janos451 Reviews

Wo ai ni mommy (2010)

An adoption documentary like no other

[8/10 · 26 May 2010]

There is an abundance of great films about a child lost in an alien culture, emblematic of the universal stranger-in-a-strange-land syndrome, to the tune of "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child." From "The Wizard of Oz" to "Live and Become," survival in a different, potentially hostile, world has been a meaningful subject.

The latest addition to the genre, Stephanie Wang-Breal's brilliant "Wo ai ni (I love you) Mommy" is a documentary about an American adoption from China. It is more compelling and memorable than many a feature film.

The world premiere screening was at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, on Sunday, March 14, with the the director in attendance. If the film's main subject came along, you would have seen a "normal 11-year-old American" called Faith.

At the opening of the film, it's a very different situation: Faith is an eight-year old orphan, with a clubfoot, in Guangzhou, her name is Fang Sui Yong. Bewildered and petrified, she is facing a strange woman who came all the way from Long Island to adopt her and take her "home." The American, almost as stressed as the young girl, is Donna Sadowsky.

She is Jewish, mother of two boys, and she and her husband have already adopted a Chinese girl when she was 14 months old.

After a long and arduous process, a long, emotion-filled journey, Donna is now meeting Sui Yong, an adoptee much older than the average of 70,000 Chinese children - mostly babies or toddlers - adopted by Americans. Donna disregards custom and statistics: this is to be her daughter.

For the girl, a veteran of orphanages and a Chinese foster family, this first meeting with what she identifies as a "white person" is traumatic, and in the audience feelings range from censure of what's happening to fervent hope that the Chinese orphan and the American do-gooder ride off into a blissful life. What follows is a fascinating journey, unexpected turns and developments, all with documentary veracity but with the sense of a great novel.

It's amazing that a young, first-time director would capture both the reality and the truth of the encounter of people, the clash of cultures.

It's reminiscent of another young director's work, Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation," except that much is found in "Wo ai ni Mommy," instead of being lost.

Wang-Breal's years'-long preparation, the mutual trust built with her subjects, persistent integrity, and a clear sense of what is the essence of the story serve her well, even when a lesser director would shout "Cut!" In a memorable scene, Faith is on Skype with her former foster parents in China, and by now she speaks only English, "forgets" her Chinese, and says "we are Jewish." Against coughs, sound and lighting problems, Wang-Breal keeps the camera rolling, and it's all to the good.

Unlike flashy, popular feature films left behind along with the empty popcorn container, "Wo ai ni Mommy" - its people, their interactions and relationships, the culture clash and reaching across distances and differences, and partial resolution of conflicts, if not a sugary happy ending - will stay with you, and you'll be the richer for it.

Portrait of a Beauty (2008)

The art of gender-neutral painting

[7/10 · 19 March 2009]

A lavish royal court spectacle, a compelling drama of love, strife, and betrayal, the new Korean film "Portrait of a Beauty" has it all: history, art, romance, adventure. The San Francisco premiere is today (3/20) in the 4-Star Theater on Clement.

As most recent works from the burgeoning Korean film industry, "Portrait" is expertly directed (by Yun-su Jeon, also responsible for the screenplay), and beautifully photographed.

Taking place in the 18th century, the story begins in the family of famous court painters, where the young son is trained to take his place among the privileged royal artists - but he lacks talent.

His sister, at age 7, is already so accomplished that she paints for him secretly. When the subterfuge is discovered within the family, the boy commits suicide, and the girl is forced to take his name (Yoon-bok), and live as a man. Rather than telling the plot of the movie, the story described so far is just the very beginning, the basis for a lengthy, rich adventure to unfold.

The hero/heroine is played by the unassuming but outstanding actress Min-sun Kim. Her character, pretending to be a man, rises to fame and fortune (as we are treated to picturesque scenes of court and town life), and then creates a new school of painting, focusing on female beauty.

If you think the "establishment" of "Die Meistersinger" are upset about a bold, unconventional newcomer singer, you should see what the constellation of court painters does and, more, tries to do to Yoon-bok. Apparently, Korean artists in the 1700's were quite physical in their discussions of the finer points of brush strokes.

And yet, the artistic-aesthetic clash is just a small portion of the story. Yoon-bok falls in love with a charming outlaw (Nam-gil Kim, in a fabulously athletic performance), so there is the problem of the supposedly male painter letting her intended lover into her secret - but without being exposed to the rest of the world.

That exposure of gender complicates things a great deal when Yoon-bok's elderly teacher realizes that his student is a beautiful young woman when not disguised, and then - don't give up yet! - a royal courtesan falls in love with Yoon-bok, the man.

If this sounds like a potboiler, yes, it is that, but if you expect a predictable Hollywood soap knockoff - NO, it is not that at all. Writing, direction, acting combine to keep "Portrait of a Beauty" on the right side of the track, not giving in to easy and cheap solutions.

Apparently, aspects of the film are based on history, but my admiration for Korean films doesn't give me sufficient knowledge on the subject. True story or not, this film is real enough in creating a first-class movie experience.

Cherry Blossoms (2008)

Rebirth Under the Cherry Trees

[8/10 · 16 January 2009]

Doris Dörrie's "Cherry Blossoms" - opening "Berlin and Beyond" Thursday, in U.S. release on Friday - has two original titles, one in German: "Kirschblüten," which means cherry blossoms, and another in Japanese: "Hanami," which doesn't.

The Japanese equivalent to the English and German titles would be "sakura"; "hanami" is a national ceremony/celebration/holiday of WATCHING the blossoms open. Dating back to the 8th century, hanami is an event without parallel outside Japan.

The difference between the titles is a subtle, but meaningful message. Just as the blossoms in themselves are different from the veritable cult surrounding them in Japan, Dörrie's characters live in two different worlds, acting differently, first clashing (similarly to "Lost in Translation") and then - somewhat mysteriously - cohere. With this complex, effective, and moving story, Dörrie, who has spent more than three decades writing and directing "interesting and different" films of varying quality, has reached a pinnacle of her career. (She owes a debt of gratitude to Yasujiro Ozu, especially his "Tokyo Story.")

"Germans and Japanese," Dörrie has said, "are really very much alike — incredibly repressed and very irrational at the same time." This vague and rather ridiculous generalization actually seems to come to life in "Cherry Blossoms."

One of Germany's best-known TV stars, Elmar Wepper, appears in his first movie role, and he nails the character of Rudi Angermeier, a cartoonishly ordinary man on an extraordinary journey. Unknown to him, he is near the end of his life, as he slowly, believably emerges from a stolid German middle-class life of unvariable routine to traverse distance and radically different cultures, all the way to Mount Fuji, dancing butoh.

There are two remarkable co-stars along Rudi's adventure: his wife, Trudi, played by the glamorous actress Hannelore Elsner, appearing heroically unglamorous here to fit the role of a plain housefrau; and Aya Irizuki as Yu.

Yu is one of those rare cinematic creations, a character you may not understand, but one who will stay with you. This waif, runaway, street artist is as bizarre a representative of Japan as - going back to "Lost in Translation" again - Bill Murray's Premium Fantasy woman ("Rip my stockings!") and yet she also evokes Giulietta Masina's character in "La Strada," a couple of continents away.

Watching Rudi and Yu under the cherry blossoms, with the strangely elusive Mount Fuji in the background finally peeking out from behind the clouds, is among the more memorable scenes in contemporary cinema.

