Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Starring: Abigail Breslin, Greg Kinnear, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin, Toni Collette, Steve Carell

First, the Lowdown: The youngest daughter of the world’s oddest family has a chance to compete in a beauty competition. ROAD TRIP!

Meet the Hoovers. Richard spends his days promoting his pathway to success course and dreaming of the big book deal in the sky that he’s going to get. Consequently, his wife, Sheryl, is the only income earner and it shows in every worry line on her face. Their sullen oldest son, Dwayne, is fully in the throes of teenage rebellion, but has decided to display it in the most unobtrusive way possible: by taking a vow of silence. Also living with them is their Grandpa, whose juvenile attitude makes Dwayne seem almost rosy and optimistic. The only beacon of normalcy in the family is Olive, who spends most of her time in pursuit of the only princess-like fantasy that a girl her age can engage in without peerage: beauty competitions. Adding to the mulligan stew of quirkiness is Frank: a Proust scholar who attempted suicide after being spurned by his gay lover.

When one of the contestants for the Little Miss Sunshine contests has to bow out, Olive is picked as a replacement. However, Sheryl and Richard’s finances are so strapped that they cannot afford to fly to Redondo Beach where the contest is located. Grandpa has been training Olive for competition for months and refuses to leave her side, and no one wants to leave the recovering suicidal Frank alone – so they all pile into the family VW for a road trip to California.

Since Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, the road movie has gotten rather formulaic as of late. In order to be interesting you have to put it in a really exotic location and/or have compellingly original characters (something that was executed on both points rather well in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.) And try as it might, Little Miss Sunshine’s characters are original, but in such a fashion that it looks like the filmmakers were trying to one-up each other in the “who can make the weirdest character” contest. (“Dad’s a failed motivational speaker!” “Oh yeah? Grandpa is a heroin addict!” “Oh yeah? Oldest son Dwayne is not only a sullen teenager, but he’s taken a VOW OF SILENCE.” “Oh yeah? Uncle Frank tried committing suicide – and he’s a GAY PROUST SCHOLAR!”) The only two characters who aren’t given any weirdness factors are also the two with the least development: Sheryl and Olive.

This brings me to my major problem with the movie. The thing about road trip movies is that the more people you shove into the car, the less likely you’re going to have character development. Sheryl and Olive are practically normal in comparison with their co-stars, and while Olive’s role serves as the catalyst for the movie (she’s the one competing, after all), Sheryl’s only purpose seems to be to bitch at the other characters. A staple of all road movies is that everyone in the car (or vehicle of conveyance) has to have some moment of personal revelation in the movie. And indeed everyone has their “moment”, except for Sheryl. Personally, I think the movie would’ve been more compellingly original if they didn’t have her present at all, but I guess the makers felt it needed more women.

That isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy the movie. There are quite a few laugh-out-loud moments to be had here, especially the hints at children’s beauty pageants being a socially accepted form of pederasty. Steve Carell is thankfully low-key here (then again, this movie did come out before he got to be typecast as a bureaucratic douchebag). And it’s great to see Alan Arkin as a foul-mouthed jackass instead of the person who has to react uncomfortably to the foul-mouthed jackass.

Line of the movie: “So, if you sleep until you're 18. Think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school: those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that.”

Three and a half stars. Keep of the grass.

La Strada (1954)

Starring: Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina, Richard Baseheart, Aldo Silvani, Marcella Rovere

First, The Lowdown: A poor girl is sold to a circus performer and works on the road

In the poverty-stricken countryside of postwar Italy, a traveling strongman, Zampano, arrives to the home of an aging widow with some bad news. The widow’s daughter, Rosa (who was Zampano’s assistant), met with an accident and is dead. Beyond the widow’s grief lies the fear of how she will be able to care for her children – Rosa was sending her pay to her mother to support her family. However, Gelsomina, is of the perfect age, even if she is a little slow-minded.

Life on the road isn’t all fun and games however. In line with his strongman act, Zampano is an equally brutal man who frequently belittles and abuses Gelsomina. However, he is the only family she has, and while busking from village to village is hard, it’s easier than scrounging to survive with her family in the country.

One evening, Gelsomina is awestruck by the Fool, a high-wire performer. Eventually the pair signs up with a traveling circus, where the Fool is also signed up with. However, the Fool churlishly insults Zampano, sending the strongman into a rage. Their brawl is broken up by the police, and now scandalized, the circus tells both Zampano and the Fool to leave. They offer to take Gelsomina in, but she demurs, having grown too accustomed to Zampano’s presence.

Once again drifting, Gelsomina and Zampano run into the Fool once more, changing the tire for his car off the side of a road. Zampano takes advantage of the opportunity and beats the Fool senseless. However, Zampano underestimates his strength and the Fool dies of his injuries. Horrified at the display of brute strength and saddened at the loss of one of the few people who was kind to her, Gelsomina becomes overwhelmed by sadness.

Not being very fluent in Federico Fellini’s works, I’m finding myself in an odd position. Most film critics hail La Strada as the definitive Fellini film and the best of the Italian Neorealism cinema. Not being familiar with the former of that statement, I can only say this about the latter: the best of Neorealism can be found in De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief.

The major point of contention I have for La Strada is its pacing – it seems to take a while to get anywhere, and by the time we get there the movie is almost over. Much of that time is taken up by setting the theme and then by reestablishing it over and over. By the forth or fifth iteration of seeing how harsh and abusive Zampano is to Gelsomina, I found myself hoping the director would get to the point. (Not a good sign for a film.)

On a more positive note, La Strada shows how well Fellini can present characterization. Our players are not given very much back story - in fact, any attempt at it is rebuffed: Gelsomina keeps asking Zampano about her late sister Rosa, only to be ignored. But the characters aren’t one-dimensional. If anything they appear to be both archetypal and play off each other: Zampano keeps belittling Gelsomina’s simple-mindedness, but at the same time keeps displaying a different kind of folly.

Line of the movie: “I don't know for what this pebble is useful but it must be useful. For if it’s useless, everything is useless. So are the stars!”

