Dr. Aazort’s Film & Video

 “If you really want to study humans, you gotta watch TV.” — Prof. Spode Hardratt

From 29 “Internet”

Very Good: The Bad Lieutenant (1992 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103759/ Beware. There’s a really bad remake of this gritty Harvey Keitel film currently making the rounds, often with “Port of Call” tacked onto the title. In it, hobbled by a terrible script, the talented but perhaps over-busy Nicholas Cage tries and fails to recapture Keitel’s absorbingly insane performance as directed by Abel Ferrara. “The Bad Lieutenant” is arguably the best work Keitel has ever done. It’s certainly the bravest.

With perfection secured in the 1992 original, why attempt a remake with a poorly-doctored plot, no moral center and most of all, no Harvey Keitel? I know sequels are like bad weather, but watching the Cage version recently only confirmed that this property is fully-owned and operated by Mr. K.

Keitel has no name in the film. He doesn’t deserve one. He’s only “the bad lieutenant” (“BL”), and he’s way worse than bad. He’s rotten, horrible, impossible to sufficiently despise. And yet, horror that he is, he is also Everyman, lost in the cheap power games on offer in the Modern Circus, and losing every one of them.

He stumbles from one depravity to the next, ostensibly looking to recoup his gambling losses. In fact, perhaps from religious guilt or just self-loathing, he seems most interested in pushing his gambling sharks to the limit in a sort of “march of the flagellants.” He’s begging for a bullet, but boasts at one point, “I’m a cop!” He’s untouchable.

None of this is easy to watch. It has been dismissed as tawdry porn. But following Harvey Keitel as he tries to hold it all together while playing his own antagonist is richly rewarding. You first realize there’s a real spiritual center here when BL gives up his first cry of self-pity. He goes on several such whining, whimpering, weeping jags, always alone, revealing the tormented soul at work and play. “Get with the program” he advises a nun who has been brutally raped by two altar boys she knows. Blowing BL’s mind, she’s chosen forgiveness over revenge. Encountering Christianity in the raw like this finally takes him over the edge.

Avoid the execrable Cage remake – and do make sure you get the original 1992 theatrical NC-17 release of the Keitel film. This used to be quite a challenge, given the repugnance with which this movie was greeted. Back when Blockbuster ruled the rental market and refused to rent NC-17, they stipulated a bowdlerized R-rated cut up just for them. Now, ironically, one of the sure places to find the NC-17 version is from Blockbuster online. Netflix also has it, and I was gratified that the Comcast On Demand offering, although tagged “R,” conformed fairly well to the NC-17 version I saw at an actual cinema in 1992, and it measured up OK with the list of cut scenes at http://movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=5700924

Fun: How to Train Your Dragon (2010) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0892769/ So many animated films are crawling from the woodwork – or in this case, attacking from the sky – that anything short of “Toy Story” class can easily get overlooked. I had never heard of this Dreamworks offering before I stumbled across it on cable. It turned out to be a funny and likeable find.

Many of the conventions are familiar enough: a smart nerd teen wants to make it big in a macho culture of dragon-hunting “Vikings” (all with inexplicable Scottish burrs). His Dad is the local king, who, like all his fellow Vikings, is built like a cement truck. His son “Hiccup” (you can’t have everything) would love to join in the swagger and fun, but he’s overly intellectual and physically underwhelming. Still, he begs and pleads for dragon combat training to do his bit for Berk, the little island that the Vikings have occupied for 300 years.

Before this can even get started, a big night attack occurs and Hiccup rolls out his new crossbow-cum-bola thrower. Firing at a passing shadow, he entangles a Night Fury, the best the dragons have to offer. The Night Fury is not only a hot fireball shooter, but so stealthy that no one has ever actually seen one. Hiccup tracks down his stricken prey the next day and the fun begins.

One of the most appealing aspects of “HTYD” is the restraint shown when it comes to “animal schmaltz,” where movie critters are anthropomorphized to eye-rolling excess. Here the tone is moderated, especially for the Night Fury, “Toothless.” Grateful for the fish Hiccup has given him, Toothless obligingly regurgitates half and won’t quit staring expectantly until Hiccup takes a convincing bite. (Someone has been watching their nature films.) The human characters are likewise well-written and voiced (Hiccup’s mentor “Gobber the Belch,” is done by Craig Ferguson). And the happy ending (what other kind in this genre?) is perfectly acceptable.

This movie is already spawning sequels. Enjoy the original.

From 28 “Away”

Classic: The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075029/ At a time when the Western was struggling to survive as a genre, Clint Eastwood starred and eventually stepped in as director for what would become a valued classic. Of all his Westerns perhaps only “Wales” approaches 1992’s “Unforgiven.”

Based on a 1972 novel by former Ku Kluxer Asa (Forrest) Clark, the story comes from the bloody Kansas/Missouri front of the American Civil War. By War’s end, Missouri farmer Josey Wales has already witnessed the murder of his wife and kids by pro-Union Kansas “Jayhawkers” or “Redlegs.” A suspicious Josey decides not to surrender his guns with the rest of his irregulars (Missouri “Bushwackers”). He then witnesses them being betrayed and shot. He and “Jamie” (Sam Bottoms) unleash a Gatling Gun on the Redlegs and ride off as outlaws.

With a fat price on his head, Josey is forever confronting bounty hunters in addition to the Redlegs on his trail. And he collects a ragtag following of karmic relatives starting with the marvelous Chief Dan George (“Little Big Man” 1970) and including Sondra Locke (cast at Clint’s behest and launching a long-term on-and-off-screen romance). All of the minor players are great character actors.

The action occurs in episodic encounters that usually end with Josey Wales’ expert pistol work. As one exchange has it: “Whenever I get to likin’ someone, they ain’t around long.” Chief Dan George: “I notice when you get to dislikin’ someone, they ain’t around long, neither.” An exception is made with Comanche Chief Ten Bears (an impressive Will Sampson) who comes to terms with Wales, becoming blood brothers with the usual exchange of slashed hands. (Pet peeve: Actual blood brother rituals involved a rather small cut for obvious reasons. Slashing a knife through the tendon-thick palm of one’s right hand and then gripping hands may make a stirring image, but it’s literally lame. If the cut is deep enough to draw blood, the wound risks crippling any warrior type for a good while, maybe permanently. Historically, a little blood was usually mixed with wine and drunk or just licked off a small forearm cut. I would like to see two guys licking the blood off each other’s forearms. The weird verisimilitude alone would be startling.)

Despite all the violence, Eastwood described “Wales” as an anti-war film. He so enjoyed reversing stereotypes that “Wales” is often referred to as a “revisionist” Western, and in its quiet moments the dialog does offer a gritty ring of truth. The wonderful cinematography is by Bruce Surtees, who worked with Eastwood on “Dirty Harry,” “Joe Kidd,” “High Plains Drifter”and many other films.

Sure. You’ve seen it. But next time you find a nice uncut, no commercials version, hit replay.

Excellent: Stone of Destiny (2008) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1037156/  The title suggests some sort of sword-and-sorcery outing, but this is a great little “caper” film, a true story and one loaded with contemporary impact.

“The Stone of Scone” (“Liath Fàil”) is a homely 336 lb block of sandstone on which the ancient kings of Scotland were crowned. It was traditionally kept near Perth at Scone Abbey. But in 1296 the retreating English King Edward I attempted to “de-kingdomize” Scotland by dragging the Stone off to London. He then commissioned an “English Coronation Chair” to be made with a special shelf under the seat for the Stone. Henceforth, any new King or Queen of England automatically inherited the combined mojo both of Edward’s Coronation Chair and the ancient Scottish “Stone of Destiny.” The Chair was kept at Westminster Abbey and only moved for coronations.

There were three exceptions: in 1657 the Chair traveled to Westminster Hall for Oliver Cromwell’s second induction as Lord Protector. During the German bombings of World War II it took refuge at Gloucester Cathedral. And on Christmas Day, 1950, it began a journey (in two pieces) back to Scotland. Four university students active for Scottish independence broke into Westminster Abbey and stole it. The movie “Stone of Destiny” is the touching, suspenseful and often hilarious story of the student heist.

Ian Hamilton (appealingly played by Charlie Cox) was the leader of the gang and author of the book whose rights American actor/writer/director Charles Martin Smith acquired for this film. In 1950 Hamilton is a student and frustrated Scottish nationalist. Nagged by his severe father to get on with something meaningful, Hamilton decides to kidnap the Stone with his drinking pal Bill Craig, (played by Billy “Pippin Took” Boyd). With a few last-minute personnel changes, four students, including Kay Matheson (Kate Mara), Gavin Vernon (Stephen McCole) and Alan Stuart (Ciaron Kelly) drive from Edinburgh to London for the stone-napping.

What follows is a uniquely successful combination of nail-biting suspense and light slapstick as elaborate plans fall through and spur-of-the-moment genius (“crowbar the door!”) finally wins the day. On first yanking the heavy stone from its shelf in the chair, it lands with a bang on the floor – in two pieces. “We’ve broken the Stone of Destiny!” However, the would-be thieves quickly satisfy themselves that the stone must have been broken centuries ago. All the “freshly-broken” edges are in fact rounded with wear.

The Stone is smuggled back into Scotland. The media is exploding with the story. Ian’s stern Dad is weeping with pride. But it’s only a matter of time. So, after having the Stone professionally repaired, the gang hands it over to the Church of Scotland. The students are charged, but never prosecuted. And the Stone goes back to London.

