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 Feel your speedAfter all, movies (and movie fans) have always had a soft spot for whining engines and screeching tires. But these days the deeper bond between auto racing and popular moviemaking lies in a shared passion for corporate sponsorship. The vehicles in “Talladega Nights” — which was made with the cooperation of Nascar — are covered with logos and brand names, and the movie itself may break new records for product placements per frame. It’s all in fun of course. As a good-hearted spoof of the folkways of stock-car racing, the movie is happy to mock the sport’s eagerness to sell prime uniform and chassis space to sponsors like Perrier, Wonder Bread and Old Spice. It also is tickled at the eating habits of its fast-driving characters, who wash down Domino’s Pizza and Kentucky Fried Chicken with Coca-Cola and Budweiser and, when they want a high-end night out, head for the nearest Applebee’s. You can be sure that all these companies paid handsomely for the privilege of such lampooning, which even extends to the movie’s single funniest joke, a suppertime blessing brought to you by PowerAde. Really, though, the brand that powers this ragged, intermittently uproarious fusion of sketch-comedy goofing and driving around in circles is Will Ferrell, who wrote the screenplay (with Adam McKay, the director) and served as an executive producer, in addition to running around on a race track in his underpants. He does a lot more than that, needless to say, but Mr. Ferrell’s willingness to strip down to his skivvies is one of his trademarks. It is also a rare movie-star display of solidarity with those American men who, whether out of laziness or principle, disdain sunlight, proper nutrition, body-hair maintenance and abdominal exercise. Part of Mr. Ferrell’s appeal is surely that he is one of them. O.K., one of us. He also has a genius for sniffing out pop-cultural fixtures and embodying them in a way that goes beyond easy, obvious parody. Like Ron Burgundy, the hero of “Anchorman,” Ricky Bobby is at once a creature of pure, extravagant absurdity and a curiously vulnerable, sympathetic figure. The son of a “semi-professional stock car racer and amateur tattoo artist” played by Gary Cole, Ricky is born in the back seat of a speeding Chevelle and goes on to glory on the Nascar circuit. His sidekick and best buddy is Cal Naughton Jr. (John C. Reilly), a sweet, dim fellow content to come in second behind his pal. (Their motto, “shake and bake,” may be an honest homage to a popular product rather than a paid endorsement, but who really knows?) Ricky, by turns childlike and ferociously competitive, has some unresolved Daddy issues, which unfortunately weigh down the last third of “Talladega Nights” with perfunctory sentimentality. Ricky and Cal are from North Carolina, home of the stock car king Richard Petty, and it requires no sensitivity training to recognize that they are stereotypes of a certain kind of Southern manhood. Not that anyone is likely to be too offended; from the old “Dukes of Hazzard” TV show to the songs of Toby Keith, caricature and Rebel pride tend to keep close company. In any case the two good ol’ boys are soon confronted with a designated bad guy who incarnates an entirely antithetical stereotype — or, rather, invents a new one: the gay French Formula One driver. Jean Girard, as this nemesis is called, is played by Sacha Baron Cohen of “Ali G” fame with a demented sang-froid that suggests a synthesis of Peter Sellers and Pee-wee Herman. Mr. Cohen proves himself to be Mr. Ferrell’s equal and opposite, a comic dialectic sealed with the summer’s best on-screen kiss. Like most movies of this kind, “Talladega Nights” is as good as its craziest riffs, which aren’t quite strong or various enough to fill out a whole feature. The funniest scenes have some of the improvised, pseudo-vérité flavor of Christopher Guest’s “Best in Show,” but Mr. Ferrell and Mr. McKay are less rigorous than Mr. Guest and his collaborators, preferring easy laughs to carefully turned comic insights. Still, at the high points — when Mr. Ferrell and Mr. Reilly start jawboning, when Leslie Bibb slyly steals a scene as Ricky’s frosty, gold-digging wife, when Mr. Reilly and Michael Clarke Duncan try to remove a fork from Mr. Ferrell’s thigh, or whenever Mr. Cohen opens his mouth — laughs are hard to suppress. As a cultural artifact, “Talladega Nights” is both completely phony and, therefore, utterly authentic. Or, to put it differently: this movie is the real thing. It’s finger lickin’ good. It’s eatin’ good in the neighborhood. It’s the King of Beers. It’s Wonder Bread.
Animation WORLD
THE temptation to write about "Cars" using automotive metaphors may be unwise, but it's also irresistible. You could say, for instance, that the film — the first directed by the Pixar guru John Lasseter since the company's 1999 hit "Toy Story 2" — tools along at an easy clip, rather like a Volvo station wagon en route to another family vacation. At no point does it spin out of control, much less venture off-road. Instead, the film just putt, putt, putts along, a shining model of technological progress and consumer safety. But, as Ed (Big Daddy) Roth might say, chrome don't get you home and neither does 3D animation.
Mr. Roth was the creator of a delightfully unappetizing cartoon rodent called Rat Fink, a kind of anti-Mickey Mouse mascot for the hot-rod set. Given Pixar's carefully cultivated — and, for the most part, justified — reputation as a modestly maverick outfit, it would be nice to think that a decal of Rat Fink adorns the computers of at least a couple of the film's many, many animators. But both in its ingratiating vibe and bland execution, "Cars" is nothing if not totally, disappointingly new-age Disney, the story of a little cherry-red race car, Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson), who can win the race of life only after he learns the value of friendship and the curvy appeal of Porsche Carrera (Bonnie Hunt).
Right off we know we're not in Kansas anymore or, for that matter, Monstropolis, home to the critters from "Monsters, Inc." or suburban Metroville, where the superheroic family in "The Incredibles" lives. The film opens at an enormous speedway, where some dozen candy-colored race cars, including Lightning McQueen, are whooshing around a track as thousands upon thousands of similarly polychromic jalopies cheer, wave flags and do the wave.
Welcome to Weirdsville, Cartoonland, where automobiles race — and rule — in a world that, save for a thicket of tall pines and an occasional scrubby bush, is freakishly absent any organic matter. Here, even the bugs singeing their wings on the porch light look like itty-bitty Volkswagen beetles.
That sounds like a slap and a tickle, and for a while it's both. As written by Mr. Lasseter, who shares screenwriting credit with Dan Fogelman, Joe Ranft, Kiel Murray, Phil Lorin and (whew) Jorgen Klubien, the film hinges on a premise older than the 1951 Hudson Hornet named Doc (Paul Newman), who gives the story its requisite geezer wisdom. After taking a wrong turn on his way to a race, McQueen lands in Radiator Springs, a town that time and the freeway forgot. There, on a derelict lick of asphalt, he meets a pileup of metal and ethnic clichés, including a tow truck with a deep-fried accent (Larry the Cable Guy as Mater) and a lowrider that apparently hopped in from East L.A. (Cheech Marin as Ramone).
This ethnic and cultural profiling is pretty much par for the animated film course, hence Jenifer Lewis, as a two-tone 1950's ride with big fins called Flo, provides the only identifiable "black" voice. Less wince-inducing are Luigi (Tony Shalhoub), a banana-yellow Italian-accented Fiat that runs the local tire store; Sarge (Paul Dooley), a World War II jeep as memorable and colorful as dung; and Fillmore (George Carlin), a VW bus who extols the virtues of organic fuel, mutters about conspiracies and raises the Stars and Stripes to the guitar squeals of Jimi Hendrix.
Given the film's regrettably retro attitude toward all things automotive (not a hybrid in sight!), it's no surprise that Fillmore, this desert outpost's most credible resident, is also its designated kook.
An animated fable about happy cars might have made sense before gas hit three bucks a gallon, but even an earlier sticker date couldn't shake the story's underlying creepiness, which comes down to the fact that there's nothing alive here: nada, zip. In this respect, the film can't help but bring to mind James Cameron's dystopic masterpiece, "The Terminator," which hinges on the violent war of the machine world on its human masters. To watch McQueen and the other cars motor along the film's highways and byways without running into or over a single creature is to realize that, in his cheerful way, Mr. Lasseter has done Mr. Cameron one better: instead of blowing the living world into smithereens, these machines have just gassed it with carbon monoxide.
