Reviews

Perhaps the issue in "Age of Consent" is right there in the title, because that turns out to be the most problematic element. The film comes from the memoirs of artist Norman Lindsay, whose ideas about nudity and free love also got assayed in the film Sirens about 20 years after this one. The problem in this 1969 film is that it has trouble deciding whether it's a sex farce or a philosophical musing on art and love.

James Mason plays a successful middle-aged artist (Bradley Morahan, a stand-in for Lindsay) who has grown disenchanted with the industry and whose inspiration has dissipated with the commercial aspects of art. He goes home to Australia to live in seclusion near the Great Barrier Reef, but as he soon discovers, he's not quite alone. A young man operates a boat ferry, a fortyish single woman maintains a cottage, plus an elderly alcoholic and her nubile teenage granddaughter Cora (Helen Mirren at 22).

The title makes it clear that Morahan isn't going to find his muse in the more age-appropriate 'spinster.' (She ends up in a subplot with Morahan's fraudster old friend, providing the sex-farce aspects of the film.) We see a lot of scantily clad Mirren early on, when Morahan strikes up a friendship with the girl, and then lots more of Mirren completely unclad in the second half of the film. All during this time, the alcoholic grandmother keeps reminding the audience that Cora is underage, which makes this Mason's second film with a Lolita complex -- the first being "Lolita," of course.

That makes the viewing of this film more than a bit uncomfortable, even while knowing Mirren was 22 when the film was released. By the end, it's worse. Cora pushes her grandmother off a cliff in an argument, killing her, which Morahan covers up. Shortly after, both of them finally discover their love for each other, embracing in the night surf while the song "Age of Consent" tells us that Cora has finally reached that magic line. Eewwww.

In 1969, this was probably seen as a celebration of free love and the triumph of affection over age. In the 50 years since, it seems more like yet another rationalization for 50ish men to groom teenagers for sex using whatever means are at hand, even if it means covering up what amounts to involuntary manslaughter. It's Lolita without the judgment.

The scenes of the Australian coast are gorgeous, and Mason's pretty good in the role in the same sort of against-type effort that Cary Grant gave in Father Goose. Mirren gives a game effort in a role that doesn't actually demand much, but everyone else is basically comic relief, creating a puzzlingly inconsistent tone. Too bad the filmmakers didn't have Mason and Mirren do King Lear instead.

When I first heard that A&E remade the sci-fi classic The Andromeda Strain as a four-hour miniseries, I immediately made it a high priority for this week's viewing. I read the book repeatedly as a boy, so much so that my father still jokes about it. The original movie followed the book rather closely, but it dragged; except for the first 20 minutes and the last 30, the pace could cure insomnia.

After seeing part 1, I can say that the producers have cured that problem, but at the expense of making the story almost unrecognizable. As in the original, the plot involves a covert effort by the American government to find biological material in space that could be used as a weapon on earth, but unlike the original, we know that immediately. In attempting to cover that up, some members of the government try blaming the North Koreans for infecting the damaged satellite, even though as one character finally points out, why would Pyongyang spend all the money to send a biological weapon into space hoping an American satellite would come close enough to it to hit it and trust that said satellite would hit the US? The character who says that points out that Homeland Security can't be bothered to inspect most shipping, leaving that method wide open.

And that brings us to some of the other updates. Everyone has personal problems in this remake; the Head Scientist has a bipolar wife, the Nosy Reporter has a cocaine addiction, three of the main characters have unresolved personal conflicts from the war. It's all very Lifetime Channel in that sense. Worse, though, are the little zingers that the writers of the remake put into the script about the current war and administration. When the Utah National Guard gets mobilized to quarantine the area, the Nosy Reporter tells his television audience that the UNG expects the call-up to be brief and says with a smirk, "Where have we heard that before?" One character postulates that the US supplied Saddam with all of his biological weapons, and so on. These pop up on a regular basis about every 20 minutes during the first installment.

At the end of the first episode, the political correctness had pretty much run amuck, or so we thought. In the finale, we got even more than I thought could be crammed into a four-hour show. A crisis over "vent mining" on the ocean floor turns into a terrorist crisis, but that's not the end of that subplot. Two of the doctors fall in love when they're supposed to be saving the world. The one military doctor turns out to be gay, and since he's the key man, it gives him an opportunity to say, "It's ironic. The one person the military most fears turns out to be the one they trust to save the day." Even those of us who think don't-ask-don't-tell is hypocritical rolled their eyes at that development, which had nothing to do with anything else in the movie.

But that's just the beginning of the stupidity. It turns out that Andromeda is a messenger from the nearby wormhole. The message? "Don't mess with vent mining". The entire infection comes from our future, where vent mining apparently turned out worse than what the hysterics fantasize about pumping oil out of ANWR. Humanity send Andromeda and its packing material back to the past as a message, based in binary code hidden deep within the molecular structure, to tell us to leave Mother Earth alone.