Three and a half stars. One size fits all

Three Extremes (2004)

(Originally released as: Saam Gaang Yi)

Starring: Bai Ling, Miriam Yeung, Lee Byung Hun, Lim Won Hee, Gang Hye Jung, Kyoko Hasegawa, Atsuro Watabe

First, The Lowdown: Three Asian directors bring their own perspective to the horror genre.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you want a fresh perspective on a genre that’s been ground down to cliché, look to foreign film. From China, Japan, and Korea comes a vignette of three stories, each one breathing new breath into horrific cinema.

“Oh, what price is vanity.” In Fruit Chan’s Dumplings, “Auntie" Mei is a cook with a perky Rachel Ray-esque demeanor, whose dumplings have been renown for their curative properties – especially for restoring beauty. However, the special filling she uses in her potstickers is something straight out of straight out of Hansel And Gretel. (I’m not going to tell you much more, let’s just say it is what you think it is when you see it.) Mrs. Li is an aging actress who has been trying to get the attention of her rich but philandering husband for years, and hopes that by looking as young as the mistresses he fools around with, she’ll succeed. After a initial tasting, Mrs. Li is convinced that she needs something more potent – and Auntie Mei willingly obliges. However, since the local clinic has been under investigation, Mei has to find her own source of “stock.”

In Park Chanwook’s Cut Ryu Ji-Ho, a famous director returns home from shooting his latest film (a vampire movie set in a house that looks identical to his own), only to be knocked out by an unknown assailant. He awakens to find that he has been returned to his set with his hands bound, and a leather strap tied to his waist to prevent him from straying too far. The Ryu’s wife, a pianist, is also there – and she too is elaborately bound and epoxied to the piano on the set. His captor is a former extra who has been in all of the Ryu’s movies. But when asked why the extra would do this, he expresses his displeasure at the Ryu’s wealth and status and sees kidnapping and torturing the man as an indictment on the Calvinist philosophies that the extra feels are prevalent in their society. The extra then offers the Ryu a proposition: he’ll let them go, if the Ryu kills a child the extra has brought with him.

In Takashi Miike’s Box Kyoko is a successful, but reclusive novelist who lives an a sparse apartment building. She is also haunted by visions of her dead sister, Shoko – who she danced with when they were circus performers. Their ringleader, however, always favored Shoko over Kyoko (in more ways than one). One evening, Kyoko locked Shoko in a box (a prop used in a magic routine) as a means to prove herself to their ringleader. However, the ringleader tries to free Shoko and the pair struggle and amidst the conflict a kerosene heater is knocked over – igniting the box Shoko was trapped in. One afternoon, Kyuko receives a mysterious invitation to the same carnival she fled from – only now to confront what is in Shoko’s box.

While watching the three segments, I was amazed at not only where each film’s inspiration lay, but also how it was used without seeming like imitation. Dumplings is in essence The Portrait of Dorian Gray told via the Brothers Grimm and presented by David Cronenburg. Cut is very Hitchcockian in nature, particularly Chanwook’s usage of close-ups. And where the story to Box recalls David Lynch’s Eraserhead to some degree, visually it bears more than a passing resemblance to a film from one of Miike’s forebears in Japan: Seijun Suzuki’s Tokyo Drifter.

I find it sadly ironic that Asian cinema has managed to present an original horror anthology by returning the genre back to its roots (something that we here in America rarely do). Instead of stomach churning gore, we have gut-wrenching tension. Instead of bogeymen in horrifying makeup, here we have human monsters to confront.

Line of the movie: “Just think of the results, not what it was.”

Five stars. I see my shadow.

Reign Over Me (2007)

Starring: Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle, Jada Pinkett Smith, Liv Tyler, Saffron Burrows, Donald Sutherland

First, The Lowdown: A dentist reunites with his college roommate, who lost his family in the 9/11 attack.

Alan Johnson practices cosmetic dentistry, has a lovely wife and two daughters, but does not have much else. His life entails staying at home and working- and that’s all. While on his afternoon commute home, Alan accidentally sees Charlie Fineman – his old roommate from dentistry school. But Alan’s attempts on getting Charlie’s attention are for naught because of the noise of traffic (and Charlie’s headphones). The next evening, however, Alan successfully meets up with his former schoolmate, only to find out that Charlie has no recollection of Alan at all.

Charlie used to be a successful dentist of his own, and then his wife and children died in the plane attack on the World Trade Center on September 11^th. The loss devastated Charlie so much that he withdrew away from anything that reminded him of his former life, instead building an insular wall that keeps him safe from painful memories, but also very alone. As such, Charlie has put everything from his put out of mind so that it can’t hurt him.

As Alan begins to hang out with Charlie, he finds that he wants to do all he can to Charlie heal his wounds. But Charlie has grown so accustomed to living has he has that he shies away from any help. The only people he has regular contact anymore is his landlady and his accountant (who used to be a close friend of Charlie’s his until the incident.) However, Alan is a new presence, and as such won’t inquire about Charlie’s family, nor will bring any reminders of them.

Meanwhile, the more Alan is around Charlie, the less he is around his own family – which further opens the rift of communication between Alan and his wife. And while Alan has taken a personal stake in helping Charlie overcome his obstacles, it becomes more clear that Alan is doing this for his own healing as well.

9/11 was a weird time for everyone involved. My uncle lives in Manhattan and thusly had front row seats to the entire event. For a while it looked like it was a wound that we were never going to heal from. But time is the ultimate healer – and in the years hence we have just begun to let go of some of the pain that was inflicted during that event.

Out of all of the “let’s revisit the World Trade Center disaster” movies that have been brought out recently, I think Reign Over Me is the least political. We’re not concerned with terrorism or politics, merely with healing. If anything, 9/11 is used more as an explanation rather than a backdrop – Charlie probably would’ve reacted the same way if he had lost his family to a fire or a car accident (or even a typical plane crash).

I was rather impressed with Adam Sandler’s performance in this movie. Much like Jim Carrey’s role in Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind, Sandler is very understated. Plus, there are a handful of lines that out of context could’ve been the punchline to a joke, but here they only emphasize how tragic Charlie truly is.

Line of the movie: “Any chance of you getting audited this week? Because that would make things even better.”

Four and a half stars. Beware the fourth estate.

District B13 (2004)

(Originally released as Banlieue 13)

Starring: David Belle, Cyril Raffaelli, Tony D’Amario, Larbi Naceri, Dany Verissimo, François Chattot

First, The Lowdown: A cop and a street punk have to take back a nuclear bomb from a gangster.

