adventure eludes suit him.

He may subscribe to the idea that fast cuts and noise make scenes pop, but that in itself isn’t enough. The film tears, rips, bangs and shatters but says nothing. No pop. No fizz. No story.

The brilliant, maddening, stylish, elegant and brainy spy Sir Ian Fleming created is dead. He has been reincarnated as an X-Box game character.

Changeling

******** spoiler alert********

The most elegant, effortless and effective thriller this year. Clint Eastwood has created another of his finely tuned masterworks, the latest in a long line of superb films he has exquisitely cast and directed. This one is based on a kidnapping and terrible crime in southern California in the late twenties.

Changeling is an ancient term for a person displaced by another, with its roots in witchcraft and magic. The changeling here is young Walter Collins, the son of Christine Collins, a working single mother played by Angelina Jolie. The child is left alone when Collins is forced to work extra hours. He disappears.

The Los Angeles police launch a full-scale search and soon produce “Walter Collins” a scrappy kid who is by no means the real deal. Police officials not only insist he is the missing boy but charge that Collins is psychopathic because she won’t recognise or care for her ‘own’ child.

The LAPD in the late twenties is a beleaguered bunch, known to be corrupt in some areas, and in need of some strong p.r. and that’s what they were counting on when they ‘found’ the boy.

However, they chose the wrong woman to set up. Collins, although seemingly meek, and easily dominated, has a backbone of steel and in her quiet, dignified way, dedicates herself to finding Walter and surviving the psychological brutality of the police.

Her pleas set in motion a sympathetic detective who investigates on his own, and discovers an outrageous crime that rocked America and forced the shamed town of Wineville, California to change its name to Mira Loma.

The tragedies and shocks of the story are powerful enough. Eastwood lets us feel our own emotions, which is a terrific state of affairs. He avoids easy emotion by sticking to the story and trusting us to experience our own responses without the help of swelling violins. He offers the story – ‘just the facts, ma’am’ – because they are big enough to stand on their own.

Jolie gives an intensely mature performance as a woman who suffers abuses and sadnesses of every kind, but never allows them to destroy her. She remains mentally intact, which is ironic as the police who need her to go away throw her into the ‘psychopathic ward’. She stays strong to continue the search for the child she knows is alive.

It’s a shimmering, understated performance.

Eastwood’s supporting cast is intriguing, starting with John Malkovich, who in comparison with the rest of the film is a tad over the top as a priest helping Collins while pushing his agenda to expose the LA police.

The young actors who star as Walter, the ‘changeling’, and the other boys at the chicken farm, are incredible. The children drive the story and these boys were more than equal to the task.

Jason Butler Harner paints a chilling picture of the man accused of killing unknown numbers of boys on a chicken farm outside LA. The script uses actual courtroom dialogue, which gives insights into the nut job that he was.

Eastwood’s deft, light touch is most welcome. The story is laden with emotion and he lets it unfold. He lets us process it; it’s great when a moviemaker trusts his audience.

Mr. Eastwood and Ms. Jolie should make some space on their mantles for the cluster of awards bound to come their way this season.

W.

Considering Oliver Stone has created some of the most powerful and inflammatory political biopics in recent years, and the richness of the pool that is George W. Bush, it’s unfortunate that he misses the mark with W. The story of one of the most important and grotesque international figures of the last eight years got away.

While the film looks good, it fails to engage making this not a compelling biography. It comes off as a record of Bush milestones overshadowing how he got to be the way he is. It’s cool, blamelessness is unexpected; it’s too light handed to let us feel the heat that Bush gave off.

The film focuses on his college days, early political career and the current presidency, through flashbacks and flash-forwards. The style is dated, jarring and annoying.

Josh Brolin is superb as Bush. His physical mannerisms, the constant jitters, frat boy gestures and wary eyes are all there. Bush’ constant fidgeting and movement comes off as a lack of concentration. Brolin has that look of the naughty schoolboy, daring teacher to catch him. Brolin resembles Bush, facially and through body language.

He delivers that uneducated rat a tat Bushness that belies his Ivy League upbringing and education (secured by his father) wasted repeatedly in awkwardly funny speeches and off the cuff remarks, i.e. “Fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again”, “nuculear”, “misunderestimate”, you know the drill. Brolin’s Bush is right on the money.

Tobey Jones, James Cromwell, Scott Glenn, Richard Dreyfuss, Jeffrey Wright, Ellen Burstyn and the rest of the supporting players manage to play Bush sympathizers while getting across the deep mistrust and disdain they no doubt felt for him.

Jones plays Carl Rove, a fawning sidekick who doesn’t seem to get it, actually seems dumber than Bush.

Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell, the lone wolf howling in the Oval office, warning not to invade Iraq, teems with intelligence.

Dreyfuss plays a demonic Dick Cheney, is icy cool as he announces that the US will never leave Iraq. You can see the horns sprouting as he greedily imagines the entire middle east under US control forever and ever – until a new fuel source is found.

Special kudos to Cromwell who plays an unbelieving George Bush Sr. He is ashamed of his son’s incompetence, never wanted him in politics in the first place, and resents his making it to the White House. It’s a complicated and surprising part played with insight.

Thandie Newton seems to be doing shtick in an hilarious imitation of Condoleezza Rice. Her complete submission to Bush, sweet words spoken through a clenched jaw and ramrod posture are more cartoon than Condy. It actually adds interest to a dull film.

