in a vicious cycle of misery.

Harvey Pekar appears to be a serious and illustrative case. Pekar is an underground comic book writer, and this film is a biopic about his life, or better, about his way of life. Pekar is about the glummest, most pessimistic, least socially attractive underdog that you’re likely to run into. He lives a barren existence, abandoned by two wives. He finds fleeting satisfaction when he discovers rare old jazz recordings at garage sales and can bargain the price down below a quarter. His major challenge is somehow persevering through dreary weekends of painful loneliness.

Pekar has a chance encounter with underground comic artist Robert Crumb in the 1970’s, shows Crumb some notes about his daily struggles to cope with life, and the two agreeto create a new series of graphic novels entitled “American Splendor” – written by Pekar and illustrated by Crumb and several other alternative comic artists. The series catches on and paces a surge of new graphic novel comics in the 1980s, attracts Joyce Brabner, who becomes Pekar’s enduring domestic partner, and lands Pekar as a regular guest on the David Letterman show. But none of this adds much gold to the Pekar coffers or alters Pekar’s certainty that life will remain difficult. He sticks to his day job filing records at a VA hospital.

This film is a bold docudrama in which fictional representations of the central characters are often interposed with or depicted alongside the real people. Paul Giamatti (Pekar), Hope Davis (Joyce) and Judah Friedlander (Pekar’s semi-autistic


special powers, braving the tribulations of daily life, pushed to his limits in exaggerated mortal combat against the great dark forces of the world, like the old woman ahead of him who takes forever in the supermarket line. The filmmakers have captured these everyday trials and heroics perfectly. And they have done so while at the same time preserving the integrity of the graphic comic novel format. The opening credits, for example, are all ingeniously rendered as a series of comic picture/text boxes. Very nice work! (The film was the 2003 Sundance grand jury prizewinner.) Grade: A- (08/03)

ANALYZE THIS (Harold Ramis, US, 1999). THEME: COMEDY ABOUT TRANSFERENCE/ COUNTERTRANSFERENCE IN PSYCHOTHERAPY A Mafia kingpin (Robert DeNiro) develops acute symptoms of anxiety and depression, and makes offers that a psychiatristthe publication of her short stories and first novel, and a prize for the latter, altered the manner in which she was regarded by psychiatrists and led to her emancipation from the hospital, barely avoiding a leukotomy. This segment is also cohesive. Part three is less successful, tracing Frame's experiences abroad in Britain and Spain in her late 20s, and her eventual return to New Zealand after her father's death. Campion made a superb film, aided by a generally superior screenplay by Laura Jones, good photography by Stuart Dryburgh, help from Frame, fine acting from Kerry Fox, and great casting of the two youths who played Janet as a child and an adolescent. Grade: A- (01/02)

ANGELS IN AMERICA: I Millenium Approaches; II Perestroika (Mike Nichols, US, 2003). THEMES:


sport to take on such a ridiculous role) visits Prior, she embraces him in literally electrifying sexual union, making use of all 8 of her vaginas. Magical realism may lace this production lavishly, but make no mistake, we're talking a seriously corporeal spirituality here, nothing ethereal about it.

You probably know the history by now. In 1987, a group in San Francisco, the Eureka Theater, commissioned Kushner’s play about AIDS in the gay community. Part 1 (Millenium Approaches) debuted in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 1991, then in London, before a Broadway debut in 1992 that won a Tony Award for Best Play and a Pulitzer Prize for Kushner. Part 2 (Perestroika) followed on Broadway in 1993. Literary critic Harold Bloom listed this play as one of themost important literary works of the 20 th century. The timing of the stage productions was fortuitous – around the fall of the USSR and Berlin Wall, and before the upturn in the U.S. economy and better drug strategies for AIDs. The timing of the HBO production is even more poignant: with AIDS now spreading across the world, and the excesses and hypocrisies of the present Bush Administration making the Reagan era seem in some respects like the good old days. Not to mention the apocalyptic miasma that has enshrouded us since 9/11: near the end of the final hour, we see a silhouette of the lower Manhattan skyline (it’s 1990), and there are the twin towers of the World Trade Center, rising ghostlike in fuzzy gray tones.

This


base and unethical machinations. He hates Communists, liberals, racial minorities and gays, though he is a barely closeted homosexual himself and, as it turns out, is also dying of AIDS in 1985 (Cohn did indeed die of AIDS in 1986, claiming to the end that he had liver cancer, just as portrayed here). Joe abandons Harper, and has a brief affair with Louis, whom he has met at work).

Prior has visitations from ancestral ghosts (he’s from a family that has been important forever) and Angels. Wildly improbable as they may be, these visions ably serve several dramatic purposes. They provide grand spectacle, something that delights post-modern theater audiences, and that in fact is put in even finer form on the screen, thanks to CG technology and splendid productionsurprise, then, to find it was written by the same fellow, the prolific Thomas Newman.

I haven’t yet mentioned the two best characters in the series: Meryl Streep (who plays a Rabbi; an Angel; the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, who visits Roy Cohn's deathbed; and Joe Pitt’s matter-of-fact , unflappable mother, Hannah – her lead role), and Jeffrey Wright, who reprises his Tony Award-winning stage roles in AIA: Perestroika (he plays the former drag queen Belize, an AIDS nurse, as well as lesser roles as Harper Pitt’s fantasy tour guide, Mr. Lies, and, briefly, an Angel). Hannah Pitt drops her widow's life in Salt Lake City and rushes to Brooklyn to attempt to rescue Joe and his marriage, both beyond repair, as it turns out. But she finds plenty


learn through the voiceover by the film's protagonist, Paul, that his mother dreamt this scene while pregnant with him. Paul is now in his 20s. He and his working class parents live in multiunit housing. He doesn't work much, but creates weird surreal paintings, plays rock drums with his buddy Ragnwald, and fancies himself a poet. "I'm not human..." he says early on to his upper middle class girlfriend, Dagny, "...I'm the patch of blue sky in the fairy tale." His happiness is shattered when, under pressure from her parents, Dagny jilts Paul. This seems to trigger, as such events often will, Paul's descent into a schizophrenic illness from which he will not recover. This descent is stepwise, gradual, relentless and – from a clinical perspective - precisely,them of criticizing him). He gets more paranoid, thinks he's being followed, and develops delusions of grandeur (Jesus tells him to create a new ark, for he is the last man on earth). He begins to alter his body, shaving his head, running for long jaunts. His rages increase. Then he is hospitalized.

Conditions on the ward are also strikingly realistic. It’s clean and tidy but bleak. We meet Oli, who plays guitar and sings (badly) and claims that he sends his compositions telepathically to the Beatles, never mind that it is years since they disbanded. We also meet Peter, who has a young child and who postures oddly in the manner of some chronic patients, and Victor, an intelligent, educated fellow who has strong, to some extent delusional,


properly. He tells the doctor later that "NATO made me crazy - I was born on the same day Iceland joined NATO, you know." More sitting around bored in the dayroom with Oli, Peter and Victor, who are all back or perhaps never left. More cigarettes. Victor now has a pill rolling tremor, a side effect of antipsychotic medication. Then Peter suicides. Then Paul's successful old friend Ragnwald, who had become a dentist, also suicides, out of the blue. Once again "stabilized," Paul is discharged, this time to a "rehab home" - a high rise where he has a tiny room on the top floor (he ruefully observes that this is perhaps to be his greatest achievement - reaching the top floor of a rehab home). Life isbleak. He is robbed of his welfare money. Nothing changes. He says that there is a "...merciless onslaught to reality at the bottom of my dreams."

Good as it is, this depiction of mental illness isn't perfect. Fridriksson lapses into conventional hokey cinema imagery at least twice: he has Paul walk on water when he walks into the bay, while the policemen following him are waist deep; and he has Paul experience a vivid vision of his girlfriend as a luminous nude - more a hallucination befitting someone in a toxic delirium or an hysteric, not someone with schizophrenia. And he misses one cardinal symptom of the disorder - auditory hallucinations. Nevertheless, this is perhaps the most authentic, unvarnished portrayal of the descent of a young adult into schizophrenic


Angels. They were divided on this, the majority being only mildly impressed with the film (my partner and one or two others, on the other hand, found it spellbinding). It may be necessary to combine the mental illness aspect of a protagonist's story with something more to reach the threshold for effective drama. This, I think, was achieved splendidly in another film I saw a few days earlier, A Place Nearby, that focuses on a parent's anguish in caring for a mentally disturbed adult offspring and adds in a murder mystery subtext to boot. (In Icelandic) Grade: B- (02/01)

ANNA LUISE AND ANTON (Pünktchen und Anton) (Caroline Link, Germany, 1999). THEME: CHILDHOOD: COPING WITH ADVERSITY. Link made the excellent film, Beyond Silence, an Oscar nominee for best foreign filmin 1998, about a girl with normal hearing who is torn between her role as the connection for her deaf parents to the larger world and her ambition to become a professional musician. Here Link has created a charming film about family life and the devotion of children to one another and to those they love. The German title is better, for this is the story of "Little Punk," the nickname everyone calls Luise, an endearing, enterprising but sad 10 year old girl whose wealthy parents are too busy for her, and her best friend, Anton, son of an ailing, poor, but lovingly devoted single mom. The film is full of fun, for instance, Anton's mom's hula hoop dance, Bertha the cook's burglar trapping, and the conga line


for 5 months because of their differences and who have now come back together to celebrate their 6th anniversary, inviting all their friends to help them celebrate their reunion.

Joe (Cumming) is a British novelist with a bisexual past who is about to direct his first film (of one of his novels). Besides male and female (Jennifer Beals) former lovers, he invites Skye (Gwyneth Paltrow) a young rising star who will have the lead role in Joe's film, a role based on Sally (Leigh), when she was younger. Sally is an actress who is now a bit over the hill, and the awarding of a role representing her to a younger actress is both threatening and infuriating to her. She also is not doing well in her latest actingjob. Sally also has invited someone not on the "A" list of old friends: the next door neighbor couple from Hell (Denis O'Hare and Mina Badie) with whom she and Joe have been at war over Joe's dog's barking. Lawsuits have been threatened. Then there is Sally's current film director (John C. Reilly) and his neurotic new mom wife (Jane Adams), Sally's male film costar (Kevin Kline) and his real-life wife (Phoebe Cates), an old friend of Sally's. The couple's accountant (John Benjamin Hickey) and his wife (Parker Posey) help round out the action, along with Peter Sellars look-alike Michael Panes and a covey of bit players. It's quite a gang.

