Reviews

Roy and Jessie (Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer) are Americans who've gone to China with Roy's church to work with underprivileged children. A train buff, Roy books them passage on the Transsiberian Express from Beijing to Moscow, before flying back to the States. On the journey, they meet Carlos (Eduardo Noriega), a sexy, well-travelled Spaniard who seems to knows a lot about Customs, and Abby (Kate Mara), a young woman who has run away from Seattle.

Meanwhile, Grinko, a Russian narcotics detective (Ben Kinglsey) is tracking down whoever killed a drug dealer in Vladivostok and vanished with both the drugs and the money.

Jessie, who had a fairly wild past before marrying Roy and trying to settle down, feels sympathetic towards the seemingly lost Abby. And she feels something more unsettling for Carlos, who gives off an aura of raw sexuality and physical danger. When the train stops at a snowy village somewhere in Siberia, Roy goes looking at old coal locomotives with Carlos. When the train starts up again, Roy is no longer aboard.

Hoping that Roy has simply missed the train, Jessie gets off at the next village to make inquiries. Carlos and Abby decide they will stay with her until she finds her husband. They're concerned about her safety. In this isolated, wintry and foreign environment, the sexual tension between Carlos and Jessie begins to heat up, culminating in an abandoned Orthodox church off in the woods near the village.

The pacing of Transsiberian reflects that of the train itself. It starts off slowly -- introducing these people, telling their back stories and actually developing characters and relationships -- and then picks up more and more speed as the film chugs along. The subtle tension in one scene links to another, which links to another, until the total becomes almost unbearable. It's closer to Hitchcock than a contemporary thriller that substitutes action and quick edits for genuine suspense.

Director and co-writer Brad Anderson (The Machinist) offers some good twists and turns on the trip, which keeps the film moving along in surprising ways. The story of Jessie and Carlos doesn't end in the Orthodox church in Siberia, it only marks the beginning of a new stage in the journey.

Despite excellent acting all around, the film really belongs to Emily Mortimer. Transsiberian is Jessie's story in the end, and Mortimer does a great job of portraying the internal struggle between her restless nature, with its wild past, and her desire to live a positive life and love Roy, who saved her both physically and emotionally after she slammed head-on into his car while she was drunk. Jessie makes some really poor decisions on this journey. But Mortimer gives her the dignity of a human being really wrestling with good and bad aspects of herself, and the fact that they may be more intertwined than we normally care to admit. As she says to her husband at one point, quoting Tennessee Williams, "Kill off all my demons, Roy, and my angels might die, too."(So that's where Tom Waits got the line.) But this isn't just a metaphorical journey. It is a physical one as well, through contemporary Russia, and Anderson does a great job capturing the ambiance of traveling through a strange land, both in the small details and in the starkly beautiful shots of the train passing through the Siberian wilderness. While the landscape and people can seem exotic to the Americans, there's also a sense of the chaos, hardship and danger in the post-Soviet Union era. This becomes more evident as the film progresses. As one character says, "In Russia, we have expression. 'With lies, you may go ahead in the world, but you may never go back.' Do you understand this, Jessie?" Where is that line? At what point can you no longer turn back? Brad Anderson has fashioned a fine suspense film that touches on these darker questions as it speeds on its way to a dramatic climax, with action sequences that seem to organically rise out of the need of the moment rather than being a constructed set-piece to show off CGI. The writing and directing are excellent. The acting is consistently great, with special kudos to Woody Harrelson, who has the thankless task of playing a fairly simple guy who's positive by nature, but who imbues Roy with real humanity. The cinematography by Xavi Giménez is top notch. There's a lot going on in this film. It lingers well and leaves you slightly unsettled. And it's the best movie that takes place on a train in a long, long time.

Ernst Lubitsch directs Heaven Can Wait with his usual taste and flair, but the film is surprisingly dull and sentimental compared to his best work. It lacks the irony and sophistication of Trouble in Paradise, the comic energy of To Be or Not To Be, or the humanity of The Shop Around the Corner. Much of the problem seems to lie in an unusually flat script from the great Samson Raphaelson. The story of recently deceased Henry Van Cleve recounting his lecherous escapades to "His Excellency" down below in order to gain entrance to Hell seems ripe for a Lubitsch film, and the opening sequence in the amazing art deco lobby of the Inferno shows great promise, but the story has a maudlin quality that it never really escapes.

We're never shown any of Henry's love affairs, which, in hindsight, the film could have probably used. Don Ameche is at his best in Heaven Can Wait when he gets to turn on the charm. Instead, we're only told about the episodes indirectly via conversations between Henry and his long-suffering wife, Martha. The story also seems conflicted in its purposes. On one hand, Raphaelson and Lubitsch try tugging at our heart-strings by having us feel sympathy for Martha as she struggles with Henry's indiscretions, and on the other, we're supposed to laugh with Henry precisely BECAUSE he's constantly cheating on his wife. That's just the way he is, we're instructed, and isn't he still wonderful? Even the Devil finds Henry charming and his infidelity a mere trifle. We all know that lovable Henry really belongs in Heaven with the wife he cheated on for several decades. It's a fairly sexist film in that regard. Somehow, the charming scoundrel element doesn't work in Heaven Can Wait as it does in so many other Hollywood films. Perhaps Don Ameche doesn't have the Cary Grant panache to carry it off. He does make a rather listless Lothario in this one. Gone is that dynamic energy he had in a film like Midnight, which is a superior work based on somewhat similar themes. In that case, Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett out-Lubitsched the director they admired so much. But I'm not sure Grant or any other scoundrel could have done much with Raphaelson's script. Ameche does what he can.