Burstyn’s Barbara Bush is scary and smart, the smartest of the bunch. It’s clear she knows W. is a dud. She’s also smart enough to know when to release her grip on all of it. What a performance!

Stone tries to answer questions - how did W. ever get to Washington? How did he get into Harvard, Yale and Wall Street? How did a smart woman like Laura Bush manage to overlook the bluster, and why did he stay in office two terms? How did he feel when investigators failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Sadaam Hussein’s Iraq? How long did he use cocaine?

But the answers are less answered than posed.

Given all this incredible stuff, the bloodless bio misses its chance to connect emotionally with us. It’s hurried and opts for vastness over depth.

RocknRolla

He’s back! Guy Ritchie has atoned for his cinematic sins and then some with the incomparable RocknRolla, a tight, fast and adrenalised journey into London’s local and Russian mob.

Ritchie is in top form again, the way we remember him most vividly, as the man who made Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, nearly ten years ago. It’s been a while but the wait is worth it.

Ritchie’s taken the camera and stretched it to new lengths, varying speeds, cutting, rhythm and look, treating cinema as it should be treated, as an infinitely interesting art form.

The subject matter’s old as the hills, but Ritchie’s made it faster, funnier and more visceral than any other gangland drama in a long while. It’s nearly over stimulating but in the best possible cinematic way.

RocknRolla boasts one of the greatest and most surprising sex scenes of all time, giving away either an innate distrust of sex, or a need to put it in its place.

Ritchie has gathered an unexpected knockout of a cast featuring film unknown Tobey Kebbell in a searing portrayal of a cross-addicted and devilishly clever Rockstar.

He towers over two poor Yankee fish dangerously out of their element, played by Jeremy Piven and Chris Bridges a.k.a. Ludacris. Gerard Butler plays the most pleasant gangster hitman ever to appear in a film, with Idris Elba as his likeable partner.

Thandie Newton is a cold-as-ice gangland boss, Mark Strong as a deadly but debonair mob boss (can Strong not be debonair?) and the inimitable Tom Wilkinson as an over the hill crime lord, stymied by the new methods of the Russians who’ve taken over the London real estate market.

Supporting side characters are fascinating, many of them seemingly inspired by Dickens’ characters. It’s the same London underbelly Dickens and Ritchie inhabit.

A young showman and his mute, male or female sidekick put on fashion shows of stolen merchandise in the gang’s lair with the flair of Wild Bill Hickok crossed with Fagin’s best boy. Gangsters of every age, leaning, moral angle and nationality bring richness to the world of RocknRolla.

There is a constant sense of gunfire, whether actual or in the way scenes are shot. The film feels like automatic gunfire, with a hard-hitting beat and people mowed down like so much wheat.

A sensational ten-minute chase scene finds Butler running for his life from a tough mofo of a Russian hitman. The Russian is wounded and nearly killed repeatedly but keeps on getting up and bearing down on our hero. Or the closest thing there is to a hero in this film.

The ending leaves few surprises about Ritchie’s hopes for it; its clear there will be a sequel and if there isn’t, well, why not? Can’t wait to get the blood pumping, RocknRolla style again.

Ritchie appears to have picked himself up off the ground following the disappointments of Swept Away and Revolver. Hopefully, he’ll carry the spirit along to Sherlock Holmes.

He’ll follow the Robert Downey Jr. starrer with a World War II drama Sgt. Rock and an adaptation of the comic book Gamekeeper.

Unfortunately, there is no official listing for a sequel to RocknRolla, but we can hope.

Flash of Genius

There are several flashes of genius in this compelling fact based story, beginning with Greg Kinnear’s impressive performance as a Detroit David who took down the Ford Motor Company’s Goliath.

Kearns was an independent inventor who patented his Blinking Eye window wiper in 1964 and tried to sell it to Ford. Ford seemed interested but declined a partnership. A few years later, a so-called ‘intermittent window wiper’ showed up on the Ford Mustang and subsequently on millions of other of their cars. In doing so, Ford paved the way for other car manufacturers to use it.

Kearns would not be mollified by a small settlement offer from Ford. He decided to commit himself to securing credit no matter how long it took. Well, it took fifteen years and cost him his marriage, job, friends and for a time, his mind.

More flashes of genius in the actors playing Kearns’ tight knit family. His wife and six children of a wife and seven kids are exceptional. And they’re not just domestic background players. Kearns’ children helped him get through a 15-year, soul sucking struggle in important ways and the young actors are solid enough to make it believable.

Eldest son Dennis, a university student, acted as his legal co-counsel, they helped him turn down a $33-million settlement offer Ford made and learned copyright law along with him. They spent months helping research and develop the case, amassing a garage full of papers, learning to write briefs, trial procedures and negotiate the automakers’ tactics.

Another flash of genius is to bring the story to the screen at all. It does not seem sexy on paper, but the simple story provides rare showcases for writing and acting excellence. It shows the extremes to which they all went to protect their name, help their father and fight a symbolic fight the little guy everywhere.

Kinnear came on the scene as the host of E!’s Talk Soup, and seemed a bit of a thespian lightweight. He showed leading man promise in his first lead in Sabrina, and won an Oscar nomination for As Good As It Gets a few years later. Bob Kearns raises Kinnear’s game even further.

