cesarbau Reviews

Rosario (2010)

Reviled, underrated was this true classic in Philippine cinema

[10/10 · 19 March 2015]

NOTE: This too-brief Cesar Marciano review of "Rosario" one of the entries in the December 2010 Metro Manila Film Festival, appeared on Facebook and Twitter that same festival week. Actress Liezl Sumilang-Martinez, of American-German-Filipino descent, wife of the movie's director Albert Martinez, was just one among a fine ensemble of actors who made the movie the way I saw it that time: a masterpiece of the the 118-year-old Philippine movie industry, with most filmic elements directed and mounted together to form an integral whole. It was, plainly put, a memorable collaboration by all.

Liezl was a Twitter Follower of mine, and I of her. We traded a few private messages, the most touching of which was: "Thank you, Cesar Marciano, for all the kind words you've said about Rosario."

Liezl passed away 14. March 2015 after a battle with recurrent breast cancer. "Rosario" was her last movie.

So in her memory and to thank the people who helped carry the movie to completion and earn a modest profit, as well as the few critics who were in the same page as I, here is word-for- word the capsule review. In due time, Cesar Marciano will compose the full review that "Rosario" deserves, then and now.

Anna Liza "Liezl" Sumilang-Martinez -- May she rest in peace. ......

December 2010 – CAPSULE REVIEW by Cesar Marciano

>>>ALBERT MARTINEZ's "Rosario" is a rare masterpiece of Philippine cinema, a radiant portrait of a charleston-dancing, cigarette-smoking, proto-liberated woman at the start of the country's modern era. It is a beautiful tale of a woman who died unforgiven by the people she loved. The woman, a young heiress, who studied music and the arts in New York City, fell from grace, was prosecuted as an adulteress, died penniless and was buried in a rented grave.

The film is a scrupulous and ingenuous re-creation of the 1920s and 1930s of one of the United States' few colonies, without dwelling on the politics of that time.

Heading an excellent cast, the sensuous Jennylyn Mercado in the title role gives a flawless performance, remarkable in honesty and insight.

Director Martinez hardly makes any false move, imbuing the movie with heightened realism and humanity. He is a true heir of the country's great directors such as Lino Brocka, Lamberto Avellana and Gerardo de Leon, Martinez has an instinct for visuals that recall the opulent costume epics of the Luchino Visconti era in Italy.<<<

Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)

Dark corridors of sexual euphemisms

[7/10 · 19 February 2015]

(Spoiler Alert: This Cesar Marciano review may contain details that certain readers would rather not know or realize right away.)

In "Fifty Shades of Grey" every set is spic and span, rooms and corridors straight from the pages of Architectural Digest. Every piece of clothing is a fashion statement on casual coolness or formal impressiveness, as in Vogue or Esquire. Every rack or drawer whether in a hardware store or a dedicated sadist's "playroom" is in perfect order. One can be in awe over pieces of equipment that are clearly new and arranged impeccably, as if they're to be used for the first time.

And so are the people in the most successfully marketed movies in recent years. The secretaries of billionaire Christian Grey look like they didn't have to go through an interview, though they were picked along stringent standards of elite model agencies or fashion reality shows. The supporting characters such as the parents have the perfect jobs and the right temperament, their exits and entrances carefully plotted and counted, their needs and desires clear-cut. Read that: mostly nonexistent.

None of the supporting personae actually questions any other non-character's action, nor raises objection to anything, come to think of it. Everyone seems to be oblivious to the story's explosive central theme, namely dominance and submission in sexual relationships.

Everyone except The Dedicated Dominant Master and His Reluctant Submissive Trainee, whose sole purpose is to dig, no matter how shallowly, into the minute details of what can be a potent aphrodisiac in sexual relationships but at the same time a psychological and moral Pandora's box.

Its psychological strands can fill up a college textbook. The moral issues revolve around what is at its core a deeply religious set of questions: Do our bodies really belong to us? Is pleasure a sin? What role does sex play in the hierarchy of values?

The model-agency handsome Dedicated Dominant Master is presumably a young woman's dream. He's got the money, a stable of sleek cars, a condo unit in every city he needs to be, and above all the time to engage in his singular passion. He's got not just her number but her exact geographical location on his mobile phone. So very badly does he need to extract a narcissistic sexual high from the model-agency-pretty college graduate that he plies her with costly treats, rewards and even concessions, insisting that she signs what seems to be a legally binding consent form.

The Reluctant Submissive Trainee seems to be drawn to the training process and sample excitation sessions, but she's of two minds about the rules and consent form. Dressed up in ad agencies' mandatory designer suit, she negotiates The Sex Contract's details right in his headquarters' conference room, no holds barred, businessman-to-businesswoman, striking out several items that could be hair-raising for ordinary people like us but are really quite normal and delightful to "The Dominant" and "The Submissive."

"Fifty Shades of Grey" titillates with its tautly choreographed and intelligently edited scenes of initiation into the dark corridors of sexual euphemisms. Pain is pleasure, and pleasure pain. A low point in a person's life is the "high" of another. There are "50 shades" of playroom pleasures, a number of them bordering on violence and courting permanent physical damage. Also, the "first time" doesn't just apply to the still-a-virgin heroine but to many who have flocked to the theaters. The frisson of the "first time" -- ahhh this could be the key to this movie's wild success. Virgins are queuing up for tickets. Masters-wannabes are jotting down mental notes on how to train a slave. Dress rich. Act rich. Reward rich. And punish hard.

Dakota Johnson's sensitive performance as Anastasia, infused with vulnerability, is enhanced by director Sam Taylor-Johnson's attempt, which works very well for the most part, to make a human out of an inflatable doll. To those involved with casting, model-agency handsome Jamie Dornan proves to be a good pick for the role of The Magnate With a Quirk That Tabloids Must Not Find Out. Dornan subversively exudes not the macho-ness expected perhaps of porn-flick studs but a sweetness of character that is the opposite of certified all- male.

Dakota and Jamie's rewards may not be great in heaven, but in the film world, they certainly will be. In fact they already are. I've just been told that there will be a sequel.

Ah, what the heck. It's only sex.

Annie (2014)

Smart, comic but where's the heart?

[7/10 · 22 January 2015]

THE RESURRECTED "Annie" movie, a somewhat confused attempt to revive the musical, is not as horrible as many critics say.

The vocal renditions are terrific, including that of Annie's and Cameron Diaz's, the script bubbly and hip-hop youthful, with smart and often comic repartees. It seems that only three or four of the original Broadway musical numbers were kept, I must check that, but I did enjoy the new, One Direction-era numbers and the few superbly mounted sing-and- dance scenes, despite the mediocre choreography. More of those, please, I was thinking.

Now the problems: Where are the cute-uplifting-sympathetic moments?  Why didn't the makeover team heed the old advice: "You gotta have heart?" The movie comes across as a musical-wannabe instead of an all-out musical, giving half a nod of what made the original stage production a hit and partly oblivious of it, aiming instead to create another hit. A confusion of ambitions if there was one.

Promising preteen Quvenzhane Wallis who plays Annie has a sweet, engaging and lovely voice and refreshing screen presence. But her most likely unintended black-with-an attitude air does not fit the persona of a vulnerable Annie that a rich, dedicated loner and lonesome billionaire would love, let alone adopt. Bah, humbug!

The Great Gatsby (2013)

Surfeit of everything, but deep respect for Fitzgerald

[7/10 · 9 August 2013]

The following is unlike my usual reviews for IMDb and other Internet movie sites, but the comments that I emailed to a friend right after watching Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby":

"Dear M-----,"

I just got back from watching "The Great Gatsby" tonight. The excessive, exhibitionist style tendencies of director Baz Luhrmann that I had feared were plainly evident. Surfeit of everything: flowers, decor, set details, but fortunately often gorgeous. Rap hip-hop party music in the 1920s? Please, that's the sound of today's disco clubs, exactly.

But Luhrman's deep respect for a dead man more than saved him and made the movie one of the best I've seen in the past two years. That man is of course F. Scott Fitzgerald. So respectful that the literary great's texts at times float dreamily on the screen.

Luhrmann co-wrote the screenplay, which delivered the spirit of the novel despite the over-the-top production. The "be impressed!" sets and overall design, and the re-imagining of New York in the 1920s were certainly impressive and sure credentials for Oscars.

The Aussie director's another weakness: the actors. Nobody connects emotionally to anybody in this movie, except perhaps Tobey Macguire as narrator Nick Carraway, who sensitively connects to us. It was painful to watch fidgety Leonardo di Caprio in the first half needing the right cues and clues for acting. And whoever tailored his unflattering suits should be sent to .....

Carey Mulligan's assumed persona is too strong for the part. Wanted: another Mia Farrow out-daisying the delicate Daisy Buchanan. (Did you notice that Mulligan does a dual role as one of the whorehouse girls?)

Cesar"

The Lorax (2012)

Pardon me if I use this form to ...

[6/10 · 18 March 2012]

Dear IMDb Managers.

Please pardon me if I use this method to lodge a complaint. I have been at a loss to report an error in your list of External Reviews for "The Tourist".

It is the review of "The Tourist" on Movies.Online.ca, credited to Luke Crum.

When readers click on the link provided, it links to the review that I, Cesar Marciano, had written and posted. Through a couple of e-mails, I have called the attention of MoviesOnline.ca about this error, but was met with silence.

MoviesOnline gives the proper credit in its index of movies and reviews, but when its readers click on the link, the reader finds the credit missing. I have also asked MoviesOnline.ca to explain why it had decided to do this.

I hope this information will help me continue doing what I like: reviewing movies.

