Reviews

This show looks to have a lot of potential going for it. A cross-country race involving a bunch of people you wouldn't expect to find in a situation like this. At the very least it offers Nathan Fillion a vehicle (no pun intended) to do what he does, and it reintroduces the world to the great Charles Martin Smith, who all but dropped off the face of the earth.

The story goes that a bunch of uber-wealthy players organized a cross-country road race during the beginning of the 20th century. People would be chosen at random to race. And ever since this race has been going on right under our noses.

This particular race involves an interesting mix. There's a landscaper from Nebraska whose wife has been kidnapped and the revenge-minded stow-away who ends up being his partner. There's the desperate young mother from Ohio who's looking to get away from an abusive husband. There's the dying astrophysicist and his oblivious daughter who drive out from California to the Florida Keys so he can live one last time. There's the two Latino half-brothers from different sides of the tracks bonding for the first time. There's the young married couple from Arkansas, one of whom is a reservist in the army on leave from Iraq. And there's the three sassy ladies from New Orleans. And apparently they are all in a certain situation that makes them perfect candidates.

The first two hours focused most of the time between the landscaper and the abused mother, with a peppering of brothers and father-daughter drama to spice it up.

The always good Dylan Baker and Melanie Lynsky are looking to do the best they can with their roles. I'm a little bit surprised to see Baker doing something as action-packed as this, which includes one scene where he leaves his competition in the dust. I fear his character won't be long for this show, since he has a terminal illness, and is only credited as a guest player.

Overall an intriguing concept, and one that was bond to get made at some point. Given some of the formulas that make TV shows hits, there's not much reason why this shouldn't get a little notice. I don't know if it's the sort of show that will be terribly missed should Fox do what it is famous for, and cancel it, but I wish it the best, if for no other reason than they decided to give Charles Martin Smith a steady role as the enigmatic Mr. Bright. Indeed, unless they're in a high-speed chase, his scenes stand out as some of the best.

After all the controversy Daniel Craig has proved his mettle as a Bond for the new generation of moviegoers.

Darker, more realistic in tone, "Casino Royale" is the long-awaited adaptation of Ian Fleming's first book chronicling the adventures of 007, everyone's favorite British superspy. If it weren't for the necessity of introducing the spy as though he never existed, I don't know if Craig, a fine actor in his own right, would have been so impressionable had he been in just the next in the long-running franchise. That they quite explicitly are starting over, makes more sense in terms of who Bond is and what he's about.

The film is less humorous than other movies, but a lot of the humor does stem from the sly references to the long-standing, immediately recognizable facets of what makes Bond Bond. "Shaken or stirred?" "Does it look like I give a damn?" Vesper Lynd in her introduction to Bond "I'm the Money." "And worth every Penny." Craig, in addition to turning in one of the best post-Connery Bonds, is, like Connery, an actor with considerable range. He's also got a bit of a following already. He's still a womanizer who, in this case, fancies married women, who are by nature lonely and dependent on their spouses. Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) is, in this case, everything Bond dislikes about women: cold, confident, and single--in essence, she is exactly like him. A great scene transpires where they analyze each other's character based on first impressions, nailing several qualities about each other that is symbolic of things to come. Thankfully, the scriptwriters did not have to go far to make Vesper a modern woman, as Fleming's own description of her was that she was beautiful with brains.

Mads Mikkelsen, ever the character actor, imbues the treacherous Le Chiffre with all sorts of eccentricities. Asthmatic, with an eyelid that weeps blood, he is also seen as a pawn in a much larger game. Desperate for money, and with investors out for blood, he is prepared to do whatever it takes to stay in their good graces.

The action scenes are exciting and full of amazing stuntwork, especially in the beginning, when Bond pursues a bomb-maker through a construction site. Non-actor Sebastien Foucan does some amazing acrobatic stuntwork, slipping his tall body through vents and making enormous vaults and leaps, where Bond has to improvise quite heavily to catch up with him.