Interestingly, he had the script on his bedside table for months but thought the subject matter didn’t even warrant a read.

The part includes Kearns’ sad breakdown as he’s removed from a bus headed for Washington, telling police the vice president had summoned him. Not shown in the film but notable is that Kearns; hair turned suddenly white when he discovered German carmakers were also helping themselves to his invention.

Kinnear gives Kearns intensity and dignity, even as he seems to be losing everything including his reason, and verging on obsession. His face tells the story eloquently. The script is spare and neat, as is the direction by Children of Men’s Marc Abraham.

Pineapple Express

This is a totally rad, awesome, charming and yet cerebral stoner adventure. Seth Rogen steps out of his slacker comfort zone and into a world of drug dealing, murderous, corrupt cops and baaaad asses (and a slacker or two). Yet, even as bullets fly and flesh tears, the laughs are killer.

The first rolling laughs of the summer.

Rogen does it again, only better.

Pineapple Express is the name of a super weed Rogen’s character, process server Dale Denton’s enjoying. He’s the only guy in town who has it, thanks to his well connected dealer Saul, played winningly by James Franco.

Award winning, philosophy studying James Franco is hilarious as Saul. Who knew he was such a riot? His unexpectedly fierce comic commitment must come from total immersion in the character and his culture, I would guess - a fearless performance. Franco quickly dominates the film, and softens its occasional harshness with good nature and James Dean looks. He literally does backflips to please us.

Speaking of harsh, some of the funniest scenes in the film come out of smoking harsh weed; these guys cough up their lungs on what we hope is mild herbal cigarettes. The amount of smoke they appear to inhale looks lethal. Of course, dear readers, nothing you smoke does your lungs any good.

Dale’s dating a high schooler, which leads to edgy humour in the age difference department, an uncomfortable meeting with her rageaholic father played by Ed Begley Jr. and eventual realization that they might be the wrong match anyway.

If this sounds like a shallow drugs, sex and murder romp, I have misled you, it is dense, cerebral and as funny a film as we’ve seen this year.

But first. Rogen’s unfortunate civil servant happens to witness the murder of a man by a female cop and a local drug lord. He tries to flee but crashes back and forth between the car in front and the one behind his in pure Chaplin-esque style.

It’s loud enough to alert the cop and the criminal to his presence. He frees himself but inadvertently leaves a Pineapple Express roach at the scene. He must find Saul and determine if the pot is rare enough to be traced to him. Yes. It is.

It’s time to escape into the woods for Saul and Dale, but even as their predicament becomes increasingly deadly, Saul can’t help but clown round. Is it the drugs or is he just trying to cheer up a terrified Dale? He reminds us he is only selling drugs to be able to pay for his beloved Bubba’s upscale retirement home, while contorting his body and our minds.

The writing is clever and it’s extremely well executed, a quality outing all the way, and reaches a higher level in contempo comedy. It escapes the boy meets girl rut for a big canvas and delivers nary a wrong note. It refuses to take the easy route. No irony, the lazy man’s humour; the goods are delivered straight up, a miraculous achievement in this pop climate.

The only problem is that the deliciously witty lines come so fast that it’s hard to savour them all in one screening – nice marketing guys! The background action is interesting, in what amounts to two movies for the price of one. I can’t wait to see it again, catch some more of those brill lines.

In all, a comic tour-de-force.

Tropic Thunder

We are blessed this summer to have a pair of killer comedies in the theatres – Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder, both politically incorrect, weed obsessed and intensely funny.

TT provides rolling laughter, sometimes, jaw on the ground, too stunned to react laughter- a guaranteed worthy night at the movies that pushes every red button. It’s irresistibly high octane, the kind of brainy, inside comedy that would leave Will Ferrell seething with jealousy.

A stellar lineup – Stiller, Downey, Jack Black, Nick Nolte, Tom Cruise, and briefly, Steve Coogan, Matthew McConaughey and apparently Mickey Rooney was there - adds delight. Two newbies, Jay Baruchel and Brandon T. Jackson fit into this lead nest of tics. Tobey Maguire shows up for a brief moment as a gay medieval priest.

A group of actors, some award winners, are jungle bound to make a Vietnam war movie. They have zero ability to communicate with the outside world and no crew. The director wants them to feel isolated and under threat so that the action is as realistic as possible.

After a huge mistake by the filmmakers, the lads are left high and dry. The director winds up dead almost immediately, leaving them to fend for themselves. But it‘s no big deal – there are cameras set up around the jungle. They can make it up as they go.

This Lord of the Flies exercise suddenly changes when they meet forest dwellers – with lots of ammo. They find themselves in a life and death struggle, a real war, (which offers endless opportunities to slag off actors and their ‘methods’) – face-to-face, mano a mano with warriors led by an evil child (Brandon Soo Hoo), a cigar smoker and heroin manufacturer.

Tropic Thunder has powerful ‘wha’?’ factor – total disbelief in what your eyes are telling you they’re seeing - whether it’s Tom Cruise, bald, in a fat suit, a raging studio executive jivin’ to sleazy rock, cruelly skewering his flunkies and making not a whit of sense.