The rest of the cast is quite good, with Charles Coburn at his mischievous best, and several fine secondary actors. Gene Tierney does well in a difficult role, though her hairstyle when Martha gets older has not lasted well through the ages. Somehow this very beautiful actress winds up looking a bit like the Bride of Frankenstein. Overall, Heaven Can Wait is a solid film, with some good moments strewn about here and there. But it's not Lubitsch at his best.

Red Garters receives deserved attention for its interesting visuals. The spare, stagy sets mostly feature two-dimensional building fronts placed against a brilliant red backdrop, with a few artificial trees and shining yellow dirt thrown in for good measure. The film has a stripped-down, cartoon-like quality that's enhanced by the camera-work, editing, and a general acting style that tends towards caricature. Frank Tashlin, who went from directing Porky Pig shorts to Jerry Lewis movies, worked on an earlier version of the project for a year qand half, and Red Garters shows his influence. As a visual experiment, it's fairly fascinating.

Unfortunately, as a musical, it's not that great. In fact, Red Garters is a downright preachy and annoying film by the end. Rosemary Clooney gets to use her wonderful voice on several songs, and for that we can all be thankful. Her singing is the best part of the film. But as much as I like Rosemary as a vocalist, she wasn't the most vibrant on-screen personality and can't really carry an entire movie. She was probably better suited for the kind of supporting role she had in White Christmas. Worst of all, her character is the one who preaches the most, and any film that can turn Rosemary Clooney into a grating presence is not a film for me.

In terms of song and dance, Red Garters doesn't offer much that hasn't been done better, or much better, somewhere else. The Evans and Livingston songs are pleasant enough, but you probably won't remember any of them the next day. At least Rosemary sings them, along with Guy Mitchell, who had a good voice. Nick Castle's choreography pales in comparison to Michael Kidd's work on another "Western" musical from 1954, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. And it's hard not to compare them. The best dancing in the film may be Buddy Ebsen's meager 20 seconds, which is a shame because he's one few people in the film with any zing. Though the actors are all okay, there's little chemistry between them, and little pizazz to this movie.

There are some funny moments here and there, but I found myself laughing less and less as the film progressively hammered away at its "message." Edith Head does fairly well with the women's costumes, thankfully, since there's not much else to look at in this film. I'm still not sure what she was trying to do towards the end with Joanne Gilbert's black dress and calico apron thing, but at least it diverted my attention somewhat from the moralizing finale.

For those offended by Hollywood racist portrayals, the token "Injun" in this film – Minnie Redwing – will probably be unbearable.

Finally, the vaunted visuals of the film only hold for so long. The sparse sets are, well, sparse, and they gradually become boring and a bit claustrophobic. I never thought I would miss Brigadoon or Yolanda and the Thief, but, Lord, if I didn't find myself yearning for the Baroque details of other soundstage worlds.

This is a tough, somber film that captures the absurdities involved in war, and, ultimately, in life. The French Resistance "heroes" in the story are never shown conducting sabotage or planned attacks against the Germans, as one would get in a traditional World War II movie. Instead, we follow their claustrophobic and paranoid lives as they move from one hiding place to another (or one prison to another), constantly hounded by those in power, haunted by their own actions and the inability to communicate with those dear to them. Melville shows us their doubts and questions as they deal with betrayal, cowardice, and the murky ethics of killing their own to preserve the larger good.

Every episode in the film seems to lead to a darkly ironic conclusion, and the meaninglessness of their efforts becomes almost overwhelming, except that, somehow, these ordinary people continue to offer resistance in the face of death, so that their heroism lies not in the ability to stop the Germans but in taking action at all while facing the abyss.

While the acting is excellent all around, Lino Ventura's performance as Gerbier deserves special attention. It's hard to imagine any other actor bearing the tremendous weight of this film as well as he does. Gabin, at an earlier age, might have had the physical and emotional strength, but I'm not sure he would've been capable of Ventura's unassuming portrayal, which is so necessary for his character. The "shadows" at the core of this tale are seriously dark, and Ventura's Gerbier is strong enough to face them, yet modest enough to realize he can't conquer them on his own. The only way the Resistance makes sense by the end of this film, is in the collective effort of its members. Similarly, each of us, individually, cannot conquer death, but we as a group of human beings can continue to live on. _L'Armée des ombres_ ultimately moves beyond a story of the French Resistance in World War II and serves as a powerful existentialist epic, with Ventura's performance responsible for much of the film's dignity and humanity.

As with _Léon Morin, prêtre_ (1961), another story set during the war, Melville seems more emotionally present in _L'Armée des ombres_ than he does in his policiers or noir pieces, and after seeing the film, his overall body of work suddenly seems much heftier. While the movie isn't as visually daring of some of his other works, it has a dark beauty all its own, and his pacing, editing, shot selection, and use of sound show him in great artistic control. Forty-eight hours after seeing it, I still find myself caught in its world.

I've always thought William Holden was an underrated comic actor and at his most charming in some of his comedies (Sabrina, Born Yesterday, Moon is Blue). Since he didn't make a lot of comedies, I was looking forward to this one with Lucille Ball. But it's not Holden's film. It's Lucy's film, with Holden playing the straight man. I'm not a big Lucy fan, but she's quite funny in this. Holden, on the other hand, seems a little stiff or disinterested. To be honest, there's not much to work with. Lucy probably succeeds because she's very good at physical comedy and can make us laugh without saying anything, which helps when the script is so weak. Holden's humor tends to come from his intelligence and his timing, which is harder to make work when the screenplay is mediocre or you don't want to be in the film to begin with. Miss Grant Takes Richmond came out the year before Sunset Blvd., so I imagine that Holden's frustration with his roles during much of the 1940s was reaching its peak around this time. But James Gleason and Frank McHugh, two wonderful actors, also seem to struggle a bit in this film, so I pin much of the blame on the writing. There are some funny bits here and there, but it's all a little sugary for me. Lucy fans will probably enjoy it, though - she does the best.