The Stone of Scone was returned officially to Scotland in 1996, with the proviso that it go back to London for coronations. The next coronation will be for Prince Charles or his son William. Of course, given the current momentum for Scottish independence, the English may have trouble getting the Stone back. Unless they steal it. Again.

From 27 “Utopia”

Very Good: Delirious (2006) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412637/ This movie digs into that “plague of celebrity” I referred to recently. “Toby,” played by Michael Pitt, is a kid from Philly sleeping on the subways of New York awaiting his chance to be an actor. He runs into the multi-headed “Les Galantine” who is not a paparazzi but a “licensed professional.” (His fellow paparazzi just roll their eyes.) Toby persuades a reluctant Les to take him on as “assistant,” sleeping in one of Les’s closets in lieu of payment.

Steve Buscemi as Les is at his sleazoid, grease-ball best careening through pathos, vanity, egomania, paranoia, and homicidal envy – while, to his growing fury, his newly-adopted protégé effortlessly floats to the top. Toby’s good looks and friendly manner are irresistible to all. And he manages a frothy romantic connection via “love at first sight” with “K’Harma,” a recently-jilted pop singer, played by Alison Lohman. This relationship is as insubstantial as all the other pursuits here, which sum up to: “I wanna be famous!” (Or, if already famous, “I wanna stay famous!”)

Wonderful jabs are made at the fame machine. As the newly-ascendant Toby waits in his limo for a long-sought reunion with K’Harma simultaneously ensconced in her limo nearby, their respective publicists argue via cell phone over who must get out of which limo first for maximum exposure based on esoteric inside-baseball “fame points,” recent magazine covers, box office receipts, etc.

The relationship between Toby and Les anchors this exploration of what passes for conflict in show biz. Despite operating without a clue, Toby’s inherent sweetness and likeability only aggravate the neuroses of the scheming and often funny Les – whose favorite wisdoms invariably begin, “The first thing is …” After ten or 12 “first-things” this mantra devolves into a nervous tic. Les doesn’t know the first thing from the fifth or 59th. (Les is crushed when his hyper-crotchety parents deride his latest prize, an ambush-photo of a celeb leaving plastic surgery after getting some work done on his penis.)

There’s no neat wrap to this slice of what passes for life on the fringes of fame. Toby and K’Harma eventually do escape their limos for a paparazzi-perfect kiss and a walk into the magic bright lights on the other side of the velvet rope. Les gets a photo-op and a handshake from the ill-treated but sweet-to-the-end Toby, and is left staring longingly at those bright lights. What Joni Mitchell once called “the star-making machinery” grinds on.

Excellent: Trumbo (2008) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0889671/ This is a brilliantly-produced and written documentary about the great American screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Film and history fans will recall Trumbo as one of the most prominent writers blacklisted by Hollywood thanks to the House Un-American Activities Committee. An unapologetic former communist, Trumbo was convicted in 1950 of contempt of Congress and spent 11 months in a federal penitentiary. In the film, Trumbo happily admits guilt, saying that he was indeed in contempt of HUAC and all it stood for.

Once out of prison, Trumbo was forced to use either a pseudonym or “a front” to continue writing (see Woody Allen’s “The Front”). He won a best screenwriter Academy Award for 1953’s “Roman Holiday” using the writer Ian McClellan Hunter as a front. He won again for “The Brave One” in 1957 as “Robert Rich.” During the awards ceremony there was, of course, no such person to pick up the statue. It wasn’t until 1975, the year before Trumbo died, that the Academy at last recognized “Mr. Rich.” Trumbo was able to dispense with a lot of nonsense in 1960 when Kirk Douglas (for “Spartacus”) and Otto Preminger (for “Exodus”) both insisted on giving him proper credits.

Against this backdrop of thought control, persecution and betrayal, director Peter Askin and Trumbo’s son, writer Christopher Trumbo use filmed material of the screenwriter as well as letter readings and characterizations by an all-star cast that includes Nathan Lane, Joan Allen, Brian Dennehy, Danny Glover, Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas, Josh Lucas, Paul Giamatti, Peter Hanson, Victor Navasky, Donald Sutherland, Liam Neeson and many others.

Apart from political and historical import, “Trumbo” gives us lots of Trumbo – an irrepressible, eloquent and very funny man (his letter to his son sanctioning masturbation is classic). He was often criticized by his colleagues on the blacklist for saying that those who “named names” for HUAC, stayed at work and out of jail, were nothing but fellow victims of the Red Scare, a hysteria which – despite all the lessons on display in this film and elsewhere – seems regularly to recur depending on the boogie man of the moment.

From 26 “Fame”

Very Good: The Girl in the Café (2005) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443518/ This enjoyable film comes from the writer who is probably best-known for the “Hugh Grant dramedy-romance.” Richard Curtis wrote the screenplays for “Love, Actually,” “Notting Hill,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” and (a big credit in my book) numerous Black Adder episodes! But, this film is risky and ambitious given the tightrope it attempts to walk.

The wonderful Bill Nighy (the aging rock star in “Love, Actually”) is the epitome of the diffident, self-deprecating British gentleman. As civil servant Lawrence, he’s caught in a café where the only empty chair is across from Gina (Kelly Macdonald). Ever so cautiously the two are caught in a slow motion emotional collision. The aging Lawrence is impatient for all that he hasn’t accomplished, in his love life or his role working for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, where he seems sincerely dedicated to making anti-poverty programs work, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

Gina is not such an open book; something of a girl with a past. However, and most un-Englishly (?), she calls ‘em as she sees ‘em. And she likes and admires Lawrence. They share a few meals; some good conversation. Then he impulsively invites her to a fictitious G-8 poverty summit in Iceland where we encounter the almost Capra-esque tightrope walk. Can the English civil servant’s career survive a “calls ‘em as she sees ‘em” kind of girl”? Can a heart worn on the sleeve actually change those cloaked in bureaucratic bean counting? It’s a charming journey to the just barely believable ending.

Very Good: Shadrach (1998) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144604/  This is a genuinely warm film from a short story by William Styron, directed by his daughter Susanna. Sentiment is certainly present; nostalgia too, but they’re restrained. Given its subject matter, the movie never hit a cringe-worthy note.

Harvey Keitel and Andie MacDowell are Vernon and Trixie Dabney, “white trash” descendants of the once-mighty antebellum Dabney clan of Tidewater, Virginia. We meet them through the voice of our narrator, Martin Sheen and the point-of-view of ten year-old Paul Whitehurst (Scott Terra) the best buddy of the youngest (and stinkiest) Dabney boy, Little Mole (Daniel Treat).

The much-reduced Dabneys are trying to navigate life in 1935 rural Virginia, barely supporting an unwashed mob of children with the trickling aid of Vernon’s moonshine still. One day Shadrach (John Franklin Sawyer) limps into their lives, a 99 year-old former slave who has walked from Alabama to die and lie in “Dabney ground,” specifically the former plantation’s slave cemetery. Shadrach is more a presence than a character, and only manages about ten comprehensible words in the whole film.

Everyone but Vernon is touched to realize Shadrach’s dying wish, despite changes in the law announced by their sympathetic sheriff. Burials on private property are now prohibited, and everything must go according to the books, at a cost of $35. Vernon, who we know will cave eventually, is nonetheless outraged (something he’s great at). That’s a lot of moonshine. The plot simply follows Vernon’s machinations to save the still, outwit the law and score one for the old black man.

What really makes the film is the no-questions-asked approach of the Dabneys as they deal both with Shadrach’s and their own plight. Something approaching unconditional love is working busily throughout. On the drive to the old Dabney plantation, Shadrach’s incontinence blasts even the BO-hardened Dabneys out of the packed car. Trixie gets a bucket and some rags and yet another bottle of beer and cleans the old man, soothing his pride all the while. (Admittedly, while suitably dirty, Andie MacDowell remains remarkably attractive after mothering a brood of kids and swilling beer all day.)

Paul and Edmonia (Monica Bugajski), one of Little Mole’s four older sisters, form a special attachment to each other and the old man. These inter-relationships are the focus here, rather than the obvious social and economic issues engulfing them. There’s no place for any serious explorations of slavery or politics (apart from Vernon’s ritual cursing of FDR). These are the terrors afflicting life, compared to which even death “ain’t much.” Triumph is found in keeping humanity alive right to the grave.

From 25 “Music”

Very Good: On Borrowed Time (1939) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031754/  This is an old-fashioned, no-apologies, no-holds-barred heartstring yanker that still works on the modern viewer. Older films often require us to slip into the cultural context of their period in order to keep that “willing suspension of disbelief” safely suspended. Otherwise, dated film conventions can come across as laughable or corny. This movie needs very little such adaptation to work its magic, achieving an entertaining timelessness.

 

The plot is derived from countless folk tales where death is embodied as a being, somehow confined by a human, and then ultimately released to continue what is demonstrated to be his grim but necessary work. “On Borrowed Time” comes from a 1938 Paul Osborn play, with Death played by Sir Cedric Hardwicke. The great Lionel Barrymore plays his wily opponent Gramps, with the orphaned Pud (Bobs Watson) as the boy at risk.

 

“Mr. Brink” has already killed off Pud’s parents in a car crash, leaving him in the loving care of Granny Nellie and Gramps. Then Granny goes. Meanwhile, the snarky Aunt Demetria is hovering about, looking to get Pud’s inheritance by having Gramps pronounced unfit.