Most of the movie is spent trying to figure out who James Bond is. And we are left satisfied. If the movie seems to drag a little too long, it is worth it, just to hear him say the most famous line of the whole franchise.

While Brosnan's suave portrayal of Bond as a dinosaur of the Cold War period worked well, here Craig gives us a man more atuned to modern cynicism and vulnerability, when the enemy is more elusive.

As an avid fan of the original "Infernal Affairs" I can say this one just about equals it. Borrowing a premise and a few memorable scenes, it creates an original vision by substituting the Irish gangs of South Boston for the Chinese mob of the first film.

Jack Nicholson, as mob boss Frank Costello, creates an honestly larger-than-life character. A monster who chews scenery as only Jack could. The first scenes feature a younger Costello, roaming his neighborhood in the mid '80s, and help set the pace of the entire movie as he recruits and trains a young boy named Colin Sullivan--later to join the State Police in the form of Matt Damon.

Leonardo DiCaprio gives what is probably the film's best performance as the other side of the coin, Billy Costigan, recruited by fatherly Oliver Queenan (Martin Sheen) and his controversial colleague Sgt. Dignam (an explosive Mark Wahlberg). With few exceptions, DiCaprio has never really fit his roles (he was great in "The Aviator," but he looked too young). Here he perfectly portrays the manic, stressful situation he's been placed in as the cop infiltrating Costello's crew of thugs.

Both men end up falling for psychiatrist Madolyn (the very talented Vera Farmiga) in what feels like a Hollywood love-triangle. But given the rather low-key way it is played out, it doesn't feel too corny, despite the improbability.

Alec Baldwin offers some hilarious scene-stealing moments as Damon's superior. And British actor Ray Winstone gives a cold, menacing performance as Costello's bodyguard, Arnold French.

Scorsese's direction feels fresh, not necessarily from his style, so much as the cross-cutting style he uses feels so totally different from anything else out there recently. And his use of music, as always, works to great benefit.

The cast is absolutely stellar. William Monaghan really gives these characters depth. Jack does too. And Scorsese is at the top of his game once again.

All I will say about the ending is, I thought I'd never see a movie end this way. But to be vague, it's all tied up in the end.

Will this movie win Oscars? Maybe. It's got the acclaim, but I still wouldn't be surprised if it gets overlooked for whatever reason.

I had heard this movie described as a black comedy by some. And when one thinks of Harold Ramis, they think of his ingenious work as a director of comedies. But this is a different Harold Ramis. What he has fashioned is "film noir" all the way.

John Cusack works perfectly with the material, not so much in a Humphrey Bogart kind of way as in a Fred MacMurray sort of way. He's the average guy protagonist. He just happens to be a Witchita attorney for a Kansas City political boss.

The film begins when Charlie Arglist (Cusack), with over two million in stolen cash, jumps into the car with partner-in-crime Vic Cavanaugh (Billy Bob Thornton). Throughout the evening Charlie encounters strip club owner Renata (Connie Nielsen) and drunken colleague Pete Van Heuten (Oliver Platt, his fist scene-stealer in a number of years).

The character of Pete offers some great comic relief to the story. He's Charlie's best friend, drunk on Christmas Eve. He's also married to Charlie's ex-wife, and hating it. This leads to an awkward encounter with Charlie's kids and former in-laws.

Thornton is still finding new ways of being corrupt and amoral. Connie Nielsen is a classic femme fatal in the 1940s style. Mike Starr is good as usual, playing a menacing mob enforcer. Randy Quaid does his usual best as Kansas City mobster Bill Guerarrd. And bit player Ned Bellamy, cast as a strip club bouncer with Mom issues adds some fine scenes.

This is about the most straight-forward "noir" I've seen since Lawrence Kasdan's "Body Heat," but as directed by Ramis, it feels slightly like a Coen brothers movie, with the occasional comic twists to the genre, and the casting choices of Thornton ("The Man Who Wasn't There") and Starr ("Miller's Crossing").

