Movie Reviews (or the Stepping Out On A Limb page):

Movies, once seen, must be discussed.  Some movies are good, some are bad.  When it comes to film, though, there is no accounting for taste: just one example, some people can't stand Star Wars , a film that stands holds some of my fondest childhood memories.  Some people couldn't stand Austin Powers OR There's Something About Mary, two films I consider the funniest in a while.  On the other hand, I thought Ace Ventura was hilarious, and I don't understand what it is about Johnny Mnemonic and Judge Dredd that people hated too much.  Mysteriously, one of my favorite comedies is Top Secret, a moronic early Val Kilmer that almost nobody saw.  I finally did meet another person who liked it as much as I did - he is now one of my best friends.

The funny thing about movies is that everybody has an opinion about them, and no two are the same.  Another funny thing is that since people don't stick to genres with their tastes in film the way they might with literature or music, movies tend to be fairly universal in a way that literature or music can't be, and so films enter our culture absolutely.  They are complete and varied vicarious existences.  Maybe what I mean is that although there are people who only read political thrillers or only read romance novels, and there are also people who won't listen to anything but rap or classical music or whatever, there aren't many people who will only watch comic book adaptation films, war movies, Tom Cruise movies, etc.  So this is my movie reviews page where I will offer my opinions (which are just my opinions).

This page will contain several elements:

Movie Reviews:
Movie Reviews of Japanese films:
Underrated Movies:
Overrated Movies (or, There's No Justice in Film):
Movies to avoid at all costs:
Not awful - movies that were unfairly drubbed
(** note ** - most recently reviewed movies listed at start of “movie reviews” section.   Most recently Japanese films reviews at start of “movies reviews of Japanese films” section.)

Movie Reviews:

I will try to review films that I mostly have good things to say about, as well as little-seen films that I feel are worth discussing.  The occasional pan will appear if they are by people who should have known better, otherwise they are in their own section at the bottom.  Film reviews will be updated regularly.  New reviews of western films will be reviewed at the top, new reviews of Japanese films will be reviewed at the top of the reviews of Japanese films section.

Movies reviewed: About Love Tokyo, the Abyss, Airheads, All Quiet on the Western Front, Ame Agaru, American Beauty, American History X, American Movie, Amy, Another Day In Paradise, Antarctica, Apartment Zero, Arlington Road, Armageddon, Atlantic City, Audition, The Avengers, Back to Back, Barcelona,  Barry Lyndon,  Baseketball, Battlefield Earth, the Beach, the Beguiled, Being John Malkovich,  the Best in Show, Betty Blue, Big Daddy, the Big Lebowski, Birth of a Nation, Bitter Moon, Black Sunday,  Blade (Hong Kong), The Blair Witch Project and Curse of the Blair Witch, the Blue Angel or die Blaue Engel, the Bone Collector, Bound, Bowfinger, Boys Don't Cry, Breakfast of Champions, Breaking the Waves, Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia, Bringing out the Dead, Erin Brokovitch, the Brood, Buffalo 66,  Bullet Ballet, Bulletproof, Canadian Bacon,  Capricorn 1, Carlito's Way, Carrington, Cascadeur, Caspar, Celebrity ,  Charisma ,  Charlie’s Angels , Chasing Amy , Chicken Run ,  Children of Heaven , Chinese Torture Chamber , Clerks , Cold Fever , The Collector ,  Color of Paradise , Conan the Destroyer , Consenting Adults ,  the Cotton Club , Crazy Lips , Cube ,  Cyclo , Mrs. Dalloway ,  Dancer In The Dark ,  Days of Heaven , Deep River ,  Detroit Rock City , Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo , the Devil's Advocate , le Diner des Cons , Diva , Dog Race , Dogma , Driving Miss Daisy , East of Eden ,  the Eiger Sanction , 8mm , El Mariachi , Enemy At The Gates , eXistenZ , the Eyes of Laura Mars , Eyes Wide Shut , Faces , Farewell Beloved Lupin , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ,  The Final Cut , First Blood ,  Flawless , Fletch , the Frighteners , the Funeral ,  Galaxy Quest ,  Gallipoli , Gattaca , Gemini ,  The General’s Daughter , Ghost Dog , Ghost in the Shell , Gladiator , Go ,  Gojoe Reisanki , Goodfellas , the Good the Bad and the Ugly , Gohatto , Gonin ,  Gorgeous , Gummo , the Guyver 2: Dark Hero , Hakuchi , Hammett , Hana-bi ,  Hang ‘Em High ,  Happiness , Heavenly Creatures , the Hidden ,  High Fidelity , Hillary and Jackie , Hot Dog , Hot Shots Part Deux , Hugo Pool , the Hunger ,  Ice Station Zebra , Innocent Blood , the Insider , In The Heat of the Night , Irma Vep ,  the Iron Giant , Jackie Brown , Jacob's Ladder , Jason and the Argonauts , Jesus' Son , Jingi Naki Tatakai ,  Joe Kidd , Joyu Rei ,  Junior , The Juniper Tree , Kids Return , Kikujiro no Natsu , Killer Condom , Killing Zoe , Kingdom , Kingdom (again),  The King of New York , A Knife in the Water ,  Kubitruri Kikyu , Kujaku , Kuro Ie , Kyoko , Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains , L.A. Without A Map , Laputa , the Last Days of Disco , the Legend of 1900 , Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses , Let's Get Lost ,  Little Nicky , Little Odessa , Little Voice , Lola Rennt , Looking For Mr. Goodbar , the Lost Highway ,   The Lost World (1925), Lotta pa Boakmakargatan , Love Letter ,  Love and Death , Lulu on the Bridge ,  Once Upon A Time In China and America , One Step on a Land Mine, It's All Over , M , Magnolia , Mallrats , the Manchurian Candidate ,  Mandohay , Manhunter , and the Berlin Affair ,  The Man With The Golden Gun , Meet The Parents , Miami Blues , Midnight Express , A Midsummer Night's Dream , Momontai , Multiplicity , Mystery Men , the Next Best Thing ,  Nocturne Indien , Nurse Betty , Once Upon A Time In America ,  On Her Majesty’s Secret Service , Orgazmo , Over the Edge , Owl's Castle , Pi , Mildred Pierce , Parasite Eve , Party Seven , Pecker , the Phantom of Liberty ,  Pink Cadillac , Pink Panther , Postman , Rabid , Ran , the Red Violin , Ring , Ring 0: Birthday ,  The Right Stuff , Roadkill , Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion , Romeo Must Die , Ronin , Roots , Rushmore , The Saint , Salvador , Same Hada Otoko to Momojiri Onna ,  Shaft (1999), Shark Skin Boy Peach Hip Girl , Samurai Fiction , The Scarlet Letter , Scary Movie , the Scent of Green Papaya , Scream , Scream 2 , Scream 3 , Secret Society , Shallow Grave , She’s Gotta Have It , Shiko Hun Jatta or Sumo Do, Sumo Don't , Shrek , Shuri , the Siege , Simple Plan , The Sixth Day , Slacker , Sleepy Hollow , Smilla's Sense of Snow , Snatch ,  Soleil Rouge , Space Jam , Summer of Sam , Sunset Blvd. , Sleepless Town ,  Snow Falling on Cedars ,  The Son of the Pink Panther , the Straight Story , Swallowtail Butterfly , the Sweet Hereafter , Swingers , Tetsuo - the Iron Man , Theatre of Illusion , They Live , the Thing From Another World (1951) ,  The Thomas Crown Affair , Throne of Blood ,  Tightrope , Tonari no Yamada-kun , Top Secret! , Total Eclipse , Totoro ,  The Towering Inferno , Toys , Trees Lounge , Tron ,  True Crime , The Truman Show , 12 Angry Men , 12 Monkeys , Twin Peaks , 200 Motels ,  U-571 ,  Unhook the Stars , Uzumaki , Vampire in Brooklyn , Vampire's Kiss , Waiting For Guffman , Walker , War and Peace , the Waterboy , the Way of the Gun , the Wedding Singer , We're No Angels (1989) , Westworld , What Dreams May Come , Whatever Happened to Baby Jane , Witness , Xiu Xiu - the Sent Down Girl , X-Men , the Year of Living Dangerously , Yojimbo , You Only Live Twice , Zatoichi , Zorro , etc.

note: links to individual movies listings on the Internet Movie Database (a.k.a. IMDB) are provided with each title.  Once on a listing page, say for Star Wars , other pages relating to that movie can be found by accessing links in the left-hand menu column, as well as cross-referenced actor/writer/director listings, a movie poster, trivia, etc.

Orgazmo - Gross-out film about porno-makers and a dick-superhero should have been stupid, but was in fact a laugh riot.  Matt Stone and Trey Parker directed themselves better than veteran comedy director David Zucker did in Baseketball, so good for them.  Nice to see Ron Jeremy in a role where he keeps his pants on. go to top

Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo - Very funny Rob Schneider film that has Adam Sandler's fingerprints all over it - it may have been an Adam Sandler flick if it had a sports angle.  Lots of fun with the word "male whore" and the like.  The PC among us might not like the fun poked at the obese and the big-boned and the blind, but the jokes are all hilarious, most especially the baseball game scene with the woman with Tourettes Syndrome.    
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the Siege - When this terrorist-attack-on-America film came out in 1998 I was quite disgusted in the film-makers creation of an ugly non-issue, and also disappointed with director who had made the excellent Glory.  Then when September 11th, 2001 made the film seem like a spooky piece of self-fulfilling prophecy I decided I had better watch it.  Many films like this have been made (True Lies, Air Force One, to name but two of the dozens and dozens of pre-September 11th 2001 terrorist attack films) but this is the only one that deals with the obvious social ramifications of persecution of Middle-Eastern arabs.  As pointlessly sensational as films like this may have been at the time, the film does do a pretty good job.  Unfortunately, Bruce Willis as an army commander, is awfully cheezy, and the message is ten miles wide.  The ending showdown is a near perfect copy of another Denzel Washington film where he has to face down another egotistical military figure.  Yeesh.  Nice performance by Tony Shalhoub, also seen in Galaxy Quest in a very different role, this time as an Arab-American with a lot on his mind.  
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the Frighteners - Steven King gets the Back To The Future treatment with special effects, Michael J. Fox's cuddly lead character, and Robert Zemekis' guiding hand.  Director Peter Jackson followed this with Lord Of The Rings, and apparently a lot of the special effects are similar.  Good enough story, all-too-perfect ending that may or may not be a ripoff of that Patrick Swayzee flick.  
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Kingdom (Riget) 1 and 2 - A classic noir TV series to seriously rival Twin Peaks in the creepy/ghoulish black humor flirting with the supernatural ingenious character study film.  Set in a haunted hospital staffed with strange doctors and patients, each of the eight episodes shocks with its inventiveness and bizarre ideas.  Being a Lars Van Trier project it is quite bleak, but it is also full of sick parody and twisted humor.  Required viewing for those who can get a hold of a subtitled copy (or who can understand Swedish and Danish).  
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Galaxy Quest - Funny film about the cast of a cancelled sci-fi series living through convention hell, given a chance to be real star champions through a galactic misunderstanding is pretty funny, although the plot does get in the way of the fun somewhat.  Classic "pulling out of spaceport" scene is a scream!  
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the Iron Giant - Excellent animated film that follows the ET story of a young boy discovering a secret creature and hiding him from bad military types who want to exploit him and ruin his goodness.  The robot itself is very cool, and the kid's interaction with his sidekick, a beatnik mecano-artist, is brilliant.  Cold war delusions about nuclear missiles nicely highlighted for those who have forgotten that these weapons are still out there somewhere.  
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Shrek - Beatiful film, very cool computer animation, but the plot is a little lacking.  A lot of the humor potential is wasted in favor for the animation, the all star names, and the surprise ending.  In other words, the script could have been tighter.  I also object to the misleading trailer, which indicated that the film would be full of fairy tale characters and in-jokes, something which was discarded ten minutes into the film.  And what's with every comedy these days doing a rip-off of that famous Matrix scene?  I now count three, Shrek along with Deuce Bigalow Male Gigalo, and Scary Movie.  
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Meet The Parents - Very funny film about a man going to meet his future in-laws.  He's worried they won't like him.  He enters a weekend from hell.  The plot is well-developped, and all the actors are excellent, especially Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro.  Plenty of funny scenes in the trailer, like the classic airport flight announcement scene, but surprisingly many of the film's funniest scenes weren't in the trailer at all!!!  Despite all the laughs, though, there is some very intense cruelty in this film, bringing it quite near to being a black comedy in fact, although this is somewhat glossed over.  Near the end when the drama element of the film started getting serious, I thought to myself "well, I guess there won't be any more comedy in this movie," but the film surprised me by keeping it coming.  This film is obviously set up for a sequel, let's see how long it takes for one.  Oops, spoke too soon… Meet The Fockers is already in production!
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Ice Station Zebra - I wanted to see this film because I heard that it was such a favorite of Howard Hughs' that the insane billionaire would screen it endlessly in his disinfected chambers.  Strange ice world looks like a Star Trek set at times, and I wonder what fun main star had with the all-male cast.  Shares elements of the Fantastic Voyage (there is a suicidal traitor in our midst) and all those submarine films, not to mention the Thing From Another World.  Good clean family fun.
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Mystery Men - Quirky Ben Stiller comedy, surrounded as he is by talent such as Janeane Garofalo, William H. Macey, Greg Kinnear, Geoffrey Rush, Tom Waits, and the great great great, much missed Paul Rubens as the Spleen!  Where was this guy all this time?  The guy's fifty years old this year!!!!  Mystery Men is a so-so funny comedy about super heroes with strange powers - the shoverler uses a shovel, the Invisible Boy who is only invisible when people are not looking at him, etc.  Quite funny, but sort of disintegrates near the end - a few weeks after having seen it I have no recolletion whatsoever of how it was eventually resolved.  The good guys must have won or something.  I wonder if they set it up for a sequel or not...  
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Color of Paradise -  Iranian film about a young blind boy in a school in Teheran.  When all the parents come to pick up the children for the holidays, he is left waiting.  When his father, a widower, finally comes to pick him up and take him to the family village we learn the reason for the father's reluctance to bring his boy home.  A beautiful film, shot mostly in a small, lush, green village far far from Tehran and a world away.  Beautiful.  
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Best in Show - Christopher Guest's parody of dog shows, something that is a parody just waiting to happen.  Still waiting for him so set his sights on the other obvious objects of media parody - sports coverage, "professional" wreslting, TV commercials, etc.  Following the mold of Waiting For Guffman and almost as funny.  
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Nurse Betty - Black comedy, but not too black, from one of the nastiest directors in Hollywood.  Always good to see Morgan Freeman as the black man who breaks the stereotypes, Aaron Eckhart excellent as a scumbag asshole husband, Renee Zellweger showing that she can carry a movie by being fresh and funny in every scene she is in.  Plot may seem conventional to some when it sews itself up neatly by the end, but this is a film with style.  Nice one.  
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Little Nicky - Very funny film about Satan's good son, a real nice guy with a bit of an inferiority complex, in a battle with his two older brothers, who are bullies of course.  Funny stoner couple to rival Jay and Silent Bob, funny heavy metal jokes, and Harvey Keitel as Satan.  Good cameos (except for Henry Winkler, who is practically wasted with a mere two seconds of film time) make this a very fun movie, much better than its near clone Dogma, which was "controversial" but not interesting at all.  
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Enemy At The Gates - Depressing war drama about the siege of Stalingrad and the battle of the two snipers is fascinating, since both are sympathetic.  Jude Law is great as the young hero of Stalingrad, as is Joseph Feines as a near-blind intellectual wannabe reporter.  Bob Hoskins is spooky as a ruthless Nikita Kruschev and Ron Perlman shows what he's made of as a jaded officer.  Legend of the showdown between two inhumanly skilled snipers goes back to "the Painted Bird" by Jerzy Kosinski and perhaps even earlier.  Considering that this human drama occurred near the turnaround of World War Two and one of the cruellest sieges of modern times, this was really a film that was waiting to be made (as is "the Painted Bird," come to think of it).  I'd like to find out if it was based on a true story or not.   
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Snatch - Many people liked Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels better than Snatch (the eternal debate), but I probably prefer Snatch to the other one.  Naturally they are both in the same British gangster vein, but I like the medium use of Brad Pitt in a manic role, a la Twelve Monkeys (another British director... uh huh) who does a great job, as well as the casting of Dennis Farina, who usually tends to spice up any movie he's in.  
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Baseketball - Rather funny change of pace for David Zuker - a straight forward comedy about guys who invent a new sport on the spur of a moment by blending basketball and baseball rules.  Matt Parker and Trey Stone are funny in the film, but the film clearly wants to be an Adam Sandler film, right down to the goofy casting of Ernest Borgnine (a la Henry Winkler and Carl Weathers in those Adam Sandler films).  For bigger Borgnine yucks, try Borgnine On The Bus, although this film has its moments too.  
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Secret Society - Extremely dull drama about a fat woman in Britain who gains self confidence by joining a sumo cult for fat women.  Doesn't miss a single cliche.  Absolutely horrid.  Avoid, even if you are a sumo fan.  Practically every British film comedy-drama about underdogs in a small town in England (Brassed Off, the Full Monty, etc.) of the last ten years was better than this.  Spend your time more wisely than seeing this drek.  I'm usually pretty forgiving with films, often endeared to their bad points, but this one had absolutely nothing going for it at all.  
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Children of Heaven – A poor young boy loses his sister's only pair of shoes on the way back home from the cobblers, and for the rest of the movie he has to share his only pair of shoes with her.  Two people sharing the same pair of shoes is a pretty unusual situation, and a film can be based on it as this one proves abundantly.  A large part of the film is spent with the boy's simple and innocent mission - to get a new pair of shoes for his sister.  The final scene is perfect.  
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The Man With The Golden Gun – Scaramanga, the original three-nippler (see Kevin Smith's ripoff in Mallrats for a laugh if you like) is the real star of this movie.  Cheezy Roger Moore's first Bond, he shows off his lame upper class British kung fu in one of the film's worst scenes.  Nail island, in the gorgeous national park near Pattaya/Krabi is also featured, although it's supposed to be Hong Kong I believe.  Check Herve Villechaize (Tattoo from Fantasy Island) in his role as the original "Mini Me."  Christopher Lee’s career has recovered since this movie with roles in both the Lord of the Rings and the new Star Wars trilogies of films.
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In The Heat of the Night – Warren Oates stars as a deputy observing Sidney Poitier and Rod Serling stare each other down in this southern murder mystery that takes place not just in the heat of the night, but also in the heat of a hot, hot summer day.  Classy action.  
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Cyclo – Wild ride through a big city in Vietnam as our hero, a young cyclo driver, gets ground through the gears.  The roving camera follows him as he gets beaten up, has his cyclo stolen, is forced to work for a dragon lady with a retarded child, different characters are woven into the quilt and the roving camera is the ultimate voyeuristic tool for seeing into meetings with prostitutes, near escapes, riots, explosions, and other wild shenanigans.  I watched this without English subtitles and was still blown away.  What a film!  
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The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) – Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, does it get any cooler?  Steve is a millionaire playboy who robs banks for fun.  Faye is sent in by the cops to bring him down.  A final heist is pulled off.  Classy flick is probably even cooler now than it was when it was released.  I can't see how a Pierce Brosnan remake can have anything on the original, even over 30 years later.  
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Mandohay – Strange Mongolian film that seems to have had the same set designer as the old Star Trek series.  Wish I could have seen it with English subtitles, as I got lost instantly.  The Mongolian language sounds very cool, kind of like Klingon (kidding), hope I can see more Mongolian films in the future.
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Flawless – How about "Braless" instead?  Robert DeNiro very good in his role, but not an appealing movie.  Phillip Seymour Hoffman given a showy role, but doesn't really do much for it, and his drag queen is uninteresting - he's been much much better in most of his last half dozen roles, including his small spot in "the Big Lebowski."  For Joel Schumacher I still like 8mm better.  He still hasn't properly made up for all those crappy Batman movies yet.  Val Kilmer and George Clooney as the Batman?  Puh-lease.  
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Blade (Hong Kong) – Amazingly violent Hong Kong kung-fu historical drama, the labyrinthine plot nearly impossible to work out without subtitles.  Filmed mostly at night for that extra depressing atmosphere.  Watch bad-ass scrappers utterly destroy their opponents, watch entire villages razed to the ground, watch lives torn apart.  Try to live through this relentlessly violent thriller without feeling utterly drained.  
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The Sixth Day – This movie about clones is actually pretty good, with Arnold Schwartzenegger casting artistic pretentions (working with a good director, trying to act, etc.) to the wind and just gets ugly as he has to save his skin when a clone turns up in his house.  Some sore ot mix-up that he had nothing to do with, now he's being attacked by bad guys.  Some Robocop-style (or is that Total Recall?) black comedy, at least you can say that it's nowhere near as bad as the Running Man.  
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The Juniper Tree – Early Bjork film with a young songstress playing a medieval witch-girl.  With her sister she is on the run from her evil mother and suspicious step-father.  Based on the Brothers Grimm, which is slanted more towards the step-father and his family.  Funky, spare, in Icelandic language.
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Gorgeous – Possibly Jackie Chan's worst movie.  Described in Time magazine as a breakaway for Jackie, moving away from splashy thrills territory and more into acting and drama, the "plot" involves a kooky, naive Taiwanese beauty going to Hong Kong and becoming involved with Jackie and another millionaire playboy rival.  Nothing works in this awful movie, I wish I hadn't wasted my time.  I've seen dreadful, but this was really intolerable.  
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Soleil Rouge – Dreadful ramen western (a coin termed by the film Tampopo, of which this is an early example) has an evil Alain Delon stealing a Japanese sword in a train robbery with misfit Charles Bronson reluctantly helping Mifune Toshiro to win it back.  Set in the American west, it is truly bizarre that everyone speaks French, much less Mifune!!!  Hate to say it, but latter-day films Once Upon A Time In China And America and Shanghai Noon do it much better than this venerable flick.  
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The General’s Daughter – Since I don't really remember ever seeing a murder mystery on an army base with an army dick stepping on people's toes (does A Few Good Men count?) as if it were a Raymond Chandler flick, I guess this one chalks up points for originality.  Travolta and James Woods are great as always, and the kinky sex that is hinted at (but barely seen) iskind of interesting.  Good for its caliber, meaning it is miles beyond a crappy thriller like the Bone Collector.
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Space Jam – Non-actor Michael Jordon works with seasoned pros Daffy, Bugs, Yosemite Sam, and many others as they take on evil galactic corporate types.  Good for a laugh, with some funny cameos, although fans of the truly bizarre early Loony Tunes could never be satisfied with what is essentially kiddy fare.  
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Cotton Club – Richard Gere and Nicolas Cage again.  Cool period drama by Francis Ford Coppola showing gangsters in the jazz age.  Not considered a great film, or even a good film, by many critics today, it is still miles better than a lot of other films that try to do the same.   Needlessly forgotten.  
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Looking For Mr. Goodbar – Diane Keaton comes of sexual age in this film, showing how a pretty and intelligent woman can be used up in the night clubs of swinging Manhattan.  She meets kinky hustler Richard Gere, looking pretty young and doing a manic Nicolas Cage impression, the film has one of the most intense final five minutes of any film I've ever seen since the Doom Generation.  Yoiks!!!
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Gallipoli – Mel Gibson in a film when he was still a real actor, much before he became the sad cliche that he is now, about the arrival in Europe of Australian soldiers set on helping rid the world of German/Turkish imperialism.  Most of the film shows their coming of age and allows us to learn their characters, introducing the themes of British and Australian rivalry, before allowing the Turks to slaughter them in a senseless military campaign.  The Turks eventually lost their war, but the Australians lost heavy in Gallipoli.  Sad and ironic, a great film.  
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Once Upon A Time In China and America – Jet Li in his sixth outing as Huang Fei Hung in the Hong Kong action series, this time falling setting up situations that Jackie Chan films would later rip off like having a Chinese fighter in the wild west (Shanghai Noon) and having the lead character develop amnesia and be adopted by local native people (Who Am I).  Cool action scenes of course, with Li's signature eye-pooping stunts and lightning kung-fu blazing a patch on the screen, not to mention a bad-add bad guy who looks like he could play for Motorhead.  Great!  
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Charlie’s Angels – I thought I would hate this movie, or at least be able to laugh at it.  Instead, it was much more enjoyable than it should have been.  Cool stylistic directing took away some of the cheeziness of the bad comedy (Lucy Liu's failed cakes, Cakeron Diaz's airheadiness), and the cliched action sequences (helicopter chase along shore road), but the plot was fine, and the inspired casting really helped things move along.  Lots of out-loud laughs too.  Nice kung fu.  A lesson to the producers of crap like Mission Impossible and the Avengers on how TV adaptations probably should be done (but not too often, please).  
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Dancer In The Dark – Scary and spooky human drama that is larger than life and all about money.  Bjork is great, even if the hand-held camera effects and production values begin to grate and get in the way of the story.  A parable of the fantasy life of the mind.  
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Hilary and Jackie – Another harrowing biopic, this time about a musical family like Carrington, but with a powerful perfomance by Emily Watson instead of a subtle Emma Watson.  Again, high jinx and madness among the upper classes and the artistic elite, lots of fun and nastiness before things get horrible and nasty.  Interesting to see just how opposite the sisters create themselves to be.  
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The Collector – The collector collects women.  He kidnaps a beauty, wants her to fall in love with him.  A prototype for both Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down and Kiss The Girls, maybe even for the Silence of the Lambs if you consider the kidnapper's butterfly collection.  Lots of tension as the audience struggles with the anti-hero and their interest in the movie - do we want this creep to be brought to justice, or do we sympathize with him and want him to continue his plan.  Doubles as a black comedy.  
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All Quiet on the Western Front – Brilliant anti-war film from 1930, showing the lives of young German boys as they are tricked into joining the war effort.  Shows their enthusiasm in the early days of war, the honing of the survival skills (for the ones who do survive), and their cynicism in the closing days of the war.  Sad, sad, sad.  Couldn’t prevent the same thing from happening 9 years later, either.
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Carrington – Biopic about a gay man (Johnathon Pryce as Lytton Strachey) and the straight woman who loves him (Emma Thompson as Dora Carrington) in the British art world during and after World War Two.  Gritty, warts and all tale that includes plenty of infidelity, suicide, murder, war, death and destruction, yet shown in a no nonsense, bleak, British biopic kind of way.  Nice!  
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Wonder Boys – Boring film about an unsympathetic professor, Michael Douglas, involved in highjinx in university as he smokes dope, fools around, acts un-professorly, hangs out with his students, works on his manuscript, overcomes writers block, signs a book deal, gets his life back together.  Somewhat of a black comedy, but not what you'd expect from the director of the tight, exciting L.A. Confidential.  Reminds me too much of another film, what on earth was it?  See the underrated (and nearly forgotten) D.O.A. instead.  I've only seen the Dennis Quaid remake, but the original should be good too.  
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Shaft (1999) – Samuel Jackson is way cool as Shaft, the nephew of the original Shaft (Richard Roundtree), even if the plot of this crappy movie isn't very cool.  Nice clothes, though, and cool cameo by Roundtree as Uncle Shaft.  Dan Hedaya in one of his countless bit parts as a shifty dude.  Good enough for its type of film if you can overlook the cliches, good productions values, nice duds.  
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Tightrope – Pink Cadillac – Hang ‘Em High – True Crime – Joe Kidd – the Eiger Sanction – Continuing in the tradition of reviewing Clint Eastwood films, of which there seem to be quite a few here…  Tightrope is not very good, one of those films where they give up keeping the identity of the killer (of prostitutes) secret half way through the films and just let the film lead up to the ultimate showdown.  First third of the film is interesting and titillating as detective Eastwood begins to notice a trend between his nightly visits to prostitutes and the corpses that start popping up.  Another imperfect character for Eastwood, a widower and father who is still human.  Pink Cadillac is another film with an unsatisfactory ending as the bad guys (who are of course inhumanly bad) are foiled and left behind, but enough good mood generated by the interaction between bounty hunter Eastwood and runaway mother Bernadette Peters.  Early cameo by Jim Carrey doing an armless Elvis act - funny for the 5 seconds he is on.  Apparently Eastwood cast Carrey after hearing about Carrey's famous Clint Eastwood impressions, rather bizarre.  Remember the Eastwood impressions Carrey does in Mask?  Jim Carrey now makes much more per film thatn Clint Eastwood does.  Hang Em High is a good western where Eastwood's character is nearly lynched by a group of vigilantes, then goes to work for the law to run 'em in.  Fans of Gilligan's Island will recognize the Skipper, Alan Hale in his first post-Gilligan's Island acting role, as one of the cold-blooded vigilantes.  Strange to see the old guy again here.  Joe Kidd has Clint first helping killers hired by corrupt landlords who are after righteous outlaws, then switching sides and helping the outlaws survive the killers.  Shades of Yojimbo/Fistful of Dollars.   True Crime is a sweet little film about a reporter, almost as an afterthought, decides to prove the innocence of a guy on the day of his execution (at midnight).  All the elements tie up well, despite the everything-in-a-day implausibility of it all, and Clint is great in another one of his (very) imperfect characters.  This time he is an alcoholic playboy liar, still trying to "do the right thing."  James Woods is also a treat as his cynical seen-em-all editor.  The Eiger Sanction is a James Bond riposs that is unintentional black humor.  Clint goes to work for the FBI (that seems like a particularly vile J. Edgar Hoover who is hiring him) to perform a political assassination in the mountains of Switzerland.  Cool action and a few good laughs.  
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U-571 – Interesting sidebar film, considering I was reading the Cryptonomicon at the time and it was on the same thing - breaking the Nazi enigma code in World War 2, and at the same time not letting the Nazis know that it had been broken so they could develop a new one.  Tense thrills with Harvey Keitel and Jon Bon Jovi, unfortunately Matthew MacConnaughty is cast as a dowdy officer, a role in which this dopey unappealing actor is clearly miscast.  
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The Towering Inferno – A spooky film when you consider the real towering inferno in New York City on September 11th, 2001. Classic performances from Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, and tons of others.  Interesting to see OJ Simpson and Richard Chamberlain on film too.  Good, tense action, better than most disaster films from a time when the disaster film wasn't a tired cliche yet.  
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Battlefield Earth – Panned as the worst film of the year, and possibly ever.  I watched it, knowing it would be bad, but curious to see just how bad it could be.  I also expected plenty of stuff to laugh at, but it was not to be – the film is so bad that I was thoroughly depressed by the end.  Painful.  John Travolta and Forrest Whittaker deserve to never work in this town again. 
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Snow Falling on Cedars – Gorgeous, languidly-paced, tale of life and death and racism in town trying to deal with its Japanese-American citizens and the legacy of World War Two and Japanese-American internment.  In a climate of unsettled debts and distrust there is a death and a senseless accusation of murder.  What would clearly seem like a case that couldn’t be argued for lack of evidence becomes old news when flashbacks reveal the grudges and bones in everyones closets.  A great book and a great film, great casting, effective flashbacks, and a wild flawless script. 
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The Son of the Pink Panther – Should-have-been-funny revival of the classic Pink Panther trail with Alberto Benini, a brilliant casting choice, is oddly uncompelling.  Herbert Lom, as Inspector Dreyfus, is also a let-down as he forgets his hatred of Clouseau and returns to sanity.  Don’t bother. 
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Right Stuff – Cool as a cucumber tale of the space race gets extra points for the line “why are we competing with the Russians – they’re our allies!”  Nice shots of families and fathers becoming pilots, great character develeopment – hell, great characters – and cool shots of jets and rockets flying around.  Long, but every second a joy, of which not the same can be said of Apollo 13.  Sam Shephard not professorly for once as the kick-back champion Chuck Yeager. 
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Miami Blues – Alec Baldwin unhinged as a violent hustler on the streets of Miami. Fred Ward as the schmucky detective on his trail.  Jennifer Jason-Leigh as the prostitute in love with the desperado.  Cool above-the-law highjinks and nice pacing, even if the movie has been forgotten a decade later. 
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Nocturne Indien – Jean-Hughes Anglade wanders India – Bombay, Madras, Goa – searching for a lost friend of his.  Dark and mysterious throughout, it becomes clear eventually that the main character is on a psychological search for someone who might not exist.  Meeting interesting people along the way – a doctor in a room of files, a religious philosopher starving himself, a deformed clairvoyant on a pilgrimage who warns him about illusion (clearly a theme of the film) – the film ends properly in a classy restaurant with a beautiful woman.  Rather like David Lynch without the gloomy edge, the dialogue is mostly in English with a bit of Portuguese, and at the end (finally) a little French. 
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L.A. Without A Map – Boyish undertaker in a small Scottish village meets wandering American actress, is smitten, and gives it all up to chase her to L.A. where they meet, marry, and he sells his screenplay Uzi Suicide (which has nothing to do with Guns ‘n’ Roses) for big money.  Easy.  On the way he meets colorful L.A. types like Julie Delpy, a psychotic ego-maniac after his wife, the Leningrad Cowboys, and a whacked out house painter Vincent Gallo.  He also receives encouragement from Johnny Depp, animated out of the poster for Dead Man (Depp also has a cameo in character).  Directed soberly by Mika Kaurismaki, i.e. brother of Leningrad Cowboys Go America director Aki Kaurismaki. 
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On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – The only Bond film with George Lazeby, the only Bond film with Telly Savalas as Ernst Blofeld, who brings the beautiful (horny) women representing the countries of the world to the roof of Europe, i.e. a Swiss mountaintop, to conduct “allergy research.”  Pretty good for a Bond film at least, it is fun to watch the odd pairing of stars at their only shots at these roles. 
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Happiness – An omnibus of horrors as the lives of a dozen depressed souls connect, knowingly or unknowingly, in some California urban limbo, a la Robert Altman’s Short Cuts married to American Beauty.  Disturbing for its portrayal of a hopeless pedophile, unsparing in its raw emotional terrorism, slow-moving yet intense, it is clearly a film everybody everybody has to see.  Like Magnolia, and starring some of the same people, but much much better.  It does, after all, have a decent role for Lara Flynn-Boyle, something nothing since Twin Peaks has accomplished. 
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Final Cut – Jude Law is dead, his friends gather to watch a little video he has assembled, to watch it as per his final request (or something like that).  They miss their dear friend Jude dearly and are shocked at his death, but their feeling begin to change as we watch Jude’s video, which reveals that he had for some time been engaged in a film project of his own – spying them and capturing their crimes, betrayals, infidelities, indecencies, hypocrisies, and exposing them.  It becomes vicious and frightening, and leads the film to its only possible conclusion.  First rate experimentation that works. 
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Days of Heaven – Gorgeous Terrence Malick film about harvesting wheat.  Richard Gere kills a man in Chicago and goes on the run with his girl and her kid sister, ending up on the farm of ailing gentleman farmer Sam Shephard.  History repeats itself, and the end of the film merges with Malick’s previous masterpiece Badlands.  The film is less about the people in it than about the magnificence of the land around them, hence the larger than life Gere becomes a blip on the horizon.  Malick is more a cinematographer than a director of characters, and the three films he has made in three decades should be required viewing for anyone serious about film. 
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Capricorn One – Bizarre sci-fi film from the seventies that features three astronauts that allow themselves to become part of a faked Mars landing mission – they hang out in a studio and pretend that they are broadcasting from space.  When the mission fails and they are supposed to be dead, they realize that they are living evidence that needs to be buried and begin to run for their lives.  Interesting character dynamics and mock-tense chase scenes make for a great cheesy film, even if Elliot Gould’s leaden acting in the role of the expose reporter nearly sinks the ship. 
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King of New York – Christopher Walken as the white leader of a gang of black thugs (including Lawrence Fishburne) wipes the streets of New York with his enemies on both sides of the law, fancying himself a modern-day Robin Hood who uses his dirty money to help the poor by building hospitals, etc.  Nutty concept dealt with well, Walken has never been cooler, and the ultraviolence and orgies somehow don’t even seem excessive – this movie was built for them.  Annoying actor David Caruso makes and appearance before he is blown away (boo hoo). 
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Chicken Run – Oddly uncompelling claymation film from claymation master Nick Parks.  Maybe it is that the Wallace and Gromit films were just right cramming it all in at twenty minutes, the ninety minute Chicken Run tends to lag.  It also suffers from uninteresting characters, although friends of mine who are familiar with the Yorkshire characters caricatured here tend to disagree.  Mel Gibson’s presence as the American stud rooster is also kind of annoying – when will Gibson play an Australian again? 
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Unbreakable – Modern day comic book-like fable about a guy who is indestructible is a fascinating character study that rises high above Batman, Superman, and even the great Dark Man.  Willis mumbles his way through most of it, as he does in so many of his movies, but is not astray.  Samuel Jackson is a blast as the mysterious mentor of the film and creates a brilliant contrast to Willis – plain to extravagant, working class to highly educated, light to dark, strong to weak, dull to sharp, good to evil.  The directing style is also fascinating and makes the viewer feel that they are watching a new force bud and grow.  Already looking forward to the sequel.
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Malcolm X – A very long, hard, Spike Lee joint.  Great to know more about Malcolm X and the situation of hypocrisy in the U.S. in the ‘60s, with a fascinating coda in light of the perception of Muslim violence in the September 2001 terrorism in NYC and Washingtion DC.  May potentially create more issues now than it did then, but that won’t add to anything.  Not being an expert, I don’t know what the film didn’t say, and can only speculate or guess toward it, but the tale of a dedicated man who turned his life around and tried in his own way to help people is depicted well.  We see a little how he helped people, and we see his frustrations, which continue today.  Excellent performance by Denzel Washington, who at the beginning of the film just looked like Denzel Washington but by the end of the film looked a lot like Malcolm X. 
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Junior – Danny Devito, Emma Thompson, and Arnold Schwartzenegger star in a retarded movie about a wacky scientist (Arnie) who figures out how to make himself pregnant.  I watched it for the second time this year only because my wife is also nine months pregnant.  Thank God it’s only a movie, I’m off the hook. 
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Detroit Rock City – The return of the Porkys movie.  Silly relatively good-natured rock flick with Edward Furlong hacking his way through a roll where he yells a lot and gets upset.  Clever in drawing strings together, and full of great ‘70s rock and a few pretty hilarious moments and broadcasted doses of Home Alone style humor.  KISS produced it and its their vehicle, but sensible they don’t use only KISS songs.  Shannon Tweed is in it, briefly, reprising her award-winning role from Hot Dog – the Movie.  Naturally she looks fine!!!  What makes this film great for me is that somebody had finally found a way to throw the forgotten Blue Oyster Cult classic “Godzilla” into a soundtrack (and that killer riff rivaled only by the best of Black Sabbath), not to mention good Cheap Trick tunes, and two versions of “Highway to Hell” – the original, and somebody who sounds like Tom Cochrane.  Funny how ‘70s rock kids looked like grunge stars. 
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She’s Gotta Have It – An early (the first?) Spike Lee Joint, with all the earmarks of a true independent film – bad acting and sound, grainy black and white footage, great storyline and dialogue.  Mars Blackmon (Lee) wears the glasses that inspired Jiang Zemin, as the sexy (but essentially unattractive) Nora Darling turns the heads of three men and one (truly attractive) woman.  Lee’s compelling and rarely-seen-in-film sister Joie Lee is underused and only appears in a few scenes at the beginning - pity. 
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The Lost World (1925) – Early claymation broke ground then as special effects, could be easily reproduced by a group of kindergarteners today.  The inspiration for both King Kongs and that crap film Jurassic Park II.  Based on a story by Arthur Conan Doyle, it is a silent film and shows explorers going into Brazil to find dinosaurs trapped on a plateau for thousands of years – nobody gets on and nobody gets off it.  Melodramatic life-saving and lost love/jealousy stuff, not to mention rubber monsters stomping things.  Monsters get loose in New York too, great.  At a mere 50 minutes, the film doesn’t have time to get laden down and draggy, great stuff all the way through. 
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High Fidelity – A case for liking the film better than the book.  Decent flick with John Cusack the depressed main character and narrator of his life as a slacker record shop owner on the outs with his girlfriend, pushing 40 and wondering what it all means.  Nice appearance by M.I.A. ‘80s star Lisa Bonet. 
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You Only Live Twice – Dodgy Bond flick that shows Mr. Bond in Asia – faking his assassination in Hong Kong, then shagging slant-eyed lovelies in Nippon.  Second time he gets married only to have his wife killed instead of him.  Himeji castle, located downtown in a large city of over a million people and considered the finest surviving medieval Japanese castle, makes an appearance as a covert ninja training camp for the Japanese secret service. 
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Love and Death – Non-stop belly laughs for the first half of this film.  I was thankful that it became less funny toward the end so that I could catch my breath.  Woody and Diane Keaton are frustrated lovers who attempt to assassinate Napoleon and generally deal with life in war-torn czarist Russia.  This film was clearly not filmed in New York City, unlike most of the funny man’s other flicks. 
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Barry Lyndon – Filmed in the British countryside with natural lighting (hence all the candles in night scenes), it is a humorless retelling of the rise and fall of a young nobleman in the tradition of Tom Jones (also a Thackeray tale) and Love and Death, but told in most unsmiling fashion and style.  Cool film.  Great even.  Niiiiiiice doggy. 
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East of Eden - An Elia Kazan film adapted from John Steinbeck novel and James Dean's film debut, one of only three films he made during his year-long career as a true film star, East of Eden is a stunning, concise film.  It tells the story of a young man who has discovered a family secret, and as such is reluctantly at war with his father and his brother; the boy simply cannot accept that is it his fate and nature to be so, nor can he accept the fact that being so doesn't automatically brand him as bad - at least he is aware of who and what he is and that alone cannot make him bad.  The film is all James Dean's.  Oddly, the film merely tells about a third of what is in the novel and cuts out some characters completely (significantly Lee the servant and Sam Hamilton the confidante), but covers enough of the tale to be satisfying. In many ways it is better than the book, in the way that it condenses the tale and cuts out the slack.
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Slacker - A brilliant little excuse for an independant film, following a day in the life of Austin Texas as the camera wonders from human interaction to human interaction: the film opens as a man (actually the director, Richard Linkletter) gets into a cab at the bus station and begins to tell the cabbie about the strange dream he just had on the bus; when the man gets out of the cab, he encounters an accident that has just occurred.  The camera then follows one of the witnesses for a while, then follows one of the people he interacts with, then follows that person, et cetera et cetera for the rest of the film, which feels like one long 90 minute take.  The camera is in this case the eponymous "fly on the wall."  An intriguing premise, I wonder that it's never been done before.  Many of the people that are followed about are really interesting - human victories and tragedies are hinted at, mysteries are hinted at - and there is not a wasted moment in the whole film.  Fascinating.  A million times better than Linklater's bigger budget follow-up, Dazed and Confused , which wasn't much more than a pot movie and a light-hearted rehash of Over the Edge .  He must have had fun filming it with Milla Jovovich, back in the days before she was an international celebrity.
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Mallrats - Before seeing this film I had heard about battles between director and studio and expected the worst; watching it I was therefore pleasantly surprised - it was a funny, immature film.  Tons of great dialogue, a semi-interesting plot, tons of lowbrow humor, and the presence of Jay and Silent Bob make the film great.  Filming things I'd never seen before in film, like recreations of intricate Wile E. Coyote "gotta get that Roadrunner" stunts, were pretty funny.  Michael Rooker still enjoyable in a bit part as the psychotic "girlfriend's father from hell TV show producer" caricature, everything tied up neatly at the end like a Scooby Doo episode.  Kevin Smith seems to be especially good at inventing pop culture; what I mean by that is that when he introduces the topless fortune teller that the heroes go to the flea market to see, he makes it seem like practically every flea market has a topless fortune teller - in reality, there is probably not a single topless fortune teller anywhere in the western world.  So there!
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American Movie - An independant film maker shoots a documentary about another independant film maker and his struggle to make a film.  Everything about Night of the Living Dead fanatic Mark Borschach seems too strange to be real: we witness too many classic moments in the life of this colossal misfit - the arrival of the MasterCard, the tantrums, the strange surreal dynamics, the wooing of funders - that this is either a scripted "documentary," or the film-maker has found someone even more poor and unsuspecting than he himself that he can sadistically observe from a pedestel without the guy noticing what was going on and shouting out "hey, why do you have the money to shoot a film and I don't?"  Imagine a successful writer like John Irving following me around all day so that he could observe what it is like to be an anonymous writer with an uncertain future, all so that he could write a piece on him for Esquire magazine!  Still seeming more real than real, the urban squalor right out of a John Waters film exactly (it was filmed in Milwaukee), it is still very interesting meeting the people in Marks life, particularly his family and close friends, watching his project develop, and finally seeing old footage of him as a young film-maker - forever, immortal, enjoying good summer times.  Wow.  An interesting side-note - hearing an accoustic version of the Metallica song "Fight Fire With Fire," it was surreal to note how rather like flamenco it could sound!  See the movie, then visit http://www.americanmovie.com/ to get your own copy of Borschach's first short film Coven .
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Sophie's World - A Swedish film which I couldn't see with English subtitles - thank God I had already read the book, since it concerns the consolidation of the entire history of western philosophy... all neat and tidy like!  The girls of the book - one real, one fictional - are cute, and the worlds they inhabit are very Swedish, very cute middle class, very Lotta pa Brakmakargatan .  A tough concept to bring to film, it is nevertheless still a very visual novel, and its brief lecture passages are passed over quickly.  A nice, sunny film.
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Jason and the Argonauts - A classic 1963 film that makes stunning use of early special effects to tell the tale of Jason and his band of merry men as they sail the Argos to a city at the end of the world to steal the Golden Fleece.  A swordfight with animated skeletons at the end of the film is the show-stopper, so be sure to stick around.  Jason's romance with sorceress Medea is overshadowed by what we know will eventually become of their relationship.  This film is the first part of a longer story for which it seems no sequel was ever made.

An ancient classic from the early days of special effects - that is, special effects as we know them today.  Storms created out of nowhere, giants stepping on real human beings and seeming to actually crush them to death!   Just like it must have been when it really took place way back then in ancient Greece.  Legends are told and retold and provide shaky motivation for people to sail to their dooms on the other end of the world, the gods take active interest in the doings of men and chose sides; Jason sails off on the Argos, living through adventure after adventure.  He saves a drowning witch, the woman he will one day marry, divorce, who will kill his children...  A sad tale told in the most epic of epic tones.  Good fun for the whole family, and still lots of fun nearly fifty years later.
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We're No Angels (1982) - An oddball comedy starring a younger Robert DeNiro and a very young Sean Penn, with minor roles for lots of familiar faces like Demi Moore, John C. Reilly, and Wallace Shawn.  DeNiro is best in this film, mugging it all the way through and able to carry the one-joke humor of a qiuck-tempered convict in priest's clothes.  Demi Moore's a beautiful young prostitute mother who learns a valuable lesson should rank as one of her cheesiest roles, although she played it with the sassy compassion you'd come to expect from Ms. Moore.  By the end Sean Penn seems rather neglected, although the homoerotic scenes with John C. Reilly are actually somewhat amusing.  Gunfight at the end is also completely unnecessary.  Watch the opening credits and remember that this was filmed in the '80s, its producers obviously expecting that they had a blockbuster on their hands.  A roundabout remake of the 1955 movie of the same name that starred Humphrey Bogart, Peter Ustinov, and Aldo Ray as the escaped convicts, although there is actually little similarity...

Robert DeNiro mugging his way through this big-budged '80s film is about the best thing this comedy of errors has going for it.  Already from the opening this-is-going-to-be-a-big-hit establishing shots, it is clear that the producers were desperate for the hit that they didn't get in this film.  Demi Moore plays her typical sassy character, the too-rarely seen Wallace Shawn can be relished for a while, and the then-unknown John C. Reilly also has a bit part.  Sean Penn is young and handsome, but not very cool and ends being totally underused.  Still, a cute little film.
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Ronin - Ronin is the latest thriller blockbuster from John Frankenheimer, the problematic director of the Manchurian Candidate and Black Sunday and films against which Ronin will inevitably be compared.  Ronin tells a good story about mercenaries who are hired to steal a MacGuffin (i.e. an innocuous object essential to the plot, in this case a suitcase whose contents are never revealed; see also Pulp Fiction ).  With its tale of outlaw professionals, ambushes, betrayals, European settings, it might as well be Mission Impossible, and with DeNiro doing his dangerous professional act racing around in cars and shooting his way out of bad situations, it might as well as well be Heat.  After a murky start, the film does pick up a bit, but for everything that the film does right (relatively comprehensible labyrinthine plot, a good kissing scene, excellent car chase and shootout scenes, beautiful locations, every scene that DeNiro is in), it has others that are not-so-right (a silly German psycho as one of the main villains, repetitive or parallel scenes, incessant back-stabbing).  Overall I think that the film was a good one, and I'd recommend it to anyone who liked Mission Impossible and Heat and similar films, but I'd still be curious to hear what they had to say about this messy attempt at making a really good film.