What threatens the film but is also its greatest strength is the mundane nature of the party. It's


helping him come to terms with his marital dilemma. Too pat, too sticky. Washington’s psychiatrist is a brooding yet kindly fellow, but he often crisscrosses the boundary between being a professional caregiver and a paternalistic friend. The best scenes concern the budding love relationship between Fisher and his girlfriend, Cheryl, played by Joy Bryant, who has an arresting screen charisma. Grade: B- (08/03)

THE APOSTLE (Robert Duvall, US, 1997). THEME: OUTSIZED, UNUSUAL PERSONALITY. Duvall successfully wrote and directed this showcase for his own considerable talent. This is the story of the adventures of a charismatic, passionate, forceful whirlwind of a southern fundamentalist tent preacher, a violent man driven by his love of Christ and women, among other appetites. With Farrah Fawcett, Billy Bob Thornton, June Carter Cash and Miranda95 min.). THEME: MAN WITH PARANOID PERSONALITY DISORDER, WITH OBSESSIONAL FEATURES, WHO DECOMPENSATES INTO A DELUSIONAL PARANOID PSYCHOTIC STATE. In truth, Samuel Byck was a 44 year old business man down on his luck when, in 1974, delusionally convinced that Richard Nixon was the cause of his personal problems, he attempted to hijack an airliner and have it flown into the White House to kill the President. He did kill two men and shot another in the airport before being shot himself and then ending his own life with a gunshot to the head. Now Sean Penn plays this tormented character (he’s named Samuel Bicke here) in a screen adaptation of the Byck story.

Bicke is living alone, long separated from his wife Marie (Naomi Watts) though he wants


is palpable. He so much wants to succeed in business and win back his family. But like most people with paranoid personalities, and many who are obsessive by nature, he has little awareness of his own quirks and the effects of his behavior on others. He cannot see what we see. That he is intrusive and controlling with Marie; that he lacks restraint and any hint of tenderness or even empathy toward her. That he is devoid of the congeniality and self confidence of a successful salesman.

When things don’t go well, he blames others. He doesn’t want to blame his wife for their domestic troubles: he still has her placed high on a pedestal of idealization. So he blames the man she’s dating who drives a Cadillac. He’semotional neediness of the residents. When old folks ask him about the Hereafter, Todd has them dial up Heaven on the phone, then answers their calls from another room, where he tells one woman that she can be with both her deceased husbands in Heaven, or simply pick the one she prefers, and that there is plenty of sex but no concern about bodies.

Another resident, Mrs. Pearlman (Maggie Riley), develops a special fondness for Todd as a surrogate for her son, who’s gone to Australia to live. She now and then confuses their identities. Using the old surefire telephone trick, Todd pretends to answer her calls to Australia, and later frees her from an observation ward for an unauthorized breath of fresh air outdoors. But, again, it’s not


aged, typically bejeweled hands of the residents as they wash, apply makeup or play Bingo.

While not a great movie, Assisted Living does have impact. One leaves the theater pensively, pondering the gravity of growing old and winding up living in such a place, where Heaven is only a local phone call away and one’s own arthritic hands are often the most reliable companions. Grade: B (05/05)

AUTISM: THE MUSICAL (Tricia Regan, US, 2007, 93 min.). THEME: AUTISM. At a private school for autistic children in Los Angeles, one of the mothers undertakes the direction of a student musical production which she labels the “Miracle Project.” We follow five kids, who vary in age, speech, motor behavior and sociability, and their parents through several months of rehearsals and then seepart of the actual show. The school scene is fairly chaotic. Some of the parents are pretty volatile as well. (Musician Stephen Stills is one of the fathers and is well behaved.) The chaos is accentuated by the style of the editing, which often features a barrage of very brief cuts among several scenes and camera angles. There’s a decent idea behind this frenetic film, i.e., to humanize autistic kids and their families, but it could have been better realized. (A grant will provide for another Miracle Project production at the school next year.) Grade: B (01/08)

AUTUMN SPRING (Babí léto) (Vladimir Michálek, Czech Republic, 2001, 95 m.) SPOILER ALERT! THEMES: AGING IN PLACE; RELATIONSHIPS IN OLD AGE: MARITAL, INTERGENERATIONAL; FRIENDSHIP. Superb drama with delicious comedic touches concerning the


the changes in a partner that you've wished for.

This was the last role for Mr. Brodsky, after a long career (he starred in the Czech classics, Closely Watched Trains and Jacob the Liar). The director previously made the excellent films, Forgotten Light and Sekal Has to Die. (In Czech) Grade: A- (08/06)

AUTUMN SUN (Sol de onoño) (Eduardo Mignogna, Argentina, 1996). THEME: NEW LOVE IN OLD AGE. Clara (the beguiling actress Norma Aleandro) and Raul (Federico Luppi) come together under contrived circumstances and proceed, against expectations, to fall in love. This story of love blossoming in later life tenderly discloses the special nuances of love and aging: the loneliness, risks, misgivings, impulses to seize fleeting opportunities, and the transformations. (In Spanish) Grade: B (03/97)

AVALON (Barry Levinson, US, 1992). THEMES:CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCE; FAMILY DYNAMICS; INTERGENERATIONAL CONFLICTS. Levinson's semi-autobiographical account of childhood in a Baltimore family dominated by the grandfather, Sam Krichinsky (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and his brothers, Russian Jews who immigrated early in the 20th Century to make a better life here. This is a highly nostalgic film, full of clichés about immigrant families and the succeeding generations. But the film finds strength and authenticity in the reflections given here (clichés, after all, could not become what they are except as frequently bidden, time honored facets of some reality). Rough patches, family conflicts and the petty annoyances of daily life are honored, not just the good times. Mueller-Stahl, Joan Plowright (as his wife, Eva), Aidan Quinn (as his son), Elizabeth Perkins (the daughter in law), and Kevin Pollak (cousin


what makes somebody tick, or even going deeply into childhood experience or family roots for this purpose. (He gives us just one such image, a recurring one: a five year old Hughes is being bathed by his mother, who coos to him about how the world is a hazardous place.) Scorsese has certainly had an abiding interest in outsized, eccentric and disturbed personalities (think of Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ,and Bringing Out the Dead). But he has a perspective about the uses of film, this most visual of all storytelling media. He has always been primarily interested in photographable surfaces, intent upon showing us the conduct, the actions that emanate from a character’s personality, and leaving it at that, very much in the Hollywoodfilmmaking tradition.

This film focuses on a 20 year period of Hughes’s life, from about age 22 to 42 (1927-1947). It begins two years after he moved from Texas to Los Angeles to make movies. As the film opens Hughes, played brilliantly by Leonardo DiCaprio, is directing his epic aviation flick, Hell’s Angels, about British fighter pilots going up against the Germans in World War I. The film ends with Hughes’s own post-World War II battles before a senate committee investigating his disposal of government funds contracted for military aircraft production, and his ever so short flight of the “Spruce Goose."

Along the way we are made privy to his restive romantic relations with Catharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) and, later, Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale); his daringly innovative, hands-on involvement in


from Acapulco to Houston to seek medical treatment. X-rays taken during the autopsy showed fragments of hypodermic needles broken off in his arms.

His father was the outlaw wildcatter Howard (Bo) Robard Hughes; his mother, the neurotic Dallas heiress Allene Gano. Hughes himself would always be half outlaw - defying justice – and half fragile – a self-centered neurasthenic. Two men who helped shape his character were his grandfather, the monomaniac Iowa Judge Felix Hughes, and his brilliant Jekyll-and-Hyde uncle, the celebrated best-selling novelist and Broadway playwright Rupert Hughes, who also wrote screenplays for MGM.

Howard Hughes Jr. was arguably the most secretive, unconventional and self-destructive man ever to win fame in Southern California’s two glamour industries - movies and aviation. He grew up an indifferent student with a likingfor mathematics, flying and things mechanical. He audited math and engineering classes at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and later at the Rice Institute of Technology in Houston. Orphaned in 1924, the 18-year-old Hughes took control of his father’s tool company, an estate valued at almost $900,000. Although shy and retiring, Hughes became enamored with the motion picture industry and moved to Los Angeles in 1925. He financed three films of varying quality before undertaking Hell’s Angels.

As an aviator, he once held every speed record of consequence and was hailed as the world’s greatest flyer. Howard Hughes’ greatest legacy to Southern California is the family of Hughes companies founded during his lifetime. Based in Westchester, west of central Los Angeles, Hughes Space and Communications is today


the world’s largest manufacturer of commercial satellites - the designer and builder of the world’s first synchronous communications satellite, Syncom, and the producer of nearly 40% of the satellites now in commercial service. Hughes Electronics is owned by General Motors. Hughes Aircraft merged with Raytheon Company in 1998 and is now called Raytheon Systems Co. Prior to the merger Hughes Aircraft was a world leader in high technology systems for scientific, military and global applications.

Throughout his Hollywood years, Hughes maintained his passion for flying. In 1934 he won his first speed title flying a converted Boeing pursuit plane 185 miles per hour. He and a young Caltech engineer, Dick Palmer, then built a plane called the H-1 (featuring a unique retractable landing gear), which Hughes piloted to anew speed record of 352 mph near Santa Ana, California. This was in 1935, the year that Hughes founded the Hughes Aircraft Company as a division within Hughes Tool Company, operating out of a hangar in Burbank, California.

From about 1944 on, Hughes began exhibiting alarming behavior and a phobia of germs, which led to a mental breakdown. His fear of germs was made worse by a drug habit that included both Codeine and later Valium; the codeine had first been prescribed to alleviate pain from injuries incurred in the XF-11 plane crash several years earlier. The germ obsession began in his youth (due in large part to an overly protective mother) and steadily heightened throughout his adulthood. Even as early as the 1940s he required all those who


managed to attend to business and had many periods of lucidity, his physical health had turned precarious. In 1973 he was inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio. A member of his 1938 around-the-world flight crew represented him, calling him "…a modest, retiring, lonely genius; often misunderstood, sometimes misrepresented and libeled by malicious associates and greedy little men."

In his final years he abruptly moved his residence from one place to another – the Bahamas, Nicaragua, Canada, England, Las Vegas, and Mexico - arriving at each new destination unnoticed, taking elaborate precautions to ensure absolute privacy in a luxury hotel, and rarely being seen by anyone except a few male aides. Often working for days without sleep in a black-curtained room, he became emaciated and derangedfrom the effects of a meager diet and an excess of drugs. A doctor who examined him in 1973 likened his condition to prisoners he had seen in Japanese prison camps during World War II. Hughes spent the final chapter of his life in Mexico – a mentally ill recluse, wasted in body, incoherent in thought, alone in the world except for his doctors and bodyguards. ---This information was adapted from a longer bio sketch prepared in 2002 and posted on the WebSand website at: http://www.allsands.com (click on Entertainment/ People, then, under “miscellaneous” click on “Howard Hughes – biography.”)