It's not the best movie of the year. But it's good for people who aren't so anxious for a "white" Christmas.

I will start out by saying that based on the source material - a brilliant satire taking swings alternately at Joe McCarthy and the Korean War with alternate hilarity and shock - this movie failed miserably. We live in a time when the new communism is Islam and terrorism. We are in the middle of a war many believe is only hurting us at this point, where the cause does not justify the means.

One could see a gold mine of opportunity for resurrecting the satirical spirit of Richard Condon's novel, and John Frankenheimer's classic. When the black-list has been replaced by detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Jonathan Demme strives to walk a tight-rope between Left and Right, making a film that could have spoken volumes about our current climate, and done as Condon and Frankenheimer did, by dissing both extremes. (When the original film first opened, Condon was pleased to see Communists picketing the film in Paris, and American Legion picketing in Orange County, CA) "The Manchurian Candidate" was not meant to cater to all markets. It doesn't still, because certain individuals claim it's hitting out at the Bush camp. And why is that? Because they think everyone's contracted Michael Moore syndrome or something? Or is it just because Al Franken makes an appearance as a news reporter? In truth, Demme's version, while creating a fairly believable alternate world where the same modern situations are occurring in countries with different names than, say, Iraq.

Now to my other point. Sure, the movie could use some of the black humor Axelrod's original script offered up. But it doesn't. Instead, we are treated to a vaguely similar script where events have been reshaped to better fit an unbiased modern America. This would hardly be worth our time if not for some excellent acting.

Denzel Washington has had roles as good as this before, but I've never seen him in such a wildly ambiguous role as our default hero who becomes so completely obsessed and paranoid with the world around him that he even tries to murder his girlfriend! We know he's the good guy, because we know what's going on isn't just in his head, but how far is he willing to go to find out the truth? Admittedly, Sinatra never strived for this kind of psychosis.

Equally good is Meryl Streep as a bitch you just love to hate. She's not the quietly manipulative matriarch Angela Lansbury introduced us to, nor the ambitious seductress of Condon's original book. She is a first-class predator, looking to have her cake and eat it to.

Jon Voight, Kimberly Elise, and Jeffrey Wright also give fine portrayals. But Liev Schreiber, as the title character (or is he?) is woefully underused. What ever happened to the love-hate relationship between Raymond and his mother? What about his close bond to Ben Marco, that here goes as far as Marco biting his shoulder, shrugged off as a man gone mad. Laurence Harvey's Raymond was hard to like, and even harder to dislike. Schreiber, who is usually surprisingly good, is an absolute bore.

In the end the changes to the story don't disappoint for people expecting the same old thing, but there are uneven plot holes to this conclusion, and it leaves one desiring more of an explanation.

I strongly recommend you read Condon's absolutely scathing novel. Or at least give the 1962 version a try.

This was the debut film of Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks studio, and while it is less than stunning, this film gives an interesting spin to mid-1990s political intrigue.

With George Clooney in what I suppose was his second lead role, after "From Dusk Till Dawn," the story examines post-Cold War Russia and the political catastrophe of U.N. negotiations in the Balkans.

The wonderful Marcel Iures is a Croatian diplomat whose disillusionment with the civil conflict in his country has led him to make a deal with a rogue Russian general to buy a stolen nuclear bomb to blow up the United Nations headquarters in New York. As heartless an act as this may be, the character, nonetheless, is a sympathetic one.

Although the movie takes place largely outside of Russia, there is even some reference to the poor conditions modern-day Russia is plagued by: "Russia, what a f*cking mess, God I miss the Cold War." It's both humorous and to some extent true.

Armin Mueller-Stahl makes an appearance as a former Soviet general who is friends with Clooney's Tom Devoe. The romance angle between Devoe and Nicole Kidman's Julia Kelly is muted by the impending danger surrounding them. They are people from different sides of the political stratosphere, so their relationship might not last long anyway, but it does end with hope in sight, for the true romantic.