Of course, no one bothers to ask why Future Earth does this in a way that would kill every living organism on Past Earth. No one in the script conference that created this bothered to ask why Future Earth wouldn't just send a metal plate through the wormhole that said, "HEY! STOP VENT MINING! LOVE, YOUR GRANDCHILDREN". Wouldn't that have been more effective and a lot less likely to, say, kill all of Future Earth's ancestors? Maybe we could send a message back that said, "HEY! WE'LL STOP VENT MINING WHEN YOU QUIT PLAYING WITH KILLER ORGANISMS! LOVE, GRANDMA AND GRANDPA". We can send that with some influenza as payback.

The ending provides the biggest unintentional laughs. The military doctor has been designated the key man, the one who has to stop the self-destruct sequence of the laboratory that will provide unimaginable power to Andromeda for mutations. Unlike in the novel, he dies when he falls in the tunnel into a pool of water used by the nuclear reactor, just as he hands off the key that will stop the sequence to the project leader. Unfortunately, the key sequence requires the military doctor's thumb for identification, which leads another doctor to do a Mr. Spock (Wrath of Khan) and go into the water to cut off the thumb. He then throws the thumb straight up for two stories to the project leader who's hanging on the side of the wall, complete with a close-up, slo-mo sequence of the thumb tumbling towards the hero as the self-sacrificing doctor dies in a pool of water that wouldn't be radioactive anyway.

It provides a perfect analogy to the entire movie. The only way this mess should get a thumbs-up is if a reviewer cut one off in protest and threw it in the air. The rest of the ending is fairly anticlimactic, with a few assorted assassinations as everyone starts covering up the government's role in the affair. Everyone's loved ones suddenly finds themselves free of the personal problems that plagued them. The President declares that he'll continue vent mining despite the strongly-worded memo from the future, which makes sense; I'd try to kill Future Earth too, after a stunt like Andromeda.

What a shame. It could have been interesting; instead, it gives a peek into the mind of the politically-correct paranoids who produced this dreck.

Soraya's husband Ali has tired of Soraya after having four children with her, and wants to marry the 14-year-old daughter of one of his prisoners. He can't afford two wives, so he demands a divorce from Soraya, who refuses for economic reasons. Instead, Ali conspires with the local mullah — a fraud who has to keep Ali from exposing him — to frame Soraya for infidelity. The "evidence" is laughably transparent, but as Soraya notes in the film, "voices of women do not matter here".

Her aunt Zahra, played by Shohreh Aghdashloo, provides the central voice for the film. It's mostly told in flashback as she explains what happened to the journalist who only came to town because his car broke down. Aghdashloo provides the voice of conscience and reason in a town gone mad, a village where Soraya's own father calls her an unprintable name and where her sons join in the stoning. Even with most of the film in subtitles, it is easy to follow and heartbreaking and enraging to watch.

The performances are universally excellent. Aghdashloo, an Iranian ex-patriate herself, brings Zahra and her defiance and despair to life. Mozhan Marno portrays Soraya beautifully, especially in the execution scene. Jim Caveziel plays the journalist, and while he doesn't get much screen time, he does well with what he has. The villagers are portrayed with surprising nuance. Navid Negahban provides a malevolent presence as Ali, while David Diaan's Ebrahim winds up being perhaps the worst of the villains — a good man who refuses to stop an injustice he knows to be happening.

It's brilliant, infuriating, sad, powerful, and oddly enough, ends on a somewhat uplifting note.

Honestly, the first time I saw this movie, I assumed it was a dark comedy about how an obsession can destroy one's life. I love dogs, and even I got creeped out by Molly Shannon as Peggy less than halfway through the film. Instead of loving and appreciating dogs, Peggy instead obsesses about them, transforming dogs and other animals into replacements for family, friends, a job, and eventually her sanity.

The worst part of the film, in my estimation, comes when her brother and sister-in-law leave her in charge of their kids for a holiday. Peggy terrorizes the older daughter by taking her to a slaughterhouse. After that, Peggy goes downhill quickly, attempting to murder her next-door neighbor and winds up getting briefly committed to a psych ward, then released into her brother's care.

And yet, at the end of this dreary 97 minutes (which feels strangely like 127 minutes), the film celebrates Peggy's transformation as she happily leaves the job she got back in some sort of ridiculous miracle after embezzling funds from her boss, to join an animal-rights activist caravan to protest meat-eating everywhere. The film pretty much makes a good case for her continued commitment, a point of which the filmmakers seem laughably unaware.

The film wastes a good performance by Peter Sarsgaard, one of the few recognizable humans in the film, and not-bad efforts by Regina King and John C. Reilly, who manages to sneak in some humanity into a role clearly designed to be a cardboard villain. It's a horrid film in almost every respect, and in the end a satire of clueless fanatics -- and the filmmakers who apparently love them.