 

Her task is made easier by Gramps having been granted a wish, made in haste as the neighborhood kids were stealing his apples. Henceforth, anyone climbing into the apple tree must remain there until Gramps says otherwise. Naturally, Mr. Brink gets caught in the tree, leaving his work undone the world over. Not even a fly can be killed. But only Gramps and Pud can see or hear him.

 

Several plot twists later, we get a pretty neat ending which I won’t spoil except to say it is unsentimental yet touching, especially for those who hope for an afterlife. This is a feel good film about feel bad stuff, rendered by a sparkling cast on good old black and white film stock. “They” don’t make them like this any more, and – in this case anyway – why bother?  

 

Good: The Last King (Charles II: The Power & the Passion)  (2003) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364800/  This is a BBC series picked up for American TV by A&E. Accordingly, it has the lavish “Masterpiece Theater” look throughout, as well as some nice biography of a little-understood ruler often called “The Merry Monarch.” Charles is wonderfully-played by Rufus Sewell to a literate script by Adrian Hodges (HBO’s “Rome”).

Charles II was the son of Charles I, the last English king to claim rule by divine right. After the English Civil War had cost Charles I his head and, following Cromwell’s death, left Britain rudderless, the Brits decided they wanted a King after all – just a modern variety. Charles II agreed to rule under Parliamentary supervision, which he hated. But certainly not enough to refuse the job. This portrait of one of the first constitutional monarchs is interesting in that political dimension alone.

But “Merry” Charles became notorious for his mistresses, and that’s mostly what we get. Happily, he had interesting mistresses, from ex-prostitute/actress Nell Gwynne to French spy Louise de Keroualle. Court intrigues and betrayals play against the backdrop of the return of the Plague in 1665, London’s Great Fire and the conflict with Holland. Domestic conflict revolves around an assertive and Protestant Parliament taming a vigorous, Catholic-tolerant (and, like Henry VIII, heirless) king. There might have been more to explore outside the boudoir in this series.

And maybe there is. Be warned. This is only a “three quarter review” because I fell for the common DVD version available from Netflix, Amazon and so many others, which, at 188 minutes, is a full hour short of the original series. Some nudity was cut, censorship that is always insulting on its own. But there can’t have been an hour’s-worth of nipples and pubic hair. There may well be further interesting history aboard. Why A&E, who is responsible for the butchery, foists it off on an unsuspecting DVD market is hard to fathom. However, at Amazon you can still rent an import from Holland, listed at a 288-minute runtime, usually under the extended title “Charles II: The Power & the Passion.” Note: Unless they have “Region Free” DVD players, North Americans will have to add Region 2 (Europe, Japan, etc.) to their default Region 1 setting (US/Canada) in order to play this DVD (a VHS tape is also available).

From 24 “Love”

Excellent: Agora (2009) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1186830/ This is the rarest of love stories, exploring the passion for ideas — good and bad. The tale is derived from what’s known of the life of 5th century scholar Hypatia of Alexandria, a radically unusual woman for her time: a philosopher and teacher who counsels all-males leadership — even daring to address the council. And they listen. For a time. Fanaticism is abroad, and fanatics don’t listen.

The film falls into two parts, separated by 20 years. It opens where Hypatia is most at home, teaching a small body of students, some pagan, like herself; some Christian. The Empire has been Christian for almost 200 years, but adherents are only now beginning to flex their muscles in Alexandria with its rational Hellenistic traditions. The coming conflicts are already evident among the students.

Her early pupils include Orestes, her primary confidant and a pagan fated to convert and become Imperial Prefect. There is also Synesius, a Christian who will one day become Bishop. And then we have the clearly fictional Davus, Hypatia’s gifted slave, hopelessly in love with his mistress and doomed to become one of the Christian “enforcers” we find terrorizing the streets 20 years later. Davus provides the character in whom we most vividly see the conflicts of faith vs. reason taking their toll.

Hypatia, beautifully played by Rachel Weisz, is inevitably caught up in the ideological struggles that grow violent as the muscle flexing builds. Her doting father Theon is in charge of what remains of Cleopatra’s great “Mother Library,” burned during Julius Caesar’s occupation of the city. Unhappily, the orphan library is located in the Serapeum, a pagan temple. The Christians, backed by a Christian emperor in Constantinople, have their way with both the poor library and Hypatia. Scenes of Hypatia and her colleagues scrambling among the flames trying to decide which manuscripts to save and which to let burn are heart-rending.

Hypatia’s love of neo-Platonism and the open mind is opposed by the Christians who already have all answers. It is hard not to see them as precursors to the Taliban. History tells us that local politics played a larger role in Hypatia’s fate than ideology, but for the film, and as a principle applicable to all times, a single quote will suffice. Shortly before her death Hypatia confronts her ex-pupil, now-Bishop, “Synesius, you don’t question what you believe, or cannot. I must.”

Good: Flame and Citron (2008) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0920458/  This Dutch movie follows the true exploits of Netherlands resistance figures Bent Faurschou-Hviid (“Flame,” owing to his red hair) and Jorgen Haagen Schmith (“Citron,” for his work at a Danish Citroen factory sabotaging German cars). Their exploits are sufficiently exciting to keep the film going, but the producers delve deeper, examining the bitter confusion at work among many resistance outfits fighting late in the war.

Citron drives. Flame shoots. Simple. But as the war winds down, they begin to wonder about who they’re killing and why. Who is the “real” enemy? This had been straightforward stuff in the early days.

Both fighters report to one Winther, who is supposedly in direct contact with the Allies and Queen Wilhelmina’s government in exile. For years now their targets have been Dutch collaborators, especially overt Dutch Nazis. Suddenly they’re ordered to begin killing Germans, which, of course, upsets the Germans a good deal more than the loss of a few locals. Why bring on the added heat in 1944? Are conservative factions looking forward to the peace merely out to eliminate their communist “brethren”?

All over occupied Europe, the far left was arguably the most active source of resistance. Now that the war is ending, were the Reds going to reap all the glory and political power that might logically follow? Not if they were dead. And, of course, the Reds were thinking the same thing. For their part, the Germans were delighted to set such factions at each other’s throats as they stalled for the next miracle weapon or dreamed about an anti-USSR alliance with the West.

Further, there were always private scores to settle while the chaos of war could still provide cover for grudge fixing. All it took was a little misinformation and the “wrong” car would be riddled with bullets, playing havoc with Flame and Citron’s conscience.

Long used to knowing who’s who, Flame and Citron are now in murky waters. There is definitely a traitor in their midst. Is it the same woman with whom Flame has just fallen in love? All these elements conspire for an absorbing biopic with plenty of action and a gray undercurrent creeping in to muddy once-clear, if always dangerous, waters.

From 23 – “Science”

Very Good: Ride with the Devil (1999) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0134154/  During the American Civil War the North and South fought a particularly nasty conflict “out West.” During pre-war political struggles over whether Kansas would be free or slave, the “Jayhawkers” committed atrocities for the abolitionist cause. The “Bushwackers” did the same to keep the world safe for slavery. The “heroes” of this film are in the latter camp. This puts the viewer in a nifty bind, inevitably sympathizing with the Bushwackers while hopefully despising their politics.

Director Ang Lee, working from a novel by Daniel Woodrell, gets his actors, especially the pre-Spider Man Tobey McGuire, to deliver moving performances using very affective period English dialog. The film generally seems to keep faith with what we know about the Civil War on the Western front. Sharp engagements are brutally rendered, interspersed with the dirty tedium between battles. We’re shown the insane raid on Lawrence, KS by the notorious William Quantrill and its disastrous aftermath. We share a filthy winter dugout with our holed-up Bushwackers, bored and frozen stiff. This is proverbial war: endless tedium, merely punctuated by terror.

The plot is satisfying. But the love story and the course of the War function mainly to support the inner workings of the main characters as they confront their peculiar time and fates. Often they’re more pissed off at their neighbors for internecine Border State feuds than they are at the Yankees.

Jake Roedel (McGuire) is viewed with recurring suspicion from his own Southern Bushwacker side for being German American at a time when most German Americans were Union. He’s only fighting because his best friend is fighting. Then his best friend is killed. “Holt,” a freed Black man, is only fighting because his beloved former master George Clyde is fighting. Then Clyde gets killed. Like Roedel, “George Clyde’s Nigger” must then confront his own demons. The murderous Pitt Mackeson (“Tudors” Henry VIII, Jonathan Rhys Myers) is only fighting because he loves killing people.

And finally, that’s it. The pathological appeal of war is laid especially bare in the West, far from the well-uniformed and occasionally even disciplined armies of the East. In this case we’re shown the type of men who couldn’t wait for the war and hot footed it to Bloody Kansas to start killing early for or against slavery. The farmers and townspeople caught in the middle must both chose and die. There must surely be nobility in “the cause,” but the war quickly kills that, making for an excellent war film, as thoughtful as Clint Eastwood’s work in the genre.

I came across two “Flawlesses” recently, neither very substantial, but good material for a “two-fer” review.

Not so good: Flawless (2007) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780516/ Director Michael Radford, Demi Moore and Michael Caine must have been short on rent money to make this molasses-slow jewel heist film. The two leads more or less sleepwalk through an already sleepy plot in which she’s a diamond outfit exec who has hit the glass ceiling in early-‘60s London, and Caine is a janitor with a con.

This one starts out promisingly, with the oppressed exec and janitor planning a spiffy revenge. Then it stalls. Caine, as “Hobbs” sells Moore’s frustrated “Laura Quinn” on a plan to steal just a coffee cup’s worth of gems, enough for both to retire handsomely; not so much as to even be missed. The mechanics of the break-in are fun to watch, and we should be overjoyed when, instead of a cupful, Hobbs utterly cleans out what looks like several tons of stock. But it all takes too long, and we’re left in need of a cinematic pay off.