Frost/Nixon (2008)

'Frost/Nixon' - not what you think

[11 December 2008]

I almost skipped "Frost/Nixon," and I am glad I didn't. It's eminently worthwhile, one of the year's few films that deserves to be seen.

My reluctance had to do with the expectation that it will offer nothing new to somebody who lived through the Watergate years and saw the Frost interviews (although remembering surprisingly little of them).

Ron Howard's film is anything but ho-hum - if anything it's a bit too gussied up to be exciting. There is an element of discernible manipulation of the audience, but mostly it works, and you don't long resist it.

The (relatively) unsung hero of the film besides Howard, Frank Langella's tremendous Nixon, and Michael Sheen's excellent Frost is the screenwriter: once again Peter Morgan (of "The Last King of Scotland" and "The Queen") engages mind and heart, and doesn't let go. Sam Rockwell's James Reston, Jr. and Oliver Platt's Bob Zelnick (Frost's two collaborators) are outstanding, and Kevin Bacon's Nixon-worshipping Jack Brennan is the actor's best work in a long time.

Morgan and Howard manage to make the viewer think constantly of another criminal President without saying or showing anything overt - they just let history, past and present, speak.

I had a strange, uncomfortable thought watching "Frost/Nixon": even if some future film "humanizes" (not excuses) Bush the way Nixon comes through this one, W. would still remain a malevolent midget against Nixon's accomplishments and actual *brain*. How far we have fallen.

Nobel Son (2007)

Prize Winner

[7/10 · 4 December 2008]

"Nobel Son" is one of the more entertaining movies of the year. It is an intriguing, quirky mix of quick-cutting, edgy direction; an outstanding cast; and some unusually literate text and sophisticated in-jokes for the who-is-doing-it (rather than who-done-it) genre.

Randall Miller is the MTV director, Miller and Jody Savin - each with a rather meager resume as a writer - are responsible for the winning script.

It's rare and fortuitous these days to walk into a theater to see a movie whose plot you know, and still be engaged and surprised. Such is the case here.

With deliberate exaggeration and advance apologies, I'd compare "Nobel Son" to "Sleuth" both for its tit-for-tat, now-you-see-it/now-you-don't continuous cliff-hanger nature, and the sense of amusement and fun even through some rather harrowing action. "Son" is *like* "Sleuth" in the true sense of that grossly abused word: having some of the same characteristics.

Only a great English stage actor such as Alan Rickman could make the silly cartoon figure of Eli Michaelson believable - and he does, becoming sort of likable in his unfettered loathsomeness. Michaelson is rotten to the core, antisocial beyond the worst case of Asperger's, plus a miserable human being - and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Mary Steenburgen plays his long-suffering wife, a character with a vaguely delineated past as a storied criminal investigator. Never too far from her is Bill Pullman, a detective, former colleague, current shoulder to lean on. Bryan Greenberg is the son, who - as you must know from all the ads and buzz - is held for ransom, apparently by Shawn Hatosy, a young actor who more than holds his own against the veterans in the cast. Danny Devito and Ted Danson show up, unnecessarily but - in the case of Danson - not irritatingly. Eliza Dushku has a star-turn debut as City Hall (that's the name), a looney poet, painter, and fornicator (their word, not mine).

There is something inexplicable about the cinematography: everybody in the cast looks like hell, sans makeup, sans Vaseline-smeared lens, sans everything. Pullman wins the race to Showing All the Pores, pasty-white, as unattractive as possible, but the others - including the women - are not far behind. A new trend? Makeup crew on strike? Who knows? For sure it's distracting, but "Son" is too good to allow this stupid quirk to interfere.

Religulous (2008)

Maher's Catechism; Questions, No Answers

[7/10 · 30 September 2008]

With 16 percent of the U.S. population, the un-/non-/anti-religious represent a larger segment than blacks (13%), gays (3%), or NRA members (2%). Never mind the exact figures (which vary from source to source), focus on the question what kind of lobby do the non-religious have, with impact approaching those other groups? None, alas. Why is that?

It could be this: The militantly religious must be *right*, the secular - by definition - will not fight to the death for his truth (or god, not in evidence). My money is on the righteous, the fervent, the militant, the possessed. One day, they may even have an influence over the U.S. government! Meanwhile, in our corner, there is Bill Maher.

His "Religulous," directed by Larry Charles, is an entertaining, funny, angry, thought-provoking journey from the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Via Dolorosa, the Qumran Caves, to Stonehenge, Habibi Ana (and a Moslem Gay bar), the Vatican, the Holy Land Experience Park in Florida, the U.S. Capitol, Mormon Tabernacle, and many others.

Everywhere, Maher is asking a few simple questions: What do you believe, why, and how can you possibly...? Half Catholic, half Jewish, and fully agnostic, Maher is incredulous, in every sense of the word, but curiously warm and gentle asking questions about the "the final battle between intelligence and stupidity that will decide the future of humanity."

In Larry Charles' words, the situation confronted is like this: "An old God, a very buff old God that lives in space decides to create the first man from earth dust, then makes a woman from that man's rib. They get to live forever if they don't eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, but the woman is tricked into eating a piece by a talking snake and all future humanity is cursed." And that, of course, is just the basic tenet of one religion. Discuss.

Maher goes on in his polite crusade to dissect some of the similar Star Wars/Disney scenarios in Scientology, Mormonism, among Orthodox Jews and televangelists. All interviews are interesting, but some are amazing and memorable. Father Reginald Foster - a senior Vatican scholar, principal Latinist for the Pope - will stun you as he agrees with Maher on some points. There is unexpected goodwill and kindness from a group of evangelists "attacked" by Maher; they pray for him, and really mean it.

You may have chills running down your back as you listen to Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas), sitting in his Capitol office, speaking about his belief in Creationism and the literal interpretation of the Bible. You don't need to be a Christian to be offended (and amused) by the commercial Jesus impersonators Maher interviews, and you may feel a bit sorry for the Pentecostals speaking in tongues. (Gov. Palin and John Ashcroft, neither featured in "Religulous," are members of that church.)

After comedy, irony, and sarcasm, Maher turns serious at the end of the film, and asks with deep concern if the future of the world can be entrusted to the many varieties of believers in the unreal, the illogical, the incongruous, the phantasmagorical. Looks like we are well on our way to that eventuality.

Burn After Reading (2008)

Tonight We Laugh

[8/10 · 11 September 2008]

Norman Cousins would have loved the Coen Brothers' "Burn After Reading." The late great Saturday Review editor had treated his illness with Marx Brothers movies, having "made the joyous discovery that 10 minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep."

I have never felt healthier than after 96 minutes of explosive and grateful laughter at the "Burn" screening, also marveling at the array of British-stage caliber acting from "Fargo"-invoking Frances McDormand, witchy-icy Tilda Swinton, a more-manic-than-ever John Malkovich, and a dozen major players, such as J.K. Simmons as the deadpan CIA boss and Richard Jenkins as the former Greek Orthodox priest, now running an upscale gym.

Others may lead the cast list with George Clooney and Brad Pitt, but to me, their performances were just a bit on the self-conscious side, trying too hard. At any rate, it's a great cast, and while the plot might have turned into a dud in somebody else's treatment, the Coen Brothers' writing is hilarious, their zingers deadly.