Thank you.

Sincerely yours,

Cesar Marciano

Prologue:

I checked the MoviesOnline.ca site recently and found out that its format and layout have undergone a redesign. The complaint that I made here about the byline has been addressed. Now, bylines appear with the main text of the movie reviews, as they should. However, whereas before I had ready access to my reviews for revisions, now the original passwords are no longer accepted and a note says that "You do not have sufficient permission to access the page."

Cesar Marciano

War Horse (2011)

Painful, majestic, uplifting sequence

[9/10 · 14 March 2012]

Movie reviewer Cesar Marciano (cesarbau here at IMDb) has seen "War Horse" twice mainly for the 15-minute sequence close to the climax that should eventually become a classic in cinema:

Joey the war horse breaks loose from enemy cavalry, makes a dash to freedom through the edge of the trenches, flying over an armored tank, defying the blasts and flares from Howitzers and canons, and falls with a loud thud in the middle of German and British firing lines, its wounded body entangled in barbed wires.

Very painful but at the same time majestic and uplifting to watch.

This wonderful sequence crowns Steven Spielberg's mostly gripping storytelling. And just think: "No animal was harmed in filming," so the credits say.

Easy A (2010)

A totally charming comedy about gossip, rash judgment and other sins

[9/10 · 3 December 2010]

The poster of the movie "Easy A" sums up its big lesson well: "Let's Not and Say We Did." If you're going to say you've done something, then it better be true, because even a teeny- weeny lie could make your life a living hell and, worse, make your name synonymous with toxic skank forever.

How Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) got to be wearing "whore couture" with a scarlet letter A on her chest — like Hester Prynne, the martyr of the Nathaniel Hawthorne novel — is the subject of this totally charming comedy that sheds light on teen misbehaviorial patterns and the nature of shame, rash judgment and other sins. This movie does a satirical take on the nature of gossip: that people are willing to believe the worst in others and that they will blindly believe what they choose to believe. Tell 'em what they want to hear and they will lap it up, spreading the news through phone texts and the Internet.

The hemlines of Olive's clothes conform nicely to Ojai High School's rule: not higher than her fingertips. Her fashion preference is French designer brands: black, cut low, with lacy frills that say corset chic. The letter A recalls Hester's punishment for her crime of Adultery. No, it doesn't stand for Awesome; it's a play on the phrase "easy lay."

How easy a lay? Well, some boys in this California school can claim to have bedded her just like that — this weird bunch of guys who many say were gay, repugnant or ostracized. Olive's reputation as a slut, a floozy and a Jezebel trollop was born at a party at a friend's house, where her classmates gathered before a bedroom door to listen to her kinky, squealing session with Brandon (Dan Byrd), who until then had been tormented by talk that he was gay.

But Olive, 17, tells us a totally different story. First that it's all a lie, a bunch of fake relationships and pretend sex. She's been accepting offers simply to help boost the guys' egos and peer ranking. "The rumors of my promiscuity have been greatly exaggerated," she says.

For a highly intelligent girl to tell her closest friend Rhiannon (Aly Michalka) the lie that she slept with a college jock sounds dumb, but that's the Olive drawn by director Will Gluck and screenplay author Bert V. Royal: a jumble of contradictions. The trouble with this young woman is that she gives in too quickly to the whims of friends and emotional blackmailers. Is her personality too insecure or of such low self-esteem that she's always trying to please others, even the school lynch mob?

After all, she has the greatest parents in the world (Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson), a bit too liberal and hands-off perhaps but exceptional, and quite witty too. "I will take a bullet for you, have my throat slit to stand up for you," dad Dill assures her. Dill and Rosemary Penderghast, plus adopted boy Chip? What a spiced-up family!

Then, things start to get out of hand. At Stage 2, her reputation goes down from a common slut to a tramp who demands cash in exchange for easy favors. It doesn't matter that in reality she gets peanuts for her help, such as discount coupons for Home Depot or free tickets to a foreign-language art-house film. And didn't Brandon just send her a tacky gift, a vibrator?

At Stage 3, she incurs the wrath of Jesus-loving, sex-abstaining Christians on campus, led by Cross Your Heart Club head Marianne Bryant (Amanda Byrnes). Hell-fearing Marianne has many positive virtues. As pretty and as gifted with words, she rivals Olive in a contest to win our sympathy. Yet, in the film's final irony, Olive turns out to have virtues that young Christians hold so dearly.

Stage 4 is the turning point in the spiraling charade, when Olive allegedly turns into a home wrecker and, for the first time, reveals the pain she's been through. She idolizes her hip but wise English teacher Mr. Griffith (Thomas Haden Church), who is married to the very competent guidance counselor (Lisa Kudrow). But Olive later does something to the Griffiths that doesn't make her proud of herself.

And then there's mild-mannered, multi-talented Anson (Jake Sandvig), a hot-air balloon enthusiast and admirer of author Sylvia Plath, who invites Olive to a date at the Lobster Shack. He raises up Olive's hopes for a better social life. But what a letdown it is when, in the movie's eye-opening moment, he turns out to be no better than the rest of the guys.

The movie leaves unanswered the biggest question: what is the motive behind Olive's over- identifying with Hawthorne's branded martyr? Also, it's hard to fathom why the people whom Olive had helped turn so mean in the end. But the movie does answer, in a droll, heartwarming way, the question of why the Penderghast couple has raised such a wonderful daughter in Olive. And as to the puzzle as to who among a short list of school hunks will win Olive's heart, it delivers a solution that is heartwarming, very romantic and obvious.

Assessing this movie's cast could be done through what Olive and her friends call "identifiers," or the initials of the key words that describe a person. Byrnes as Marianne and Michalka as Rhiannon are both F.L, funny and lovable. Haden Church and Kudrow as the Griffiths are B.S., believable and sympathetic. And playing the Penderghasts with a post- hippie style of parenting, Tucci and Clarkson are M.A.G., magical actor genies who are a delight to watch.

And Emma Stone is simply A.B.C. — adorable, bright and a completely confident comedienne. What the critics have unanimously said about her is true. "Easy A" is as much the journey of a young woman into adulthood as Stone's stepping stone to a well-deserved stardom.

Let Me In (I) (2010)

An inspired depiction of pure horror, redefining the genre

[8/10 · 23 November 2010]

Owen and Abby, both 12, are what some kids in a suburban school in Los Alamos, New Mexico, would call "besties" -- close friends. Unknown to them is that the two have just started going steady. They're quite an odd couple, those two. Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee), undernourished and underweight for his age, has a familiar face, especially to a trio of bullies who hacks on him every chance they get, taunting his girlie looks. But nobody has ever laid eyes on Abby (Chloe Moretz) who's just moved in next door to Owen. She's moody but is otherwise normal, so who'd ever guess that she has been 12 "for a very long time" and that she's in fact a vampire?

The pact between Owen and Abby is as simple as the games children play. Their exclusive club has only one rule: If one of them wishes to enter the room of the other, one must ask and wait for a clear answer. A nod, a gesture or an approving look won't do; one has got to say it. Never mind that Abby has special powers which she could use to have her way. She can easily leap from the ground straight up to his room, or smash the window with her wolverine teeth. Indeed, we see her later decapitating a victim in one crunch of the jaw. Can she be trusted?

"Let Me In" is a virtual reproduction of the widely acclaimed Swedish 2008 horror drama, "Let the Right One In." The chosen style of the original film's director Thomas Alfredson and the remake's director Matt Reeves is minimalist, a relentless, drip-by-drip account of what happened in a suburb Los Alamos that winter of 1983. Both movies peel the genre to its bare minimum, resulting in an inspired depiction of pure horror and a redefinition of it.

Reeves (who also wrote the screenplay) strips the main characters to their bare essentials, to a fault, resulting in a slow-moving first half that is stronger in mood than in plot movement. Owen's character is defined by the sadistic bullying in school, while Abby's is framed by her constant thirst for blood as supply dwindles, and the danger that the law would catch up with her and her guardian.

The face of Owen's mother, a devoted but alcoholic Catholic, is studiously kept out of sight, an unnecessary and puzzling tack that could be excused as an attempt to increase the sense of Owen's isolation, shedding light on why he finds comfort in Abby.

"Let Me In" discards many conventions of vampire films. There's none of the crucifixes, garlic gunk, holy water, mirror phobia and, happily, none of the high-tech dabbling of recent ones. The coffin concept lives on, but in the form of a sinister-looking room that Abby shares with his stepfather (Richard Jenkins). Also kept is the idea of sun rays as a vampire slayer, as well as the vampires' powers of flight and instant mutations.

The second half of "Let Me In" operates on the level of horror classics. Carefully paced, the suspense and the shockers pile on to each other and what was a simple storytelling in the first half becomes a fascinating interweaving of story threads.

The killings become increasingly bloody, including an attack inside a young man's car and another that takes place in a tunnel (where the split-second decapitation occurs). A body bursting in flames instantaneously is quite a sight, if only in a flash. While busy killing, the vampire morphs into several beasts in a row, now looking vaguely like a wolf, and in a wink shifting into the contour of a demon or some monster rising from wisps and swirls of gray smoke.

Two extraordinary scenes

Of special interest to fans of horror and suspense are two scenes that define the creators of this film and the original as genuine film artists. The first occurs during a class excursion to a frozen lake where Owen, accidentally gets hold of an ice hockey stick and, when threatened, follows Abby's advice to the letter ("you got to strike back hard"), punctuated by shrieks of terror from his classmates. The other scene comes later at the school swimming pool, where the sadistic bullies exact a vendetta against Owen.