Rendering plausible human forms remains one of 3D animation's biggest hurdles, something that Pixar directors like Andrew Stanton ("Finding Nemo") have readily admitted. As if realizing that they can't (yet) compete with nature, Pixar filmmakers tend to avoid the human form or create caricatures that, by virtue of their very exaggeration (think of the middle-age spread bedeviling Mr. Incredible's wife), are wonderfully lifelike.
With his machine world, however, Mr. Lasseter appears to have tried to do an end run around the vexing problem of the human body with cars that might as well have come out of a Chevron advertisement. Even stranger, the film turns Detroit's paving over of America into an occasion for some nostalgic historical revisionism. Surreal isn't the word.
Over the last two decades Pixar has invigorated American mainstream animation with charming stories and sterling technique, reaching a company best with the consecutively released "Monsters, Inc.," "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles." The age of Pixar may not be as golden as that of 1930's and 40's Disney, but it's an estimable run, especially since each new Pixar feature has reached deeper and higher in thematic and aesthetic preoccupations.
Like classic Disney, Pixar films are invariably traditionalist, with stories of familial and social retrenchment, but they're also witty and playful, fresh in both graphic and written line. One clunker won't shut down or even threaten the factory line, but here's hoping that as this onetime scrapper becomes increasingly entrenched and establishment, it keeps its geeks-and-freaks flag flying.
 Reality of businessProlific director Sidney Lumet, now 81, is in top form with his latest, superbly made and raucously entertaining new film, “Find Me Guilty.” He sure knows how to make a movie, from spinning a riveting story and perfection in casting to creating a visually compelling ambiance. I use his book “Making Movies” in film classes that I teach because Lumet lucidly examines each aspect of doing a movie and illustrates the know-how with examples from his own work. “Find Me Guilty” is a prime illustration of how to do everything right. The film is based on real characters and the real 1987-88 trial in New Jersey involving the Lucchese crime family. The trial lasted nearly two years. If you don’t know the outcome, I won’t spoil the film’s suspense by ratting. Central to the cast was a colorful criminal named Giacomo “Jackie Dee” DiNorscio who, already serving a 30-year-sentence involving drugs, decided to handle his own defense and turned the proceedings upside down and inside out. He described himself a gagster, not a gangster. (The real Jackie died during the filming.) A major part of the good news is that Lumet cast Vin Diesel in the role of Jackie, and the director, known for his great work with actors, gets a performance out of Diesel that deserves to loom as one of the best of the year when we head into to the next awards period. Diesel rises to the occasion in a challenging, unusual part and gives a commanding, colorful performance that becomes the film’s center. The rest of the film is also cast astutely, down to the most minor role. Excellent actor Peter Dinklage (“The Station Agent” on film and “Richard III” on stage) is suave and forceful as a defense attorney, making an impact beyond his size (he’s a dwarf), and it is a wonderful touch every time a court attendant has to wheel a special podium up for him to mount. Annabella Sciorra has a sizzling scene as Jackie’s wife, angrily rebellious but still with a flash of loyalty after he has cheated on her so many times. Ron Silver as the judge is measured but firm in the face of the difficulty in keeping his courtroom under control. Linus Roache is a bit over the edge as the prosecutor who has so much riding on the case, but it may be justified in view of how frustrated he is at not being able to get Jackie to become an informer and running into so many problems while pursuing the most important case of his career. Inevitably, some may think of “The Sopranos” but this is a story with far more scope. It does include elements of mob life, but the real issues involve a face off with the government in a boisterous trial. Those in the dock are not Mr. Nice Guys, and yet the sleaziness of the government witnesses and the nerve of Jackie, who is shunned by other defendants worrying about his antics, results in a dilemma for the viewer. There is the temptation to root for the defense over the prosecution. It’s a tribute to the filmmaking that one can get so caught up in the drama, its cast of characters and the courtroom atmosphere. The screenplay by T. J. Mancini and Robert McCrea uses actual testimony from the trial as part of the fictionalization. In order to accommodate the size of the trial in terms suitable for filming,--20 defendants, 20 defense attorneys and eight jury alternates—a specially wide courtroom was built in a warehouse in Bayonne, N.J. The success of the film lies partly in the details, and everything clicks brilliantly into place. “Find Me Guilty” is another important addition to Lumet’s work, encompassing such memorable films as “The Pawnbroker,” “12 Angry Men,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Network,” “The Verdict,” “Serpico,” “Fail Safe,” “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” and “Daniel,” to list but a few of his achievements. It is interesting to note that Lumet keeps up with the latest technology; he shot this film on high-definition video. A Yari Film Group Releasing release.
 Revival of a life High on the list of the year's corniest symbolic acts in a Hollywood movie is the freeing of a grizzly bear from its cage in the contemporary western "An Unfinished Life." And what exactly does the liberation of the beast from a makeshift rural zoo signify? In this solemn, sentimental bore of a movie that suffocates in its own predictability and watered-down psychobabble, it presages Oprah-worthy healing and imminent family togetherness after years of strife. If nothing else, the arrival of "An Unfinished Life" close on the heels of Werner Herzog's documentary "Grizzly Man" certifies 2005 as the year of the bear in Hollywood animal fashion. With all due compliments to Mr. Herzog's incisive portrait of a narcissistic nature boy out of touch with the natural world, "An Unfinished Life" suggests that the time has come to impose an immediate cinematic moratorium on these creatures, symbolic or otherwise, real or computerized. (This one, sometimes played by Bart the Bear, is both.) Before its capture and release, the bear in question lurks on the Wyoming ranch where Einar Gilkyson (Robert Redford), a farmer and recovering alcoholic, has been stewing in bitterness over the death of his son, Griffin, 12 years earlier. Einar, who regularly visits Griffin's grave to mumble sweet nothings into the hereafter, shares the property with Mitch Bradley (Morgan Freeman), his farm hand of four decades who was seriously mauled by the animal a year before the story begins. Einar waits on Mitch hand and foot, massages his painful but fake-looking scars and administers his daily shots of morphine. Mitch, in turn, gently tries to rouse Einar from his funk. This is the latest film in which Mr. Freeman plays a saintly African-American sage, and the stereotype has become as grating as Sidney Poitier's Perfect Negro of the 1960's. "An Unfinished Life" begins in Iowa, where Einar's daughter-in-law, Jean (Jennifer Lopez), beaten up by her abusive boyfriend, Gary (Damian Lewis), flees for Wyoming with her 11-year-old daughter, Griff (Becca Gardner). When she shows up on the Gilkyson homestead, she is less than welcome. Einar blames Jean for his son's death because she drove the car in the accident that killed him. But until Jean appears, Einar doesn't know he has a granddaughter. During the rest of the movie, Einar's heart slowly thaws as he forms an attachment to Griff, whom he teaches how to throw a rope and to drive his battered pickup truck. Can a happy, bugs-in-a-rug family be far behind? An adaptation of Mark Spragg's novel of the same title, "An Unfinished Life" was directed by Lasse Hallstrom from a screenplay Mr. Spragg wrote with his wife, Virginia Korus Spragg. It is the latest Miramax film to be dumped into the marketplace as the studio empties its back catalog after the departure of the Weinstein brothers from the helm. It also signifies the final descent into ponderous, cliché-ridden pseudo-profundity by a filmmaker who became the studio's go-to guy to direct Oscar-seeking middlebrow kitsch ("Chocolat," "The Shipping News"). His gradual softening into a director of Hallmark-style sentimentality offers a cautionary case study of an artist succumbing to the bottom-line mentality of Hollywood. That mentality must account for the presence of Ms. Lopez, who plays the same battered woman she did three years ago in "Enough," but under a different name. In both movies, she finds an identical (and phony) balance of vulnerability and toughness. After an initial skirmish with her ratty boyfriend, Jean walks around with a nasty wound on her chin. But a couple of scenes later, it has all but disappeared, the better to allow Ms. Lopez to slink about in a sexy peasant blouse and be a Hollywood babe with perfect hair, creamy makeup and a rustic wardrobe. Gary tracks Jean down to the Gilkyson homestead, and in the movie's most poorly written scenes explodes within seconds of seeing her. But the film provides Jean with a buffer and handy antidote to her suspicion of men in the person of the hunky local sheriff, Crane Curtis (Josh Lucas), who seems to have been hanging around all these years just waiting for her to show up. It also grants her sisterhood as she bonds with Nina (Camryn Manheim), a local waitress, who offers her shelter after a row with Einar. Mr. Redford appears to have recovered from whatever happened to his face several years ago, when it looked as if a bad eye job had turned his expression into a sinister squint. He gives a careful, measured performance that avoids making Einar, at his worst, the sort of crazed misanthrope the character would be if viewed without rose-colored glasses. But we've also seen this performance before. "An Unfinished Life" is further undermined by Christopher Young's relentless, folksy soundtrack. The musical equivalent of synthetic gingham (yards of it) strung up on a plastic clothesline, it brings you as close to the spirit of the West as a visit to a Ralph Lauren store. "An Unfinished Life" is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has some strong language and mild violence.