Less relevant today than it was at the time it was made, the film is still a very intelligent study on foreign relations in the mid- and late nineties.

"24" is the first hit to employ a tactic of setting up each episode as another hour in a single day in which the characters must achieve or prevent a particular task from being done. At the center of the story is Jack Bauer, the equivalent of a volatile and flawed James Bond, because he does have a license to kill, and is unstoppable in his quest. But he doesn't have the same taste for women, being a rather sentimental widower and father of a grown daughter. Kiefer Sutherland gives Jack this intensity that makes his character believable. Jack isn't easy to like as the seasons progress. He kills and mames and breaks all sorts of laws for which he is not justly punished. But it's all in the name of American national security, so it's all good.

I started watching halfway through the second season. They defused the nuclear bomb, and a conspiracy was discovered to frame Middle-Eastern leaders as the perpetrators, when in fact it had to do with oil in the Caspian Sea. The president was temporarily removed from office, and Jack was forced to find proof that they were not at fault. And this just as Bush was going to war with Iraq. It was a twist that I appreciated very much, being against the Iraqi conflict and the motives behind it.

I had so much fun with that, that I decided to watch the whole third season. This season was decidedly less exciting. Our old enemies, the Mexican drug cartels, and a former MI-5 agent with a grudge against the American government were the opposition forces, and this time, it was a biological agent. The biological agents are certainly likely to be the terrorist weapons of the future, if they decide to remind us to be scared, but as the plot was set up, discovering the true enemy was found via a roundabout methiod that included staging a jail break for a notorious drug cartel, and much collateral damage as a means of setting up a sale of the virus to the cartels and nabbing them with it. On a plus side, we got to see Nina Myers get killed, and for people who had really followed the story, and held a grudge, Ryan Chappelle, Jack's boss, got it, too. The presidential story was boring for the most part. After the exciting political battle that ensued in the previous season, this was a major setback hi-lighted only by David Palmer's resignation at the end. Oh, and Sherry died, too. And the emotional stress that caused Tony Almeida at CTU (Counter Terrorism Unit) to betray his country offered some more interest. And we got to see Michelle Dessler in the field, which made me beg the question, why wasn't she doing this the whole time? Ultimately, since there are a few shows I follow regularly, and "24" is addictive rather than dramatically engaging, since in one hour the show can take a 180 degree turn, I tuned out, preferring to focus in on "Alias," not to mention two of ABC's new hits "Desperate Housewives" and "Boston Legal." The drama aspect in any of these shows is multiplied several times. In "24," don't get attached to anyone but Jack. Since the entire original supporting cast is gone, too, I have no idea who is who, only that the recent plot sparked controversy.

I will start by saying that I have always been a sucker for the finely-executed gangster picture. And until they came out with "Intolerable Cruelty" and "The Ladykillers," I thought the Coen Brothers were an unmatchable team in consistently good and original films. So to call this one of their finest, I don't know, isn't really saying that much.

But considering how good their movies have been, is saying something. And in tackling what is perhaps their first out and out genre movie, a 1930s gangster pic on a par with the best of Cagney and Bogart, they have created another masterpiece.

With an environment borrowed from Dasheil Hammet's "The Glass Key," and a plot turn borrowed from his "Red Harvest" (also known in the movie world as "Yojimbo," "A Fistfull of Dollars," and "Last Man Standing") they have brought back Prohibition-era gangsterism as less about a plague of heartless gangsters, and more as a game of power, where the one who has respect holds ownership over the police and the mayoral office. Leo O'Bannion (Albert Finney) is the political boss who enjoys this luxury. But he doesn't quite understand it. As he sees things, he is the only one who can hold influence over politicians, and no one can take it from him. His confidante, Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne, in his American debut) knows otherwise. And now Leo's about to throw it all away for a girl.