'Open Range' is certainly successful as entertainment even if it doesn't completely work as intended. There are some fine performances to be seen, notably Robert Duvall's work as Boss Spearman. The cinematography is artful, especially in the first part of the movie where the action stays on the 'range'. But the plot doesn't entirely add up, Costner's Charley Waite doesn't entirely add up, and the ending is so oddly upbeat you wonder what Costner & Company was trying to say.

The problem with Westerns is the pressure filmmakers feel to connect the film to a greater ethos of vanishing America, and Open Range tries this through the somewhat arcane issue of free-grazing. Baxter's [Micheal Gambon] fierce opposition of free-grazing and his corruption of local law enforcement represents the decline of individualism and freedom during the American Industrial Revolution. The film never does play fair in this dispute, however -- after all, to a large extent America won the West based on building towns, farms, and ranches, and free-grazers infringed on all of those who invested in these, and besides, property rights are a cornerstone of American freedom. (If the producers don't believe that, I wonder how they would feel about all of us bootlegging this movie?)

Also, it was the towns that served as bases to clear out Native Americans -- in fact the town in the movie had been an Army fort before. These tribes would also have been very hostile to free-grazers, but by this time Charley and Boss don't even worry about them. In other words, Charley and Boss are exploiting the security that townspeople, farmers, and ranchers provide without giving any compensation at all. In this context, you can see why Baxter would act the way he does, and then you could show that without him being the stereotypically evil b*****d rancher so common in Westerns.

**Spoilers**

During the movie, Charley alludes to a dark past during the Civil War of which he is ashamed, which leads you to expect a meltdown á la Unforgiven or The Ninth Configuration, but nothing ever really comes of it. Even during the brilliant gun battle at the end of the movie (one of the best I've seen on film), he doesn't do anything but react like anyone else would in combat. You keep expecting a reckoning with the dark past he keeps talking about, but all it really does is impact the love-story subplot with Annette Bening in a way that winds up feeling more contrived than anything else.

There's a bit of High Noon too, although the townies eventually decide to help out, and the ending will satisfy the die-hard cheery optimists in the audience but leave the rest of us scratching our heads, wondering what it was the filmmakers were trying to say. If it's that freedom is worth dying for, well, that doesn't happen here. If it's that freedom is worth killing for, I can buy that, but then the film should have been framed that way, and Charley's attitude about his past doesn't make a lot of sense. If the point of the movie is just that the good guys win with no real consequences, then the gun battle becomes more of a cartoon than anything else. And if it's just that Kevin gets Annette ... <sigh>

However, I still think it's the most entertaining film from Costner since Tin Cup, mostly because he manages to stay within his own limitations as an actor most of the time, and it's well worth seeing in the theater. If you're expecting another Unforgiven or even Hang 'Em High, you'll be a bit disappointed, but otherwise you'll enjoy it. 7/10

There is nothing quite so painful as a comedy that isn't, and unfortunately Gene Wilder is is making more and more of them. Normally both Wilder and Christine Lahti are talented performers, but this script would win awards for boring. Not only that, but Lahti and Wilder have no chemistry at all, and it just gets worse when Mary Stuart Masterson is brought into the picture.

This is one of those "slice of life" 80's pictures that resemble nothing more than a bad Lifetime TV movie. Wilder's reactions run the gamut from unrealistic to inappropriate; when he's consoling Masterson in their break-up scene, it's like a father with a daughter, which (quite frankly) I found exceedingly creepy. The relationship with Lahti falls apart realistically enough, but with no humor, wit, or even insight possible as Lahti plays it straight and Wilder plays it far too broadly, even for a comedy.

** SPOILERS **

When he and Lahti get back together at the end, it's all rushed together, complete with an adopted baby coming out of nowhere, and with Lahti's lipstick still damp on Wilder's lips from their first kiss, she introduces Wilder and baby to a restaurantful of strangers as her family. For that matter, the way his mother dies (and how flip Wilder is about it throughout the rest of the movie) conflicts terribly with the way he treats his father when he starts dating again. Nothing in this movie makes any sense or bears any resemblance to human interaction.

In short, no subtlety, no humor, no great or even good performances (none bad either, except the inexplicable Susan Ruttan, doing her autistic impression once again), no connection to reality whatsoever. Let's hope that Wilder hooks up with Mel Brooks and they both turn out something that makes us forget their work from the last fifteen years or so.

"Nuts" is one of those set-piece courtroom dramas that feel too slick, too pat, too contrived to really work, despite some excellent work by Richard Dreyfuss, Eli Wallach, and especially Maureen Stapleton. Even Barbra Streisand (definitely NOT one of my favorites) isn't too bad when she's not too busy chewing the scenery to pieces.