A John Frankenheimer film, therefore in the same vein as the Manchurian Candidate and Black Sunday and of similar intense quality.  The tale of Robert DeNiro as a vigilante who joins other guns for hire (among them Jean Reno) in a plot to steal a silver briefcase with undisclosed contents.  Attempting to pull the job off and to find out more about who is behind it, being betrayed more than once, getting shot after not just the I.R.A. but the Russian Mafia become involved, and devlopping feelings for a burned out Irish beauty are all part of what it takes to make the world a better place.  Frankenheimer has some great touches, including high speed chases through city and country and a cool kiss scene, but betrays his love for stadium assassinations in the finale by ultimately plagiarizing from himself.  He also uses the same devices more than once, making things feel gimicky, and I still can't figure out what the German hacker was trying to prove by sniping at children on a schoolyard.
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the Year of Living Dangerously - A Peter Weir film, and an early appearance of Mel Gibson before he started jumping nationalities and playing insufferable action heroes.  Sigourney Weaver is also fine as a love interest, but the film nearly wholly belongs to the fabulous Linda Hunt, in this film playing the dwarf-like male character Billy Kwan.  Everything about this film is fine, from the pacing to the contrast between callous journalists and passionate rebels and the fact that it embarassed the corrupt Indonesian government of the time that it was made at all.  Unlike Salvador , the Year of Living Dangerously keeps the authorities on a pedestal until near the end, when things reach their disastrous climax.  Essential.
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Witness - Another Peter Weir film, set in America among the Hamish community, and one of the rare films Kelly McGillis can be seen in.  Harrison Ford is younger and his role unchracteristically underplayed.  The juxtaposition of the corrupt city and its bad cops with the pure world of the country-living Hamish is like a blow to the head, but any scenes among the Hamish are dearly appreciated.  Cool fight at the end teaches other films how it really should be done, with every tense second totally believable - no single good guy mowing down ten bad guys.  Very inventive use of a grain silo.  Similar ending to L.A. Confidential, but much more smoothly executed.  A pity Peter Weir now has his hits among personality-driven moral fantasies like the Truman Show.
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Tron - Cool special effects and graphics hold up well nearly twenty years later, but looking at video games and the computer world portrayed by this film in the wooly pre-Windows/pre-Internet is perhaps just as interesting.  Artificial intelligence in evil corporation's computer creates a virtual dictatorship as it builds its strength to eventually take over the earth.  Good, silly fun, nice Journey song in the credits too.  Look for the sequel to come out in the near future, but unlike the original it will have a lot of worth competition (the Matrix, etc.) establishing itself among the other computer virtual reality films.
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Scary Movie - If you have seen the three Scream films and I Know What You Did Last Summer and the Blair Witch Project, see Scary Movie.  Although it is a little odd to have a horror parody of a film (Scream) that is itself also a parody of horror films, this is a different type of parody - not the intelligent variety like Scream, but the slapstick Top Secret/Naked Gun/Hot Shots kind.  A long list of funny scenes too silly or rique to recounter.  Best joke may be the use of the actor who played Squiggy on Happy Days, a balance for the fact that Scream used Henry Winkler, a.k.a. the Fonz from Happy Days, neither of whom have acted much since Happy Days was cancelled.  Unfortunately, the film is relatively unambitious in that it doesn't seek to include films made more than five years before it, but there's probably too much there and would be best served by being reserved for the sequel.
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Hot Shots Part Deux - Again, silly parody of the films that were made to be parodied, in this case Rambo (the original Hot Shots parodied Top Gun).  But silliness is often a good substitute for true humor.  Worth seeing for Martin Sheen's cameo alone.  Non-stop funny/silly from beginning to end.  And I don't just say that about any movie!
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Multiplicity - A film about a middle class suburban guy who's too busy at work and at home that he seeks an escape by cloning himself.  It is hard to care about the silly concerns of the boring Michael Keaton and the annoying Andie MacDowell, as they trudge about their spacious this-is-obviously-a-movie-set house whining about when they can get all the renovations they dreamed about done.  I don't remember the last time I saw a film that was so utterly middle class in its concerns.  Skip the stupid opening parts and go straight to where Keaton clones himself, which is where the film truly begins.  Keaton proves himself to be a very competent comedy actor as he interacts with 3 clones of himself, each one radically different - there is the original well-rounded Keaton, then there is the selfish workaholic Keaton, the sensitive faggy Keaton, and the inbred man-child Keaton.  Each of them has their own character, quirks, and are much funnier than the original.  When the latter goes away to collect his thoughts, the film has its funniest scenes when the little lady of the household starts feeling a bit randy.  Icky son and daughter luckily forgotten in the second half of the film.  This is actually one of those flicks that seems to have been inspired by a Flintstones episode (see also the Burbs).
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Bringing out the Dead - Steam of consciousness night-in-the-life of an ambulance driver as he rages at demons, internal and external, as he probes life death madness drugs crime love and loyalty in a tough New York City burough.  May be one of Martin Scorsese's messiest productions, but it is surely meant to be that way.  Scorsese's mildlife crisis-like attempt at seeming like a younger director of the MTV-influenced generation may be all too transparent, but it does work most of the time.  Before I saw this film, I actually knew nothing about the lives of New York City ambulance drivers, something that I can only imagine to be one of the more hellish professions available and the proper place for just the right sort of crazy person.
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the Abyss - Strange, sentimental tale with all of the proper moments of tension (it is a James Cameron film after all), the film ends sentimentally with a lot of gee whiz wide-eyed wonder.  Skin-crawling scenes involving the ocean depths stretch believability far beyond the snapping/caring point, although testosterone induced bug-eyed underwater insanity is worth a few chuckles nonetheless.  This film will not be remembered as one of Cameron's better projects - Titanic meets ET.
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Driving Miss Daisy - Considered a film about ridiculous black stereotypes, the film tells the tale of a black driver for a grumpy Jewish matriarch.  Film bounces between issues, rarely getting too serious, but is charming in telling a tale of aging and unlikely friendship.  Outstanding performances from Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman, and even Dan Akroyd is good in a straight role as a rich Southern Jewish factory owner.
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the Legend of 1900 - The tale of a piano player and the boat he lived his entirely life on, the film is unsatisfying as it tells its rediculous tale bouncing from episode to episode with only a few intereting scenes that actually work.  Not really a great film, watch the same director's Cinema Paradiso instead.
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Mrs. Dalloway - A Virginia Woolf tale and a director who undertakes the difficult task of reproducing the stream-of-consciousness mood of just such a novel - successfully.  Dreamy and beautiful, relaxing and not at all perplexing, the tale of a woman and the near-lesbian affair of her youth, Peter the confused romantic young man she gave up and Dalloway the man she marries told in lush flashback and also in the dreary present as Mrs. Dalloway hopes and prays that her party will not go awry.
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le Diner de Cons - A test of my French ability seeing this without English subtitles, but I think I got most of it.  Obviously based on a play (talky script, limited locations, use of less than half-a-dozen actors), le Diner de Cons tells the tale of one true idiot and one circumstantial idiot: the latter a rich snob who gets his kicks out of inviting total idiots to a dinner and laughing about their idiocy with his friends but bites off more than he can chew with the former, who prodeeds Cousteau-like to ruin his life.  Enter a wife, a lover, a rival, and another idiot, and you have the making of a pretty hilarious farce.  Expect this French comedy to be remade by Hollywood some day (it's inevitable), but don't expect it to be as funny.
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Lotta pa Brakmakargatan - A delightful film about a young girl about a cute little Swedish kid who lives in a nice house in the country and her hope to be able to get her dad to buy a bicycle for her birthday.  I saw it without subtitles, so most of the inpenetrable Swedish dialogue rolled off of me, but who cares.
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What Dreams May Come - Every review I read of this film said how bad it sucked.  Actually not that bad, I'm a bit of a fan of the director, Vincent Ward, who directed the great Map of the Human Heart .  I'm still looking for his film called Navigator.  Robin Williams is not acting at his insufferable worst (as in Toys, Mrs. Doubtfire or Good Morning Vietnam) but also not at his best (as in Good Will Hunting, the Fisher King or Dead Poets Society).  Williams dies and goes to heaven.  Highlights from his life are told in flashback.  Interesting things happen in heaven, as there are still quite a few trippy illusions happening, although the director makes the mistake of using the same trick twice.  The "dreams" that come may seem a bit goofy to most, but hey - who knows what the average person's perfect dream world may look like?  Trippy special effects, and the voyage into hell is interesting to say the least.  An ambitious film that hits most of its marks.
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Fletch - Chevy Chase made this film when he was still considered funny, but to watch it today it seems pretty weak.  Fletch is an undercover reporter who wears various costumes and gives phony names that are really obvious (i.e. "My name is Hull.  Bobby... Hull."), the joke being that nobody recognizes the names he uses.  Nearly intriguing plot involves a rich guy paying him to kill him, but Fletch is on the case and manages to pull all the strings together.  If the overall structure of the movie seems familiar, that is probably because it is virtually identical to Eddie Murphy's first Beverley Hills Cop (1984) film, which had came out a year before Fletch (1985).  Murphy's film is better, although the body count is also higher.  The Fletch character is supposed to be revived in the future by Kevin Smith, of Clerks and Mallrats fame, look forward to Fletch making more blow job references.
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Pink Panther films - The Pink Panther (1964), the Return of the Pink Panther (1975), the Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), the Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978), the Trail of the Pink Panther (1982).  Directred by Blake Edwards, the handful of Pink Panther films are wholly a vehicle to show the comic genius of Peter Sellers in his most famous character of Inspector Clouseau.  What is striking about watching the films over 20 years after Sellers' early death, is just how exceptional the scenes that Selelrs is in are, in direct contrast to the flat lifeless scenes where he is absent.  Later films rectify that by showing Sellers even more, and by inflating Herbert Lom's character in a role as an insane police captain.  Watch his outrageous Dr. Evil prototype in the Pink Panther Strikes Again and wonder where Mike Myers gets the nerve to steal character and plot from so well-known a source.  Only the first few films really have much to do with the actual "pink panther," a huge diamond with a single flaw shaped like a panther.  Cool opening scenes with animated Clouseau and Panther.  The Return of the Pink Panther is practically a remake of Hichcock's To Catch A Thies (1955).  Strangely, the second film in the series, A Shot In The Dark (also 1964), is not available in Japan.  Alan Arkin stars in the film Inspector Clouseau, which Peter Sellers is not even in and is of marginal interest only.  The Trail of the Pink Panther (1982) released after Seller' 1980 death, stitched together from deleted scenes.
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Salvador - This early Oliver Stone project is a tale of a Hunter S. Thompson-style journalist and photographer, played by James Woods in all his slimy glory, as he explores the contradictions of the revolution and American involvement in El Salvador in the '80s and the horrible, messy situation that was developing for the poor people of this country.  Stone weasels his way into money and situations, takes pictures at slaughters, visits the rebels, helps doomed American nuns, alternately befriends and antagonizes government and military officials, and is present at the assassination of Bishop Romero.  Finally, all he can hope to achieve is to save his Salvadorean girlfriend and their child.  A fascinating, well-scripted film, tragic, and as always a great forum for the incredible intensity of Woods.
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Amy - Made for Australian TV and available on video, "Amy" is a young girl who tragically witnesses her loving rock star father's tragic onstage electrocution death and loses her ability to speak and hear.  Her condition is psychological, but her future is a point of disagreement between her mother, doctors, and state workers.  Money is also a problem - there is no more coming from the record company - and Amy and her mother move to a poor neighborhood populated by loveable eccentrics and hoods.  A musician, who seems to spend his days writing songs and playing the guitar, is the first to reach out to Amy as he discovers that she responds to song just as she won't react to spoken words.  An affecting personal tale evolves, and Amy's condition is cured.  I'm tempted to sneer at the way the film is resolved, but would rather first find out if "Amy" is based on any kind of true story!  Great music abounds, especially the haunting song thay Amy sings with her loving dad as seen in flashbacks, as well as those of the neighboring porch guitarist.  A worthy film and deserving a close look.
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the Funeral - Not the Japanese film by Itami Juzo, but the little film with the big cast (Christopher Walken, Chris Penn, a mustachioed Vincent Gallo, Benicio Del Toro, Anabella Sciorra) by artsy trash director Abel Fererra.  Showing a day at brother Gallo's wake, with flashbacks, the film tells the tale of a mob family involved in unions and early 20th century American socialist organization and the messy cut-throat business that they are in.  Fascinating themes, an interesting setting, intricate family relationships, madness, and gunplay all have equal footing in this cool little forgotten film.
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Birth of a Nation - The classic 1915 black and white silent film that apparently legitimized film as art and gave birth to Hollywood.  Film previously had been seen as low-brow entertainment, kind of like titty bars might be seen these days, but "Birth of a Nation" ambitiously balloons its scope to epic proportions to tell a tale of a Southern family before and after the American Civil War, ground later covered by "Gone With The Wind" and even "Roots."  Based on a book called "the Clansman," opening with the words "the introduction of the African to American soil brought the seeds of decay" and ending with a portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan as justified defenders of Southern dignity.  As such, the film can now only be seen as an outrageous perversion of what the KKK is really all about, with scenes of the rescue of women by black rapists and black mobs - time has shown that it could only really have been the other way around.  But with two seperate views of life in the South, what was it really like there in the 1870s?  In 1915 the Civil War probably still survived in living memory, and the defeat by the North and the influx of "carpetbaggers" and other profiteers must have stung bitterly.  Altogether, Birth of a Nation is a fascinating time capsule ride into both film history and American history itself, no matter how dubious its politics are.
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the Thing From Another World (1951) - The original Thing movie is a silly thing that doesn't stand the test of time and should not be seen in deference to John Carpenter's remake of 1981 "the Thing."  The Thing is a lumbering Frankenstein, a kind of plant-like breeding object trapped on earth after its spaceship is blown up accidentally by the military and it is thawed out by a carelessly-placed electric blanket (?!).  Nobody gets killed, no transformations or even any special effects, and the science-no-matter-what scientific idealogue doesn't even gets his come-uppance, although he does wander off sulkily, a sheepish look on his face...
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Farewell Beloved Lupin - The final episode of the second Lupin Sansei TV series, the tape number 26 actually has 5 episodes.  Of note are only the last two episodes, both of which were created under the guiding hand of a young Miyazawa Hayao: the second last is a castle heist story that foreshadows the Lupin movie "the Castle of Cagliostro," and the last one which introduces characters from several of Miyazawa Hayao's animated features - namely, the robot creatures of the "Laputa" film, and the future girl-warrior of "Nausicaa."  The story itself is marvelously scripted, and the pace never lets up for the full 22 minutes of seamless animation and its near-perfect orgy of destruction.  To discuss the plot would be to give things away, suffice it to say that the city is under attack by an invincible robot thief, and Lupin and his team of thieves is involved.  Just watch it - knowledge of Japanese not necessary.  An earlier, cornier episode details the struggle between Jigen, who has lost the magic cowboy hat that gives him his powers, and "Minnesota Fats," with a shooting pool cue that ricchochets bullets like pool balls.  D-U-M-B!!!
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the Scent of Green Papaya - a beautiful, rain-drenched portrait of the day-to-day living of an upper-class Vietnamese household over the course of ten years, as seen through the eyes of a young female servant.  Political turmoil has nothing to do with the world shown in this film, it is all about the rains and the sun and keeping the floors clean.  The house is beautiful, the scenes in the garden are lyrical and haunting, all this in addition to the fact that through this film many viewers will get their first extended exposure to the Vietnamese language itself.  There are no scenes that take place outside of the house itself until the end, when the family has to send the girl to work in another home when they can no lnoger afford to keep her.  Among the more beautiful scenes in the film are images of her bathing, fully clothed - it is serene and just a little sexy.  A perfect film right down to its perfect ending, the film will relax you like a massage and you'll have a deep, pleasant sleep to look forward to...
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the Insider - Michael Mann finally made a film without a ton of weapons.  The Insider is the true story of an unlikeable man who is fired from his job working in big tobacco and is eventually convinced by a producer from 60 Minutes to tell his story.  The first half of the film focuses on the insider, played brilliantly by Russel Crowe and his struggle to come to terms with what he feels he must do, and the second half is about the TV producer, played by Al Pacino, and his struggle to air the story itself in light of legal threats coming from the incredibly powerful tobacco industry.  Crowe puts in a better performance in this film than in his Oscar-winning role in Gladiator, and the way he plays such a complicated, contradictory, and essentially pitiful man is both brave and astounding.  Unfortunately, the ambitous focus of the film and the way it had to tell two stories in order to tell the whole story ultimately unbalanced the film somewhat and Crowe is barely seen in the second half of the film as Pacino is seen fighting the networks, but Mann does a brilliant job with his moody direction, and the unusual soundtrack music used in the film makes this a stylish masterpiece of its own.
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Bowfinger - Hailed as Steve Martin's first really funny movie in a decade, the film is just as much a showcase for Eddie Murphy to showcase his new-found multiple-role-acting ability.  Bowfinger goes for big laughs in the way that the Player went for irony and black comedy and tells the tale of pathetic Hollywood losers who launch a pitiful attempt to make a boner of a film.  Martin actually has plenty of sharp lines to keep him going with a full head of steam, but Murphy is the best in his two roles - playing himself, and playing a nerdy video rental store clerk.  The plot, about a producer fallen on hard times who tries to make a film with action star Murphy, doesn't let the fact that Murphy refuses to do the film stop him and engages in Hong Kong style gueurilla film-making by filming Murphy secretly.  Sounds funny already, doesn't it.  The film that they are making is called "Chubby Rain"!!  Already sounds similar to Paul Mazursky's the Pickle, but believe me it's much better.  Check out Heather Graham as the actress just off the bus from Kansas who will sleep with anybody.
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Over the Edge - Of note if only for being the film debut of a young Matt Dillon, Over the Edge is about bored pampered neglected middle-class teens who are into smoking a bit of grass and doing a bit of vandalism whenever they aren't riding BMX bikes over their suburban development wasteland and shoplifting.  A safe but unappealing setting is turned into a hell as the kids start a bit of a 1917 revolution of their own, foiling their parents plans of prosperity and stability, and class war erupts.  Matt Dillon is OK in his typical role as the cute bad kid kid with an incliation to petty crime who inspires the worship of his peers (as he played in roles from Over the Edge in 1979 to Singles in 1992), and others are fine as well.  Stupidly caricatured wide-lapel adults in the film defy reason, as they come down extra hard on their children for doing the dumb things that kids do, and then shoot themselves in the foot by shutting down the one thing that they kids have of their own (a drop-in youth center) and putting them on the streets.  Overall a decent film with a message, even if it is hard to feel the pain of middle-class kids with nothing to fight against except acute boredom.  Boyz 'n the Hood it sure ain't.
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Heavenly Creatures - Bleak true story about a gloomy girl called Pauline Yvonne Parker, played by Melanie Linskey, in 1950s New Zealand who escapes into fantasy, who is inspired by love and friendship when a new girl Juliet Marion Hulme, played by a young Kate Winslett, appears in her school.  The two girls build an entire fantasy world, complete with clay figures, even as their young lives are torn apart - first by the effects of Winslett's tuberculosis, then by her selfish parent's divorce and impending relocation, and finally by parental concern over the more intimate parts of the two girls indestructible friendship.  All of the scenes in the film are magical, perfectly wrought things, especially the ones where the inhabitants of the girl's fantasy land come to life and the girls are able to walk dreamlike around the actual castle world they have created!  The director Peter Jackson's next films will be the ambitious Lord of the Rings film trilogy, already the most expensive film project ever concieved with a budget of over $800 million.
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Black Sunday - Classic John Frankenheimer film about a terrorist attack on the Superbowl that makes use of explosives in the Goodyear blimp!  Astounding character study by a master of suspense (see the Manchurian Candidate for further proof, as well as the flawed Ronin , all of which contain stadium shootout elements), all of the main characters are brilliant - the late Robert Shaw as a Mossad agent with a ravaged soul, Bruce Dern as a vet with a bone to pick with the US government (a la John Malkovich in In the Line of Fire), and Marthe Keller as a cold-hearted Palistinian beauty who is Dern's angel of destruction.  Probably the inspiration for other stadium terrorist films such as Shuri .
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Atlantic City - One of the understated classics of cinema, Atlantic City is directed by Louis Malle and stars Susan Sarandon and Burt Lancaster as lonely people struggling to leave Atlantic City and find meaning in their lives.  As truly extraordinary circumstances combine in their respective spheres, chemistry is produced, lightning flashes, a cannon explodes...  Coming unexpectantly into a stash of stolen drugs in the middle of a dry spell, Lancaster and an unwitting Sarandon are both able to realize various small private dreams in truly astonishing ways, hailing this as one of those perfectly plotted and most elegantly crafted films out there and another reason to add to the list of why Louis Malle will be so sorely missed.  Also check out Malle's "My Dinner With Andre" star Wallace Shawn in a one-line bit part as a waiter!    Canadian TV viewers out there might be interested to see the supporting cast sprinkled with oddball Canadian personalities like Louis "Seeing Things" Del Grande and Al "the King of Kensington" Waxman, not to mention CITY TV bigwig Moses Znaimer!  Obviously, it's no coincidence that CITY TV is a major producer/sponsor of the film.
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Boys Don't Cry - The astounding but true tale of a young woman who wanted to live as a boy in the rural wilderness of white trash America and the tragedy of her (his) life.  The narrative is tight, the film's pacing never lapses, and everything about this unlikely love story comes together perfectly as it builds up in intensity at its explosive finale.  But besides being a tragedy, the film is also a beautiful love story, and the young couple in question has a wonderfully realistic fluidity and appeal.  A great movie.
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Faces - John Marley and Gena Rowlands in a rambling film about Californians who come home from work, have a few drinks, go to a party, meet some friends, meet some party girls, then go over to the girls house to continue the party.  Mostly everybody spends their time laughing good-naturedly, although all of the very long scenes are at some point punctuated by contension, anger, and raw feelings.  Similar perhaps to a Woody Allen, in terms of its middle-aged themes of divorce and new love, the dialogue and camera style could not be any more different.  See it if you can find it.
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Hot Dog...the Movie - Shameless tits and beer movie made in the '80s, in the Porkeys vein, but on an interesting ski theme.  The good guys are brash and funny, the bad guys twiddle their mustaches, the sex is utterly proposterous, and every other scene is beer-fuelled; but even so it's hard to dislike this nutty little film that would otherwise be too easy just to sneer at.  So forget about the plot, laugh at the stupid jokes and enjoy the incredible skiing which is worth the rental price.  Check out the eye-poppingly un-PC dialogue in the bar scene that deals with the mixing of a drink called "the Leg-Spreader"!!!
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Erin Brockovich - Is it Brokovitch or Brokovich?  I can never remember.  Excellent film by Stephen Soderbergh about a sassy single mother former beauty queen just getting by who stands up, takes charge, and organizes a class action case by learning on the job and making up the rules as she goes along.  Criticizing the plot is useless, since it is a true story, but hinging the case on a coincidence would have been the formulaic stretching point had it been simply a typical Hollywood blockbuster.   Julia Roberts is fine in this film, even if it is a reprisal of her first movie role in Mystic Pizza when she also played a sassy, willful girl who's not as dumb as she looks, but I say that the real star is the director who puts scenes together like magic - just watch the scene at the beginning of the film when Julis is driving away from the bank to see what I mean.  Some might disagree, though, and claim the real star of the movie is Julia Roberts' skimpy wardrobe and the specially-designed bras that keep popping out of her suddenly very ample bosom.   Interesting to speculate that a beauty queen with a killer bod could actually be run into the ground in contemporary American society, but maybe it actually did happen.  But this is not exclusively Julia Roberts' film and Aaron Eckhart is good to see in a major motion picture, albeit a bit too woeful as the biker with the heart of gold, and Albert Finney is fantastic as the lawyer with the heart of gold who's just a bit goofy...  Keep an eye out for the real Erin Brokovich, who has a cameo as a waitress in a scene about 10 minutes into the movie, her single line something like "will you be having anything yourself, miss?"
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Romeo Must Die - Half-decent crime and action film, with the unintentional comedy of its failed scenes truly undeniable, equally undeniable is the real reason to watch this film: to get a bit more of Jet Li, here in his Hollywood acting debut.  His English is fine, and his infrequent kung fu scenes pretty darn good too.  Needlessly covered up with stylistic computer graphics, he still occasionally manages to jump and swing the way fans of his Hong Kong films know and love, particularly in the brilliant opening prison break scene and the near Jackie Chan comedic football scene.  Once again Vancouver doubles for New York (see also Red Bronx) despite the fact the that two cities look nothing alike.  The Romeo and Juliet connection is nearly nonexistent, providing little more than a snazzy title, the film actually has more in common with King Lear and Richard the Third than any other Shakespeare play...
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Dogma - Ridiculous metaphysical book that doesn't do a good job of casting the pantheon of Judeo-Christian as comic book characters, and having Alanis Morrissette play the role of God is in my books more of a minus than the big plus other reviews I have read of the film have called it.  Kevin Smith gave himself too big a role in the film, although it is fine to see Jason "Jay" Mewes do more talking than he has ever done in a Kevin Smith film (he is in all of them).  The talented Alan Rickman sadly wasted too.  Not Smith's best film, falling way, way behind Clerks and Chasing Amy.
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Jesus' Son - Stitching together the Denis Johnson's brilliant short stories is no easy task, and the director Allison MacLean does a pretty good job of getting the narrative right, while applying interesting stylistic touches by telling the story out of sync.  The oddly unsatisfying casting of Billy Crudup as F.H., the loser junkie protagonist of the film, may be the its biggest flaw.  See the film if you like, it's not bad, but for God's sake please at least read the book!
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the Way of the Gun - A kidnapping drama directed by Christopher McQuarrie (red hot screenwriter of the Usual Suspects) with Ryan Phillippe and Benicio Del Toro as wandering desperadoes who kidnap surrogate mother Juliette Lewis intending to get ransom from the crooked couple whose baby it is (or might be), along with James Caan as a veteran clean-up man.  Phillippe and Del Toro play their roles smartly and rather minimally, aside from the numerous gun battles, and James Caan is extremely appealing.  The film has many problems, mainly incongruity, extreme violence, and a wretchedly dark ending, but it is spiced with moments of delicious black black black comedy as well as excellent characters... wretched lowlife scum that they may in fact be.  Caan and Del Toro's comeraderie among antagonists instantly reminds of Heat and other films like it.  Black enforcer/ bodyguard Taye Diggs, last seen in Go, has near overpowering stage presence and is a delight to see work his magic here too.  Overall a worthy film.
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A Midsummer Night's Dream - The fifth film version of the classic Shakespeare play isexactly what you'd imagine it to be, albeit mysteriously updated from ancient Athens to 19th century Italy.  Kevin Kline good as Nick Bottom, the ass, Stanley Tucci as the satyr Puck, Rupert Everett as Oberon, and Michelle Pfeiffer splendid as the pampered faerie queen Titania.  Most of the inhabitants of the human realm are less interesting, merely available for intrigues and being manipulated by the hidden spirits of the forest on a magical night.  Final play-within-a-play is funny, but anticlimactic, lessening the presence of a "Made In Hollywood" stamp that the film could never really escape from.  Catch "Allie MacBeal" star Calista Flockhart in a rare pre-anemia feature film role.
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eXistenZ - Yet another "what is virtual and what isn't" film, this time from flesh fetish director David Cronenberg.  Working from his first original screenplay since Videodrome, Cronenberg creates a mysterious virtual reality role playing game frought with danger.  Stylistically the film is great, but as it develops the appeal of the game is seriously questioned, as is the plot of the whole film itself.  Interesting spine-jacking devices to make even the most heavily-punctured body artists squirm are perhaps a highlight of the film, as are fleshy game control modules and the bio-gun that fires teeth, but these are really just props.  I wonder what we should really expect of Mr. Cronenberg these days...
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the Last Days of Disco - Very talky film about cerebral beautiful young white ivy league types starting careers in New York while witnessing the last days of disco, this is Wilt Stillman's third film in a trilogy about cerebral beautiful young white ivy league types following Metropolitan and Barcelona .  As such, it uses an unrecognizable (save for Chloe Seigny) cast, keeps the dialogue crackling, and nothing much of substance actually happens to the characters.  Most of the action happens in an unnamed disco, although the occasional late-night cafe, office, or apartment is also glimpsed.  Interesting deadpan speeches about the Disney legacy (Scrooge MacDuck, Lady and the Tramp as a moral play, and the death of Bambi's parents by hunters giving birth to the environmental movement) and the final passionate vindication of the legacy of disco.  As a plus, the film has brief cameos from some of the actual Metropolitan and Barcelona characters and that guy reprises his Barcelona role .
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Goodfellas - The ultimate Scorsese mob movie, watch Robert DeNiro and Ray Liotta age as you are taken from the '50s to the '70s through twenty years of mob history.  A perfect companion to the Sopranos, which this film borrows from heavily: the line "I had two families, one with my wife and parents, and the other with the mob," and even lifts out a few of the actual actors like Lorraine Bracco and Michael Imperiali, who plays Tony Soprano's nephew Christoper in the series.  Everything about this film is a winner, and DeNiro nearly takes over the whole film with is awesome presence as the increasingly paranoid thief Jimmy.  Check out the film's lone black actor - stooping, mumbling and lurking about, but instantly recognizable as Samuel L. Jackson.  Ray Liotta's narration throughout gives it that based-on-a-book feel, it works well given the framing story.
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Back to Back - Michael Rooker is very appealing in this cliche-ridden B-movie about a quick-tempered cop who has been suspended from his job and whose marriage has fallen apart, who nevertheless gets involved with a Japanese hitman in town to knock off a crime boss while at the same time re-establishing himself as a good father to his semi-estranged daughter.  The quick-moving plot manages to sew everything together quite well and thrown in plenty of clever surprises, although the film does borrow heavily from John Woo's the Killer.  Japanese-American actor Ryo Ishibashi is good, and Bob Cat Golthwaite has a silly cameo as a bank robber having a bad day.
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the Beach - The controversial book adaptation and Leo's first post-Titanic feature about slackers escaping society by seeking an utopic lifestyle as voluntary castaways.  Like a blend of Cast Away, Robinson Crusoe , Gilligan's Island, and Trainspotting, the film was pretty universally panned.  Despite this, I found very little to criticize it for, and often found myself comparing it with the book, which I had read before.  There are a few changes that the film makes over the book, and some of them are successful, the first one being that the main character never actually has any sex in the book, nearly unbelievable for a 21-year-old guy on a beach in Thailand.  The film clears up this point, and at the same time actually makes the ending less violent than the book's.  What the film can't do, however, is convincingly show Richard, the main character, descending into madness and psychosis a la that little voice in his head, courtesy of Robert Carlyle's character Daffy - this is finally picked up three quarters of the way through the film, way too late.  I think I have a special fondness for this film and the book since it partially mirrors my own experience in Thailand - and it things had worked out differently, I might have been Richard!
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Smilla's Sense of Snow - An X-Files espisode set in Denmark.  The film begins off well with a beautiful but emotionally detached young woman, played by the sensuous Juile Ormand, who lives in Copenhagen but is of Greenmark Inuit descent who suspects the true motive of a group of industrialists whose sphere of influence touches her world through a young Inuit boy who is murdered.  Her investivations begin when the boy, who lives in her building and is one of the only people she has befriended and grown to care for, dies falling off of the roof of their apartment building.  A suspicious misanthrope incapable of becoming close to anyone, she becomes obssessed with what she doesn't know about her environment.  She suffers the kindness of her father, played nicely by the fascinating Robert Loggia as a widower who has married a bitch younger than his daughter (?), then falls in love with a mysterious stranger who lives in her apartment.  Eventually, she gets on a ship to the polar ice shield to investigate a fallen meteorite and somehow the conclusion comes together.  Many strings ties together quite sloppily toward the end, the threats to her safety mostly appearing and disappearing or lumbering around like the Borg in Star Trek.  The least effective polar film I've seen, ranking below Map of the Human Heart , Cold Fever , and Antarctica .
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Scream - I don't like slasher films on principle, and it took me a while to build up an urge to want to see Scream.  Now that I have seen it, I'm glad that I have.  It begins with a classic slasher film scene - the brutal psycho-manipulation and murder of Drew Barrymore (who only appears in this opening scene in the film).  The rest of the film is a black comedy that uses every trick in the book to introduce clever manipulative elements to keep the viewer guessing.  Similar to an episode of the Simpsons in parts.  Awesome extended cameo by Henry Winkler, rarely seen since his time playing Fonzie in Happy Days (but also seen in the Waterboy ) - check the scene where he insults the janitor!  Interesting Tarantino/Kevin Smith moments as the film analyzes itself.  At this point it is obvious that director Wes Craven has grown disgusted with himself for making this kind of film - his following film was Scream 2 (for the money, probably, and a chance for a last laugh) and he has recently directed a non-horror with Meryl Streep (!) and a film for Bill Clinton's presidential library (!!).  A parody of horror films recently has focussed its humor on this film - as funny as that film might be, it is still parodying a parody.  The film is called Scary Movie , which ironically was also the working title of Scream and the term mentioned most often in Scream.
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Scream 2 and  Scream 3 - If you liked Scream  and are curious about the sequels, the short advice is... don't bother.  Both films are rehashes of the original without any of the irony.  Even the intriguing concept of a film within a film is wasted.  Neither of the films have anything that the first doesn't have, except that one "major" character from the first film dies in each of the sequels.  Unfortunately, it isn't Cortney Cox's annoying Gail Weathers character.  If you don't want to waste 2 hours of your life simply to find out who bites the dust, email me and I'll tell you.
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Arlington Road - A film that owes a debt to both the X-Files and the Burbs .  Jeff Bridges is a professor of American history who focuses (obssesses) about terrorism and whose FBI agent wife was killed in an FBI screw-up.  This makes him a ripe target for someone who can be victimized by a group of fundamentalists/terrorists who plan to blow up federal buildings, one of whom may be his next-door neighbor.  A film of frightening portent, the surprise ending is actually quite a shock.  In a film that veers from B to A and back again, from formulaic to blazingly original, it is odd and confusing that it appears initially to be inspired by previous efforts like Hitchcock's Rear Window, that Flintstones episode with Albert Brickrock/Alvin Bonehard (remember?), the Burbs, and who knows what else.  Changed references to Oklahmoa City, Timothy McVeigh, and the Pine Hill shootout make it all a bit dodgy.  Joan Cusack is very good reprising her role of Debbie Jellinski in Addam's Family Values.
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The Next Best Thing - Madonna and her gay friend "accidentally" have a kid together.  The first half of the film focuses on her attempts to get her life on track, the second half focuses on his relationship with his son, something few openly gay men have I suppose.  As a film like this requires a plot, things in the relationship/friendship get strange.  Happily, the more challenging part of the film features the better actor, and despite some downturns things turn out well in an almost-credible way.  Mostly recommended for people who like Madonna as a mature woman who's into yoga.