Paris, France – 2010. To help contain the rampant crime in the city, the more dangerous districts have been walled off to keep the dangerous persons in. Now those neighborhoods are run entirely by the strongest gangs, and the poorer citizens are kept under their thumb. Leito makes an honest living by keeping his apartment block clean and safe from crime, by eliminating any drug dealers. After intercepting over 1 million Euros in heroin, Leito did not anticipate the intended recipient, Taha, to miss it so quickly. Taha sends a group of thugs to retrieve the stolen merchandise and bring back Leito alive, but unfortunately Leito had already disposed of the drugs (down the drain of his bathtub). The thugs’ attempt to capture him is equally unsuccessful as Leito is a master of the anti-gravity art of Parkour – making the man as easy to hold onto as a handful of Jell-O.

Taha is not terribly amused that Leito has given them the slip and has his men kidnap Leito’s sister, Lola. However, they did not anticipate on Leito following them to Taha’s base. Before Taha has the chance to have the message go out to Leito about his sister, he bursts through a window and takes Taha hostage. The brother and sister lead Taha to a police checkpoint, only to find out that the police are pulling out of their area and locking the door behind them. Leito implores to the police inspector in charge to arrest Taha for drug trafficking (after presenting a briefcase full of evidence), but after seeing that Taha’s thugs outnumber the cops, the inspector decides to arrest Leio instead! Taha takes Lola as compensation, and Leito goes to the hoosegow.

Six months later.

Capt. Damien Tomaso is an undercover cop with a well-deserved reputation for being the best. After seamlessly infiltrating and busting a crime boss’s underground casino, he is given a much more challenging assignment. An unmarked military vehicle was hijacked by Taha’s gang and taken to District B13. In the back is a “clean” neutron bomb, designed to wipe out the population, but leave the structures intact and disperse its radiation quickly. When Taha opens the crate for it, the bomb’s 24-hour failsafe went off. Now Damien has less than a day to find out where the bomb is and disarm it. His only guide to it, however is Leito.

It was only a matter of time before the filmmakers got hold of David Belle. I’m just thankful that it was Luc Besson (who brought us Leon and La Femme Nikita) instead of Michael Bay. For the uninitiated, Parkour is an eye-popping stunt-sport where it’s participants leap, flip, and climb over obstacles in such an efficient way, you’d think someone armed and dangerous was chasing them. The people who practice Parkour (or “traceurs") use physics that one only finds in video games and the occasional Shaw Brothers feature – only they aren’t doing it with wires. All one needs to do is look up “Parkour” on any video site and you’ll see what I mean (make sure you bring a pair of pants for when you shit yourself, though.)

So it was only natural that this physical feat was brought to the silver screen. Since the Wachowski Brothers brought about a martial arts renaissance not seen since Bruce Lee, it seemed that every Hollywood blockbuster had to cache in on the same success. (“It’s a good thing that supermodel knows kung-fu, otherwise she’d be screwed.” “Why don’t the nameless armed thugs shoot her, though? They got guns.” “Shut up, you’re breaking the movie.”) It’s refreshing to see stuntwork that doesn’t involve wirework normally found in a stage production of Peter Pan or look out of place on the characters using it (sorry, Shaquille O’Neal, but one Nintendo game does not a martial artist make.)

Unfortunately, the movie seems to be in too much of a hurry. After spending quite a bit of time introducing our characters in as action-packed a fashion as possible, suddenly everything stops so that we can finally figure out what our Maguffin is. The main dynamic of Leito and Damien seems to be to argue at length with each other and/or leave the other handcuffed to some random object. Plus, for a secondary character, we’re given a lot more background on Damien than Leito. Yeah, we realize that Leito’s a good guy (he hates drug dealers and looks after his sister, after all), but we don’t really know that Leito does. It’s a small point, but without it, Leito just comes off as the guy who can elude capture while looking slicker than a freshly shaved James Gandolfini on a Slip ‘n Slide coated with bearing grease.

Line of the Movie: “Take out your police manual and look up the page that says ‘up shit creek.’”

Four stars. Your shoelace is untied.

The Perfect Crime (2004)

(Originally released as Crimen Ferpecto)

Starring: Guillermo Toledo, Monica Cervera, Luis Varela, Enrique Villen, Fernando Tejero, Javier Gutierrez

First, the Lowdown: A suave floor manager is blackmailed into submission after killing his boss.

If there’s one thing Rafael knows how to do, it’s how to work people. It’s why he’s been so very successful as the manager of the ladies wear section in the department store he works in (and equally successful with seducing the female staff members that work under him – so to speak.) Rafael’s philosophy in life is that as long as he has a goal to aim for, the rest is merely details. Thusly, his current goal is to be floor manager: a prestigious job that not only will bump up his salary, but gives an additional commission on total floor sales, stock options, even a change to rub elbows with the store’s board of directors.

His competition for the job, however is Antonio: the menswear manager with a sour demeanor and worse toupee (not to mention questionable motives as to WHY he likes menswear so much.) Antonio is very much the foil to Rafael: where Rafael is free, easy-going, and lackadaisical about store policies, Antonio is strict, rule-abiding, and authoritarian to a fault.

In spite of their differences in beliefs, both men are excellent salesmen. As such, the board of directors has decided to fill the newly opened floor manager position to whoever has the strongest sales. After completing a 12,000 Euro sale of a fancy fur coat, Rafael has the position in the bag.

Or so he thinks. Apparently, the lady who purchased that fur coat overestimated what was in her checking account, and her check bounced! Antonio is immediately promoted to floor manager and his first action in his new position is to assign every single menial task he can think of to Rafael. To make matters worse, Antonio announces that Rafael is now transferred from ladies wear to big & tall. The final straw comes when Rafael sees the woman whose check bounced returning the coat, and he dresses her down in front of the whole store. This prospect delights Antonio to no end, for now he is able to fire Rafael! Before he has a change to hand his subordinate his walking papers, the pair argue in the changing rooms. The argument escalates into a full-blown fight where Antonio tries to claw open Rafael’s throat with a wire hanger. However, fighting in closed quarters is risky business and while trying to disengage, Rafael mistakenly impales his boss’s head on the back of a hook.