AWAY FROM HER (Sarah Polley, Canada, 2006, 110 m.). SPOILER ALERT! THEMES: ALZHEIMER’S DEMENTIA; IMPACT OF DEMENTIA ON NON-AFFLICTED SPOUSES. Canadian actor Sarah Polley makes a feature writer-director debut of


continues to be plagued by handwashing rituals. Naomi has remained stable, even after she and her boyfriend broke up. Todd has been living in a homeless shelter and recently was jailed again.

To its credit, this film emphasizes the broad variety of psychiatric problems that can become severe and persistent, the difficulties of discovering and sustaining effective treatment, and the importance of adherence - of collaboration – between the patient and mental health care providers to achieve improvement and stability. The film is also honest in showing that, like other branches of medicine, psychiatry has its share of both treatment successes and failures. It is also remarkable that no scenes in this film have been reenacted.

The major weakness of the film is that it takes up so many patients,several films on mental health issues. Thus the shortcomings of this film are all the more surprising. I am pleased to tell you that since Back from Madness, he has created another film for the same HBO series, Drinking Apart: Families Under the Influence, about family treatment for addictions, that is better.

(Dr. Rosenberg made this film for the HBO/America Undercover Series. It first aired in 1996, and is now available from Films for the Humanities and Sciences, Princeton NJ - on line at: http://www.films.com/.) Grade: B (10/05)

BAD TIMING (Nicolas Roeg, UK, 1980, 123 m.). SPOILER ALERT! THEMES: BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER; SEXUAL OBSESSION/ADDICTION. A psychodrama of sexual obsession and emotional upheaval set in Vienna during the cold war. Art Garfunkel is cast as Alex Linden, an American psychoanalyst lecturing


at a Viennese university and covertly working for the American government to profile spies. He meets Milena Flaherty (Theresa Russell), and the two strike up an erratic, stormy affair. She has a spouse, Stefan Vagnic (Denholm Elliott), who lives next door in Czechoslovakia, and who may be a spy. Milena still crosses the border to visit him regularly.

Nicolas Roeg is a pioneer in the artful use of flashbacks as a device to tell stories in surprising ways. This film begins in the present, with Milena in a coma induced by a suicidal alcohol/drug overdose and Alex attending her in hospital. There we meet a Viennese police detective, Inspector Netusil (a young, long haired Harvey Keitel), who is suspicious of Alex, whose oddly uncooperative behavior only spurs Netusil on.and polarizing films, a take-no-prisoners satire about the degradations African-Americans have suffered in the world of entertainment, suffering that has in fact not yet abated to the present day. Lee quotes Malcolm X in production notes for this film to the effect that Malcolm used the term bamboozlers to define all whites and their impact on blacks. Lee wants to use the term here to refer to media execs – black and white alike – who depict blacks in film, on TV and elsewhere in terms of the traditional condescending and vicious stereotypes we all know. Here Lee reaches back to the traditional blackface minstrel as an icon that can epitomize and illustrate this process.

Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) is a savvy, smooth talking, Harvard educated TV producer being


bullied by his white boss, Thomas Dunwitty (Michael Rapaport) to come up with a new hit series. Dunwitty chides the much affected Delacroix (his original name was Peerless Dothan) that his last creations had been too conservative, that blacks molded like white middle class folks were too unfunny to attract market share anymore. Delacroix, running mad and scared, comes up with a far-fetched concept based on minstrel shows, Amos and Andy, and other old black stereotype entertainer roles. With the help of his assistant producer, Sloan (Jada Pinkett-Smith), he picks up two black buskers who hang outside the TV headquarters every day - a tap dancer, Manray (Savion Glover), and his fast talking, hat passing buddy, Womack (Tommy Davidson) – and turns them into the central characters ofa pilot episode for a new series. Pierre draws some inspiration for the new show from the stand up comedy of his father, Junebug (Paul Mooney), who plays to small audiences in black clubs, mainly in the south.

Pierre pulls out all the stops. He has the two street guys appear in blackface and act like dumb Negroes from the past. He renames Manray, “Mantan,” and Womack becomes “Sleep ’n’ Eat.” It’s "Mantan--The New Millennium Minstrel Show." At the start of the show the two step onto the stage through the huge lips of a widely opened pasteboard black man’s mouth. There are step-and-fetchit style jokes, a song & dance group called The Pickaninnies, and a band named the Alabama Porch Monkeys, performing on an old south style gallery


a round of partying and animated conversation among these folks, over several days at the hospital and then, toward the end, at a lakeside country house. The film's title refers to a number of things, but the events of 9/11 first and foremost. Remy and his old academic buddies speak of all the “-isms” they’ve embraced and later discarded in their unsuccessful quests for a social philosophy that will bring an end to exploitation and killing in the world. Remy points out that even at 200 million, the 20th century lagged behind some others in deaths perpetrated by wars and purges. The decline of the Canadian health care system (and its juxtaposition alongside classier care for the right price in the U.S.), the inroads of heroin addiction, andto be turned by Nathalie, the junkie woman, who clearly has a crush on him. (Marie-Josee Croze as Nathalie received the award for Best Actress at Cannes. It’s a role well played, but hardly substantial enough to merit such an accolade. Arcand also won for Best Director.) The film ends with everyone at the lakeside, where there is a final bit of partying and saying goodbye before a lethal injection of heroin is accepted by Remy as his preferred exit strategy.

This movie is a sequel to Arcand's 1986 farce about sex, wit and manners, The Decline of the American Empire. Seven of the eight principals from that film appear here - same actors, same characters, all of them now about 17 years older, of course, and longer in


making it big doing something less mundane. So he sells the shop to a local shyster who later discloses his plans to turn it into a "gentlemen's club." Only after taking this decision does Calvin begin to see how important the shop is to his friends, his neighborhood and himself. As in any sitcom, everything works out favorably at the end. A subplot in which two doofuses try in vain to heist an ATM machine gets pretty tedious after the first 4 intercuts. The most arresting performance comes from Cedric the Entertainer as Eddie, senior barber in the shop. Eddie never has any customers but he does make the grandest speeches - always politically incorrect - concerning people like Rodney King (he deserved to get beat up fordriving around LA drunk), O. J. Simpson (he obviously "did it,") and Rosa Parks (she just wanted to sit down). The humor and humanity shared among these people are endearing. A fun film. Grade: B+ (01/03)

THE BASKETBALL DIARIES(Scott Kalvert, US, 1995). THEME: ADOLESCENT HEROIN ADDICTION AND POLYSUBSTANCE ABUSE. Based on an autobiographical account by Jim Carroll, who was an outstanding basketball prospect at his Catholic high school in New York City, and a promising writer to boot. Drug abuse terminated his career as an athlete and nearly took his life, but his talent as a writer and performer was honed by his years of wretched junkiedom and the redemption he found writing novels, poetry and monologues that he performs still in his native city. This film covers the


some people, not in the least insane, develop hostile, even homicidal, fixations concerning a particular individual? That is a conundrum in this adaptation of Melville's novel Billy Budd, relocated to Djibouti on the Horn of Africa and concerning itself with the life of soldiers, in this case French Legionnaires. This film is primarily a meditation on the more noble, positive, subtly homoerotic, aspects of life among young soldiers, presented in a lyrical, poetic, at times surreal manner. The plot concerns a sergeant, second in command of the small unit, who becomes obsessed by a new recruit who is ostensibly a fine young soldier, offensive to no one. Yet the sergeant feels intensely threatened by this man, especially fearing that the new recruit will bring harm to the commandingmugging in the plaza at the projects, to Sandra’s apparent pleasure, though moments before she had been horrified by the notion that her son was gay. It would be a fairytale ending except that too much of the dramatic material built up during the film seems to be ignored at the end. What saves this film from the trash heap is the tenderness and tentativeness of the budding love affair between the boys, which is made entirely believable by the extraordinary work of the actors and director. Grades: drama: B-, depiction of teen gay relationship: A- (08/00)

BEFORE NIGHT FALLS (Julian Schnabel, US, 2000). THEMES: GAY EXPERIENCE IN CUBA; AIDS. Based on a memoir by the gay Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas that was published three years after his death,


this film loosely traces the threads of his life from an impoverished childhood to happy days as a young college student when he can express himself freely as a writer and sexually, to the long and difficult period from the mid-1960s on, when he suffers the terrors of a regime that was horridly repressive toward gays and toward dissident writers and intellectuals. He came to NYC in 1980 as part of the Mariel boatlift, and died of AIDS in 1990. He wrote of the freedom of his childhood and his love of nature. He tells of times just following the Revolution when there was more open expression for gays than at any time before or since. Spanish actor Javier Bardem is exquisite in the role of Arenas (and(Richard Linklater, US, 2004). THEME: DEVELOPING MATURE LOVE RELATIONSHIPS. SPOILER ALERT! I had not previously seen the 1995 film, Before Sunrise, and am very glad I watched it just two hours before seeing its new sequel, Before Sunset. Linklater, the American director of Slackers and Waking Life, has created a couplet of quintessentially French-style romantic films: movies chock full of talk and nothing but talk between a man and a woman. In Before Sunrise, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy), in their early 20s, meet on a train and spend an afternoon and night together in Vienna before separately moving on again. Celine is beautiful and the more self assured. Jesse is gawky and self consciously smiley at first, then he gradually settles down, turns more tender,


more thoughtful. They gab away the evening and night, covering all the ground one might expect of young, adventuresome, unburdened youngsters, high on the excitement of discovering each other and enjoying what they find. They ambivalate about making love, and planning to see each other again. They do agree to meet again in six months, at the same train station in Vienna.

Before Sunset begins nine years later, not in six months, and in Paris, not Vienna. Jesse has written a modest best selling romance about his night long ago with Celine, and is on a promo tour, speaking and signing at a little bookshop near Montmartre, where Celine shows up. They are once again instantly and easily charmed by one another and spend the afternoon together, before Jesse’sof such unanticipated romantic encounters, those early moments together that were, and forever remain, pure magic? The first film played too long, the talk began to drag after the first hour. The new film is 25 minutes shorter and is the better for it. Grades: Sunrise: B; Sunset: B+ (10/04)

BENJAMIN SMOKE (Jem Cohen & Peter Sillen, US, 2000). THEMES: LIFE OF A GAY HUSTLER/MUSICIAN/JUNKIE; AIDS. This documentary is a memorial to Robert Dickerson, native Atlantan, known on the street simply as Benjamin. Benjamin was born in 1960 and died a day after his 39th birthday in 1999 of AIDS-related Hepatitis C. He was a gay hustler, crossdresser, and junkie, and also a musician, a singer, who was associated with several punk/blues/country bands that played modest local gigs in


and around a poor Atlanta neighborhood called Cabbage Town; the last of these bands Benjamin played with before he died was called Smoke, hence the title. By the time the filmmakers encounter him, Benjamin is dying. The film is composed of interviews the directors filmed (in color), older black and white footage, quite amateurish, shot by others, presumably friends, and some stills. Benjamin was discovered, through CD material, by Patti Smith, who invited Smoke to open an Atlanta concert of hers. Smith also wrote a song inspired by Benjamin called "(Have You Seen) Death Dancing" which she reads near the end of the film; it is incredibly powerful. She also speaks of Benjamin's dignity.