Johnny Caspar (hilariously played by Jon Polito) is an Italian hoodlum whose ethics dictate how he handles his work. He is going to whack Jewish bookie Bernie Baumbaum (the unmatchable John Turturro), and Leo wants to protect Bernie. Bernie is a sexually-ambiguous con man who is also the brother of Leo's mistress, Verna (Marcia Gay Harden, as a tough-but-vulnerable femme fatale). It also turns out Tom is sleeping with Verna, a piece of information he only reveals when Leo, misjudging Caspar's power, initiates a gang war. This, however, puts tom at odds with his best friend, and he makes the most of it, digging himself in so deep he destroys any human emotion that could truly render him heroic. He becomes a classic antihero of the film noir, one of Hammet's godless protagonists who you still root for, because whoever he's up against, you know that person's worse.

J.E. Freeman, as Caspar's menacing henchman, Eddie the Dane, turns in a creepy portrayal of a man who is twice as smart as his boss, but still only half as smart as Tom. This movie follows almost every rule of the gangster film, with a few modern additions. When people have sex, the camera moves to the window, keeping with the censorship of the early 1930s, before the Golden Era. You may hear a few g-d's, but nary an f-word is spoken. And while a great portion of the film has little or no violence in it, when machine guns open fire, blood flies. And even more so as we near the end.

This is perhaps the beginning of the shock violence that would mark several of the Coen Brothers' later pieces. "Blood Simple" was shocking, but it was also their most serious movie to date, even more serious that "Fargo." "Raising Arizona" had a slapstick quality about it. Here, while we know that these men are all killers, the violence is still a little shocking. Watching Albert Finney shooting a man to death with a Tommy gun, to the tune of "Danny Boy," is in keeping with the pulp irony that would mark "Barton Fink," "Fargo," and "The Man Who Wasn't There," as twisted masterpieces of bizarre humor and ironic drama.

Tim Burton is one of the true auteurs of our time. He manages to put his label on virtually any project he takes on. And this is arguably his masterpiece. Excepting the "Batman" movies, the only other Tim Burton-directed movie that seemed to truly bring out his dark imagination is "Sleepy Hollow." My personal favorite is "Beetlejuice," but that is more for sentimental reasons than anything else.

Johnny Depp is the title character, a Frankenstein monster who has been left in the large, abandoned mansion of an inventor. The mansion sits at the edge of a small suburban neighborhood where the housewives' only function is to spread gossip. Edward is discovered by Peg Boggs, "the Avon lady," after her unsuccessful bi-yearly visit to the homes of all the women in the neighborhood. Edward is brought home to the Boggs residence, and before they get home everyone already knows there's a tall pale man riding with Peg.

The neighborhood is already full of kooks. Kathy Bates eats up her role as Joyce, the neighborhood slut, there's the overweight woman with curlers in her hair whose hobby is to stare out the window and spread gossip about what she sees. And Esmerelda, the neighborhood outcast, who raises hell, quite literally, when she sees Edward.

Bill Boggs is a friendly man who is not above drawing the line somewhere. He just wants Edward to fit in. The Boggs' son, Kevin, is wowed by Edward, and even ventures to take him to show-and-tell. When their daughter, Kim arrives home, it is initially the entrance of someone who couldn't possibly be from the same family, but then we're reminded she's a teenager who has all sorts of inexplicable issues with her family already. For Edward it's love at first sight, or something like that, because being alone for so long, she's the first truly beautiful thing he's seen since he came down. Unfortunately, she's already attached to Jim, the spoiled bully who initially finds Edward amusing and pathetic, until Kim begins to like him, too, and stops seeing Jim. It's nice that as hateful as Jim is, we can see where it came from. He's the son of filthy rich parents. He never had to worry growing up. But his father won't buy him a car like he wants, he wants him to build character and earn the money himself. They have a top-of-the-line security system. And they are completely absent for the entire duration of the movie. We don't know these people, we just know what Jim tells us, and Jim doesn't think too highly of them, and as a senior in high school, he doesn't understand why they are the way they are.