A critic, probably with bad digestion, has decried this "very black comedy set in a blanched, austere-looking Washington, D.C. — an uninspiring and uncomfortable place in which everyone betrays everyone else, and the emotional tone veers from icy politeness to spitting rage and back again." If I had a chance to think, instead of enjoying "Burn," I would have contemplated Molière and Evelyn Waugh, their comedies of manners, psychological insight, and unbridled great humor.

Yes, there are betrayals (none better than the totally unexpected one at the end of the film), and there is rage, but all contained within a glorious bubble of writing-directing-acting excellence. "Burn" grips and holds, surprises and entertains, it is a virtuoso piece.

Don't be misled by the a "action-trailer" on TV, saturating the airwaves; it says nothing of the film. Malkovich punching Pitt over a compromising CD of spook stuff is not at the heart of this - the McDormand character's pursuit of cosmetic surgery is, what with her self-examination, a lengthy session with the surgeon (Jeffrey DeMunn, in a brilliant turn), her desperate quest for a way to pay for it. Funny and going deep at the same time, "Burn" presents a series of character studies (hence the thought of Molière), in the context of mannered yet true social interactions (Waugh).

Skip descriptions of the plot, reject self-righteous denunciations of smart skepticism and charming evil, go and wallow in life-affirming laughter.

Brideshead Revisited (2008)

Once More, Into Brideshead

[7/10 · 1 August 2008]

It's attributed to just about everybody - from Ginger Rogers to Milan Kundera - and it sounds so right: "There are no small parts, only small actors."

If you want proof and a real understanding of the adage, revisit "Brideshead Revisited," and behold the miracle of Emma Thompson's Lady Marchmain, sucking the life out of anything and anybody she touches, and Michael Gambon's delightfully dissolute Lord Marchmain. She has about 10 minutes on the screen, he perhaps four, and yet their characters will follow you out of the theater, and stay with you at length.

Thompson's work is especially dazzling because the mean, sanctimonious character is so clearly alien to the actress (in fact, I suspected miscasting when I first heard of her assignment) and also as the character is so exaggerated, almost a caricature. And yet, Thompson gives the challenge her all, and walks away with it; the performance has Best Supporting Actress written all over it.

It's difficult to believe that the man you see as Marchmain is the same actor who was the "Singing Detective" (of the superb BBC series, not the Robert Downey Jr. mishap). Gambon has a range as wide as all outdoors, and you never ever see effort in the performance. His amiable Marchmain - subtly hinting at a complex character under the surface - has a physical similarity to Gambon's Uncle Vanya on the London stage, but otherwise, it's a unique creation.

What else is there to this new "edition" of "Brideshead"? A great deal, but only if you're among those who missed both Evelyn Waugh's novel and the wonderful Granada TV realization 27 long years ago - Irons! Gielgud! Olivier! - how can you compete with that? So, if it's a first-time visit, see the movie by all means; if you can recite lines from the book or the TV series, you can survive without the new version.

In 135 minutes, the film is handling well what the TV series did so completely in - yes - 13 HOURS. Obviously, except for the basic story line (script by Jeremy Brock, of "The Last King of Scotland"), this is a different kind of animal, still "leisurely" enough, but unable to luxuriate in the smallest details as the series did. The director is Julian Jarrold, and he is doing far better than in his recent "Becoming Jane," keeps the story moving in a smooth fashion.

As to the leading roles in the film, they are all well acted, but without great impact. Matthew Goode is Charles Ryder, the focal character; Ben Whishaw is the slightly over-flamboyant Sebastian Flyte (who needs understating more than exaggerating - Anthony Andrews' performance in the TV series was exactly right); Hayley Atwell is Sebastian's sister (and rival for Charles' affection).

One amazing thing about "Brideshead" is how this story from a different time, about characters from a different world, remains interesting and meaningful. It's almost as if Waugh's work was bulletproof - not that these filmmakers were less than respectful to the author. A better test would be a Eurotrash opera version, heaven forfend.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)

Mummy Chop Suey

[3/10 · 30 July 2008]

"The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" is an indelicious admixture of Hollywood and Hong Kong exploitation flicks. To be precise, it has three of the four basis elements of the genre: gratuitous violence, special effects and assorted mayhem, yes; naked flesh, not so much. Oh, well, you can't have it all.

Still, this "Mummy" tries very, very hard to do all, to be all, from an intergalactic-sized avalanche, to abominable snowmen flying through the air (if Yeti are always men, how does the species survive?), to one of the least convincing romances in movie history - between two ghastly young principal actors, Luke Ford and Isabella Leong.

Their underachievement, along with embarrassing performances - in the leading roles, no less - by Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello is all the more significant in the starry presence of Michelle Yeoh and Jet Li. A mix, indeed, ugh.

One must believe in mummies in order to source the current overwhelming curse on Hollywood, of countless comic-book, super-hero, special-effect permits to print money with movies devoid of (non-monetary) value. And now the blitz has gone multicultural, but not in a good way.

This third film in a series hearkens back to the fictional Emperor Han (another mix here, of China's real first emperor, Ying Zheng, also known as Qin Shi Huangdi, and of a ruthless character in search of eternal life), his betrayal of the wizard (Yeoh) who could have helped him, and her curse on him. Han is Jet Li, not so much a mummy as a flaking metal statue, almost constantly on fire, and fairly walking through this misdirected mess. The misdirector is Rob Cohen, of "The Fast and the Furious," someone who can provide scenes, but nothing beyond them.

From the opening scene between Li and Yeoh, establishing the origins of the story, "Mummy" moves to an exciting fly-fishing scene in England, where retired Indiana-wannabe Fraser hooks himself in the neck. Things get worse when he goes home to a similarly retired but more cheerful and less awkward wife (Bello) for an evening of strained inactivity. Ford is their son, skipping school in China to discover the whole Han terracotta army and the mummified/metalized/fire-breathing emperor. And so it goes, for 112 minutes. (The Korean version is one minute shorter, and one wonders which crucial 60 seconds Koreans have been denied.)

Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan (2007)

The Making of Genghis Khan

[8/10 · 23 May 2008]

Astonishingly, the name and the person of Genghis Khan in Sergei Bodrov's "Mongol," a great, Shakespearean drama about this seminal figure in history, don't appear until the very end of the two-hour epic. Instead, we see Temudjin, the man yet to become (posthumously) Khagan (emperor) of what was to be for several centuries the largest contiguous empire in history. Whether Bodrov completes the contemplated two additional chapters of the story or not, "Mongol" stands on its own as a masterpiece.

Contradicting the Western (and Russian) image of Genghis as the monstrous conqueror, Bodrov's work is influenced by Lev Gumilev's "The Legend of the Black Arrow" and is based on "The Secret History of the Mongols," the 13th century Mongolian account, unknown until its re-emergence in China 700 years later. For a director, who learned in school only about the horrors of Russia's 200-year subjugation by the Mongols, taking a "larger view" is a remarkable act.

Unlike Omar Sharif in the 1965 Henry Levin "Genghis Khan" or Takashi Sorimachi in Shinichiro Sawai's disappointing 2007 "To the Ends of the Earth and Sea," Tadanobu Asano in Bodrov's film is strictly Temudjin, not the great Khan. He lived from 1162 to 1227, and "Mongol" covers the years between 1171 and the beginning of the unification of Mongolian tribes around the turn of the century.