Pretty good: Flawless (1999) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0155711/ This Flawless is from Denmark, starring Robert De Niro and Philip Seymour Hoffman as misanthropic cop and damaged-but-resilient gay man (characters pretty familiar to both actors). De Niro is an ex-hero already in decline when he suffers a stroke that leaves him stooped and all-but-speechless. He has already established a mutually-hostile relationship with gay neighbor “Busty Rusty,” played by Hoffman, but solitude and desperation makes strange bedfellows even when bed is out of the question.

After professional attention fails to rehabilitate De Niro, Busty Rusty becomes his speech therapist, teaching through singing. De Niro naturally hates it, but, also naturally, thrives while making increasingly important friendships with Rusty and his drag queen pals. When the crisis comes, community rides to the rescue.

Again, insubstantial stuff, and hardly “flawless,” but lots of fun to watch. In 1999 Hoffman was just emerging from TV with Boogie Nights (1997) and The Big Lebowski (1998) as his main film credits.  He and De Niro are great together.

From 22 – “Happiness”

Guilty Pleasure: True Blood HBO (2008) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0844441/  Yes we all must have a few: long-winded, neo-tabloid soft-porn TV series by HBO, SHO, et al. “True Blood” is tops in the genre. A Louisiana town called Bon Temps has a small but diverse population, liberally seasoned with telepaths, shape-shifters, witches and, more commonly, vampires.

Vampires are “out of the coffin” since artificial “Tru Blood” hit the market. Now they’re just an odd new ethnic group striving hard to fit in among skeptical neighbors with many guns. Our heroine Sookie Stackhouse, telepath and Southern Belle, has fallen for the brooding but kindly 173 year-old vampire Bill Compton. He’s ruggedly handsome, if somewhat greenish. Their friends don’t approve, and the plot can start from there. It thickens entertainingly, always coming back to the Lugosi habit being so hard to break for the upwardly-mobile vampires. Here’s a snip from an IMDB synopsis that will give you an idea of the action on any given night in Bon Temps, from Season One, Ep. 12:

“The charming Rene, formerly known as Drew Marshall, is actually a psychopath bigot who kills women who associate with vampires and he ends up chasing Sookie to the local graveyard near Bill’s house. After hearing her screams, Bill risks his life by going out into the sunlight to rescue her, while Sam turns into his dog form to help. While in jail, Jason is approached by a representative of the Fellowship of the Sun, the anti-vampire church, and he gets a new view on life.”

That may have been OK right up to where Sam turned into a dog, and it’s this kind of bizarre development that keeps moving things along to ever-more-insane complications. Aazort’s kind of town.

By Season 2, the anti-vampire church people have captured Sookie and another vampire-dating (but non-telepathic) guy for some cruel death ritual in which Sookie’s own brother built the scaffolding in between balling Mrs. Church Lady whose sadistic husband is sure to suspect. ‘Probably already does. This is profound.

Like nearly all these weeks-long series, “True Blood” is great to ignore while actually being broadcast. Then you get to pick up the DVD a year or two later and wallow in weirdness on your own schedule. It’s already a guilty pleasure. Actually arranging your time week to week to watch in real time might lead to downright shame.

Excellent: The Man Who Would be King (1975) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073341/  Classic films are a great comfort to one’s old age, and at over 4000 local years old, I have a severe case. This thrilling Rudyard Kipling tale defines adolescent male fantasy: there isn’t a shred of sexual romance to be found.

But historic romance has rarely been filmed so well. The macho-wielding John Huston directs Michael Caine and Sean Connery in their prime, playing Peachy and Daniel,  weary noncoms in the British Army who plan to leave Her Majesty’s Service, buy twenty rifles and conquer far off “Kafiristan,” in order to become … kings. Or at least live like them. Their ripping travel adventures along the way are legendary, and when they arrive, they’re briefly seated at the top of the world.

Daniel has braved an arrow wound and amazed the Kafiristaners as invulnerable, possibly a god — and perhaps even descended from the last white man they knew here, Alexander the Great in 328BC. Unfortunately, Daniel takes this bit of myth too literally and their new-won world falls apart, to a brave but eerie end.

Early in the film Peachy and Daniel meet Christopher Plummer as reporter Kipling, the narrator of their tale, on a train. They have stolen and now must return his watch. Kipling’s Masonic emblem engraved on the watch has made P & D contrite over stealing from a fellow Mason. Both NCOs wear their own mason’s “Level and the Square” device around their necks. At a crucial moment winning Kafiristan, Danny’s Masonic emblem is seen by the High Poobah who falls away dumbstruck. Surviving the arrow was one thing. But this … He leads them to Alexander’s fabulous golden treasure, cached under the aegis of a deeply carved ”Level and the Square”! Alexander was a Mason! (Why not?)

And so Danny becomes King. And wrecks everything.

And, earlier, just short of their destination the two soldiers find themselves cut off from their goal by a gaping chasm; doomed to starve and freeze on the near side. They somehow fall to laughing so loud that an avalanche obligingly fills the chasm. They’re saved by their own high spirits.

Kipling had a nice appreciation for such happenstance. It’s just one of several threads our very human heroes get to explore — along with parts of Morocco, standing in for “Nuristan.” Kipling’s “Kafiristan” was mis-called in his time, but is apparently a real place in Northwest Pakistan where the locals believe themselves descended from Alexander.

From 21 “Government”:

Pretty Good: I Am David (2003 UK) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327919/ Twelve year-old David escapes from a communist prison camp in 1952 Bulgaria with only a compass (courtesy of a helpful communist officer), a bit of soap, a jackknife and a mysterious sealed document that he must take to Denmark. The implication is that all will be revealed.

David is, understandably, skeptical. In fact, he’s almost catatonic with suspicion. Haunting and uncertain memories of his parents’ fate and his own years in Stalinist camps have produced a truly warped kid. With the invaluable help of the still-suspect guard, David makes good his escape. It’s the first of many lessons involving a renewal of trust in an inherently untrustworthy world.

What follows is a combination adventure yarn and coming-of-age tale. The players are all low-key and convincing. The pacing pulls an always-reluctant David to his fate. And we witness what use David makes, incidental and grand, of his four almost mythic totems. 

Following his escape, and further assistance from stowaway-friendly sailors, David is shown dragging himself ashore in Italy. From stop to stop the camp mind drops away, and he does finely finagle his way to Denmark– into the keeping of Sophie (the forever-engaging Joan Plowright). And, eventually, “out of darkness, life blossoms.” It’s an old tale, and this is an enjoyable retelling. 

Excellent: Downfall (2004 Germany “Der Untergang” – subtitles) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363163/ There have been numberless “Hitler’s Bunker” films over the years, some pretty lame. This one is definitive. Much of “Downfall” is based on The Last Days of the Third Reich (2002) by German historian Joachim Fest [1926-2006], and Until the Final Hour (2002) and Voices from the Bunker (1989) both by Mr. Hitler’s personal private secretary, Mrs. Traudl Junge (1920-2002). Some may recall Junge’s first interviews from in the superb 1974 BBC series “The World at War” narrated by Laurence Olivier. 

Alexandra Maria Lara plays Ms. Junge, a political naïf who just loves being at the center of celebrity, complete with the charms of the avuncular Adolf, played to searing perfection by Bruno Ganz. All the usual suspects come and go playing their various parts, Goering, Himmler, Speer and, of course, the ever-loyal Goebbels. Events unfold with appreciable historic accuracy. The last known still photo and footage of Hitler at the bunker are dramatically rendered, including his feeble presentation of medals to a group of adolescents wearing what look like buckets on their too-small-to-die heads. 

As Hitler and all around him come apart at the seams, only the pathologically irrepressible Eva Braun (Juliane Köhler) struggles to keep a party atmosphere. What’s a little Gotterdammerung? Turn up the music! But they can’t quite drown out the Russian guns singing for the Fuhrer’s birthday. In addition to the drama, there’s a surprising amount of action portraying the impact on civilians of the ground war finally coming home. The city streets keep the film from becoming overly claustrophobic. 

Perhaps one quote from Joseph Goebbels best sums up the astounding lunatic rationales floating so freely around the bunker: “I feel no sympathy. I repeat. I feel no sympathy! The German people chose their fate. That may surprise some people. Don’t fool yourself. We didn’t force the German people. They gave us a mandate, and now their little throats are being cut!”

Here, indeed, was an well-manipulated “mobocracy” in full oligarchic flower as a strong man and his cronies waltzed away with the Weimar Republic.

From 20 “Islam”:

Really Good: The Merchant of Venice (2004) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379889/ Here’s a very important writer’s very important play that, as Roger Ebert noted in his original 2005 review, had never before been made into a talking motion picture.

In the era of silent film, of course, the Ku Klux Klan was still a political force and the holocaust hadn’t yet happened. This meant that the play’s anti-Semitism could be happily dismissed; even enjoyed. By the time “talkies” hit their stride, political correctness had intervened and there were “safer” plays to film. But by 2004 director Michael Radford had written his own honest screenplay from the Shakespeare and proceeded to make a terrific movie, warts and all.