The cast is first-rate and inspired. Viewed in flashbacks, Vincent Price, as Edward's inventor "father," is a misguided man so fascinated by his own creations. It's no surprise Burton cast him, since he seems to have a great admiration for classic horror, and as one of his later roles, it serves the actor well. As Price plays him, he's not an evil person. He's just too old to finish what he started. Alan Arkin and Diane Wiest are perfectly cast. Their sensibilities as actors complement their characters, as middle-class every-men and women. Kathy Baker makes the most of her slutty character, Joyce. Anthony Michael Hall, for those who know John Hughes' films, might be the most surprising. Looking back at his dorky beginnings, who would have expected Hall to ever be so menacing? And then of course there's Johnny Depp. This is, I think, the movie that made him known, although he didn't rise to star status until 2003 with the character of Captain Jack Sparrow. Depp doesn't say much, but it's in his face and body movements that touches people. He is a tragic figure. He comes into the neighborhood like E.T., a freak with a heart of gold, but he's forced out by a mob of people who aren't so much eager to kill him, like Frankenstein, as they are eager to see what becomes of him. The women of the town are the kinds of people who buy tabloids at the supermarket, and so, as long as they don't know, they want to find out.

Tim Burton seems to have made this movie as a critique of suburban life. This isn't "Desperate Housewives" by any means, but a cruel and yet sincere observation of the human psyche, and what happens when everyone finds out.

I never doubted this movie was good, but I was eager to find out why it was good. And I was, of course, curious about the "plot twist" everyone was talking about.

This is an incredible little movie. Keep in mind that it is "little," because with all the awards this movie has taken home already, some might be fooled into thinking it is more than that. But hey, little is good.

If you don't know already what the story is about, I'll give you a brief synopsis. Ageing, haunted Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) owns an old boxing gym. He is so full of guilt over his estranged daughter, Katie, whom he hasn't seen in years, and who refuses to read his letters, that he goes to mass every day. It's starting to get on the nerves of his priest. His only friend is Scrap (Morgan Freeman), a former fighter who watches over the place for Frankie, and keeps people in line.

Frankie has a good fighter he's managing, but he doesn't like risks. He's holding him back from a title shot. His fighter likes Frankie, but he wants his shot at the title. He realizes if he's going to get anywhere, he needs to look elsewhere. Simultaneously, Maggie Fitzgerald (Hillary Swank), a white-trash waitress from Missouri, wants to learn how to fight. Frankie won't train her, until he realizes her potential, and is egged on by Scrap. That's as much detail as should probably be revealed.

The movie is almost entirely shot in underexposed film, giving it a dark, washed-out look that complements the boxing theme. It's like the entire movie takes place in a boxing ring, and that's where the lighting and colors are most alive. Eastwood has made a superb follow-up to his masterpiece of scarred Bostonians, "Mystic River." Like that film, this one has a strong undercurrent of Irish heritage and Catholicism. Frankie reads Gallic in his spare time, and even gives Maggie a nickname in the language. The detail given to the environment is also very similar. While in "Mystic River" everything seemed cold and stark, here it's just dark and claustrophobic. This is a smaller movie, but it is just as good.

And everyone in the movie gives first-rate performances. Hilary Swank has tapped into that same great ability that won her the Oscar for "Boys Don't Cry." I have always liked Morgan Freeman, and a lot of other people have, too, I know, but after a number of relative duds, he's reminded me why he's such a good actor. And finally, the real treat is Clint Eastwood. Some people may have written him off as a man who can't really act much. But either way, he's almost always played the same tough, hard-edged characters, people who at some point or other are willing to take a stand. Here, that persona, his persona, is not even there. Here, he is a man who has been falling apart for some time, and has payed the price for holding people back. But he unfolds into a man of compassion, who just wishes he could have the chance to fix his mistakes in life. The fact that he's seventy-four and looks it only helps in conveying his inner demons.