He does come through in the interviews as dignified, and accepting of the life hehas led. He even credits AIDs with bringing about a reconciliation with his mother (they grew so close near the end that when she was out of town for three months, he was surprised at how much he missed her..."I got really strung out on my mom" was the way he put it). There are several musical numbers by Smoke. The band itself is not good, but one would expect a lot to be revealed about Benjamin in the lyrics of the songs he has composed. His singing voice is reminiscent of Tom Waits's. Unfortunately, it is virtually impossible to make out the lyrics he sings...it's all garbled. Sophisticated electronic masking and enhancement, or else subtitles, were needed here, and it may be that the filmmakers lacked resources


for either. A huge deficiency of the film. It is not pleasant to see Benjamin's emaciation near the end of his life. But it shows his wonderful pluckiness that he consented to be filmed under these circumstances, at times when he could do nothing but lie on a sofa as he talked. Grade: B (01/01)

BENNY & JOON (James Chechik, US, 1993). THEME: CONFLICTS FOR FAMILY CARETAKERS. In this whimsical, fluffy romantic comedy, two fellows get their girls. Benny (Aidan Quinn) is the older brother and caretaker of Joon (Mary Stuart Masterson), who suffers from a serious but less than well defined mental disorder, possibly schizophrenia. She is reclusive and acts spooky from time to time, and she frustrates daytime hired caretakers when Benny’s at work so the turnoversexual interests are aroused by Horst (Lothaire Bluteau), a fellow prisoner who wears his pink badge proudly. The whole ethos and movement of the film are predictably grim. With Ian McKellen (who earlier had played Max in the original stage production of this drama), Jude Law, and Mick Jagger in a slick cross-dressing cameo. Grade: B- (06/98)

BEST BOY (Ira Wohl, US, 1979). THEMES: DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED ADULTS: FAMILY DYNAMICS; SOLVING DEPENDENCY ISSUES. Poignant documentary about the late but successful emancipation of his 52 year old mentally retarded cousin, Phillip (“Philly”), lovingly filmed over three years by his cousin. Philly had lived with his parents all his life, except for a brief interlude at age 12, when he was institutionalized after suicidal behavior. The family were so shocked by the


poor care he received that they took him home again. In the mid-1970s, observing that Philly’s mother, Pearl, and father, Max, were declining, and that Philly seemed capable of more independence than the doting Pearl permitted him, Ira Wohl set out with the dual purposes of influencing the family to let Philly move out more into the larger community while at the same time filming what Ira Wohl hoped would be Philly’s success in this movement. Philly did succeed. But along the way Max died. And only 8 months after Philly took a room in a community residential program for developmentally disabled adults, Pearl died as well, a terribly bittersweet ending. Powerful film that deals leisurely and thoroughly with its subject. See also my article titled "Searching forCommunity." Grade: B+ (06/03)

THE BEST OF YOUTH (La Meglio gioventù) (Marco Tullio Giordana, Italy, 2003, 366 min). THEME: REFORMS IN CARE OF THE MENTALLY ILL IN ITALY IN THE 1970s. A long look (six hours) at the fictional middle class Carati family of Rome and their loved ones, set against the backdrop of larger events that affected Italy in the nearly 40 year span from 1966 to 2003. Along the way family members are involved or touched in various ways by the flooding of Florence in November, 1966, student riots of the late 60s and 70s, the rise of terrorist gangs like the Red Brigade, the economic crisis that shook the country around 1980, and Mafia killings of judges in Sicily in the early 90s.

The first part of


the film (first three hours) also highlights the struggle to reform the care of Italy's mentally ill in the 1970s. The radical Italian psychiatrist Franco Basaglia is generally credited with leading the revolt against institutionalizing the mentally ill, ending in legislation in 1978 that forced eventual closure of many public mental hospitals. Basaglia, following the beliefs of people like Britain's J. K. Wing and Erving Goffman in the U.S., asserted that the major causes of chronic mental illness were social, and that institutionalization itself was perhaps the greatest cause of morbidity in its inmates.

Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio), one of the two Carati brothers who are the principal characters in this drama, is a young, idealistic psychiatrist, a character said to have been modelled after Basaglia. Kindly and restrained,he works for years with a severely traumatized, regressed woman, Giorgia (Jasmine Trinca), eventually accomplishing the goal of helping her to leave the hospital and find a place for herself in the community (the final realization of this goal, I should add, comes in the second 3-hour segment). The slow pace of her recovery, and her all but palpable fear of leaving the hospital, convey a realism not usually seen in fictional films that zealously advocate for reforms in care of the mentally ill in a more romanticized fashion.

In other scenes, Nicola is also depicted reassuring and preparing patients who testify at a trial, the prosecution of a psychiatrist who had repeatedly used electroshock and other procedures in a punitive manner. Nicola also is seen with police raiding


a run down private facility where mentally ill residents are illegally chained to beds in conditions of deplorable hygiene.

Besides Mr. Lo Cascio, the series showcases several other younger Italian actors, most notably Alessio Boni, whose features evoke memories of Steve McQueen, as Nicola's brother Matteo, a brooding, mercurial, intellectually gifted college dropout who seeks to impose order on his own impetous and violent nature through a career in the national police.

The first 3-hour segment of the film is more engaging than the second. Not only is the theme of reform in psychiatric care depicted here, but in general there is more dramatic movement and coherence. The latter part suffers after two of the more entertaining characters - Angelo, the father of the Carati family, played by Andrea Tidona,and, later, Matteo - drop out. Still, the quality of the film justifies the time required to take it all in. (In Italian) Grade: B+ overall; A- for psychiatric reform subtext. (05/05)

BEYOND SILENCE (Caroline Link, Germany, 1997). THEME: COMING-OF-AGE FOR A YOUNG GIRL WHO HAS BEEN THE LINK BETWEEN HER DEAF MUTE PARENTS AND THE LARGER WORLD. DOES SHE SACRIFICE HER OWN NEEDS TO STAY WITH THEM OR PROCEED TO FIND HER OWN LIFE PATH? Coming of age story of Lara, who is played early in the film by a child actress and later, after she reaches adolescence, by the entrancing actress Sophie Testud. Lara has normal hearing but lives with two deaf parents. Inspired by her aunt, a gifted clarinetist, she also pursues this instrument, which turns


out to be the catalyst for her move toward independence. The film offers quite astonishing insights about the responsibility that can fall upon a child in such circumstances; she is in so many respects a bridge between her parents and the hearing world, and they cling to the status quo like a lifeline. This situation complicates Lara’s natural bent toward emancipation. All the main players are good: Lara’s parents and her aunt and uncle. But an overdrawn melodramatic quality seeps through too often in this film, and the way her father is involved at the end is, regrettably, one of its few unbelievable scenes. Grand prize winner at the Vancouver and Tokyo Film Festivals; short listed for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 1998. (In German) Grade:and a host of characters they encounter along the way (including Julianne Moore, Peter Stormare, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Sam Elliott, Ben Gazzara, David Thewlis, and John Turturro as Jesus, a Hispanic pedophilic bowler who wears a lavender jumpsuit). There's a plot with bad guys, but it is incidental. Grade: A- (09/03)

BILLY ELLIOT (Stephen Daldry, UK, 2000). THEMES: COMING-OF-AGE; FAMILY COHESION & SUPPORT. Billy (Jamie Bell), an early adolescent in the northeast English coastal city of Durham, wants to become a ballet dancer. This is not exactly OK with his father (Gary Lewis) and his thuggish older brother, both rough and tumble coal miners, and Billy is forbidden dance lessons. The action is set in 1984, when the miners are trying to hold on in a huge and prolonged


nationwide strike that will in fact be broken eventually (by the Thatcher government, in a final showdown that spelled the end of traditional trade unionism in the UK). So Dad and big bro are out of work, fighting on the picket lines, and worried about the future, while everyone in the family - Billy and his dementing grandmother included - is bereaved after the death of Billy's mother only a couple of years earlier. Still, Billy perseveres, sneaking dance practice with his teacher (Julie Walters) who thinks he may be good enough to win acceptance at the Royal Ballet school.

Eventually Dad finds out what's been going on, but proves sensible and loving enough to go along with idea, even accompanying Billy to London for his audition. Needless tosay in this feel good movie, Billy is accepted and moves to London to train. This story has every opportunity to be pulled down into a swamp of sentimentality but miraculously that doesn't happen. It's terrific! The main reason is Bell, who is the consummate 14 year old, by turns bold or shy, inarticulate or poetic, awkward or graceful. His physicality is astonishing, from finding the right facial expression at the right moment to his dancing; the kid can boogie! It also helps that the union strife and the scorn which Billy's dancing provokes in Dad and brother are not prolonged or overly done, which would have made for a relentless sort of tedium. Instead the focus nearly always stays on Bell, and Bell delivers big time. Grade:


persons. That is probably the best way to understand what has become of the central character in this poignant story. “Birdy” (Matthew Modine) was always a strange kid, socially awkward, obsessed with birds, even to a degree identifying himself as a bird, wanting to fly, and so on. He and his quite normal best friend Al (Nicholas Cage) eventually go off to battle in Vietnam, where both are damaged – Al physically, Birdy mentally. He becomes catatonic, is hospitalized in an Army unit, ultimately becomes a backward patient in a state hospital. Modine defines his mentally ill character with grim realism. Some may wonder if his state is an example of chronic PTSD. The effects of combat stress at first, on the battlefield, may have operated much asbut who is nonetheless screamingly gay, hitting indiscriminately on every guy he sees? But put those problems aside. For also at work here is a compelling story of an important social phenomenon... hero worship by well off white kids of black rappers and their culture, and the corresponding interest in these kids and the culture of white moneyed upscale life which at least some of the blacks perceive as a desirable alternative, or at least a ticket out of the ghetto.