Straighten up and die right
Though not exactly prolific, Shane Black quickly carved himself a niche in Hollywood through the 80s and 90s. His name is synonymous with buddy action comedies, his screenplays turning the genre on its head with unconventional setups and setting standards with witty one-liners. Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight all paired a relatively stable ‘minority’ character (in each of those cases a black male) with an unstable white character and combined clever dialogue with unexpected twists on the conventions of the genre. With his debut directorial effort, Black has stuck to a similar formula with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang by pairing the stable Gay Perry (Val Kilmer) with the neurotic petty thief turned actor Harry (Robert Downey Jr), only this time he is also messing with a second genre: film noir. Film noir conventions are introduced and almost immediately turned around. Harry’s opening monologue begins as a classic noir voiceover but he quickly changes from the hard-boiled hard-done-by enigma we expect from the genre into a wise-cracker, fully aware of his own character flaws. He then attempts to light a cigarette Sam Spade-style and falls foul of the modern LA attitude to smoking in public. The story itself is intentionally complex and centres on Harry, who teams up with Gay Perry to learn to be a detective for a role in a film but quickly becomes embroiled in a web of murder and deceit for real. The viewer is thrown around with improbable twists and coincidences coming one after another and then challenged by Harry in his voiceover to work out what’s going on. By that point I wasn’t too bothered about the plot, I was just enjoying the great dialogue between Harry and Gay Perry. ”This isn’t good cop, bad cop. This is fag and New Yorker.” Shane Black loves to play around with the audience’s expectations by presenting them with a typical setup, then completely changing what usually happens in every other action movie. Nowhere is this more evident than in a scene where Harry and Perry are pressing one of the bad guys for information and Harry decides to take the Russian roulette route, by putting one bullet in a six-shooter and spinning the barrel. I don’t want to give too much away but he doesn’t pull the trigger six times to find the bullet... Black has an obvious love for film noir (the chapters of the movie are named after Raymond Chandler novels) but he also makes his feelings for Hollywood in general known. Man, that guy really hates everything and everyone in his neighbourhood. Anger frequently breeds great comedy and this is no exception. In Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Hollywood is populated by vacuous blonde bimbos and old, over-tanned men trying to look like movie stars, all designed to make us laugh and cut close to the bone of the inhabitants of 90210. He also uses this view of the world to comment on the way films are made, especially the way second-choice actors are only used to ‘get Colin Farrell down by $2million’. ”I’ll be over there with the native American Joe Pesci.” There’s a lot to recommend in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang for the casual viewer. It’s very funny at times, has two great central performances and there’s plenty of action and intrigue but at the risk of being drawn through the streets and stoned to death for being a film snob, I’d say there’s more to appreciate for viewers already well-versed in the conventions of film noir so if you who know Detour from De-Lovely you should add an extra point onto the feature score. That said, I was still hoping for a little more from Shane Black’s first feature as a director. Since he has voiced his varying opinions of the previous adaptations of his work, it’s slightly disappointing to see that the style of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is not a million miles away from those films.
Improbable story
For about half a decade, Batman was a dirty word at Warner Bros. Once a marquee franchise, a flamboyant director (Joel Schumacher) drove the caped crusader into the ground, deeply angering fans and critics with the schlocky Batman & Robin in 1997. After flirting with Batman Vs. Superman in an attempt to resurrect both superheroes, the studio took a page out of 20th Century Fox's (X-Men) book and hired an auteur rather than a hit-maker. Warner Bros. made smart casting decisions and managed to get enough of the right people involved to convince the franchise's detractors that this time would be different. But just how different it is may come as a shock to everyone. Batman Begins is a true origin story. Not a detail is glossed over, such as in Tim Burton's first Batman film. Nolan's vision starts with Bruce Wayne as a boy. Attacked by bats on his property, Bruce develops a lifelong fear of the creatures. He becomes even more paranoid about the world around him after witnessing his parents' murder. When a chance to kill the man who committed the crime is foiled years later by local mob boss Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson), Wayne (Bale) disappears to Asia for seven years. There, he meets The League Of Shadows, a group of highly skilled ninjas who claim to influence history by trying to create equilibrium in the world's biggest cities. Wayne trains with League leader Ducard, but when he learns they intend to destroy his hometown, Gotham City, he turns his back on the ninjas, destroying their temple and fleeing for home to fight crime under a new moniker, Batman. I'd love to go into more plot details, but there is just too much going on in this film. In much the same way that Robert Rodriguez's take on Frank Miller's Sin City was like a graphic novel experience, director Christopher Nolan (Memento) one-ups him by presenting much of the back-story like a series of vignettes that actually evoke comic book pages. Nolan aces Batman with such deft accuracy that Warner Bros. better sign him up for another two movies before he gets bored and decides to go back to indie films. Bale brings to Batman what Kilmer, Clooney and even Keaton couldn't — menace. He's the first truly frightening Batman, but then this movie also features the scariest villain in the history of the franchise, Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy). Bale's dry humour and composure make him a perfect choice for the playboy Wayne. Fans wanted him for years and he doesn't disappoint. Michael Caine nails Alfred, Wayne's ever-present butler, while Gary Oldman is perfectly subtle as Lieut. (and future Commissioner) Jim Gordon. Ms. Tom Cruise, er, Katie Holmes is shockingly not bad as Wayne's lifelong friend, assistant district attorney Rachel Dawes, though some of the development of their relationship makes absolutely no sense at all. Given some time, Batman Begins will likely outdistance Batman Returns (Burton) as the best ever in the series. But move over Spider-Man: the potential that the key players — Nolan, Bale, Oldman and Caine — have put into place here could make a new series of Batman films the standard against which all future superhero movies are measured.
OUR REALITY
Welcome to my double feature, Flags of Our Fathers . Although they're in separate reviews, I seem to compare them a lot. This makes sense as they were released as companion movies and deal with the same subject in a broad sort of way. We saw Flags of Our Fathers before Letters from Iwo Jima, that was the order they were released in, and I'm writing this review first, so bear that all that in mind.