"Let Me In" does not flinch away from graphic images of violence and mayhem –- blood smeared on the lips, or acid trickling down and searing the face –- but it does so with a certain grace and never in excess. They serve one purpose: to advance its theme of the presence and persistence of evil. The evil in Los Alamos, as it was in Sweden's Blackeberg, permeates the air, ready to pounce anytime and is bent on perpetuating itself. It takes many forms, from something as banal as school bullying, as sad as a messy divorce to something tragic such as the murder of people we love.

From the start of production, this movie was going to float or sink depending on its two lead characters. As Owen and Abby, Smit-McPhee and Moretz were lucky to have a director in Reeves, who clearly has great rapport with preteens; a very able cinematographer Greig Fraser who frames them in the most fitting angles; and an editor who makes up through cuts and timing what the young actors lack in finesse. Their roles get a boost from the more talented Dylan Minnette who as Kenny is a natural villain, high school bully and closet wimp.

Precisely because of their complete lack of artifice, Smit-McPhee's unsullied looks and air of vulnerability combined with Moretz's angel-to-demon transformations convince us and prevail, down to the movie's final twist. They leave a memorable and tragic portrait of a boy from the world of imperfect humans and a girl from the netherworld of the undead -- he the flesh-and-blood Romeo and she the vampiric Juliet -- trying to make sense of their doomed existence.

Stone (2010)

Religious themes mere decoration for flawed script

[4/10 · 8 November 2010]

From the beginning, something's not quite right. "Stone," a drama that revolves around a Michigan parole officer and a convict seeking freedom, is played against a background of soothing voices preaching Gospel truths, asking questions about man and God, and offering alternatives to established beliefs and religions. Over the airwaves and in the media, a contest for minds and hearts and recruitment is being waged. Even in the maximum-security prison where parole officer Jack Mabry (Robert De Niro) works, the inmates' library has a shelf lined with brochures and leaflets from religious groups, like a supermarket shelf for souls shopping for redemption.

One of those souls is "Stone" Creeson (Edward Norton), serving the eighth year of his 15-year sentence, and now seeking a parole. He was convicted of complicity in the murder of his grandparents as well as the arson of the couple's home.

For his unfocused and sadly erratic screenplay, writer Angus MacLachlan uses a few religious themes that are well loved by preachers, gurus and priests. One theme is the role people play in each other's lives. Another is the Psalms' answer to anyone questioning divine wisdom: "Be still, and know that I am God." And then there's the basic tenet of an obscure cult that Stone finds appealing, prescribing different sounds that reverberate in the soul and result in spiritual transformation.

Those are big themes that MacLachlan touches on but fails to follow through. He uses them more for the weight they give the story, much like decorations, and they recall Woody Allen's love for philosophical musings. But while Allen weaves them brilliantly into his comedies and dramas, MacLachlan leaves it to the audience to connect the dots and leaves it at that.

The plot is exciting enough, going back decades ago, when Jack's wife Madylyn (Frances Conroy) announces that she was leaving him for making her redundant in his life. He then scurries upstairs where their baby daughter is asleep, picks her up and threatens to throw her out of the window. Madylyn opts to stay and the couple spends a lifetime of compromise in another loveless marriage in middle-class America.

Now on the verge of retirement, Jack faces the man who will change his life, a cornrowed, tattooed and self-avowed reformed man, Stone. Their initial meeting and the several more meetings after that are good but ill-at-ease character studies of a tired old man who has nothing much more left to do in life, and a young man who wants to reclaim it.

Enter Stone's wife Lucetta (Milla Jovovich), whom he describes as being out of this world, in fact an "alien." She does look out of place in suburban Detroit, being bubbly, pert and conveying a cosmopolitan air despite her plain wardrobe. She is in many ways like an immigrant not from a developing country but from some sophisticated place like New York City.

It's easy to miss the part of the movie where Stone suggests to her that she could help him win a parole by cozying up to Jack because from the start, she declares that she will do a- ny-thing for that to happen. She lays out the traps, and Jack bites. Some will find their sex scenes steamy, but others may not, for the simple reason that De Niro and Jovovich as actors and as characters are mismatched. And the movie's suggestion that Lucetta is nursing some amorous feeling toward Jack is a lame attempt to add mystery to a wanton barter deal.

However, MacLachlan's and director John Curran's ploy to confuse us on whether Stone and Lucetta had been in full complicity in the seduction and humiliation of Jack nearly works. While Jake and Lucetta are busy with their bedroom massages and erogenous zone explorations, Stone starts to fall apart and turns suicidal. In a visit to the correctional institution's infirmary, he witnesses the brutal slaying of a prison guard by some convicts. The experience could have further damaged his psyche, but it's a different Stone that we see not long after, sane, jubilant and self-satisfied with the success of a conspiracy that he may or may not have orchestrated.

Inconsistency and shallow treatment are apparent in the other characters. An impulsive and nearly irrational man in the fine opening scene, Jack, carefully sketched by De Niro, is mostly in control of his emotions, even when he frees himself from sexual repression. His wife Madylyn, played with deep bitterness and brooding by Conroy, once had ideas of liberation but she instead became a slave of respectability. The role of bed-hopping Lucetta is more consistent, but Jovovich could not find the right stops –- and direction –- to be more than just a one-note seductress.

The redeeming points of the movie are its well-constructed ending and another, more successful attempt to give it a deeper layer. In one of the interviews at the parole officer's office, Stone raises very relevant questions to Jack. When is punishment enough? When does it cross over to injustice? And do corrupt and corruptible people have the right to judge criminals? Like those Gospel truths riding the airwaves, they sound great but this movie's creators needed to weigh them, put them up front in the drama and then tell the audience: sit still, we have a great movie for you. But all that is wishful thinking now.

The Stendhal Syndrome (1996)

The master showman of kitsch has done it again

[10/10 · 2 November 2010]

First released in 1996 and re-released two years ago, Dario Argento's "The Stendhal Syndrome" has found a niche in Italian official film festivals and as an art-house attraction. This movie, billed as a horror/psycho-thriller, borders on high-kitsch porn and exploitation. But upon closer look, it reveals itself as the work of a director having fun exploring his ideas of what pop entertainment should be like.

For all this movie's psychoanalytical posturing and the torments it inflicts on the heroine, its darkest moments have a put-on quality that Argento hides behind an intriguing story, flurries of exciting images and scenes of sexual aggression that are painful to look at –- at the same time erotic and revolting. Nearly lost in the drama is the fact that the victim, police detective Anna Manni, is played by Argento's daughter, Asia. She is a perfect foil for him and his willing accomplice.

The syndrome of the title is a phenomenon brought on by hypnotic works of art, where the viewer suffers vertigo, hallucinations and confusion that can lead to memory loss and obsessions. Italian psychiatrist Dr. Graziella Magherini describes the psychosis in her book "La Sindrome di Stendhal," Stendhal being the French novelist who had a similar experience.

It's an indication of the respect Argento gets in Italy that the Uffizi art gallery in Florence, which is busy any day, allowed him to film the opening sequences there, even allowing him to linger on Sandro Botticelli's work "The Birth of Venus." However, Argento uses the syndrome merely as a convenient jumping board for the plot and an excuse for his shock-and-go style of filmmaking. The idea is to shock with a perfectly set-up scene and then go on to the next set of visual treats and jolts. Twenty minutes into the movie, the Stendhal angle practically disappears, relegated to some dark corner of the plot.

The swirling surfaces of paintings that occasionally engulf Anna are not really the life- altering events in her life. The blame goes to serial killer-rapist Alfredo, who abducts her and makes her his 13th victim but lets her escape, only to resurface later to repeat the nightmare. Thomas Kretschmann plays the blonde psycho in the elaborately staged rape session with over-the-top brutality that's at the same time realistic and faked, teasing the audience into a state of revulsion, disbelief and cheap thrill. Is this for real?

Of course it can't be for real because realism is as alien to Argento's style as pineapple is to pizza (a no-no in Italy). Notice the setting of the first rape -- it's more like a porn movie set than a killer's lair. And poor Anna looks less of a victim of a heinous crime than a sacrificial virgin bound on an altar complete with flickering candles. The second rape scene is quicker, coming at a point where Anna is losing her grip on reality, while her obsession to catch the killer and exact revenge is being thwarted by her vague erotic longing for Alfredo.

Asia is her father's perfect marionette. Anna goes through several comebacks and transformations and Asia gamely goes through them all. She metamorphoses from a brunette Venus with flowing tresses to a blonde, androgynous gamin. She is assigned a number of unlikely roles: as an investigator of rape cases, a tourist who's losing her memory, a girl at odds with her father, an action painter, a print art collector, a rape victim who finds love again and finally as an avenging angel.

Even when Anna is supposed to be losing it, Asia isn't, being always in command and never losing the innocence on her smooth-as-porcelain face. She can display Anna's emotional scars or hide them on cue. Like most of the cast, the quality of her acting is mostly audition- level. Yet, for the cathartic ending, she rises to an entirely different plane, up there in Italy's undiscovered chamber of grade A actors.

Argento reconfigures reality through his use of décor, images and music. Anna's multiple tasks are matched by the implausible shifts in her flat's décor, where the walls can be plastered with her bizarre paintings one moment and then reproductions of classic works the next. From the same walls can appear in a wink her stalker or scenes from her past. Blood, meanwhile, is purely a studio prop, dropping and flowing too copiously, and defying nature's course as it cakes too soon. In a hallucination attack, Anna plunges into the water where a monster dolphin with a ghastly human face is waiting to kiss her. That 10-second image sticks in the mind.

