Iron Man: Movie Review (2008)

From mid-life crisis to superhero

Directed by Jon Favreau, written by Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, 126 minutes, rated PG-13.

At its core, Jon Favreau’s “Iron Man” is about one man’s massive mid-life crisis, and all the drama that springs from it.

It goes down like this: While in Afghanistan shucking his company’s latest slew of weapons to U.S. military officials, the cocky, ultra-smart billionaire industrialist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr., perfect) is forced to look back upon his life when the Taliban suddenly ambush him with his own weapons.

It doesn’t take Stark long to realize that the U.S. has been selling Stark’s wares to the enemy--and what does that say about his own contributions to the state of the world?

Making matters worse for Stark is that he starts having chest pains--not that that’s a surprise. During the ambush, a bomb blew shrapnel into Stark’s chest, which now threatens his heart. Finally, since no mid-life crisis would be complete without flashy new duds and a swank new relationship, Stark creates a suite of virtually indestructible Iron Man suits that allow him the power of fight and flight, and then he falls for his assistant, Pepper Potts, who is played with cool knowingness by a very good Gwyneth Paltrow.

It’s the culmination of all this (and more) that leaves Stark to decide he needs to do something meaningful with his life, which for him means changing the direction of Stark Industries. At a press conference, he unleashes the surprise that his company no longer will make weapons for the government. It’s a statement that creates ripples throughout the world, the stock market and most notably within Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges, bald and bearish), who helped to build Stark Industries from its infancy and who isn’t about to let Tony ruin it now.

Without given any more away, what unfolds is one hugely enjoyable popcorn movie, and not necessarily because of its special effects, which are as seamless as anything audiences enjoyed in last year’s “Transformers.”

For the most part, the movie’s pleasures come from the attention paid to its script, its accomplished performances and the fact that the movie is driven by its characters first, its action second.

About the action. As impressive as it is (watching Stark learn how to fly as Iron Man is a highlight), the reason the movie works as well as it does is for the very reason most good movies work as well as they do--you care about the characters, the plot is involving, the production is polished.

Based on Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway’s script--which itself is based on the Iron Man character Stan Lee helped to created in 1963 in response to the Vietnam War--“Iron Man” finds all involved skirting the typical superhero pitfalls (specifically, teen angst) to break new ground within an otherwise overworked genre. In the process, they’ve come through with one of the freshest, most satisfying outings the medium has seen in awhile.

Grade: A-

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: DVD Review (2008)

“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”

Cocooned.

Julian Schnabel’s moving, real-life story follows Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Almaric), who, at 43, suffered a massive stroke that left him with something called "locked-in syndrome.”

Though Bauby’s mind returned to full capacity upon waking from the coma induced by the stroke, his body was paralyzed. The only exception was his left eye, which he was able to use, and which became his only tool for communication.

The film is based on Bauby’s own memoir, published days before his 1997 death.

If it’s the fact that Bauby was able to write a book at all that makes the movie such a testament to the human spirit, then it’s his sometimes sarcastic, other times deeply regretful internal monologue that makes the movie so powerfully complex.

Read the full, unedited review here.

Rated PG-13. Grade: A

The Romance Collection: DVD Review (2008)

“The Romance Collection”

From the BBC via A&E, an impressive, 14-disc collection designed to make an Anglophile faint.

The set includes eight films, not the least of which is the heated, 1996 version of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” with Colin Firth as Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth.

Also included are Nigel Hawthorn, Jonathan Pryce, Diana Rigg and Sir Peter Ustinov in 2001’s “Victoria & Albert”; Kate Beckinsale reminding us she can act in 1997’s “Emma”; Ciaran Hinds and Deborah Findlay in 1997’s “Jane Eyre”; and Max Beesley and Samantha Morton in the very good 1998 product of “Tom Jones.”

Hinds appears again in “Ivanhoe”; Richard E. Grant and Elizabeth McGovern star in “The Scarlet Pimpernel”; and challenging “Prejudice” as the best film in the lot is the 2001 production of “Lorna Doon,” with Martin Clunes, Richard Coyle, Aidan Gillen and Amelia Warner.

It doesn’t win, but it comes close.

Grade: A-

The Limey: Movie, DVD Review (2008)

Blimey! The right movie, the right director, the right star

Directed by Steven Soderbergh, written by Lem Dobbs, 89 minutes, rated R.

Even Los Angeles is no match for a limey.

As tough and as unseemly as the city looks in Steven Soderbergh’s outstanding film, “The Limey,” it pales next to the tougher, wild-eyed vision of Wilson (Terrence Stamp), a steely, silver-haired British ex-con who descends on Los Angeles with a gun in his hand, revenge in his heart and a burning mission in his gut: Find the man responsible for his daughter Jenny’s death and make him pay for it.

That man is Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda), a smarmy, super-rich record producer who is just naive enough to believe he can flirt with the big bosses of high crime--and never be touched by it.

If none of this sounds especially new, it isn’t; the film owes its soul to the works of Raymond Chandler and Chester Gould. But Soderbergh nevertheless is able to spark his film by evoking the past--literally.

In an effort to give Wilson a history, Soderbergh lifts key scenes from Ken Loach’s 1967 film, “Poor Cow,” which starred a much younger Stamp. The effect is mesmerizing, seamless --and smart. By wedding the two films, Soderbergh not only shows his audience how Wilson’s thievery impacted his relationship with his daughter, but also, in an unexpectedly gentle scene where Wilson plays his guitar for Jenny and her mother (Carol White), how affable Wilson was before the repercussions of his profession took their toll on him and those in his life.

With superb performances from Stamp, Fonda, Leslie Ann Warren, Barry Newman and Luis Guzman, “The Limey” is more complex, focused and visually assured than Soderbergh’s last film, “Out of Sight.” It’s also more knowing, particularly with Wilson, an older man from an old country whose old ways make mincemeat out of the players in Los Angeles.

Grade: A

(Originally published 1999)

Hilary and Jackie: Movie, DVD Review (2008)

Such devoted sisters

Directed by Anand Tucker, written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, based on the book “A Genius in the Family,” by Hilary and Piers du Pre, 121 minutes, rated R.

Anand Tucker’s “Hilary and Jackie” puts a bright face to genius, darkens it with madness and then destroys it forever with illness.

The film--gorgeously shot and beautifully told--is an unflinching, uncompromising, unsettling look at the famous cellist Jacqueline du Pre (Emily Watson), who rose to fame in the 1960s while her sister, Hilary (Rachel Griffiths), a talented flutist, was forced to turn her back to the stage and give herself over to marriage and family.

Fate, it seems, was kinder to Hilary, who wrote the film’s source book, “A Genius in the Family,” with her brother Piers (played in the film by Rupert Penry Jones). As a child, it was Hilary, not Jackie, who was the first star of the du Pre family. It was she who received the awards, the accolades from her parents, the broad attention for her musical gifts. But as this complex, sensitive and very well-acted film explores, Jackie was not to be outdone by her older sister, whom she adored with a fierceness that sometimes gave way to great bouts of rivalry.

Consumed by competitiveness and the need to eclipse her sister, Jackie pushed herself relentlessly, eventually achieving meteoric success as one of the world’s greatest musicians.

Her marriage to pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim (James Frain) only heightened her appeal, making her half of a handsome, superstar couple that toured the world.

Lofted throughout by du Pre’s signature piece, Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor, the film explores how Jackie’s hard push for success wasn’t worth it, that it only created loneliness and drove her to emotional despair.

Just as in “Amadeus” and in “Shine,” “Hilary and Jackie” understands the strength and fragility of the artist. It knows that madness is sometimes brimming just beneath the surface of artistic creation, and that it was partly this madness, coupled with her struggle with multiple sclerosis, that caused Jackie to damage what never should have been damaged: the relationship with her sister.

Indeed, when Jackie tells Hilary in one particularly bitchy scene that there’s nothing at all special about her, Hilary’s response, measured and leveling, seems coolly justified: “If you think for one moment that being an ordinary person is any easier than being an extraordinary one,” she says to Jackie, “you’re wrong. If you didn’t have that cello to prop you up, you’d be nothing.”

Such devoted sisters have rarely been this beguiling.

Grade: A-

(Originally published 1999)

The Thief: Movie Review (2008)

Coming to terms with a Russian stronghold

Written and directed by Pavel Chukhrai, 97 minutes, rated R, in Russian with English subtitles.

Of Stalin, Hitler once said: “He’s a beast, but he’s a beast on a grand scale who must command our unconditional respect. In his own way, he’s a hell of a fellow!”

Clearly, it takes one beast to back-slap another, but for post-Soviet Russian filmmakers, finding the nerve to finally come to terms with the bloody history of Stalin’s former stronghold has been a beast in and of itself.

Pavel Chukhrai’s “The Thief” follows Nikita Mikhalkov’s Academy Award-winning “Burnt by the Sun” (1994) in that it takes a successful leap in that direction. Through an extended metaphor that follows its three main characters during the initial throes of the Cold War, his film explores Stalin’s brutal influence with often harrowing results.

Told from the viewpoint of 6-year-old Sanya (the remarkable Misha Philipchuk), the film follows the boy’s relationship with his mother, Katya, (Ekaterina Rednikova) and the dashing soldier, Tolyan (Vladimir Mashkov), who meet on a train and masquerade as husband and wife in an effort to secure communal housing.

But Katya, who is meant to symbolize Mother Russia, has been misled by Tolyan, who represents Stalin: the man is a thief who steals from the poor with complete disregard for the repercussions of his actions.

His treatment of Katya is abusive, yet seductive, even protective--he’s a potent, powerful lover who whispers a mouthful of lies even while providing for mother and child. When his leadership fails and it’s revealed to Katya that this god is nothing but a crook, she and her son nevertheless still love him, which is perhaps the most powerful statement this excellent film makes about Russia’s complex relationship with their former leader.

Grade: A-

(Originally published 1999)

The Private Life of a Masterpiece: Complete Seasons 1-5 DVD Review (2008)

“The Private Life of a Masterpiece: Complete Seasons 1-5”

A fascinating series that roams the world to study and explore 20 famous pieces of art, from such Renaissance masterpieces as Piero della Francesca’s “The Resurrection” and Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” to such Impressionist works as Van Gogh’s “The Sunflowers” and Auguste Renoir’s “Dance at the Moulin de la Galette.”

Also in this award-winning set are revealing observations of Edouard Manet’s “Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe,” Whistler’s iconic painting of his mother in the then-controversial “Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist’s Mother,” and Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”

The value of this collection is evident at the start: In spite of how well known these works are, the art historians assembled to discus them nevertheless manage to build drama through insight, such as when they explore “Michelangelo’s David” or Rodin’s “The Kiss.”

In doing so, “The Private Life of a Masterpiece” neatly skirts the pitfalls of mainstream familiarity to offer the surprise of something new, a fresh angle we might not have considered, and the richness that rests within.

Grade: A

David Attenborough: Wildlife Specials DVD Review (2008)

“David Attenborough: Wildlife Specials”

A terrific collection of six wildlife specials from the BBC, with Sir David Attenborough narrating each with his typical reservoirs of controlled wonderment.

Whether weaving audiences through the ocean deep in ways that raise questions (and awe) about how the filmmakers captured certain shots of the humpback whale in its natural habitat, or laying low with leopards and crocodiles in their own habitats, Attenborough and his team reveal just how little we still know about the wild and its inhabitants.

The photography is crisp, often stunning. After seeing this, for instance, it’s unlikely that viewers ever will look at polar bears or the Arctic the same way again.

Grade: A

Prom Night, The Orphange: Movie Review (2008)

Two horror movies...and one isn't horrible

Currently, audiences can choose between two horror movies new to the market. One was Spain’s official entry for this year’s Academy Awards. The other is Sony’s unofficial entry for next year’s Razzie Awards, where it almost certainly will be nominated for the revered Golden Raspberry.

Let’s make quick work of the latter movie, Nelson McCormick’s “Prom Night,” which is now bloodying its crown in theaters, and then get on with the horror movie you should see, Juan Antonio Bayona’s “The Orphanage,” otherwise known as “El Orfanato,” which is just out on DVD and Blu-ray disc.

“Prom Night” is a remake of the R-rated, 1980 horror movie of the same name, which starred Jamie Lee Curtis when she was busy making a career out of avoiding butcher knives by any number of madmen. McCormick’s version comes with a more violence-friendly PG-13 rating, which would have been just fine had the movie amped up the tension with good writing and a solid undercurrent of suspense.

It doesn’t. Instead, we get a silly movie in which a hive of young adults are slaughtered and gutted on what should be one of the happiest night of their lives. Who’s wielding the knife? That would be Richard Fenton (Johnathon Schaech), a deranged former high school teacher who once caused cute Donna (Brittany Snow) a groundswell of grief when he murdered her family. Bummer!

Now, on the very night Donna has pulled herself together to shine on prom night, Fenton is on the loose from a maximum security prison and determined to knock her off, as well as all of her friends. So, yes, Fenton is something of a joy kill. And like this rote movie of no surprises--the whole thing is an assembly line of slasher movie cliches--he’s a dull one at that.

There is nothing dull about Bayona’s “The Orphanage,” which didn’t open in the many markets because it features the sort of bump-in-the-night frights some some movie houses fear--subtitles and quality.

Set in a large manor house that once was an orphanage for a host of poisoned tots, this expertly conceived ghost story unfolds with unusual reservoirs of grace and menace. Unlike “Prom Night,” there isn’t a cheap jolt in the movie. Instead, Bayona offers a slow build up of dread through the powerful vehicle of paranormal suggestion. For almost the entire movie, we never really know what’s going on inside the orphanage in question (or what occurred there years ago to make it haunted now), and that’s where the film’s suspense is allowed to mount--in the realm of the unknown.

The film stars Belen Rueda as Laura, who years ago lived in the orphanage before she was adopted. Now, she has returned with her husband, Carlos (Fernando Cayo), and their ailing son, Simon (Roger Princep), to run the place.

Trouble is, before they can do so, Simon starts talking to imaginary friends that turn out to be not so imaginary at all. And when he suddenly disappears after an argument he has with Laura, Laura and Carlos are plunged into two very different nightmares. The first is almost tangible in that it deals with the potential loss of their son, who goes missing for months. The second exists along the gray edges of a parallel state, which Laura is able to tap into. The fact that Carlos can’t causes its share of friction between the two.

What ensues is everything you could hope for from a good ghost story--moody cinematography, mysterious figures appearing, dead children lurking, psychics tapping into a world nobody wants to face, and a complex puzzle of unearthed secrets that eventually lead to one massive plot twist. That the film was produced by Guillermo del Toro (“Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Hellboy II”) only bolsters the production. His influence is clear throughout, but in key scenes, so is Hitchcock’s.

Grades:

“Prom Night”--D

“The Orphanage”--A-

Juno: DVD, Blu-ray Review (2008)

“Juno” DVD, Blu-ray

Ellen Page is Juno MacGuff, a precocious, ultra-hip 16-year-old high-school student who makes the decision that she's going to put an end to her virginity and have sex with the shy but bright Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera).

On a sad-looking, dilapidated chair, they have their moment, which initially appears unremarkable until two months and four days later, Juno realizes just how remarkable it really was.

Faced with the news that she’s pregnant, this wise-cracking kid now must decide whether to abort the child or offer it up to parents who might come to love and nurture it, such as wealthy suburbanites Vanessa (Jennifer Grant) and Mark (Jason Bateman)?

From Diablo Cody’s sharp, Academy Award-winning script, Juno eventually finds herself dealing “with things way beyond my maturity level.”

As her hormones rage and her belly balloons (“I’m a planet!”), her emerging vulnerability takes the movie down a notch from the quirky humor it favors during its electric first half. As such, it becomes more human and real--and easily one of last year’s best films.

Read the full, unedited review here.

Rated PG-13. Grade: A-

Pecker: Movie, Review

Saddled with more than just an unfortunate name

Written and directed by John Waters, 87 minutes, rated R.

(Originally published 1998)

The very title of John Waters’ latest comedy offers the critic a wealth of unusual possibilities, somewhere in which is a line that must not be crossed. Still, there is that provocative title, that nagging word, and the sound of that word, that tends to cause an immediate, uncomfortable stir whenever spoken, however sheepishly, in mixed company.

Indeed, to the uninitiated, the uninformed, saying: “I saw John Waters’ ‘Pecker’ last night and I couldn’t stop laughing” appears to be in extremely bad taste, a line not merely crossed, but leaped over while ringing bells, waving flags and blowing whistles.
C’est la vie.

“Pecker” is a campy, comic delight.

In the film, Edward Furlong is Pecker, a young photographer who allegedly earned his peculiar nickname because, as a child, he pecked at his food. (Sure. And the popular strip club Hooters got its name because the place is frequented by owls.)

Pecker takes photos of everything, and since this is a John Waters’ film, everything means the bizarre: Two rats having sex in a trash can, the private parts of butch lesbian strippers, a talking statue of the Virgin Mary, and even his younger, sugar-addicted sister, Little Crissy (Laren Huilsey), who is so strung out on candy, she easily could be the poster child for Ritalin.

As Pecker sees it, art is everywhere and he gleefully snaps photos of his girlfriend Shelley (Christina Ricci), his kleptomaniacal best friend Matt (Brendan Sexton III), and deep inside The Fudge Palace, the local gay bar where his sister Tina (Martha Plimpton) works as a strict, take-no-prisoners emcee.

Eventually, of course, Pecker’s life changes as only John Waters could change it for him: A New York art dealer (Lili Taylor) happens upon Pecker’s photos, loves his work, and immediately signs him to a show at her Manhattan gallery. It’s an official stamp of approval that brands Pecker as a major new artist--but at what cost? As all of the New York art world begins clamoring for Pecker, Waters introduces his film’s true purpose: To skewer modern art and its patrons while also highlighting how fame and fortune can corrupt.

Aesthetic pretension has long been an easy target, but in Waters’ capable hands, it makes for a film that is often very funny. Indeed, “Pecker” finds its director exactly where he belongs--deep inside the toilet bowl of life he continues to plunge from Baltimore. His latest may not be as outrageous as “Pink Flamingos” or “Polyester,” but it does take risks that push it far and away from the mainstream arena he courted somewhat unsuccessfully in “Serial Mom.”

For Waters, “Pecker” is divine.

Grade: A-

There Will Be Blood: DVD Review (2008)

“There Will Be Blood”

The best movie of Daniel Day-Lewis' career turns out to be in the best movie of Paul Thomas Anderson's career, a nice slice of symmetry that gets even better when you consider that so far, the actor and director have achieved their personal peaks in one of 2007's best films.

Thick with mustache and armed with enough greed and hate to ruin a country, nevermind a town, Day-Lewis’ Daniel Plainview comes to the oil-rich town of Little Boston with his son H.W. (Dillon Freasier) at his side.

He’s there to beat Standard Oil at their own game and buy up as much land as he can.

Meanwhile, he finds in Little Boston an unexpected adversary in Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), a Bible-thumping evangelist who sees in the good book what Plainview sees in oil--absolute power over the people.

Together, these two are pitted against each other in ways that make for stirring, dangerous entertainment, with each actor railing off the other and giving terrific performances in the process.

This is especially true for Day-Lewis, whose unshakable performance won him the Academy Award for Best Actor. His Plainview can be devastatingly cruel and kind in one brushstroke. We watch him with a sense of trepidation and fascination.

In this way, he literally is the face of the emerging West. In all the dirt and suffering that surround Plainview, a groundswell of promise nevertheless bubbles beneath his feet. Blood will be spilled to realize that promise--an element that gives the film its sharp connection to the present--but in this do-or-die culture of creating a secure new culture, the pull of that promise is enough to tip those who seek it into madness.

Just as it is now.

Read the full, unedited review here.

Rated R. Grade: A

View the video review below:

Dirty Pretty Things: Movie, DVD Review

Making things pretty, no matter the cost

Directed by Stephen Frears, written by Steve Knight, 107 minutes, rated R.

(Originally published 2002)

At the Baltic, a once upscale, now seedy hotel that’s no stranger to trouble, the night clerk, Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor), is tipped by a popular prostitute (Sophie Okonedo) that there might be trouble in one of the guest rooms. Upon examination, Okwe, a Nigerian exile and former doctor rumored to have killed his wife, finds an overflowing toilet, in which is a recently harvested human heart that’s blocked the plumbing.

The hotel manager and Okwe’s boss, Sneaky (Sergi Lopez), shrugs off the finding with a casual offer of cash--which the morally steadfast Okwe refuses to accept--and then a cool suggestion that Okwe forget what he saw. “Strangers come to hotels to do dirty things,” Sneaky says. “In the morning, it’s our job to make things pretty again.”

But to what end?

It’s just that which is explored in Stephen Frears’ “Dirty Pretty Things.” Smart and raw, the movie is an edgy, urban thriller that exposes London’s uglier corners in ways that that city might sooner want you to forget.

Okwe, who works days driving cab and suffers from an acute bout of insomnia, finds his life further complicated by Senay (Audrey Tautou of “Amelie”), the beautiful, illegal Turkish woman hounded by immigration officials who reluctantly rents her couch to Okwe, and eventually gives him her own heart. Figuratively speaking, of course.

From this, several surprises bloom—some major, most gruesome. Without giving too much away, they involve certain bloody extracurricular activities that take place at the Baltic under Sneaky’s watch, the sort that can either land you in prison for life or buy you freedom with a forged passport.

The movie lags a bit in the middle, but the ending is a lark, the performances and cinematography are strong, and Frears’ examination of immigrant life—the class of people that want to fade from sight for self-preservation yet who help to keep cities like London going—is at once unsettling, moving and complex.

Grade: A-

The Ice Storm: Criterion Collection DVD Review

"The Ice Storm: The Criterion Collection"

Listen to the Podcast here.

Everyone in Ang Lee's excellent drama about 1970's suburbanites in New Canaan, Conn., is emotionally bankrupt, morally afloat, afraid of the truth, and mired in the pseudo-intellectual dogma of the time.

The film focuses on a period in our culture when suburban, middle-class families tried to play catch-up with the groundbreaking sexual revolution of the late 1960s.

The problem? Lee's characters aren't revolutionaries. Thus, when they gather at parties to swap wives for an evening of casual sex, drink and do drugs in an effort to anesthetize their own ridiculousness, or willingly put their lives at risk during an ice storm, they seem at once shocked and rattled when they're slapped with the deadly repercussions of their own reckless behavior.

Lee strings a wealth of deeper issues throughout his film, but the characters are incapable of dealing with those issues. Why? Because in their emotional timidity and immaturity, they seem determined to live their lives solely on the surface, where things appear relatively safe and manageable--even while their lives are crumbling around them.

For instance, Elena Hood (Joan Allen) knows perfectly well that her husband, Ben (Kevin Kline), is having an affair with their neighbor, Janey (Sigourney Weaver), but does she confront him with it? Of course not--that would mean stripping away the layers of her life and realizing that it's not just empty, but a lie.

At Thanksgiving dinner, Elena's savvy daughter, Wendy (Christina Ricci), is asked by her father to give grace, which itself is a joke as these people bring agnostic to a whole new level. Still, Wendy seizes the moment and launches into an inspired diatribe that manages to include materialism, napalm, and how the white man stole this land from American Indians.

When Ben shouts at her to shut up, it's a pivotal moment that rings clear. How can these people deal with the pending impeachment of Nixon, napalm, and everything else that is wrong with the world, when they can't even have a civil meal together?

That they can't is Lee's point.

Rated R. Grade: A

No Country for Old Men: DVD, Blu-ray Review (2008)

"No Country for Old Men"

The Academy Award-winning, modern-day Western "No Country for Old Men" hails from Ethan and Joel Coen, who arm themselves with Cormac McCarthy's fantastic 2005 book of the same name and deliver one of 2007's best films in the process.

Working from their own script, the Coens craft a violent, engrossing movie that never telegraphs or condescends; it keeps its twists and its surprises close to its bleeding heart, which is significant because in this violent movie, that heart often is hemorrhaging.

Set in 1980, the film stars Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss, a Vietnam veteran hunting one day along the Texas-Mexico border when he comes upon a grisly mass murder in the desert. There, he also comes upon a stash of drugs and, later, $2 million in cash sandwiched within a black case.

It's when Moss takes the money that everything goes sour for him.

After all, working against him is the formidable psychopath Anton Chigurh (Javier Barded in an Academy Award-winning performance), a man who sports a Buster Brown blowout and who for reasons best left for the screen, decides that Moss is going to pay for stealing that money. He's going to track Moss down, he's going to get that money for himself, and God help anyone who gets in his way.

One person who does is Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), who completes the film's deadly triangle by going after Moss and Chigurh. This superb movie is about the sly weaving of skill and chance that unfolds between them all, with the characters crisscrossing in and out of each other's reach with such mounting heat, they create a knot onscreen that tightens in your gut.

With its accomplished performances, direction, writing and cinematography, "No Country for Old Men" ultimately is a movie haunted by what the West was and what the West has become. At its core, the movie knows they aren't so different--and that's what troubles it.

Grade: A

Read the full unedited review here.

View the trailer below:

Into the Wild: DVD, HD DVD Review (2008)

“Into the Wild” DVD, HD DVD

But at what cost?

From Sean Penn, who wrote and directed the movie from Jon Krakauer's bestselling nonfiction book, “Wild” is a first-rate account of a story that, depending on your perspective, did or didn't end so well for Christopher Johnson McCandless (a terrific Emile Hirsch).

Some will recall that McCandless was the young man from a wealthy Virginia family who in 1990 chose not enter Harvard Law School or the workforce upon graduating from Emory University. Instead, he gave away his life savings to charity, set fire to the rest of his cash and his personal identification, and disappeared without a word into a more challenging world--the wild.

Penn's film follows McCandless' two-year journey into himself via the outside world, which was driven by the need to escape his controlling, bickering parents (Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt) even though in doing so, it also meant leaving behind his beloved younger sister, Carine (Jenna Malone).

It's she who narrates the story, filling in key background information about her brother while Penn weaves back and forward through time in an effort to understand why McCandless did what he did.

What makes the movie so emotionally rich are the people McCandless meets along the way, all of whom offer kindness, insight, clarity, debate.

The acting is strong and memorable, with Catherine Keener, Brian Dierker, Vince Vaughn, Kristen Stewart and especially the Academy Award-nominated Hal Holbrook shaking the movie alive with its mournful undercurrent.

Rated R. Grade: A

Read the unedited review here.

Best Actor Collection: DVD Review (2008)

“Best Actor Collection”

A varied mix of five excellent performances in five Academy Award-winning films.

Included are 1928’s “In Old Arizona,” with Warner Baxter as The Cisco Kid; 1956’s “The King and I,” in which Yul Brynner took a shine to Deborah Kerr, danced her off her feat--and won an Oscar for his trouble; and 1970’s “Patton,” which finds George C. Scott becoming the infamous general so seamlessly, he never shook his association with the role.

Also in the set is 1973’s “Harry and Tonto,” with Art Carney winning the Oscar for portraying the retired teacher Harry Coombes, and quite a different movie is found in “Wall Street,” which teaches us other lessons about life.

Through the vehicle of Michael Douglas' cold, Oscar-winning performance, we recall that greed might have had a good time of it in the late ‘80s, but just look where it’s gotten us now.

Grade: A-

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The 2007 Academy Award-Nominated Short Films: Review (2008)

This time out, size doesn't matter

If for some reason you didn't find time to jet to the film festivals at Cannes, Berlin, Los Angeles and Tribeca, not to worry. Currently, 50 theaters in 50 cities around the U.S. are offering a rare opportunity to see the range of amazing work being done in the short-film format, both animated and live action, which is so frequently and unjustly ignored in the hype over big-budget films.

Because these films must be condensed to their essence, they often are more entertaining minute-for-minute than any other films.

This year's animated nominees are especially rich, with Josh Raskin's "I Met the Walrus" offering a brief, trippy account of the day 14-year-old Jerry Levitan interviewed John Lennon on the sly. A riff on cheating death is found in Samuel Tourneux's "Even Pigeons Go To Heaven," though that cheat doesn't exactly go as one man plans, and one woman's haunting journey by train is the focus of Chris Lavis' anxiety-ridden "Madame Tutli-Putli." Also here is "My Love," a beautifully impressionistic piece from Russia's Alexander Petrov that follows one young man's love affair with two women (as with some of the films in this collection, this one is best suited for children).

As for the live-action films, look for Andrea Jublin's bizarre Italian offering "The Substitute," which is dedicated to those who have difficulties with conduct (for reasons that immediately become clear); the funny French comedy "The Mozart of Pickpockets," with director Philippe Pollet-Villard following two bumbling pickpockets whose luck is lifted thanks to a deaf boy; and Belgium's funnier "Tanghi Argentini."

That film is from Guido Thys, and in it is a man who promises the Internet love of his life the fire of the tango, a dance he doesn't know. It's up to the help of a reluctant male co-worker to get him up to speed within two weeks, all of which makes for a hugely entertaining movie that, in the end, literally is a gift. Also in the mix is Daniel Barber's "The Tonto Woman," which comes by way of Elmore Leonard's deceptively spare short story. It's an intense, nicely mounted Western romance that's so compelling, you almost wish its characters could be explored in a feature-length film.

All of the films are special, but one in each category is remarkable. First is Christian E. Christiansen's harrowing and heart-breaking live-action Denmark film, "At Night," in which three women struggle to cope with cancer and their own mortality at a cancer ward. The results are powerful. Second is the standout in the animated category, "Peter and The Wolf," a fantastic entry from the United Kingdom and Poland that sometimes puts a lump in your throat before forcing it out with a laugh.

What this film observes about cats alone is reason enough to seek out these movies.

Grade: A

Michael Clayton: DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray Review (2008)

"Michael Clayton" DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray

Though its title hardly screams "cerebral thriller," here's the thing--since not much about this tightly wound thriller plays by the rules, why should the title follow suit?

In an Academy Award-nominated performance is George Clooney as Michael Clayton, a corporate lawyer and "fixer" for a New York law firm who is charged to deal with the firm's chief litigator, a manic depressive named Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), when the man goes off his meds and loses it.

The reason? Edens has learned via a private memorandum that U/North, the company he's protecting from a $3 billion class action lawsuit, knowingly distributed a product that has killed hundreds. By defending them, Edens essentially is throwing dirt on the graves of all those who died.

Now, Clayton finds himself taking on U/North's formidable attorney Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), who has plenty to lose herself should that memorandum go public.

Her character is one of the movie's harshest, most pointed jabs at corporate America--as cool as she can be, the woman is a fraud.

As Clayton comes