And how about Robert Downey Jr. in blackface? So wrong, so right, so funny. According to his co-stars, Downey stayed in character throughout the shoot. His urban patois is so real, as is another ‘character’ accent he ‘plays’. The man is genius, but that’s nothing new.

You’ve no doubt heard about these hilarities, just a couple in a dense 107 minutes so jammed with sly moments a single viewing can’t possibly suffice. I’m really high on the movie, moments of which kept coming back in hilarious, fierce flashes. Sure it’s dumb in parts, but so what? There’s big comic payoff.

Take Simple Jack, one of Stiller’s character’s characters, a mentally challenged farm boy, who became an international celebrity, apparently in the jungle too. Scenes from the film, co-starring Stiller’s wife, Christine Taylor, are squirmingly inappropriate and lead to an even worse discussion about actors and the dangers of going ‘full retard’.

The film within a film conceit offers a wealth of chances to slap Hollywood as action ranges from the jungle to the studio head office. Warriors run both worlds, of course, but Hollywood ain’t selling heroin, just movies. The studio bosses aren’t children but they are childish and self absorbed.

McConaughey finally steps up to the plate and shows some character, as Stiller’s agent, who thinks he’s about to lose his client. His efforts to get Stiller TiVo in the jungle are downright heartwarming.

This isn’t intellectual heavy lifting, but it’s just about perfect gross out comedy for the summer.

What an ending!

There is an old-fashioned feel about the latest offering from the vast X-Files body of work.

A serial killer collects terrified girls and keeps them in boxes. What is this? 1991? The dark time when TV and film offered endless variations on the helpless girl/keeper theme? It was a rich storyline to mine, but after a decade and overkill, the serial killer took a hike, making way for the superhero and ironic teenager.

X-Files in its umpteenth incarnation, stays close to its own formula while borrowing from the great pantheon of evildoers like Hannibal, Buffalo Bill and their brethren. I Want to Believe is a nostalgia trip on every level. There’s a weird kind of comfort in the familiarity, but the surprises add the drama we crave.

So years après la deluge, the grim ‘he’ is back, this time in the form of fine Canadian actor Callum Keith Rennie, as a Russian thug who carries a big lunch chiller everywhere he goes.

The film’s most interesting aspect is its focus on Christian spirituality. Does God speak to us through extra sensory perceptions? Scully knows the scriptures, Mulder wants to believe, the characters include priests with evil taint, and sinners involved in holy work. That’s the film’s powerful theme – where is God and how do we relate to Him?

Why does Mulder struggle with his faith? Why is Scully faithful?

It’s good to see big and small tributes to the series’ glorious past.

Sully’s camel hair reefer coat and Mulder’s wiseass humour are as iconic as ever. The references to past episodes and cases bring back the reasons we loved the X-Files in the beginning.

It’s hard to take Billy Connolly as the pedophile, seer and priest Father Joe. I can hardly look at him without remembering how he once told me the cure for head lice – ‘pour whiskey and sand on your head, they get pissed and stone each other to death!’ See what I mean?

Nevertheless, he is a powerful symbol of duality, doing what God tells him to do, that is, protecting society from threats through his extra sensory perception. He is guilt ridden, desperate for peace and yet still a risk. Interesting!

Scully, now a doctor at a Catholic hospital is approached by FBI agents who require Mulder’s special knowledge in matters of ESP. They are willing to drop charges against him if he will heed their call. He is holed up in a ramshackle house filled with memorabilia of past cases, still passionate about his science, but refusing to help his former bosses.

She convinces him not to give up, he insists that she join him and step back into their past to solve a missing persons case.

Even more intriguing, Mulder and Scully may have had a son who died.

Rural Virginia, actually the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, offers a snowy backdrop, with lots of inky night scenes and omnipresent natural threat. Fabulously creepy, in vintage X-Files style. Fear lingers around every corner, aided and abetted by Mark Snow’s eerie score.

The Dark Knight

Is Heath Ledger’s reputation as a serious actor at stake? ‘Why so serious indeed?’ to quote the Dark Knight tagline.

I don’t believe Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker’s will be remembered as his defining performance, at least I hope not. Despite the hype and the timing, the psychotic cartoon character shouldn’t take anything away from his crushing performance in Brokeback Mountain, for which he won his first Oscar nomination.

If he does win a second nomination, he will make history and join James Dean in the ranks of nominees who died before their Oscar winning films were finished. Dean won two noms and Ledger probably will.

Ledger is riveting, electrifying, on fire as the mad bank robber, a slash faced caricature of evil, with a daddy back-story who fears nothing but hates everything. Wait for him in nurse drag! He paints an eye-popping picture, but is it acting or gymnastics?

Unfortunately, it is impossible not to think of sad things when he’s onscreen.

But it’s funny watching Gary Oldman, who made his way as a rebel and hater, playing the good guy, world-weary, middle aged cop. He is Commissioner Gordon, an ordinary man with extraordinary instincts, a kind of superpower, taken from years of experience on the beat. He’s an old fox with common sense and keen psychological insight.

He reads Batman, The Joker, his colleagues and the criminal element, but in his signature raincoat and thick glasses, he can’t compete for Gotham’s applause. He’s earned it but Batman, the sexy savior, is the main attraction.