Rafael is thoroughly panicked now – no one is going to believe that he accidentally killed his boss (who he never got along with and frequently fought with). So he hides himself and the corpse in the store and waits until it closes for the evening. Rafael concludes that the best place to dispose of the body is in the furnace in the basement – unfortunately, Antonio’s body is too large to shove in the door to it. After scrambling to find a hatchet to cut the body up with, Rafael discovers that the body is missing! The next day, Rafael tries acting like nothing has happened (and isn’t doing a terribly good job at it) when he gets a note from mysterious stranger saying that everything has been taken care of. Rafael finds out that Lourdes, an average-looking salesgirl from a different department (who has been secretly crushing on him) not only wrote the message, but helps him dispose of the body! However, such things come at a price, and what seems reasonable to Rafael at first quickly blows out of proportion.

I’m always amazed how what can seem like a pretty pedestrian comedy can be improved just a little bit by changing its location. Maybe it’s my unfamiliarity with Spanish culture, but I know that if this movie were made here it would’ve starred Dane Cook and Alison Hannigan and probably made it so that the suave lothario and manipulative mouse would’ve seen past their differences and embraced their “inner beauty”. (Insert the sound of my eyes rolling here.) What made the film enjoyable for me is that none of the major characters pull any punches, even though it takes a while for one of them to finally do so. Weirdly enough, there are a couple of shots that are rather artfully done for what is otherwise a slapstick comedy. (For example: As Rafael buys a raincoat from a small shop, the camera pulls back to reveal that he’s been tailed by Lourdes who is waiting in a taxi, then pulls back further to reveal that SHE has been tailed by a policeman in a different car.)

Line of the movie: “Life is absurd. Even worse – absurd and stupid.”

Three and a half stars. Remember your hat.

Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)

(Originally released as Hauru No Ugoku Shiro)

Starring the voices of: Jean Simmons, Christian Bale, Lauren Bacall, Blythe Danner, Emily Mortimer, Billy Crystal

First, the Lowdown: A young girl is put under a curse when she is caught up in the intrigues of rival wizards.

Sophie is a shy an unassuming girl who works at her late father’s hat shop in Ingary. In spite of the pleas from her sister to leave to shop and make a life of her own, Sophie is quite content to work there and does not see how she could make it in the outside world. While returning to her own shop, however, Sophie is harassed by two unruly soldiers in an alley. Before they have a chance to elucidate their intentions with the girl, they are interrupted by the presence of a dashing young man, who with a wave of his hand forces the soldiers to marching away against their will. Sophie is immediately taken by the magician, as he sweeps her back home.

As she closes her hat shop, a richly dressed but vainly obese woman enters through the door. Sophie gently tells the woman that her shop is closed, but offers to help her quickly. However, the older woman sniffs at how tacky and common the items are and pretends to not care whether the shop is open or not. Not liking her (or her shop) to be insulted, Sophie demands the woman leave, which she does so by passing through the girl. The woman (who calls herself the Witch of the Wastes) informs Sophie that the best thing about the cursed placed on the young girl is that she can’t tell anyone about it. As Sophie stands puzzled as to what the mysterious woman meant, she realizes that she has been transformed into a 90 year old woman.

Realizing that not only will no one recognize her for who she is, nor will the curse allow Sophie to tell anyone about her predicament, Sophie runs away to the surrounding wastelands to see if she can find a cure for her curse. While walking, she happens upon a scarecrow lying in some bushes. After uprighting it, she asks aloud if there is a walking stick anywhere around. Amazingly, the animated scarecrow bounces off and finds one for her just as it begins to rain. Knowing an enchanted creature when she sees it, Sophie asks for it to find shelter. Soon enough, shelter arrives in the form of a magical walking castle heading directly toward her.

This movie was a somewhat frustrating experience for me. Hayao Miyazaki finally achieved international fame with the success of both Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, so when Moving Castle was announced, I was eagerly anticipating it. Visually, the movie is still no less than stunning - the characters inhabit a quasi-Victorian/Jules Verne land where parlor magic is as common as steam-powered airplanes. And thematically, the story starts out somewhat identifiable: where Spirited Away has been called Miyazaki’s Alice In Wonderland, Moving Castle is more akin to The Wizard of Oz (with a scarecrow character, no less.).

That being said, the film suffers from what Joe Bob Briggs refers to as “too much plot for the movie”. The characters are given elaborate backgrounds, and an interesting setup for conflict, but once we get even a smidgeon past that threshold we’re flung immediately forward without pause for resolution until the very end. Miyazaki took over this project after a different director stepped down from it, and it shows signs of that everywhere. Ultimately the film feels like a stemware set designed by Dale Chihuly – extremely beautiful and ornate, as long as you’re only going to be satisfied with merely looking at it.

Line of the Movie: “The nice thing about being old is you've got nothing much to lose.”

Three and a half stars. Once more, with feeling.

Downfall (2004)

(Originally released as Der Untergang)

Starring: Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, Corinna Harfouch, Ulrich Matthes, Juliane Köhler, Heino Ferch

First, the Lowdown: It’s Adolf Hitler’s last days in power and the walls are closing in.

Germany 1942. A group of young women are escorted by Nazi soldiers to a remote bunker in the late evening. Once there, they are told to wait a few moments until they are interviewed - by Der Fuhrer himself. All of them are nervous as this interview means that one will be chosen to be Adolf Hitler’s personal secretary. After a brief trial of dictating directly from Hitler’s recitation, he finally selects one woman – Traudl Junge.

Fast forward two years – it is now May of 1945 and Hitler’s birthday. As the Allied army closes in on Berlin from all sides, the leaders of the Nazi cabinet have holed themselves up in the Fuhrerbunker. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union is ever encroaching on the city and the Nazi leaders are realizing that defeat may be more imminent than they originally thought.

The problem with living in a culture prone to jingoism is that it’s all too easy to demonize your enemies. To this day the American public is so incensed by the Al Qaeda-backed 9/11 attacks that they perceive Osama bin Laden as a mindless psychopath instead of seeing the moral outrage at our culture that inspired the assault to begin with. So thusly, it’s difficult to remember that while Adolf Hitler’s actions and personal philosophy were monstrous, he was still a human being with the same frailties.