Ben Stiller, as an undercover police detective, delivers one of his better roles here. Bijou Phillips is excellent as Charlie, a young white girl, a sort of ringleader of the groupies who buzz around the rappers. Same for Willam Lee scott as Will, son of the NYC district


attorney, who will do anything to gain the adulation of the rappers. Most of the leading black players are hip hop musicians, not actors. Oli (Power) Grant - producer for the rap group Wu-Tang Clan - is Rich Bower, gangster leader of the black contingent. Raexwon of Wu-Tang Clan is Cigar, his chubby buddy who constantly composes rap lyrics. New York Knicks star guard Allan Houston plays Dean, a corruptible local basketball hero. Mike Tyson (yes, the graceless boxer) plays himself, and actually adds an interesting dimension to several scenes. Toback did not script dialogue for the black actors, merely suggested situations and let them talk naturally. (Nor did he tell Tyson ahead that he would direct Downey to come on to him, so that Tyson's sudden violentthe Grand Jury Award this year at Sundance. (In Filipino, Tagalog & English) Grade: A- (11/06)

BLOW (Ted Demme, US, 2001). THEME: HISTORY OF 1970s COCAINE CONNECTION BETWEEN PABLO ESCOBAR’S COLOMBIAN SOURCES AND THE U.S. Biopic about the life and times of George Jung, who established the first American distribution network for Colombian cocaine, in the 1970s. Ultimately he was convicted and incarcerated in a federal prison, where he remains today. The screenplay is based on a book about Jung and his activities by Bruce Porter. Johnny Depp stars as Jung, with Spanish actress Penelope Cruz and German actress Franka Potente as his love interests. Unfortunately, from a dramatic point of view, the movie is utterly lifeless and boring, a drudge to sit through. But you will get at


least one version of the true story. It’s a terrible irony that the director, the nephew of filmmaker Jonathan Demme, died at age 39 just a few months after this film (his first) opened, of an accidental coronary thrombosis induced by cocaine. Grades: drama C-; authentic story: B+ (11/04)

BLUE DINER (Jan Egleson, US, 2000). THEMES: CONVERSION DISORDER. Curious story about Latinos set in present day Boston. Elena (Lisa Vidal), a young woman who sells mortuary services and caskets to other Latinos, is pursued by Tito (Jose Yenque), a Cuban coffin maker, but she prefers the Anglo son of the mortuary owner. So does her mother, Meche (Miriam Colon), who came from Puerto Rico years earlier hoping to make a better life here for her daughter. She is selfof an Army major, Hank (Tommy Lee Jones), who specializes in monitoring the radiation hazards at nuclear bomb test sites. His assignment in Hawaii ends when Carly’s escapades embarrass the top brass at the base once too often. It isn’t the first time this has happened. Nor the last. At their new post in Alabama, Carly flies into a rage right away at the squalor of the place. Later she flies into the arms of the sleaze ball base commander (Powers Boothe), scandalizing everybody in sight, including the her two teen daughters. Hank’s career, not to mention the Marshall marriage, is threatened when he refuses to join in a coverup of radiation exposure during a bomb test in the Nevada desert. Things get pretty far fetched near the


end, but love appears, tentatively if improbably, to prevail.

This was the final film directed by Tony Richardson (Look Back in Anger, The Entertainer, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner) and clearly not among his best films. But the lead roles are fine. Jones is entirely believable as the steady, longsuffering Hank, and Amy Locane is also good as the couple's peacenik older daughter, Alex. Boothe plays the base commander with hamhanded melodrama that doesn’t wash at all: he should have left the overacting to Lange, who does it so brilliantly. One wonders to what extend these actresses – Rowlands, Lange, Golino – are playing themselves in these complex and ever so convincing turns. Grades: Story: C+; lead portrayals: A- (06/04)

BLUE VELVET (David Lynch, US, 1986). THEMES: ANGST,the help of Sandy (Laura Dern), the detective’s daughter, also an innocent. Jeff’s sleuthing leads him into a labyrinthine adventure in which he discovers a sordid, frightening underworld churning beneath the surface of his town, full of odd people and happenings he would never have imagined.

There is Dorothy (Isabella Rossellini), who sings torch songs at a local tavern. The ear may belong to her husband, who seems to have disappeared along with their young son. Dorothy is a desperate woman who clings to Jeff like a security blanket. She also likes her sex rough and is able to provoke Jeff to belt her once or twice in the face as they make love. Jeff is horrified at his own aggressive behavior. Then there’s Frank (Dennis Hopper), a truly


enough to fuel the next scam, and the suckers take the loss when the stock price crashes. The firm pays the sales force commissions five times what the SEC allows, to assure a feeding frenzy of high pressure telesales efforts by the staff, using every unscrupulous tactic in the book. The SEC on site agent is in on the take.

Seth, a smart but shady young man who has been running an illegal casino (Giovanni Ribisi, a small Christopher Walken look alike) is desperate to gain the favor of his father, a NYC judge (Ron Rifkin), and thinks he's entering a legitimate brokerage when he signs on at the firm as a trainee. Seth is trained by Jim, the sales manager (Ben Affleck) and two red-hot senior brokers, Chris,who has some scruples (Vin Diesel, a shaven headed, gravel voiced fellow) and Greg, who has none (Nicky Katt, a suavely handsome dude). Seth does very well at the game but gradually figures out the illegal nature of the operation. Things go seriously wrong from there. This is a gripping and convincing film, except for an overly maudlin subplot involving a young couple who's marriage comes apart as a result of the husband's bad investments, after Seth cons him bigtime. Another subplot about the conflicted relationship between Seth and his father is marvelous. The principal actors - including Seth's love interest, Abby, the firm's receptionist (Nia Long) - are all uniformly excellent. Grade: B+ (01/01)

BOOGIE NIGHTS (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997). THEMES: THE WORLD OF THE L.A. PORN INDUSTRY;


COCAINE ADDICTION. Burt Reynolds (Jack Horner) and Julianne Moore (Amber Waves) star as a porn film director and his wife and female porn star, in this movie-wthin-a-movie structure. Young Eddie (Mark Wahlberg) comes along, so to speak, with an organ of remarkable proportions, and Amber digs it. Horner, never one to sacrifice the opportunity for heightened income even at the modest expense of watching his wife screw young men, puts Eddie to work. But then Eddie, like so many others in the porn trade in the late 1970s and 80s, succumbs to a major league cocaine habit, with deleterious impact on his, er, performances. Brilliantly crafted film about a billion dollar entertainment business. With Don Cheadle, Heather Graham, Luis Guzman, William H. Macy, and John C. Reilly lendingdistinctive roles as Ramsey and as his underachieving brother, Jif. Written fiendishly by Martin. With Heather Graham and Christine Baranski as the female leads, and cameos by Robert Downey, Jr., as an agent, and Terence Stamp as head of "Mind Head," a spoof of Scientology, where the members all wear paper dunce caps. Grade: B+ (05/00)

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE (Michael Moore, US, 2002). THEMES: ADOLESCENT SPREE SHOOTING AT COLUMBINE HIGH; GUN CONTROL ISSUES. Since watching Michael Moore run Nike Chieftain Phil Knight to ground in his second feature-length film, The Big One, and reading his more recent book, “Stupid White Men,” I have been wondering whether Moore will always be content to carry on principally as an entertainer - a performance artist – whose shtick happens to be the


sags badly as he shifts attention almost exclusively to his ample self. Will he ever elevate his game to create more penetrating documentary journalism? Does he have the skills? Is he convinced he can reach more people and get them thinking using his usual methods?

I must tell you that Bowling provides no easy answers to these questions. Here Moore uses the killing of several students at Columbine High School in the Denver suburb of Littleton by two of their schoolmates as a pretext for surveying the extraordinarily high rate of gun-related killings in the United States. Once again Moore is the central character, meandering about with his camera crew and others. He walks into K-Mart HQ and shames management into making a major policy shift: no longer willthey sell ammunition for handguns and automatic weapons in their stores (K-Mart sold the ammo used by the student killers at Columbine).

Wherever he goes in this film – from K-Mart to Charlton Heston’s Beverly Hills home for some NRA talk (Moore is a lifetime member) – Moore is more polite this time around, and his trademark dramatic encounters with bigshots are largely replaced by more conventional interviewing of more ordinary folks (though I think his drop in on Heston had sort of a cheap shot quality). He disposes of a number of theories to account for our huge annual gun killing numbers, but he is terribly facile in this process. Example: he points out (correctly) that Canadian gun ownership is at least as high as in the U.S.,


Lana (Chloe Sevigny), who is perfect as an average 18 year old American girl in the early 90s. All the other supporting players are good in this dramatization of an actual hate crime story. Grade: B+ (01/00)

BOYS ON THE SIDE (Herbert Ross, US, 1995). THEME: WOMEN'S ISSUES; LESBIAN ISSUES; AIDS. Here's a "girlflick" with gender crossover appeal, simply because it's good: well acted, funny, believable. Whoopi Goldberg, Mary-Louise Parker and Drew Barrymore hit the road together, trying to escape the drudgery and dead end circumstances of their lives in the east by beating it across the country to Tucson, Arizona. Whoopi is a worldly wise lesbian musician out of love and work. Her buddy Drew is a dingbat blonde who cast her lot with an abusive druggy andbeside a road in Egypt, left for dead after a beating or auto accident. In hospital he was given a 5% chance of survival, and deemed unlikely to ever recover from his T.B.I. - Traumatic Brain Injury. He was only 30. Seven weeks after the accident, Paul awoke from his coma - the first in a series of acts of defiance against doctors and therapists who said he'd never again see, talk, walk, socialize or lead anything resembling a normal life. In fact his family were advised to basically pull the plug and let him die.

Instead he has persevered, working with astonishing intensity and steadfastness to regain functions. He is left with a gait disturbance, serious memory impairment and other cognitive deficits that compromise his ability to sustain


a social life. He’s lonely. But he has had sufficient genius to get this film of his ordeal made. The film is a revelation of the now better understood capacity of neural tissue to heal and, to a degree, regenerate itself, as well as a testament to the rewards of long, hard efforts in rehabilitation and the immense importance of social supports, in Nadler’s case, especially his mother’s faith in him. Nadler’s film debuted on Canadian TV (CBC) in March, 2006, and is making the festival rounds. Grade: B (05/06)

BREAD AND TULIPS (Silvio Soldini, Italy, 2001). THEME: MID-LIFE CRISIS: THE SEARCH FOR NEW LIFE & NEW LOVE. A laid back screwball comedy. Rosalba, a middle class, middle aged woman, gets separated from her family on a vacation bustour and impulsively hitchhikes to Venice where she starts a new life. Licia Maglietta is delicious in the central role, and Bruno Ganz is gallant as Fernando, the fellow who sweeps her off her feet in Venice. (In Italian) Grade: B+ (01/01)