Argento also consciously gives his moments of suspense a superficial quality. Ennio Morricone's taut score is a one-beat, one-tone affair, a takeoff of the tick-tock rhythm, layered with the wailing of the siren and the warbling of a woman. That would have been just right in the 1960s but a cliché in the '90s.

Critics have dismissed Argento's style as unworthy of Hitchcock, with good reason. By the 15th minute of the movie, there is no question of who the killer is. But then the director springs a surprise that's worthy of Hitchcock. In its last nine minutes, the film hits new gear as Anna, sensing that Alfredo is still stalking her, continues to fear for her life while her mind continues to withdraw from reality. Her kindly psychiatrist Dr. Cavanna (Paolo Bonacelli) comes to her timely rescue. Here, the story takes a new turn, hitting an impasse that offers a few escape routes, inviting questions with different answers and speculations with conflicting angles.

Everything happens all at once and too suddenly. It's too late for us to think and reflect. The rug has been pulled out from under our feet. Hey presto, the master showman of kitsch has done it again.

The Other Guys (2010)

More fun moments than five comedies combined

[10/10 · 29 October 2010]

The Other Guys" is a fireball of hilarity detonated by two writers who seem to be having as much fun as its weird heroes. It begs the question: why can't the funniest movie of the year be its best as well? Just about the only big gripe about it is the slacking off of the laughs in the second half, but by then the audience have had more fun moments than five comedies combined. Besides, the story fulfills a higher purpose: to send a poison letter to Wall Street and its regulators. Both halves are good honest entertainment.

If there's one movie that could have shed light on recent U.S. financial scandals, it's "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps." But Oliver Stone barely scratches their surface, while "The Other Guys" exposes them with startling clarity, from the collusions to cover up the losses of investment banks and a buddy system that binds the regulators and the regulated. This movie pits powerful cliques of buddies against the underdog buddies, two losers in the police force.

The bond between Detectives Allen Gamble and Terry Hoitz (Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg) is a tongue-in-cheek teaming up of meatheads. Gamble, the more finely done character, "audited" his parents when he was 11. He became a pimp in school, sporting rapper chic, and later switched to the job of a detective accountant, taunted by colleagues as their "paper bitch." As a buddy, he's fiercely loyal and thoughtful. As a husband, he can be verbally abusive. But as a sex object, he is a runaway hit, driving hot women into a state and into fantasies of three-day sex marathons.

Hoitz has had less success in his love life despite being the movie-star/model type. As a young man, he learned to dance the ballet and play the harp as an act of "sarcasm" toward sissies whom he wanted to beat up. Currently, he's banned from street beats because he had brought shame to the police when he shot the top star of the World Series. As a buddy, he can be dense, hurting Gamble's delicate feelings and using him cynically in the name of police duty.

Teaming up Ferrell and Wahlberg was an inspired move. They're both born comic actors, capable of wild physical gags as well as a more subtle type of mimicry. Ferrell has the more demanding role, where he swings from being a reluctant partner to a gung-ho crime-buster and as a gruff husband to Dr. Sheila Gamble (Eva Mendez). But Wahlberg is as expressive ("I'm a peacock, you've gotta let me fly!") and as multi-layered, such as his look of disbelief and lust when he first meets Sheila. Like the comic greats, the duo gives Gamble and Hoitz a kind face, a gentle disposition and an honest heart.

Directed by Adam McKay like an indulgent father giving free rein to his gifted children, and scripted by himself and Chris Henchy, "The Other Guys" has supplied this year's most quoted lines. Early on, the duo has a battle of conceits to express how they dislike each other. "If I were a lion and you were a tuna," says Hoitz, "I'd swim to the middle of the ocean and eat you and I'd bang your tuna girlfriend," whereupon Gamble frees a cascade of metaphors.

More word plays keep the fun going ("the sound of your pee hitting the urinal sounds feminine"), as well as non sequiturs ("I'm Catholic, he's Episcopalian, so somehow it works") and mock hyperbole ("I think we all witnessed today a ballet of emotions and feelings," says Gamble of Hoitz's Baryshnikov-like pirouettes).

This movie puts the audience in such a lighthearted state that when it's time to wrap up the story, some feeling of letdown sets in. But sit tight, as there's intrigue and more wham-bang action yet to come. When Gamble and Hoitz set off to investigate scaffolding violations in the buildings owned by billionaire David Ershon (Steve Coogan), little did they know that they will be sitting on top of a rotten scheme where Ershon and his creditors conspire to make huge dirty profits from huge dirty losses.

Some may find the Wall Street jargon off-putting, but really, it all boils down to state lottery earnings and police officers' pensions at risk of melting down. American public apathy had played a role in the Bernie Madoff, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers scandals, and still does and this movie indicts everyone.

Two scenes keep "The Other Guys" crackling with comic madness. The comedy gems are the dinner scene at the Gambles with Mendez and a sketch toward the end -- where Gamble's mother-in-law (Viola Harris), disguised as a bag lady with a walker, shuttles back and forth to deliver increasingly salacious messages between him and his angry wife.

In a Manhattan pub, Jewish humor meets Irish humor as Gamble (or Irish-blooded Ferrell) joins an a cappella group in a lovely rendition of a parody of a tragic Irish rebel song that ends with the English scoundrels burning Harry Potter books. Huh?

Coogan plays Ershon as a quick-witted manipulator with the charm of a fading rock-star. Mendez as Gamble's trophy wife reveals a comedic side to her celebrated silhouette and is very much in on the joke. But Madame Harris steals the show at the last moment as her pleading eyes and quivering voice, tinged with gleeful malice, turn the audience's giggles into bursts of laughter.

In one defining moment, Gamble and Hoitz duck under the bed to make sure that their chat is not being recorded. "Did you miss me?" Gamble flusters. Hoitz continues his prattle about the latest findings of their criminal investigation. "Hey did you miss me?" Gamble insists. "Well ahhh, umm yes," Hoitz replies, then carries on. It's a splendid irony that after all the huffing and the arguing and the screaming, the best lines of "The Other Guys" come in whispers.

Grown Ups (I) (2010)

Sometimes funny, but mostly we are not amused

[4/10 · 28 October 2010]

For some of us watching "Grown Ups", a buzzer at the end of the first half would have been a welcome relief. At that point, Roxanne Chase-Feder (Selma Hayek- Pinault, please note), the wife of ex-school basketball star Lenny Feder (Adam Sandler), prepares to storm out of the lakeside lodge and fly back to Milan, where she is a fashion maven.

By then, we have been subjected to the images of a dead man's ashes blown over a bucket of fried chicken; a "48-month-old" boy being breast-fed; a grandmother's bunion and swollen toe; a middle-aged fat man urinating while in the middle of a New England lake in full view of young ladies; and bacon sizzling on a bug zapper. Those gags are meant to make our day, but despite the occasional wit, restrained flatulence jokes, and chuckle- baiting punch lines, they leave us cheerless and wondering if we deserve better.

No, we don't deserve better, because we stay glued to our seats, hungry for any entertainment. Roxanne stays for the flimsiest of reasons, and we get another dose of the same-oh same-oh, only a bit grosser, a tad zanier, and a little more hectic. Sometimes, in a flash of comedic brilliance or a cute, well-delivered joke, we laugh. Sometimes. Breast milk squirts across the screen. Dave Spade's bum makes a cinematic debut ("That's an ass?" – the movie's best line). And some pratfalls happen, but we're still not amused.

Just before the end, we are treated to what could be the most excruciating scene from Hollywood in recent years, when out of the blue, the three married couples in the story do the I-have-something-to-confess routine, pouring out their hurts and pain not even hinted at earlier. Television does this sort of thing much better and "Grown Ups" shows how deeply television has subverted mainstream cinema, and us moviegoers as well. If the scene was meant to be a parody, then the script and direction could have used a lot of fine-tuning.

Curiously, the careers of the main collaborators of this movie, director Dennis Dugan and co-screenwriter Sandler himself, got started in television. The sad thing is what they have here is a rich lode of possibilities, from the story concept to the able actors. A quintet of middle school basketball stars reunites after 30 years for the funeral of their coach, their mentor on life. This theme of buddies' reunion has produced two memorable films, "The Secaucus Seven" and "The Big Chill". Structuring a comedy or farce around it -- now that's a true challenge. Another angle barely explored here is the new generation gap: between the texting and the Web-social-networking kids of the Digital Noughties and the survivors of the Me Decade of the 70s, or the Revivalist 80s .

Sandler succeeds in the box-office because he has made and still can make millions laugh. And to top it all, he's got one of the most likable faces in the business, totally affable and engaging in a reassuring sort of way. And don't forget his great comic timing, delivered with his trademark smile. But he may be depleting his bank of admirers. He and the other makers of "Grown Ups" were sitting on a gold mine of material and talent but they managed to deliver only fluff.

The Stendhal Syndrome (1996)

High-kitsch porno degno di Hitchcock

[10/10 · 27 October 2010]

Uscito nel 1996 e ristampato due anni fa, di Dario Argento "La Sindrome di Stendhal" ha trovato una nicchia in italiano festival ufficiale e come attrazione d'essai. Questo film, annunciato come un orrore / psico-thriller, bordi in alto porno-kitsch e lo sfruttamento. Ma a ben guardare, si rivela come il lavoro di un divertente regista che esplora le sue idee di cosa sia il pop divertimento come dovrebbe essere. Il suo esperimento continua anche dopo il taglio finale è firmato e sigillato.