That’s not to say that Hitler was a likeable character. Bruno Ganz’s portrayal of the falling dictator is nothing short of inspired. Underscoring Hitler’s actions is an unbending philosophy that is so starkly painted, it sees no compromise. As such, when his designs fail because of their own shortcoming, Hitler is quick to blame others’ weakness – perceived or real. Each defeat is treated like a personal attack against him.

The bulk of “Downfall” takes place in an underground bunker, whose closed spaces only make the occupants the more claustrophobic. As the Soviet army closes in on Berlin, so do the walls of Hitler’s sanctuary start closing in on him. And like a caged animal, Hitler vacillates between calm and rage abruptly. No sooner has he praised someone for their unwavering loyalty to National Socialism than he begins lashing out at them for failure to bring about victory.

Two of the more interesting characters in the movie are Joseph Goebbels and his wife. Having taken the Nazi indoctrination so deeply, the idea of being defeated by the Allies horrifies them to their very core. So much so that they would rather die than live in a world without Socialism.

When it was released in Germany, much of the German media decried the idea of making a movie that was so Hitler-centric for fear that it would portray him in a sympathetic light. However, as has been pointed out by a few historians – in Downfall”Hitler frequently states that the German people do not deserve to survive, for it was by their failure to accept National Socialism that exposed their own weakness and thusly inability to survive.

As it is, however, Downfall is an interesting character study and provides a perfect example that while someone can be brutal and monstrous in their deeds, it is their frailties that expose their humanity.

Line of the movie: “I make so many mistakes when I dictate. You’ll never make as many as I do.”

Five stars. Be kind – rewind.

Garden State (2004)

Starring: Zach Braff, Ian Holm, Peter Sarsgaard, Natalie Portman, Armando Riesco, Trisha LaFache

First, the Lowdown: A young man who doesn’t emote finds himself thrust into emotion.

Andrew doesn’t feel much – a nightmare of a crashing plane doesn’t faze him. He wakes to a perfectly blank bedroom that matches his blank expression. When his father calls to tell him that his mother has died, Andrew doesn’t respond. In his bathroom cabinet is an array of prescription drugs that would make Keith Moon envious, and he touches none of them.

Flying home to Jersey from L.A., Andrew still doesn’t know what to do at his mother’s funeral. At the graveyard he runs into two old high school friends who invite him to a party later on. Andrew isn’t sure how to react, but at his mother’s memorial service, he realizes that he has to interact with his father and his extended family, which only convinces him that he needs to see his relatives as little as possible.

At the party, however, Andrew is even more disconnected, but this time he is in company he chooses to be with. The more time he spends reconnecting with old classmates and friends; Andrew gradually begins to allow himself to emote. But like a hidden prodigy he feels sheepish at expressing any emotion, even if it harms no one.

Because Andrew has been suddenly plagued by migraines, he goes to a neurologist and there he meets Sam. Where Andrew is reserved, Sam is frenetic – her conversation is hyperactive and scattershot, and frequently blurs the barrier of truth and falsehood so ably that we oftentimes don’t know when she’s being honest with Andrew. Andrew finds himself drawn toward her as she starts to embody the expressiveness that he craves.

When I found out that Zach Braff was going to be directing a movie, I was pretty skeptical. Braff’s performance in the series “Scrubs” has made him the heir to David Schwimmer’s throne on television. So much like Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine On The Spotless Mind I was thankful to find out that Braff is also capable of being understated. As a character Andrew doesn’t know how to act and often finds himself surprised by the actions he takes – so it’s good to see that Braff is equally capable of being just as reserved.

Braff’s skill as a director, however, can be summed up by a single image: Andrew exits his car after parking and sees a dismembered gas spigot still sticking into the tank as a result of forgetting to replace it at the station. There are many ideas that are left kind of unformed, almost as if Braff forgot to get back to them later on. Also at times it feels like he’s trying TOO hard to make the movie “quirky”. (For the prominence of the character of Sam, not much is really known about her.) Even more vexing is the presence of a couple of deleted scenes on the DVD release that would’ve been appropriate in the movie itself, but were left out almost as if Braff feared he was showing off. Then again, it is his first movie at the helm – hopefully he’s making these kind of errors early on to learn from them.

Line of the movie: “It's amazing how much of my life has been determined by a quarter inch piece of plastic.”

Four stars. Remember your sedatives.

Miracle Mile (1988)

Starring: Anthony Edwards, Mare Winningham, John Agar, Lou Hancock, Mykel T. Williamson, Denise Crosby

First, the Lowdown: A man finally meets the woman of his dreams, and has to rescue her before the world ends.

It’s amazing what can happen when you’re in love. Harry Washello is an old-fashioned kinda guy. He is the lead trombonist for a jazz ensemble and considers himself to be quite contentedly single. Then he meets Julie – the perfect woman. She doesn’t cringe at his taste in music or movies, hell one afternoon she brings her elderly father along to watch Harry play in his band. Things are going great.

Like all relationships there are the occasional stumbling blocks. Julie works a swing shift at an all-night diner. However she doesn’t see that as a reason to prevent them from having a tête-à-tête afterwards, so after Harry drops her off he arranges to pick her up at 1am. And then an electrical fire shorts out the power to his hotel – so while Harry sleeps his alarm fails to wake him up until 3 hours later.

Now completely overdue, Julie goes to her mother’s house, depressed because she thinks Harry stood her up, while Harry rushes to the diner. Once at the diner Harry finds out that he missed Julie by a couple HOURS, so he tries calling her on the payphone outside. Unable to reach her, Harry decides to cut his losses, get some breakfast, and try to make amends later in the morning.

And then the payphone rings.

Having nothing better to do, Harry answers it. On the other end is a frantic voice who tells Harry (thinking that he’s the caller’s father) that the missile base that he is stationed at in North Dakota has just launched its warheads – the missiles will reach their targets in 45 minutes and the Soviets’ retaliation will reach us in 70. At first Harry thinks the whole thing is a joke and tries to write it off as such when a gunshot is heard and a new voice tells him, “Forget what you’ve heard and go back to sleep.”