However, this movie drones out like a late-80s morality play, or even an acting-class extemporaneous psychodrama. It hits all the right PC notes: a stepfather who is a sexual predator, an alcoholic mother who (maybe) unwittingly pimps out her daughter for security, a physically abusive husband, not to mention the lawyer who wants to get rid of her quickly, the other lawyer who risks everything for justice, the uncaring hospital administrator/psychiatrist who ... well, I'm sure you're getting the picture. The most egregious is when the WASPy lawyer and psychiatrist get their panties in a bunch when she starts talking about sex and prostitution, as if they've never dealt with it before. All we're missing here is a learning disorder.

All of this is mere prologue for Streisand to strike a blow for feminists by declaring that her life choices are her responsibility (true) and that they want to label her as crazy and lock her up forever because she's dared to do things that men don't like, and they're afraid of her power (huh?). Maybe it's symbolism, but it's laid on very, very thick, and Streisand's tendency to overact doesn't help.

The result of all this contrivance is that the story feels false, the characters feel false, and a good deal of what goes on in the courtroom isn't at all realistic. James Whitmore as the judge gives the most realistic performance, but it's not the actors -- it's the script itself. People contradict themselves in ways inconsistent to their characters. For instance, Karl Malden as the stepfather makes a very incriminating contradiction on the witness stand. Would a man who had successfully hidden his abuse of his stepdaughter for 20-odd years suddenly crack under 5 minutes of unremarkable questioning? Not likely. Would a psychiatrist who had testified in "hundreds" of hearings admit any personal bias by accident as shown here? Not likely.

However, there are some good performances that definitely lend tension to the movie, and even though this has very obviously been adapted from a stage play, it avoids that flat, almost-video look that so many movies from the 80s tend to have. It's watchable but not remarkable -- I gave it a 6.

"Sexy Beast" is an unusual film -- a good thing these days -- but outside of a terrific performance by Ben Kingsley, there really isn't a lot here to recommend. The story is an odd take on the 'retired thief being brought back for one last job' cliche, but it's intriguing: this guy REALLY doesn't want to unretire. Kingsley, playing world-class psychopath Don Logan, is sent to Spain to convince Gal to return to England.

**SPOILERS**

Unfortunately, Gal's wife blows Logan away after a day of physical and psychological abuse, and so in order to cover up the fact that Logan was killed, Gal has to go do the job. Logan's brutal murder is mostly told in flashback while Gal is working on the job, and that works pretty well. The problem is that the job itself is uninteresting (and staged in an uninteresting manner), and outside of Teddy Banks, the mastermind (nicely played by Ian McShane), nobody on the job is interesting at all. Gal suffers few consequences for his actions, even though Teddy is insistent on getting the truth from Gal.

Anyway, it's not a bad film, just not terribly engaging outside of the performances of Kingsley and McShane. Ray Winstone as Gal is all right, but like the rest of the movie, a bit bland. I gave it a seven for Kingsley and McShane -- it's worth a rental.

Oh, and someday, I hope to get an explanation of the title. Outside of raging irony, it makes absolutely no sense for this movie.

"Anger Management" is easily the worst film I have ever paid to see, and possibly the worst film I've seen since "Battlefield Earth". My companions and I sat in the theater like baby seals just after the hammer has fallen, slack-jawed, completely amazed that this made it onto the screen. Even the drunk couple behind us, who guffawed and parroted the dialogue for the first half hour, sat in complete (blessed) silence for the last 90 minutes.

To recap the plot, Sandler's character -- a schlemiel who can't assert himself -- gets into an altercation with an overly sensitive flight attendant and gets sentenced to 20 hours of anger management classes. Nicholson plays the therapist, who insists on moving in with Sandler and turns his life upside down. After a long series of incidents that bear little resemblance to real life or any sort of human emotion or interaction, the therapist winds up with Sandler's girlfriend (Marisa Tomei) and is about to steal Sandler's idea about proposing at a Yankees game. Will Sandler finally assert himself with his boss, Tomei's friend who's been putting the moves on her, and his psycho therapist?

Well, if you can't figure that out, then by all means go see the movie.

With the notable exception of Adam Sandler, the cast does a pretty good job with what they're given. The only laughs came from Jack Nicholson, but even those were few and mostly up front. Marisa Tomei is completely wasted in this role; was she bored, or did they pay her a truckload of money to do this? There are a number of excellent character actors supporting this trio: Luiz Guzman, John Turturro, Kurt Fuller, and Allen Covert. There are some good cameos by Rudy Giuliani, Roger Clemens, Derek Jeter, and a funny one from Bobby Knight, maybe the funniest part of the whole movie.

However, both the script and Sandler are the pits. Not only are the situations, and the results of those situations, completely implausible, but there is only so much humor to be mined from seeing a guy get shafted. With this execrable effort, there is almost none. Sandler sleepwalks through his scenes, through his lines, and through the entire movie with two facial expressions: screaming and bovine. Even if Tom Hanks took over the role, David Dorfman's script is inept, and the dialogue makes your skin crawl. You don't root for Sandler, you don't root for Nicholson, and you don't root for Tomei either -- you do want to ask why she's bothering with this drooling idiot.