In fact, the spookily powerful child Temudjin (Odnyam Odsuren) dominates the first part of the film, undergoing trials and tribulations that make the lives of Dickens' abused and imperiled children look like a picnic. From age nine into his 30s, Temudjin was orphaned, hunted, imprisoned, enslaved, and constantly threatened by extinction. Literally alone in the vast landscape (brilliantly photographed by Rogier Stoffers and Sergei Trofimov), Temudjin escapes death repeatedly, at times almost mysteriously.

"Mongol" is huge - with endless vistas and epic crowd scenes, quite without special effects - but Bodrov keeps the setting just that, never strutting visuals for their own sake. The film is about people, and the cast is magnificent. Asano's face and eyes hold attention, and make the viewer experience simultaneous feelings of getting to know the character he plays and being held at arm's length. Bodrov and Asano escape all the many Hollywood pitfalls in making an epic - they present nothing easy, predictable, trite. The term "Shakespearean" is used here advisedly.

The Mongolian actors are sensational: Khulan Chuluun is luminous as Borte, Temudjin's wife; Borte's 10-year-old self, the girl who chooses Temudjin, then 9, while he thinks he is the one making the decision, is unforgettable, even if the name is hard to remember: Bayertsetseg Erdenebat.

Chinese actors are vital to the film. As Temudjin's father (poisoned by Tatars before the boy reached 10), Sai Xing Ga makes an impression few actors can achieve in such a brief appearance. Nearly overshadowing Asano is the grand thespian exercise from Sun Hong-Lei, as Temudjin's all-important blood brother Jamukha. Sun is almost too big for the big screen, perhaps a less intense performance would have served the film better.

Another problem is near the end of "Mongol," with Borte's stranger-than-fiction (and actually fictional) rescue of Temudjin from a Tangut prison, years, hundreds of miles, and impossible alliances and dalliances telescoped into a few near-incongruous minutes - all to cover a 10-year-long gap in Genghis' history. Except for that, however, Bodrov's work is engrossing, spectacular, and memorable.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

'Indy' - Keeping Up with Jones

[7/10 · 22 May 2008]

The grand old (or, what is now called the new middle aged) men still have it. Director Stephen Spielberg, 61, producer/writer George Lucas, 64, John Hurt, 68, and Harrison Ford, 65 3/4 have produced a mighty-fine, entertaining, fun "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Even with signs of arthritis, a ridiculous role for and a silly-caricature of a performance from Cate Blanchett (Bullwinkle's Natasha would have made a better Soviet agent), a bit overlong at over 2 hours, and other negatives notwithstanding, this is a movie to enjoy. Janusz Kaminski's cinematography is sensational, and the art department has come through with eye-poppers galore.

It's a good movie, not a great one - you're entertained, but won't take much away from it, and one viewing is quite enough.

If you fume about increased ticket prices (from $3 to $12), consider that in the 27 years since the first "Indiana Jones," the film's budget has multiplied exactly 10 times, topping off at $180 million. Not even the price of gas soared like that: "only" from $1.38 in 1981 to $4+ today (in San Fran). But, if you listen to news reports from Cannes, you understand the inflation in Hollywood; a BBC reporter is lodging at a camp because all the 2,000-Euro hotel rooms are gone. That be $3,134 a night in what used to be called "real money." (In 1981, Frommer's "Europe on $25 Dollars a Day" was still usable on occasion.)

The Warlords (2007)

Jet Li's War and No Peace

[7/10 · 27 April 2008]

From the Warring States Period going all the way back to the 5th century BC, wars have wracked China seemingly without pause. During the second half of the 19th century, and the late Qing/Ching/Manchu dynasty, some 50 million soldiers, bandits, and civilians died in the endless conflict.

Watching "Warlords," screened for the first time in North America Saturday night in the Castro Theater, part of the San Francisco International Film Festival, at times one might have thought that most of those casualties are shown - often in close-ups - in the film.

Beginning with a view reminiscent of the Normandy invasion sequence of "Saving Private Ryan," the film by Peter Chan and Wai Man Yip depicts combat vividly and intensely. Chung Man Yee's production design peaks at times in virtually unprecedented battle-field spectacles.

There is no resolution, no peace, and only a quasi-relevant love story (featuring Jinglei Xu), but "Warlords" goes well beyond just fightin' and killin' and dyin'. Right from the beginning, as Jet Li's General Pang picks himself up from under the bodies of his dead soldiers, you notice two things: Jet Li's complete lack of vanity and the ability of this martial-arts star to act convincingly and well.

The Manchu style of the head shaved in front and the hair gathered in a ponytail in the back looks hideous when it's all messed up, especially with blood. Jet Li not only appears half dead in his first appearance, but he is taking a bad-hair day to its absolute worst. And then, you also notice that Famous Jet Li - who is NOT flying through the air in this film - has been replaced by an honest and talented actor who brings to life a complex, conflicted, tragic character.

With shifting alliances, goals, and always at the edge of extinction, Pang and his two "blood brothers," Takeshi Kaneshiro's soulful Jiang Wuyang and Andy Lau's towering Zhao Erhu (perhaps Lau's best-ever performance), struggle from small-time wars all the way to the taking of Nanking on behalf of the fast-fading central (so to speak) government in Beijing. The same history-based story has been told, in more modest terms, in Zhang Che's 1973 "The Blood Brothers." A historical war film, a brutal but not gratuitously violent drama, "Warlords" impresses, even stuns, but in the end fails to provide catharsis or even an attempt to make sense of the senseless - something Zhang Yimou came close to in "Hero" (also with Jet Li, playing a similar historic character).

Forbidden Lie$ (2007)

Norma Khouri: Point Counter Point

[7/10 · 18 April 2008]

You sit there for a half an hour and watch a story, believing it all, then watch another half an hour of the same story utterly unraveling... and then put back together again. Brilliant.

One of the most exciting feature films at the San Francisco International Film Festival is a documentary. I don't know if - other than Andrew Jarecki's "Capturing the Friedmans" - there has ever been anything like Anna Broinowski's "Forbidden Lie$." It features, exposes, defends, reveals, and questions everything about Norma Khouri, author of "Honor Lost," the acclaimed and lambasted 2001 bestseller about honor killings in Jordan.

What is quite incredible and what makes the film so exceptional is that this "exposure" of Khouri is made with Khouri's full participation.

For the initial portion of the film, Khouri presents her story about the supposed honor killing of a friend of hers in Amman, the story of the book. She sounds completely believable, convincing.

Then her story is taken apart, exposed, by eminently believable and convincing people, such as women's rights activists in Jordan, investigative reporters there and in Australia, where Khouri lived for a while.

Khouri comes back and denies the accusations, taking a successful lie-detector test in the process. There comes another segment of devastating exposures - not to be specified here because that would lessen the shock value... and then Khouri comes back and faces the accusations (not all, but the essential ones in the matter of the book).

And the Houdini act continues, with round after round in this heavy-weight, seesaw prize fight, surprise after surprise - and there is no "happy ending" in the sense of resolution. Brilliant.

The Bank Job (2008)

Improbable Reality

[8/10 · 7 March 2008]

If "The Bank Job" were fiction, it would be a fairly decent robbery caper. As it is, "The Bank Job," a veritable documentary and realistic whodunit, is awesome.

Unlike most films, this one requires a couple of advance tips: First, watch it with the improbable idea in mind that most of it is actual, hard-to-believe truth; second, don't be impatient. As the story of a 1971 bank robbery begins, the setting in London, the parade of seemingly unconnected stories and characters is rather confusing, complex, disjointed. But stay with it - there is a crescendo of excitement and excellence.