Flags of Our Fathers is one of the two war movies released in 2006 by Clint Eastwood. The movies made a lot of press and certainly got a lot of awards talk going, which really isn't a surprise, because well-made war movies always make press and get awards talk going. Focusing on the Pacific front of World War II, and most specifically the Battle of Iwo Jima, Flags of Our Fathers presents the American perspective. Sort of. I say "sort of" because Flags of Our Fathers is two movies in one. On the one hand, it's the story of the Battle of Iwo Jima from the American perspective. On the other hand, it's also the story of the iconic photograph of soldiers raising the American flag, and the post-war lives of some of the photographed men. Much of the movie takes place back on American soil as three of the flag raisers tour the country, trying to raise money for the war. But wait, you say. There were at least six men in the photograph! Yes, well. Remember these men toured the United States after the Battle of Iwo Jima. Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford), John Bradley (Ryan Phillippe), and Ira Hayes (Adam Beach) are the three survivors who are on tour. In classic war story tradition, at least two of these three guys are not big names. (And if for some reason you think of Ryan Phillippe as a Dawson's Creek/boy band type of actor, which for some bizarre reason I did, this is a good time to reevaluate that opinion.) The three men respond to their newfound fame very differently. Gagnon is ready to embrace it, Bradley accepts it as best he can, and Hayes resents it, especially as he feels he did nothing spectacular to be honored for. Interlaced with the story of the tour are flashbacks of the battle and the story of the flag raising photograph. I was of two minds about Flags of Our Fathers, mainly because it was two movies. Movie 1, the story of the tour and how the men in question handled their fame, was extremely interesting and an unexamined angle (movie-wise) of World War II. I really enjoyed this part of the movie, and watching how the war and being in this famous photograph, affected the boys and how they dealt with it. The acting was excellent, the emotions were ranged and real, and it struck me as very honest, neither stripping away glory nor adding to it. This part of the movie really made me think of my reaction to Jarhead, where I thought that the movie did an excellent job presenting the Marines as individuals and young men, not as stereotypes. Movie 2, however, the Battle of Iwo Jima, I did not like. This wasn't because it was necessarily bad, per se. But it was extremely graphic and intense. You know that first forty five minutes of Saving Private Ryan, where they storm Normandy Beach? Exactly like that. In fact, Stephen Spielberg was one of the producers, and this was one spot where I really think it showed. I felt EXACTLY like I did watching that scene in Saving Private Ryan. Some of you will think that's a good thing. Some of you will not. (Incidentally, Stephen Spielberg MUST be one of the world's leading experts on World War II by now, wouldn't you think? And I do mean that seriously, because the man seems to have researched it exhaustively.) For me, I found it too gory, too violent. Yes, war is violent, I know. But there also comes a point where the violence and the gore become so overwhelming that I find myself distracted from the story and spending more energy trying not to throw up than caring about the characters. I was very close to asking Duckie to turn it off and watch it the next day without me. I'm glad I didn't, because I really did like Movie 1 and found it very powerful. But the battle scenes were too much for me. Some of you are reading this and saying, "yeah, well, you have a weak stomach," and I'm glad you are. This is a line that's in a different place for each person, so a lot of people may not have as much of an issue with it as I did. Sure, it adds realism, but I thought it added it at the expense of the story. But the feeling Flags of Our Fathers evoked in me was one of great sadness. I'll probably never get around to reviewing Saving Private Ryan, so let me say that Saving Private Ryan and parts of Band of Brothers also had the same effect. It's just the realization of, on a personal level, how bloody STUPID war is. I find it very hard — and very sad — to watch these young men sent to war, to storm the beach, and then to die before they even set foot on dry land. They were literal canon fodder. It seems like such a waste of a life, just to be shot as soon as you faced the enemy. I know it still seems like a waste later, but any war movie that gets me to care about the characters will make me feel like this. I realize I'm not well-versed in politics. I know there are reasons for war. But I can't help but think there shouldn't be. I do respect the choices these young men made, if they had a choice. (Sorry. You're NOT going to get me to like the draft.) But Flags of Our Fathers just really drove home how badly war screws people up. I don't think I could be in the military, because I don't think I could hack it. Aside from the very real danger of death and having to watch your friends die, Flags of Our Fathers also focused on doing things you weren't proud of later in life. It takes someone very strong and dedicated to deal with that. But then, I suppose you do it because you have to. One thing being a parent teaches you — it's amazing what you can do because you have to do it. War must teach that lesson a thousand times over. Because of the violence aspect, I vastly preferred Letters from Iwo Jima. I do think Flags of Our Fathers was a good movie, but I also felt that Movie 2 has been done before. I am very glad we watched Flags of Our Fathers first, for several reasons. For one, I think it gave the background information on the battle in a more accessible way. But for two, I think we as a country aren't used to thinking of the other side so much, and the Japanese were presented in Flags of Our Fathers exactly as the Americans would have seen them. To see that brief, cursory depiction and then the depth presented in Letters from Iwo Jima was really powerful. It's not the best World War II movie I've ever seen — look to Spielberg for that — but it's one of the better ones. Definitely worth the rent. Just don't watch it right before you go to sleep. DOWNLOAD "FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS" Only $4.99 for a complete movie
LIKE COMIC BOOK
Sin City is the most visually inventive comic book adaptation to make its way to a movie screen. While other directors have attempted to remain faithful to the look and "feel" of their source material, Robert Rodriguez has taken things a step further, by using Frank Miller's graphic novels as storyboards and immersing the audience neck-deep in the noir currents of Miller's den of iniquity. It's easy to get lost in Sin City. There's something to appreciate around every corner - the gritty characters, the uncompromising story, and, most of all, visuals to astound and amaze. "Eye candy" doesn't even begin to describe what Rodriguez has accomplished. Black-and-white is the best format for film noir, and Rodriguez recognizes that - not that anyone would mistake this picture, with its kinetic energy and restless camera, for a relic of the '40s or '50s. However, what the director offers here is b&w with bells and whistles. Sin City is full of color flashes - the red of a dress or a woman's lipstick, the blue or green of someone's eyes, the blond of a hooker's hair, the orange of fire, or the yellow of a lowlife's skin. Then there's the blood - and there's a lot of that. Blood is either represented as a florescent white or, more frequently, in its natural color. In fact, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to describe Sin City using the old clichй, "black and white and red all over." With a movie of this ilk, where the style trumps substance, it's easy to come up with something that engages the eyes more than the mind. Fortunately, that's not the case here. Rodriguez and Miller give us a rogue's gallery of memorable heroes and anti-heroes, and make sure that all three of the film's primary episodes are fast-paced and engaging. There's a little of Pulp Fiction in Sin City, both in the hipness and the sense of discovery. Pulp Fiction provided a bigger jolt, but Sin City isn't far behind. Aside from the decision to shoot in black-and-white, there are plenty of things to announce Sin City as modern-day noir. There's a running voiceover narrative that's about a pulpy as one can imagine, right to the frequent use of the word "dames" to describe women. (Sin City exists out of time, in a world where elements of nearly every decade of the last century are represented in one way or another.) Ties and coats flap in the breeze, with the latter billowing behind running men like bat wings. And nearly every cool character in the film drives a convertible (unless a "flat-top" is specifically requested) and smokes without concern about the health risks. (Of course, for characters that get shot six or seven times, then come back for more, conventional medical issues don't pose much of a problem - although Hartigan has angina.) The movie attracted an impressive array of talent, including some of the biggest up-and-coming names in Hollywood, as well as a few established stars, and one has-been on the comeback trail. A lesser movie with this kind of high-octane cast could have become bogged down by the "spot the star" syndrome, but Sin City engrosses to the point where we're no longer watching actors with names, but the characters they are playing. For example, when we see Elijah Wood, we're not thinking of Frodo Baggins. And Bruce Willis isn't John McClane. More than anything else, that's a testimony to how well Rodriguez does his job. There are three lead male characters - one to anchor each of the trio of episodes that form Sin City's structure. For the most part, these individuals do not cross over and invade each other's stories, although the same cannot be said of the other personalities inhabiting Basin City. Bruce Willis plays Hartigan, a tough-talking cop at the end of a career in a place where honest guys like him are hard to find. Before accepting his pension, however, Hartigan wants to solve one last case and save an 11-year old girl from the clutches of a serial murderer/rapist (Nick Stahl). He succeeds, at least to a point, but pays a terrible price in the process. Elsewhere in the city, the burly, ugly Marv (Mickey Rourke) finds comfort in the arms of a beautiful blonde named Goldie (Jamie King), but when he wakes up the next morning, he discovers that she has been murdered and he has been framed for the crime. Determined to avenge her, Marv pursues a violent, murderous course that takes him to the heart of Basin City's power structure, and seals his fate. Finally, there's Dwight (Clive Owen), a wanted man with a new face who helps out the city's prostitutes when they accidentally kill a sleazeball cop, Jack Rafferty (Benicio Del Toro). Rafferty's demise threatens the uneasy truce that exists in Old Town between the mob, the police, and the hookers. Dwight agrees to hide the body before the cops figure out what has happened, but a group of mobsters have other ideas, and kidnap Dwight's girlfriend, Gail (Rosario Dawson), as a means to thwart him. Another notable performer is Jessica Alba, whose career is in the process of going from red-hot to white-hot, as the stripper Nancy. Although she shows less skin than either Carla Gugino (as Marv's lesbian parole officer) or Jamie King, her allure more than makes up for it. (Alba apparently attended the same stripper school as Natalie Portman - the one where the clothing stays on.) Model-turned-actress Devon Aoki has a role that doesn't challenge her thespian skills. She says nary a word but does some nasty things with swords and other bladed instruments. This is very much Rodriguez's film - like most of his other projects, it was "shot and cut" by him. He is quick to give Frank Miller equal credit, indicating that although the camerawork was his, Miller's contribution was so great that he deserves to be recognized as a co-director. The Director's Guild disagreed, and Rodriguez ended up resigning over the dispute. Quentin Tarantino is listed as a "Special Guest Director," whatever that means. Apparently, Tarantino shot one (or more) of the film's scenes, but I couldn't begin to guess which one. Any contribution by the Kill Bill filmmaker blends seamlessly into the overall production, never calling attention to itself. Rumor has it that some of the studio executives behind Sin City were looking for a way to get the film a PG-13 rating. Having seen the final cut, it's mind-boggling to believe that such a watered-down version was ever considered. The violence in this movie may be stylized, but there's far too much of it for the MPAA to consider a PG-13. Plus, there's plenty of nudity: Jamie King bares her breasts and Carla Gugino spends about 50% of her limited screen time wearing little or nothing. I'm glad Rodriguez stuck to his guns; a PG-13 version of Sin City would have been a crime. The one that exists is a pleasure.
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The essence of “Grindhouse,” Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s exuberant, uneven tribute to the spirit of trash cinema, is distilled in a scene from “Death Proof,” Mr. Tarantino’s feature-length contribution to the project. Two vintage American muscle cars, already scuffed and dented from chasing each other along back roads and two-lane blacktops, descend, engines whining and tires squealing, onto a highway full of late-model minivans, S.U.V.’s and family sedans, all of them driving safely within the lines and the speed limit. It’s a great car chase, but it’s also a metaphor. “Grindhouse,” soaked in bloody nostalgia for the cheesy, disreputable pleasures of an older form of movie entertainment, can also be seen as a passionate protest against the present state of the entertainment industry. Those Detroit relics, modified with loving care in someone’s garage or backyard, may waste gas and burn oil, but they seem to have an individuality — a soul — that the homogeneous new vehicles, with their G.P.S. and their cruise control, their computer chips and their air bags, can never hope to match. And “Grindhouse” argues, with more enthusiasm than coherence, for the integrity of a certain kind of old movie. Not the stuff that finds its way into the Classics section of the video store, but the kind that the guys behind the counter are always talking about: cheap, nasty slasher films, sleazy sexploitation pictures, gimcrack sci-fi epics starring people you never heard of. Just about anything, in short, with the right combination of topless women, gory, pointless violence and inspired amateurism. Also car chases. Really, though, what Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Tarantino try to evoke is less a particular style or genre of moviemaking than a lost ambience of moviegoing. “Grindhouse” consists of a double feature (“Death Proof” preceded by Mr. Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror”) accompanied by trailers for nonexistent coming attractions (with titles like “Machete” and “Werewolf Women of the SS”) and beset by technical difficulties. Each of the features is missing a reel — the management apologizes for the inconvenience — and of course it’s the reel with the sex in it, which the projectionist probably stole for his own amusement. The prints are full of scratches, bad splices and busted sprocket holes, and the images are not always in focus. It’s all a pretty good joke, especially since most of these glitches, artifacts of an earlier technological era, have been produced digitally. (Unfortunately the software application has not yet been developed that can simulate clouds of stale cigarette smoke in the projector beam, broken seats and sticky, smelly floors at your local multiplex.) The filmmakers are at once bad boys and grumpy old men, effortlessly adept at manipulating new-fangled gadgets even as they sigh over the way things were in the good old days. Their approach is both broadly populist and fussily esoteric. It doesn’t take a cinephile to appreciate, say, the sight of in skimpy go-go dancer get-up, or to be repulsed by the spectacle of zombies with melting, pustulant faces feasting on human flesh. But the obsessive crosshatching of Rose Mcgoan allusion, spoof and homage that gives “Grindhouse” its texture is the product of a highly refined generational sensibility.
 THE WORLD OF MYSTERYBrooking no argument, history should quickly regard Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship Of The Ring as the first instalment of the best fantasy epic in motion picture history. This statement is worthy of investigation for several reasons. Fellowship is indeed merely an opening salvo, and even after three hours in the dark you will likely exit the cinema ravenous with anticipation for the further two parts of the trilogy. Fellowship is also unabashedly rooted in the fantasy genre. Not to be confused with the techno-cool of good science fiction, nor even the cutesy charm of family fare like Harry Potter, the territory of Tolkien is clearly marked by goo and goblins and gobbledegook. Persons with an aversion to lines such as, “To the bridge of Khazad-dûm!” are as well to stay within the Shire-like comforts of home (their loss). With those caveats in place, it bears repeating: fantasy does not come finer. There are electrifying moments — notably the computer-assisted swooping camera through Isengard as it transforms into a factory for evil — when Jackson’s flight of fancy approaches the sublime as the romantic poets would understand it: inspiring awe. Leaving aside the thorny issue of Tolkien die-hards and their inevitable gripes — “What no Tom Bombadil?” — Jackson’s screenplay (written in collaboration with Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens) is both bolder and more judicious than Steven Kloves’ surprisingly timid retread of Harry Potter. In particular, rescuing the romance of Arwen and Aragorn from the footnotes and the elevation of Saruman to all-action bad guy actually has a corrective influence on Tolkien’s often oblique and female-sparse source material. There are problems, though. The three-hour running time is high on incident and low on discernible form. After successive detours to Elf habitats Rivendell (the watery home of Elrond) and Lothlórien (the forest home of the Lady Galadriel), the uninitiated might well ask why these crazy Elf kids can’t just live together and spare us all this attenuated dramatic structure. More importantly, the action clearly climaxes in the desperate flight from the Mines Of Moria, where the largely seamless SFX is showcased in the best possible light — total darkness — but the narrative demands a different, downbeat ending. Indeed, but for some fine emotional playing from Bean, Mortensen, Astin and Wood, the final fight might feel like a particularly brutal game of paintball in Bluebell Wood. But then, the real battles are yet to come...
 Their wounderful relationsWill pre-match sexual hijinks give you the edge you need to win at tennis? Or will they distract you from mobilizing the killer instinct essential to victory? That's the earth-shattering question at the heart of "Wimbledon," a likable, formulaic sports movie that follows the miraculous comeback of an insecure 31-year-old British tennis pro, Peter Colt (Paul Bettany), whose career resurrects on the wings of love. In the eight years since Peter placed 11th in the international tennis rankings, he has sunk to 119th. At Wimbledon, where he's playing his last professional matches before taking a job as a tennis instructor at a fancy club, he meets and falls in love with an American tennis pro, Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst). A super-competitive athlete, on the fast track to the women's championship, Lizzie appears unstoppable until Paul enters her life. As her defenses start to crumble, her concentration falters and the trajectories of their careers unexpectedly reverse. Paul credits Lizzie with spurring his triumphs, while she bitterly blames him for her fall from grace. "Wimbledon's" most refreshing idea is to present a sports hero who doesn't see himself primarily as an invincible fighting machine. Peter, who narrates the movie and whose jumbled interior thoughts are heard at tense moments, has a mind and a soul as well as a body. He is courtly, witty, sensitive and apologetic to a fault, but he is no smoothie. Until she meets him, Lizzie is a snippy, wisecracking know-it-all pursuing the win-at-all-costs agenda of her pushy father, Dennis (Sam Neill). Dennis immediately perceives Peter as a threat and tries to keep him away from his daughter, but he won't be stopped. Lizzie is adept enough at compartmentalizing her life to have enjoyed a number of meaningless flings on the road without becoming distracted. She is all business when she first sleeps with Paul. When she loses control, she loses her temper. Ms. Dunst projects the lithe physical grace of a born athlete, but she has a delicate line to tread to keep Lizzie sympathetic. Her skill at balancing Lizzie's smugness and vulnerability is a tricky feat she carries off by portraying her conflicting urges as the suppressed inner tug of war by someone too self-disciplined for melodrama. Until she cracks, the conflict registers mostly as subtle, telling changes in expression and body language. Although the movie shows only fleeting glimpses of Lizzie in action, a good portion of Peter's screen time is spent sweating on the court. The tennis scenes, though credible, are pumped up and stretched out for suspense and embellished with dramatic glitches: an official's wrong call, a sudden downpour and several falls.