** BIG TIME SPOILERS **

Then at the end, the film sticks it to you one last time: the whole thing has been a set-up by Tomei to get Sandler to be more assertive. Yes, Dr. Jack has been humiliating Sandler at every opportunity to get him to strike back. The Deus ex Machina effect is completely numbing, almost to the point (but not quite) where you don't want to question why Dr. Jack felt it necessary to destroy someone else's luxury car, or to beat up a Buddhist, or to do most of what went on in the preceding 100 minutes. All you want to do is vomit and leave the theater as soon as possible, in that order.

Unfortunately, it's too rude for younger children, so this should only be seen by bad-cinema aficionados, or seriously deranged masochists. I gave this a 2 for passable camerawork.

"Bully" takes us into the world of bored, spoiled, and shiftless Florida teenagers who murdered one of their own friends for reasons which, on the surface, seemed complicated. Larry Clark, and the book which he virtually used as a shooting script, get below that surface and show us the monsters that the teenagers became.

** SPOILERS **

Bobby Kent, played brilliantly by Nick Stahl, is a harsh, violent teenager (20 in real life) who regularly humiliates and assaults his friends, especially Marty Puccio (Brad Renfro). Bobby and Marty and their friends don't do anything in life except get high, have sex, play video arcade games, and listen to rap music. Marty's girlfriend Lisa, on the receiving end of Marty's violence, determines that Bobby is the source of Marty's rage and killing Bobby would leave Marty free to be loving and kind towards her. She enlists her friends and even her cousin, but when she chickens out, she gets help from another teenager that they believe is a gang-banger. The next night, the seven of them go out and brutally murder Bobby, stabbing and bludgeoning him and leaving him to die face down in a swamp.

"Bully" gives a realistic portrayal of wasted and ignorant youth, addled by drugs and an overly permissive environment, and the interaction between the characters feels very real. The second half of the film in particular is very haunting. You want to reach through the screen, slap them, and scream, "This is not a game! WAKE UP!!" Larry Clark ends the film brilliantly, using the musical score to set up the collapse of the conspiracy and bringing us into the courtroom for the first hearing. As the conspirators bicker, accuse, and laugh, the parents and the community sit back and look at these children as if for the first time, aghast.

This is not to say that "Bully" is without flaw; it has plenty, and they will alienate audiences. The casting of Rachel Miner as Lisa Connelly is odd, although Miner does an excellent job. Lisa Connelly was overweight and somewhat unattractive at the time she was going out with Puccio. This is, in fact, one of the primary motivations behind her desire to kill Bobby and keep Marty. Miner, who shows up naked over and over again, can hardly be described as either overweight or unattractive, and her ferocious attachment to a loser like Marty is hard to understand.

Another issue is Clark's unrelenting use of teenage sex throughout the first half of the movie. It seems like all the girls are undressed more than they are clothed, and it feels very much like exploitation. Especially reprehensible, and superfluous, are two close-ups of Bijou Phillips' crotch. (Supposedly, Phillips was outraged by them when she saw the final cut.) You need some of this to understand the state of mind, but this was way over the top and it takes away from the movie.

Lastly, for a film which really tried very hard to stick to the book -- whether the book stuck to the facts is another argument, as it assumed conversations and states of mind -- Clark oddly jumbles the end up. The scene where Marty is arrested actually happened to Derek Kaufmann (credited as The Hit Man, I suppose to avoid confusion with Derek Dzvirko, Connelly's cousin). Ali's tantrum and demand for an apartment happened before the murder. Connelly's mother and Ali's parents both hid their kids out in motels prior to their voluntary surrender. And Clark neglected to include a crucial meeting between Connelly's family and their first attorney that pointed out how bankrupt the families were in forcing their children to take SOME responsibility for their actions, both before and after the murder. In fact, Clark makes Lisa's mom look like she was the only one willing to do that, when in fact at the end she was the worst of the bunch.

Overall, I would recommend both this movie (at a 7) and the book on which it's based. The performances are almost universally excellent, and the story needs to be told and understood. Larry Clark needs to quit crossing the line over into exploitation so that more people can see him when he's brilliant.

"Speed" features some exciting action and good acting, but it also features some scenery-chewing and script idiocy. However, it's a good enough popcorn movie to entertain, as long as you know it's not terribly smart.

First, the good: Sandra Bullock had a breakthrough role in this film and it's easy to see why. Despite the testosterone overload of films in this genre, she comes across as both strong and vulnerable. In fact, she's the one person in this movie besides Jeff Daniels that feels genuine and so the audience (male & female) can easily identify with her. She does brave things but always because she has to do them, not because she's an idiot who wants to prove something. Kudos to the writers and to Bullock, who glows onscreen here.

Speaking of idiots proving something, Keanu Reeves and Dennis Hopper fall into that category. Reeves lets it lay back, though, and that works more than Hopper's typical Snidely Whiplash-style villain, who at one point starts spewing a bunch of pseudo-philosophical nonsense about how the PD won't let the bomb "become". Smack the writers and Hopper, and give Keanu credit for trying to overcome the material.

The plot is laid out pretty well most of the way through, except for two glaring "you've gotta be kidding me" moments. First, at one point the PD direct the bus -- which has to stay above 50 MPH -- onto the 105 freeway, which at the time had not opened yet, and then they're surprised when there's a section that hasn't been built. Second, anyone familiar with the 105 freeway knows that even complete, it's a lousy choice for what they want; why not take the 405, which connects to the 5 on either end, giving you the option (going north) to get the hell out of LA? Why not take the 10 and do the same thing? The 105 is only 25 or so miles long. Third, and most egregious, there is NO WAY IN HELL a bus can leap the gap shown in the freeway, and even if it could (if, say, a ramp had been placed there, which it hadn't), it would never be able to maintain a wheel speed registering 50 MPH or above. It's a simple law of physics.

The second instance is the ending. Having handcuffed Bullock onto a support rail in a subway car, and Reeves not having the handcuff keys, and the controls being shot to hell and the brakes not working (a very contrived situation), Reeves decides to save the day by speeding up so he'll disrail and smash into most of subterranean LA. Huh??? Wouldn't slowing down to a minimum speed work very nicely? I mean, all you need to do at that point is come to a stop without getting killed so someone can bring in a hacksaw, right? The resultant crash is all very fun, but ultimately stupid.

Anyway, like I said, it's a pretty good popcorn movie, and it's loads better than its sequel. I gave it a 6 for entertainment value.

'Volcano' is a B-movie at best, and at worst is more of a disaster that what it's supposed to be depicting. To be fair, you have to be prepared in any movie to suspend disbelief for one major concept. 'Volcano' asks you to suspend disbelief in science, human interaction, and common sense.

Tommy Lee Jones gets to be the studly-yet-1990s-sensitive head honcho of the Office of Emergency Management, and he's fine when he's not stuck with the stupid dialogue the script provides. However, Anne Heche gives a howlingly bad performance as a smart-ass geologist who becomes Roark's love interest (while the city is burning down, natch). Gaby Hoffman goes from Field of Dreams and American President to a turn as a whimpering, needy, and victim-for-life daughter of Jones. Don Cheadle gets to sit in a really coooool office and take Jones's phone calls, doing the job that in reality Roark would and should be doing.

Anyway, the movie really starts going downhill when Heche's geology partner gets sucked into a lava vent while they're breaking into the subway lines. It picks up speed when Jones starts suggesting that they use buses to dam the flow of the lava flowing down the street, Heche's geologist (who loves to lecture everyone about The Science Of Geology) being apparently oblivious to the fact that lava is hot and it melts metal, and rock, and a dead bus is unlikely to have much effect. It really starts to suck when the film introduces Rodney King-like racial tension between two bad actors dressed as cops and an angry black man who can't understand why the fire department is busy with this large river of flowing lava. But hey, in the end, the three of them will be working together to build a K-rail dam to stop the lava from eating up his neighborhood, even though the dam is built in the wrong direction and the material used wouldn't stop lava anyway. Besides, K-rails are hardly watertight, but I guess lava wouldn't think to poke its head through the gaps, not when Tommy Lee Jones is glaring at it. Don't even get me started on the stranded-subway-car subplot, where a tunnelful of hot lava is coming down but oddly enough, it's not too hot to attempt a rescue, it's not too smoky to see, and there aren't any poisonous gases so everyone can breathe. This must be LA Lava, or Lava Lite. You know, it eats cars but is eco-friendly.

There are moments of sheer camp here that almost make you wonder if this was meant to be a comedy. For instance, the two security guards packing up Hieronymus Bosch paintings have a completely meaningless and farcical conversation about weight, and at the end, no sooner does the little boy Roark/Jones rescued note that everyone looks the same while covered in ash, than a rainstorm breaks out and cleans everyone up -- and then the sun comes out and Heche says something along the lines of, "aw, shucks, Roark".

'Volcano' almost achieves Battlefield Earth status, but except for Heche no one approaches Travolta-like badness and the technical aspects are handled pretty well. If you are from the LA area as I am, it's kind of funny to think of a lava flow wiping out Wilshire Boulevard. I gave it a three for the effects and the little amount of tension you get from this.

First off, I must say that 'Elizabeth' is very entertaining. I own the DVD and have watched it several times. The dialogue and the characterizations are done very well -- as long as it's understood that this is a complete work of fiction.

Cate Blanchett does great work as Elizabeth I in what must be Bizarro World: this Elizabeth doesn't want power, refuses to go against her scruples and attend Catholic Mass on her sister's orders, gets played by the men around her, falls onto the throne almost accidentally, and (sort of) fires Cecil. She is betrayed by Lord Dudley and humiliated by an effeminate Duke of Anjou. What a load of manure, although it is interesting to see that the British can butcher their history almost as badly as we Americans do ours (and theirs, too, for that matter).

In reality, Elizabeth's true story is more compelling, in that she suffered no one to pull strings except her, unless it became mortally dangerous to do so. Elizabeth had a marvelous political instinct, one borne out of sheer necessity, and one her sister never had. She carefully acquired estates during both her brother's and sister's reigns, leveraging them to cement loyal support from powerful families. She played a highly dangerous game with her sister, keeping her mollified just enough with showy attendance at Chapel Royal Mass and parrying Mary's attempt to marry her off later in Mary's reign to a Habsburg. On the verge of losing her head for treason more than once, she showed a remarkable talent for prevarication and obfuscation, all the while preparing in real terms for her own rule as Queen.

From the historical record, we know that Robert Dudley had been a serious suitor for Elizabeth, who at one point -- well after she was Queen -- had made it clear that she intended to marry him. As shown in the movie, this scandalized the nobility, not because of some treason on Dudley's part, but just because there were already many rumors about their (supposedly) disreputable behavior together. For political reasons, she scotched the courtship, but Dudley remained a close confidant at court. Her romance with the Duke of Anjou came much later, when Elizabeth was in her late thirties or early forties, and she was as determined to marry Anjou as she once was to marry Dudley. However, her Council was violently torn on the question, which infuriated Elizabeth, but as always she bowed to political reality and sent Anjou home with some lovely parting gifts. And the part about Cecil is just remarkably silly. Cecil was her life-long partner in ruling England, and while I'm sure their relationship had its ups and downs, there is no doubt that he was not only devoted to her, he was one of Elizabeth's main props for power.

Anyway, apart from a few other minor issues, such as Mary Tudor's portrayal (think Snidely Whiplash, no subtlety whatsoever), the movie is pretty entertaining, a good costume drama. It's just annoying that the film industry can't do research when they want to make historical movies. Is there no responsibility for at least attempting some accuracy? Or is it their intention to promote historical illiteracy?

(some possible spoilers)

I'm aware that The Mexican inspired some pretty strong negative reactions and didn't fare terribly well on its release. Part of the problem, I'm sure, is the supposed 'dream-pairing' of Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt and an expectation of a standard-issue romantic comedy. People who come to this movie expecting that are sorely and understandably disappointed when they discover an entirely different kind of movie.

Brad Pitt plays Jerry Welbach, a schlemiel who winds up working for a gangster that he inadvertently put in prison. Being a screw-up, he's sent to Mexico after failing to perform on his last job in order to get a pistol. But this is no ordinary pistol -- it's a hand-made piece of art with an oral history that keeps subtly changing during the movie. Its curse follows Jerry around Mexico but somehow never quite stops him, perhaps because in his weird way, he's one of the good guys.

At the same time, the curse manages to trip him up enough to make his bosses nervous, who decide to hold his girlfriend hostage until he comes up with the pistol. James Gandolfini plays a hitman who rescues Julia Roberts from another hitman, and this is where the best chemistry of the movie arises. Gandolfini's hitman is gay, and Roberts' Sam instantly connect on a personal level. They hit Las Vegas with a postman that Gandolfini attracts, until tragedy strikes and Gandolfini goes back to business.

Without revealing too much more of the plot, I can tell you that the stellar cast delivers, especially in smaller roles, such as JK Simmons as Ted, Jerry's partner of sorts, Bob Balaban (always liked him), and Gene Hackman in a small but important role. There are many funny moments, such as Carlos Lacamara as the car rental rep insulting a clueless Jerry en Espanol while smiling the entire time. Most original of all is the movie-within-the-movie that flickers to life any time the story of the pistol is told, changing and advancing each time, and sounding like an old 8mm projector is playing it.

At the end, this is a film about redemption and faith, but it's a long, strange trip to get there. And at the very end, you wonder if Gandolfini's exhortations about fate and love will really work. But if you go in with an open mind and a willingness to try something new, you will be entertained by The Mexican. And watch the dog -- the dog will let you know when Jerry gets off track. No, seriously.

(SPOILERS - but if you haven't seen this already ...)

Before finally writing a commentary on one of my favorite films, I read through a few of the preceding comments, and I was surprised to see so many nay-sayers. Their posts were far from the usual "this film sucks" type of puerile commentary, however; it seems this film provokes intelligent discussion even from those who dislike it (or perhaps dislike the avalanche of affection it normally receives).