Fred Astaire and Frank Morgan play a couple of con artists trying to strike it big in the make-believe South American country of Patria. Lucille Bremmer plays Yolanda Aquaviva, who has just come out of a convent school and is suddenly heir to a vast fortune. Overwhelmed by her new responsibilities in the world, Yolanda prays to the statue of an angel for guidance, a prayer which Johnny Riggs (Astaire) overhears. He then pretends to be her guardian angel in order to cheat her out of her fortune. But there are complications, mostly of the falling-in-love kind.

Yolanda and the Thief is a strange film, kind of a Catholic Technicolor fantasy, with very little dancing but lots of overly done (almost psychedelic) colors, and the obvious influence of Salvador Dali in one long dream sequence. Astaire and Morgan work well together, and Mildred Natwick provides some comic relief, but Lucille Bremmer's portrayal of the overly naive Yolanda makes for tough viewing. The "Coffee Time" dance scene has some energy and verve and is worth watching, despite- some absolutely terrible (beyond Kitsch!) costumes by Irene. But there's not much here for song-and-dance fans.

The film is interesting because of Astaire and because of all the strange elements going on: the gaudy colors, the Baroque sets, the supernatural Catholic themes, bits of Surrealism, the hyper-unreal view of South America. I'm sure some graduate students could have a field day with "Patria" and its representation of Latin American society. Even compared to typical Hollywood portrayals of South America at the time, it's rather unusual and almost hallucinatory. There are llamas to help create the right exotic mood. Can't go wrong with a llama in a movie.

And where was Carmen Miranda? She could have given this flick some zing.

Astaire made 29 musicals between 1933 and 1957. This is not one of the better ones. As he said in his autobiography (_Steps in Time_), "We all tried hard and thought we had something, but as it turned out, we didn't." No, they didn't. But if you're in the right mood (drugs?), it might be worth watching. Mostly for serious Astaire fans. And maybe devout Catholics who long for Technicolor.

With a little editing and a better finale, Let's Dance could've been a great musical. It starts out with a bang, and rides along on a fun and energetic high for the first 2/3 of the film. Then, the storyline of Hutton trying to retain custody of her child starts to drag on too long. As if to make up for the slow last third of the movie, the director then tacks on a short and overly simplistic ending, as if he wasn't sure how to get out of the film. Even with these problems, though, I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun this was. Hutton had tremendous energy as a comedienne and singer, and she sparkles through most of the film. Astaire also seems to be having a great time and shows a zany side that's quite delightful. There are several good musical numbers and two "must-see" dance pieces. In the first, Fred dances around, under, on top of and inside a piano, and he also gets to show off his lesser-known but fairly impressive skills as a pianist. This number has to rank among his all-time most enjoyable. The second great number has Fred and Hutton dressed as cowboys in a saloon, and it's a hilarious and wonderful routine. I cringed a bit when I read that Astaire was doing a cowboy number, but he's just as great in boots and blue jeans and he was in top hat, white tie and tails. There's some very good comedy writing in the film, and the secondary actors all do a fine job. Despite its slow and repetitive last section, Let's Dance is definitely worth watching. And some of the dance numbers deserve repeated viewing. An unexpectedly fun and funny film.

It's a shame that someone couldn't have written a better screenplay for the Belle of New York, because there are some wonderful elements in this film. Fred Astaire and Vera-Ellen made a great team. A seductive, charming and talented dancer, Vera-Ellen's graceful yet physical style was a good match for Astaire's smooth elegance. As it is, we only get to see them dance together a few times in the Belle of New York, and most of the time Vera-Ellen is bound up in an unflattering Salvation Army-type uniform. But, hey, it's something. And they do have several good solo turns. Astaire dances on top of the Arch in Washington Square in New York City (or Hollywood's version of New York circa 1900), which is kind of fun. Vera-Ellen does a great job in "Naughty But Nice," finally shedding her austere clothes for a colorful and sexy French Can-Can outfit. And Astaire also sings and dances to what could have been his signature tune, Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer's "I Wanna Be a Dancin' Man."

Alice Pearce provides some much-needed comic relief in a secondary role, and Keenan Wynn and Marjorie Main do their best, but they're pretty much defeated by the weak writing and the undeveloped and uninteresting story. The score by Warren and Mercer is mostly strong. And, as always, Fred's sheer talent, joy and artistry make up for a lot. If you want to see Fred dance on a horse's back (or the Hollywood version of a horse's back) this is your film. But you'll have to get through some pretty campy and technically suspect special effects that show people "dancing on air." For the general viewer, I'd recommend about 20 other Astaire musicals before this one. The Belle of New York is mostly for serious Fred fans, Vera-Ellen fans or those who are in the mood for an inoffensive Technicolor musical about ye olde New-York.

The more films I see by Jules Dassin, the more I wonder why he isn't better known or regarded as a director. It's been 56 years since he was blacklisted by the McCarthy-ites, but his reputation never seems to have recovered, at least not in the United States. Hopefully, more DVD releases like the Criterion version of Night and the City will bring deserved attention to his excellent body of work.