BREAKFAST ON PLUTO (Neil Jordan, Ireland/UK, 2005, 135 m). THEME: TRANSGENDER PROTAGONIST. This spellbinding, tightly written, tightly wound, full speed ahead film is Neil Jordan’s best work by far since his 1992 hit, The Crying Game. And, interestingly, in this new film, Jordan returns to exactly the same intertwined themes that marked Crying Game: the armed struggle of Northern Irish Catholics against the British Crown and gender bending. Unlike the last minute revelations in Crying Game, however, here the protagonist’s transsexuality is placed front and center from


set in the heartland, in Bloomington, Indiana, about rivalries between young "townies" and U. of Indiana students. It's also a coming of age story that turns around the tensions between a father and son. Dennis Christopher is quite winsome as David Stoller, a skinny young townie (they call them cutters here, in deference to the traditional blue collar work of stone cutting at the local quarries) who is a bike racing fanatic and longs to be as good as the world's leading cyclists, who are Italian. To that end he plays Italian opera records and tries to master the language. He hangs with his cutter buddies, all of whom are interesting (Dennis Quaid in one of his earliest roles, Daniel Stern as the affable, charming Cyril, and Jackielove with Jan (Stellan Skarsgard), a Danish North Sea oil rigger. When Jan goes off for a long tour on the rig, Bess prays that somehow he will return permanently. He
does, with a broken neck sustained in a rough storm at sea and a
quadriplegic body. Sex is now impossible, but Jan cajoles Bess into
taking lovers and reporting all the intimate details to him. She goes
on with this, deeply reluctant at first, later with more gusto after
she seizes upon the rationale that God must have this as a plan to
rehab her beloved Jan. Von Trier likes stories in which his heroines
are debased (Dancer in the Dark, Dogville). Grade: B (01/97)

THE BRIDGE (Eric Steel, UK/US, 2006, 93 min.). THEMES: SUICIDE; IMPACT OF SUICIDE ON LOVED ONES; ETHICS OF PHOTOJOURNALISM. The


suicides that year (18 were men), most were captured on film while jumping, and footage of over half is shown in the movie. Witnesses are interviewed, as are surviving family members and friends, the latter painfully conveying their anguish, their varying efforts to cope with their loss and reconcile the event. They tell their own stories and those of their deceased loved ones, stories of struggles with depression, schizophrenia, substance abuse or losses. These accounts are in every instance poignant, compelling and highly instructive.

Several persons who completed suicides are introduced by name. Footage of them in the minutes before, and during, their jumps is interspersed with clips from interviews with loved ones. We see one such person, Gene Sprague, restlessly pacing along the bridge rail, often running hisSteel is reported to have applied for permits to shoot the film without disclosing his intent to feature suicidal jumps. It is questionable whether he would have received permission had he not been disingenuous about the project.

There is also the issue of potential copycat suicides by persons at risk who might be influenced by the film. In fact, according to one report, after the film was first screened in April, 2006, at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival, and a few days later at the San Francisco International Film Festival, in the following month there were 11 suicidal leaps from the GGB – nearly half the number occurring in an average year – compared with just 3 suicides in the month before the screenings.

Finally, by choosing amateurs (probably the


only sort Steel could attract and afford for this year-long project) without any background to prepare them for confronting the chilling events they would be recording, he also ran the risk of traumatizing his young crew. Indeed, in the “making of” film, each crew member is interviewed a year after the shoot, and several attest to both immediate and long term distressing memories and thoughts about what was for most (not all) an emotional ordeal. More than one speaks of his experiences as ‘unforgettable.’

While some civic leaders have deplored this film, others have praised it, including survivors of intended bridge jumps and a number of local psychiatrists, several of whom staff the psychiatric emergency unit at the San Francisco General Hospital, the city’s major receiving station for suicidalscreenwriter Paul Schrader, who adapted a novel by Joe Connelly. Nicholas Cage is Frank, a stressed-out New York City ambulance paramedic who is haunted by flashbacks of a woman he once treated but whose life he could not save. The film is full of lurid episodes involving dopers, alcoholics, victims and perpetrators of violence, the mentally ill, and accident victims. John Goodman (whose even worse stress symptoms lead him to quit), Ving Rhames (who drinks to steady himself, as Frank does) and Tom Sizemore (a sadistic fellow who likes to beat up folks they are dispatched to help) play various paramedic partners who team up with Frank. All offer riveting turns, and Patricia Arquette is also quite good as the daughter of a man Frank has brought to


the hospital who keeps on having cardiac arrests. Grade: B (02/04)

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (Ang Lee, US, 2005, 134 min.). THEME: GAY LOVE RELATIONSHIP. Heath Ledger offers one of the finest performances in memory by an actor in an American film as Ennis Del Mar, one of the two star-crossed lovers in this tragic tale of homosexual longing and desire, set in the wilds of the Wyoming high country grasslands. Ennis is paired up with Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), a third rate rodeo cowboy, when the two sign on as sheepherders in the summer of 1963.

Their erotic hunger for one another emerges almost immediately after they settle into their routine with the herd in the high country. From their bear cub-like foreplay scuffles, to tender scenes of their kisses andembraces, to the serious throes of their intercourse, the mutual attraction and consummation of lovemaking of this couple are believable to the core.

After this summer of love, the men go their separate ways. They each eventually marry, have children, settle down. Ennis stays in a tiny mountain town in Wyoming, barely scraping by as a ranch hand and cattle drive herder. Jack drifts to Texas, rodeoing, where he pairs up with the daughter of a prosperous small town farm machinery dealer, who grudgingly takes Jack in as the lead salesman. Jack and Ennis meet once a year for a tryst, when Jack drives north and the two go off together on “fishing trips” to the high country where they first had met and discovered one another.

What makes Ledger’s


him for good. (As we get to know Johnston better, the question of what could possibly have attracted this lovely young woman to him in the first place becomes more deeply puzzling.) Then he receives an anonymous letter, purportedly composed by an old lover, announcing that his heretofore unknown 19 year old son by her is at large, roving the country in search of him.

Don shares this piece of news with his next door neighbor and good buddy Winston (Jeffrey Wright), a Net addict who also fancies himself a hotdog amateur sleuth. Winston is immediately enthused about determining the source of the letter. Johnston was diddling so many women 20 years ago that he can only narrow the list of suspects down to 5. (Winston refers to Johnstonas Don Juan more than once, so that we will be sure not to miss the clever similarity of names and MOs.) Johnston wants no part of solving this mystery, but Winston locates the women via the Internet and sets him up with an itinerary, including reservations; Don apathetically acquiesces.

This sets up the quirky road movie structure that forms most of the film. In order, he visits Laura (Sharon Stone), the horny widow of a race car driver; Dora (Frances Conroy), who’s making serious money with her husband selling McMansions; Carmen (Jessica Lange), a lawyer turned upscale animal communicator for pet owners with deep pockets; and Penny (Tilda Swinton), the rough partner of an even rougher rural white trash biker. The fifth old flame had died some years


for years afterward; and his parents. Almost immediately, his squad is sent out by helicopter to rescue a lost soldier and is shot down, plummeting into a lake. All aboard are assumed to have died. The family are informed and become absorbed in terrible grief. A funeral is held. Time passes.

These circumstances have a transformative effect on Jannik, moved by the loss of his brother to change his ways, especially by offering aid and comfort to Sarah and his nieces. The relationship is honorably conducted, though Sarah and Jannik have passing moments marked by hugs, and just once by a kiss.

Meanwhile, we learn that Michael in fact was the lone survivor of the crash, and hardly scratched at that. He is seized by guerilla warriors and placed inher and the girls one night in a drunken rage. For this plus menacing the police who respond, he is imprisoned. At the end, Sarah visits Michael and tells him she will never see him again unless he tells her what happened to him in Afghanistan. He curls up in her lap and begins to cry in the film’s final scene.

This film is rich in several ways. The role shifts between the brothers are carefully constructed and played out, blacksheep Jannik emerging as the considerate, reliable one, while Michael moves in precisely the opposite direction. The acting, especially the contributions of Ms. Nielsen and the two child actors. The photography emphasizes close-ups of the players, sometimes only an eye that nearly fills the screen, aiding one’s sense of


the interiority of their feelings. Ironic tension is skillfully built up while Michael is in Afghanistan by alternating scenes of him with scenes of the grieving family back home. The occasional long shots – gorgeous Afghan sunsets behind distant mountains juxtaposed with shots of Michael in his grim cell; the oily water surface where his helicopter crashed - are powerful.

The theme of PTSD (for Michael and for the woman attacked by Jannik, whom we never see) and manifestations of Michael’s survivor guilt are depicted here with impeccable clinical validity. About the woman, we learn that she has had nightmares and insomnia for three years since the attack, and that she is constantly obsessed with fears that Jannik will return to kill her. Michael’s demeanor is excruciatingly similar tobut one that any professional who works with trauma survivors should see. Grade: B (In Danish) (07/05)

BUDDY (Morten Tyldum, Norway, 2004). THEMES: PANIC DISORDER WITH AGORAPHOBIA; A RARE NON-SMOKING FILM!) This amusing guy flick features three 20-something apartment mates and tells their stories of friendship, love, exploitation and fame. Kristoffer is 24; he’s a billboard hanger by trade, a magnet for women, and a digvid junkie – filming every moment of his life with his pals. His best friend and co-worker Geir is a sweetly mopey fellow still burdened by guilt over abandoning his steady girl when she got pregnant years ago. They move in with Stig Inge, a gentle, overweight man who suffers from severe agoraphobia. He makes his living constructing websites at home, and hasn’t set


to Buffalo for a dreaded reunion with his parents, who are not pleasant people. He picks up a young woman (Christina Ricci) along the way and talks her into pretending to be his wife, so he will have something positive to show these cynical people, his Mom (Anjelica Huston), a fanatical Buffalo Bills (professional football) fan, and Dad (Ben Gazzara), a former pop singer. The young woman’s devotion saves Billy from disaster. Grade: B+ (02/99)

THE BUSINESS OF FANCYDANCING (Sherman Alexie, US, 2002). THEME: CONTEMPORARY NATIVE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE AMONG THE YOUNGER GENERATIONS. The writer of Smoke Signals directs a film that more than fulfills his vision of a poetic statement about contemporary Native American experience, and the pull between cultures. By turns funny, sad, and full of fury, itpowerful as a generally principled, decent woman who still manages to get caught up in the "hate men" machinations and spell cast by Stiles's hateful character. Grade: B (12/01)

THE BUTCHER BOY (Neil Jordan, Ireland/US, 1998). THEME: PSYCHOTIC ILLNESS IN AN ADOLESCENT. SPOILER ALERT! Eamonn Owens was only 14 and new to film acting when cast for the demanding role of Francie, the boy who is the protagonist in this emotionally agonizing film. Francie suffers a very harsh home life, with a manic-depressive mother and alcoholic father. When his mother commits suicide and his best buddy is sent off to boarding school, Francie’s mental health deteriorates. (He had promised his mother he would never let her die.) He fixates on the Nugent family next door and becomes certain that


obsessive Captain Queeg. Rarely has there been a portrayal of these personality problems to match Bogart’s work here. Grade: A