 THE MOVIE ONLY FOR A REAL MENEvery society gets the biker movie it deserves. A repressed 1950’s America was visited with its first taste of teenage rebellion in “The Wild One,” while a country on the verge of a full-blown plastic fantastic freak-out in 1966 was treated to “The Wild Angels.” In 1984, when MTV was showing us all that good hair was more important to music than actual singing, we got the pretty but largely brainless “Streets of Fire” (yes, I realize I’m stretching the ‘biker movie’ definition a bit), and a country glutted on extreme sports and crappy computer-generated racing F/X enjoyed “Biker Boyz” in 2003. That said, it stands to reason that the United States of 2007, a nation consisting largely of indolent anti-intellectuals force-fed a steady diet of PG-13 comedy and sterile, Disney-fied entertainment should be subjected to “Wild Hogs,” an indolent, PG-13, Disney “biker” flick that does for comedies what Exxon did for Prince William Sound. Lest anyone think I’m being needlessly harsh, let’s take a look at the premise. Recall that Marlon Brando’s Johnny, when asked what he was rebelling against, answered “Whaddya got?” Or that Captain America and Billy were futilely searching for freedom in an increasingly oppressive and paranoid land. In “Wild Hogs,” our four middle-aged bandito wannabes are…running away from the responsibilities of being a grown-up. Dentist Doug (Tim Allen) is desperate to recapture the carefree spirit of youth as a way to ignore the fact that his son doesn’t respect him and, well, he’s a dentist. Woody (John Travolta) is some sort of yuppie scumbag whose trophy wife has run out on him, and he’s just discovered he’s broke. Dudley (William H. Macy) is a computer programmer who celebrates the group’s ride to the Pacific by getting a tattoo…of the Apple Computers logo (in authentic rainbow coloring, which provides a hilarious touchstone for the movie’s endless gay jokes). Finally, Bobby (Martin Lawrence) – the only black guy and coincidentally (?) the only one with a blue collar job – is fleeing his nagging harpy of a wife. The idea of grown men ditching their responsibilities for a guys-only vacation is hardly new (and taken on that level, perfectly understandable). What makes the so-called Wild Hogs unbearable is the way they perfectly embody the aesthetic of the “weekend biker” douchebag. They ride custom Harleys, dress in spotless leathers, and wear their too-tight t-shirts over swelling guts without the slightest hint of ironic self-awareness. When they inevitably run afoul of a real biker gang and are verbally abused by its leader (a more psychotic than usual Ray Liotta) for being pathetic middle-aged posers, you want to stand up and cheer. As for comedic antics, director Walt Becker pulls out all the stops. On their journey, the Hogs will: make gay jokes, endure original and not-at-all dated motorcycle-related mishaps (bugs/birds in the face, getting knocked off by inanimate objects), question each other’s sexuality, suffer blows to the groin, inadvertently arouse a homosexual highway patrolman (John C. McGinley), and get involved in the least realistic biker brawl since the original “Cannonball Run.” Come on Walt, you’ve got John Travolta, Tim Allen, and Martin Lawrence together in the same movie. Is a little chain-whipping too much to ask? Thematically, “Wild Hogs” is almost identical to 1991’s “City Slickers,” another movie about a group of whiny 40-somethings unable to come to grips with their receding hairlines and shattered dreams. At least that movie had Jack Palance. “Wild Hogs” has Marisa Tomei (who accepted her Oscar from Palance), but it’s not the same. Bad enough that the movie was made in the first place, but not even throwing us the bone of tacking on an “Easy Rider” shotgun-to-the-face ending is a mark of shame upon us all.
 Do you want to save your life?When you can watch a movie and see flying armadillos and country musicians at their most purely homicidal-looking, all within the first fifteen minutes, you know you’re in for a serious rush. And that’s exactly what you’re going to get out of “2001 Maniacs.” Now, I’m sure by now most of you have seen this sucker sitting on the video store shelves, and gave it a sad, scornful shake of the head with a little tongue-clucking as you wondered just how low Robert Englund was planning to sink. And some of you more adventurous souls took a look at the back of the box, saw the name “Eli Roth”, remembered “Hostel”, and ran for the hills like your feet were on fire and the IRS was waving audit forms at you. Okay, it’s true. Robert Englund’s been doing the DTV thing a lot lately. His profile on the IMDB reads like…well…like a guy who has been in theatres even less than I’ve been in the last five years. Seriously—haven’t hit a theatre since “Stay Alive.” And we can all agree that “Hostel” was pretty much a solid block of godawful perpetrated on American viewers out of some kind of hyperdeveloped sadistic sense. But if you’re willing to give this one a chance, you will find a highly unique and very well developed horror movie with lots of comedic bits and some nifty twists. Plotwise, what we’ve got here is a little village in Georgia, Pleasant Valley by name, that looks like it’s packed to the brim with nice folks who live in a little backwater town in the middle of nowhere. The denizens of Pleasant Valley seem to live up to their name, and they’re just about to kick off their annual “Guts ‘n’ Glory Festival” a big village-wide party that in the beginning looks like a lot of fun. But the fun doesn’t last long as we discover why Pleasant Valley isn’t as pleasant as we’d all hoped. First, check out that DVD menu. That…is just fantastically freaky stuff. It truly must be seen to be believed—make sure you watch the whole thing. It’ll have a couple of spoilers but nothing too tragic. Second, there’s a very nifty cameo at seven minutes and ten seconds. I give you, the return of Dr. Mambo! “Cabin Fever” enthusiasts will remember that one. Third, the gradual unraveling of the town and the people therein is an absolute joy to watch. It speaks to some very careful story crafting and I approve wholeheartedly. And yet, I’m becoming a bit unnerved by the recent push to get country music singers involved in direct to video horror movies. First, Randy Travis was breaking land-speed records for exorcisms and now we’ve got Travis Tritt looking like he’s about ready to break out the chainsaw and start a massacre of his own. What’s the logical next step in the sequence here, Garth Brooks as an axe murderer? Brooks and Dunn put people meat in a chili cook-off? Maybe the Dixie Chicks will finally get their chance to take care of Earl once and for all! Yeah! Right along with the whole block! It really just doesn’t make much sense. Though I’m personally rooting for Cletus T. Judd…. Not that this gets in the way of enjoying “2001 Maniacs”. Not in the least. “2001 Maniacs” is packed full of comedy, action, and genuine outright blood-drenched horror sufficient to keep most fans happy. The ending is a huge surprise. Despite an incredible fight scene at the end, where Robert Englund (or a reasonable facsimile) manages to get into a sabre duel with our last surviving male lead, there will still be at least two major twists to the end. The special features include a behind-the-scenes featurette, an audition reel, and trailers for “2001 Maniacs”, “The Mangler Reborn”, “The Green River Killer”, and “Streets of Legend”. All in all, despite a whole bunch of red flags screaming at you from the box, it’s really going to be worth your time and rental dollars to snag a copy of “2001 Maniacs”. Ignore everything logic and your instincts tell you on this one—this funny and action-packed romp has everything you need to make a solid night.
 How they made their sexual life amazing?
Todd Field’s superb film adaptation of the novel by Tom Perrotta, begins in a clean and leafy suburban playground, where toddlers cavort under the watchful, benevolent gazes of their pretty young mothers. This may strike you as a rare tableau of innocence in a hectic world, unless, that is, you have spent time in such a place. For the playground really is a scene of primordial brutality, in which a few agreed-upon rules — play nice, share your toys, no hitting — barely suppress the essential savagery of the human species.