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Adam Sandler films - My wife saw the Wedding Singer and really liked it.  What a flick - cheezy '80s music and fashions (check out the Van Halen jersey - when was the last time you saw one of those), cliched plot, silly jokes.  The film is definitely carried by the immense likeability of Sandler and Drew Barrymore.  And an amusing cameo by Billy Idol who definitely deserves to be in a film like this.  I guess I liked it too.  Big Daddy was a similar funny film about the likeable Sandler with a likeable kid, full of mean jokes that make fun of people and an actual attempt by Sandler to act in a supposedly heartfelt speech at the end of a court scene (compare with Rupert Everett's in the Next Best Thing ) that may be unintentionally funny.  Perhaps at his funniest when calling out to total strangers, like the goth in the park.  Nice imitation of an underachieving college frat boy coasting through life with no worries or problems of his own.  Happy Gilmore is a hilarious sports movie about a guy called Happy Gilmore whose goal in life is to be a hockey player who is shocked and disgusted to find that his real talent is his golf swing.  Seeing Sandler hit a golf wall as if her were making a slap shot in hockey is basically worth the price of admission, and Carl Weathers as a golf coach with a wooden arm is pretty hilarious too.  Altogether, Happy Gilmore was a bit better than Sandler's next sports film, The Waterboy - an odd little film that follows Happy Gilmore closely as it has Sandler playing a Forrest Gump-like simple guy with a low IQ and special abilities, i.e. he's the best tackler the football team has ever had, hence his promotion from water boy to star player.  Lots of little things, like a decent performance by Kathy Bates, a role for the long-lost Henry Winkler (a.k.a. Fonzie - when was the least time you saw him?  Oh yeah, he was in Scream ...), and some funny one-liners.  I liked the two rural hicks in the stands - the normal-looking one was the guy with the jackass lines while the guy who looked inbred always knew what he was talking about.  Sample line: "That guy's the best runningback since Joe Montana."  "Joe Montana was a quarterback, you idiot."  "No, I meant Joe Montegna."  One of Sandler's early movies was Airheads, where he plays third fiddle to (at-that-time-bigger-stars) Brendan Frazer (groan) and Steve Buscemi (yay, Steve).  Sandler is practically not funny at all, he's just there.  The concept of the film is that a struggling rock band suddenly finds themselves unwitting highjackers of a radio station, using it to launch their rock careers.  The movie is not bad, with occasional moments of sharp humor and a good cameo from Lemmy of Motorhead, but overall this film by Heathers director Michael Lehmann doesn't live up to the director's promise.  Film is most interesting for early appearances of actors who have gone on to greater roles, such as Michael Richards (Kramer from Seinfeld), David Arquette (Dewey in the Scream movies) and others.  Made just after Airheads, with Keenan Wayans top billed, is Bulletproof .  Good clean fun with undercover Wayans selling out new best friend, hustler Sandler, in order to bring in the big dealer - James Caan.  OK comedy with some funny bits courtest of Sandler, I'm glad that both him and Wayans have more recently been able to make funnier movies than this one.  I now have to decide what I feel about Adam Sandler now - funny guy, likeable, kind of making humor in the Chevy Chase/Mike Meyers vein,  dopey, stoned, slacker humor.  I'm still amazed that this guy came out of nowhere (I'd never heard of him last time I lived in North America in 1994) and suddenly he's earning $25 million for his films, none of which are more than harmless, unambitious comedies.  Still, I'm glad for comedians like him, Mike Meyers, and even Jim Carrey - comedy was a dying art form just a few years back.  Thanks, guys.
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War and Peace - A cool film with classic performances from Henry Fonda and Audrey Hepburn, among others, although it can't quite begin to reach the scope of the novel in its mere 3 hour running time.  Doesn't quite capture the sense of the futility of war that pervades whole long sections in the novel, nor does it ever truly inspect the characters in any real depth.  May seem like a soap operatic inspection of the dalliance of young, unattached blue-bloods in the Russia of the Tsars as it was invaded by Napoleonic France.  Still dazzling in its epic scope, wild battle scenes, and senseless destruction.
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American History X - A big brother movie, except this big brother is a Nazi skinhead doing time for murder.  Comparisons instantly made to Little Odessa , especially since the little brother in both movies is played by the always-compelling Edward Furlong.  A snapshot of the worst corner of whiter American psycho-suburbia, American Beauty going to gory extremes.  Most interesting scenes investigate the soft white underbelly of the American skinhead/white supremecist movement, most touching scenes investigate the dynamics of a fallen family and the loss of innocence.  This film really has a bit of everything - black and white mixed with color (a fitting analogy considering the film's theme of black versus white), past versus present, live and death, good and bad, extemism and tolerance, whatever.
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Westworld - The old Yul Brynner classic, and the prototype for Jurassic Park about the theme-park-with-a-brain gone psycho that ends up killing its guests.  Good clean fun as Yul fulfills his role as a robot cowboy whose only purpose is to get killed repeatedly in phony gunfights again and again, he and the other robots eventually get fed up and go on a killing spree.  Despite the corny role, Yul exudes roomfuls of intoxicating charisma whenever he is on camera, leaving us rooting for him and not the human guy who exudes mid-70s esthetics and positively can't act.
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Roots - "Kunta Kinte!!!"  This fascinating 9-hour mini-series is still available on video, despite the fact that it is 25 years old.  Watch it and be fascinated by a story on this scale about the shame of America was never told like this before and hasn't been told like this since.  Marvel at the acting from famous and infamous TV personalities and '80s celebrities like O.J. Simpson, Sandy Duncan, Lavar Burton (Geordie Laforge on Star Trek: the Next Generation), Todd Bridges (Willis on Different Stokes), Scatman Crothers, Lou Gosset Jr., Ed Asner, poet Maya Angelou, Lloyd Bridges, Brad Davis (Midnight Express), Lorne Greene (Bonanza, Battlestar Galactica), George Hamilton, Robert Reed (Mr. Brady on the Brady Bunch), Vic Morrow, John Quade (often appearing in the A-Team, Fall Guy, Hill Street Blues and CHips, and the Buck Rodgers TV shows), and many others.  Telling the story of the descendants of author Alex Haley, Roots goes back to the jungles of Africa, showing the ascent to manhood of a young warrior of the Mendinka tribe, then his ascent into slavery as he is captured and put on a boat to America in the 1750s.  He is enslaved, he learns English and becomes a part of the slave culture, he tries to escape, he has a family.  Successive generations of Kunta Kinte's ancestors are portrayed, along with the indignities suffered upon them in the name of law and order at the time, and all the way up to the Civil War when they are finally freed and have to deal with the hatred of them by their former masters (also the seeds of the modern Ku Klux Klan) and move on to greener pastures.  The series begins strongly with the truly moving portrait of Kunta Kinte's loss of paradise and enslavement, but becomes weeded down in melodrama in the latter part of the series when the tales is less about slavery and more about lesser human tragedies like murder and revenge.  Since Alex Haley's death, the Roots story has become quite a controversial one as it has been revealed that he had in fact not retold the story of his true ancestors but embellished and plagiarized, with contemporary acedemics covering up for him in favor of the cultural importance of the tale he told.  It is good to know the true background of the tale, but Roots can at least still live on as the tale of countless unrecorded occurrences of just the same things that happened in Roots - the same, and worse!
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Magnolia - A recent entry in the rare sub-gendre of inter-related epic day-in-the-life, of which I can only think of Short Cuts and Twenty Bucks as another example of...  Following the fascinating Hollywood lives of two child prodigies (one in his heyday and in crisis, the other twenty years later and still in crisis), a cop, a millionaire and his golddigger with a soft heart wife, his self-centered pop-psychology TV-wonder son, a cancer-ridden quiz-show presenter, and a hard rain at the end of a hard night.  Endlessly fascinating, but in the end not quite as good as Short Cuts.  Featuring excellent repeat performances from director P.T. Thompson's other film Boogie Nights from actors John C. Reilly and Julianne Moore, two actors I could stand to see much more of.
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Vampire in Brooklyn - Wes Craven directs Eddie Murphy in a washed-out horror/comedy about a vampire in Brooklyn.  Real star of the movie is the stunning Angela Bassett, a She-Hulk with perfect teeth.  Murphy is occasionally charming as the vampire-of-undistinguished-accent, as is the comic relief with the Renfield he hires, but the special effects and the plot are not that hot.  Best scene shows the vampire in disguise as a preacher using pertty backwards logic to get a whole congreagation to shout out that evil is good!  Definitely watch this movie if you like Angela Bassett, but if you want to watch a great movie about a black vampire, check out Blade.  Oh, maybe this qualifies as a spoiler, but....... this is also one of those movies with a final scene that sets you up for a sequel that will never come.
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the Hidden - Since I always thought this was probably a crappy B-movie, I never really put the Hidden on my list of movies to watch some day.  To my surprise, a friend recommended it so enthusiastically I got curious and just had to watch the thing.  Good thing I did - this is another one of the severaly under-rated classic strange films.  Strange things are afoot as law-abiding citizens turn criminal, rob banks, blow people away mercilessly, steal fast cars, and just go nutty.  As it turns out...  Well, FBI agent Dale Cooper... er... that is an FBI agent played by Kyle MacLachlan is after the killer, picks up a local cop as guide, and then things get really strange.  One of the highlights is a very smart killer, the kind we can almost see thinking.  Watch what happens when the killer sets his eye on a statuesque stripper and then a U.S. senator!!  MacLachlan's cop partner spends the first half of the movie uttering every cop cliche in the book (which has to be worth something), and MacLachlan's deadpan responses are all spot on.  Made before the flood of similar movies like They Live, I Come In Peace, and Men In Black .
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Manhunter - Manhunter is the filmed version of Thomas Harris' "Red Dragon," directed by Michael Mann.  By virtue of the fact that Harris' Silence of the Lambs was the monster hit that everybody saw, and the fact that it now looks like Hannibal is set to be the new biggest-grossing film of all time, it's kind of odd that more people haven't seen this film, that it isn't a retro video hit, whatever.  Stranger still, Manhunter has virtually the same plot as Silence of the Lambs, while having a different actor playing the role of Hannibal Lector.  Michael Mann, known for his part in creating the cool as ice world of Miami Vice but also for directing Pacino and DeNiro in Heat, uses similar material and makes a very different movie from the one that Johnathan Demme did.  Manhunter is a cool film about an FBI agent who abandons his family to pursue a killer while engaging the sinister Dr. Lector (with whom he is still at war psychologically after bringing him to justice 3 years previously) for help/advice.  As he is in only three scenes, the Dr. Lector in Manhunter gets even less screen time than he does in Silence of the Lambs.  And while the actor playing him does well, he quite clearly has none of the living verve that Anthony Hopkins has.  Still, it is interesting to watch this film and compare it to the later "version," as it becomes crystal clear how very different these two excellent directors are.  Word has it that Red Dragon is to be made into a sequel with Sir Anthony, although that hardly seems necessary.  A prequel that shows Lector's initial capture seems more interesting than even a sequel at this point.  The inclusion of a blind woman who is threatened by the real killer puts this film in the dubious company of inferior product like Jennifer 8 and Blink .
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Gladiator - I didn't think that Gladiator was such a good movie.  It was exciting and had excellent fighting scenes and great computer graphic sets, but Russel Crowe's character fighting for Roman democracy was pretty much campy B-movie material.  This movie is (was?) listed 57 on the Internet Movie Database's top 250 films of all time, where I think it really has no place.  Director Ridley Scott's style is most apparent in portraying the sinister worm of an emperor, played well by Joaquin Phoenix, and his sinister relationship with his sister, played by the immaculately beautiful Danish actress Connie Nielson who previously played a private school teacher in Rushmore .  Russel Crowe makes a sympathetic hero, and his anger and violence seethe in the ring, but his gentle humanity and sentimentality was perhaps too stop and start to be believable.  "I am gladiator" may have already become a classic line of modern film.
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Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me - Watching the whole Twin Peaks series, plus the Fire Walk With Me prequel, requires a 25 hour time commitment, but those hours just fly by because everything about the world of Twin Peaks is totally engrossing.  This was the second time I watched it, so I was keeping my eye open for new things.  The unwrapping of the murder of Laura Palmer, as well as its further implications, is strange stuff, but always fascinating.  The series probably represents some of the best quality TV ever produced, with some of its strangest and most frightening moments as well.  That said, it is also true that there is plenty of comedy in the series, particularly of the dark kind.  Each episode contains classic lines and classic scenes.  TV of this caliber may never be seen again, although the Sopranos recently has come close.  Best scenes involve the ghostly characters from the Black Lodge and trying to understand their meaning.  If you haven't seen it all already, do yourself a favor and watch it.  Watch for the recurring motifs - twins, fire, owls, dancing, the Venus de Milo, circles, coffee, etc.  Fire Walk With me is a bit uneven as a David Lynch project, but it does have its special moments, primarily with the Black Lodge characters, as well as David Bowie's and Chris Isaac's characters.  Unfortunately, Laura Palmer is actually more interesting dead.  Hopefully a DVD will be released with the many scenes that were trimmed from this film, as many of the characters that were in the TV series had their scenes deleted in Fire Walk With Me.
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Shuri - Shuri is the Korean word for a kind of fish.  The film opens to a scene of a secret North Korean commando training camp.  The candidates in the school are put through the most brutal training I have ever seen on film, as they are regularly pitted against each other in mortal combat to see who is the toughest and most ruthless.  Then we are in modern Seoul as we meet young police officers who are on the hunt for hidden operative Shuri and trying to find out what her directive is.  They later discover that she and a team of commandos are after a new weapon developped by the Korean military.  Even later they discover her secret identity.  The film is an excellent suspense action thriller that puts all of the James Bond films to shame, largely due to the fact that conflict between North and South in Korea is very serious business.  Retarded American films like the Siege don't even have any issues compared to the reality of the situation described in Shuri.  Bond villains are ultimately after money or power or sadistic violence, but the villains in Shuri are more than anything idealists who are sick of seeing excess in the South while their comrades starve in the North.  Shuri is interesting, well-acted, well-scripted and developped, has excellent stunts and explosions, is not gratuitously violent, and makes me want to see more Korean films.  No source on the IMDB yet
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Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses - More Leningrad Cowboy fun from Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki, this time the Leningrad Cowboys become real Mexican cowboys, and they are still the worst band in the world.  Their evil manager shows up again, now calling himsels Moses, and hatches a grim plan to return them to their homes.  Lots of grim, deadpan humor, and choppy editing in the Kaurismaki fashion.  Perhaps not as funny as the first Leningrad Cowboys film, but then again that was too strange a film to really be ha-ha funny too.  One of a kind.
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Waiting For  Guffman - This is a mockumentary of the dreams of the people of a small town as they prepare a play for a town festival that is to be reviewed on opening night by an influential New York film critic, Guffman.  All of the participants are interviewed and we see the development of their play.  Everything that they say or act out is hilarious, but they do it serious and deadpan in a way that pokes serious fun at documentaries and the way that they are made.  This film is funny from beginning to end and full of memorable lines like "Corky can sing and act, and the only other person who can do that is Barbara Streisand."  Impossible to believe that real people could ever have been as self-deluded as this, but then again truth is stranger than fiction.  Christopher Guest, the director and star, has a new movie out about dog show culture, which was a spoof just waiting to happen.  See all of his films.
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Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous  Stains - This is a rock 'n' roll movie about a fictional all-girls punk band, starring a very young Diane Lane and  , as they become a national frenzy while on tour with a phony punk band that has just been released from their opening spot on a tour for phony washed-up rock stars.  Lots of good character development, some good music, some comedy, some passion, and only a little bad acting.  The Stains would have been a cool band had they been a real band, and just that shows how the film works.
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the Bone Collector - These are probably the two worst movies I had to watch this year.  They are bad for different reasons, but the worst thing is that not only did I see them both in the same week, but I actually paid video rental fees for both of them!  Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is based on a book by Hunter S. Thompson that I have read twice but never enjoyed (I know people who swear by the book - they probably enjoyed the movie as well).  If you like watching people out of control on drugs, destroying hotel rooms, vomitting, walking crooked, whatever, then you might appreciate this movie.  Anybody with extensive drug experience might understand this film better than I did, but what kind of a goal is that for a film project like this one?  I believe it to be a waste of time for the talented people involved in watching it, as well as anyone who takes the time to watch it, but I looked at the viewer comments for this film on the net and I see that a lot of people loved this film and could relate closely to it, maybe liking it enough to watch it repeatedly, hmmmm...  The Bone Collector is a film that tried to use a big cast to make a B-movie about a serial killer, a la Silence of the Lambs and Copycat .  The Bone Collector is the most like Copycat, in that it wastes the talents of the stars, and also puts one of them trapped in a room while a masochistic assistant does the legwork.  Both end with a confrontation in the home of the helplessly housebound Academy award nominee.  Nothing about this film was good, although some people did enjoy Angeline Jolie's puffy lips.  I liked the weak Twin Peaks ripoffs (i.e. cryptic clues left at the murder scene) better.  Again, viewer comments on Amazon and IMDB rave about what a clever film this was.  Yeesh...
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El  Mariachi - El Mariachi is a short film by Paul Rodriguez, the director who went on to film Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn.  It is the story of a desert town in Mexico and a young musician who comes into town.  He becomes involved with feuding gangsters, meets a girl, falls in love, and has to fight for his life.  There is a case of mistaken identity.  Thinking about this, Desperado is a kind of remake of El Mariachi, but in fact the films are quite different in style and content.  El Mariachi is probably the better of the two, since Desperado is over the top in a Rambo kind of way.  El Mariachi is short and sweet, funny, and in the end we care more about the hero than we do about Antonio Banderas.  If you have seen Desperado and liked it but didn't know about this film, try to find it and watch it.
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Shivers , Rabid , and the Brood - These are the first three films of David Cronenberg, films he released before he became well known with his breakthrough hit "Scanners."  All of these films have better acting than you find in Scanners, and the same gritty, dark, wintery Canadian feel.  Shivers is about sexual mania in an apartment complex in Montreal, Rabid is about vampires on the loose in Montreal and stars the lovely Marilyn Chambers, and the Brood is a freaky psychological horror.  All of the movies are very well-scripted and full of creepy chills.  It is even more interesting that the development of ideas are based more on medicine and science than hocus-pocus and Cronenberg always tries to ground his monsters with some sort of medical basis.  He never disappoints even with his early efforts, and these movies should not be missed.
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Clerks - Clerks is one of those rare films that is almost totally based on dialogue, and great dialogue at that.  As the title indicates, it is about the life of clerks, convenience store and video store clerks respectively, and what happens to them in one relatively eventful day on the shift.  It is like a film by a slummin' Whit Stillman, or Woody Allen with an NHL attitude.  It looks like shit because it was filmed with no budget, but that's why it is great like Roadkill , one of my favorite movies.  Almost all of the scenes work, so who cares if the lead guy can't act?  Extra points go out to getting around the fact that the film-maker couldn't have the gates open at his place of work (the convenience store) and for having a hocky game happen in the middle of the film.
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Gummo - A surrealistic trip into the bleak southern world of rural Virginia (or is it Alabama?).  The director, who also wrote the screenplay for  Kids but was passed over by the studios for directing in favor of Larry Clark, has a weird sense of narrative and camera style.  The protagonists are the oddest set of misfits ever committed to film and they lurch about weirdly killing cats, bullying each other, grimacing psychopathically, or just fixing sandwiches and taking baths.  Rural southern poverty is disturbing, as is the scenes of basements filled with decades of accumulated junk, to a quirky soundtrack of eclectic southern music, death metal, grindcore, ukelele...
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They Live - They Live is another B-movie directed by John Carpenter.  It is about people with conspiracy theories, but the conspiracy that they uncover is stranger than any yet.  They discover that the yuppie population of suits and bourgeoisie has been infiltrated by aliens, and you can find out about them and the subliminal advertisin that programs humans into consumer sheep if you have a little help from...  It is interesting to watch the protagonists discover just what a sick world we live in, and the film gets stranger and stranger as the film progresses.  Good fight between the two main leads as they bash each other's brains out trying to show how they're really doing the other a favor!  Plenty of cheezy black humor.  And if you're still not convinced, wait for that last scene...
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12 Monkeys - Another one of those films you have to watch twice (along with the Usual Suspects), 12 Monkeys is a very wild little psycho-drama about a time traveller who must unravel the secret of his world's destruction.  The hero is played by a super strong psychopathic Bruce Willis, accompanied by the most beautiful woman in Hollywood Madeline Stowe.  He trips back and forth between the future and the past and learns as we learn about the fate of the world.  A manic Brad Pitt is also on hand to put in an inspired performance as a lunatic (yet quite different from the lunatic he played in the excellent Kalifornia).  Director Terry Gilliam's bleak cityscapes are viscerally beautiful, as is his odd chaotic/lyrical vision of an apocalyptic future, and his interpretation of "the child is the father of the man" scenario that James Cameron developped unsuccessfully in this film's "seperated at birth bastard twin" Terminator 2 is masterful indeed.  Check it out if you haven't already.
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First Blood - The first of the Rambo movies, this one started an '80s dynasty, for what that's worth.  The film is fine and full of great action, especially when considering the rumor that stuntman Sylvester Stallone broke ribs in some of this stunts.  Still watchable nearly 20 years later.  I had no problem but some people claim to not be able to understand Stallones's speech, so pay attention.  As a keener bonus, try to read the book - Rambo kills nearly everyone he can in it, and he escapes jail riding a motorcycle naked!  Now that's definitely something that they should have kept in the film.
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Rushmore - A film that I thought would be a little sharper, Rushmore is about a young boy called Max, studying in a preporatory school on a scholarship, and the things that shape his young life.  It attempts a surreal verite interpretation of life in a strange boys world, finally imploding into quirky silliness.  Great acting by Bill Murray (perhaps his first real chance since Mad Dog and Glory, an overlooked film from a few years ago), and one of the most beautiful female leads ever seen on film - melt into those eyes.
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American Beauty - A problematic Osacar winner, a live-it-or-hate-it film like nearly no other in a while, American Beauty tells the tale of a suburban loser and the oddballs he entangles himself with - a wife, a daughter, nutty neighbors and co-workers.  While he blames himself for being a failure, what only the viewer realizes is that he is the only sane/normal person in his world, a world destroyed by the mediocrity of suburbia.  How can he help the fact that he lives surrounded by gun toting maniacs?  The film tells the tale of the last year of his life compellingly, introducing the characters that shape it slowly and methodically, if at times manipulating the viewer to try to second-guess the ending - good luck.  Nice, tight plot, good acting, and a setting that probably many of us can relate to.
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the Straight Story - A David Lynch film like no other, focussed as carefully on a single character as no film he has done since Eraserhead, this film tells the true story of Alvin Straight.  Richard Farnsworth plays Straight, and at the same time commits to film the most endearing character to ever appear in a David Lynch film.  The film still manages to find place for the trademark quirky/spooky/deranged imagery that Lynch is famous for, but it is also full of tender moments and wisdom.  The film tells the tale of Alvin as he drives from his home to that of his brother several hundred miles away on a tractor mower.  The trip that would take a day instead takes several months, and the telling of this tale creates a road movie like no other.  Sissy Spaceck makes a welcome appearance as his daughter Rose, who suffers from a strange speech impediment that causes her to hang on her words.  Still, Richard Farnsworth is the life of this film - if you don't recognize the name, it means you haven't seen the film.
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Kingdom - Called Riget in Danish, this film is from a Danish TV series directed by Wunderkind Lars van Trier.  It concerns a large hospital, young doctors, and some ghosts.  It was difficult for me to understand the dialogue, as it was in Danish and I was watching a version that only had Japanese subtitles, but the languid pacing and general lack of interesting material left me pretty sleepy.  A horror film for insomniacs, perhaps?
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Chasing Amy - A film about a young couple in love.  They go through hi-jinks like nearly no other film couple as homosexuality, promiscuity, and the enthralling world of underground comic books threaten to tear them apart.  A Kevin Smith film not quite as cerebral as the mighty Clerks, this one still manages to throw the viewer for a few loops despite the odd problem with slow pacing or wooden situations.  Might have been better as a slightly shorter movie.  Bonus points if you like bearded twenty-something guys, this is the movie for you!
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Chasing  Amy - Chasing Amy is a love story, but it is as unusual a love story as you'll ever find.  There is a secret and a twist and a surprise ending.  This is more plot than you'd expect from Kevin Smith, the guy who gave us Clerks.  As is usual with his films (we know now), they are all self-referential, so you hear about the incident that occurred in the bathroom in Clerks and other things, Jay and (not so) Silent Bob are in the film, and the two male leads wear rediculous beards/goatees.  Maybe there was a visual pun in there somewhere, I don't know.  I am still undecided if this film was over-acted, or if the lead couple was not credible.  As often happens, I think the best acting came from the character who annoyed me the most - it may not be acting on his part, but for him to affect me that adversely must show some sort of intent as well as talent.  And I still think Kevin Smith looks like my friend Chris.
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Casper - I was certain I wouldn't enjoy this film, until I saw all of the great cameos (Don Novello as Father Guido Sarducci the "exorcist", Dan Ackroyd as a Ghostbuster, Mel Gibson as himself, and others) and the campy acting by Faye Dunaway and Eric Idle - then I was hooked.  A young Christina Ricci is almost as interesting to watch in a children's fantasy tals as an adult Christina Ricci is in a stylish piece of noir by a trendy director, and the computer animated ghosts are a hoot as well.  Even Mr. Bland Bill what's-his-name can't bring this film down (he's clearly best as a supporting character anyway, just watch the Accidental Tourist again) and nice nice Casper doesn't miss a chance to pull on the heart stings.  It's all there.  If you have to watch a movie with a kid, try to make sure it's this one - you'll enjoy it as well.
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M - The fantastic first sound film of the great German director Fritz Lang, M is the tale of a child-murderer being hunted on the streets of London.  The good crooks of Berlin, when finding that their turf is being squeezed by cops hunting a killer, nobly take matters into their own hands and hunt the kiler themselves.  A harrowing chase and a chilling kangaroo court trial are only some of the highlights of this incredible film.  Peter Lorre's sense of panic and mad frustration become our own as his impeccable acting literally spills out of the screen and onto the floor in front of your TV set.  Not a film to be missed by anyone.  Home of the classic line "you don't know what it's like to be me!"  Ageless.
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Being John Malkovich - For the last few years, it seems like every year there have been a few films that were so fresh and innovative that they became buzzwords on their own and everybody had to see them.  American Beauty , the Blair Witch Project, Magnolia and others.  This year it has been this film, full of more surprising scenes than any other film I can remember ever seeing.  To write about this film is like dancing about architecture, it really must be seen.  This film made me feel different going out of it than going in, that is apparently what the sensation of being in John Malkovich's head can do to you.  I'd like to know who they pitched the movie to besides John Malkovich.  Can you imagine "Being Charlie Sheen"?
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Xiu Xiu - the Sent Down Girl - Chinese film debut of Twin Peaks star Joan Chen.  The radiantly beautiful and pure Xiu Xiu is one of millions of young Chinese who were dispatched to the countryside in the Sixties to work towards bridging the gap between urban and rural lifestyles.  In her case she is sent to the most rural of all possible locations, the middle of nowhere in the foothills of Tibet, where she is to help the salty Lao Jin develop his land into a ranch.  It is the story of someone who has reached the end of the earth and finds that there is no way back.  The end of the earth is a beautiful place, but unfortunately Xiu Xiu is a young girl with a future ahead of her.  Lao Jin is an old man, rumored to have been castrated for some crime twenty years earlier.  He is a beautiful soul, and Xiu Xiu is also one of the lushest, most glorious individuals I have ever seen on film.  This film also may be one of the most beautiful I have ever seen from China, easily as good as Red Sorghum or any of Zhang Yimou's best.  Must be better than Joan Chen's follow-up to this film, Autumn in New York. There is nothing more I can say about Xiu Xiu, I bow my head...
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the Guyver 2: Dark Hero - The Guyver - where Spawn meets  H.R. Giger.  Based on a Japanese manga series about a man cursed with an attachment to a mysterious bio-suit that he uses to stomp creepy-crawly aliens disguised as humans, the original movie featured Mark Hamill as a CIA agent who turns into a cockroach.  The sequel stars newcomer David Hayter and hits all the buttons - opening fight scene, short tempers, inner torment, sweating, contorted faces, betrayals, revelations, a love interest, and exploding pickup trucks.  In these ways it is no different than an episode of Magnum P.I.  The plot follows a young man, Sean Barker, who is tormented by the Guyver suit that takes over his body and allows him to kick the ass of any evil-doers, like the gang of thieves in the opening sequence, although it doesn’t seem to give him the power to save innocent bystanders.  While watching TV one day, Sean learns that an archeological team has found strange drawings on a cave wall – they happen to be identical to the ones that he finds himself doodling endlessly for no apparent reason.  Sean goes on a mission to discover the truth about himself and ends up becoming part of the team and the thing that they are excavating.  It would probably be a good idea to approach this film with low expectations regarding the plot, though, since it has other rewards – wildly lethal body armor, cool creature effects, great fight choreography, nice set design, maybe even some competent acting.  At one point, so many mysterious characters had been introduced that I didn’t know what was happening and the plot actually seemed very interesting.  Overall the effect the movie has is quite pleasing, although it is also true that the special effect and fight scenes can be broken down into the ones that remind the viewer of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, and which ones don't.  The fight scenes and special effects do build in intensity, and towards the end the film is more like a full-on Hong Kong action film than a B-movie sequel, and the result is a pretty cool flick... except for the exploding pick-up, that is.
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Another Day In Paradise - Another film by Larry Clark, who seems to have a career in film ahead of him after the "success" of Kids.  Starring a beautiful young couple with miles of young flesh who are intent to embark on a life of crime and drug addiction, as well as their mentors in their chosen lifestyle portrayed by James Woods and Melanie Griffith.  Despite the needles and injections, Woods and Griffiths steer their roles as Woods and Griffiths would (Woods: nice guy/bad guy.  Griffiths: pleasure-loving but strong).  As it takes shape into being a heist-gone-wrong movie, Lou Diamond Phillips enters the film as a gay bar manager who is some sort of uber-hood, and the film takes plenty of expected/unexpected turns.  Of particular note for the great lighting.  Final scene would have been better if the corn had been higher, but I guess the crew couldn't linger on the set for another couple of months...
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Gattaca - A. C.  G.  T.  We now know these as the names of the molecules that make up human D.N.A., as well as the title of the film and the name of the corporation of the film.  In an excellent framing narrative of this film (perhaps better than the film itself deserves), Ethan Hawke brings us up-to-date with himself plus the state of the world some years from now, when D.N.A. is everything.  A plausible/intelligent future-of-humanity film (along the lines of Soylent Green but painting a slightly brighter picture), Gattaca starts off as a conspiracy tale of Olympic proportions that becomes a murder mystery and a morality tale.  Reviewers seemed to have had higher hopes for this film in general, according to what I have read about it so far.  Jude Law is very good as a fallen Olympian.  Not a bad film, although it is rather stylish and dowdy with its efforts to portray yuppies of the coming century along with their concerns.  If we look carefully, we might discover that this films is merely a remake of the Secret of my Success with a new flavor-of-the-month actor + Uma Thurman.  Maybe that's being a bit cruel, since I generally approve of this film, despite it being the type of high concept film that compels the reviewer to find fault with it (hence the general trend to...).  Enhanced by good performances by Ernest Borgnine and Gore Vidal (!).
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Cascadeur - Remember when you saw the previews for that Charlie Sheen/Nastassja Kinski film Terminal Velocity and you couldn't believe the stunts that they melded to the plot, and resolved that you would see the film no matter how bad the movie itself was?  Well, this is exactly the same type of film.  Austensibly about an Indiana Jones-like quest for a lost Russian treasure (that adds to the ante with a few Naxi treasures of its own) that follows a trail of cryptic cyphers, the film is actually more of an excuse for incredible stunts that attempt to "out-Jackie Chan" Jackie Chan himself.  This is not to say that the plot sucks - it is actually quite intelligent (in a ridiculous sort of way), but it must still stand in the shadow of the stunts themselves.  I enjoyed this film from beginning to end, although I fail to see how a go-cart can pace a huge motorcycle on a crowded highway.  Check out the review on the Internet Movie Databast and learn about the shame of a very serious German movie-goer who is sorry that this movie was ever made.  Hee-yuck.
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Little Odessa - Jewish Russian hitman (Tim Roth) goes back to his home ground on business (for reasons that are never really made clear) and clears the air on all of his old baggage.  Complex characterizations abound, the scenes are nothing but beautiful, grim, and stark.  Edward Furlong fine as his young and influencable brother.  Filmed in winter for full effect.
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Pecker - A John Waters film about the irresistably likeable Pecker, and his quest to take great pictures in Minneapolis.  Along the way he manages to upstage the pretentious New York art world, but that isn't nearly as important to him as having a laugh with his slacker friends: among them Christina Ricci, his coin laundry-operating girlfriend who takes her job way too seriously, his fag-hag sister and her gay stripper friends, his best buddy whose only true gift is shoplifting, his demented grandmother and her talking Mary doll, his second-hand clothing clerk mother and bartender father, etc. etc., not to mention various cops, strippers, and shopkeepers.  As enjoyable as any of Waters' films, perhaps just a little more so.
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Mildred Pierce - The Joan Crawford classic, with her exuding raw star power even when she plays a humble housewife.  Following her life as she goes through a divorce, then searches for a job to accomodate her horribly obnoxious upwardly mobile bourgeois snob of a daughter, who hates her mother for working for a living.  Nice check-shredding scene.  Framed as a murder mystery, but more about her development as a character than any kind of murder.  Unfortunately, the murder investigation framework allows a police inspector to hog scenes in the opening and closing parts of the film and ham up the screen in one of the worst performances I remember.  Daughter Ida is beautiful and incredibly unsympathetic, sleazy opportunist Monty Beragon delightfully slimy, the other men in Mildred's life also suitably awful.  "Mildred Pierce" was later made into a really sharp song by Sonic Youth.
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Sunset Blvd. - Literally and figuratively.  An early example of a great black comedy, as creepy and funny as the Addams Family, yet also as sinister and steadily unsettling as Body Heat or Apartment Zero.  Opening with a body floating in a pool, the story is narrated by William Holden and follows his screenwriter character as he moves around Hollywood escaping creditors until he comes upon the dilapidated mansion of aging silent screen legend and bitter recluse Norma Desmond and interrupts the funeral for her dead chimpanzee.  The film gets steadily stranger and stranger as Holden accepts the job of editing Norma's comeback script and his new lease on life becomes his life.  Gloris Swanson plays a delicious vamp, and silent screen director Erich von Stroheim plays her "butler," Max.  By the end we know all about the floating body in the pool, but that is secondary to the film's real finale, which can only be described as one of the darkest, most richly entertaining scenes of film noir.
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Sleepy Hollow - Grimy gothic thriller by Tim Burton.  Redefines the term "style over substance."  A-list actors were not required to make this film.  Occasional moments of cheap, grisly humor only "redeeming value."  Should be regarded as Tim Burton's Showgirls.  Check out the Scooby Doo ending.
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Little Voice - Excellent film about a shy girl Laura, who everybody calls Little Voice, living in a small English village, who is discovered by fallen svengali Michael Caine to be one of the most talented voices this side of Ella Fitzgerald.  Raised on a steady diet of big band records (Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey, and Marilyn Monroe in particular), her only inheritance from her dear departed dad, Little Voice speaks in a shy murmur of despair, but sings with her heart on fire.  When forces contrive to put her onstage where she "belongs," she becomes an instant hit.  But trying to exploit her natural talents against the will of her shaky mental state proves to be a feat too large for any one person.  The highlight of the film is Little Voice, played by Jane Horrocks, who sang all of her old parts.  The scenes where something snaps in Little Voice's mind and she uses stage characters to verbally pummel her tormentors should become classics.
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8mm - What I came to understand to be one of the worst movies of the year turned out to be not that bad at all - it was thoroughly creepy... in a good way.  Following private Nicolas Cage as he is paid to investigate the legitimacy of an apparent snuff film, the film tries to be even darker and slimier than Seven.  Joaquin Phoenix is quite good as a porn shop clerk who helps Cage explore the soft white underbelly of the porn world, as is James Gandolfini in a role as a guy much more corrupt than family man Tony Soprano.  About five things could have been changed to this movie to actually make it great, but there is no way that this movie is even a fraction as bad as the wretched Sleepy Hollow.  This doesn't mean you really need to see this film.  Funny, I usually hate Joel Schumacher films.