This I know is not a movie for people who don't like to watch boxing movies. I don't like boxing, but movie depictions can be good. There are some bits of dry humor in the movie, and some that even take place inside the ring. The movie is also very heartrending. If you don't care for deeply emotional movies, don't watch it. But I personally give it a 10.

I admit I didn't watch "The Practice" as a regular show, but I saw enough to see that it was a dark, clever series examining the everyday work of a small Boston firm who primarily defended criminals. "Boston Legal" is a much different show. Centered around a civil and corporate firm that only occasionally deals in criminal cases. The place is a circus, it's David E. Kelley's hybrid of "The Practice" and "Ally McBeal," although the latter included hallucinations and bizarre love lifes.

Emmy-winner James Spader, the ever shameless and subtly self-destructive Alan Shore is the slimy playboy who, like it or not, is a fantastic attorney. Denny Crane (fellow Emmy-winner William Shatner) seems like the perfect match for Shore's unpredictable fashion. Both men are unorthodox, and Denny is slipping. He's also a great attorney, but he doesn't know it half the time. The two are the perfect team, each willing to forgive the other for their shortcomings in the area of law, and cover each other as such. Paul Lewiston (Rene Aberjonois) is the figurehead of everything they are not. He is respectable, by-the-book, and without conscience. The embodiment of the sleazy corporate attorney, and more concerned with keeping a client than with admitting a falacy on their part. Brad Chase (Mark Valley) is in the same boat insofar as playing by the rules, but he's Denny's man, and it pisses him off that Alan gets all the attention for his crimes. Laurie Colson (Monica Potter) is the idealistic attorney who has dabbled in Alan Shore's method of practicing law with disastrous consequences. Tara Wilson (Rhona Mitra) is finally sleeping with Alan, and happily playing along in his little game. And Sally Heep (Lake Bell) has all but disappeared since she broke up with Alan, so that she is little more than an errand boy (girl).

And most recently Candice Bergen has joined the cast at Crane, Poole, and Schmidt, as Shirley Schmidt (Edwin Poole has gone off the deep end after showing up at work, having only dressed the top half of his body.) and she appears to be Alan Shore in reverse. She's manipulative, wisecracking, and short with answers, but she seems to appeal to the ethical way of practicing law. Now back from New York and busting balls due to a law suit filed by one of their employees, she seems a welcome edition to the show.

Perfect follow-up to "Desperate Housewives," and just as funny. It's proof that David E. Kelley still has a few tricks up his sleeve.

I like the work of John Frankenheimer. I think the cast was more or less to die for. And H.G. Wells wrote some of the most enduring tales of science fiction. so why does this movie feel like a cheap rip-off of "Jurasic Park"? David Thewlis is a dependable actor in his role of a U.N. official lost at sea. Val Kilmer steals every frame he speaks in with his role of the resident doctor, who slowly goes insane as the animals take over. Marlon Brando is like a nicer, but crazier version of Colonel Kurtz. But somewhere in the midst of the movie, it all gets lost. It disintegrates into something of the animal that is depicted in the film, savage, brutal, and unappealing to the rational mind.

4/10

Many purists would jump at this as being the definitive "Sacrface," but so much had changed in the fifty-one years between the two movies that it is nearly impossible. Whereas the Al Pacino cult classic spanned close to three hours and included almost every imaginable cause of death, this version is a mere hour and a half, give or take a few minutes, and unlike the remake, takes place entirely in Chicago.

Made as an anti-gangster film, with a message buried under the many bodies that pile up, this is a surprisingly brutal movie for its time, and got a reputation as such. This was just before the so-called "Golden Age" of cinema, and in a time like that, chances are a movie this unapologetic wouldn't get made. But it is a masterful gangster film.