The true elements of "The Bank Job," some hidden until recently by Britain's "D Notice" censorship law (modified in 1993, becoming DA, or Defense Advisory) are these:

1. A big bank robbery did take place on Baker Street in 1971, culprits never found, money never recovered. After initial big headlines, the story disappeared from the newspapers.

2. There was serious police corruption in London in the 1970s, cops on payrolls of drug dealers and pornographers.

3. Princess Margaret was involved in a series of affairs, some caught on compromising photos which were not published by the otherwise relentlessly sensational British press, under the D-Notice rule.

4. There was a militant British black-power advocate, called Michael X, involved in a one-man, multi-country crime wave. (In 1971, John Lennon paid for Michael X's bail, something not mentioned in the film.)

"The Bank Job" director Roger Donaldson (of "No Way Out") brings together all these true threads in a way that may be true even in its totality, director and cast prevailing over some shoddy work from too many writers.

The content is all true, the context is excitingly possible. Did the government, in trying to prevent exposure of Princess Margaret by evidence in Michael X's possession, mastermind the bank robbery? Was MI-5 or MI-6 (says a policeman in the film: "I never remember which is which") involved, and actually assisting the robbers? Again, possibly.

The cast is remarkable: Jason Statham is the ringleader, the bad guy of "Transporter" and "The Italian Job" turning into a scourge of the really bad guys. Saffron Burrows, James Spader's vamp nemesis on "Boston Legal," brings her remarkable name and looks to the criminally and emotionally ambiguous major female role.

Peter De Jersey is a totally scary Michael X; David ("Poirot") Suchet is a frightening crime lord; and a whole host of top British stage actors fill in big roles and small ones. Don't be misled by reviews speaking of a so-so thriller - "The Bank Job" is a great deal more than that, even to the point that you may want to see it more than once.

The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)

A Pretty Tudor Thriller

[7/10 · 1 March 2008]

First, an easy quiz (which you're going to get wrong): How many wives did King Henry VIII have? Answer at the end of this article, but why not try to figure it out before looking? Oh, too late, you already did...

And now, a question: Did Henry VIII always look like Charles Laughton, with the heft and bulges of the most memorable actor in the role of the monarch? The truth is that both the king and Laughton looked a lot better when they were young.

Instead of a fat, dissolute Henry, there was back in the early 16th century a trimmer, more handsome king, who soon ate and married too much. That Henry, not the famous picture of him by Holbein, must have looked like Eric Bana.

And so, in Philippa Gregory's Hollywood-compliant but terrifically entertaining "The Other Boleyn Girl," it is Bana - from the non-green scenes of the 2003 "Hulk" - who rules, while the real-life plain-to-ugly Boleyn girls are brought to you by Natalie Portman (Anne) and Scarlett Johansson (Mary).

It is to their credit and, especially, that of director Justin Chadwick that you buy all these prettifications, all or most of author Gregory's romantic liberties with the story, and enjoy the movie thoroughly.

Chadwick is new to feature films, but he has solid credits in TV, especially with the recent magnificent BBC "Bleak House," as fine a realization of Dickens as you'll find anywhere.

And, speaking of the BBC, if you want to see a less "pretty," more substantial version of Gregory's novel, dig up the 2003 TV version of "The Other Boleyn Girl," with Jodhi May and Natascha McElhone; those two run rings around the smirking Portman and the too-angelic Johansson. The exalted Peter Morgan wrote the screenplay - as well as for the superior "The Queen" and "The Last King of Scotland" - and an in-depth research project is just waiting for the right scholar to compare Morgan's "Boleyn" script with Philippa Lowthorpe's for the TV version.

So, with novelist, script writer, director, and a darn fine yarn to begin with, the new film has much going for it. The supposedly well-known story of Henry's marriage to Anne and dalliance with Mary is told well, bringing into focus a great many sub-stories of background machinations by a power-hungry family using the two sisters as bait.

If at first you must overcome the challenge of seeing Anne Boleyn behind Portman's glitz and 21st-century 'tude, by the time the character reaches the catastrophic comeuppance for her (and her family's) scheming, Portman comes close to the touchstone established by Jodhi May.

Quiz answer: Two. Surely you think six, but that's not right. Four of Henry's marriages were annulled, which means officially they never existed. Although Gregory's book doesn't deal with this tricky question, you can take the information to the bank.

Vantage Point (2008)

My Vantage Point: Expect Less, Get More

[6/10 · 21 February 2008]

Hamlet's "the readiness is all" needs to tweaked in case of movies: if you get something you were not quite ready for, you may have quite a good time.

It's either audacious or just plain dumb of Sony Pictures to trumpet the story of "Vantage Point" in advertising and promotion around the world, around the clock. What's the point of seeing a movie about "the attempted assassination of the President from different perspectives," veritable spoilers well illustrated in trailers? Expectations may well lead some critics to blast the movie, but if you take the "giveaway" as a challenge - can they still make it interesting? - you may well come out of this slightly convoluted, definitely flawed suspense/action flick with a measure of satisfaction. Sure, there are some perplexing coincidences and baffling situations, but why expect perfect logic and efficiency? This is just a movie, not U.S. foreign policy or any other paragon of such virtues.

In the event, it's relentless, heart- and hard-pounding, perfectly acceptable entertainment for those who prefer not to breathe for almost all of its 90-minute length. And, thank you, thank you for not foisting another bloated 2-hour movie on us! Yes, William Hurt's President does get shot at summit held in Spain (Mexico serves as a fine - presumably less expensive - substitute), and Dennis Quaid's grim Secret Service guy chases unmerrily after the culprits; yes, there are different vantage (and videotape) angles to all this, but - advertising notwithstanding - it's not a "Rashomon" wannabe, Akira Kurosawa's name taken in vain.

If debuting writer Barry L. Levy has a model, it's more Thornton Wilder's "The Bridge of San Louis Rey," unpeeling mysterious layers of the reason people coming together in the same place, at the same time, to be part of a dramatic event. If you think watching the same thing happen again and again, while you must look for different aspects, the "real reason," etc., relax: Levy does rewind the film repeatedly, but he manages to add both different perspectives and additional bits of information, constantly taking the story further along. You can just sit back and enjoy.

Making his feature film debut, TV director Pete Travis does a smooth big-screen version of "24" - in fact, restraining the loud bang-bang genre to something acceptable.

While writing and direction, Hurt and Quaid are OK, Forest Whitaker is excellent playing... Forest Whitaker, and there are some good hitherto unknown actors, I had a hard time with Sigourney Weaver's haggard TV news director, and Matthew Fox's behavior as Secret Service chief - but then there is really no need for any more spoilers.

Caramel (2007)

The sweet unveiling of 'Caramel'

[8/10 · 25 January 2008]

Nadine Labaki: perhaps not a familiar name, not yet. You are certain to hear more of her, well beyond this report about her first film, "Caramel." The young Lebanese beauty is not only the star of this heartwarming and unusual movie, but also its director and co-writer.

Unusual? It sure is, a contemporary film taking place in Beirut without any reference to the wars tearing the city apart for decades now. (There is a parallel here with another excellent film making its U.S. appearance, "The Band's Visit," of an Egyptian-Israeli encounter set deliberately outside the political context.) Unusual? Amazingly so when you realize, having witnessed an extraordinary ensemble performance, that all but two of the cast members have no acting experience.It's all great acting by non-actors, and you wouldn't know it without a press release.