Now fully convinced that the proverbial end is nigh, Harry informs the other patrons of the diner of what just has happened. Of them a stock broker with a cellular phone (a rarity in 1988, folks) informs them that quite a few of her colleagues who run around in the political circles have inexplicably left for the southern hemisphere. So any doubt that Harry may have had about his mysterious caller’s story begins to fade away by the minute. Now he has to figure out two things: how to get out of the city in 70 minutes and to a safe location, and how to take the love of his life with him.

Remember the 80’s folks? When all we had to worry about was nuclear war? Now things are much more stable – we don’t have to worry about an equally armed country with a competing ideology to rub noses with. Gone are the days where we had to fret about fallout and bomb shelters. Nope, nowadays it’s much more peaceful with all the religious fanatics and biological agents being spread about.

This movie is pretty dated, folks. Both the music (provided by Tangerine Dream, no less) and the fashions really slap you in the face that it’s a product of the 1980’s. Not to say that it’s necessarily a negative on it’s part. After all, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall went the cliché of the post-nuclear war or pre-nuclear war thriller. (Unfortunately the idea of nuclear war is still pretty realistic, it’s that the players have changed slightly – China still has warheads trained on us.) But it's a movie about nuclear disaster, not politics - the Russians barely get mentioned as people are more worried about how they're going to survive (patriotism isn't going to shield you from a blast wave, folks.)

Miracle Mile is a great movie because of how small it starts. It’s not like most of the World War III films of its time where the impending nuclear holocaust is broadcast over the airwaves and there’s already panic in the streets. Here the threat of attack still has a current of doubt swirling through it. After all, it was just some random phone call – what if our mysterious messenger was part of a drill? What if it really was a prank? It’s amazing what can happen with a rumor, however and the more the movie progresses the more the fear spreads. (One other thing to note is that the movie is mostly in real time, so once the 70-minute mark has been reached things have completely gone apeshit.)

Line of the movie: “You better brush your teeth every day, kids, or in 15,000 years you’re gonna look like that.”

Four stars. Please share my umbrella.

Raging Bull (1980)

Starring: Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci, Frank Vincent, Nicholas Colasanto, Theresa Saldana

First, The Lowdown: A middle-weight boxer spends as much of his life fighting outside of the ring as in it.

“…The good fighter will be terrible in his onset, and prompt in his decision”

Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

Boxing as a sport is something I’ve never personally understood, only conceptually. The idea of two men stepping into a ring and pummeling each other until one submits or passes out from his injuries has never had very much of an appeal to me. But as with other sports, while I might not consider myself a fan I definitely like looking at the cultural impact boxing has had on our society. Much of our cultural language – both verbal and otherwise – comes from the pugilistic arts. As an organized sport it’s over a century old (just barely seconding to pro baseball by about 30 years), and has since evolved from gloved “gentlemen’s matches” to the full contact melees of Ultimate Fighting.

Jake LaMotta is a middle-weight boxer that enjoys fighting – period. The thrill of a fight is almost like a drug to the man, and oftentimes he will stretch out a fight to remain in the conflict. In the movie’s opening match, Jake is showing signs of wear at the 10^th round of a brutal match. With only seconds to spare, he rebounds suddenly to brutalize his opponent, but it’s not enough – he loses by Technical Knock-Out when the round ends.

Jake’s love of conflict doesn’t end there, though. At home he frequently belittles his wife and starts arguments with her for no apparent reason. The only person who seems to be able to corral his passionate temper is Joey, Jake’s brother. Joey knows that it’s Jake’s rage that fuels his bouts and keeps him on his feet. Like a vitalizing draught, Jake’s anger is what keeps him alive in the ring.

Having separated from his wife, Jake turns his eyes toward Vickie, a teenage beauty in his neighborhood. The two fall in love and quickly get married. For a while it appears that Jake may have finally achieved the balance between passion in his relationship and rage in the boxing ring that he so desperately needed.

Both nothing ever truly lasts, and after winning match after match, Jake is still nowhere near fighting for the middleweight championship that he truly desires. Unfortunately the only way he can do so is by kowtowing to the mafia family that controls the boxing organization. This point of contention unbalances him even more, leading him to take out his frustration on both his wife and brother again. Finally in frustration, Jake lays his hands down and throws a match – a move that opens him up to investigation by both the boxing commission and the FBI. The move proves beneficial though – after his suspension, Jake is allowed to fight for the title and wins it.

Raging Bull is a movie that multiple people had recommended to me previously, but I didn’t know much about it. Mostly I came to it knowing that it was a biopic of Jake LaMotta without really knowing who the person was or what the movie was about. Summarizing it as the tale of a “burnt-out boxer” is like saying that 2001: A Space Odyssey is about space.

De Niro’s portrayal of LaMotta isn’t a terribly sympathetic one, but it’s one of the few instances where the audience isn’t supposed to empathize with the focal character in order to be drawn into the story. LaMotta is a perfect example of how one can be too talented at one thing – his mastery of boxing has made him a legend in the ring, but nearly an animal everywhere else.

Line of the movie: “You didn't get me down, Ray.”

Five stars. Take it like a man.

Knocked Up (2007)

Starring: Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Jason Siegel, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill

First, The Lowdown: If the movie’s title doesn’t give you a clue, you need to read something else.

I’m going to do something here that you probably won’t see too often in a movie review and that is: divulge a rather intimate moment of my personal life. (Don’t break out the hand lotion just yet, boyo, it ain’t that kind of intimate.) My youngest daughter was not a planned birth. Hell, I hadn’t even been married to her mother at the time she was conceived. But one magic evening when we were camping on Memorial Day weekend (and after plenty of intoxicants), my then-fiancée and I went back to our tent for some canoodling and completely ignored the fact that we hadn’t renewed her birth control for about a month. Believe it or not, I was actually pretty cognizant of what I was doing at the time, however, and while I probably was more than a little artificially emboldened (thank you Bushmill’s), the main thought I had when I was in congress was “Hey, I’m gonna marry her anyway and I think I’d make a pretty good dad.” Nine months later I bore witness to the happiest thing in my life (far surpassing the orgy I had a month after my birthday.)