I want to call Night and the City a classic film noir, which it is, but that seems too limiting. It might be better to say that Dassin uses film noir to dig a little deeper into our human strivings and sufferings. There's a lot of sweat and desperation in the midst of this entertaining and well-paced film, and not just on the part of Harry Fabian, the small-time hustler who dreams of being great. We encounter a typically smooth and dangerous mobster who also happens to have a difficult relationship with his disappointed father. A wealthy but thugish club owner, who might be a caricature in another film noir, can't seem to express his powerful and animalistic feelings for his beautiful wife. She seems like a scheming femme fatale but turns out to have an almost quaint dream of her own. In the end, we're in the muck and mire of human foibles, a kind of low-level Shakespearean tragedy that we all live out to one degree or another. This story just happens to take place in the shadowy underworld of 1950 London.

There's a poignancy to this film that separates it from others in the noir genre. Part of this lies in the strong writing, part in the excellent acting ensemble. This is one of those rare and remarkable films where the secondary and minor actors seem like they were all giving the performance of their career. Richard Widmark probably could have done with a bit more subtlety as Harry Fabian; he feels a bit histrionic at times, but his manic energy is important to the pace of the film and the feeling of increasing desperation. Gene Tierney and Hugh Marlowe don't get to do much and seem a bit lost among all the other great roles. In an interview with Dassin included with the DVD, the director says he put Tierney in the film as a favor to producer Daryl Zanuck, adding her role at the last minute, and it feels like that at times. But, hey, it's Gene Tierney.

Herbert Lom delivers a chilling performance as Kristo the mobster, and Stanislaus Zbyszko is a miracle as his father, the once-famous wrestler Gregorious who can't stand that his son has helped kill the great tradition of Greco-Roman wrestling with his shoddy wrestling matches. The great Mike Mazurki does well as The Strangler, and the wrestling match he gets into with Gregorious may be the highlight of the film. Zbyszko and Mazurki were both former wrestlers, and the realism of their fight heightens the emotional intensity of the scene. It's the brutal scruff and claw of existence brought to life on screen for a few powerful moments.

I had never seen Francis Sullivan before, so I was pleasantly surprised by his masterful work as the club owner Nosseross. Googie Withers also does a great job as his wife Helen, managing to bring some good shading to an underwritten role. And some of the best moments of the film are delivered by minor characters such as Anna, the woman who works down on the docks; Figler, the "King of the Beggars;" and Googin the forger.

After a brief voice-over intro, Dassin starts the action with a bang, as one man chases another through the darkness of late-night London, across what looks like the plaza in front of the British Museum (???). The camera angle on this opening is fantastic, the kind of shot you want to turn into a poster and hang on your wall. And the camera work remains excellent throughout the film. The final long sequence of Harry running all over London in the foggy darkness, with the whole world seemingly after him, is an exciting and powerful climax. Quite a memorable ending to this excellent film.

Made at pretty much the halfway point between Melville's Bob le Flambeur (1955) and Le Samourai (1967), Le Doulos contains elements of both. Belmondo plays Silien, a man thought by some to be a police informer. ("Doulos" means informer or Finger Man, which is the title in English.) Reggiani plays Maurice, who has just gotten out of prison and is getting involved with another robbery attempt. His friend Silien offers to help, and the film revolves around the tension over whether Silien is an informant or not. It's another exploration by Melville of the grey area between those who enforce the law and those who break it, of the uneasy yet powerful relationships that can develop between people on "opposite" sides of the line.

Belmondo and Reggiani are both excellent. The black and white photography by Nicholas Hayer - who also did Cocteau's Orphée and Clouzot's Le Corbeau - is superb, from the wonderfully atmospheric opening sequence (Melville may be THE master of opening sequences) to the stunning, Cocteau-like shot of a man staring into a mirror that closes the film. The plot line gets a bit complicated at times, with rival gangs, a previous jewel heist, murder, betrayals, love affairs, etc. Hard to follow. Which is to say, it's a classic example of film noir. And the jazzy soundtrack by Paul Misraki heightens the cool, noirish sensibility of the film. Whatever his failings as a director, Melville definitely knew how to create a great atmosphere.

Le Doulos is definitely worth checking out, especially by fans of film noir, Melville or Belmondo.

Kiss Them For Me has a lot to offer - Cary Grant, Stanley Donen (Singin' in the Rain, Charade) as director, and Julius Epstein (Casablanca, Arsenic & Old Lace) as screenwriter - but it never really lives up to its potential. There are some funny moments here and there, but the film is more of a drama with comic elements, and the balance doesn't always work well. Viewers expecting one of Cary Grant's great comedic romps will be disappointed. Still, it's not a bad film, just an uneven one.

The story is about three Navy fliers, each considered a "war hero," who embark on a four-day leave in San Francisco. They secure the "Ambassador's Suite" in a fine hotel and order up tons of liquor for their large, rowdy parties, where there are three women for every man. In the end, however, they don't get to relax and momentarily forget the war as much as they have to deal with the awkwardness between the civilian world and their own. They also have to confront the reality of life after the war. Grant, in particular, realizes that he's good at what he does (flying planes), and he's giving himself to a worthy cause that's bigger than himself, neither of which he may be able to do outside of the Pacific theatre. He's offered more than one chance to turn his reputation as a war hero into a cushy job, but he sees the emptiness and boredom that waits for him in the normal American lifestyle. Instead of talking with the powerful owner of a shipbuilding company who could help him with his financial future, he sits on the floor listening to jazz and flirting with the owner's fiancée.

Unfortunately, Donen and Epstein don't seem to trust these dramatic elements and inject a poorly developed romance into the film, which undoes some otherwise good writing and leads, finally, to a flat ending. Maybe if they'd found a suitable female lead to play off Grant, the romance would have worked better, but Suzy Parker is stiff and wooden on screen, and her character grows wearisome after a while. The best that can be said for her is that she provides a little relief from the grating presence of Jayne Mansfield, who is described in the original 1957 NY Times review of the film as, "grotesque, artificial, noisy, distasteful - and dull." And that pretty much sums it up. In the original play on Broadway, in 1945, these two women characters were evidently blended into one, played "with brilliance" by a young Judy Holliday. Oh, for a woman of her grace, wit and energy in this film version. (As a side note, Judy co-starred in the play with Richard Widmark, who played Crewson.)