Per tutti gli atteggiamenti psicoanalitica questo film ei tormenti che infligge l'eroina, i suoi momenti più bui hanno una put-on di qualità che si nasconde dietro Argento, una storia intrigante, folate di immagini emozionanti e scene di aggressione sessuale che sono dolorosi per guardare - a stesso tempo erotica e rivoltante. Quasi perse nel dramma è il fatto che la vittima, la polizia detective Anna Manni, è interpretato dalla figlia di Argento, Asia. E 'una pellicola perfetta per lui e il suo complice consenziente. …… etc etc.

Avatar (2009)

"Avatar" takes us back to a home we never had and never will have

[10/10 · 26 October 2010]

The turning point in the life of "Avatar" as a blockbuster was when it lost the Best Picture Oscar to "The Hurt Locker." Not that it lost potential movie consumers, far from it, but by not winning, it was deprived of bragging rights for posterity.

In the run-up to the 2009 Academy Awards night, the two films were locked in a David- and-Goliath publicity contest the likes of which are becoming more and more of an annual event. When the peers of directors James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow, his ex-wife, chose the $11 million film over his $300 million digital epic, the irony was not lost on us.

It's amusing to describe the movie's main conflict in biblical terms because the film's Davids are 3 meters tall (10 ft.). They are the Na'vis, a tribe of blue-skinned, yellow-eyed humanoids on some planet Pandora. On the other hand, the Goliaths are an army of Earthlings from the military-industrial-complex bent on strip-mining the planet's valuable rock, artlessly called unobtainium. You know the story, how the mission's lead avatar infiltrates the noble tribe, falls for their feisty warrior princess then switches over to the side of the soon-to-be oppressed.

That could well be "Avatar's" biblical dimension, a call to us, the masters of nature by default, to conserve whatever pristine treasures we have left. But short of lecturing, it lightly couches its message in a morality play that melds science fiction, war story, action and romance.

It is a story laced with youthful fantasizing. The corporate exploiters and their mercenaries menace the peace of Pandora, an otherworldly ecological Paradise. At its center is the mystical Tree of Souls that holds the spiritual and genetic fabric of the race. And who best to help them but Jack Scully, the paraplegic ex-Marine avatar who has found acceptance among the literally connects to their beings and creatures. Sam Worthington, the Australian actor who plays him, is a study of a reserved man longing for an inner life.

The plot moves with agility and dramatic logic, culminating in an epic battle between the rapacious villains and the noble Pandorans, who during a crucial battle find their deus ex machina in their wild creatures. The skillfully managed war sequences evoke images from the Vietnam War and America's allegedly oil-motivated wars.

It was only the other day when we journeyed to Munchkinland in the Land of Oz, and only yesterday when George Lucas was transporting us to unknown worlds in galaxies far, far away, to new places and the bizarre creatures inhabiting them. Today, through computer graphic imaging, "Avatar" takes us back home, but to a home that we never had and never will have, not even one that we can hope to have.

The imagined landscape of Pandora and the totally digitized creation of the Na'vi giants are the reasons why the movie will be a durable audience-pleaser for a long time. The planet comes across as a pastiche of Earth's mountain ranges, cliffs and lush rain forests. Except that the mountains defy gravity, floating up to the sky, connected to the lower strata by gigantic vines where Scully's avatar and his Na'vi love Neytiri (an aristocratic Zoë Saldana) can navigate with feline grace. The sky-scape of islands on air is a nod to Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki's "Princess Mononoke."

And the plants and beasts appear to be products of several million-year evolutions, or those of a creator who was having a bad day, mixing up their DNAs, resulting in bioluminescent land-based jellyfish, pterodactyls with the beaks of ducks and gills of sharks, and collages of manatee and elephant body parts topped with hammerhead whales' craniums.

Whether they are giving life to flora or fauna, the computer graphics are meticulous down to the last pixel, the tones realistic and the textures palpable. One can even notice the stains on the ivory teeth of a dragon-like creature's fossil. The same care had gone into the creation of the Na'vi beings: elongated torsos and limbs, ultra-slim waists, wiggly ears, hair locks and costume accessories, this last seemingly a collection of those worn by African, Asian and American indigenous tribes.

But for all the attention to detail, or maybe because of Cameron's mythic intent, the movie missed endowing the Na'vis with a clear culture, hinting only at their hierarchical customs and cult-like rituals performed around the Tree of Souls, with rhythmic chants and ecstatic flailing of hair locks. How do they live? Where are the kids? Except for one bite of a fig-like fruit, we get no glimpse of what foods nourish them. There are two especially whimsical visual touches. One is the bonding between Na'vi and Na'vi, or between Na'vi and beast through the tips of their tails, which are equipped with squiggly nematode-like filaments. In one scene, the coupling becomes overtly sexual. The other image is the suspended lacy hammock that gently ensconces a sleepy warrior at slumber time.

The first and only "Avatar" I've seen is the Special Edition, not in IMAX but in 3D. It took me quite a while to enjoy the wonders of 3D, being somewhat bothered by the random blurring of image details in certain frames, apparently not caused by shifts in the depth of field. As for the extra nine minutes added or restored to the original, I doubt very much that they make any difference.

Should "Avatar" have won over "The Hurt Locker" in the Oscars? The question is academic. Unlike a certain winter sport, to make a clumsy analogy, judging films is not a mere factoring of technical brilliance and artistic merits, calculated to the last decimal point. When Academy members vote, their knowledge, taste and intuition are their only guide. "Avatar" may be miles ahead in technical brilliance, and its humble rival may be miles ahead in artistry. But when the accountants split the difference, David slew Goliath.

Toy Story 3 (2010)

Bravos, tears and peeing in the pants?

[9/10 · 25 October 2010]

"Toy Story 3" has the most touching ending of a movie in recent memory, delivered with such tenderness and sincerity that bring even big guys to tears.

Up until that moment, the story's toy heroes had gone through hell in order to belong, to find a home and fulfill their destiny, and now they've done it. But the scene belongs to their owner, Andy, who is at the crossroads of his life, ready to say goodbye not only to the comforts of home but also to the joys of childhood. Nostalgia, letting go, a rite of passage – for the boy as well as the audience, the blend is bittersweet.

Between "Toy Story 2" and "Toy Story 3", a number of good things happened. Animation master hatched the idea for the final sequel, Lee Unkrich honed his directorial gifts with three Pixar studio hits, and Michael Arndt found fame writing "Little Miss Sunshine." But negative things happened too, such as America's descent into a period of recession, making it a receptive ground for this movie's theme of usefulness and obsolescence. Until today, there are legions of employed people out there living in fear of the red slip or the rude jolt of restructuring. The plight of Andy's endangered toys is not much different from their own.

Once loved and appreciated, the toys (job description: give joy), find themselves literally being sacked. After a series of fateful errors, they end up under two new managements: Sunnyside day care center's destructive horde of 2-year-olds during the day, and at night, a strawberry-colored stuffed bear and his sinister band of thugs.

Lasseter, Unkrich, Arndt and their teams of animators then weave their magic, crafting a thrilling adventure story of the toys' escape from their prison which is as engrossing as the best action movies from any major studio. The difference is that these plastic and polyester stuffs have more heart than, say, Rambo (make no mistake, Rambo's full of it), and can act and ham it better than, say, Arnold – they're far more . . . animated.

It starts with the clear sketches of the toy characters, each one assigned its own dossier, quirks and emotional baggage. The mainstays such as Cowboy Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Jessie the Cowgirl and the Potato Heads are joined by new ones such as godfather Lotso and, surprise, Barbie and Ken. The inclusion of Barbie is not an unlikely choice because after all, she is the collectible of collectibles. Every toy gets its turn to shine -- to be endearing, witty, plain silly or even menacing -- and when it does, so does the actor who lends the voice, with special mention to Ned Beatty as sadistic Lotso.

As "Toy Story 3" hurtles to its rousing finale, one can understand why in some movie theaters, audiences cheer and give it a standing ovation at the end. Pixar rules. Once again, it has won the hearts of viewers 10 years and above.

I really can't speak for those 10 and under. One possible pitfall of making animation feature films is the imperative to entertain both the kids and their parents. This multi-tasking can result in clever double entendres, humor that works on different levels and wonderful messages that can be grasped by either young or old or both.

But when it comes to imagery of the frightening kind, the studios may be treading on sensitive ground, because one need not be a psychologist to know that there are certain images that terrify children and haunt them even in their sleep.

One prototype of animation movie villains is the witch from "The Wizard of Oz." Some kids found her so frightening that they peed in their pants. Those were the 1940s, long before the villains of TV cartoons and computer games became regular household guests. Have preteen children evolved so much in seven decades that they now have very high tolerance for the abnormal and the grotesque?

"Toy Story 3" contains a few images that could be terrifying for the youngest kids: an overgrown baby doll in diapers who is one of the thugs; a ghostly cymbal-clapping monkey straight from "Phantom of the Opera"; and visions of hell in the form of gigantic toy shredders and seething incinerators. All in bigger-than-life 3D. Combine them with super- realistic effects and hard-edged storytelling and one wonders if the young 'un is really having fun.

Perhaps there should be a new rating system for the benefit of those under 10, or perhaps movie makers should remember a little girl's complaint to her dad one day at a theme park: "Don't walk too fast, Daddy. I got small feet."

Despicable Me (2010)

Crunchy humor, richly textured animation, melt-your-heart recipe

[9/10 · 25 October 2010]

Every three minutes or so, "Despicable Me" doles out cookies. They're alternately of the crispy, chewy or melt-in-your-mouth variety, but never crumbly or too sugary. This is just one way of describing the delights of this movie, its crunchy humor, richly textured animation and melt-your-heart recipe.