Ben Stone is a simple guy with simple goals. His main passions in life are drinking, smoking pot, re-enacting Jackass stunts with his roomies, and cataloguing all actress’ nude appearances in film to put up on a pay website. Alison, by contrast is locked into a steady career as a floor director for the E! Network. She still lives with her sister Debbie and brother in law Pete and their two children. While Alison adores her nieces, she views her sister’s marriage as something to avoid.

After a busy day of wrangling Hollywood talent and corralling Ryan Seacrest, Alison is promoted to an on-camera position as interviewer. Hearing the good news, Alison and Debbie go out clubbing to celebrate. Ben and crew are at the same club, however – probably just to drink. Ben comes to Alison’s rescue at the bar when the bartender refuses to take their order and pretty soon they start talking. And drinking. And talking. And more drinking. And – well you know the rest if you understand the meaning of the movie’s title. The morning after they part company thinking nothing more of it and not really expecting to see each other at all in the near future.

Fast forward two months. Alison is now throwing up everywhere (but not on James Franco during a interview, dammit) and suddenly realizes that she can’t remember the last period she had. (“How does she look right now? She looks like she just realized that she’s pregnant.”) A fevered trip to the grocery store (and trying EVERY over-the-counter test known to man) only confirms her suspicions and now she has to call Ben and give him the news. A visit to the Ob-Gyn only seals the deal. Now Alison has to figure out whether she can have a baby and a career and Ben has to figure out if he can deal with Alison having his baby.

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this movie as much as I did, honestly. Most of the times I avoid over-hyped comedies (I’m looking at you “American Pie”), but I was pleasantly surprised to watch something that was not only consumer-friendly but was pretty well written. If anything I appreciated that the characters aren’t one note, nor did their development seem contrived. I also appreciated that as a lead Ben was goofy, but not entirely stoopid either. It’s nice to know that unplanned pregnancy can be treated with levity in film without it digressing into parody or saccharine drivel.

Line of the movie: “Why did we go to Costco and buy a year's supply of condoms if you weren't gonna use 'em, man?”

Four stars. Don’t let your meat loaf.

All About My Mother (1999)

(Originally released as Todo Sobre Mi Madre)

Starring: Cecilia Roth, Marisa Peredes, Candela Pena, Antonia San Juan, Penelope Cruz, Rosa Maria Sarda

“When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended for self-flagellation solely.” - Truman Capote

First The Lowdown: A woman returns to the life she fled after her son dies.

Manuela works as a transplant nurse at the local hospital. In the event of brain death, the doctors try to implore the next of kin to allow them to euthanize an otherwise irreversibly comatose person so that they may use the vital organs for transplants. Her teenage son, Esteban, is an avid writer who is fascinated by Manuela's life before she had him – especially since she never talks about his father.

On Esteban's birthday he insists on watching one of Manuela's seminars where she plays the role of an aggrieved family member who a doctor must try to convince her to give her consent so that they may euthanize a loved on and donate his organs. Later in the evening, Manuela annd Esteban watch Streetcar Named Desire. Estaban is enamored with Huma Rojo, the leading actress and insists on getting her autograph. Huma speeds away in a cab before he has the chance, however. Not to be outdone Esteban chases after it on foot and is hit by a car.

At the hospital Manuela finds herself on the receiving end of a speech she has witnessed many times.

Three weeks later, Manuela is still burdened by the loss of her son. She reads his diary obsessively and in an abortive attempt to be close to him, she tracks down the whereabouts of the recipient of Esteban's heart. Knowing that the temptation to look at her son's files will be too great, Manuela goes to Barcelona – where she last saw Esteban's father.

The first place she heads to is “The Field” - where the local whores ply their trade. There she finds Agrado – a transsexual she knew from ages past. While catching up on old news Manuela hears that Lola, a transvestite as well as mutual acquaintance and former roommate of Agrado, has recently left town – after stealing Agrado's money and valuables. Manuela has her own grudge against Lola, but she won't elaborate on it. Agrado allows her to stay and introduces her to Rosa, a nun who aids the prostitutes in the Field.

Rosa has problems of her own. As part of her work, she is supposed to provide assistance to the local whores, but found herself seduced by Lola – and is now carrying her child. In fear of having either her order or her parents from finding out, Rosa has volunteered to join a nunnery in El Salvador, replacing two nuns that had been murdered.

While waiting for Rosa, Manuela sees an advert for Huma Rojo's production of Streetcar which had just arrived in Barcelona. After watching yet another performance, Manuela approaches Huma in her dressing room. Huma's costar, Nina, has also been serving as her assistant – but Nina's addiction to heroin has made her unreliable. Huma is taken in by Manuela's matter of fact attitude and offers her a job replacing Nina as her assistant.

Much like Almodovar's other work, All About My Mother is heavily layered and seems to be multiple movies with similar characters. In this film he seems to borrow heavily from Tennessee Williams with constant references to both Streetcar Named Desire and All About Eve (Huma's has based her entire life in adulation of Bette Davis). In a Eve-like twist, Manuela replaces Nina's role during a performance. The thing that makes Almodovar so unique, however, is that he freely uses other source material here without plagiarizing it. The characters that stand out the most are the ones who defy conventions – Manuela's past, Agrado's gender change, Huma's immersion into Bette Davis. This is a not a family film, but rather a film about how families are put together in spite of their gender or lineage.

Line of the movie: “Lola is the worst of a man. And the worst of a woman.”

Five stars. Drink your Ovaltine.

Le Samourai (1967)

Starring: Alain Delon, Francois Perier, Nathalie Delon, Caty Rosier, Jacques Leroy, Michel Boisrond

First, the Lowdown: A French hitman suddenly finds himself a target.

Jef leads a solitary life. The only other occupant of his sparse apartment is a small finch in a cage. Leaving his home, he walks the streets waiting for a car to steal. He takes it to a garage in the outskirts. The garage owner switches the car's plates and then hands Jef a gun. He takes the tainted car to the apartment of Jane, a woman he has been seeing behind the back of her fiance. Once there he tells her when he has arrived and how long he's stayed there, but Jane tells him that her fiance is arriving that night. So Jef alters his story by 15 minutes and then leaves. He arrives at a dingy hotel and checks in with a group of men playing cards. (“Bring cash, in case you lose,” one jests.) Jef leaves the men to their game and finally arrives at a night club. After surveying the club, he sneaks into the back office and shoots the club owner. As he leaves the scene of the murder, the first person he sees in the corridor is Valerie, the pianist of the club's jazz ensemble. Jef makes a hasty departure that catches the attention of a barman and the coat-check girl of the club. The job now completed, Jef disposes of both the gun and his stolen car, then returns to Jane's apartment about 5 minutes before Wiener, Jane's fiance, arrives – and then leaves with enough emphasis to the other man know he was there.