And there are a lot of them. Except for the glorious “Hath not a Jew eyes?” that Al Pacino as Shylock delivers (to an audience of two menials and a couple of prostitutes), the era’s Jew-baiting sensibilities are on full display. This is progressive Venice in High Renaissance 1596, yet the republic has already given the world “ghetto,” coined from its Ghetto Vecchio isolating the Jews. Christians are in full-throttle blood libel mode. The film opens with protagonist Antonio (Jeremy Irons) casually spitting on Shylock in the street and manners do not improve. Happily, interesting characters and plot devices are coming and going throughout — including the gender switching game of which Shakespeare is perhaps overly fond.

Shylock is not a sympathetic character. He wears his stereotypes too proudly and too eagerly pursues his pound of flesh until Antonio is freed on a technicality. I think we sympathize with him anyway for getting spat on and asked for money by the same guy, for his savage daughter’s betrayal, and most of all for getting caught in an idiotic religious fetish.

Really Good: Spirited Away (2001) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/ Animation for adults is a relatively new and wonderful development. Most grown-ups can get a lot of enjoyment from such ostensible kid’s fare as “Toy Story” or “WALL-E,” but there is something special in stories originally conceived for adults. The Japanese especially have a track record for adult animation that shoots for mythic strings.

“Spirited Away” literally starts out off the beaten path, as young Chihiro’s parents take a turn down a desolate road that drops them off at what appears to be a derelict theme park. Lo and behold, they wander into a bustling buffet set out with all sorts of food and no cash register! They dig in even as Chihiro gets suspicious. Sure enough, her parents are turned into pigs, destined themselves for the buffet.

The rest of the film follows Chihiro’s adventures trying to rescue her parents. The characters she discovers working in what amounts to a bathhouse for the ancient spirits and gods of Japan are wacked. Animation lends itself wonderfully to a freehand rendering of imagination. What might be terrifying is just shrugged off by the indomitable Chihiro, for whom bizarre apparitions and loony chores become the daily traffic. The viewer, meanwhile, has to wonder, “who thinks up this stuff?”

From 19 “Marriage”:

Excellent: Billy Budd (1962) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055796/ Trumpeting the introduction of an impossibly-young Terence Stamp as Billy, this is the Peter Ustinov production of the Herman Melville classic “Billy Budd, Foretopman,” one of numerous fine novels that were ruined for so many by high school. Ustinov stars and directs a surprisingly-moving and highly-relevant film.

We watch a new “pressed man,” the irrepressible Billy, grow to be loved by officers and crew alike aboard a British Man of War in 1797 . He is promoted to Foretopman and apparently enjoys life aboard what is supposed to be little more than a floating prison under occasional fire from the French. Inevitably, however, Billy is pushed over the edge by the hopelessly-evil Master of Arms John Claggart (Robert Ryan), and a glancing blow turns fatal. Billy’s striking, let alone killing a superior officer – in wartime yet – puts everyone in an impossible situation.

During a secretive court martial, the always-wonderful Ustinov as Captain Vere is horrified, along with the rest of the presiding officers, at what the Articles of War demand. Their moral predicament, knowing Billy is innocent in spirit, however guilty by the letter, is portrayed as shattering. Further, there have already been recent mutinies in the fleet. The crew hated Claggart and they love Billy. They won’t like a hanging. In one moving scene, Capt. Vere literally pleads with a reluctant Gunnery Officer (played by David McCallum) to give him something, anything, to escape passing judgment.

It is the dilemma of Billy’s judges, apart from the Billy-as-Jesus metaphors that cluttered American Lit 101, that really strikes home. How low must humanity stoop in the high cause of honor and duty? Pretty low.

Very Good: Bigger, Stronger, Faster* (2008) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigger,_Stronger,_Faster* Ostensibly, this is a documentary about steroid use in sports, written, directed and hosted by a former body builder from the scene. (The asterisk in the title is a reference to the “asterisked” stats of users in the official sports record books, as in “bigger, stronger, faster … BUT …”.) Our guide Chris Bell has an active intellect, and looks into the “bigger, stronger, faster” theme of the American Way.

California Governor and former steroid user Arnold Schwarzenegger is the perfect foil here. He spouts platitudes about drug abuse at one moment and in the very next hosts “The Arnold” body building competition with its dozens of pumped up people (who look increasingly like comic book action figures). Like females attempting the physically-impossible Barbie look, these poor guys are caught in a nasty body-image trap.

Bell delves into the entire spectrum of drug-enhanced American competitiveness in sports, business, politics, education, the arts, and the military. His interviews and cut-away sequences are masterful. We see philharmonic musicians using “Beta Blockers” to defeat nervous tension. Active duty fighter pilots take “Go Pills” to stay alert (in one case a troop of Canadians are hit in a tragic, amphetamine-jangled encounter). Popeye must have his spinach! Bell includes cultural clips from a wonderful variety of sources. He includes the famous “Patton” opening, with George C. Scott standing before the gigantic American flag railing against “losers.” It is pitch perfect.

Only in sports do performance-enhancing drugs and techniques come under scrutiny and condemnation. Former President George Bush Jr. is shown lecturing the nation on steroids after having been owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team. The Rangers featured stars like “The Bad Boy of Baseball” or “The Godfather of Steroids,” Jose Canseco, who literally wrote the book on steroid use:  2005’s “Juiced.”

The usual suspects are everywhere preaching doom and spreading myths about “’Roid Rage,” shrunken testes and suicide. One father whose son used steroids and subsequently committed suicide has a busy foundation noisily damning steroids. He refuses to hear any science about the drug, despite the fact that his son had just withdrawn from Lexapro, an SSRI antidepressant notorious for generating suicides at withdrawal. “Assassin of Youth” hysteria reigns.

This film is described as “unfocused” in some cable listings, apparently from the sheer ambition of Chris Bell who reaches into the whole American “fairness” ethic. What he finds time and again seems to be more about fashion.

From 18 “Artists”:

Very Good: The Yacoubian Building (2006) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425321/ (Wikipedia’s entry for both the book and the film is more informative than IMDB, but IMDB’s user reviews, many from Egypt, are very interesting.) Adapted from the bestselling 2002 novel by Alaa Al Aswany, this film provides a wonderful panorama of the general human condition as well as a specific study of Egyptian society in Gulf War-era Cairo.

Our story centers on a real Cairo office/apartment building which, like Egypt itself, has not worn modernity well. The grander apartments are still much sought by would-be “pashas” and the well-connected, while erstwhile storage cubicles on the roof house the poor. This microcosm generates at least seven fully-drawn characters, many of whom interact as they attempt to navigate modern Egypt.

The anchor character is “Zaki Pasha,” a 65 year-old roué who chases women, lives off the estate of his father (“a real Pasha”). Zaki is forced to move into his office at the building when his crazed sister locks him out of their apartment. Zaki Bey el Dessouki, is played movingly by Adel Imam, a film star and oft-time comedian well-known to Arabic-language cinema.

Up on the roof is Taha el Shazli (Mohamed Imam), a young man whose father is the building’s caretaker. Taha has done well at school, but can’t realize his dream of becoming a policeman, thanks to class prejudice. He becomes estranged from his secular-oriented girlfriend and fellow roof-dweller, the lovely Buthayna el Sayed (Hend Sabri) and eventually falls in with terrorists.

Buthayna herself has to work various menial office jobs where she is expected to provide non-coital sexual favors for extra tips. So long as actual intercourse is not involved, her mother is blasé. Furious and increasingly cynical, Buthayna plots to help sucker Zaki out of his apartment, only to find herself in a May/December romance.

Fill in various schemers, a closeted-but-connected gay bureaucrat (a great taboo breaker in both book and film), the rise and fall of a country boy made good as a dope and influence peddler, and Christine, an old flame of Zaki’s who sings locally and gives romantic advice. This carousel manages to keep interest churning right through its longish two hours, 45 minutes.

The Yacoubian Building is sometimes funny, often tragic and always pointed in its portrayal of a nation with God and prayer forever on its lips while the rest of the body is entirely pre-occupied elsewhere. Dr. Aazort actually found this one on cable TV.

Not So Good: Surrogates (2009) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986263/ This should have been a pretty good “Matrix”-type action picture from director Jonathan Mostow, complete with an examination of humanity’s problems with its toys; in this case the ultra couch potato experience of having your surrogate robot do the hard work of living for you. Sold by the VSI company, your surrogate is much better-looking than you, and comes with options like super strength, etc. The pretty decent plot comes from the five-issue comic book series, The Surrogates (2005-2006), written by Robert Venditti and drawn by Brett Weldele.

Unhappily, this is one of those rare films that manages to cut its own throat right at the climax. I include a “spoiler alert” here, in this case primarily aimed at filmmakers who spoil their own movie. A film that is already treading dangerously-worn territory has a chance to say something, and then runs away.

(spoiler alert) :  The mysterious weapon Our Hero FBI Agent Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) has been chasing throughout the film, a Hitchcockian “MacGuffin” in every sense, has been shown and then explicitly described as lethal to both the surrogate on the street and the user back at home on the couch. At the climax, Agent Greer has finally chased down the weapon and has a “Yes/No” option as to whether or not to release its deadly code from a main terminal to everyone currently online. But he hesitates. We already know he’s come to hate this soul-destroying technology. Will he follow his FBI momentum and stop the virus, preventing the deaths of billions of users? Shockingly, he chooses to let it through! Wow. BIG choice! Billions dead. The tree-hugger renegades already shown will inherit the Earth! Evolution is derailed!

And, sure enough, surrogates are shown dropping everywhere. But — surprise! — the users survive. We are told in a voice-over from Pre-Test Hell that, for some reason, only the surrogates were affected. The users are shown wandering outside, blinking in their PJs, wondering who pulled the plug on their toy self. No problem! All they have to do is get a new surrogate and this dystopia is right back in business.

What a cop-out. An at least generically watchable film grosses out viewer intelligence and is reduced to wannabe status. If I had paid more than my regular cable bill for this one … grrrr.

From 17 “Adaptation”:

Very Good: Two Brothers (“Deux frères” 2004)) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338512/ This is a wonderful Disney-type animal adventure film, minus the Disney. French director Jean-Jacques Annaud, who also directed 1989′s well-received “The Bear,” tells a tale set in French Indo-China in the 1920s. The brothers in question are two tiger cubs, Kumal and Sangha. One is captured by an Indiana Jones-type played by Guy Pearce and sold on to the circus. The other is likewise caught and passes to a regional administrator as a gift for his son, who learns the complications typical of presuming to domesticate an “exotic” pet. The brothers’ fates seem to be on utterly separate paths.

But, with the passage of a year and growth to full tigerhood, the brothers meet again — in the arena of combat. Far be it from Dr. Aazort to give away the ending. (OK. They tear each other to pieces. Sorry. Is alien joke.)

This outing is heartwarming but well to this side of sappy. This beautifully made and touching film got a PG rating for some of its grit.

Not very good: Saving Grace (2001) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0195234/ Dr. Aazort is a big fan of cannabis and the modern culture that’s grown up around it in the West. I first encountered this remarkable herb while traveling with a party of Scythian merchants over 2500 years ago. I was invited to stick my head into a small tent where a few pounds of cannabis flowers had been fired up into a thick smoke. I found it a most pleasant diversion, with minor “entheogenic” properties that I’ve enjoyed from time to time ever since. Accordingly, I’m always on the lookout for popular films and the impressions they give, especially to American audiences. In the United States, cannabis is among a variety of drugs under legal prohibition. One can actually be sent to prison for indulging, even while toxins like tobacco and alcohol are government-subsidized, taxed, and marketed. Repeal is in ferment, so film makes a promising area for observing how humans deal with ignorance.

“Saving Grace” looked hopeful in this regard; a comedy about a widowed woman (Brenda Blethyn) who finds that her departed husband has left her in terrible debt. (A more recent Showtime series called “Weeds” explores the same premise to far better effect.) Grace’s own green thumb combined with the (rather limited) pot savvy of her gardener Matthew (played by the film’s co-writer and current late night TV host Craig Ferguson) set the adventure in train.

Alas, while pretty charming at the start, this movie finally becomes too darn silly. Its portrayal of cannabis as some sort of extravagant nitrous oxide/laughing gas, while benign, is just more disinformation. (Making tea from a single leaf turns two elderly women into gibbering clowns; a cloud of smoke engulfs a crowd, causing policemen to run naked, etc.) At the self-referential wrap up, I had about run out of groans. I wanted to like this film, but, especially post-”Weeds,” it suffers for the lack of even a little sophistication about its subject.

From 16 “Abortion”:

Very Good: Water (2005) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240200/ Speaking of women’s rights, this heartfelt Indian film tells the story of Chuyia, a child bride widowed while still a virgin in 1938 India. This is one of those wonderfully-unpredictable stories where developments simply develop. No way can you guess how this little girl, or her friends, are going to make it, if they make it.

Following the arcane rules of India’s patriarchy and the caste system of the time, Chuyia can either marry her dead husband’s younger brother if he’s handy, commit “sati” by throwing herself on the funeral pyre, or go to a widows’ home to live essentially as a nun. In practice, the widows’ home operates as a brothel.

Chuyia is befriended by a beautiful young woman, Kalyani, who teaches her some of the survival skills she’ll need in this ashram/whorehouse, run by a deceitful old woman, Madhumati. Kalyani is already servicing clients whilst embarked on a chaste love affair with a Brahmin young man, a modern thinker and follower of Gandhi who is determined to marry her, despite her degraded status.

Again, there is too much to spoil here. Suffice to say we get a look at India before Gandhi and some experience of the plight of women everywhere.

Very Good: The Girl in the Café (2005)  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443518/ This may be a groaner of a film in its Frank Capra touches, but the story is hilarious and we get a terrific character study. Lawrence (Bill Nighy) is a British civil servant to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, late middle aged and utterly isolated. Nighy plays Lawrence as the perfect fit to John Cleese’s description of the upper class Englishman: wound spring tight and forever apologetic.

Confronted with an overcrowded café at teatime, he forces himself to sit (diagonally across, not face-to-face!) at the same tiny table with Gina, a pretty working class girl (Kelly MacDonald). Somewhere in the process of moving from diagonal to face-to-face, Lawrence crosses a chasm and falls for her frank charm.

It’s 2005 and Lawrence is bound to the G8 summit in Reykjavik where his government’s promises made in 2000 to help end poverty must somehow be swept under yet another carpet. He invites Gina to go with him, giving her a briefing on global poverty in the meantime that utterly radicalizes the girl. Their romance unfolds against this unlikely political backdrop, as Gina, however improbably, holds the entire British delegation’s feet to their own fire. Great fun.

From 15 “Sex”:

Very Good: Fingersmith (2005) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0423651/ Here’s a wonderful film that revels in the old fashioned notion of a good tale well told. At first, the plot seems straightforward enough: Susan Trindle (the “fingersmith” or petty thief played by Sally Hawkins) is a teenaged orphan in a mid-Victorian den-of-thieves run by “baby farmer” Mrs. Sucksby — played by the instantly-recognizable Imelda Staunton (Miss Octavia Pole of the BBC’s “Cranford” series and Harry’s “Defense” teacher two Harry Potter outings). Mrs. Sucksby and a Mr. Rivers (Rupert Evans), a handsome cad with good breeding but no cash, offer Susan a share in 40,000 pounds. All Susan needs to do is get hired on as a lady’s maid to sheltered heiress Maud Lilly (Elaine Cassidy) and steer her past her possessive, porno-collecting uncle to elope with Rivers. Once Maud is married, she’ll be eligible for the cash — and then trundled off to a madhouse with the connivance of Rivers’ doctors and attorneys. Rivers, Susan and Mrs. Sucksby will then divvy up the cash.

Matters quickly go awry. Susan gets Maud to Rivers, all right, but not before Susan and Maud fall in love, both experiencing a heretofore unknown tenderness (sufficiently eroticized for “Fingersmith” to win note in Best. Lesbian. Decade. Ever. [2000 - 2009]). Maud dutifully (however inexplicably at the time) elopes with Rivers and cashes in, but not before some stunning betrayals that leave us gasping for Part Two. I can’t spoil the many twists and turns, but Part Two elaborates and unwinds multiple duplicities and affections to a truly satisfying conclusion. Just great. (Adapted for a three-part BBC TV series from the Sarah Waters novel; shown in two-parts on a single three-hour DVD.)

Very Good: Changeling (2008) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0824747/ Director Clint Eastwood tells the true story of a remarkable incident that occurred in 1928 Los Angeles, wildly driven by abuses within the LA police department under the notorious Captain J.J. Jones. The resulting scandal shook up the entire LAPD and resulted in legislation limiting police powers. One Christine Collins, a single mother played low-key by Angelina Jolie, was literally forced to accept another child in place of Walter, her missing nine year-old son. Five months after Walter disappears, and with media circus in tow, the police produce a boy who plays the part for his own reasons (he’s a runaway from Iowa who likes the idea of going to Hollywood). They pass the boy off on a doubting but overwhelmed Christine.

The more Christine objects to the masquerade (“Walter” is too short, mysteriously circumcised and the dental records don’t match!), the more vicious become the warnings: don’t make Captain Jones and his officers look mistaken. Or else. The corrupt chief, even after satisfying himself that “Walter” is not Walter, actually sends a “delusional” Christine to an insane asylum to make her accept the fraud. John Malkovich plays St. Paul Presbyterian Church Pastor Gustav Briegleb, a radio reverend who does a good turn, helping to publicize the case.

Involvement eventually transpires with the sensational “Wineville Chicken Coop” kidnapping and murder case. The real Walter may or may not have escaped one Gordon Northcott and his wife, who abused and murdered up to 20 children at their ranch in Riverside County. Christine is left with hopes, however slight (and, in real life, unrealized). Eastwood wisely avoids exploiting the drearily lurid murder case and keeps the focus on Christine and her helpless condition at the hands of corrupt authority supposedly established to protect her. In addition to a good story, Eastwood presents a wonderfully-reproduced 1928 Los Angeles. The city itself becomes a character, somewhat as it was in “Chinatown” or “L. A. Confidential.”

The lengths to which powerful officialdom will go to hide a mistake were — and are — horrifying to behold. “Changeling” provides an early example of this particularly vicious brand of bureaucratic presumption and hubris.

From 14 “Economics”:

Pretty Good: Taken (2009) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0936501/ Liam Neeson, as “Bryan Mills,” is a retired spy currently working security for celebrities as he belatedly tries to cultivate a relationship with his now-17 year-old daughter, living with his ex-wife and wealthy new husband. He still has the “particular skills” learned in his Black Ops days. When his daughter is snatched into the sex slavery trade while visiting Paris, Mr. Mills gets a chance to polish his particular skills. This is a pretty predictable piece of work respecting the kidnap/rescue plotting, but Neeson does a great job pushing the plotline at a breakneck pace. He breaks many necks working his way up through an Albanian crime outfit straight to the “end user” of his daughter. By the time Neeson confronts the ultimate villain, predictably holding his daughter by the neck with gun to her temple, we know he is not going to drop his gun and talk. We get plenty of action, with a judicious mix of gunfire, explosions and car chases. Credit goes to director Pierre Morel for the sharp pacing that still keeps us on this side of overkill, maintaining a bizarre sort of realism as Mr. Mills expertly manipulates people, places and things to the desired climax. He does seem awfully well-equipped and in remarkable physical condition for a “retired” spy, but my willing suspension of disbelief was not abused.

Very Good: Avatar 3D (2009) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/ Dr. Aazort had to drag himself away from his home entertainment pod and get out to a large cinema for this one. Director James Cameron’s magnum opus is simply gorgeous to behold, and, unlike so many recent films, the special FX and overall computer work don’t get in the way of his story telling. In fact, the technology is quite transparent and helps move the story forward. Alas, the story itself is pretty much “Dances With Wolves in Space,” when it could have been a great deal more. Nevertheless, as film experience the work still leaves you feeling pretty darn good.

Still on the technical side, the 3D is really enjoyable. The effect is especially pronounced in the Imax 70mm format which starts out with a bigger piece of film to project for a very sharp image, even in a multiplex, let alone a giant “planetarium” installation. And, if you’re lucky, your venue may provide an “active” 3D system and the alternating shutter glasses that go with it — often reviewed as the best combination. Still, “passive” glasses, mere polarized lenses, do a marvelous job with even a 35mm print. The “performance capture” technology, catching every little twitch of muscle in the actor’s faces, guarantees a future for human actors. No animator in his right mind will be seriously attempting to “do human” from scratch with this process available.

Moving to the art, Avatar is wonderfully conceived and executed. The eye wants to linger over the stupendous variety of plants, animals, and gaping vistas, an appeal that will probably make multiple viewings rewarding. The conceptual sci fi is intriguing, given the nature of “Pandora,” the planet where all the action occurs. The local “Navi” who play the role of the beleaguered Sioux in “DWW” sport a culture we’d like to know more about, and the spiritual (and physical!) link they have with their biosphere, a “Gaia” planet mother, likewise begs more treatment.

But “the play’s the thing,” and we’re finally left with a story pitting acquisitive Earth imperialists out for “unobtainium” instead of gold or oil, against a “primitive” culture that, in a departure from “DWW” at least manages to have the last laugh. Our turncoat is not a Federal cavalry officer, but a Marine (not labeled as American, but referred to as “jarhead,” as in the US), who falls in love with a female warrior of the clan whose home is parked on top of a fat load of unobtainium. Without the resonance of American history, we don’t have the instant empathy “DWW” enjoyed, and our hero’s change of heart seems awfully abrupt. But, again, story hasn’t been given the proper attention to begin with, so it’s no doubt pointless to mark the details. Given the attention this film has gotten and the month or so it’s been in release, I feel I can say all this without much fear of being a spoiler. Of all the planets I’ve visited, none have been “Pandora,” and this film sold me on a trip. Most likely in a sequel.

From 13 “Religion”:

Very Good: HBO’s Rome, Season 1 (2005) and Rome, Season 2 (2007) IMDB:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0384766/dvd#B000Q66PXE and Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000Q66PXE I’ve watched this entire 22-episode series maybe three times and always enjoy it. Yes, “Rome” plays tricks with the historical sequence of events, but rarely exceeds the bounds of artistic license. (Cleopatra killed herself ten days after Antony. We really don’t need a subtitle, “Ten Days Later …”) A resounding ring of authenticity drowns out most objections, giving us an “anti-Hollywood” Rome, the “city of brick” that Augustus claimed to have left in marble. Writers Bruno Heller, William J. MacDonald and the ever-swashbuckling John Milius get tremendous mileage from their storyline and create wonderful characterizations of both the famous and fictional.

The story begins with Julius Caesar in Gaul about to fall out with older colleague Pompey “the Great,” takes us through the ensuing civil war and Caesar’s assassination, and ends with the rise of Octavian and fall of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. The entire tale is told through the eyes and adventures of centurion Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) and common soldier Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson). (The character names come from two centurions Caesar singles out in his memoirs of the Gallic War.) We have a sprawling 22 episodes with both seasons combined, parceled out by twos and threes to directors Michael Apted, Allen Coulter, Alan Poul, Timothy Van Patten and three others. They give us a grimy, weird, violent, highly religious and often hilarious landscape of what occasionally seems like a sci-fi civilization. James Purefoy’s Mark Antony is at once despicable and loveable, a combination of traits shared by many of the main characters and intricately displayed on such a large canvas. (The TV series form is delightful in this respect. Who would make a 22-hour movie — outside of the old USSR?)

“Rome” is a monstrously-grand title for a subject still riddled with holes left by historians ancient and modern. This is by far the best fictional portrayal on film of its most famous lives and times. Great history, great soap opera. A movie version is rumored to be in the works. Like the proverbial “book/film” comparison, I suspect the series will always be better.

Fairly Good: Music from Another Room (1998) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119734/ As genre, this is indeed “merely” a feel-good romantic comedy. But making the predictable interesting is a rewarding trick that writer and director Charlie Peters pulls off satisfactorily in this direct-to-video release. Danny (Jude Law) is just a kid of five or six when fate tricks him into delivering a neighbor’s baby girl. One look at the squalling brat, and his heart is taken. He is determined to marry Anna Swan, played as an adult by Gretchen Mol (“The Notorious Bettie Page” 2005 and many others.) And Danny remains determined upon returning to California after 25 years growing up in England. (Perhaps the easiest way to deal with an English accent.) He is now an accomplished tiler, busy restoring a local church. But he gets no respect from his apparently shallow life’s love, already perfectly engaged to the already perfect jerk Eric (Jon Tenney). Nor does he generate much excitement from the perhaps overly-eccentric Swan family. Danny’s magical squalling brat has grown into a beautiful but complacent young lady, but, needless to elaborate, and despite somewhat fizzling chemistry, fate decrees that boy gets girl.

The “how” is saved from ho-hum by good performances and writing, especially the watchable subplot of cosseted blind sister Nina, played by Jennifer Tilly. The coming out of insanely over-protected Nina mirrors the main plotline in higher contrast, especially when the timid-but-trying Nina meets the clumsily charming “Jesus the dishwasher” at a forbidden disco. Jesus the dishwasher has even less politically correct professional status than Danny the tiler. Yet another twist involves Karen, played by the always-winning Martha Plimpton, whose theater company is called “Women Without Dicks” — which nicely sums up the film’s humorous angles. Again, as a feel-good romantic comedy this is no “Shakespeare in Love” or “Conan the Barbarian,” but bring sufficiently modest expectations and you should actually feel pretty good.

From 12 “Social Compact”:

Good: Green Street Hooligans (just plain “Hooligans” in the UK) 2005 R http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385002/ A disillusioned young American is seduced by the peculiar manly rituals of British football (“soccer” in America). The British are the most notorious practitioners of football hooliganism and its strange mutation of the cult of macho. Appropriately, the film opens with a nice brawl between two rival fan gangs, or “firms.”

Quick cut to Elijah Wood as “Matt” at Harvard, just short of receiving his degree in journalism and caught the throes of being unfairly expelled, thanks to his roommate’s cocaine stash. A true “swell” with more money and better family connections, roomy tells him to shut up, cheer up, take ten grand and call him in a year for a career assist. Unable to fight the power or even contact his famous absentee journalist Dad, he takes the money and beats it to London to surprise his newly-wed sister. Her husband turns out to be big brother to Pete (Charlie Hunnam) the very “firm” leader we saw in the opening punch-out. Uh oh.

Thanks to the poor timing of his surprise visit, ex-Harvard’s Matt is unavoidably put in hooligan Pete’s care just as he’s en route to match. For his part, Pete is bummed. We learn that the “boyz” in Pete’s firm, a surprisingly-varied crew of workers, professionals and artisans, hate Yanks almost as much as “journos.” Matt is immediately dissed as an outsider, but earns a bit of respect when, to his own surprise, he finds he rather enjoys smashing faces in the inevitable after-match brawl that obligingly occurs. The next day, he has moved in with Pete, much to his sister’s dismay, and that of her new husband — who has special reasons to spurn his little brother’s leadership of the “Green Street Elites,” the unofficial firm for West Ham United.

Never having thrown (or received) a punch in his life, Matt’s inner monologs (and he’s keeping a journal, soon to bite him) reveal a newfound self-respect and delight in a code and camaraderie he’s never known. Matters tumble wildly out of control, but Matt gets an education Harvard never afforded.

Notable in this extremely violent film is the utter absence of firearms. An actual violent death is considered a big deal. Viewed from America, where innocent bystanders are regularly mowed down by hailstorms of gangster bullets, “Green Street” hooliganism comes off quaint and almost chivalric.

Very Good: The Boy in Striped Pyjamas 2008 PG-13 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0914798/ This is an indelible take on the Holocaust as seen through the eyes of two eight year-old boys, Bruno and Shmuel. It is brutally tidy, unsentimental, and bitterly touching.

Bruno is the son of SS Obersturmbannführer Ralf and wife Elsa, who, with older sister Gretel in tow, have moved early in WWII from their beautiful home in Berlin to “the countryside.” The rather dank country house is, in fact, command central for the Obersturmbannführer’s extermination camp (a take on the notorious Theresienstadt, where the “Potemkin village” propaganda film was made showing how well the Jews were being treated). The camp is concealed on the other side of a wood, and Bruno is barely allowed out of the yard. He has no one to play with and is bored stiff.

But, from his bedroom window, Bruno gets fleeting glimpses through the trees of a “farm” where everyone’s wearing “striped pyjamas.” And he regularly sees columns of oily smoke billowing up from … something nearby. Predictably, Bruno makes his way to a secluded corner of a highly-electrified barbed wire fence, where he meets Shmuel, a boy in striped pyjamas taking a breather out of view from the guards. Shmuel is also only eight, and only a little less confused than Bruno about what’s happening. He says he is a Jew, and for some reason, the soldiers took away his and his father’s clothes, put them to very hard work and gave them almost no food. He doesn’t know what’s happened to the rest of his family.

Bruno returns regularly to play checkers with his new and only friend and, very carefully, pass stolen food through the fence. He simultaneously begins to worry about the farmers and his father’s role in all this. Cut to a screening of the Theresienstadt film at the house, where both Bruno and the Commandant’s increasingly-suspicious wife Elsa are re-assured that the Fuhrer’s camps are great fun.

Suspicions and tensions grow. Shmuel suddenly appears in the house one day, a surprise replacement for an older Jewish attendant recently beaten to death by one of the Commandant’s underlings. A heart-wrenching betrayal immediately occurs when Bruno gives Shmuel a piece of cake, the Nazi underling catches him eating it, and Bruno denies knowing the boy, the cake, nada. Shmuel vanishes, eventually re-appearing at the fence rendezvous suitably beaten, but accepting of Bruno’s apology.

Finally, Elsa breaks down and it’s time for wife and kids to go home. Bruno runs to find Shmuel who says his father has just disappeared. Bruno will help find him, making up for the cake betrayal. Just find another small set of striped pyjamas. The rest is an ineluctable procession of wonderful horror and terrible cosmic revenge.

From 11 “Aliens”:

Not good: Equilibrium 2002 R http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0238380/ Christian Bale has done notable work lately, and Dr. Aazort will suffer much for his sci-fi fix. But I’m sorry Mr. Bale wandered into this pale blend of THX-1138, Fahrenheit 451 and Matrix Reloaded. After a Third World War that the species has nevertheless survived, a fascist regime run by “Father” has decided to prevent war by preventing emotions. Emotions are prevented by jabbing a gun-vial of Prozium into your neck several times a day (THX-1138′s emotion suppressant drugs were at least easy to take). As further guarantee, art, music, literature are prohibited, which brings us Bale as “Cleric” John Preston, a super agent and “gun kata” (see Matrix) who seeks out and burns the original Mona Lisa in the opening scene. (No one thought to make a copy? I enjoy mine.)

I should add that “love” is also prohibited, but unlike 1984 or the other dystopian classics, writer/director Kurt Wimmer has likewise banned any love interest from his script as well, making for an extra dry story. We get reels of acrobatic, slow-mo handgun love, but … “Matrix did it.”

The “sense offender” resistance eventually co-opts Preston (yup, he missed a dose. When will tyrants learn to put it in the toothpaste?). There is a nice twist or two near the end as Preston moves to assassinate “Father,” but it’s too little twist too long in coming.

Really Good: In Bruges 2008 R http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780536/ This is one of those finds in which Dr. Aazort delights, a film he’d heard of “somewhere” and remembered to great reward. It’s a “crimedy” (Dr. Aazort will assume he has coined this genre) in which Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, two Irish hit men working in London, are ordered to lay low after Farrell assassinates a priest (an uncredited Ciaran Hinds, the wonderful Caesar in HBO’s “Rome”). Their boss, a delightfully wicked Ralph Fiennes, sends them to Bruges, a beautifully-preserved medieval city in Belgium, to await further orders.

The older, easier-going Gleeson likes the old city, whose charms utterly evade the easily-bored Farrell. As the days pass, every character we meet takes on absorbing dimensions: an American “little person” actor named Jimmy working a film shoot, Chloe, the film company’s dope hook up and romantic interest for Farrell, even the hostess of the bed and breakfast accommodations from which Farrell must escape when the infuriated Fiennes must come to Bruges himself to see that his new orders are followed. Fiennes is in grand form, hopelessly limited in a vocabulary that actually makes “fuck” funny, and so ferociously principled that he must follow through on a rash promise, no matter what. The “what” propels us to a grand climax. Perhaps like Bruges itself, the film is a classic little gem.

From 10 “Stress”:

Not Good: The Duchess of Langeais, (aka “Ne touchez pas la hache“) 2007 NR http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0781435/ This is a movie directed by Jacques Rivette and shown with subtitles on cable television and DVD. The film is an adaptation of a much-admired 19th Century French author Honoré de Balzac, and stars the promising Guillaume Depardieu, who died tragically in 2008.

I found this film claustrophobic and rather mean, where I believe it sought stage set dramatics and some useful views about love. I found the views trite and needlessly depressing. An admirer of the film, Brannavan Gnanalingam http://www.lumiere.net.nz/reader/item/1778, characterized Balzac’s and the films message as: “Love is but an obsession, a tool of ownership and possession, nothing more.” Ouch. Perhaps the book was better (this is what humans invariably say of film adaptations of literature). The director Rivette is famed for his long films. The longest, the 13-hour Out One, is legendary for its single 1971 screening. The Duchess of Langeais at just two hours is remarkable for feeling like 13.

Good: Mad Men: Season One” 2007 NR available on four DVDs as a set ($39.95) http://shop.amctv.com/product/show/34681 or via Netflix.

This is the fledgling AMC’s second original series undertaking, for which they went straight to The Source: Matthew Weiner, the Emmy® award-winning executive producer and writer of HBO’s phenomenal “The Sopranos.”

Set in 1960, the 13 episodes from this first season explore the true fountainhead of the “consumer goods” mania referred to above (and much of the stress that goes with it), namely the world of advertising. “The Golden ’50s,” a period of American world hegemony and unprecedented affluence, are portrayed through the daily lives of the “ad men” who idealized and sold the original consumer ethic: “Having (insert product name) will make you happy.” The bogus “creativity” involved in rephrasing this message a million times with just the right twist of mediocrity, is underscored by the number of characters who are working as “real” writers, artists, etc.

The lead is one Don Draper (actor Jon Hamm), a Korean war veteran, whose curious past rumbles in and out of the episodes, with even his deserted little brother’s suicide apparently leaving him unaffected. He cheats effortlessly on his neurotic Grace Kelly clone wife, has no connection whatever to his children, and seems to define “honor” as having something to do with his work — above all, his place in the “troop’s” hierarchy. His genuine values remain a mystery, since the innate shallowness of his role in turning citizens into consumers is forever obvious. We expect he will explode at any moment. We hope he will. Tune in next season (or rent it the season afterwards).

From 9 “Politics”:

Good: Transsiberian 2008 R  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800241/ An American couple (Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer) looking for some bonding experience get a real adventure on the legendary, once-romantic-now-rather-worn Trans-Siberian Railway. They end up sharing some space with another couple, a suspiciously-charming youth and his suspiciously-reticent girlfriend. Drugs, corruption, murder and some nice deceptions ensue. Ben Kingsley and a menacing Thomas Kretschmann co-star as two Russian police officers on the case (or in it?). Little is what it first seems. From a suspense thriller by novelist Brad Anderson. Available on DVD, Blu-ray and from some streaming video sites.

Really Good: Howl’s Moving Castle (Hauru no ugoku shiro) 2004 PG http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0347149/ Yes! It’s anime for people who don’t like anime. No exploding robots or spaceships here, but an absorbing story based on a children’s fantasy novel. It’s a dull little town with a dull little life for post-adolescent Sophie who works in a hat shop. Abruptly, she’s turned into an old woman by Lauren Bacall! Actually, it’s just Bacall’s voice playing the evil Witch of the Waste. Only the wizard Howl can break the spell, and Sophie runs him down in his fabulous walking castle, powered by the fire demon Calcifer. Mind bending art design and gentle humor from director Hayao Miyazaki.

From 8 “War”:

Good: An Ideal Husband (UK) 1999 PG-13 http://www.answers.com/topic/an-ideal-husband-film-2 Here’s a nice, old-fashioned romantic comedy with roots deep in Oscar Wilde. It’s set at the turn of the 19th century, dealing with themes (if you look kinda hard) about right activity and moral compass. Cate Blanchett sans ten years is wonderful as the naive wife. Julianne Moore is lovably evil, and Lord Arthur Goring (Rupert Everett) stands in as a hetero Oscar W., London’s most eligible and dissolute bachelor. It offers a straightforward plot, that still manages some twists and turns. Just enjoyable — and this is more than I can say for too many much newer films.

Really Good: Sin City 2005 R http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401792/ I loved this “pulp noir” “American Manga” thing from comic book artist Frank Miller, directed by Richard Rodriguez and Miller, with some guest directing by Quentin Tarantino. This is a black and white, high contrast urban nightscape splashed with appropriate colors as the levels of gore demand. There are a variety of great actors: Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Elijah Wood spinning out three entwined stories that cycle back on each other in the fun Tarantino style we aliens have grown to love. It’s all tarted up with great special FX and computer work and makes sense in its own world (happily enough, not mine). The movie is way heavy with style, but apparently faithful to Mr. Miller’s original vision. I had never heard of him.

The new (“unrated”) standard, Blu-Ray and HD versions are now out. Check out the site at http://video.movies.go.com/sincity/ and, if (like me) you don’t often buy DVDs, look for the least-cut version you can watch on cable, Netflix, etc.