"Sex in the City" with brains, realism, and without affectation, "Caramel" tells the story of five women in a Beirut beauty salon, their lives and dreams. The tone is simple, intimate, the characters are different from each other, but all likable and real. "Caramel" is a movie to enjoy; beyond its vitality and good humor, it offers the viewer the acquaintance of everyday, believable people you can care about.

The title refers to the pliant caramelized sugar used for hair removal, material that can be used for good (removing hair) or ill (inflicting pain on a lover's wife, who ends up in the wrong salon). It is something "sweet and salt, sugary and sour, of the delicious sugar that can burn and hurt you," Labaki has said.

The director - whose theme and work are reminiscent of Pedro Almodovar's early films - is Layale, the owner of the salon, a woman in her early 30s, who "should be married" by now, but instead, she carries on a passionate (for her) affair with a married policeman. Layale is Christian, her best friend working in the salon, Nisrine, is a Moslem woman of 28, about to get married, but she is facing a daunting obstacle. The role is played memorably by one of the film's many amateur actors, Yasmine Al Masri.

Also in the salon, Rima, a 24-year-old tomboy (played by Joanna Moukarzel, in real life "business manager with an electrical appliance company"!), who is quietly struggling with her growing interest in women. It is one of the many glories of "Caramel" how her friends literally look the other way when Rima - very much in love - cuts the hair of a beautiful stranger (Siham Fatmeh Safa, who should be a model and an actress, but is neither).

Among the many fascinating characters: Jamale, a customer who virtually lives in the salon, a woman in denial of and battling her age; Lili, a crazy aunt, who collects parking tickets from windshields; and the men in the cast - relegated to supporting roles, but not belittled or presented in a hostile manner. It's not so much a "women's picture" as a film for and about people.

With splendid cinematography by Yves Sehnaoui, and appealing music by Khaled Mouzanar, "Caramel" completed production work in 2006, one week before the most recent bombing of Beirut began.

The Band's Visit (2007)

Band Visits, You'd Want Them to Stay

[8/10 · 24 January 2008]

In an ocean of predictable movies, "The Band's Visit" is an island of bliss. When you see the advertising about the story of an Egyptian police band getting lost in Israel, you're likely to roll the film instantly in your mind - conflict, hatred, perhaps some awkward humor, and a forced bit or two of vague optimism about the future.

Forget all that, it's some other movie. This one is free and clear of anything set, routine, obvious, predictable. "The Band's Visit" is about people - mostly awkward, all real, well- and ill-behaved in turn - and not about agenda, ideology, politics. It's an unsentimental "people movie" (remember when Hollywood used to churn those out?), enormously likable, a treasurehouse of humanism.

"Visit" is also a film you have to work with. It's not dumped on the audience in its fullness by its writer and (first-time) director, Eran Kolirin. Action is slow or nonexistent, dialogue is halting, silences are rampant. And yet it all works so well: even if you have never heard Egyptian music, when the band finally plays (as the end-credits roll), you're guaranteed to groove on it.

Kolirin is a writer and director of great economy. The characters of and relationships between the eight band members - in their powder blue, Sgt. Pepper-wannabe, uniforms are revealed through a word here, an expression there, and pretty soon, you really know them... except that later you realize you didn't.

The head of the band, Tewfig, is an officious, prissy, downcast, silent figure, and yet as the camera stays on him a great deal of the time, slowly you are getting used to him, and when he finally puts together a couple of full sentences, you may feel acceptance and even appreciation.

It is at this point, far into the movie, that you understand why Dina is pursuing him. Dina is the attractive - if blowsy - owner of a small cafe in the Israeli desert town where the band is stranded. There is much, much more to "Visit," but just watching the Tewfig-Dina story, and reveling in the performances of the two actors, is well worth the price of admission.

The band leader is Sasson Gabal, and I must admit being incredulous finding out after seeing the movie that he is a famous Israeli actor. Not only does he appear authentically Egyptian, but when starts singing an Arabic song - oy! Dina is Ronit Elkabetz, an actor so fine that you'd never suspect her of being one; what you see on the screen is the character, totally believable.

"Visit" is a rare film, one that keeps running in your mind long after the band strikes up.

U2 3D (2007)

U2 (and You Too) Can Transcend Opera

[8/10 · 23 January 2008]

The peculiar thing about this report is that I am not a rock fan, not by a long shot. Of course, I could not be allowed to live in San Francisco without some appreciation for the Grateful Dead, but that's about it.

When it comes to U2, I know far more about Bono's commendable social activities than of the band's performances.

A labored preamble is necessary to put this in context: "U2 3D" has simply knocked me - a passionate fan of opera and classical music - on my limited-crossover backside. It is a spectacular, musically and visually superb experience, certain to enchant any classical-music fan... if only the fan is not too fanatic to stay away. Watching it, I kept wishing for the "Ring" to be produced with this kind of passion, commitment, hanging ten every moment, and the creation of such stunning images. An important added bonus: unlike other rock films, this one is not deafening, not even in the IMAX setting.

For over a quarter-century, says the PR release, U2 has been recognized not only for their musical innovation, but for their incomparable gift for reaching millions of fans through new technologies. "U2 3D" - the first digital 3-D, multi-camera, real-time production - reflects the band's longstanding embrace of technology and its belief that "U2 3D" has the potential to revolutionize digital 3D technology. Marrying advanced digital 3-D imagery and 5.1 Surround Sound with the unique excitement of a live U2 concert, "U2 3D" takes viewers on an extraordinary cinematic journey, a quantum leap beyond traditional concert films.

Directed by Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington, "U2 3D" is a production of 3ality Digital Entertainment starring Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr.

I would detail my rapture about the screening of this most stunning of concert films, but I was pre-empted: read Eliot Van Buskirk's Wired report -

"With 3-D glasses trained on the Imax screen at the Luxor Casino in Las Vegas, I felt I was experiencing more of the U2 concert from my theater chair than I would have in person. Chalk it up to the impossible camera angles, the breathtaking close-ups and panoramas, or the convincing nature of the latest 3-D technology, but I was really there: watching guitarist-keyboardist The Edge play a Fender Rhodes from a vantage point 4 feet above his head, seeing lead singer Bono's hand reach out to the crowd, and flying through a massive stadium lit up by thousands of cellphones waving in unison like a school of glowing sea creatures.

"The capacity crowds filling these South American soccer stadiums go absolutely mad for the music of U2. Their hands wave to the beat just a few feet in front of you. Their enthusiasm is wildly infectious.

"Every development in the history of cinema has always been about making the experience more realistic, whether going from silent to talkies, or black-and-white to color," said John Rodell, the producer I spoke with outside the theater. "We see the world in 3-D, so this is a natural progression, now that the technological limitations have been conquered."

"The 3-D format goes a long way toward making the movie great, but the film would not have been nearly as powerful with the cameras pointed at most other bands. U2's musicians are masterful performers, and the epic nature of their songs and stage act lends itself perfectly to larger-than-life treatment.