Back at the club, the police are scouring the murder scene for clues. The Superintendent requests 20 suspects from every precinct, knowing that the longer they take to investigate, the more likely they'll lose the killer. During the sweep, Jef is picked up at the card game in the hotel because he matches the loose description of the killer: young, wearing a raincoat and hat. At the central precinct over a hundred men are grilled as to their whereabouts, a handful are picked out for having a weapon on their person. In a line-up Jef is recognized by two of the club patrons – but not by Valerie. The police call in Jane and Wiener for questioning, Jane however stands by her story that Jef was with her during the time of the murder. The superintendent doesn't believe it, however. But even after thorough questioning, the police are forced to let Jef go.

Out on the street, the police have Jef tailed, but he loses them on the Metro. Later in the day he meets up with his contact to receive the other half of his payment for the hit – but the man tries to kill him because he was arrested. In the scuffle, Jef gets shot in the arm and the courier escapes. Back at police headquarters, the superintendent is more determined than ever to arrest Jef, but he has no evidence. So now Jef must sidestep the police on his tail and his trigger-happy former employers. Yet beyond all of that lies the question: why did the only eyewitness to the crime refuse to finger him?

Le Samourai is a superb movie. For a movie that's only an hour and 45 minutes, it feels longer than that – and I mean that in a good way. Much is communicated by expression and action, where most other directors would use dialog to further the plot. And yet without being explicitly told anything about our main character, Jef, we learn so much about his character without having it spoon-fed to us.

And for a movie with so little in the way of actual spoken dialog, there are very few characters that could be considered one-dimensional. The more we see Jef, our hitman, in action, the more we realize that he adheres to a strict code of business ethics – one, as he eventually learns, is not shared by the people who hired him. And yet none of this is told by Jef to any of the other characters explicitly – rather it's demonstrated by his actions.

It's director Jean-Pierre Melville's ability to show his audience the story instead of telling it to us that is something one rarely finds in cinema anymore. No more than the barest minimum is said by the actors, and even then when it is absolutely necessary. It's become an obsession of modern action directors to bombard the audience with casual-sounding dialog in replacement of actual storytelling. I think a lot of action movies would benefit from using the action to play out the story instead of contrived speech.

Line of the movie: “I never lose. Not really.”

Five stars. Ribbed for her pleasure.

Fitzcarraldo (1982)

Starring: Klaus Kinski, Jose Lewgoy, Miguel Angel Fuentes, Paul Hittscher, Huerequeque Enriqu Bohorguez

First, the Lowdown: A man of limited means is determined to build an opera house in the Peruvian jungle.

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald has a vision. Initially sent to Peru to oversee the building of its railroad, he was forced to find work in order to earn money. But beyond all of that is his love of the opera. Upon hearing that Enrico Caruso is playing at the opera house in Manaus, Brian speeds down the river as fast as he could, only to have his engine break down after the curtain rises. Brian and his girlfriend, Molly, plead with the footman to let them in – he does, with the insistence that they remain at the back and not say anything. They arrive just as the finale reaches his climax during which Caruso gestures at him on his final note. Brian sees it as a sign to finally build his dream, “Fitzcarraldo” an opera house set in the jungle.

Returning back to the city of Iquitos, Brian plays his gramophone for his audience: a flock of native children and their pet pig. His only means of income is making ice – an industry that he sees a future in, but unfortunately no one else does. Brian implores to Don Aquilino, a local rubber baron, to help him apply for a patent so that he can make ice industrially (and finance his opera house), but Aquilino scoffs at the idea. Infuriated, Brian barricades himself in the town's church until they agree to build an opera house. The police take a dim view of his method of petition and lock him up

Brian's stay in jail is cut down from two weeks to two days because his audience, the children, had been spending all of their time praying for him outside the jail. Moved by this display, the police chief has him released. Once out he plans to host a party with Molly. Molly runs the local bordello and makes sure that her ladies are always clean and cater to the upper class, so it should be no trouble to get the local industrialists to arrive. At the party, he talks further with Don Aquilino, who seems obsessed with the idea of losing money. Aquilino isn't so desperate to get rid of his fortune to just give Brian the financing he needs, but is very envious of how Brian was bankrupted by the railroad project. Brian's plan to woo the gentry with his gramophone is derailed, however, and he is mocked by them.

Aquilino owns a giant portion of property, where his men harvest latex to make rubber. But there is a portion that has yet to be exploited because it is inaccessible by steamship due to rapids – and also crosses through the territory of some overly cautious natives. Brian borrows money from Molly and uses it to buy the unclaimed territory and a ship. Aquilino helps him assemble a crew. The major reason why the plot of land Brian purchased had gone unclaimed is that there is no way to get a boat to the nearby trading river. However, Brian intends to boat down the river, and move the ship over a small finger of land (that's mostly a mountain) to access that area.

This movie has been compared a lot with Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Most especially because they shared the same problems with casting, locations, and crew. (Some of the crew had been called away to fight in a war with the Colombians.) The production is lush, and much of it is shot beautifully. Kinski does his usual bug-eyed crazy man routine through the film, yet manages not to leave teethmarks on the scenery. My major problem with the film is its pacing. Quite honestly, I think this is one of the few occasions where a movie could have benefited from less detail rather than more. Many of the shots are lovely, but the linger too long – almost as if director Herzog lost his train of thought as he was shooting them.

Another movie that Fitzcarraldo has been compared to is Herzog's own Aguirre, the Wrath of God. And they share many elements there as well: a madman takes upon a Sisyphean task in the middle of the jungle, enlists in a crew that share that vision, and ultimately loses everything. Personally, I think a better film would have been made if Herzog didn't get so hung up on the scenery.

Line of the movie: “The reality of your world is nothing more than a rotten caricature of great opera.”

Three stars. Stop picking at it.