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X-Men - Finally I get to review a current film and ho ho, it's a film about my favorite superheroes comic book (high school days) directed by Brian Singer and written by my old primary school buddy and fellow X-Men fan David Hayter.  One of the most enjoyable comic book adaptations as a film, as slick and smoothe as Spawn.  Serious X-Men fans might be dissatisfied, but I believe that this film has taken the best of the series and improved on it (the concept of the mutant, Professor Xaviers School of Gifted Mutants full of teenagers with wild powers, an emphasis on developping the character of Wolverine, villains like Sabretooth and an improved Toad and Mystique) and gotten rid of some of the worst things (lame characters like Henry Peter Gyrich and Senator Kelley, lame X-Men like Nightcrawler and Colossus, less emphasis on potentially lame characters like Cyclops and Professor X, and a younger Rogue that works better onscreen than she does in the comic) that clutter up the series.  Great casting overall (particularly Wolverine, Storm, Jean Grey), great special effects, good pacing, good enough story.  While X-Men sequels were practically garuanteed from the beginning, this film is self-contained and more similar to a single comic book than a part of a long epic story and that's just fine in my books.
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Unhook the Stars - Gena Rowlands in a film directed by her son Nick in the style of her late husband John about a sensitive, worrying mother whose own daughter leaves home in disgust at the beginning of the film.  The rest of the film is about her getting to know her messed-up neighbor, a young mother in a stormy relationship, and babysitting her kid.  Wry and charming and rarely manipulative, this film will probably make the personal favorite lists of most people who watch it.  With Gerard Depardieu as a Quebecois trucker and Jake Lloyd in his acting debut at age 7.
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Pi - A film about a tormented genius called Max Cohen in a modern-day math mystery.  As unsettling in parts as Tetsuo, the film often blacks in and out with the main character as it attempts to get inside his head - not only is our unpleasant egoist trying to uncover a deep, universal truth grand consolidation theory at the heart of the irreglar number 3.14 (etc. etc.), but he suffers from crippling migraine headaches and manages to find himself at the heart of two or three conspiracies.  While some not all of the ideas are original (the "innocent man involved with a conspiracy he knew nothing about" had already been a cliche already for years and years before it was first used in the Flintstones cartoon series), that doesn't stop this film from having more style and substance than almost any other film around.  Main character may be the most unpleasant hero in film, topping even Vincent Gallo in Buffalo 66.  Supporting characters are also outsanding throughout, particularly the charming/demonic publicist Marcy Dawson, the exotically beautiful Indian neighbor Devi whose honest friendship Max spurs, and also the fellow Jewish numerologist Lenny Meyer on a mission for a Talmudic society who also knows a thing or two about numbers.  Especially admirable for the record low budget it was made on.
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Ghost Dog - a deep stylish film by Jim Jarmusch, reminiscent in many ways of Luc Besson's Leon.  Cool tunes, deep vibes, languid pacing, and bloody action in this tale of a doomed assassin who considers it a essential to live by medieval (i.e. long-dead) standards of honor.  Great minor characters, ingenious assassinations, plenty of trademarked Jarmusch urban humor, and great minor characters among them a young black girl who loves to read, a Spanish ship-builder, a native-American pidgeon handler, and a Haitian ice-cream seller and Ghost Dog's best friend.  Deserves to be a new cultural icon even more then Leon does.  Available on video in Japan since summer 2000.
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Conan the Destroyer - Not a fantastic film by any stretch of the imagination, but full of great characters and enough unintentional humor to keep anyone going.  Just because you didn't see this when it was relevant (was it ever relevant?) should not stop you from watching it.  I mean, Wilt Chamberlain is dead now, and you'll never have another chance to see him in a film with Grace Jones and Arnold Schwartzenegger.  More comic book than a real comic book, particularly the ending.
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Summer of Sam - A long wanking movie with an interesting premise: the lives of New Yorkers during the summer that David Berkowitz was at large killing young women.  Sexy and at times able to develop interesting charcters, this film is probably only of real interest to New Yorkers over 30.  The rest of the world can watch a different Spike Lee Joint, or some better film that actually has something to say about the human condition...
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Eyes Wide Shut - This is it, isn't it?  This is the movie to review, the toughest nut to crack.  I waited for a long time to see this movie, and maybe it was like sitting on my hands.  I have seen every Stanley Kubrick except for Barry Lydon (the only title not available on video in the video stores I go to in Japan) and although I like them all, I am no fanatic.  I had already had an issue about this new movie before I saw it - I really dislike Tom Cruise, and wonder why any serious director would ever use him.  Then there was that dumb Time issue - "Tom and Nicole Like You've Never Seen Them Before."  Like they had to stop the presses for that one!  It smelled like phony baloney from a mile away.  All this is besides the fact that everybody I knew who saw it said it was awful, and avid Kubrick fans came off as limp apologists in its defense.  Now a year after all the hype, I finally sit down and watch this movie on video, not really knowing what to expect... but expecting the worst nonetheless.  I watched it and found it 100% worthy of the Kubrick oeuvre.  It was also a fascinating movie, and one I will not soon forget.  To make a crude analogy I have to think about films like Ghost, Event Horizon and the Devil's Advocate - flawed morality plays that left me shaken nonetheless; but Eyes Wide Shut should not be compared to these movies at all, since it in fact transcended them quite utterly.  While I was watching it I had to think of a million different themes from dozens of other movies, among them Tom Cruise's own the Firm (family is threatened as "hero" gets pulled into a web of lies), as well as Rosemary's Baby , Vampire's Kiss and the Devil's Advocate, not to mention the silly manipulation of the Game and the representation of a Heironymous Bosch painting as a tableau vivant.  Or how about a serious version of After Hours ?  But Kubrick films are in a totally different realm, and it is obvious just watching this film.  As I was watching the movie I found myself analyzing it in strange ways - is this gratuitous, or is it the mark of a master?  I have never been to London or New York, but I have heard that the midnight streets of London were made up to look like Greenwich Village - how realistic are those scenes?  Are the superfluous scenes important or are the important scenes superfluous?  Were all the scenes in the film shot 40 or 50 times - even the one of Tom and Nicole walking out of their apartment?  And how much of the movie was created/edited posthumously (most significantly the final scenes)?  And just what are the dark priests saying backwards during the evil scene?  But after a while none of this seemed important.  I forgot about the phony opening shot that establishes just what a gorgeous body Nicole Kidman has.  I got over the "rich people who suffer from problems don't have my sympathy" thing.  And after a while I even stopped noticing how Tom Cruise was acting the same character he has always acted in every movie he has been in (using the same mannerisms, same speech, etc.) as he lusts after women with perfect bodies while he has a woman with a perfect body waiting for him at home... and just enjoyed the plot and the mystery and the dumb sympathetic/unsympathetic characters.  Wow.  And then I realized that it was a totally creepy movie full of obvious plays of the hand and gimmicks.  Many of the "superflous" scenes display this, such as the excessive sexual baiting of the characrer.  More happens to this man in a 48-hour period than happens to most people in their lifetimes, yet he seems to have led an uninteresting life up 'till that point.  This is a very problematic movie that was very beautifully shot.  Since it was imperfect it left lots of dumb questions unanswered... but I guess in the end I prefer that to a "perfect" movie that leaves me dazed and weak.  It is an odd cap to a long and brilliant (other people's words) career.  Kubrick was notoriously thorough in his thought and planning and method and technique.  Nothing important could have gone unnoticed.  And this is his movie.
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The Blair Witch Project and Curse of the Blair Witch - The Blair Witch Project is the spooky new film that mixs horror with cinema verite, by not the plot is well-known and street news and infamy leave few surprises.  On top of this, the video-cam "cinematography" (if it can be called that) and annoying personality conflicts, raw nerves, and panic tend to wear on the viewer.  Luckily it is short, and gets down to it without too much fat - short and sweet.  This is a tense and scary film and a horror the way they should be - mysterious, dream-like (nightmare-like).  The legend built up around the Blair Witch, and all the references to "her" make it seem like there is a real witch involved, although none is ever seen.  The same is done to fine effect in the Japanese Ring series of films with the enigmatic witch Sadako.  Despite its obvious flaws, this is an original and well-made film.  The Curse of the Blair Witch is a documentary about the film and the events which led up to it, almost making it feel like a mocumentary about a mocumentary.  It covers a lot of the territory of the film itself, and should probably be seen after the film.  Coolest part may be the "clips" of a Sixties documentary about witches, and shows an interview with a hippy witch who discusses the Blair Witch legend.  Some subtleties are revealed that add to the story-as-we-know-it.  As a mockumentary is it interesting and well-made, but altogether it is still funny to think that some people really believe that this is a true story - a quick look at the IMDB links for the movie (above) shows that the three actors involved have been in film projects since they supposedly disappeared in the black hills.
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Celebrity - The new film by Woody Allen that features Leonardo DiCaprio in a quick scene playing himself.  This time Kenneth Branagh plays the lovable loser of the Woody Allen genre, roles that have been played by everybody from Gena Rowlands to John Cusack to Michael Caine to Mia Farrow herself... except that Branagh is not really so lovable.  Cameos by Winona Ryder and Charlize Theron are fine.  Judy Davis over-acts very convincingly, and Joe Mantegna reprises his Alice role.  Hits some of the marks of other better Allen films, but ultimately is rather empty.
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200 Motels - A wacky movie that just goes on and on.  Frank Zappa only appears in musical scenes playing the guitar, while Ringo Starr performs as Frank (with Frank's hair and beard and sweater) in other scenes.  Sicko weirdo Zappa groupies like Pamela DesBarres and Bianca Jagger star topless, while Keith Moon is there as a perverted nun.  Nutty film if you think of it as a film.  Great performances by the Mothers of Invention, sixties music like you never knew if you only know classic rock radio.  Gets better toward the end, but bless you if you have the patience.
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Buffalo 66 - You don't see movies like this very often - totally unsympathetic characters in a John Cassavetes-like film, not to mention the brilliant use of a forgotten Yes classic song (I used to listen to Yes in high school, yet had forgotten that incredible bass riff).  Great from beginning to end, even if you are saying to yourself "what the heck?" the whole time.  Angeilica Huston is barely recognizable in this film.  Anyone who has grown up in suburbia can surely relate much much  more to this film than almost any other film set in suburbia.  I don't even know what comes close.  Opening scene is in front of a prison as the main character gets out of "the big house."  How many other scenes have started off with a guy getting out of jail?  In contrast, how many films have ended with a scene of a guy goin into jail?  This is all irrelevant to the film.  Before you saw this film how much did you know about it?  If you haven't seen this film, how much do you know about it?  If the answer is "almost nothing" then you are just like me.  It is imprtant to not know much about this film going in, or it will hold no surprises.  Awesome...
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12 Angry Men - One of the best movies I have ever seen.  One-setting film makes it feel like a play, but effort is made to remove claustropobia by making every camera angle unique.  In the age of O.J. Simpson etc. trials, this is an important film to see.  The difference between the characters is established in the opening scens of the film, but it really takes off in unbelievable intensity as the film progressess.  A young man is accused of murdering his father (Brothers Karamazov situation), but none of the details of the trial are made available at the beginning of the movie - it just goes straight to the jury chamber.  All of the details of the trial come out circumstantially as the argument in the jury room continues - everyone is ready to convict except for one.  As it turns out, he is the only one who has been paying attention during the trial, which raises questions about group dynamics... without any real revelations of course!  One of the tensest and most worthwhile films I have ever seen, a real wonder of screenwriting and acting.  There are 12 angry men, and you really feel like there are twelve!
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A Knife in the Water - A film set on a sailboat.  Danger and suspicion and tension and sexual situations and other fun things. An early Roman Polanski film that looks and feels more like a true European film (a character study that is generally uneventful) than a Roman Polanski film, it is nevertheless interesting to watch Polish-born Polanski direct Polish actors.  It also demonstrates some of the monotony and listnessness of being stuck on a sailboat on a windless day, certainly one of the only films to ever do so.
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Go - A little-more-than-a-day-in-the-life of Hollywood slacker types, involving some sex and a trip to Las Vegas with hip dialogue and great music.  Sound like Swingers yet?  This time none of the characters are aspiring actors (although all of the roles are acted by real aspiring actors), the music is techno, there are more drugs than alcohol, and there is a gay couple involved in a sting operation.  A fine film, one of those that answers its mysteries as it creates them, and finally comes satisfyingly full-circle.  This time the whole screenplay is as good as its dialogue.  Best point is the casting of the entrancing Sarah Polley, this time playing a beautiful, wretched bitch to her earthly angel in the Sweet Hereafter .  Wow!
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the Red Violin - A wise art film that traces the tale of a certain red violin and its gory history... meaning the gory history of some of the people who played it.  Not everyone who played it has an interesting history, but the film focuses on four or five of the people involved in it.  To glue it together, there is a framing story of the violin's discovery, its restoration, and its auction.  The modern-day portion features Samuel Jackson as a very believable art historian working for the auctioneers, and he is just as convincing as a passionate music lover as he is as a sleazy hood in other high-profile films that made him famous.  Great cinematography as the film-makers show the violin being played by different people who blend in and out while the violin itself remains fixed.  Need I even say that the music is exceptional?
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the Beguiled - A very underrated film.  Yankee soldier Clint Eastwood is wounded behind the lines, then taken in and treated by the lonely women of a school for southern ladies.  Initial distrust turns to slavish devotion, as smooth talker (!) Clint wins the passionate love of more than half of the ladies of the school.  Intense psychological drama, perhaps most unusual film where he does things that he hadn't done before and hasn't done since, nevertheless everything comes off well.  A must-see for fans of obscure cinema.  Underrated.
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Diva - By the same director as my favorite Betty Blue, this film is more like a Robert Altman film than the other film, which is more like a Phillip Kaufmann film.  A complex film involving a young man's opera obssession and his involuntary involvement with the white slave trade.  While the premise may seem week (the old mixup problem again) action scenes and tension buildup are the work of a master, as are the quirky characters that are just a bit more than disposable.  Final standoff in main character's loft a classic, naturally fetishized opera music throughout.
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Lola Rennt - The film that made the big stir this year, along with the Blair Witch Project, this one works with potetntial and fantasy and alternate futures, while flirting with MTV-style action shots and pace and a techno beat.  Fine premise wears thin near the end, and people now agree that it is not the perfect mind-blowing thrill of the pre-hype, and is actually flawed!!!  It is still a very unique film and practically a must-see for cinophiles.  I thought that this would be a woman running for 90 minutes practically non-stop, she actually runs for much less than that.  Lots of fast pace, some slow points.  But even Speed , the film this is most worth comparing to for now, had to catch its breath every now and then.
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Simple Plan - Yuck.  I don't know what the hype was about this film.  Utterly unsympathetic smart-but-stupid Bill Paxton gets involved with free money and a Stephen King-like ever-increasing-sense-of-despair plot where everything-goes-wrong.  No hope for a happy ending as we tear our hair out and yell at the screen "you idiot, that is the worst thing to do in this situation!!!"  Sure it was tense and suspenseful, but still...  Same premise as Shallow Grave , which was done to much better effect.  Only Billy Bob Thornton's standout performance saved this movie for me, and liberal use of Bridget Fonda saves added annoyance.
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Chinese Torture Chamber - This is certainly the nuttiest film I have ever seen.  "Chinese" and "torture" is right, "sex" should also be mentioned prominently.  This film covers all of the bases that a typical Chinese sexual morality play (like "the Golden Lotus" or "Dream of the Red Chamber") where rich nymphomaniacs and their influential stickmen manipulate the law to realize their desires, until they get their just desserts in the end.  The torture itself is very inventive, explicit, and terribly disgusting.  The film is horrifying, hysterical, and terribly stupid.  It is also thoroughly enjoyable.  Hollywood could never produce mondo insanity like this, it might be interesting to watch it back-to-back with Eyes Wide Shut.  Apparently a sequel exists, but I wouldn't waste my time and just enjoy this one for what it's worth.  Highlight - two immortals shaking the heavens and the earth with their mighty mighty humping.  Several sex scenes go the full 12 rounds, some in in a T.K.O.
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Who Am I? - This is the new Jackie Chan movie.  Every time Jackie Chan releases a new movie, it is always an event.  The stunts, the physical comedy, the James Bond compare/contrast game...  This one seems to have a plot involving evil CIA agents selling high tech information that they have stolen, Jackie becomes involved as a crack commando who loses his memory and is adopted by an African tribe.  He meets some girls, discovers who the bad guys are, and ends up moralizing - but this is not the reason to watch the movie: of course it is the stunts .  Jackie jumps up walls, does amazing things with cars (the quickest parking job ever and the escape from the dead end street, etc.) and how he figures out how to get off of the roof using a rubber hose despite the fact that he is handcuffed.  A fight in Rotterdam using clogs is pretty hilarious too.  Check out the first scene - it never fails, but Jackie Chan movies always have the worst white actors ever seen on film.  The gangster in the cowboy hat at the end was pretty classic too, it was as if he had jumped out of Pulp Fiction and into an Ed Wood film.
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Analyze This - I enjoyed this movie a lot.  It has Robert DeNiro and Billy Crystal, and is directed by Harold Ramis, the former SCTV guy who every few years directs inspired comedies like Groundhog Day (which I also thought was intriguing, funny, and underrated), National Lampoon's Vacation , Caddyshack, Strange Brew, and others.  Again it is a high-concept movie - this time it is about a mafiosa who has to start seeing a shrink to deal with his issues.  This seems to be a rehash of the Sopranos, which admittedly has the luxury to leisurely dissect action, plot, black comedy, psychology and drama over a whole TV season; this movie attempts it all in just under two hours.  DeNiro plays his funniest tough guy role since the long-forgotten Midnight Run , and Crystal is not too shabby either.  My biggest complaint is that many of the characters are under-used.  The only female role, played by the completely neglected Lisa Kudrow, just further proves that some movies can't include real roles for women (for an antidote check out the Romy and Michelle film, a movie she carried with Mira Sorvino) and the great Chazz Palminteri is relegated to the position of a cartoon caricature, as he often is in films.  I had mixed feelings about the ending - it seemed like cold fish, but then again... maybe it was a Scooby Doo ending (see the first Wayne's World movie for more details).
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Hugo Pool and Irma Vep - Sometimes it is the "quirky", "little", "directionless" movies like  Hugo Pool or  Irma Vep that really turn me on. Hugo Pool is the story of the misfits of a small town and the things that happen during a day of pool cleaning.  Robert Downey Jr. is in it playing a drugged out Hollywood type, and the film itself is directed by his father Robert Downer Sr.  I saw a film of his called Too Much Sun a few years ago and it was just horrible, but dad pulled through this time.  The characters are interesting, and the story is touching, and big things happen in a little way.  Sean Penn is in it wearing blue suede shoes, and the stunning Alyssa Milano is in the lead role as the tattooed pool cleaner Hugo.  As a suburban character study, it is in some ways similar to Steve Buscemi's Trees Lounge.  Irma Vep "stars" Maggie Cheung as a Hong Kong action movie queen who is called in to Paris to make a "cat thief" film for a washed up French director.  Maggie Cheung is fabulous and she speaks English throughout the movie, as do the French actors she works with.  The humor is subtle, the satire is large, and it's lots of fun watching Maggie attempt an adventure as a "real" cat burglar.  But it is all just a movie, get it?  This movie scores extra points for creative use of my favorite Sonic Youth song ("Tunic") and the deconstruction that occurs at the end of the flick just feels so natural - a movie about people making an unfinished movie shouldn't know how to resolve itself.  I predict that I might never encounter another person besides myself who has seen this great little film, so please surprise me.  It is worth seeing just to experience the magic of finding out what "Irma Vep" really means.  If you have seen these movies, please email Peter Höflich with your comments.
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Swingers - a sharp new movie starring a slim (!) young Vince Vaugn, about struggling actors in Hollywood.  It follows their trips to Las Vegas, their time spent/wasted in bars and at parties, agonizing lives spend engaging in sexual promiscuity or chasing the perfect woman.  It generally follows the anxieties of the world's most neurotic comedian as he agonizes over the girl he left behind while he waits for her to call.  There are classic scenes, such as the one with an answering machine that talks back, and a ripoff of the "men walking" scene at the beginning of Reservoir Dogs that follows a discussion of Tarantino ripoffs.  Some may find the irony of the film a bit heavy-handed, but the main attraction of this gem of a film is the dialogue, which really sparkles...  Prevalence of hip swing in L.A. may date it a bit.
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Bound - What can I say about a tense crime drama about lesbians that rip off the mob?  It's sexy and smart, and maybe not many people know that it is by the same directors of the Matrix, hence it is their prototype of "cool, stylish, and edgy."  Jennifer Tilly is great, finally rising to a significant role above that of the ditzy blonde (by dying her hair black, among other things) she usually plays, as is Gena Gershon who regrettably fades into the background somewhat in the second half.  Meg Tilly's boyfriend is also inspired as the sleazy yet loyal hood who turns out to be a little smarter than anyone thought.  It is intriguing that a film has been made that builds up around a lesbian relationship the way this one does, and I am pleased to see the switched ideals work so well.  For example, it follows the mood of Body Heat where two strangers meet, fall into love (or lust), then unhatch a plot of sorts, neither really sure if they should trust the other.  The twist is that there is no way that this movie could have worked out as well with a heterosexual couple.  Good work, boys.
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Breaking the Waves - This film probably tops a lot of people's "best of" lists, it is one of the rawest, starkest films about deprivation and sainthood yet made.  Filmed in rural Ireland, it shows the wedding of a slightly unsettled young virgin, and follows the changes her life takes when disaster strikes.  It is about guilt and sacrifice and redemption, the cinematography is stunning and there are shadows and light everywhere, as well as effective use of thematic songs to introduce each "chapter."  This film can be compared to Betty Blue, another starkly beautiful favorite of mine that centers on the characters of a troubled couple, but this one is somehow more complex and ambitious.  It has everything you need in a film, including a perfect ending.
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Canadian Bacon - Canadian Bacon is a funny movie that may be hard to find in the shops.  If you do come across it, consider watching it, but be prepared for lots of "I can't believe that they said that."  It is a movie full of vicious mudslinging, dense satire directed at the most inoffensive of objects, the poor Canadian.  In fact, it shows Americans spilling bile at Canadians in the same quantities that Canadians usually spill it at Americans.  In this case it is not a chip on the shoulder, but a device to let clever screenwriters make fun of stupid common people.  Essentially a group of cameos by people like Alan Alda, Rhea Perlman, John Candy, and Richard Wright.  Canadian John Candy gets extra laughs as a right wing American who makes fun of Canadian beer.  It was also his last movie, but he did go out with a bang.  Lots of quotable lines in this one, make sure you have a scratch pad handy, especially during Boomer's "the black guy always dies first," speech.  Directed by Michael " Roger and Me " Moore.
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Barcelona - A simple film full of great dialogue about vain American expats living in... Barcelona.  As could be expected from the director of Metropolitan , the dialogue is the draw to this film, in fact without the great patter there would be very little to this film.  Sinister, human characters that are somehow too human, it is nice to be watching this type of a film from someone besides Woody Allen.  If you come across this innocuous title in the video racks, it would be quite easy to pass it by - but DON'T!!!  Save Armageddon for another night.
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Trees Lounge - This is another dialogue film, a film about losers who live in a small town, work small jobs, and hang out at the bar called "Trees Lounge."  Filmed by Steve Buscemi (actor, director) in his home town with a cast of his friends and relatives, this is a little film that will keep you interested in the charming characters of a Simpsons-like world of funny, charming under-achievers.
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Lulu on the Bridge - This is a film that I should have hated, but somehow didn't.  Written and directed by Paul Auster, the author of Smoke and Blue in the Face fame, it is much less annoying than the latter film (but not as good as the former) or any of Auster's novels, which are all intriguing but ultimately disappointing.  Starring Harvey Keitel, Mira Sorvino, and Willem Defoe, the characters seem somehow at ease with each other, like they're not really acting.  It is about jazzman Keitel who gets shot after a set, and deals with his recovery, his new love, and the mystery of the floating jewel that changes his life.  The interrogation by Defoe's character, which might seem contrived, seems to me more like a recurring nightmare.  Is it a coincidence that it all seems like a dream?  Check out the surprise ending, and think about the major film it was lifted from, and maybe it will all make sense...
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the Sweet Hereafter - A great Canadian film by one of the greatest Canadian directors, Atom Egoyan, this film seems more unrelentingly Canadian than any Canadian movie in recent years.  I don't remember a more snowy, remote film.  Hated the vile Ian Holm in A Life Less Ordinary?  Check out the sweetly sadly vile Ian Holm in this one.  A film about personal tragedy on many levels, it focuses on the true story of a fatal school-bus crash in rural British Columbia and the lives affected by the crash.  In a seemingly idyllic world where nobody is innocent - here Egoyan casts his lot permanently with the likes of David Lynch, David Cronenberg, Akira Kurosawa, Lawrence Kasdan, and others - the director's somber corruption seems more true of average people than any of the other mentioned directors.  This is a movie you will not soon forget, if ever at all...
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Hammett - Dashiel Hammett mysteries have been well-loved over the years and have been filmed before, but never like Wim Wenders in this one-time-only diversion for his slick big-studio debut and tribute to film noir.  Similar in some ways to the long-forgotten City Heat, with elements of the overblown and underrated Hudsucker Proxy, this film follows the fictionalized Hammet himself, as a character in a Dashiel Hammet-like adventure who pursues an adventure that resolves itself like other great movies of this type - Devil In A Blue Dress, Chinatown , and Body Heat.  A fine, funny, lite whodunnit that is more pulp fiction than Pulp Fiction.  Plus it gives a strong role to an Asian-American actress.  Watch it.
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Innocent Blood - A vampire film by overrated studio hack John Landis that stars Anne Parillaud as a troubled vampire (who has to deal with turning an evil mafia don into a super-evil uber-goons), but which really focuses on the metamorphoses of mafia lawyer Don Rickles and the truly inspired godfather Robert Loggia as they become the blood-sucking undead.  As much as I think Anne Parillaud is a sexy goddess, I didn't really care too much about her character or her love interest (although the sex scenes of the undead never looked better).  I also wonder how it is that if she is a vampire she can still see her self in a mirror or fly through a church.  The evil vampires in this movie carry the film, and Loggia's performance is enough to pay for the cost of the video.  Watch for cameos by Chazz Palminteri as a hood and Sam Raimi as a deep-freeze attendant, making him the king of the big director walk-on.
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the Big Lebowski - A string of three clever black comedy masterpieces in a row - this one has strokes so broad and humor so subtle that it took me quite a while to recover from the shock of seeing this bizarre movie... by realizing slowly that it was actually a great comedy.  What do I mean?  Well, my first reaction was "say what," and I was ready to say that it was a disappointment coming from the Coen brothers - a first.  But a day later, I found myself thinking to myself "waitaminnit," two days later thinking "waitaminnit," three days later thinking "waitaminnit..."  I had to watch it again, and when I did it all worked out - the outrageous comedy, the great lines, the Simpsons-like situations, the outrageously clever plot, the surreality that is all too real in an insane world like ours (like Los Angeles), and great performances by Coen Brothers favorites John Goodman, John Torturro and Steve Buscemi.  Buscemi may deserve an award for the underplayed and deliberately subtle delivery of his character and its total non-relevance to the plot (coming on top of Fargo , and all).  Jeff Bridges, as "the Dude" is such a caricature that to laugh at him is so obvious that it is not even funny... and that is in itself very funny.  He is the only uninteresting character in the film.  With this film, because the Coen brothers really threw it all into a pot just to see what it would look like... albeit in the Coen Brothers style - very very deliberately.
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Map of the Human Heart - This film nearly defies any type of explanation, since it hits nearly all of the most unlikely reference points: an Arctic WWII artfilm set in Canada and Europe by a New Zealand director starring a pan-Hollywood/Eurofilm all-star cast, it tells the life story of an Inuit superstar while taking the term "map of the human heart" both literally and figuratively.  Dragon star Jason Scott Lee has never been better (see his recent Hollywood slum roles in films like Soldier ) and Anne Parillaud is great as a lisping metis social climber.  While some of the strokes may seem broad, and John Cusack's appearance is difficult to justify, the film hits much more often than it misses.  It is often pure magic, particularly the sex scene on top of an inflating  hot-air balloon.  Aaah, to be in the right place at the right time...
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the Blue Angel or die Blaue Engel - A classic 1930 story of a pompous German school teacher, the stout Emil Jannings (also in the classic Cabinet of Doctor Cagliari , the ultimate goth/Bauhaus imagemaker) portraying all of the proper teacherly stereotypes, who falls inexplicably in love with Marlen Dietrich's "Blue Angel," much to his despair.  A fascinating film by any standard, it is delicious viewing.  As difficult to believe that this film is 70 years old, it is even more difficult to imagine how different it must have been from films of its time if it is still so watchable today.  The story of what happened to actors Jannings and Dietrich after this film was made are even more interesting, even to enter legend with the occurrences of WWII.
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Zorro (the Alain Delon film, not the Antonio Banderas film) - good fun for the whole family, as Alain Delon playing a wimp... meanwhile he's really the great Zorro.  The Banderas film wasn't too bad either.  Sometimes hard to believe that they once made movies like this.
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She's So Lovely - A Nick Cassavetes film about a guy who loves his wife so much that he flips out and goes insane.  When he emerges from 13 years of haziness spent in the loony win he knows that he still loves her and the 13 years have meant nothing.  Comparison to daddy John Cassavetes 1974 film A Woman Under the Influence about a man (Peter Falk) who flips out and send his loony wife to the head doctors, only to understand that he loves her and the 6 months away have meant nothing.  Although it might make more sense to discuss the differences than the similarities, She's So Lovely is still a wild, harrowing film, a lot of fun to watch since it is patched together with moments of ragged humor, and Nick manages to elicit great performances from the reliable Sean Penn and the fluky John Travolta, as well as Penn-movie stalwart Robin Wright-Penn.
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the Eyes of Laura Mars - Faye Dunaway, Brad Dourif (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 's Billy), Raul Julia, Michael Tucker, and a Tommy Lee Jones with nearly a full head of hair.  Cool creepy murders, controversy in the art world, strange cops, photography, glamour, fashion, murder in the art world.  Great film, high kitsch value.
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Jacob's Ladder - One of the best movies made in the late eighties, and one of the most intriguing films ever, with a great performance by a young Tim Robbins.  Suffers from a few major screenwriting blunders (like the stranger who rushes in to let Robbins' character Jacob in on the secret of his fate) that can be forgiven.  I watched this just before I read Coin Locker Babies by Murakami Ryu, which has a similar pretext: a Vietnam vet suffers trauma, hallucinations, and flashbacks that prevent him from making his date with destiny, while becoming embroiled in a bizarre conspiracy, all within an atmosphere of paranoia and alienation so thick that it will certainly come out of your pores after two hours submersed in it.
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Let's Get Lost - The ultimate jazz documentary, this shows Chet Baker in the final weeks of his life.  The crew is even present in Cannes when he dies/ends his life.  Mixing interviews (both praising and lauding Chet) with film footage and current footage, the winding weaving non-lineality of it keeps us just a little disoriented, just the way we like it when we wanna get lost...
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What Happened to Baby Jane - How incredible are Joan Crawford and Bette Davis (two of the creepiest of the classic screen "beauties") together on the same screen as aging malevolent/benevolent former stars?  This film is remarkably brave for Crawford and Davis, former stars themselves by this time playing Hollywood sisters who lived out their retirement and loving and hating each other for being the sources of all of each other's greatest happiness and deepest misery.  It set the tone for future psychological love/hate entrapment dramas like Misery , etc.  Was the beach ending of this film the inspiration for the beach ending of Barton Fink ?
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Vampire's Kiss - This is a vampire film starring Nicolas Cage that looks like a gritty '80s flick.  Probably the only reason to see this film is for the performances of Nicolas Cage and Jennifer Beals.  Cage stars as a demented yuppie who self-destructs after he becomes deluded that he is turning into a vampire following a hot date with vampiress Beals.  Watching Nicolas Cage throw himself all over the set and froth at the mouth is truly something I have never experienced in a high-profile movie before, and Jennifer Beals makes up for Flashdance with her wicked performance as someone comfortable in the manipulator's seat.  Unrelenting, and even pathetic in moments, it is also quite hilarious if you step back a bit and view it as a black comedy.  Surely an underrated movie in the same pile of films as Bright Lights Big City, Less Than Zero and other flashy trash.  If you have seen this movies, please email Peter Höflich with your comments.
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the Devil's Advocate - People will probably laugh at me for saying anything good about this movie.  I found this movie entertaining, sufficiently creepy and scary, and full of interesting twists.  As a morality tale, it is not very original - it will be as easy for a lawyer  to come off as sympathetic as it would be for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle - but it has some good performances, especially by Al Pacino who comes off with the best lines.  Watch if after you have seen Author, Author , not before.
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the Lost Highway - Did I just write about a manipulative movie that twists reality?  This one does it too, but in a diametrically opposite way.  This film is a moody piece of noir that shows innocent, naive and mischievous (reckless?) characters tempt fate until their sick world is overwhelmed with a dread that deepens into real fear and a confrontation with true supernatural evil, made real in the flesh of a woman and a strange man.  Sound like a blend of Twin Peaks, Wild At Heart, and Blue Velvet ?  It really is.  For fans of David Lynch (and I can't imagine anyone else actually enjoying this mysterious film), there is nothing new to see here, although the warm feeling of the familiarly thrilling style and technique can't be beat by anything else - every single scene has "David Lynch" written all over it, and I imagine it is this that endears the viewer to the film.  This film is full of great performances, particularly by Robert Loggia, continuing where he left off in Innocent Blood .  Henry Rollins can be glimpsed for a second in a jail, Roseanne Arquette is sexy as hell, the music is fine, and even Bill Pullman (Bill who?) is acceptable as a slightly boring but rather troubled guy-on-the-edge-of-a-metaphysical-nothingness...
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Shallow Grave - One of the tensest movies I have ever seen.  "What's a little murder between friends" is the movie's tagline, and it sums up the premise better than any other.  Basically, three loving roommates inherit millions when their new roommate dies... which is when their problems begin.  Early film from the directors who would later go on to direct Trainspotting , A Life Less Ordinary, and the Beach , this one might be one of the most remarkable since it builds up suspense through doomed plot elements with less help from the crutches of "style," "technique," or "gimmicks."  This is one of those dark films like Gonin , Killing Zoe or Dog Day Afternoon or even Friday the 13th where you find yourself helpless to alter the fates of hapless characters you sympathize with and will want to yell at the screen "no, you fool, don't go along with their plan."  But at least with Ewan MacGregor's good looks and recent superstar status, it seems pretty obvious that if anyone is to survive the car crash that is Shallow Grave it will be him... or will it?
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Killing Zoe - Didn't I just mention this film in the previous review?  Talk about three tense movies in a row.  Reminds me of the time I saw Kalifornia , Straw Dogs , and Reservoir Dogs back-to-back.  I was a nervous wreck.  I couldn't keep food down for a week.  Killing Zoe seems to start off as an indie buddy film about old friends who are now cool professional criminals, but then becomes an ironic shootout disaster movie with a love interest.  Fans of French cinema will be happy to see the astonishing Jean-Hughes Anglade ( Betty Blue ) as well as the ravishing Julie Delpy, all speaking English (and a little French, for the sake of realism).  Check out the hard partying the doomed bank robbers engage in before the heist, truly something of a wonderful filmic indulgence.
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Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion - I thought this film was by the director of Heathers at first, but no no no I was wrong.  It is the sane twin clone of that film.  Where the Heathers went for shock, Romy and Michelle go for slapstick comedy and caricature, as well as some subtle insights.  Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow are Romy and Michelle (or Michelle and Romy) and they are quite lovable (or annoying) as two airy slackers trying to make it big in L.A., but can't feel adequate without getting back to their roots at their high school reunions... where it turns out that they were geeks in high school and not popular cheerleaders.  Well, some fantastic stuff happens, and it's not Grosse Point Blank , but they do run into Janeane Garafalo as the bitchy chain-smoker from hell, as well as the prerequisite in-group-gone-awry.  A fun movie, but not too deep, and There's Something About Mary it ain't either.
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Movie Reviews of Japanese films:

Shark Skin Boy, Peach Hip Girl - A super-cool flick about a thief (shark skin boy) on the run from the yakuza killers he has ripped off, picks them off one by one at a forest resort.  Involved is a girl who saves his life (peach hip girl), a jealous uncle hotel proprietor who lusts for her, the killer he hires to get rid of shark skin boy (the assumed lover), a fashion consultant/passport forger, and a frosty yakuza wife who never removes her glasses.  Funny/interesting flourishes abound, crisp yet languid pace drips style, oddly places flashbacks juxtapose, and nobody is cooler than Asano Tadanobu as the shark skin boy.  Great!
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Charisma – Supposed to be a cool scary movie, utterly incomprehensible.  I couldn’t follow it without subtitles, even my wife turned it off after 45 minutes of torture shaking her head and she normally likes this kind of thing. 

Kubitsuri Kikyu – Three short stories by manga artiste Kobayashi Kenjiro (?).  First one is about high school students that commit suicide (trippy), another one is about jealous love (standard, spooky), third one is about high school girls who are attacked by flying balloon heads as they walk home from school (trippy).  Naturally it is the last skit that is featured in the trailers and the title, it is also what makes it worth the price of the rental.  Strange, easy to understand even if you don’t speak Japanese, fun, wild, amazing, strange.  I told my Japanese friends that I had watched this movie, which none of them had ever heard of, and they now all think I’m a total weirdo. 