"Still, watching a movie is a passive experience; to keep viewers fully engaged for more than an hour, Sassoon Film Design added a smattering of clever visual effects somewhat reminiscent of the square that Uma Thurman's character draws in the air in 'Pulp Fiction'. Post-production staffers also added animated versions of U2's backdrop videos - most notably a series of icons suggesting that the world's major religions are one. To capture multiple band members in the same frame, the filmmakers added as many as five 3-D layers to the final cut.

"Other than that, U2 3D includes little visual or audio trickery. The band insisted that no audio overdubs be included; every note in the film was played live (although for on-stage close-ups, U2 agreed to be filmed playing one show to an empty stadium). "I could make my cat sound like a good singer with Pro Tools," said Rodell, "but we didn't use any of that. What you see there are those guys, playing that night, in front of 90,000 people."

Atonement (2007)

A runt of a great flick

[8/10 · 7 December 2007]

"Look," a psychologist tells the man on the couch, "making you happy is out of the question, but I can give you a compelling narrative for your misery."

The Mankoff cartoon appears in the same current issue of the New Yorker in which Anthony Lane drags "Atonement" over the coals, taking it to task for not living up to his expectations: http://tinyurl.com/37xu3a.

I too had some problems with the film, but found Joe Wright's direction and Christopher Hampton's script combining for a thoroughly compelling narrative for the misery of characters, an involving story realized by an outstanding cast.

In fact, against a dismal bunch of competitors in the end-of-year "big releases," I found in "Atonement" only the second four-star movie of 2007. It's firmly No. 2, however, against "Away from Her" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0491747/) because its too obvious manipulation of feelings while Sarah Polley's brilliant work is totally straightforward and honest, no strings seen anywhere.

My third and fourth choices are "Easter Promises" and "The Bourne Ultimatum" - two razzle-dazzle examples of guilty pleasure. And, it is true, I missed a good number of screenings (life keeps interfering with the movies), so I may well be missing good candidates from the top of my Top Ten.

Youth Without Youth (2007)

Francis Ford Discombobulator

[5/10 · 4 December 2007]

When a godfather of American cinema returns from retirement after a decade, that's bound to be interesting, at least.

In case of Francis Ford Coppola's "Youth Without Youth," the event also turned out to be "interesting," in the sense of saying politely, "What the hell?!"

In the over-hyped and underwhelming "Golden Compass," characters are accompanied by their "demons" in animal form. Coppola goes that one better in "Youth" by having a friendly alter ego of the Professor tag along in the flesh and have conversations with himself (until one kills the other). However, personalities do not split during sequences that are projected upside-down. Why two characters, why upside-down scenes? These and other mysteries may or may not be explained during the film. In my case, no explanation was discerned; might well have been my fault.

The Professor (of linguistics) is played by Tim Roth. He is 70 at the beginning of this two-hour adventure in deep thought and annoying puzzles, but early on, he gets hit by lightning, and turns into 40. His teeth fall out, but he grows new ones. The place is Romania and the time is the 1930s. Old and young Professor is in love with Hitler's secretary, and the newly young man is treated for his lightning burns and understandable confusion by Hitler himself.

OK, this is not fair. "Youth" is confusing enough without fooling around with actors and characters, so let me give you the straight poop: the doctor is played by Bruno Ganz (Hitler in the magnificent "Downfall"), and the Woman is Alexandra Maria Lara, who was Traudl Junge in "Downfall," the young woman through whose eyes life in the bunker became revealed.

Ganz and Lara have been sensational in just about everything they have done. In "Youth," not so much. Whether speaking English or, in case of the Woman, Sanskrit, Urdu, or Before-History Language, there is a sense of Tiger-Lilly-subtitle disconnect in their performances.

What's with those languages? They are very important. The Professor wants to find the origin of human speech (starting in Romania, of course), and the Woman is de-evolving in a complying fashion. Why? How? To what end? Meaning what? Search me - I never went beyond a master's degree in philosophy, and my philological explorations terminated with Leonard Bernstein's facile, shallow, and entertaining exposition in the Norton Lectures.

Honestly, I am stalling here, because I just cannot think of anything to say except "interesting." Well, maybe "galling." Two hours of weirdness, looking for meaning, not having any, watching something so self-indulgent that it will make your teeth hurt - and you won't have new ones growing.

Let's hear it for Ganz's Doctor, however, with his quaint method of sterilization: after handling blood or before performing a procedure, he wipes his hands on his jacket. Consistently. Roth's character, in addition to the quest for the origin of language, he is also dealing with the meaning of time, of life, of meaning. Unlike Douglas Adams, who had provided the answer to life, universe, and everything (42), "Youth" will give you no clue whatsoever.

Most of the film was shot in Romania, almost in secret. There are Romanian locations, crew, and cast. The little country has a lot of talent: Romanians also act as Italian philologists, Indian sages, German scientists, what have you. Most of them and Roth do well. A surprise in the soundtrack: Coppola hired one of the most promising youngish composers in the world, Osvaldo Golijov (U.S. resident, born in Argentina, of a Romanian mother), who instead of providing one of his brilliantly original scores, came up with Mahler quotes and variations on them.

Coppola is writer, director, producer, financing the project by himself. Why did he make it? "Like the leading character, I was tortured and stumped by my inability to complete an important work. At 66, I was frustrated. I hadn't made a film in eight years. My businesses were thriving, but my creative life was unfulfilled."

And so to "Youth" - a vanity project, a pile of muddleheaded philosophizing without the restraint of investors, studio politics and demands, or of good sense. He wanted to learn "how to express time and dreams cinematically," Coppola has said. "Making a movie is like asking a question, and when you finish, the movie itself is the answer." For "Youth," the "answer" at the end of two hours is: "What was the question?"

Lions for Lambs (2007)

Dialogues of the Lambs

[7/10 · 29 October 2007]

Thumbs are of no use in talking about Robert Redford's "Lions for Lambs." Sticking them up or down makes little sense. It's not that kind of movie. What kind is it? Pretty much without a category.

The time is the present, Bush II is president, there is an unending war in the Middle East, the setting is present-day D.C., everything looks documentary-realistic. It could be a Sunday-morning panel discussion, but the cast consists of a bevy of stars, performing magnificently, with a script that seems to be formed by headlines from today's newspapers.

At the center of the film is a lengthy, unlikely, but brilliant duet of a an interview between a veteran, nobody's-fool political reporter (Meryl Streep) and a young hotshot NeoCon senator (Tom Cruise), both utterly believable, notwithstanding the challenge of some lame lines by screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan for Cruise. Still, overall, the business between the two is the "people's business," about the lethal foreign-policy bungling of a war of choice, now running longer than World War II. (These are not editorial comments, but rather a report on what the film says.)

While dissecting the Iraqi disaster, and hearing some surprising and obviously manipulating admissions of errors from Cruise's hawkish senator, the issue at hand is the senator - a key military adviser to the President - trying to steer Streep's skeptical journalist into "selling" a new plan of attack in Afghanistan, something she instantly recognizes as a throwback to failed strategy in Vietnam.

Alternating with the interview segments are battle scenes in Afghanistan where two Army rangers (Derek Luke and Michael Peña) are risking their lives in implementing that new plan. Then, by a stretch and rather awkwardly, there sits Redford's professor in his West Coast college office, pulling the story together between the two lion-like Rangers, who were his students, and a bright, troubled student (Andrew Garfield) who lost his way, baa, baa, baa.

Significant and entertaining, thought-provoking and reality-based sad, mostly well-written, and exceptionally well-acted, "Lions for Lambs" is likely to leave the audience with the feeling of having participated in an important happening, but perhaps not quite knowing what it was.