CAMPFIRE (Joseph Cedar, Israel, 2004, 96 min.). THEME: STRUGGLE OF A WIDOW IN MIDDLE LIFE TO FIND A NEW LOVE RELATIONSHIP. Rachel (Michaela Eshet), an Israeli widow in her early 40s, desires to make a new life for herself and her two teenage daughters by joining a newly forming settlement in the West Bank. This film provides a good look at the process of how families are selected for such a settlement. Another subtext concerns Rachel's wary efforts to find a man she can love. A friend tries to matchmake for her. First Rachel dates Yossi (Moshe Ivgy), a kind, simple, empathic virginal man in his 40s, and, later,Moshe, a narcissistic, showy, well off singer and cantor. Reluctantly at first, Rachel gradually finds herself drawn to Yossi in what becomes a slow, tender and altogether delightful romance. Rachel’s search for love occurs in a household ripe with the sexual preoccupations of her daughters. Esti (Maya Maron) is about 18 and a sulking, hypercritical spitfire, making her way explosively toward independence with her soldier boyfriend in tow. Meanwhile her younger sister Tami is in the throes of flirtation and early sexual discovery. She is determined to be happy, resisting the insolent, confrontational fireworks her sister seems to revel in. Tami is played by Hani Furstenberg, an absolutely charming youngster who reminds me of what Liv Ullman might have looked like at 16. Indeed, all the actors perform


planned. But that takes nothing away from the dramatic appropriateness of Candy’s wrap up. Mark this one down as one of the best psychflix ever made about addictions. Grade: A- (12//06)

CANVAS (Joseph Greco, US, 2006, 101 m.). THEMES: SCHIZOPHRENIA; IMPACT OF MENTAL ILLNESS ON THE FAMILY. SPOILER ALERT!This debut feature film by writer-director Joseph Greco dramatizes the impact of mental illness on the family. Mary Marino (Marcia Gay Harden) suffered the onset of a schizophrenic disorder in her early 40s, a couple years before the film’s story begins, and her illness has made life very difficult for her, her husband John (Joe Pantoliano), and their 10 year old son Chris (Devon Gearhart).

Ms. Harden is quite convincing. She gets the furtive, doubting look of a distrustful, paranoid patient. Sheher illness but on the impact she has on her family. In fact, the camera in Canvas is directed more to John and Chris than to Mary. John is a good but simple man who works with his hands, a foreman for a house building crew employed by a developer. He tries to do right by Mary and Chris, but his coping skills are limited and often sorely tested, and he can react blindly at times out of his frustration. The role of John, wonderfully managed by Pantoliano, is reminiscent of Peter Falk’s character Nick, the frantic, bumbling yet obviously caring husband of a psychotic woman, in John Cassavetes’ film, A Woman Under the Influence.

It’s good to see Pantoliano playing a sympathetic character for a change, not the


usual nasty fellow we know from his Teddy in Memento or Ralphie Cifaretto in The Sopranos. Ten year old Devon Gearhart is a delight. He is highly photogenic: he could be Uma Thurman’s kid brother. He not only has charm, but conveys a remarkably broad range of emotional responses – joy, wonder, embarrassment, anger, sadness – that seem entirely natural and authentic.

We see and feel Chris’s extreme embarrassment when Mary rushes aboard a school bus to embrace him and reassure herself that he is safe. When Chris spends his birthday at an amusement park with friends, Mary arrives unannounced and uninvited with a birthday cake to crash the kids-only party. Chris takes abuse from his peers in the aftermath of such episodes: they taunt him about his crazymother. He begins skipping classes as a result. Chris and John are both put to pain when Mary erupts in the waiting area of a restaurant, and on another occasion when she wildly dashes outdoors in a rainstorm and creates a flap.

There is a brief bedroom scene while Mary is home on pass from the hospital, when lovemaking is interrupted because Mary is frightened of her skin being exposed and must peek through the drapes to be sure no one outside is watching. It is subtly made clear that her preoccupations have stifled John’s arousal, and we can imagine this has happened before. We also share times of nostalgic reminiscence and bereavement, when Chris or John pauses, tearfully, to recall happier times with Mary, before her illness, and


often takes on family members. Canvas does a better job of focusing on the family than any film I can recall since Cassavetes’ Woman Under, released over 30 years ago.

The ending is somewhat ambiguous. John and Chris have cemented a mutually supportive relationship, while Mary is away in the hospital, by building a sailboat together, in part because John hopes to recapture the life he and Mary knew when they were young, a life that revolved around sailing (the film is set in a seaside town, Hollywood, Florida, on the Atlantic Coast north of Miami). By the time the boat is finished, and the fellows invite Mary to join them on its maiden voyage, she is still in the hospital and quite symptomatic, hearing voices and experiencing difficultto know the eldest son, David Friedman, while shooting a film about clowning in 2000. After interviewing him and his mother, Elaine, Jarecki suspected there were major family secrets and eventually discovered the story of Arnold and Jesse’s cases years earlier. David agreed to work with Jarecki to tell the Friedmans' story.

Jarecki and his editor, Richard Hankin, proceeded to weave a riveting and scrupulously nonjudgmental film, carefully and effectively mixing material from videotapes that David Friedman had made during the child abuse investigations with contemporary footage of interviews with family members, police, prosecutors and defense lawyers, several boys alleged to have been sexually molested, and the father of one. The resulting film is a powerful revelation about the vagaries of truth seeking and justice, set against the story


school teacher, airline pilot and pediatrician, and he passed the Louisiana Bar exam after two weeks’ study, bankrolling his high lifestyle thorough an increasingly sophisticated skill at creating and passing bad checks. He was dogged for years by an FBI bank fraud specialist, Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), who finally caught him. Later, through Hanratty’s influence, Abagnale’s prison term was altered to allow him to work in the FBI central office with Hanratty’s team. In the following years, Abagnale has earned a fortune consulting with the FBI and the banking industry to prevent check fraud and apprehend criminals.

This film has problems. At 140 minutes, it is 30-45 minutes too long and drags badly in the middle. And DeCaprio once again shows that his finest acting occurred years ago as2001). THEME: SCHIZOPHRENIA. Actor Samuel L. Jackson is supposed to be a man suffering from chronic schizophrenia who lives hermetically in a cave in a public park in an eastern city. He becomes the pivotal figure in efforts to solve a murder crime. He succeeds. Along the way he unrealistically sheds his shabby clothes for a dinner jacket and plays the piano flawlessly after years of shunning the instrument. If you can believe that, I've got some terrific view lots on the desert to sell you. The story is plodding and uneven. Nothing clever about it. The portrayal of schizophrenia here is poorly realized. Jackson's eccenctricity, shabby, soiled clothing and grooming, and hermetic isolation are right. His hallucinations - whispering shadowy sepia colored moths the size of people


- are passable. But Jackson doesn't act schizophrenic. He shows none of the social awkwardness, the obliqueness or anxiety around people that one expects. Instead he is direct, confident, well spoken, effective, fiercely engaged in the world - all the things schizophrenics tend not to be but that Jackson characteristically brings to his roles. Neither he nor his director did their homework here. Grade: C- (08/01)

THE CELEBRATION (Thomas Vinterberg, Denmark, 1998). THEME: LONG TERM EFFECTS OF FAMILY INCEST. A disenchanted, grieving son ruins his father's 60th birthday party by spilling the family secrets (incest, etc) to a crowd of 50. (In Danish) Grade: B (01/99)

CENTRAL STATION (Walter Salles, Brazil, 1998). THEMES: CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCE; SUPPORTIVE RELATIONSHIP: OLD WOMAN AND BOY WHO ARE STRANGERS. Fernanda Montenegro stars as a cynicalVichy France that took in 400 Jewish children during WW II, including director Gossels's father, and lost only 6 to the Nazis (2 of whom also survived), thanks mainly to Felix Chevrier and the teachers who simply did what they thought was right. Crafted from interviews at a 1996 reunion. (In English and French) Grade: B+ (02/00)

CHILDREN OF NATURE (Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, Iceland, 1991). THEMES: AUTONOMY IN OLD AGE; NEW RELATIONSHIPS IN OLD AGE. Fridriksson must be the heart and soul of Icelandic film: he directed the well done Cold Fever and Angels of the Universe and acted in the recent droll farce, 101 Reykjavik. This is his best work that I've seen: a story of the triumph of an aged couple who are determined to live out


with her young son, Jay. When we first meet her, Emily, whose earlier Parisian TV singing career was eclipsed by her drug abuse, is a grim, hardened shell of the person she presumably once was. Soon after the film opens, her long time boyfriend and Jay’s father, Lee, a Canadian musician who had known some fame before his own heroin habit brought him down, dies of an overdose. Emily is implicated for having bought the drugs and serves a six month prison sentence. Jay was being cared for by Lee’s parents even before his death. When Emily is released, Lee’s father Albrecht (Nick Nolte) tells her it would be best for everyone if she did not visit her son for the next few years.

We then follow Emily toback to Paris, then on to London and San Francisco in her desperate, repeatedly failed efforts to straighten out her life. Toward the end Albrecht, who quite tenderly acknowledges the importance of the bond between mother and child, permits Emily, who is clean at the moment, and Jay to visit together. And when Albrecht offers further contacts, for the first time Emily breaks down in grief, a surge of deep feeling that is almost shocking to behold after watching her hardboiled, irritable behavior for nearly two hours. It is this show of softness that leaves us with some hope at the end that matters may work out all right for Emily. For her contribution here, Ms. Cheung won a Best Actress award at Cannes in 2004. (In English,


His one steady goal is to find his young daughter, Nicole (Jennifer MacDonald), who has begun a new life as an adoptee, following the murder of her mother. Peter first visits his own mother, a taciturn, emotionally withholding woman who is not at all pleased to see him. Later he discovers his daughter’s whereabouts, when her adoptive mother brings Nicole to visit her grandmother (who is as chilly toward Nicole as she is toward Peter). Meanwhile, a police detective (Robert Albert), searching for a serial child killer, has concluded that Peter is his man. A fateful ending is set up when the detective encounters Peter with Nicole at an isolated beach.

There are serious flaws in this film: the screenplay is not well wrought and is too full ofALCOHOLISM AND DEPRESSION. This film reunites Mignogna with Norma Aleandro, the delightful actress who starred in his ode to late life romance, Autumn Sun. It opens on a promising note: Cleo, a retired teacher (Ms. Aleandro), weary from propping up her depressed, alcoholic aging husband, tries to get a bit part in a TV program and in the process hooks up with Sandra, a young TV soap star, weary herself from being exploited by her manager/boyfriend. They like each other, and circumstances offer them a chance to get out of Buenos Aires for a long weekend vacation, free of the burdens their men had become. I thought, OK, maybe this will be a Latin style, intergenerational Thelma and Louise roadie.