Cookies happen to be a crucial device in the plot, the one that brings three little sisters and a super-villain together. They're unloved orphans from Miss Hattie's Home for Girls while he, Gru, is a heist artist of the first order who's in danger of losing his standing to an upstart geek (drawn with shades of Woody Allen). The villainous rivals start a madcap race to the moon to put the ultimate prize, literally, on the palms of their hands: the moon itself. In order to have any hope of winning, Gru maneuvers to adopt the trio. This situation is fraught with danger, namely the slide into triteness, and the predictability of the story's outcome could only be outweighed by clever filmmaking. By many a yardstick, "Despicable Me" has beat the odds.

Save for a cruel pointy nose, there's really not much particularly gruesome about Gru. Neither his menacing eyes, his SUV from hell nor freeze gun could terrify the younger kids in the audience, or even Agnes, the youngest of the orphans. "Yeah, he's scary. Like Santa," she says with a yawn. With a thick Transylvanian or Gothic accent that recalls The Count in "Sesame Street," Steve Carell's voice captures the put-on quality of Gru's gruffness and his frustration over the put-downs by his frigidly aloof mommy (Julie Andrews).

Ms. Andrews is just one of the "Despicable Me's" multicultural assets and sources of its insistent charm. Wry English humor is evident in many lines, written by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio with understated wit and a sense of decorum.

The only juvenile joke in the movie, about bodily functions, uses another four-letter word, "dart". And parents in the audience may recall some visual motifs from the James Bond movies, especially "Goldfinger" and "Moonraker" -- veddy English. To dupe Miss Hattie into letting him adopt the girls, Gru uses words dripping with false sentiment then butters her up by telling her that she has a face "como un burro", Spanish for like a donkey, by implication, an ass. She doesn't speak the language and is completely taken in.

France (where the French-voiced version is "Moi, moche et mechant" -- Ugly and Mean Me) has provided the technical finesse. French directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud kept the story progression fluid and every technical and artistic business under control. A team of some 280 artists and technicians from Mac Guff Ligne worked on the finely-styled digital animation and design for over two years. Around 50 of them also acted out the parts. Mac Guff still doesn't measure up to the resources and inventiveness of Pixar, though. For instance, those much-publicized impish tube-like minions, cute as they are, may have only a slim chance to catch on in an overcrowded toy market.

American audacity and feel-good cravings drive the storyline of "Despicable Me." The premise of the theft of the moon, the giddy roller-coaster sequence and the family-values sentimentality over Gru's failure to attend the orphans' ballet recital are vintage Hollywood.

When Gru's mommy finally utters words of praise for him, slyly of course, he basks in the glow of the moment. The moon was his, no matter how briefly, and he has become a full- fledged dad, and son as well. That's three cookies for Gru, and a whole box of wholesome goodness for us.

The American (2010)

Corbijn's minimalist style can be deceiving

[7/10 · 25 October 2010]

"You're American. You think you can escape history. You live for the present," Father Benedetto, the know-it-all parish priest of an Italian hill-town, tells self-described photographer Edward (George Clooney), who is in reality hired killer Jack. It's a startling observation, made early during their first meeting, at the same time a temptation to place this movie within the context of current world politics. But this Jack is not a clear stand-in for Uncle Sam or a walking metaphor for America's actions abroad. He is a brooding antihero on forced leave from assassination, and he could as well be Dutch like the movie's director Anton Corbijn or British like its originator, the late novelist and poet Martin Booth.

Jack's own profile remains blank for the most part; neither he nor the writers reveal much more than what we know from the prying priest. But from the start, his cold-blooded instinct, cynicism and craftsmanship as a gun-maker are plain to see. He also has a fascination for butterflies, in fact had the image of one tattooed between his shoulder blades. Butterflies are one of the most ephemeral of beautiful creatures, not just for their brief lifespan but also for their fleeting presence. They flutter about, sip the nectar, then go. Were it not for their link to mortality and living life for the moment, they make an unlikely fetish for a professional killer.

Women are another matter. The code that rules Jack's life says that he can bed them but don't be too friendly. Soon enough, he begins to have other thoughts on the issue. There lies the central conflict of this "americano." Every character in the story helps bring about its resolution in his or her own surprising way, from the prostitute who wins his heart to Father Benedetto who helps him find it. When Corbijn takes us to end, Jack finally assumes the full human dimension denied him through most of this movie.

"The American" has elements of a thriller and the makings of an anti-thriller or even a pseudo-thriller. But its spare, laid-back storytelling seems to work against it at every turn. Thrillers as we know them in paperback form or Hollywood "offerings" thrive on complex motivations and webs of intrigue. The driving forces behind Jack are vague, the action around him tame despite horrific execution scenes, and the intrigue quite thin. Even the atmosphere of paranoia is muted.

However, with his chosen minimalist style, Corbijn nicely succeeds in the very art that made Dame Agatha Christie famous, that of devilish deception. The step-by-step process of fashioning a hybrid rifle with noise suppressor from scraps of metals from an auto-repair shop can be considered a diversion, a boring exercise for some, but somewhere in that scene is a clue to where the plot is heading.

Clooney, the most famous American resident of Italy, does himself and southern Italy a favor. He puts the medieval town of Sulmona in the region of Abruzzo and its timeworn winding alleys firmly on the tourist map, even if the cinematographer has avoided postcard-perfect shots.

For himself, Clooney co-produces a movie tailored for him, testing the limits of his craft at a moment when his hair is turning gray and his body is still youthful-looking and supple. Maybe this includes baring a part of his anatomy that's best kept hidden, but that's debatable. Clooney has often used his soothing voice and soulful eyes to great effect and does the same here, but in addition he curls up his torso in yoga poses to hint at a state of mind the script fails to illuminate.

Violante Placido's Cara is a self-assured and smart prostitute, though her character is totally without the expected contradiction that is in her name. Placido misses an opportunity to display her talent in a scene – where Jack confronts her about the gun in her purse -- because either the script or the editor had cut it short. But with this role she joins Cristina Ferrare, Isabella Rosselini and Monica Bellucci as "le divine" from Italy.

As an experiment, "The American" largely fails in providing an alternative to the solid body of thrillers and mystery films but Corbijn's brave demonstration of poetic style should in the long run inspire a new crop of alternatives to the genre. But as entertainment, it delivers fascinating images and thrills and some lesson about escaping history.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010)

The hour of the owl has indeed come, in super-realistic 3D

[8/10 · 24 October 2010]

The hour of the owl has come. This creature of the night has shared top billing with the Pussycat when they went to sea, done cameo roles in horror movies, and is still stuck in bit parts, for example, as mail courier in the Harry Potter series. Now finally it has a full-length feature of its own in "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole".

The movie should delight not only the many fans of Kathryn Lasky's multi-volume fantasy for young people but also bird lovers and, especially, the uninitiated. Based closely on the series' first three books, it's a crash course on the epic. But throughout the survey, the movie surprises with its super-realistic visual style and soaring dramatic moments.

Set in an era before or after mankind as we know it, the story is spun around the abduction of two brothers, who are barely out of their owlet years, by members of the tribe of the Pure Ones. Before the incident, the father of the fledglings had fed them tales about the heroism of the legendary Guardians, hammering the message that "through our gizzards the voices of the angels of the Guardians speak to us".

However, the siblings, Kludd and younger Soren, are the stuff of two different gizzards. Even back in the nest, Kludd was skeptical about the existence of the Guardians, while Soren idolized them. At the sinister St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls where they are now imprisoned, Kludd proves to be an easy prey for queen Nyra, who grooms him as a prime warrior dedicated to upholding the superiority of the species. Meanwhile Soren puts up a fight, first by resisting the cult's bird-brain-washing sessions called "moon-blinking" where the feathered captives end up glassy-eyed, ready for slave labor, and then by forming a band of four unlikely rebels.

Given the crowded cast of characters of the books -- which include a snake, a Tasmanian devil and a gaudy echidna --the director and scenarists of "Legend of the Guardians" had the tough task of paring the film's cast and action down to essentials and they succeed just so, and perhaps not to the satisfaction of fans who may have their own favorites. By concentrating on the events around Soren's escape and the showdown between the Pure Ones and the Guardians, the movie achieves a leanness of narrative that allows it to weave animation magic.

"Legend" gives the books, which are beautifully illustrated, the digital treatment they deserve, and much more. It's an exploitation of the possibilities of computer graphic and design, capturing fully the "dimension" in 3Dimensional. Building on the ornithological research done earlier by the author, the animators and director Zack Snyder, who had previous CG imagery experience in his breakthrough feature "300", bring several subspecies of hooting or screeching owls to life, down to their downy plumage, odd facial disks, ear tufts and whiskers. And for the settings, the creators draw from nature's exotic landscapes, applying an autumnal palette of russet, rich copper and gold. All these efforts reach a memorable climax when Soren and friends pierce through storm and sleet, then soar majestically to the home of the Guardians.

Both "300" and "Legend" touch on the theme of racial superiority, but this time Snyder puts himself on the other side of the fence. While "300", the 2007 historical action epic set amid rippling abs, was flayed for its fascistic elements, "Legend" is firmly anchored on correctness, with some old-fashioned virtues such as courage and loyalty thrown in. Snyder is apparently one of those pragmatic directors who set aside their biases to deliver the original intent of the source, the producers or the scenarists.