Maggie Gyllenhaal makes a terrific love interest, with enough oomph to lift the comic book damsel into something. As Rachel Dawes, she’s torn between Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent (Christian Bale and Aaron Eckhart), weighing her longtime affection for Wayne (yes, she knows about Batman) against the idealistic new politician and boss who has the guts to change things.

It’s no secret that Dent is the nascent Two-Face and here we see what tipped his balance. It is a nice part, and Eckhart who I thought was miscast, rises to the legend of what was to become … Tommy Lee Jones! Good, bad, angry, lovesick competing sides of the same man - wrapped up in Gotham’s new DA/villain.

Bale is so restrained it is as if he’s barely there. He plays a secondary role to you-know-who (and looks strangely like Dent).

Rubber plays a big role in the film as always. Batman’s newly rejigged uniform and Batmobile are impressive but somewhat bulky. Not a rubber nipple in sight, George Clooney.

The film touches on civilian freedoms through Morgan Freeman’s character. He refuses to participate in Wayne Industries latest development, a system that will allow universal wiretapping through cell phone and sonar waves. In real life, American politicians may have gone for it, but Freeman, loyal as he is to Bruce Wayne, sees trouble ahead.

Oh, speaking of electronics, Dark Knight is a prequel, but there are lots of cell phones and technologies from 2008 and beyond.

A niggling problem, for this and for all the Batman movies, is that key sequences are sometimes hard to follow because of the endless darkness.

But of course, none of it matters.

Nothing has any relevance here but The Joker. Hard work and a reported $150 million went towards making another great chapter to the Batman film legend. Everyone’s good, Eckhart has just locked himself into a franchise and action fans will be delirious.

However, after all is said and done, it is all about Heath Ledger.

It was ever thus.

And will be again around Oscar time.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Del Toro’s signature style, which is so hard to adequately describe, leaves one reeling. It’s gorgeously timeless, and yet of all ages. He mixes media with a flair for the impossibly unique, creating puppets of wood and precious metals as royalty and soldiers. There is a little steam punk, Victorian pop art, Goth and Biblical imagery mixed with and not opposed to, its own contemporary high tech world.

It’s funny to see Del Toro’s ‘news’ crawl, the typed names of the towns and the times in which the action taking place, ridiculously linking it to TV cop serials and films of long ago like Se7en and Silence of the Lambs. A weird joke/throwback, complete with the prerequisite whirling helicopters in the nighttime cityscape.

We’re given clues about Hellboy’s origins. We meet him at 11 years of age, a creature discovered off the coast of Scotland in 1944, a person with incredible powers and fearsome looks, red, horned with an overdeveloped right Popeye arm – a top-secret government ‘find’.

We learn that a nice tempered John Hurt adopted him and filled him with wisdom before he became a US government operative – with a US accent. The kind that washes up on the shores of Scotland, no doubt.

At work in the secret government bunker, Hellboy is surrounded by fascinating hybrid characters. His best friend is Blue / Abe Sapien / Angel of Death, a fish scaly thing with David Hyde Pierce’ voice and body courtesy Doug Jones. There are endlessly diverse creatures with unusually loud squishy tentacles for no reason at all.

Their put upon boss, played with hilarious oddness by Jeffrey Tambor, is exasperated by each one of them.

Hellboy, our human-like alien, played again by Ron Perlman, is truly original, a nicely dimensional comic book character. He’s tough yet tender. He can bring any enemy to his knees, but he’s a mess around kittens.

He’s crazy in love with his human wife Liz, played by Selma Blair, herself a gifted government operative/warrior. They bicker about beer, those kittens and overwork, but love always comes through.

Hellboy has that signature ironic humor, but when he and Liz fight, tears fall. There’s a terrifically funny scene when he and lovesick Blue sit arms around each other singing silly pop pap about lost love. Comic relief for the visually over stimulated audience.

Prince Nuada, played by Luke Goss, is a striking looking fairy individual with ghastly white skin, black stitching and decorative grooving carved into his skin, long white hair that flies as this guy kicks ass martial arts style. The hair is hypnotic. He has an identical twin sister Princess Nuala, who fears him.

Prince Nuada seeks the third piece of an ancient crown that will give him mastery over the Golden Army. Seventy times seven golden soldiers can do a lot of damage.

That’s the gist of the piece.

Del Toro brings things that unconsciously tweak our hearts – nostalgia, retro, love, our spiritual connection to nature. The kids will take it in and never know what hit them but they’ll feel longings.

Hellboy is the latest superhero to hit the theatres in this summer of superhero satiation. None is as odd as he is, and none has a more stable love life. These things are important.

The original film didn’t do terribly well, but I suspect that Hellboy II: Golden Army will make short work of a golden knockout.

The slam-dunk is Del Toro’s wild imagination, given free rein in this crazy beautiful fantasy world under the Manhattan subway system. He creates a masterpiece of visual enchantment.

Can’t wait to see his Hobbit!

Hancock

Will Smith is unrecognizable as an alcoholic, lonely and dispossessed superhero who is a thousand years old but only looks ten years older. Under stubble, crust and flies lies a man who just doesn’t care for anyone’s approval anymore. He’s a superhero on a bender.

He saves lives and intervenes to carry out rescue missions, but he causes more damage than the situation would have, like billions of dollars in damage to the cityscape as he crashes into buildings and destroys highways.