In the end, though, there is still Cary Grant. He saves the film from being a total waste of time. And Epstein's script has some wonderful gems scattered here and there. Also, the camaraderie between Grant and his two Navy buddies, one of them played by Ray Walston, works well most of the time. For those interested in a 50's drama about Navy fliers, you're better off watching The Bridges at Toko-Ri, with William Holden and Grace Kelly. If you want a great Cary Grant comedy, try his much better effort with Julius Epstein - Arsenic & Old Lace. If you've seen just about everything else with Cary in it, and you want something different, this one will do in a fix.

8 Femmes is a playful mystery/musical/dark comedy that hearkens back to Jacques Demy's Parapluies de Cherbourg, which also starred Catherine Deneuve, and Demoiselles de Rochefort, in which Danielle Darrieux and Deneuve played mother and daughter. The story stars off as a classic tale of murder in a closed room of an isolated mansion, and all of the eight women become suspects. As the various clues and revealed secrets begin to pile up and become more and more absurd, however, it becomes clear that the mystery is secondary to exploring the various kinds of relationships that exist between these women and the way they have all been affected by their relationships (or lack of relationships) with men, especially the man who has been killed.

The mystery is also secondary to having a good time, which everyone seems to be doing. One of the main strengths of the movie is that it doesn't take itself too seriously. The director and all of the actresses seem to be enjoying themselves so much that a sense of fun radiates throughout the film. Ozon uses laughter and black humor, however, to investigates the pain, rivalry and joy that arise between mothers and daughters, pairs of sisters, sisters-in-law, women servants and their mistresses, and women in love with other women. It's a grand buffet of fine acting and difficult to pick out the best of the bunch - all eight women are wonderful - but Isabelle Huppert steals a number of scenes (hard to do in that company) with the most over the top and unexpected performance. Each woman has great moments, however, sometimes of tenderness, sometimes of hilarious bitchiness, and once in a while, of sudden and intense emotional revelation. The songs that each one sings give a bit of insight to their characters and add to the overall fun of the film, but they also present dramatic challenges to the actresses, and all of them do well in making these musical numbers work.

It's great to see Darrieux again, and she does an excellent job as the matriarch of the clan who seems to be a frail and loving old grandmother at first but then pulls one surprise after another. The funniest bit in the film, a wicked moment of black comedy, involves an argument between her and daughter Gaby (Deneuve) that ends in shocking and unladylike violence. The song chosen for Darrieux to sing at the end, a haunting and poignant piece written by French poet Louis Aragon and the great singer-songwriter Geogre Brassens, pulls the film together emotionally in an unexpected way.

People expecting a straight mystery film may be disappointed in and confused by the film, and the American distributors haven't helped matters any by failing to mention on the back of the video box that 8 Femmes is a musical and a dark comedy as well. But for those viewers who have an open mind and are in the mood for a playful mystery with several great actresses, they should be greatly rewarded.

Un long dimanche de fiançailles mixes romance and mystery amid the brutal realities of World War I, and though it's a solid film, it never reaches the greatness it strives for so earnestly. Unlike most of Jeunet's other films, it takes itself too seriously, lacking much of the director's wonderful humor and imagination. For some reason, Jeunet also comes too close in theme and setting to two much better works on World War I by Bertrand Tavernier: La Vie et rien d'autre (Life and Nothing But), in which a woman searches for her missing husband in the aftermath of the war, and Capitaine Conan, about a group of French soldiers at the time of the Armistice and beyond. In fact, the opening sequences of Un long dimanche de fiançailles that take place in the hellish fox holes on the front line look like they have been lifted from leftover footage from Capitaine Conan. I'm not sure why Jeunet would do this. Unfortunately for him, Capitaine Conan is one of the greatest films about war ever made and La Vie et rien d'autre has an emotional power and complexity that only serve to make one aware of how little of the same Jeunet is able to achieve in his own work.

Audrey Tautou is charming, of course, and one enjoys watching her on the screen, but she has to carry this heavy film on her back, without much complexity in her character to explore or another strong actor to work against. One also wonders if she will get stuck playing "Amelie" the rest of her career. She's a wonderful actress, but I find myself wanting to see her in a dark action film along the lines of Nikita. Something besides the same role over and over.

One of the few times Tautou gets a break in the film is when we meet Jodie Foster's character and spend some time with her story. This is one of the best parts of the film, and if the rest of the movie had had the same emotional urgency and passion as this sequence, it would have been a much stronger work.

Jeunet could also have spent more time on Manech and the other four soldiers around him. Their stories are interesting but it's hard to follow who is who at times, and we never develop a strong emotional connection with them. More time with them and less with Tautou's Mathilde might have helped the film move a little better. One of Jeunet's strengths in Delicatessen and Amelie was creating a terrific and dynamic rhythm. This movie drags much more than it has to, getting slower (and a bit disjointed) towards the end. The role of the detective, Germain Pire, provides a bit of comic relief and an element of mystery, but Jeunet pretty much abandons the character after a couple of scenes. The mystery aspect of the film is handled poorly in general, Jeunet turning something that could have been a real advantage into a dawdling storyline that holds little or no suspense.

Visually, Jeunet does a great job again, though there aren't as many striking moments as in his earlier works. The most resonant image in the film involves a soldier carving the initials of his beloved into a battle-blasted tree trunk in the middle of a grey, apocalyptic wasteland between the French and German fronts. And while the battle scenes are sometimes powerful, there is the sense that we have seen this all before.

Un long dimanche de fiançailles was an interesting choice for Jeunet's first movie after Amelie. From a commercial perspective, it seems like a risky choice, especially given the participation of Warner Brothers in putting up money for the film. This is definitely not a ready-made hit - the movie is too long and slow for that. Many fans of Amelie will probably walk away disappointed. I respect his willingness to take such chances, but I wish he had chosen a project that wasn't so melodramatic and pretentious in the end.

And one whose plot and war theme hadn't already been done better by another director. A decent but but not great film.

June Bride has some fine moments, but it never really gets going as a first-rate comedy, mostly because of Bette Davis' stiff and somewhat dour performance. She and Robert Montgomery have very little chemistry. Poor Bob has to do all of the work, which leads to an exaggerated performance at times, but at least he brings some energy to the film and saves it from being a complete disaster. Davis looks like she didn't want to be making the picture. Unlike Stanwyck or Hepburn, she seems incapable of moving back and forth between drama and comedy. If Montgomery had been teamed with one of those two, or with Jean Arthur, Claudette Colbert, or Myrna Loy, this could have been a small classic. The writing is very smart at times, even though the story itself is fairly predictable and a bit too cute. There are some excellent comic moments, including two great ones with Tom Tully's Mr. Brinker. The film has a good pace, apart from Ms. Davis' leaden performance, and the direction is efficient and sensible. Given the number of great comedies from the 30s and 40s one can live without seeing June Bride, but it can suffice in a pinch.

South Pacific starts out with good energy, bogs down in slow-moving melodrama, and then peters out in a choppy and anti-climactic last section. There's great potential here, with its exotic and beautiful island setting, two interesting romances, war-time adventure, comic relief, and music from the great Richard Rodgers, but the movie never really comes together. Joshua Logan's directorial pacing grows increasingly uneven, with overly long and unexciting passages mixed with crucial scenes that go by in a flash. The worst case by far concerns the fate of the two male leads. What should be the most important event of the movie, its emotional and dramatic climax, is not even shown but rather told to us in a dull, almost off-hand manner by another character. Very strange.

Another major problem, as many people have mentioned, has to do with the color filters used during the original production. We can only assume that this effect worked better on 1958 movie screens than it does today on video and DVD. Interesting at first in a campy kind of way, the technique becomes incredibly irritating by the end of the film. What's sad is that the parts of the movie shot in regular Technicolor are so luscious and vivid - the deep greens of the tropical island, the blue sky, and the bright yellows, reds and oranges of some of the costumes all work together splendidly.

Mitzi Gaynor does fine in her role as Nurse Forbush, though it's difficult to know why a cultivated Frenchman like de Becque would ever be interested in her. Brazzi, as de Becque, also does okay, but why couldn't the producers find an actual Frenchman to play this part? Why not Yves Montand?

He was active in Hollywood at that time and was a wonderful singer with experience in musicals. John Kerr generates almost zero screen excitement as Lt. Kerr, and his dubbed singing voice is the worst match of all among the many awkward dubbing jobs in the film. Only Gaynor actually sings her own songs. I don't understand why Rodgers and Hammerstein utilized such wonderful singing actors for their stage productions but relied so heavily on dubbing for their films. It's annoying to watch the obviously fake singing on the part of the actors, and it seems totally unnecessary. Even Juanita Hall, who played the role of Bloody Mary in the Broadway production, doesn't sing here. For me, the only real acting delight in South Pacific is Ray Walston as Luther Billis, a butch-effeminate sailor with his shirt undone and a huge tattoo of a clipper ship on his belly who's a bit of a black marketeer and gets into various kinds of trouble. Having seen Walston in many other films and TV shows, I wasn't expecting such a campy and hilarious role in a musical. He even shows up as a tropical-island drag queen in a Thanksgiving show for the troops - the movie's only attempt at a dance number. It's all very weird. As the film wore on, growing stodgier and stodgier, I kept hoping to get back to Walston for some much needed comic relief.

Compared to other Rodgers and Hammerstein films, the music in South Pacific is some of their least interesting or memorable. "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Our of My Hair" is a great tune, and the scene is one of the more lively ones in the film, but Logan cuts it off quickly. The other entertaining number comes at the beginning of the movie, with Walston and his campy sailors singing "There Is Nothing' Like a Dame." This sets you up to believe that the film will have a somewhat zany, fast-paced feel to it - a kind of musical "Operation Petticoat" or something - but, alas, it's not true. Logan never pursues the comic elements of the film like he could. Nor he does he pursue the action/adventure elements that could have helped with the overall pacing. They are in the story - he just ignores them. We are left with a lot of plodding or overly melodramatic scenes that circle around but never quite capture the tension and emotional resonance of the two romantic relationships. The tunes that accompany these scenes also seem plodding and melodramatic, with "Some Enchanted Evening" and "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught" being the best of an otherwise drab lot. This latter tune was fairly radical in its message of racial tolerance in 1958, and it's about the only moment in the film that John Kerr (Lt. Cable) shows any emotion.

All in all, South Pacific isn't a bad musical; it just drags on too long and never really feels like a cohesive whole. There are some good moments, but it doesn't reach the heights of something like "The King and I" - Yul Brenner's tour de force acting, the brilliant set designs, or the adventurous dance sequences - or "Oklahoma." And it doesn't come anywhere near the cinematic and musical power of "The Sound of Music," which remains the best Rodgers and Hammerstein film by far.

I was disappointed in the first Mission Impossible film but had heard that this one was better. John Woo directed it. The man who wrote Chinatown did the screenplay. Thandie Newton was in it. Everything sounds great. So what happened?