I won't bother to recap the entire plot blow by blow. If you've seen it, you already know it, and if you haven't there are plenty of extensive recaps already in the User Comments section. What works for me is Jimmy Stewart as Everyman, George Bailey. Unless you are very fortunate, most people wake up and find out that they have given up their dreams as trade-offs for other things in their lives -- family, friends, etc. Most of us are at peace with this. However, it's very apparent that while George has put aside his disappointment, it lurks below the surface and is the vulnerable chink in his armor. Potter (brilliantly portrayed by Lionel Barrymore) knows this and almost successfully exploits it; George stops himself just before agreeing to be bought by Potter after Potter promises him a substantial (for its time, an enormous) salary and travel opportunities.

George, having had to put his own dreams on hold or away on at least three separate occasions now, prospers modestly and builds a family, and his disappointment stays below the surface until disaster strikes. His unreliable Uncle Billy (Capra regular Thomas Mitchell) unknowingly hands Potter the bank deposit, literally putting the means for George's destruction in Potter's hands. Potter informs the bank examiner and the DA about the $8000 shortage at the S&L, and George faces ruin and prison for embezzlement. He tries asking Potter for help -- crawls for it, actually -- and Potter gleefully refuses. George, while holding onto his low-equity whole-life policy, realizes that the policies make him worth more dead than alive and plans to commit suicide. That's when an angel steps in and shows George what his world would have been like had he never been born.

Some people think that George is owed something monetary by the townspeople, but actually George has prospered modestly by helping them prosper. In terms of money, neither really owe each other anything. In terms of friendship, George has been what Potter is financially -- as rich a man as any other. But George, in his plight, doesn't see this. All he sees is financial, legal, and social ruin because he's looking through Potter's eyes; Potter has succeeded (temporarily) in ruining him spiritually. He even turns into a low-rent Potter on his initial return home, barking at his kids and his wife, smashing things, yelling at the schoolteacher, before righting himself somewhat and trying to apologize to his terrified family. He leaves for a bar, where his friends try to find out what's wrong, and he sends up a desperate prayer to God for help in one of the most heartbreaking scenes I've ever watched. (And then he gets punched in the nose by the husband of the schoolteacher, in one of the most wry moments ever on screen.)

The look at what Bedford Falls becomes without ever having a George Bailey isn't as important, although Potterville certainly is the inspiration for Back to the Future Part II's alternate Biff-run Hill Valley. George comes back to reality with his soul and his faith restored, running through the restored Bedford Falls with joy while heading towards certain ruin. His faith leads him back to his wife, who has been his support and his partner through all his setbacks. Instead of ruin, his friends -- not his debtors -- have all heard that their friend is in serious trouble and have come to help. Their faith in their friend George never wavered (they know he didn't steal anything), even if his faith in them failed, mirroring the faith that God has in each one of us even when we don't have faith in Him or in ourselves. Even Sam Wainwright, from whom he 'stole' Mary, sends a line of credit that guarantees George will be saved. His brother, a Medal of Honor winner who was to make a triumphant entrance the next day, instead comes back in time to say what George finally realizes: he is indeed the richest man in town.

At its core, then, this movie isn't about Christmas, it's about faith: faith tested, faith failed, faith restored. George loses faith in himself and God and his friends and family, and is shown why their faith in him won't completely fail. In a way, this is really more of an Easter story -- Potter crucifies George, who becomes reborn. In order to make this work, you have to see George lose his soul, as he does in those moments after he realizes the ruin that Billy has made of their lives, and that means George has to do some unsympathetic things. A couple of the actions he takes at home borders on emotional abuse, which is why his wife asks him to leave. In order for the film to work, he has to hit bottom, and Stewart masterfully portrays this.

At the same time, Donna Reed had to play her role as even-keeled as possible, as dependable and rock-solid against Stewart's agonizing emotional swings, in order to both highlight Stewart's work and to symbolize God's support and faith. Reed is absolutely amazing in this role, understating while not giving an inch to Stewart in their scenes together. Mary is a real woman, not some straw-man symbol, and without that the film would have utterly failed.

And what of Potter? Why does Potter get away with the money? In a standard morality play, Potter would get caught and wind up ruined, but this film isn't a standard morality play. Potter exemplifies the Scriptural warning, "What does it profit a man to gain the world but lose his soul?" Potter, by taking and keeping the money and later turning George in, has lost his chance for redemption. He is dead already and nothing on Earth can save him but himself. However, this is not a blanket indictment of all who have money, as Sam Wainwright gladly steps in to save his friend -- and Sam is certainly the nouveau-riche type of person that is easy to dislike in standard morality plays. Potter represents himself and the greedy avarice that has consumed him.

When watching this film at any time of year, we are reminded that while events can cause us to lose faith in God and in ourselves, we can still hope that those around us do not lose their faith in us. We are not defined by how much or how little money we have; our goodness comes through in how we treat others and how we all help along the way. All the money in the world cannot save us from death, but God (and our friends) can save us from spiritual death in times of crisis. That's why this is one of the greatest movies ever made and why it belongs in the top 10 of anyone's movie list.