It’s an unusual kind of superhero to be sure, and a kind of fascinating one. Hancock’s character goes against the stereotype and is unusual because he has no desire to improve himself or his life and he certainly doesn’t care about people he saves.

He’ll threaten and swear at an elderly woman, hurt a child, whatever strikes his low grade fancy. He claims he wants to be left alone. Where did the glory go?

Satire aside, he’s a homeless and conflicted sad sack who hates the people he saves.

His ‘heroics’ are knee-jerk; simply habit acquired over hundreds of years. The people know it and launch a campaign to get rid of him.

But a hotshot agent played by Jason Bateman, whom Hancock meets by accident, sees dollar signs in Hancock. He figures rehabilitation; a crowd-pleasing comeback is just the ticket.

However, the film loses any sense, interest and worth halfway through. Just about when the film’s biggest surprise, revealed by Charlize Theron, would indicate good things. Instead, it becomes increasingly messy incomprehensible and lost.

He ‘reforms’ too easily. It could have been so much more interesting.

Aren’t we just so over superheroes by now? Still so many more to fly into our theatres this summer and I’m wiped bored with the whole concept. With the possible exception of Dark Knight and what’s said to be an Oscar worthy anti-hero performance by Heath Ledger.

Berg has uses the shaky, too tight camera technique he used on The Kingdom to good effect. But here, it’s just so damned annoying, blocking out the view we should have. Isn’t that a tired, two decades old fad?

For a film with a fresh idea, it quickly becomes tired.

Theron’s character isn’t entirely likeable. She is the ad guy’s wife with a prior connection to Hancock. She’s shrill and testy and has a sizeable axe to grind. The material is beneath this fine actress.

Bateman, who has marvelous screen presence, is the film’s only emotionally recognizable character. He has the patience and goodwill to take on Hancock and a good sense of worth and realism who finds a drunken superhero in his lap. I’d like to see a movie about that guy!

Even after a number of misfires, Will Smith is invincible. Like our flawed superhero, he can overcome any bad film. He’s popular and likeable and seems always to be critic proof. Since Independence Day was released twelve years ago, Smith has been the King of the July Long Weekend. It won’t be any different this year.

The Love Guru

You CAN laugh at a film you think is abominable. And that’s what I did.

Mike Myers is back with a mashup of Indian guru, the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team and body fluids that will test the patience of Hindus and Canadians and everyone else.

What with Ben Kingsley’s permanently cross-eyed Tugginmypuddah, Verne Troyer’s sad beat downs and Myers unflappably blind self-confidence, there’s much to watch. But there’s little to respect.

I’m certain that Mike Myers is not here for our respect. He wants something far harder to secure – our laughs. And while he gets a fair number, his career as a leading light in the comedy world is definitely in the dumpster after the public gets a load of The Love Guru.

The laughs did come for a while but the ‘jokes’ got progressively worse and dumber and soon it was clear Myers had run out of gas. But he kept going.

Editing staff, where were you?

The thing doesn’t hold together, make sense or engage us in any way, shape or form. Except for a couple of belly laughs early on, the whole mess is forgotten within seconds of the end credits. There’s just that lingering taste of failure.

The Love Guru is simply that bad.

Myers’ Guru Pitka is the least funny, funny movie character that ever existed. His humour is laboured and misshapen and that’s a heartbreaker; I take it especially for Hindus who don’t like the way Myers portrays them and for Canadians, a good and stouthearted people reduced to awful accents and Céline Dion.

One might be forgiven for thinking that Myers joke isn’t what is on the screen but that he got us into our seats to sledgehammer us in the first place. You don’t take adoring fans of twenty years and screw ‘em and then charge ‘em for it.

The most fervent Wayne’s World and Austin Powers’s fans will feel betrayed, ashamed and embarrassed for the once unstoppable comic who is now almost entirely reliant on bodily functions, schoolyard pranks and a few facial expressions.

There almost a sense that he is daring us to laugh at gibberish.

Where is the story? The so-called plot is as interesting and deep as cellophane. It’s merely a flimsy frame for Myers’ picayune meanderings.

Where is the discipline that’s crucial to comedy?

And what about the direction? Where was the director? Why didn’t he reign in the star when it became clear Myers was running off the rails? Schnabel was apparently a ‘visual consultant’ on one of Myers earlier films so perhaps his skill isn’t direction as much as being agreeable and laughing a lot.

Glad to see cameos by Mariska Hargitay, Deepak Chopra, Val Kilmer, Jessica Simpson and a few other unfortunates. They looked as though they were enjoying themselves even as we suffered.

The best part of the film was Justin Timberlake’s game-for-anything, against type portrayal of a hockey player but he wasn’t around long enough. (A wee joke for those of you who have seen the film)

Is Mike Myers living in the woods? Or under his own spell? WTF?

He should be banned from movie making for at least five years if not forever. Or throw him into movie prison to serve three consecutive life sentences.

I didn’t love The Love Guru.

The Happening

I’d heard dire things about the film, that Shyamalan’s losing streak was going strong, but aside from a few corny lines and a poor delivery, I found it to be an effective thriller.

By effective I might I had to fight to keep lunch down throughout the first act. It was that scary. And I’m not a wimp, Saw, Hostel and the rest of them don’t cause me the loss of a moment’s sleep, but this … this was creepy.