Gushing about Streep is almost embarrassing, but... Once again, she transcends text, expectations, whatever you may anticipate, and gives a performance to remember and treasure. Her expressions, body language, silences create a character with a life of her own, a "real person" we, the audience, feel as if we have known always, intimately.

Lust, Caution (2007)

Words of Caution about 'Lust'

[7/10 · 30 September 2007]

Too long, too slow, too self-indulgent, and too brutal in its graphic sex scenes, Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" is a film not to be missed.

Whatever misgivings there may be about it, this festival-winning film is a mesmerizing, rich experience. After 2 1/2 hours of being bombarded with a World War II love-and-hate story that's both exciting and dragging, chances are you will be still pinned to your seat, anxious to find out how it ends.

The "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Brokeback Mountain" director has turned his attention to war-threatened Hong Kong in 1938 and Japanese-occupied Shanghai in 1942 (complete with a "safe Japanese zone"), seen through the eyes of a group of young Chinese resistance fighters.

Based on the late Chinese-American writer Eileen Chang's short story of the same name, the focus of "Se, jie" is the relationship between Mr. Yee, head of the ruthless Japanese-collaborator security forces (played by Tony Leung, leading man of some 80 films) and a young actress with the resistance, played by Wei Tang, in her very first film role.

They make a strange pair, both in the roles and as actors. Of the story - a cat-and-mouse game between the seductress/underground agent and the Japanese puppet/lord of life and death among the occupied - the less said the better in order to enjoy the movie. As actors, it's a veteran facing a new challenge and a novice who shows great skill and assurance.

Leung has always been a brooding, symphathetic, worn-but-handsome presence, especially in his collaborations with director Wong Kai War. Here, for the first time, he plays not just a heavy, an ugly character, but a scary, unhappy, murderous man, literally a dark figure, lurking in the shadows. It's a great performance, fully realizing both aspects of the character: the monster and the man.

Lee's love for the cinema classics is shown both in his use of excerpts from Hollywood greats (as the young actress frequents movie theaters) and in his creation of memorable images. This is a director with a painterly sensibility and the ability to transform objects into instantly memorable pictures. Never will you see mahjong again without recalling "Lust, Caution." Few of Lee's favorite classics can match the simple effectiveness of his final image here, of a sheet with slight depressions left by what rested on it shortly before: white on white, and yet meaningful and affecting.

Leung and Tang fairly monopolize the screen, but the rest of the large cast is outstanding, led by San Franciscan Joan Chang as Yee's wife, and the vivid individual characters in the resistance, including the American-born Chinese pop star Leehom Wang.

Eastern Promises (2007)

'Promises delivered'

[8/10 · 14 September 2007]

"Eastern Promises" will take your breath away, churn your stomach, and then leave you with memories of unforgettable characters as well as perplexing thoughts about good and evil. David Cronenberg's movie about Russian and Chechen mobsters clashing in London is more than violent - it is brutal, savage, shocking. But do not expect just an action film, exploiting blood and gore. After you shake off its terrific immediate impact (there is no way to think while watching it), you realize that "Eastern Promises" is also a kind of morality tale, complex and important.

Only after you hold your breath, cover your eyes, and get through the movie do you realize how "Eastern Promises" manages to contradict Friedrich Nietzsche effectively. The German philosopher's "Beyond Good and Evil" denied the possibility of a universal morality. Cronenberg's film says that ethics - without expectation of rewards, in this life or a possible other one - can prevail even in the depths of great evil. The "History of Violence" director continues his subtle, subtext theme of upholding Anne Frank's belief that "in spite of everything people are really good at heart," and he does so without a smidgen of sentimentality.

There is no goodness in evidence as Viggo Mortensen's scary Russian mobster does every bidding of Armin Mueller-Stahl's chilling godfather figure, ruling ruthlessly over a family, which includes his son, a monster out of control, played brilliantly by Vincent Cassel (son of Jean-Pierre Cassel).

During a pre-release press tour, Cronenberg spoke of his wish to present "provocative, juicy stories... with complexity... showing that all monsters are sentimental and have some kind of relationship to a moral compass." That is all true, but what makes "Eastern Promises" so appealing is that there is no pop psychology (or worse, pop philosophy) in or about it. The film hits you over the head with its magnificently written story (Steven Knight, of "Dirty Pretty Things"), not with a message.

The title, on one level, refers to promises made to young women in Russia, luring them to the West, where the Mob enslaves them as prostitutes. It is one of these drugged and brutalized women whose death opens the film, and brings an English nurse (Naomi Watts) into the story.

As a multitude of promises, threats and tragedies unfolds, you get the maximum out of "Eastern Promises" with minimum advance knowledge of its story. Initially, that is. When you return to see it again, it won't matter that you'll know how it ends, you will want to re-experience what is certain to become a classic film. ("Eastern Promises" was shown at the Toronto Festival last week, opened in San Francisco today, goes nationwide on Sept. 21.)

September Dawn (2007)

'Dawn' fights fanatics fanatically

[1/10 · 23 August 2007]

It is unprecedented - or close to it - that a writer needs to disclose his affiliations or beliefs before reviewing a film, but "September Dawn" presents such a situation. So here it goes: I have no connection whatsoever with the Mormon Church, and neither sympathize with it nor oppose it.

From that "neutral" point of view, "September Dawn" appears a sandwich of a film, with a purpose on top, a biased view on the bottom, and a poorly made movie in-between. This meant-to-be controversial film about another shameful "9/11," a Mormon massacre of 120 innocent men, women and children in Utah on Sept. 11, 1857, is open about its agenda: "(The Mountain Meadows story) closely resembles the religious fanaticism the world is seeing today. People were killed in the name of God 150 years ago and they're still being killed in the name of God." So says the director, Christopher Cain.

Mountain Meadows was the stopping place for a wagon train on the Old Spanish Trail from Arkansas (and Missouri, so the Mormons might have believed) on the way to California. What is an established historical fact is that Mormon militia, together with Indians pressed into the fight, killed most of the would-be settlers in cold blood.

"September Dawn" mentions in passing some of the many factors involved - such as the killing of church-founder Joseph Smith by a mob in an Illinois jail, the Mormons' fear of federal troops moving against them, and so on - and yet the entire film is simply a blanket indictment of the church. People on the wagon train are uniformly kind, decent, altogether wonderful; the Mormon leadership is consistently and grossly evil. It's not a matter of good people turning bad, but rather a boring straight line from expected evil to actual one.

Jon Voight, playing the Mormon bishop zealot who instigated the massacre, is mean, bitter, murderous. Terence Stamp, as Brigham Young, doesn't fare much better. There is no mention of his speaking against robbing - much less killing - emigrant trains (although he did declare martial law and forbade the crossing of the Territory four days after the massacre).

Of all the Mormons, only one (fictitious) character has any redeeming value. Trent Ford is the bishop's son - handsome, intelligent, a horse-whisperer, falls in love with one of the "Gentiles" ("You're not Jewish?" she asks when he says the "you people are Gentiles"), and does impossibly heroic deeds that you see telegraphed from a mile away.

Predictable, obvious, often silly, with a painfully poor script ("I curse the Gentiles, grrrrr!"), "September Dawn" not so much exposes fanaticism as lays an egg in a fanatical crusade of its own.