Gojoe Reisanki – Telling the legendary tale of Heian prince Minamoto and his battle with the warrior monk Benke at Kyoto’s Gojoe bridge, which still stands on the Kamo river in Kyoto – you can sit there and have a beer.  Directed stylistically, the film is an unrelenting bloodbath with the invincible Minamoto slashing away at squads of opponents sending sprays of hot blood shooting up above the tips of the bamboo trees, the film is really all about death on the battlefield in the face of a juggernaut.  All the murder gets boring after a while until the final duel on the bridge when we know it is finally about to end.  Whew! 

Bullet Ballet – Stylistic film by Tetsuo – the Iron Man director Tsukamoto Shinya, starring himself and a cast of scary long-hairs, about a man whose girlfriend kills himself with a handgun (illegal in Japan and difficult to obtain) who becomes obsessed with tracing her steps and arming himself as well.  In the course of his quest, he meets scary hoods and becomes involved in gang warfare on the darkened streets of Tokyo badlands at midnight.  Part Akira, part Iron Man, all style.  Hard to figure out what is happening, enjoyable only if you allow the images to roll off of your mental palate like cheap vodka on the tongue. 

Party Seven – More fun and games from the director of the stylish and cool Shark Skin Boy and Peach Hip Girl with the film’s star Asano Tadanobu playing a peeping geek, along with six other crazies that round out the party of seven.  Nearly all dialogue, except for the cool hyperkinetic animated opening credits that also reveal the background for the story, the film would probably have been more interesting had I seen it with English subtitles – the eternal problem for me here in Japan, alas.  Nice weirdness quotient, good twisted ending, and quirky angles make for a pretty interesting film – if you can follow it.  

Theatre of Illusion - I honestly have no idea what this long film was about.  My wife could only stand to watch 45 minutes of it herself before she was hopelessly lost.  A classic by Suzuki Seijun, I hope I can watch it with English subtitles some day.
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Kuroi Ie - This is a spooky film about insurance fraud.  In one "black house," members of a small family seem to have regular illnesses, lose limbs, or turn up dead.  At the company that this family has just taken a policy out on, a young insurance agent begins to have serious hassles dealing with the strange family.  The film, which starts off as a black comedy, quickly turns into a psycho suspense killer thriller.  The husband of the black family is interesting as a guy with a few screws loose and an impenetrable accent, his wife stands out as a cold-blooded ice queen who is very serious about bowling, and the young insurance agent is exceptional in being a proper young man one minute and a quivering coward the next.  A film with as many significant bowling scenes as the Big Lebowski .
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Owl's Castle - This is a tale from historical Japan of 400 years ago.  It chronicles Oda Nobunaga's attempted destruction of the ninja clans, who he considered untrustworthy as their merenary status kept them working for whichever side paid them best.  The film picks up as a revenge mission against the shogun, then becomes more complicated as the protagonists become enmeshed in internecine inter-clan warfare.  Lots of cool swordplay and martial arts, stealth and secret weaponry.  Also a memorable attack on prime shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi in his inner sanctum.  Check out an appearance of the most beautiful actress in Japan Hazuki Ryona, whose inhuman beauty lights up the otherlwise dreary Parasite Eve .
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Uzumaki - Uzumaki means whirl, whirlpool, or vortex.  The theme of this film is vortex images, and the stylistic director of the film works hard at putting them everywhere he can - in clouds in the sky, in 6s and 9s on license plates, in people's hair, just about everywhere.  In a cursed town, high school students notice that everybody is acting pretty strange as a typhoon hits the town...  There is not much of a plot to this film, just stylish scenes that build up on each other mysteriously, there is no resolution.  You just watch the film and see what happens.  There are other films by the same director, including one about floating heads, I think I want to see more of them...
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Audition - Audition is based on a novel by visceral novelist Murakami Ryu, which is unfortunately not one of the three Murakami Ryu books available in English publication.  It concerns a widower who becomes bewitched with a young actress who has auditioned for a movie his company is producing.  He dates her, then becomes concerned about her past when she disappears.  The spare direction and lack of a pounding soundtrack make this film a bit different from other "psychotic beauty" films, and the extent and intent of her psychosis is also painfully warped.  The film jumps back and forth in time in an interesting way that I think is successful, and the whole film works quite well overall.
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Crazy Lips and Joyu Rei - Both of these films are horrors, but neither of them are any good.  In a way they remind me of Ring 0: Birthday , which also wasn't great, although it was better than these two.  Ring 0 begins in a haunted actors studio and ends with a lynch mob in a forest.  Joyu Rei (actress' soul) is about a haunted film stage, and Crazy Lips ends with a lynch mob in a forest.  I saw both films on the same night and felt oddly like I had seen Ring 0 again.  Joyu Rei is a short, slow-moving film about a ghost whose image turns up mysteriously in a film that a group of young actors are making in a studio.  The director feels some connection to the woman in the image.  The ghost murders an actress on the set and causes some havoc.  The director is also in love with his star, so he has a lot on his mind.  Crazy Lips is a black comedy, it is also one of the most extreme films I have seen, with plenty of rape and murder.  It is the story of a crazy family - the father was executed as a serial killer, and now the brother is on the lam and wanted for a similar crime.  The mother and sisters are left to fend for themselves, so they consult a psychic to try to find the killer.  This is a bad move, as the psychic and her henchman soon take over their lives.  The sisters discover that they also have psychic powers, and eventually there is a lynching in the forest.  Renegade CIA agents and enraged parents are involved, there is also an appearance by the U.S. military.  The actress who plays the older sister looks eerily like a Japanese Winona Ryder.  It could be Winona Ryder is she spoke perfect Japanese.  Odd.  This was not the worst film I've seen this year, but it was definitely an insane B-movie.  See it if you don't mind rape and murder in the films you watch.
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Tonari no Yamada-kun - The new animation feature from director Miyazaki Hayao's Studio Ghimli is an adaptation from an old Japanese 4-panel comic strip, more Sazae-san than Tonari no Totoro.  It is in every way a radical departure from any of the director's other work, with only a few episodes of Ghimli trademark roller-coaster kinetic animation, and a very sketchy animation style.  It is in every way loyal to the spirit of the comic strip (and comic strips in general), with some stibute paid to the Charlie Brown animated specials of yore.  While most of the film is funny episodes (I found myself laughing, even though I don't speak Japanese) from Japanese family life, there are some longer narratives, especially at the end.  The mother and grandmother's thick Osaka dialect is also worth a few laughs, since they work the lingo like comic masters.  Great fun.
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Wild Zero - Yet another rock 'n' roll movie about zombies (yawn...), this time starring the breathless Tokyo rockers Guitar Wolf.  Essentially a road movie about a young rocker who drives out into the country to find it crawling with zombies, he calls in Guitar Wolf who wipe the landscape with zombie butt.  At the same time he joins a motley group of misfit survivors and even falls in love.  Everything about this film is over-the-top kitsch humor, from the impossibly cool Guitar Wolf themselves, to the Thailand-dressed-up-as-Japan setting.  Check out the soundtrack too, it will rip a layer of skin off of your skull!
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Momontai - A Hong Kong romantic drama with a (mostly) Japanese cast.  Starring the impossibly short Okamura from TV comedy duo 99, it follows his adventures as his (trendy fashion model) girlfriend leaves him and goes off to Hong Kong on a quest for Jackie Chan.  He follows her, hoping to win her back, gets work in the Hong Kong film industry as a stuntman, tries to win her back but falls in love with a beautiful Chinese refugee instead.  Most of the film concerns their attempts to communicate and their slow falling in love.  More romance than comedy, if you can believe it from Okamura, who comes off as quite sympathetic despite his normally weasely TV character.
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Love Letter - A film about two people who have the same name.  It starts in Kobe with a young woman mourning the death of her boyfriend.  She finds his address from his old home in Hokkaido and writes him a symbolic letter.  She is suprised when she receives a reply from him.  She later finds out that it is not her dead boyfriend, rather a girl who went to school with him and who shares his exact name.  They begin a correspondence, nearly meeting once, until all is revealed.  Coming off less like one of his usual spare stylish urban adventures and more like a nostalgic tale of lost high school love that could have been written by Murakami Haruki, this film is nonetheless poignant and sentimental in all the right ways.
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Hakuchi - the Idiot.  Directed by Tezuka Makoto, son of the late king of manga Tezuka Osamu, this long film chronicles the life of a man, trendy actor Asano Tadanobu, who alternates life in a quiet neighborhood peopled with eccentrics, with the high style world of cruel entertainers in the WWII Ministry of Propaganda.  Undeniably a strange, incomprehensible film, it does have a great beginning sequence, an interesting love story and some good ideas.
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Kujaku - Also known as Away With Words.  A Hong Kong drama starring Japanese actor Asano Tadanobu and a motley case of Chinese and Western actors.  Surrealistic/stylistic/avant garde construction/deconstruction of the life of drifter Asano, which marries scenes from his dazed and happy life as a permanent attachment to the counters and couches of a dingy little blue Hong Kong bar with scenes from his childhood in Okinawa.  A week after seeing this film I have already forgotten what it was about, but I will never ever forget how beautiful it was.  Directorial debut of the director of photography for Wong Kar-wai's films Christopher Doyle.  More like a Wong Kar-wai film than even a Wong Kar-wei film!
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Gemini - The new film from Tetsu director Tsukamoto Shinya (who will never escape the "director of Tetsu" tag behind his name), based on a story about evil twins by Edogawa Ranpo, early writer of truly inspired creepy detective fiction... whose pen name is a derivation of "Edgar Allen Poe", by the way.  This is a tale of twins seperated at birth, one who becomes a doctor after being raised in luxury, the other who turns to a life of crime (and a mission of revenge) after being abandoned because of the icky snake-like birthmark on his leg.  Film differs from short story in that the evil twin keeps his brother alive in a dry well in order to torment him with tales of lustful nights with the doctor's young wife ( a la Face/Off), but all of the stylish effects (doom and gloom foreboding, plus the fact that none of the actors have eyebrows) are Tsukamoto's.  Cult favorite Motoki Masahiro (a.k.a. Mo-kun) stars, other cult favorites Asano Tadanobu and Takenaka Naota (Mo-kun's pal from the film Gonin ) also appear.
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One Step on a Land Mine, It's All Over - Wow.  The film that should have made Asano Tadanobu's reputation on the international film festival circuit, but probably didn't.  True story about the life of war photographer Ichinose Taizo, who took pictures in Vietnam but fell in love with Cambodia and finally disappeared there in 1972 while trying to get to photograph the Khymer Rouge-held Angkor Wat.  Taizo.  Taizo.  Taizo.  This film has enough English dialogue that English subtitles are barely ever needed, which is good for me here in Japan where there are no English subtitles.
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Ame Agaru - Kurosawa Akira's last last film, this one was developped from notes he was working on at the time of his death, but directed by someone else.  It is a very good film and faithful to the Kurosawa oeuvre , showing the simple tale of a legendary but poor samurai swordsman who suffers from the fact that he is too kind to people.  Awesomely wicked, swift swordplay abounds in this film, giving anyone with a taste for this thing more than enough of their fill, perhaps the first time in a Kurosawa film since the great ronin films Kurosawa made with Mifune Toshiro in the fifties and sixties.
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Kikujiro no Natsu - The first light-hearted film from Takeshi in what seems like quite a long time.  The tale of simple-minded (or just plain lazy) Kikujiro, played by Takeshi, as he accompanies a young boy on a summer quest to find the mother who abandoned him.  What they find is astounding.  Part road movie, part comic omnibus, the film sways from one hilarious episode to another.  Never ever having appeared as more of a clown, it's almost unbelievable that Takeshi can still make movies this tender.  Western viewers of this film can see parts of Japan almost never seen, particularly legal bicycle race gambling, rural bus stops, Japanese beach camping, and other wacky stuff.
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Ring - Ring was a movie sensation in Japan a few years ago, a new type of horror masterpiece that was edgy and moody.  North American audiences might find it more similar to an episode of the X-Files than an installment of Scream.  The film centers around the mystery of a certain video tape that contains mysterious images.  Anyone who watches the tape has a week to live before they die a horrible death... which would be spookily ironic if you yourself were watching it on video.  Naturally, an investigative reporter gets on the case, and eventually involves her parapsychologist ex-husband in it.  There is a kid there too, as well as a rotting corpse called Sadako.  In Japan, nobody will ever again name their kid Sadoko because of this film.  This is not a slasher film, but a superior story with much more tension than blood.  If any Japanese film deserves glorious cult status, it is this one.  Imagine if the North American distributors could attach an urban myth to it, something along the lines of "mysterious deaths occur one week after victims watch Japanese video 'Ring.'"  The original novel was written by a highly regarded literary type, who also penned sequels, one of which is called Rassen (spiral) which was turned into a movie, as well as a third novel Loop .  Rassen is a fine film as well, although it twists the concept of the Sadako legend so violently that the two films can be regarded to stand on their own.  A film called Ring 2 was produced, which picks up the thread of Ring, and a TV series was also developed.  The most recent film episode is called Ring 0: Birthday , but audiences are starting to lose interest...
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Ring 0: Birthday - Ring 0 is a prequel to the events described in the other Ring movies, and uses as very real, very living Sadako as its protagonist.  Sadako is a young beauty who has entered a film group.  Strange things happen on the set of the play she is working with, a lead actress dies, and Sadako takes over the lead.  The director falls in love with her, there is tension on the set, and things come to a head on opening night as secrets of her past are revealed and the night explodes into violence.  The film moves on to a climax with a lynch mob in a forest.  The film is quite slow moving at the beginning, with little of the quirky horrific imagery of the other films, but eventually builds up the pace to become a truly exciting and mysterious horror film.  Several things are learned about Sadako's legend and who the ghoul Sadako really is, adding to the whole Sadako legend and making it even more interesting.