Shyamalan’s back in the cornfields, drawing evil from nature as he often does. What if the world were to turn on us and mow down thousands, millions in the space of a day?

That’s a hell of a story.

He always gets me. Shyamalan’s disturbing fable freaked me out. It’s that creeping dread at which he excels, that Hitchcockian cinematic sensibility that makes you pant to know what’s around the corner, through your fear. He gives you a voyeur’s courage.

He has created a palpable, agonizing disturbance that gets under the skin even as the sun shines and the grass blows in gentle breezes.

That is why Zoey Deschanel’s performance is so incomprehensible. She plays Mark Wahlberg’s wife, as they flee from some kind of toxic attack. She looks barely awake, even as she witnesses atrocities and aftermaths and suddenly discovers her inner strong woman.

She simply opens her eyes wider and pouts as the apocalypse arrives on her grassy doorstep. Such a blank, flat, dead performance. Talk about chilling. I wonder how much that scared the director?

It’s true that some unfortunate lines are thrown out and lie there like dead herrings. Someone should have edited these lines in the second draft. But they actually did little to divert me from the unfolding horror.

Wahlberg is just fine, minus the unfortunate lines, making a believable leader and partner. His character makes a connection between disappearing honeybees and the apocalypse, forearmed with a good grasp of news reports, education and some intuition.

Betty Buckley is some kind of righteous recluse, the last holdout, off the grid, off her nut awaiting the worst that God can dish out. The fleeing family takes refuge in her home, a house similar to the ones in The Village and Signs, in a place where the modern age and technology cannot save anyone.

One of the film’s funniest images is on a billboard for new homes about to be built in the as yet uncorrupted countryside. It says ‘You deserve it!’

And so we do!

The Happening is an ecological horror film, a message film, a green film and a protest film locked into the 2008 zeitgeist. It’s about as today as it gets. And that’s why the rural chapters work so well. The countryside is a strange and forbidding place to most people today. There are no interlocking brick driveways, Starbucks, newsstands or jostling passersby. No skyscrapers, art installations, townhouses or taxicabs. The countryside here is unfamiliar, an unknown quantity, unpredictable and dangerous. Not our friend.

That is scary indeed.

When Did You Last See Your Father?

This is a devastating fact based film about a son’s relationship with his dying father.

It’ll take your breath away.

Colin Firth is Blake, who has alternately loved and hated his father, Arthur, played by Jim Broadbent. Arthur beloved by acquaintances and the occasional mistress, but at home he’s aggressive, bombastic and pig headed. Blake has hated him most of his life.

Arthur is dying, a shell of himself, and he’s still saying hurtful things to his bewildered grown son. Blake just can’t take that brave step to ignore that and love his father or talk to him honestly. They have put off real communication all their lives and it’s unlikely they would ever try.

It’s a tragedy so many go through and which causes bitter regret, not setting things straight with loved ones.

As his father deteriorates (‘Stop breathing’ says Blake) Blake looks back at Arthur’s oppressive parenting dredging up every pain and every shock to the system. Like the time he forced Blake to camp outside in pouring rain and when the river floods their tent, blamed him.

Blake discovered Arthur had a longterm mistress, which confused him and deepened his hatred. Nothing worked between them, except once when Arthur gave him the keys to the car and told him to drive – his first driving lesson.

And one other time, during a rare time together bonding in the Yorkshire Dales. The rest was unbearable to Blake. Father never seemed to notice and kept laying it on. His affectionate moniker for his son was Fathead.

It’s a tough relationship that love never warms; each responsible and each too weak and it turns out, pig headed to yield or change. Repression is a soul- killing, hard thing.

Tucker’s minimalistic approach throws the troubled relationship into high relief. Tucker’s approach is strong and sensitive; he lets us appreciate quiet and colour, finding the right balance. He knows how to pay attention to Firth’s quiet, unmoving face and let us know he is seething with sadness and pain. He plays Arthur’s colourful and overbearing personality is played as if it’s adorable, then suddenly dangerous.

Tucker’s direction reflects the harshness and intensity of Blake’s suffering. Yet out of it, there is transcendence and joy.

Tucker is a first class filmmaker. It’s surprising that he makes so few.

One of the central themes in the film is the question Blake asks himself – Can he remember the last time he saw his father whole? It mirrors the intense, bittersweet emotion of Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town - the passage in which the dead Emily asks the ghosts around her if we ever really look at one another.

Skilful performances knock this beautifully crafted film and screenplay right out of the park.

Audience members were unable to get up to do the usual credits dash, sobbing was coming from every corner and no doubt quiet vows were being made to patch things up with the family.,

The title says it all – When Did You Last See Your Father – figuratively and literally – it brings guilt, pain and loss front and centre.

Kung Fu Panda

Exuberant, effervescent, eye catching, elegant!

Kung Fu Panda is not just safe for kids; it’s a splendid time for them and their parents. I dare you to ponder its rib tickling wisdom and not fall in love. It’s friendly, funny and accessible, a heart tugging martial arts outing, a product of tremendous imagination and technical skill.

The beauty is that it’s set within the framework of the best animated children’s films today but it doesn’t rest on the genre’s laurels. It takes no shortcuts in providing a unique world for young travelers to explore that looks feels, smells and sounds different. It is set in those unique cartoon worlds that are both familiar and foreign, a fantasy that never goes too far but goes far.