I’m not talking about the kids; they’re perfectly sweet. “Little Children,” its title notwithstanding, is a rigorous study of adult behavior, and the first playground scene, introduced by an unseen narrator whose smooth, authoritative voice is familiar from luxury-car commercials, sets a tone that is both compassionate and severe. It can be observed that the chorus of viciously competitive moms, who reappear now and then throughout the movie to pass judgment and enforce social norms, amounts to a caricature, tinged with snobbery and misogyny. True enough, but those mean mothers nonetheless offer a glimpse into the larger reality that is one of the film’s main areas of inquiry, as it was the novel’s: the empty, invidious, anxious feelings that accompany material and domestic fulfillment. Set in a Massachusetts suburb with many scenes filmed on location in New York, “Little Children,” which will be shown this weekend at the New York Film Festival before opening in New York and Los Angeles next Friday, balances tenderness with satire. It takes seriously the complaints of people whose lives are, by any objective historical measure, almost impossibly privileged (though they would no doubt describe themselves as middle class). But the movie, which Mr. Field and Mr. Perrotta wrote together, does not, in the manner of other, more facile examinations of suburban dysfunction (like “American Beauty”) assume that it or its audience is better than its characters. The combination of self-regard and anxiety that the characters display makes such judgment superfluous in any case. Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet), sitting in that maternal playground klatch, insists to herself (in the narrator’s voice, an unsettling and effective touch) that while she may be in this world, she is not of it: “a researcher studying the behavior of typical suburban women, not a typical suburban woman.” Sarah has been to graduate school, and though she never received a doctorate, she did acquire the habit of living within the protective quotation marks that the postmodern academy hands out in addition to (and sometimes in lieu of) substantive knowledge. Her bouts of parental ineptness — forgetting to bring a snack to the park for her daughter, Lucy, for example — are both humiliating and self-aggrandizing. Sarah’s sloppiness is a sign, to herself and the others, that she is too fine a creature to be bothered with the trivia of parenthood. Ms. Winslet, as fine an actress as any working in movies today, registers every flicker of Sarah’s pride, self-doubt and desire, inspiring a mixture of recognition, pity and concern that amounts, by the end of the movie, to something like love.
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 SHOULD HE SAVE HIS LIFE???The end is nigh in “Children of Men,” the superbly directed political thriller by Alfonso Cuarón about a nervously plausible future. It’s 2027, and the human race is approaching the terminus of its long goodbye. Cities across the globe are in flames, and the “siege of Seattle” has entered Day 1,000. In a permanent war zone called Britain, smoke pours into the air as illegal immigrants are swept into detainment camps. It’s apocalypse right here, right now — the end of the world as we knew and loved it, if not nearly enough. Based in broad outline on the 1992 dystopian novel by P. D. James about a world suffering from global infertility — and written with a nod to Orwell by Mr. Cuarón and his writing partner Timothy J. Sexton along with David Arata, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby — “Children of Men” pictures a world that looks a lot like our own, but darker, grimmer and more frighteningly, violently precarious. It imagines a world drained of hope and defined by terror in which bombs regularly explode in cafes crowded with men and women on their way to work. It imagines the unthinkable: What if instead of containing Iraq, the world has become Iraq, a universal battleground of military control, security zones, refugee camps and warring tribal identities? Merry Christmas! Seriously. “Children of Men” may be something of a bummer, but it’s the kind of glorious bummer that lifts you to the rafters, transporting you with the greatness of its filmmaking. Like Clint Eastwood’s “Letters From Iwo Jima,” another new film that holds up a mirror to these times, Mr. Cuarón’s speculative fiction is a gratifying sign that big studios are still occasionally in the business of making ambitious, intelligent work that speaks to adults. And much like Mr. Eastwood’s most recent war movie, much like the best genre films of Hollywood history, “Children of Men” doesn’t announce its themes from a bully pulpit, with a megaphone in hand and Oscar in mind, but through the beauty of its form. It may seem strange, even misplaced to talk of beauty given the horror of the film’s explosive opening. For Theo, the emotionally, physically enervated employee of the Ministry of Energy played without a shred of actorly egotism by Clive Owen, the day begins with a cup of coffee, an ear-shattering explosion and a screaming woman holding her severed arm. The Mexican-born Mr. Cuarón, whose previous credits include the children’s films “A Little Princess” (1995) and “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” (2004), as well as the supremely sexy road movie “Y Tu Mamá También” (2001), has always had a dark streak. But nothing in his résumé prepares you for the shocking realism of this explosion, which proves all the more terrible because here it is also so very commonplace.
What about your ALIBI???
Steve Coogan stars as a polished, cynical risk management specialist, his area of expertise being the providing of alibis for cheating wives and husbands who can afford his services. Coogan's Ray has established a thriving business and hires Lola (the stunning Rebecca Romijn) as his poised and shrewd new assistant. James Brolin, playing an indefatigably philandering tycoon, Ray's best client, has just asked Ray to cover for his spoiled, petulant son, Wendell (James Marsden), who's planning a hot fling with Heather (Jaime King) in Santa Barbara before he settles down to marriage. Heather, however, is so deep into kinky sex that Wendell inadvertently ends up strangling her. Ray ends up in big trouble, but Lola proves so coolly resourceful in coming to his aid one cannot but wonder what's in it for her. In the meantime, he has to fend off a revenge-minded character played by John Leguizamo, a professional assassin (Sam Elliott), the assassin's unfaithful wife (Selma Blair), the assassin's key henchman (Henry Rollins — yes, that Henry Rollins) and a police detective (Debi Mazar), among others. Most of the actors — among them Deborah Kara Unger, who is asked only to seem enigmatic — do well enough to make one wish that "Lies & Alibis" had sufficient clarity to achieve the level of the pleasantly routine. As it is, Brolin and Elliott supply considerable humor to a picture in constant need of more vitality.