Then Sandra impulsively chases after a guy who had


to Strike, the troubled protagonist who is torn between doing the right thing and the wrong. A fine morality tale, based on Richard Price’s novel, with splendid turns by all the principals and supporting cast, which also includes John Turturro, Peewee Love, Regina Taylor, Tom Byrd and Michael Imperioli. Grade: B+ (09/04)

THE CLOCKMAKER (Bertrand Tavernier, France, 1973). THEMES: FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP; DIFFICULT MORAL CHOICES; COMPASSION AND REDEMPTION. Tavernier's directorial debut film about a respectable man (Philippe Noiret) who is confronted with the news that his 18 year old son has committed a murder. He embarks on a painful quest of soul searching and conversations with old friends and the sympathetic police inspector on the case (Jean Rochefort). Out of his reflections about the estrangement that had developed between hisson and himself comes a decision about a difficult moral choice: whether to honor his son's adamant wish not to fight the charges by introducing evidence that could acquit him but that could also - perhaps to the son's way of thinking (we are in fact never privy to his thinking) -in the process compromise the justice of his act and dishonor his lover. A stupendous morality tale, and a story of paternal redemption and compassion. (In French) Grade: A (06/99)

CLOSER (Mike Nichols, US, 2004). THEMES: THE NATURE AND LIMITS OF INTIMACY IN LOVE RELATIONSHIPS; INTIMACY VERSUS PRIVACY. SPOILER ALERT! This film is an inquiry into the darker side of love: distrust, sexual obsession, possessiveness, jealousy, betrayal and intrusiveness. In particular it is about the tenuous balance that


of men. It’s analogous to buying an upscale used car and demanding to know every detail of the breakdown, repair and maintenance record. And men obsessively measure their sexuality in comparative terms. “Was he a better fuck than me? “ men demand to know. Women do not understand this male bent and are deeply (and understandably) offended by the interrogatory invasion of their personal memories and private experiences by inquisitive men. In its relentless, forced nature, these inquires are tantamount to rape.

The differences between the men and between the women are also intriguing, though they are etched less distinctively in the screenplay. Larry was cuckolded for a year and then jilted by Anna. Dan rejected Alice and then got squirrelly over a single sexual encounter she may havethemes on intimacy: A (12/04)

THE CLOSET (Francis Veber, France, 2001). THEMES: DEPRESSION AND SUICIDAL IMPULSES IN RESPONSE TO MULTIPLE STRESSES; WORKPLACE STRESSES; GAY ISSUES. Light comedy in which Pignon (Daniel Auteuil) is a drab, undistinguished hack of an accountant, toiling away for 20 years in the office of a Paris condom factory. He's also depressed, still wounded by the divorce wrought by his former wife and the indifference of his adolescent son. He learns he will be fired and thinks of suicide. But he has a new neighbor (Michel Aumont) who used to be an industrial psychologist, and who is gay. This man suggests that Pignon let the rumor circulate at work that he himself is gay. This might save his job. It works, but with some unforeseen


ramifications, which are the main concerns of the film. With Gerard Depardieu as Santini, a macho personnel officer who develops some tender feelings toward Pignon, Michele Laroque as Pignon's supervisor, and Jean Rochefort as the company CEO. Veber here employs a theme that was also central in his earlier film, Dinner Game, a Neil LaBute-like, cruel joke of manipulation of an unsuspecting victim; in Closet, it is Santini, the Depardieu character, who is badly teased by his colleagues at work. (In French) Grade: B (11/01)

COBB (Ron Shelton, US, 1994, 128 min.) THEME: PERSONALITY DISORDER IN FAMOUS PERSON: AGGRESSIVE, NARCISSISTIC AND ANTISOCIAL FEATURES. Biopic character study of Ty Cobb, one of baseball's most legendary superstars, based on material written by a sports journalist who interviewed him after his careerhad ended. Tommy Lee Jones stars as Cobb, who is portrayed here as a world class superjerk, or, to use clinical parlance, a man with a severely aggressive, narcissistic, even antisocial personality disorder, who ruthlessly promoted his own career and personal achievements, often at the expense of others. Two examples from the film: Cobb was not a team player, but rather had only scorn for his teammates. He also enjoyed spiking opposing players when running the bases. The film is long and drags. But Jones's portrayal is outstanding. Grade: B- (1996)

COFFEE AND CIGARETTES(Jim Jarmusch, US, 2004) THEME: SMOKING AND ANTI-SMOKING. If you’re a dedicated Jarmusch groupie, this is an intimate film about actors and entertainers who are FOJ (friends of Jim) that is required viewing. Do not pass


moved to Iceland years earlier and died there in an accident at a remote site seven years ago. Hirata never thinks of them and, as he admits late in the story, he never gave anything to them when they were alive. Now, in the middle of this particularly gloomy winter, Hirata’s grandfather insists that he go to Iceland to perform a traditional ceremony at the exact site of their death, a ceremony required by religious beliefs to set the spirits of his parents at peace once and for all. So Hirata grudgingly gives up a dream golfing vacation in Hawaii and instead finds himself flying toward Reykjavik. It’s the start of a road movie in which, belatedly, Hirata embarks on a coming-of-age adventure.

This is quirky stuff, reminiscent ofeffectively by Mr. Fridriksson, who is the soul and most prolific member of Iceland’s movie industry. At the age of 50, he has directed 13 films, produced more, written many screenplays, and done a bit of acting for good measure. He created the excellent 1991 film about aging and autonomy, Children of Nature, and the 2000 film about a young man who develops schizophrenia, Angels of the Universe. His only annoying habit is dabbling a bit in magical realism, and he does so here, when Hirata’s stalled car is miraculously brought to life by a Nordic beauty who magically appears and disappears. That aside, the film is a delight. Hirata learns about perseverance and devotion and giving something back to honor one’s forebears. We get to see not


PARADISE (Rang-e khoda) (Majid Majidi, Iran, 2000). THEME: CCHILDHOOD: OVERCOMING ADVERSITY (BLINDNESS); MORALITY TALE. SPOILER ALERT! The spellbinding story of Mahammad, a plucky blind youngster, and his ambivalent, self-pitying father. Set mainly in a small, remote village in a gorgeous mountainous area of Iran, the drama introduces us to people and customs far removed from contemporary Tehran. At the end of the term at a school for blind children in Tehran, Mahammad is the only one whose parents fail to come to take him home. Finally after a day or two his father makes a slinking appearance and tries to persuade the school authorities to keep his son. Failing this, he reluctantly leads Mahammad home. There we find Mahammad's loving grandmother and two doting slightly older sisters.

We learnthat Mahammad's mother died not long before, perhaps a year or two, and that the father has his eye on someone to marry again in a nearby village. Father courts, asks for her hand, brings a dowry, and consent is given by the woman's family. He does not tell them about Mahammad, only about his daughters. He then arranges to take Mahammad to the home of a blind carpenter a distance away where he will live and learn a trade. Mahammad is bitterly saddened but accepts his fate and adapts there thanks to the kind understanding of his mentor. But the grandmother is furious with the arrangements, seeing them as self-serving to the father and detrimental to his son. She leaves home in a rainstorm, is found and


brought back home by the father, but becomes ill and dies. The fianceé's family considers this a bad omen and backs out of the marriage contract.

At this point the storyline, thus far gripping and well organized, breaks down.The father returns to collect Mahammad (why?), then leads him through a wilderness we haven't seen before (where are they going?), finally crossing a bridge over a wild, raging river. Then the final, stupendously filmed and wildly dramatic scenes complete the film. The bridge collapses under the weight of the horse carrying Mahammad and both are swept away in the flood. Father, transfixed at first in the throes of his panic and ambivalence, simply watches from the side of the bridge. Finally he resolves matters and, in the first act ofgenuine love for the boy that we have seen, he dives into the maelstrom to attempt to rescue his son. As my partner put it, this is a fine morality tale. (In Farsi) Grade: B+ (12/00)

COMING HOME (Hal Ashby, US, 1978). THEMES: EFFECTS OF COMBAT AND INJURY ON SURVIVING MILITARY; IMPACT OF WAR ON FAMILY BACK HOME. SPOILER ALERT! The effects of the Vietnam War on combatants and their loved ones are explored in a realistic, intimate fashion in this fine film, which still holds up very well 23 years after it was made. Released the same year as The Deer Hunter, which explored similar issues in a surreal and more abstract manner. Jane Fonda is Sally, the prim middle class wife of Bob Hyde (Bruce Dern), a


Marine captain who is ordered into combat in VN. Sally starts to volunteer at the local VA hospital, where she meets Luke Martin (Jon Voight), former star football player in her high school graduating class who, as a sargeant in the Marines in VN, was left a paraplegic by a shrapnel wound. Luke is embittered, volatile, reclusive, never wanting to leave the hospital. Gradually He and Sally fall in love.

Bob returns home after an accidentally self-inflicted gunshot injury and learns of Sally's affair through FBI surveillance information (Luke's activities were tracked after he created an antiwar protest by chaining himself to the gates of a Marine base). Already way out of sorts after his duty tour in country and disappointed that he did not return home a hero,it’s a suspense thriller, a psychological character study, and a mirror of the paranoia that dominated American society at the time the film was made. Gene Hackman gives a masterful performance as Harry Caul, reputed to be the best freelance surveillance expert in the country. Harry is a private man, as scrupulously guarded in preventing others – even his girlfriend - from knowing anything about him as he is ingenious in devising methods to learn all he wants to know about the people he is assigned to spy on. Paradoxically, Harry is also an intensely religious man, a devout Roman Catholic who deplores profane use of Jesus’s name and agonizes over the fact that one of his previous surveillance jobs in New York directly led to the murders


course. Somebody’s likely to be killed. Who will it be?

This is really a fine film. Mr. Kramer, who co-wrote the script, has a feel for the gaming environment and writes characters and dialogue with the appropriately rough, noir edge of the “old school” of casino operations. Alec Baldwin portrays the most intriguing character here: his Shelly is a nasty brute of a fellow who is at the same time oddly sentimental and loyal to his friends, in his own fashion. For Ms. Bello, the part of Natalie was a career making role (she’s found work in 9 films since Cooler, 6 of them in 2005). She’s not beautiful, but her face is arresting, featuring a number of unusual planes, and the photographers took full advantage. She has anMichael Moore, whose work I have criticized for featuring his self-serving performance art at the expense of ethical film journalism, comes off well here: his quite eloquent, serious remarks on the hazards to public welfare posed by corporations impressed me; I wish he would tone down his commercial efforts and present himself more often as he does here.

The guiding light for this film is script writer Joel Bakan, a Professor of Law at UBC and former Rhodes Scholar. His book on the subject was published in March, 2004: "The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power." Both directors are experienced in making documentaries, though it is Abbott’s first feature as director. She wrote an earlier documentary directed by Achbar, about transsexuality ( Two Brides and a Scalpel: