It has a mind and a heart, and its tantalizing ending rings truer than the retrospective wistfulness of many Western romances. Nobody can see all 284 films in the festival's 10 days. Choices must be made. David Mamet had two films. A Hitchcock thriller for the '90s, the film makes greed sulfurous, sexy and lethal.
Critics also get to invent their own mini-trends.
Mid-festival, for example, revealed a penis motif. Mark Wahlberg as a gaudily endowed kid who becomes a triple-X star, has a memorable final shot. Wahlberg drops his drawers and displays the year's most imposing special effect. Loosely based on the career of John C. Holmes, the film treats its shady characters affectionately and has lovingly elaborate tracking shots. In art as in sex, a thing can be too long.