Paul Muni is Tony Camonte, a pseudo-Capone psycho who believes in doing the dirty work himself, is a sleazebag. He talks in a lisp that holds him apart from the gangsters of Cagney and Bogart as a man who, even then, seems ethnic. To boot, his "secretary" is an immigrant who is only semi-literate and can't hear people well on the phone. Boris Karloff shows up as an Irish gangster, Gaffney, who falls under Camonte's gun. Aside from an entire segment where Camonte goes seemingly from point A to point B with the same tommy gun and kills off the competition, this is a brilliant milestone in the gangster genre, and probably the best of the era. Even now, it proves what people could accomplish by mere suggestion, sparing much of the language that is in movies (and, indeed, used in real life) today.

I would not be the least surprised if Jamie Foxx wins Best Actor. The Academy likes to acknowledge actors who go to lengths to change themselves for their performance, (see Best Actress 2003, 2004) and Foxx is also a master of mimickry, which has catapulted him to true stardom, beyond the restraints of his roles in dumb comedies. Coupled with his work in Michael Mann's "Collateral," he has turned out impressive, landmark performances in his career that are sure to elevate him to the top ranks of Hollywood.

Taylor Hackford's almost-three-hour biopic has its share of flaws. No big surprise in such films, especially when following the life of a pop icon such as Ray Charles, or Mohammed Ali. Thankfully, though, for what it's worth, this movie's leisurely running time, while annoying at times, helps to make it more rounded, and not so "Ray did this, and then Ray did that five years later," something that was one of the more obvious flaws in "Ali." Here, Foxx is allowed to fully embody the late musician. And while the movie only tells his story up to 1965, when it ends rather abruptly and unpleasantly, the combination of Charles' music and the excellent acting of Foxx, Kerry Washington (as his wife), Sharon Warren (as his mother), and Regina King (as his mistress, one of the Raylets), make it work.

Hackford paints a flawed picture of Ray, one that doesn't go for glorification, but spends a lot of time with his heroin addiction, his numerous affairs, and, as his success grows, the severing of loyalties to his friends. At the same time, his genius, music, and better qualities still manage to shine through. Hackford may not have been the director to bring Ray Charles' life to the screen, but Foxx certainly was the actor to make it ring true.

9/10

More than any other movie that comes to mind, "The Cooler" is a movie that relies heavily on the supernatural power of luck. As the title character, William H. Macy's Bernie Lootz is such a loser that he's got plenty to go around. Every day starts off with him going to the bar to order coffee. We know he's unlucky when there isn't any cream for his coffee. From then on, he just has to get next to a lucky gambler, or touch the edge of the craps table, and the winner begins to lose his money back to the casino. The story centers around how things change when waitress Maria Bello, the proverbial hooker with a heart of gold, and Bernie's "Lady Luck," begins to change things for him.

Alec Baldwin's Shelly Kaplow, a mobster casino boss, is Bernie's employer, an old "friend" and colleague who uses a number of rather extreme measures to fix things. His sponsor, Nicky "Fingers" Bonnato, a real wise guy, is looking to modernize their casino, the Sangri La, by recruiting a young Vegas casino manager, Larry Sokolov (Ron Livingston), an annoying and sleazy character who thinks of subtle, modern ways to achieve the same ends as Shelly, but has none of the sentimental values of his partner. Shelly is a man who wants to hold on to the past, running one of the last old-school casinos in Vegas. However, as Nicky remarks after beating an obnoxious customer to a bloody pulp, there used to be ways of keeping these lowlifes out of the casinos.

The story is a rather odd little comedy-drama. Mostly the drama dominates, but occasionally, some of the interaction between Macy and Bello, while perhaps including too many explicit sex scenes, has that peculiar feel common to some romantic comedies. And that lucky aspect peeks through every now and then in a rather fanciful way. But, too, there are some tough scenes, including Bernie's grifter son, Mikey.

Baldwin gives, as everyone has said, the best performance of the film. That's no secret. But as we get to know him better, he becomes a sympathetic villain, if not one who doesn't deserve what's coming to him.

Not for all tastes, and bizarre in its execution, this is a film to be enjoyed by the open-minded, and people who aren't in it for a full-fledged gangster flick.