The characters and voice assets are some of the movie's finest points, although main hero Soren's personality comes out somewhat flat despite a soulful turn by Jim Sturgess. Strangely, Soren's face evokes the reticence and questioning look of Elijah Wood's Frodo in the "Lord of the Rings" series. Kludd (voiced by Ryan Kwanten), however, is a revelation; in every scene, each frown and wink of an eye traces his evolution from a guilt-wracked novice to a hardened convert. As Nyra, Helen Mirren is in every phrase a queen, and in every inflection deliciously evil. For comic relief, the oddball duo of Twilight (Anthony LaPaglia) and Digger (David Wenham) accent their lines with mock Shakespearean flourish that even non- theater buffs will love.

For adolescents, the occasional violence and the aerial slash-fest that cap "Legend" may not pose a problem, but for kids under 10, they might. Snyder and his editors have carefully panned away from violence, editing out even the hint of blood and presenting the final fratricidal battle in bold but exciting strokes - it's hard to tell the attacker from the victim - but still, the sight of steel-reinforced talons can be chilling for the youngest ones.

For the toddlers among the viewers of animated features, I have devised a "Scary Scale" for rating their possible impact based on grotesqueness, violence and depiction of death. S stands for safe and sound, C for carefully done, A for advising the kids in advance, R for read the reviews and reconsider, and Y for you've been warned. I would have given "Toy Story 3" an A and "Despicable Me" an S. "Legend of the Guardians" meanwhile gets a C.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)

Sequel merely skims over surface of greed and barely shines

[7/10 · 24 October 2010]

Like most Western economies, Oliver Stone's sequel to "Wall Street" goes through cycles of boom and bust.

In a world where bad debt can be sliced, diced and swapped, and a transaction is either in the money, at the money or out of it, the only sure winner is greed. In "Money Never Sleeps," greed has moved up a notch, according to convicted insider trader and fraudster Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas). Twenty-three years ago, he declared that "greed is good," but now he says "it seems to be legal because everyone is drinking the same Kool Aid."

Freed after eight years in prison, Gekko gets back to the business of survival and picks up the pieces of his once-opulent life while dreaming to get hold of a staggering amount of dirty money he had laundered in Switzerland. His personal redemption is in the hands of his only daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan), an embittered woman who has not spoken to him in ages.

He finds a perfect bridge in her fiancé, the brilliant investment bank analyst Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf). The two men are a good fit because their thirst for vengeance runs through parallel veins, and they share an instinct for stealth and cunning. Jake wants to mow down the new Gekko on the block, the sleek Bretton James (Josh Brolin), who had driven his benefactor and mentor to suicide. Gekko, whose downfall James helped orchestrate, is more than willing to help.

Much like Gekko, director Oliver Stone returns to the scene of his original hit to find it a somewhat different place. The clunky cell-phone of 1987 has become a featherweight multimedia gizmo, clean energy futures are blue-chip hot and new economic superpowers are moving up in the world. Though personal matters are more pressing now than market gyrations, they are necessarily intertwined and Stone finds himself juggling, not without success, the elements of his story –- revenge, family reconciliation and the "moral hazards" of the Street.

As Gekko tells an old lady during a signing of his book "Is Greed Good?," moral hazard is when somebody dupes somebody and gets away with it, loot and all. The original "Wall Street" rode bravely on the back of the theme of moral hazard and sparkled. This sequel simply skims over the surface of greed and barely shines.

Next to the federal government and the family, Wall Street is the most important of U.S. institutions. Amid the financial scandals, market meltdowns and depression of recent years, Americans on Main Street are asking questions about why and how they happened. But it may be too much to ask of a movie to provide the answers. It's a safe bet that Stone was not intimidated by the challenge, content to simply pose the questions.

Jake's sweet revenge on his new patron and mentor James nearly doesn't happen, but when it does, it's not because of a well contrived trap or Gekko's machinations. Both are rendered superfluous by the exposes of Jack and the liberal Internet blog site run by Winnie and the intervention of federal authorities. It's perhaps a less exciting course but one that is true-to- life and avoids piling up more money-speak that this movie already has in heaps.

What's left is the tale of a broken family and Stone explores this angle spiritedly, mixing high drama with mush. The result leaves much to be desired; the conclusion is unearned and the decisions made by the characters are arbitrary and unconvincing.

This film is a sumptuous banquet for the cast. Frank Langella as Jake's father figure Lou Zabel fires up the movie to a dazzling start. He's so wrapped up in his role that one can imagine him playing Gekko with the same verve and ruthless efficiency of Michael Douglas. There is nothing more to say about Douglas's performance except that he adds slimy charisma and more venom to his reptile, plus a skin layer of vulnerability that he can slough off and put on as needed.

Despite a face that's more teen computer whiz than Wall Street wheeler-dealer, a committed LaBeouf acts more maturely than Jake's supposed age, fine-tuning his emotions and bonding most closely to every one in the drama. Mulligan's Carrie is more technique than Method but it's still early in her career and she has the choice of becoming a Helen Hayes, a Stockard Channing or a Meryl Streep someday. Square-jawed Brolin as James is a competent but rather self-effacing robber baron.

One can listen for hours to this movie's lines: the razor-sharp rebuke; the witty riposte; the allusions to evolution and pop culture; the droll maxims and aphorisms spiced with a New York twang; plus Mae West's celebrated quote about two evils. When they fit the character, they're good. And when they don't, they're good.

Images loaded with symbolism are part of Stone's flashy mannerisms. Here he employs fluorescent 3D charts of stock quotations; tulips, as in the mother of all investment bubbles, the tulip mania of 1637; and the inevitable soap bubbles. (Cotton candy would have been subtler.) New York City's skyline looks particularly stately, as if to proclaim the obvious, its prime position in the world. These symbols reach an eye-popping level at a charity dinner shot in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the camera parades the women's Cartier baubles, Bvlgari earrings and Harry Winston beads from Tiffany's or some other haute jewelers.

But nothing beats Stone's accidental metaphor for Wall Street. He was right on the money when he cast 95-year-old Eli Wallach as a shriveled banker whose bird-call during board meetings is the modern-day equivalent of a Roman emperor's thumb-down for gladiators. With his wizened face, snake eyes and the smile of the Grim Reaper, he fits the bill for the prophet of doom in a financial world that ignores the lessons of history to slump time and again into the arms of greed.

The Town (2010)

A subtle homage to "Casablanca," with a twist

[10/10 · 24 October 2010]

In this thriller, Doug MacRay of Charlestown, a blue-collar enclave in Boston notorious for producing more bank robbers than any other town in the U.S., knows precisely what the law says. The sentences for threatening a state witness, and for bank robbery resulting in murder, he knows them all by heart. He should: his own father had committed such crimes and is serving five life terms.

Doug (Ben Affleck) is the planning genius and leader of a band for four robbers working for a syndicate boss who runs a flower shop for cover. Doug confesses to his new girlfriend Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall) that he has never killed anyone. His latest dossier consists of two bank heists, and a raid on the sanctuary of "the cathedral of Boston" -- the money vault of the Red Sox's Fenway Park – that resulted in the fatal face-smashing of a bank officer, the death of a security guard and the serious wounding of another.

To get an idea of what possible jail term he faces in case of conviction, I asked lawyer John Kriss of Kansas. He categorizes Doug's crime as a felony murder. His committing a felony (theft) "was directly responsible for the murder and injury." Since Massachusetts's law does not sanction the death penalty, "Doug could be on the hook for two life sentences plus others for the battery, for the robbery and all," says Kriss.

Consequences. "The Town" is about the consequences of crime and what happens when love enters the picture. Doug's romantic fling defies Irish "omerta," the Mafia code of silence, putting him and his men in trouble as the feds, led by FBI agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm), close in.

Affleck directs with great intelligence and tackles the role of a criminal on the verge of conversion with muted passion. He manages to be convincing in a tricky monologue where he describes to Claire that day when his mother disappeared forever. His spiel sounds genteel, not the expected working-class chatter, a far cry from his altercation with his second-in-command and adopted brother Jem (Jeremy Renner), where they fire a barrage of four-letter words.

There is scarcely a moment when "The Town" does not throb with action, crackles with crisp dialogue or simmer with conflict. The bank heists and the car chase through the narrow streets of old Boston are shrewdly paced, the goons and police dueling intensely, the sound suddenly turning mute and the action frozen, only to ricochet to their bitter end.

Claire, taken hostage in the opening heist, is pivotal since her traumatic experience stokes Doug's feelings, and the interest of FBI agents too. The heavy burden to be likable and believable falls on Hall's lap. She excels in the first task and falters in the other, and she's not to blame. It doesn't help that there is a fuzzy edge to her character as scripted. She plays Claire with a passivity and resignation that's out of sync with her job description as bank manager, as though she had climbed the corporate ladder without some feistiness.

Hall's wardrobe, dark and nondescript, does not serve her well either, oblivious to her being the neighborhood "toonie," the yuppie outsider. For the heists, the costume department had found the right Jason helmets and get-up of Mother Superiors from hell, so why didn't they shop for the smart, say, Gap or Guess casuals for her? The cut-to-cut close-ups that are Affleck's preferred vehicle for dialogue – oh, those talking heads -- also work against her at times as her unease in finding the right tone and emotion is betrayed on the screen. But this much must be said: Hall is electrifying and heartbreaking when she needs to be.

Renner's gives Jem's character perfect shading, menacing at times and sometimes explosive. Jem is the loose-cannon type who's quick to smash a face with a rifle butt in a moment of panic or, stupidly, to bare his masked face during a brutal beating of a Charlestown bully. The zeal that FBI investigator Frawley brings to his job is frightening, but brusque and suave Hamm is more than equal to the task, badgering, cajoling and intimidating potential witnesses to spill the goods on the suspects. His interviews with Claire, Doug and Jem's sister Krista are free lessons in A Dozen Ways to Manipulate People.