MI2 is a mess, and not even an entertaining mess. For an action film, it's quite boring at times. There are long gaps between action sequences, and one has to endure some of the worst romantic dialog to come out of Hollywood in some time. Thandie Newton, who was so charming in the otherwise mediocre Truth About Charlie, is totally wasted here. I'm still trying to figure out how Robert Towne goes from writing Chinatown, which was so intelligent and stylish, to this dreck, which makes some of the bad, late-night, low-budget action shows on cable TV look pretty well-developed and coherent. An absolute flop of a screenplay.

This was the first film I had ever seen by John Woo, and I can only assume that his earlier work is what gave him such a good reputation. When he finally does give us action sequences, they go on far too long and often seem ridiculous. If you find the opening sequence of the film - Tom Cruise "rock climbing" - silly and unbelievable, stop the video there and go on to something else, because it's not going to get any better. The worst combination for an action film is to be dumb AND pretentious, and that is what Woo accomplishes in MI2. His trademark use of slow-motion gets old quick and leaves you feeling like you're watching some slick perfume ad on TV. This is especially true towards the end of the film, when doves come flying out of the smoke and fire. Rather than care about the climax of the story, I'm wondering if a naked, anorexic blonde angel is going to appear and whisper "Action Film, the new fragrance from Calvin Klein." It's just silly stuff, with no sly, tongue-in-cheek awareness of its own silliness.

And there are so many holes in the script...

And those masks... What is it with the masks? It works the first time, seems old the second time and is just plain ridiculous the third time.

I'm guessing Woo was an influence on the Wachowski Brothers, so I could be reading this wrong, but he seems to rip off several elements from The Matrix, which was released a year earlier. If only he had bothered to make MI2 as tight and smart as that film!

If you're an action fan, get the DVD and skip to the chapters with the fight/chase sequences. The story doesn't make much sense and the actors struggle with the terrible screenplay, so you're not missing anything important.

If you're a fan of the original series or of intelligent spy films, forget it. As bad as it was, you're better off watching the first Mission Impossible movie. At least that had some class. And I'm sure any James Bond film would be more enjoyable.

Clear and Present Danger starts out fairly well as an intelligence mystery, but it becomes less interesting as it goes along and finally winds up like some low-budget television action movie that you might see on late-night cable. Ford is okay, but there's really not a lot to work with in the character of Jack Ryan. He's not complex enough to be interesting or believable as an intelligence agent, and he's not cartoonish enough to be fun like James Bond. He could use a sense of humor, that's for sure. His earnest, goody-two-shoes act gets old by the end of the film. The story concerns the murky world of politics, intelligence agencies, and the connections between governments, businesses and drug cartels, but instead of developing characters as complex as the situation, the director/writer deliver up cliched good guys and bad guys. Very disappointing that way.

At least it's better than Patriot Games, where the writing was even worse. But it's not as good as The Hunt for Red October. If you want a simplistic action film, this will probably fit the bill, though it may seem slow at times, especially in the first half. If you want a good movie about intelligence agencies, you're better of with Three Days of the Condor or Spy Game.

It's hard to believe that the man who wrote Blazing Saddles and The In-Laws and wrote and directed The Freshman could put together such a lethargic, overly sweet fairy tale of a supposed romantic comedy. What happened, Andrew Bergman?! This film has none of the great energy and imagination of the other films and very little of the comedy. And how do you make such a cutesy movie about a cop and a waitress from New York F-cking City? They don't act like any cop or waitress I've ever encountered here. Cage seems tired throughout most of the film, and an intriguing cast - Cassel, Perez, Tucci, and Issac Hayes! - is surprisingly disappointing. The blame has to go to the writer. Only Fonda seems to have much presence here, but she's stuck in the wrong film. It Could Happen to You isn't a terrible film, it's just hard to believe it came from the pen of Andrew Bergman, though looking at his credits post The Freshman, maybe it's not so surprising after all. Those who like the safe suburban schmaltz of Sleepless in Seattle will probably enjoy it. If you want the tiniest bit of edge and zing, look elsewhere.

I came across this film at the New York Public Library and was intrigued enough by the cast to give it a try. I was not disappointed. 'Vincent, François, Paul... et les autres' could serve as a textbook example of great writing and great acting. The characters are so strongly developed, full of the genuine complexities and contradictions that mark us as human beings. It's refreshing to find a film that is able to achieve this kind of emotional depth. All of the actors do great work, but Montand pretty much steals the show as "Vincent." Full of bluster and sly humor, you see his sadness and vulnerability come out over the course of the film, as several crises come together and almost crush him. In one powerful sequence, we watch and suffer with him as he spends a long, terrible night trying to get help from various friends to keep his business afloat, only to realize how alone he is in the world. I've seen Montand in several films now, and this one may contain his best work of all, as he shows such tremendous range as an actor.

Piccoli also does well as "François," an intelligent and successful doctor who's grown cold over the years and whose frustration and anger build up inside him until he finally loses it at dinner one evening. Serge Reggiani, who I wasn't familiar with, does a great job as "Paul," a writer who can't finish his novel. One of the most intense, emotionally-charged moments in the film (and there are many) is a devastating exchange between Reggiani and Piccoli about "Paul's" unfinished book. Ouch - painful stuff. And a buff, baby-faced Depardieu shows early screen presence and talent as "Jean," an amateur boxer who has gotten his girlfriend pregnant and must decide whether or not to accept a match against a brutal professional fighter who seriously injured another amateur boxer. This sub-plot has an interesting twist and is handled well, as is the father-son type relationship between Montand and Depardieu.