We find ourselves in China, in a soup kitchen belonging to a stork whose son Po, a giant panda, dreams of a world away far from steaming rice bowls. Po is mad about martial arts and he’s heard the five heroes are coming to town.

Masters Monkey, Crane, Viper, Praying Mantis and Tigress will scout for new talent at the fair and Po’s feeling lucky … until his father asks him to take the soup cart so he can make some money from the crowds of martial arts fans.

There’s a steep, long staircase leading up the mountain to the fair and he just can’t get the soup cart up, so he abandons it. Then he tackles it himself, struggling to haul his Panda body up and up and up.

He finally arrives at the gates, but the doors are closed.

That’s just Po’s luck.

Then things start to turn around in earth shifting ways.

Speed ahead – he’s been picked to join the martial arts greats and train to become one of them! If he can pass the tests.

And the master has had a vision of an evil visitation and only Po can save them. Thus begins his hair raising, endearing and dangerous adventure.

Tremendous emotional subtlety and poignancy define the film, particularly in scenes between father and son. Po is dissatisfied with his loving, trusting parent who believes he’s giving his son everything, the same life he has. He’s not a big dreamer, he’s just concerned for his son’s future. Soup seems safe.

Po fantasizes that he was adopted and vows never to wind up like his father.

He grapples with important challenges along the way but the toughest issue is that he has to learn to believe in himself too succeed. He has body image issues as any martial arts pondering panda would.

The bad guy, and there is just the one, used to be an ally of Po’s new dojo friends which adds an unexpected emotional complication. The villain’s evil roots are explored and he’s humanized. A significant character dies.

There’s a lot of emotion – it’s sweet, piquant, funny, sad, but there’s enough sass and danger to balance and reflect life.

It’s also hilarious! The laughs come fast and furious, and overlap each other, and you’ll want every morsel. The humour is completely disarming.

The screenplay is extremely sophisticated for children’s films, based in Taoist and Zen philosophies, asking viewers to pay close attention and think about what being said and done and how it fits into the universe.

The level of artistry in recent CGI animation is just so high these days it’s hard to imagine it getting even better. We are used to the high def blades of grasses and chin whiskers, and Kung Fu Panda brings it - big, crisp and bold but with an added appealingly gentle naturalism.

Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane, Dustin Hoffman, David Cross and Lucy Liu kick up their heels and have a swell time while giving full weight to the film’s complexity.

It’s an EVENT and it’s intimate.

Nice going, fellas on a jolly good time and a bit of a think.

Sex and the City

So this is eye candy and certain to bring out the shopaholic in all of us, much to our poverty stricken chagrin. Who could ever live the way these girls do without massive financial support? But I don’t want to quibble; I just want to suspend disbelief, revisit them and enjoy the view, critic or not.

So how is the movie anyway?

SATC’s guilty pleasures and ditzy fun are far from p.c. especially in these tough economic times, but boy are they appealing. Uncool conspicuous consumption be damned. Stack that closet high, high, higher! These girls never pretended to be saints.

Carrie Bradshaw doesn’t wear anything twice – ever. The wardrobe changes come at us at breakneck speed, some eighty for our heroine alone. Just eighty? Seems like so many more. And I loved every one.

It’s some years later and the clothing habits of Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte remains as robust as ever.

But they are evolving. They’ve entered a new chapter in their lives, middle age for God’s sake. And with that, their worldview is shifting.

In one telling scene, Carrie passes four stylish girls hitting the city, ponders their big city yearnings (labels and love) and acknowledges that she was what they are, twenty years ago. Not a moment is spent feeling loss.

Miranda is not officially in the city as she, Steve and baby are still sentenced to life in Brooklyn, or so the joke goes. She’s as brittle as ever. Samantha is a H’wood agent representing her stud muffin from a chrome and glass Malibu beach house, and she’s as horny as ever. Charlotte’s deliriously happily married with an adopted daughter and she is as prissy as ever. This makes the México joke even funnier.

Carrie is still dating Big. Ten years now. And as single as ever.

Carrie and Big are thinking about sharing real estate. How appropriate that he’s secretly bought them a glorious ‘pre-war’ penthouse wrapped in a promise to upgrade the closets. If they marry, she’ll forgo a ring for a good set of custom closets.

Marry? Isn’t Big allergic?

And isn’t it a perfect opportunity for our favourite sex columnist to parade around in a string of spectacular wedding dresses and wear birds on her head?

As much fun and light and froth as it is, the film fully acknowledges that the times they are a changin’. The fearless foursome has grown older and deals with older issues.

Two special birthdays are celebrated – the big 4 – 0 and the big 5- 0. These birthdays don’t come with anxiety. They’re welcomed like good friends worth waiting for and that’s a healthy state of affairs not just for Carrie and Samantha but for Hollywood heroines and truthful screenwriters.

It deals with the issues the girls always faced, love, betrayal, dreams, practicalities, money, shoes, bags and tiny closets. Bitter experiences still happen; age doesn’t immunize them from their own foolishness, selfishness or mistakes.

Their pains and pleasures are skillfully balanced in a witty and lean script. Its gut bustingly funny, with a good balance of poignancy and galvanizing sisterhood. It’s an essential chick flick.

American Idol’s Jennifer Hudson is utterly adorable as Carrie’s personal assist