 REAL RESULTS! When David Beckham recently signed for American side LA Galaxy, the makers of Goal II: Living the Dream must have had mixed feelings about the move. Sure, Beckham’s increased profile in the US might be good for the picture’s chances of making an impact there, but it does render this second instalment in the football trilogy even more outdated than it already was. Goal II sees Santiago Munez (Kuno Becker) making the move from the Premiership to La Liga, swapping the black and white of Newcastle for the all-white strip of Real Madrid; but along with the US-bound Beckham, the film sees Santiago lining up next to such players as Thomas Gravesen (now at Celtic), Julio Baptista (Arsenal), Jonathan Woodgate (Middlesbrough) and the great Zinedine Zidane (famously retired). Such are the pitfalls of trying to make a feature film in the fast-moving football world, but that hiccup is the least of Goal II’s problems. I rather enjoyed the original film, which saw young Mexican Santiago making the move to Newcastle after being spotted showing his skills in an LA park. The film’s fairytale narrative followed a traditional trajectory, with our hero overcoming every obstacle through sheer hard work and determination. It was nothing new, but the film did deserved some credit for its fine recreation of match day action - with the actors skilfully spliced into real-life footage and a number of players making cameos - and the general air of authenticity which Newcastle’s cooperation on the picture enabled. Goal made little impact on its release in 2005, but part two had gone into the works as soon as production on the first film had finished, so here it is whether people are interested or not. The film opens with a display of skill that won’t be matched in the whole picture, with the opening credits running over footage of Ronaldinho’s single-handed destruction of Real Madrid in 2005 (he famously became the first Barcelona player to earn a standing ovation at the Bernabéu since Maradona 20 years previously). Clearly, things are not going well for Real, and one player under particular scrutiny is Gavin Harris (Alessandro Nivola), the new signing from Newcastle who has struggled to live up to his transfer fee. Real Madrid manager Rudi Van Der Merwe (a blatantly uninterested Rutger Hauer) thinks the solution to Harris’ problems might be the purchase of his former team-mate Santiago Munez, and he begins to make arrangements for a swap deal involving Michael Owen. It’s a dream move for Santiago, but he soon finds the pressures of playing for one of the world’s biggest clubs are very different to those he faced in Newcastle. His fiancée Roz (a decent Anna Friel) struggles to settle, causing tensions to rise between the pair, and Santiago starts to get sucked into the playboy lifestyle enjoyed by the likes of Gavin Harris. He has problems on the pitch too, finding himself restricted to the bench and struggling to make a mark at his new club. In other words, it’s nothing new, with only a sunnier milieu marking the difference between this Goal and the original. Of course, we shouldn’t have expected Goal II to break any new ground, but this sequel feels like a serious regression from the (admittedly quite low) standard set by Danny Cannon’s film. The director this time out is Jaume Collet-Serra, the young Frenchman whose previous effort was the much derided horror remake House of Wax, but he doesn’t bring much to the film aside from a lot of flashy visuals and choppy editing. Few of Collet-Serra’s aesthetic choices are pleasing; the overuse of CGI in the football sections - with balls defying the laws of physics as they swerve into the net - makes the in-game action feel cartoonish, while a snowstorm during a European match in Norway just looks ugly, and there’s a bizarrely incongruous car chase sequence which comes out of nowhere halfway through the picture. Goal II does make an attempt to give Santiago’s story some sort of emotional resonance in this film by introducing his long-lost mother (Elizabeth Peña), and the brother he never knew he had (Alfredo Rodríguez), but this strand of the narrative barely rises to the level of a Soap Opera. Kuno Becker’s mediocre performance also scuppers the film’s chances of developing any depth; he just about got away with his limited range in the first film, but here his handful of scowls, smiles and confused expressions quickly palls, particularly when Santiago is supposed to be going through such a difficult and transformative time. Thankfully Alessandro Nivola lightens the mood a little by reprising the character of Gavin Harris to winning effect. Nivola’s cocky, dopey star was the best thing about the first film, and he again manages to eke a couple of laughs out of the generally barren screenplay. In this picture Harris is worried about the ageing process, and the thought that he might lose his place in England’s World Cup squad to younger legs, and Nivola’s relaxed performance makes him a far more rounded and appealing character than Becker can manage with far greater screen time. Aside from Nivola, there isn’t much fun to be had with Goal II, although the star-spotting is always enjoyable. Few of the Madrid players are given much to do other than sitting around in the background of scenes, but Thomas Gravesen does engage in a nice bit of towel-swiping comedy, and the likes of Míchel Salgado and Iker Casillas handle their brief appearances with the minimum of fuss. The weirdest cameo of the lot comes from Steve McManaman, though. The Associate Producer pops up as Rutger Hauer’s assistant, and he seems to be lurking in the background of almost every single scene, finally excelling himself with some great “leave it, he’s not worth it!” action when breaking up a fight. And what of Mr Beckham himself? Well, after delivering his one line in Goal with all the confidence of a man who has never spoken English before, he has found himself back among the subs this time, only making wordless appearances. Never mind, David; just think of all those acting classes you can take in LA. Goal II ends, as you’d expect, with a Real Madrid victory secured by a last-minute stunner (shamefully bastardising one of Arsenal’s great European performances in the process), but there’s no real sense of joy in this disappointing retread. For all its flaws, the first Goal had a degree of charm, plausibility and a lightness of touch which is completely missing from Collet-Serra’s glossier, emptier movie. Instead of advancing on the things Goal did well, the sequel just expands on the things it did poorly, and it’s a major backwards step for the series. Of course, we still have Goal III to consider - the action will be taking place at the World Cup, with Santiago and Gavin competing on the world’s biggest stage - but it’s hard to hold out much hope for the film after this instalment. “To be continued” the film promises as the credits roll - the question is, will anybody care?
 Amazing relations between him and her Playing Alex Fletcher, a semi-washed-up British pop star whose heyday was in the haircut-band ’80s, Hugh Grant, one of the stars of “Music and Lyrics,” delivers a reasonably convincing impersonation of, well, Hugh Grant. He stammers articulately, ducks his head coyly to one side and ornaments his line readings with cute qualifications and digressions, as in: “We have tonight, the morning and just the teeniest little bit of the afternoon.” There is no shame in this kind of consistency or predictability. After all, the movie stars of old delighted their fans by inhabiting the same basic persona in role after role. Before Hugh Grant, for instance there was another Grant, Cary, who was always reliably himself and who enjoyed the good fortune of working with some of Hollywood’s finest directors, from Howard Hawks to Alfred Hitchcock. “Music and Lyrics,” in contrast, is the type of modern Hollywood production that aspires to nothing more than the competent dispensing of mild amusement and easy emotion. The writer and director, Marc Lawrence (“Two Weeks Notice,” also starring Mr. Grant), shows some imagination as he parodies the music-video styles of various eras, and he contrives a bit of novelty in making the movie’s central couple creative partners as well as potential lovers. Mr. Grant’s opposite number is Drew Barrymore, playing a lovable flake named Sophie who arrives at Alex’s Upper West Side apartment and sticks around to help him make beautiful music. Or, at least, a hummable, ticky-tacky pop tune. Alex, who earns a decent if humiliating living performing his old hits (and semi-sexy dance moves) on the fairground and class-reunion circuit, has a shot at a comeback, thanks to a teenage pop-tart named, of all things, Cora (Haley Bennett). Ms. Bennett, a newcomer to feature films, shows herself to be a deft enough comedian, sending up both the vacuous spirituality and the teasing hypersexuality of Cora’s real-life counterparts. With her blissed-out face and wriggling body, Cora puts the booty in Buddhism. She also commissions a song from Alex, but his gift is strictly for melodic clichés. The verbal kind come naturally to Sophie, who was an aspiring writer before being dumped by her professor, a famous novelist (suavely played by Campbell Scott) who has unflatteringly modeled a character in his latest best seller on her. Sophie’s collaboration with Alex hits the expected snags and misunderstandings, and while there is not much chemistry between Mr. Grant and Ms. Barrymore, they are professional enough to work with the movie’s conceit while sending flickers of idiosyncratic charm off the screen. Mr. Grant is at his best when he allows a hard glint of caddish narcissism to peek through his easy flirtatiousness, something he did in “About a Boy” and “American Dreamz.” There is not quite enough of that here, nor enough of the anarchic loopiness that Ms. Barrymore brought to roles opposite Adam Sandler in “The Wedding Singer” and “50 First Dates.” Apart from Cora, the secondary characters are more perfunctory than inspired, though Kristen Johnston has some juicy, unhinged moments as Sophie’s older sister, whose fan-crush on Alex has hardly cooled since the mid-’80s, despite marriage and motherhood. The songs, composed for the film by Adam Schlesinger, are affectionate tributes to the MTV fodder of the present and (mostly) the past. They provide sweet reminders of the giddy delight of good bad popular music. Only $2.99 for a complete movie
 Girl's and Boy's private life!"Barely Legal" (originally called "After School Special" and completed in 2003) seems dated, but the cast manages to mine a few decent laughs out of the material. The flick focuses on Deacon (Erik von Detten), Fred (Tony Denman, "Sorority Boys") and Matt (Daniel Foster), who have the get-rich-quick scheme of making their own adult film and market it on the web. The trio find a local stripper, Ashley (Sarah-Jane Potts) willing to star, but things don't go as well as they planned, and are forced to hurry up production when thousands of orders roll in from teenagers around the world. Meanwhile, Deacon's attention is drawn away from work when Naomi (Amy Smart, who I still think deserves better roles, especially after her turn on "Scrubs") starts taking an interest in him. The picture starts off with a few minor chuckles as the group puts together their plan, but the laughs start to come to a halt in the second half when the picture can't bring together too many amusing situations regarding the group's mistakes during production. There's also the matter of an adult actor (Horatio Sanz) who wants to put the group's film out of business. Supporting efforts include Tom Arnold and Saam Levine, the latter from "Freaks and Geeks". Overall, this is simply an average teen flick with direct-to-video production values. However, it is definitely a substancial improvement over some of the other flicks that have worn the National Lampoon's logo.
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