My one complaint is that the women in the film, who all seem beautiful and intelligent and interesting, aren't nearly as well-developed as the male characters, but, then, it is called 'Vincent, François, Paul...' not 'Catherine, Lucie, Julia...' For those folks who don't have patience with "slow-moving films," this one probably isn't for you. The plot is interesting and there are moments of subtle humor that keep the film from becoming too heavy with drama, but it may not be for everyone. An excellent work.

While watching Mulholland Dr., I had my own Lynch-ian moment of inner horror: a sinister and disturbing sensation that I had never really left the theatre back in 1986 after seeing `Blue Velvet,' but that the kindly woman at the concession stand who looked like an older, grossly made-up Florence Henderson had drugged my popcorn, so that I passed out during the credits and was taken down into a dark basement room below the cinema, which was run by a mysterious dwarf in a glass-encased room with wall-to-wall red velvet carpeting. There was a slow-speaking (so I knew he was serious), folksy character who mysteriously called himself The Director, and he asked me if I could distinguish between reality and cinema, and then he proceeded to show me the same film over and over again for 18 years. The phone rang. The voice on the other end of the line, a Mafioso who spoke through an electronic device in his throat, asked me how I liked my pancakes. `Everyone likes pancakes. How do you like your pancakes?' A clown was singing Roy Orbison's `Only the Lonely' very, very slowly (so I knew he was very, very sad) in French. The now whorish-looking Florence Henderson came into the room and spoke to me in French as well, offering me a silver platter with strange-looking meat on it. A pale young blonde girl, about six years old, who was obviously dead, and who wore a first communion dress and whose head was covered in Saran Wrap, whispered to me: `Don't eat it. It's Billy Wilder's heart.' An old, grey-haired man suddenly coughed out, `I have to fix my lawnmower. They won't let me fix my lawn-mower.' He then handed me a magic 8-ball and said, "You have to help her.' I shook the black plastic globe of secrets and the message read: `Strawberry pancakes.' I shook it again and it read: `Cinema is the new reality.' Then I suddenly woke up – or had I been awake all that time and now was falling asleep? – and Mulholland Dr. was coming to an end.

Or as the Cowboy Angel said, `Oh no, no, I've seen this movie before.'

I used to be a David Lynch fan, but somewhere along the way, what used to seem cool and mysterious began to seem silly and pretentious. Take the scene at the Silencio club... please. (Or at least shorten it.)

Lynch is obviously a master in many areas of filmmaking. He's especially adept at creating moments of psychological terror – the opening sequence of Lost Highway being one of the most frightening things I've ever seen (forget the rest of the picture.) But I've had the feeling over the last few movies that he's too easy on himself and too pleased with his talent. I suppose one could say that Mulholland Dr. was the culmination of his vision over the last 20 years, putting everything together in one film, but it seems to me more of a rehashing of the same old thing, a kind of greatest hits of Lynch's mysterious, pseudo-intellectual film moments, great for those obsessive fans who try to solve his cinematic crossword puzzles, as if maybe THIS time there really would be something down there in the murky unknown.

In and of itself, Mulholland Dr. is a decent film. The acting by Watts is top-notch, and Laura Harring is pleasing to watch. The camera work is good throughout, especially lurking around those corners. If you can get through the silliness of some of the scenes, this is an interesting look at Hollywood, playing off of Sunset Blvd. but updating it for the new century. If you're new to Lynch's work, stick with `Blue Velvet,' when he was able to exert a little more control over his tiring self-indulgence.

Better still, taking a slow drive down Sunset Blvd. with William Holden, Gloria Swanson, and Billy Wilder. A similar theme but much better filmmaking.

Even seeing Matrix Revolutions on an IMAX screen couldn't disguise the fact that the Wachowski Brothers had run out of gas. It's not that the film is so bad, as many have claimed, it's just not nearly as creative as the Matrix or even Reloaded. Nothing in Revolutions will surprise you, which makes it a disappointing conclusion to one of the most imaginative film worlds ever created.

On a positive note, it doesn't pander to the kiddies or devolve into the pathetically commercial manner of Return of the Jedi, with its Hallmark Ewoks and toy catalog film style. Now THAT was a terrible conclusion to a trilogy. At least the Wachowski Brothers stayed true to the tone they developed in the first two films, which counts for something. In a few years, the torrents of criticism about Revolutions will probably subside, and people will realize that this was a capably made film and that the three parts do form a fairly seamless whole.

Having said that, the Wachowskis would have been better off making one 3 hour sequel to the original movie, instead of stretching out a story they didn't have the inspiration or drive to maintain at the highest level.

This is by no means a great film, but I was pleasantly surprised in the end. Montand and Monroe both do good jobs. Tony Randall is always enjoyable, and Milton Berle has a great time teaching Montand how to be funny, the best comic moment of the film. Having just seen Montand in The Wages of Fear, one of the most intense movies ever made, it was interesting to see him goofing off and having a good time. This role takes him back to some of the songs he sang early in his career, not long after Edith Piaf discovered him. I only wish he had been able to sing more in the movie. I'm not a big fan of Monroe - her dumb-blonde routine generally irritates me - but she seems more vulnerable in this film, more pleasant to watch. She particularly impressed me in the musical numbers. Unfortunately, the costume designer did a lousy job - everything seems too big on her, or just tacky. Compare these costumes to those of Bardot in Une Parisenne, made around the same time period. There are ways and then there are ways to show off a body like that of Bardot or Monroe. All in all, this is a light piece of fluff, with some humorous moments, some sappy moments, some good musical numbers, some bad writing, some good cameos by Berle, Bing, and Gene Kelly, a silly storyline, Yves Montand, Monroe, and a good dose of fun.