As the mob grandfather Fergie the florist, Pete Postlethwaite has the sharpest lines, pornographic in their cruelty, which he delivers with the lilt and rhythm of Irish poetry. Blake Lively plays soaked-in-dope Krista, who is also Doug's part-time lover, slutting, slurring and whimpering her way through the narcotic haze, and revealing herself in the clearest terms as an actress to watch.

So finally, "The Town" boils down to consequences. They come fast and furious, and blood flows. For the final scenes, Affleck finds in the ending of the classic film "Casablanca" a paradigm, or at the very least an inspiration. "The Town" is of course cut from an entirely different mold, from the premise to the atmosphere -- although Affleck tends to bathe Boston in blue and dark tones, recalling "Casablanca's" shadows and grays. And while "Casablanca" is a psychologically complex film that has kept cinema lovers busy dissecting it for decades, "The Town" is more gritty and clear-cut; there are no mystifying issues about it.

But the choices the characters of either film face toward the end do mirror each other and are equally touching: which is it, love or society? A crucial decision taken in "The Town" manages to leave a bittersweet taste that comes close to "Casablanca's." This is more than a nod to the classic; it's a subtle homage with a twist. And what about the consequences of the thugs' crimes against the people of Boston? Well, truth be told, on a day like many summer days in Charlestown, they don't really matter.

Eat Pray Love (2010)

Superb production design, camera work for three movies in one

[8/10 · 23 October 2010]

The most gorgeous among the recent crop of films, "Eat Pray Love" is like getting three for the price of one. "Eat" is a feast for the senses; "Pray" a flawed exercise; and "Love" a lush story. Apart from director Ryan Murphy's modest display of versatility, it stands out because of its classy production design and master-class cinematography that are among this year's best.

Elizabeth Gilbert's memoirs of her journey after a painful divorce sparked talk about feminism. Many saw the author's flight from a stifling marriage and her trek of self- discovery, a man's exclusive domains in the old days, as a feminist triumph.

There are two sides to the feminist movement. On the one hand are hardliners on women's liberty and equality. On the other, moderates who fight for rights "with dignity . . . without blemishing the delicacy of their sex." But the two sides are deadlocked over the question of love, a dilemma captured by Julia Roberts's panic and anguish when Liz rejects her new lover's invitation to build a life together. "I don't have to love you to prove that I love myself," she cries. Panic because she doesn't want to lose him, and anguish because accepting him could destroy her feminist core.

"Eat Pray Love" the movie has a fitful start, sketching the breakup of Liz's marriage to Steve (Billy Crudup) and her brief affair with David (James Franco), a rebel-poet and yoga devotee. The film's evasiveness over why both relationships fail is puzzling and robs Liz's dramatic moments of their power. With the reasons fuzzy, her dumping of Steve and David could be dismissed as being heartless. Her spiral into depression is only hinted at, so the healing comes not as an act of grace but as a footnote. When she forgives, one asks, what for?

This intro, which is like the pilot episode of a TV mini-series, gives us a glimpse of Gilbert's self-pooh-poohing humor. Liz attends a reading of her play and listens to David reciting such lines as "your love is like a hot panini." "Did I write that?" she asks. The awfulness is punctuated by her play's title -- "Permeable Membrane" in the book, "Impermeable Membrane" in the movie.

A convivial first episode, "Eat" is a distillation of the sensual delights of Italian life and a lesson in the pleasure of doing nothing, "dolce far niente." The dishes that restore Liz's appetite are actually simple but, photographed with the same gusto that Italians devour their pizza (and follow football), they are transformed into gourmand fare. Olive oil trickles down stalks of asparagus like honey, smoked salmon brightens up a plate of antipasti, and mozzarella melts into gooey strings. The camera avoids the travel-brochure clichés of Rome and Naples, lingering longest on the ruins of Portico d'Ottavia where Liz reflects on the ruins of her life.

In one scene, a cranky landlady tells Liz, "You American weemen come to Italy only to eet pasta and sausage," a perfectly innocent remark. But she might as well be referring to liberated travelers of some repute. It's a measure of Liz's morality that when she is offered the second entrée in the signora's menu, she says no.

At the heart of the movie is a hollow that belies Liz's supposed quest for change, balance and spirituality. Shot in an ashram in India, "Pray" has its roots in New York, where Liz tearfully seeks divine aid over her marital distress. That's the last prayer we hear, unless we count meditation. As a meditation student, Liz probably should get a D anyway and whatever enlightenment she finds comes from the snippy Texan Richard (Richard Jenkins), part pop psychologist and part guru of forgiveness who, as Liz says, "speaks in bumper sticker." They bond too late and not too closely. When Richard confesses his marital failings in a drawn-out monologue, delivered perfectly like a stage pro by Jenkins, the movie hits its first big false note. It's Liz's confession that we want to hear, not Richard's -- talk about scene-stealing.

Followed by another: a fantasy flashback wherein bride Liz in an ashram sari and groom Steve in a white suit dance the aborted waltz of their wedding party. Another scene, apparently meant to be a symbolic and mystical meeting between Liz and the elephant- headed god Ganesh, falls flat as gorgeous Dumborella upstages an amused, somewhat petrified Roberts.

"Love" is a well-scripted romance. Liz finds in Brazilian businessman Felipe (Javier Bardem) her complimentary opposite in a story that unwraps as sweetly and magically as its setting, Indonesia's Bali. Cinematographer Robert Richardson adds a sultry patina to the island in the same way that he captures the modern and timeless textures of Italy, and the cacophony of color that is India. Totally not intimidated by his debut in a Hollywood film, Hadi Subiyanto plays "no-teeths" medicine man Ketut with poise and subtlety, his rapport with Liz rivaling that of Bardem's. As for the Spanish actor, he seasons his role with feminist-slaying sensitivity, every shifting emotion traceable on his face and in his eyes.

Gathered around Roberts is a bright cast led by Crudup doing his goofiest best in an ambiguous role, and the ever-cerebral Franco. Viola Davis as Liz's best friend reflects some of Oprah Winfrey's aura. Luca Argentero, Liz's Italian conversation partner Giovanni, has the goods and the style of the late Marcello Mastroianni, if the Italians haven't yet noticed.

A pillar of the star system, Roberts often gets cast in a dual role, as the character and as herself. In "Eat Love Pray" Liz and Roberts compete for attention, with Roberts coming out on top. A director would have to work harder to make the Lizes and the other pretty women of the scripts prevail over Julia the star. It's been done before. That director is probably not Murphy, but everyone deserves a second chance.

Inception (2010)

The multiple climaxes are beautiful, elegantly flashy and grand.

[10/10 · 23 October 2010]

I found "Inception" disappointing, but only during its first 10 minutes. Before I bought a ticket at the box-office and ordered my Sproke (that's half-Sprite, half-Coke), I've read only two reviews about it: one tore it to pieces and micro-pieces (Rex Reed), the other one was ecstatic (Richard Roeper). In my case, by the middle of the movie, let me just say that I was swept away. As the final credits ended, I concluded that this movie was, visually a landmark, and in terms of montage a masterpiece. Three months later, I still feel the same.

Surely its weakest point must be the premise that dreams could be extracted and that ideas could be planted like viruses inside dreaming subjects' brains. That's quite a stretch. The mechanics of how this is done are hazy, or probably I wasn't listening. But once I accepted it, then I was in for rewards.

First, there's a fine ensemble of actors, particularly Leonardo DiCaprio, who became more and more sympathetic as the story unfolded and who ultimately must be credited for making us Believe.

The visual concepts and their execution are mind-boggling, hallucinatory and refreshing even if I seem to have seen them before. And the special effects are nothing less than exhilarating: the spatial distortions, the sense of being neither here nor there, the extraordinary editing. Nolan's best images are M.C. Eschers in motion or an architect's nightmare. A Parisian "arrondissement" (district) folds up like a child's picture book, bodies seem to slip in and out of mirrors and there's a ghastly panorama of a city in ruins by the sea. Could that be New York?

But what places "Inception" among landmark films is its labyrinthine narrative and how they've been pieced together. There are two strands in the plot: one about dream extractor Cobb and his ghostly wife (played with neurotic intensity by Marion Cotillard), and the other one about the inception operation. The Cobb-wife strand features several brief dreams and dreams within a dream, including dream architect Ariadne's intrusions. They move back or forth in time: sequels, prequels or story movement played out in real movie time. And they're strategically embedded throughout the film.

The anchor story, the inception operation, includes three dreams within the main dream, i.e. the scion Fischer's dream. I told my friends later that the key to enjoying the movie was not to fuss about the seeming complexity and to be always asking: which dream am I watching now? But if you insist, I said, remember that those four-layered dreams move in parallel, and in logical progression. Plus, the settings tell us which dream layer we're in: the hotel corridor, the city road, the jumbo jet, somewhere in the Alps, and the river.

"Inception" hits an explosive point when each of those subplot dreams reaches its climax in breathtaking sequence. They are beautiful, elegantly flashy, and grand in a way the climaxes of classic films are. The resolution of the Cobb-wife story neatly wraps up everything. Or does it? Cobb's operative "token," a metallic top, continues its endless spin, indicating that he, and us, are still caught up in a dream.

Christopher Nolan has all the credentials to be hailed as a master of the deconstructed narrative and classical montage. I believe that it will end up not just one of the top 10 movies of the year; it will be one of the top three. The French L'Express newspaper reviewer wrote that "Inception is a cinematic miracle disguised as a Hollywood blockbuster." I couldn't agree more.