Gonin - The tense homoerotic film of six motley losers who conspire to rip off the Yakuza - not a good idea!  Unrelentless from beginning to end showing deranged fringe dwellers being pushed to extremes, it will leave you ragged and gasping, destroyed by its bleak vision.  This is gutter film noir at its finest and a type of film that rarely gets made, although superficial analogies can still be made to Reservoir Dogs - it is in fact a much darker film.  The lovable Takenaka Naoto from Shall We Dance? and Shiko Funjatta (a.k.a. Sumo Do, Sumo Don't ) is frightening as an unemployed salaryman with frayed sanity, as is Beat Takeshi as a gay hitman.
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Shiko Funjatta or Sumo Do, Sumo Don't - Sumo movies are certainly a rare thing, even in Japan, where ping pong movies, volleyball movies, marathon movies, judo and kendo movies are not that rare.  This one is a heart-warming comedy (by the director of Shall We Dance) about a group of university students who, for one reason or another, enter the misfit-prone area of collegiate sumo.  Containing more actual physical comedy than the somewhat moribund Shall We Dance, it contains all of the crucial elements of a sports movie (budding romance, surprise wins, a trip to the finals, and the final parting of ways) and as such is pretty light fare, but to see it all in a sumo situation where people have to have a sense of humor before they even step in the ring is a refreshing change, especially when the fattest person on the team is the female manager.
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Gohatto - The new 1999 film by Ojima of In The Realm of the Senses and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (his first film since Mr. Lawrence, 1983) fame, Gohatto is a samurai tale of in-house politics in a samurai dormitory, focusing on the beautiful but fiercely idealistic young samurai (Matsuda Ryuhei, played by the son of veteran actor Matsuda Yusaku, a superstar in Japan who died of cancer just after making Ridley Scott's Black Rain ) and the attention paid to him by gay veteran samurai.  Takeshi is in it as well as a patriarch with tough decisions to make, his most subdued role in years.  A less complex film than you expect, it is seamless and flows so smoothly that I was surprised that it ended so quickly.  Although I am a little divided about how I feel about it, I still have the sneaking suspicion that if it is not overlooked it will certainly be regarded as a great film in future years.
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Manji and  the Berlin Affair - Manji is an old '50s movie about a sexpot who seduces first a rich housewife, then her rich and powerful husband.  The retro chic of the film is still powerful to this day, with Wakao Ayako quite stunning as the Nancy Sinatra-esque sex kitten, although this won't stop the kitsch from cracking an unintentional smile or two. Melodrama thick and thicker, and if you speak Japanese this would be a good place to hear some heavy old Kansai dialect.  Based on a tale by Tanizaki Junichiro, one of the sleaziest and most complex of Japanese novelists.  "Manji" is the term that is used to describe the Buddhist swastika "hooked cross", it is also a term used to describe "two bodies intersecting" as if in a lovers embrace.  Naturally, when a Western (German-Italian) remake was made, it became a tale of a woman and her Nazi bureaucrat husband in the thralls of a young Japanese art student, and was called "the Berlin Affair."  It is a bit colder than the Japanese original, but still not without its B-movie kitsch merits.  In English, and stunningly over-acted.  Directed by Liliana Cavani of Night Porter fame.  .
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Samurai Fiction - Samurai Fiction is a lite movie that is just what it says in the title - a stylish samurai flick that attempts to be as good as Pulp Fiction , it also attempts to be a comedy.  Not that it isn't funny, it does find itself somewhere between teen humor and adult humor, perhaps straddling both.  Good martial arts magic, fine sword fighting, and one of the scariest bad guys since Darth Maul... except that's his real face.
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Jingi Naki Tatakai - Actually a TV series, this is an incomprehensible yet stylish yakuza drama that balances the bad men who are bad because of greed versus those who uphold a complicated sense of honor and dignity.  If you can get your hands on it, you should watch it.  Tarantino's best scenes of crime noir all found their source right here.
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Deep River - Deep River is the stunning tale of five individuals who join a tour to India: a man who has just lost his wife, a woman who is unsatisfied with her superficiality, a young ascetic philosopher, and others.  They are all tormented (by war, death, loneliness, the existential void) and end up looking for different rewards on this trip - and sure enough each does find something.  India and the land that gave birth to the Buddha is the dynamic backdrop for this tale, but it doesn't take away from the focus on the strong characters yet serves to flesh them out.  Based on the novel by Christian writer Endo Shusaku, it also features one of the last film appearances of Mifune Toshiro, as well as former teen idol Okita Hiroyuki who took his own life in 1999.  Both film and novel are highly recommended.
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Zatoichi - There is a TV series as well as a film version of the classic story of the blind swordsman of medieval Japan.  Zatoichi is an inspired character, comparable as such to the Mifune Toshiro ronin character of the Kurosawa samurai films, or even to Clint Eastwood's "man with no name" in the Serge Leone spaghetti westerns.  I have only seen the film version, which came later.  In it you see Zatoichi humbled until he can take no more, and he busts up corrupt samurai to vent his fury.  He is also seduced by a tattooed Yakuza dragon lady.  The body count is high, making this a prototype of bloodier (and stupider) films to come.  Example: Zatoichi knows that a group of samurai have been sent to kill him, so he walks into the forest with a lantern in the dead of a moonless night - when the killers approach, the blind Zatoichis douses the light and dispatches the would-be killer in total darkness.  Check out the famous moving ear stunt - legend has it that the actor who plays Zatoichi learned that trick just for this film.
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Parasite Eve - this is a "horror" movie, Japanese style.  Japanese horrors tend not to be slasher types, more similar to Hitchcock or the X-Files than anything else.  This one imitates the supernatural mysteries of the far-superior Ring movie, although at least it starts off well.  Handsome young doctor loses his beautiful young wife to a car crash, then reanimates her using data gathered in his experiments on parasitic micro-organisms.  It hams up the special effects, emphasizing a disturbing feeling of "liquidity."  In this way it is kind of like a slurpy B-Barton Fink or something.  Maybe I am being to kind, I should probably say that this movie sucked, or at the very least that it "fell apart near the end."  Main reason to rent this movie may be to experience the inhuman beauty of the star Hazuki Ryona.
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Film review (This review was printed in the February 2000 issue of the Kansai Time Out under the title "Chinese Characters"):

    One of the great ironies of being a film buff in Japan is the frustrating inability of many foreigners to find any of the best Japanese films with subtitles, many of which are unavailable outside of Japan.  Unless you have a handy dandy translator for a friend who will explain the intricacies of Ring, or settle for films like Hana-bi and Tetsu-o or Godzilla movies that need no translation, you might want to find Japanese movies that are filmed in a foreign language.  There are, in fact, several good films made in Japan with Japanese actors in foreign languages, the most being that of Japan’s oldest cultural advisor - Chinese.
    Imagine a major film in your native country that uses big name stars, but where half of the dialogue is in a foreign language (in this case Chinese and English).  Such a movie is  Swallowtail Butterfly by director Iwai Shunji, starring Chara and Watabe Atsuro (from the Stalker trendy drama) and Hiroshi Mikami .  (Watch carefully and you’ll see the actor who plays Suzuki-san from the old Nova commercials playing a customs clerk)  The movie is set in a Burroughs/Murakami Ryu Interzone/future Japan setting where a plunging yen has trapped foreigners in a cavernous Yentown where they kill time, get into trouble, or build great futures.  There’s drugs, violence, romance, counterfeit money, and American boxing.  This movie lacks nothing stylistically, and despite its daunting length of 145 minutes, it mixes it up as successfully as any movie around.  The plot is unimportant – it wanders around borrowing from Naked Lunch , the Commitments , La Femme Nikita, etc.  What is important is the quirky and strangely lovable characters that people its barren landscape. One of the most interesting is the American manager of the fictional Yentown Band (headed by Chara, who says many of her lines in Chinese) who was born and raised in Japan, but can only speak Japanese due to “the awful English-language education in Japanese schools.”  He could have been Sick Boy from Trainspotting.  The major characters of this film are still Chinese, however, and they are amazing.  This is the Japan that some of us must have imagined we were coming to when we escaped out own countries, but are probably glad we didn’t find.  But if you don’t have time to sit through the movie, please at least check out the soundtrack – it’s great!
    After Swallowtail Butterfly, a great Japanese movie that has high Chinese content is  About Love Tokyo .  Directed by Mistuo Yanagimachi, starring Jun Togawa and Hiroshi Fujioka, it is filmed with a Japanese and Chinese cast in Japan and focuses on a group of exchange students from China and the pressures that they live with –primarily dealing with money, secondarily dealing with Japanese attitudes towards Chinese.  The main character is a young man who lives in a student inn with his Chinese classmates, all of whom are going through some sort of life crisis.  He is almost indifferent, a survivor, who starts the movie slaughtering cattle and ends it as a male host, in the interim going through a wave of pachinko scams that brings him together with a tough (but impotent) yakuza and the girl of his dreams – for the moment.  She is a Japanese-born Chinese, and she is his literal opposite - namely an overseas Chinese who yearns to go back to China but can’t.  Coincidentally, a parallel movie to this one exists - a Chinese film called "Those Left Behind", which describes the life (and intrigues) of spouses who remain in China while their partners are "studying" in Japan and the corrupting influences of such conditions.
Sleepless Town is a different creature from the above altogether.  It was filmed in Tokyo and directed by a Hong Kong director Chi-Ngai Lee, starring Taiwanese-Okinawan Kaneshiro Takeshi and Mira Yamamoto , with small roles by Seijun Suzuki (a famous Japanese movie director) and Shihung Lung (the Taiwanese father from the " Wedding Banquet " and other films by Ang Lee).  Working from the commanding source material of Japanese novelist Hase Seishu, it casts our young superstar as an Antonio Banderas in a role that would have better suited a Humphrey Bogart .  In a film almost entirely populated with Chinese actors or Chinese characters, it would be easy to believe that this can be another John Woo drama where the hero’s aim never fails, where there is love and betrayal, and where the plot is anybody’s guess.  Basically, the film moves through Kabuki-cho in Tokyo as if it were home sweet home, through a series of betrayals between the Taiwanese, Beijing, and Shanghai mafia, where the hero has to work through a maze not of his own creation to save his own life and however many of those close to him as he can.  From the novel by Seishu Hase, an author so fascinated by Chinese culture that he took his pen name from a Hong Kong B-movie comedian.
Dog Race, by Korean-Japanese director Sai Yoichi.  It is a film in the Abel Fererra mode where a Bad Lieutenant type cop lives a dangerous, dreary and druggy existence.  His life is made miserable when his best Chinese girlfriend is killed by Korean gangsters, and his Korean-Japanese crony develops a mind of his own.  Although it is filmed in a similar vein to “Swallowtail Butterfly ”, this film unfortunately takes people at face value and offers its take almost totally in Japanese.  Kishiya Goro, a TV talent famous for being in Sai Yoicihi’s first movie “ tsuki wa dotchi ni dettaeru ” as well as the Hops commercials with SMAP’s Nakai-kun, plays the cop – sleazy yet somehow human and almost lovable, his blackly humorous macho-man acting manages to work quite well.
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Film review (This review was printed in the December 2000 issue of the Kansai Time Out under the title  "Breaking the Language Barrier"):

Video buffs have one reason to celebrate in Japan – they have struck it rich by being on top of the best selection of Japanese videos in the world.  Unfortunately, since none of them have English-language subtitles, anyone who has yet to master the language would be better off living near a video superstore in a major city back home.
But take heart – there are plenty of great “wordless” Japanese films that you can follow while ignoring the dialogue completely!  “Wordless” films generally come in two types: the ones with plots so familiar that the dialogue is merely dressing, and others that rely largely on images. Hanabi and Kids Return are of the latter type, and both are directed by cult director Kitano Takeshi - the omnipresent TV host often seen wearing bad make up in his alter ego “Beat” Takeshi.  Hana-bi is a film about a Bad Lieutenant-style cop who is so burned out that he has practically nothing to say and the film shows him taking care of his crippled former superior, comforting his dying wife, and showering contempt on everyone else.  The film is very visual and extremely dark. Kids Return is a movie about nasty high school kids and their roads to nowhere.  One bad boy brings his friend into a boxing club, only to be upstaged by the friend’s natural talent.  The bad boy leaves the club, and returns a tattooed mafiosa, the other boxes his way to…
Antarctica, or Nankyoko Monogatari in Japanese, is a film by veteran actor Takakura Ken (the Clint Eastwoood of Jollywood, also seen in Black Rain and Mr. Baseball) about a team of sled dogs unintentionally abandoned in Antarctica at the onset of cold weather.  The cinematography is stunning, and the tale of how the dogs survive (or don’t survive) a winter in the alien landscape of the south pole is interesting to watch and touching.  This is not a Disney movie.
Filmed almost entirely in English, Cold Fever is the tale of a young salaryman (Nagase Masatoshi, also featured in the Japanese-language segment of Jim Jarmush’s Mystery Train) who undertakes a pilgrimage to Iceland to burn incense and give offerings at the icy spot where his parents died while vacationing.  Daily life in Iceland seems bizarre to our alienated hero, and perhaps to us too as we play tag in international expatriate culture – and maybe this is a point we can gain from this backwards/forwards film.  A similar English-language film that looks and feels warmer is Kyoko , filmed in New York and Florida and directed by the visceral novelist Murakami Ryu.  It follows the title character, a truck driving dancer, as she goes to America to track down the Hispanic former G.I. from whom she learned her first dance steps as a girl.  She finds him, then takes part in the family drama that surrounds him as he lies in the death throes of AIDS, finally helping him fulfill his dying wish.  Finally, don’t forget the inimitable Swallowtail Butterfly , reviewed above, which also has a high English quotient.
Memories is an omnibus anime feature produced by Akira director Otomo Katsuhiro, similar to Heavy Metal, that offers three intriguing short films from three different directors, each with minimal dialogue: a space fantasy, a hilarious story of the geek working at a military contractor who swallows the wrong pill, and a darkly beautiful vision of a totalitarian/Stalinist future that recalls the Eurocomic worlds of Mobius and Bilal, also directed by Otomo.
Totoro is a children’s fantasy that most adult movie fans may already be familiar with.  It is fantastic, imagistic, and easy to understand (if you can suspend your disbelief).  Among the features of Miyazaki Hayao it is surely the easiest to understand, although most of his movies will still be rewarding in one way or another – the recent Princess Mononoke may be a visual delight, but give up trying to understand what is really happening.  The engaging Laputa may still be within reach of foreign audiences, since it somehow manages to combine Stand By Me with Bond movie action and Jonathan Swift’s Laputa chapter in “Gulliver’s Travels.”
One of the strangest Japanese movies ever filmed is the cult classic Tetsuo - the Iron Man.  The first feature directed by Tsukamoto Shinya, it has almost no dialogue and is a splatterfest collage of surreal black and white film images edited together to tell the story of the young man who finds a metal spike lodged in his body - the metal spreads until he becomes a robot and has to face a deadly opponent from his guilty past.
The films of Akira Kurosawa also offer opportunity to the non-Japanese speaker.  While they all tend to be dialogue-heavy, there is a window to them through well-known remakes of his films: anyone familiar with A Fistful of Dollars or Last Man Standing should be able to follow what is happening in the original Yojimbo (also glimpsed in a scene of the Bodyguard ), just as Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai is a prototype for the Magnificent Seven.  On the other hand, the Hidden Fortress, which is said to be the inspiration of Star Wars, is not similar enough to be of any assistance in understanding the plot.
Besides the movies of his that were adapted, Kurosawa also has excellent adaptations of Shakespeare plays: Ran is a luscious retelling of the story of King Lear set in medieval Japan, while Throne of Blood (or Kumo no su jo in Japanese) does MacBeth.  Watch them and match the characters.  Throne of Blood is particularly surreal – the language doesn’t sound like Japanese, rather a language from outer space, and the visual style recalls the early days of cinema, not the 1950s when it was made.
The best has been saved for last: Same hada otoko to momijiri onna , a.k.a. Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl is a stylish glam crime flick, similar to a flashy Reservoir Dogs.  The plot involves a bank robber who is trying to keep his loot away from his former pals, funny stylish outrageous comic book yakuza, who have tracked him down and are out to kill him.  He picks up a confused bank teller on the way, and she joins him in an all-night showdown in the forest.  The riotous action, locations, and visual style never leaves much doubt as to what is happening, making it a great video to play at parties with the sound off - as is Tetsuo or Memories… or even Totoro !!
Same Hada Otoko to Momojiri Onna, Tetsuo - the Iron Man, Memories, Totoro, Ran, Yojimbo, Throne of Blood, Hana-bi, Kids Return, Antarctica, Cold Fever, Kyoko, Laputa,
The important thing about watching videos in Japan is to be patient, and to remember that there are options for everyone.  Some of the above mentioned videos are practically required viewing for anyone living in Japan, so make sure you don’t go home without viewing at least a few of them – you might never come across them again.
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Underrated Films:

the Hidden - A hilarious, rollicking film about a killer and the cops chasing him down.  Full of some cool surprised and wild humor, as well as fast cars, explosions, gun fights, alien transformations, and some well-placed heavy metal music.  Not discussing the plot is best, since it is best to know almost nothing about the film except what already mentioned.  Nice deadpan acting by Kyle MacLachlan as an FBI agent in his third film, made just after Blue Velvet and just before Twin Peaks, looking mighty young, skinny, and boyish.  The plot is nearly seamless and quite impressive.  Amazing that this director, also responsible for Nightmare on Elm Street 2, never went on to make anything notable.  Also MacLachlan's best film outside of projects directed by David Lynch (and probably better than Dune).  Before a friend recommended this to me I had no intentions of watching this film, probably likewise for most people out there.

Apartment Zero - I am still looking for another person who has seen this movie, although my friend Rich assures me that "everyone in his film class has seen it."  This is the scariest psychological horror film I have ever seen.  It has everything - an Argentinean setting, a mysterious room-mate, a psychologically unstable wimp, a cool and self-assured secret agent whose cool is slowly disintegrating, mystery and horror, and the inevitable terror of the mise en abyme.  Should I call it a "subtle Silence of the Lambs "?  Directed by a certain "Martin Donovan", a.k.a. Carlos Enrique Varela Y Peralta-Ramos (and therefore he is not the Martin Donovan known and loved by fans of Hal Hartley films).  His only other real film credit: screen writer for Death Becomes Her .  If you have seen these movies, please email Peter Höflich with your comments.

Apartment Zero

When I was living in Taiwan in the early ‘90s, one of the things people liked to do was go to places called “MTV”, as in movie television.  There you could take a group of friends, select a video disc, order a drink, and watch a flick on a large screen TV in a private room, throw cushions everywhere.  My friend Vince and I had a hard time deciding on a movie, finally Vince suggested "Apartment Zero", a film neither of us had seen or knew anything about although it looked interesting enough.  We put it on and were completely blown away.  For many years after that, Vince was the only other person I knew of who had seen the film.

"Apartment Zero" is the best film that nobody has ever seen.  It has always been an enigma to me why even film buffs have never heard of this movie, much less seen it.  It is neither underground cinema nor an art flick.  It was set in Buenos Aires, but the dialogue is almost all in English.  Of the actors, at least one (Colin Firth) has made some sort of a name for himself.  The director, Martin Donovan (a.k.a. Carlos Enrique Valera Y Peralta-Ramos and not the same Martin Donovan of Hal Harley film fame) has gone on to screenwrite for the big boys in Death Becomes Her, before disappearing off of the face of the earth.  "Apartment Zero" should probably be considered a total failure.  Anybody who has actually seen this film, though, will probably know just what a remarkable film it is.  Compelling and endlessly fascinating with great character study, yet also gloomy, depressing, (and ultimately also thoroughly grisly and distressing), it is not a film you will soon forget... making its total anonymity even more a mystery.  The only movie I dare compare it to would be Henry - Portrait Of A Serial Killer, except that it has more charm, humor, and subtlety, not to mention better acting.

"Apartment Zero" tells the story of Adrian LeDuc, a lonely, uptight theater manager whose fastidiousness and priggish ideosyncracies cause us to smirk - until a trip to the insane asylum when we meet his mother, whose mental health is in a state of advanced deterioration.  Adrian puts an ad in the newspaper to find a roommate, and what he gets is Jack, a James Dean-esque American, instantly likeable, who turns Adrian's life around.  The rest of the movie is spent watching their strange friendship develop, as it is revealed that Jack has a few secrets of his own.  And that is all I should say about the plot – the less you know the better.  You'll just have to watch it.

The cast of characters is rounded out by the other tenants of the apartment building, with whom Adrian has a very prickly relationship.  They provide some comic relief, as well as local color, and just the right touch of drama, to keep the film from becoming claustrophobic.  They also give the film a European air ("Apartment Zero" feels like a French film at times).  The strength of a film like this is seeing how things unfold, without haste, and with a certain kind of precision.  We have time to make guesses, and we watch the characters of Jack and Adrian become more and more complex.  Each is the epitome of his type, and their friendship both unbelievable and symbolically appropriate.  The ending is also a perfect and inevitable one - it is also one that is open to multiple interpretations.  The final three scenes each show an ending of their own, almost as if the director couldn’t decide which one to use (any of them would have been fine), but it is the last one that is spookiest and will haunt me for a long time to come.  Sweet and slimy, the perfect after-film feeling, and this film bathes in it.
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Betty Blue - My vote for a desert island flick if I could only take one film.  Probably my favorite film out of the hundred thousand films I have seen.  When I found out that it was my girlfriend's favorite film as well, I decided then and there to marry her... and we lived happily ever after.  We even named our cats Betty and Zorg, after the heroes of this film: these characters are engaging and fascinating, funny, insane, sad, and have lived lives beyond any of our years.  The situations that they enter are entertaining and beautiful, but in the end it is Betty and Zorg themselves that keeps the viewers fascinated.  The soundtrack is also phenomenal - moody, energetic, subtle, powerful.  I love everything about this movie from the perfect sunset of the movie poster to the talking cat at the end.  Maybe you will too.  People who say that "French films just don't make any sense" should take another look (just never mind the cat).  If you have seen these movies, please email Peter Höflich with your comments.
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Roadkill - "A rock 'n' roll movie about a girl who learns how to drive."  My vote for the greatest Canadian movie ever, I doubt if this film has been seen much outside of southern Ontario.  Essentially a black and white rock 'n' roll movie about a girl who learns how to drive, it follows the adventures of Ramona as she takes a taxi through northern Ontario on a quest for an errant touring band, meets odd people, a quixotic serial killer, a quixotic director (played by the true director) making a film within the film, and discovers her independence.  Featuring cameos by Nash the Slash and Joey Ramone, among others, it was made on a shoestring budget by the great Bruce MacDonald, who we all hope will be able to fulfill his promise and go on to bigger and better things.
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Top Secret! - I consider this film my favorite comedy, God knows why since nobody else does (although Roger Ebert's review does back me up).  It is done by the folks who gave us the "Naked Gun" series and other comedy ripoffs full of sight gags, but this one features a young Val Kilmer, as well as a rare appearance by Omar Shariff.  The pretext itself should be enough to make anybody want to see the film: the Elvis-ish Nick Rivers goes on tour in Nazi East Germany in the Fifties/Sixties, but unwittingly gets involved in the French Resistance (?!?) because of a girl.  Best line: two teenage German girls go up to Nick Rivers, on the run from the police, and ask him "Excuse mee, are yoo zee famous Neek Reevers?"  He evades them by replying "No, you must be mistaken.  I'm... I'm Mel Torme."  (Two other Mel Torme jokes follow in quick succession).  Stupid comedy that is really brainy.  See also the Airplane and Naked Gun series, some of which are just as funny but not as clever.
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the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - Why isn't Serge Leone everybody's film hero?  In this epic movie every type of disaster you could ever think of occurs, the three leads are an inspiration, and who can beat that ending?  Clint Eastwood has made many fine films since that one, but he has never topped it.  The scene that gets me is the one when these three hardened killers (who have agreed to an uneasy truce) are walking through the U.S. Civil War battlefields... and even they are appalled by the senseless destruction.
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The Third Man - This probably shouldn't be on any list of underrated films since it is recognized as a film masterpiece... except for the sneaky feeling I have that nobody realizes that this is one of the best movies of all time.  It is hardly on anyone's lips when they talk about tight plots, great characterization, creepy shifty-eye types, mystery and noir , and climactic sewer chases in post-war Vienna.  Next time you hear someone talking about some movie that kept them on the edge of the seat, ask them if they have seen The Third Man, a.k.a. the king of the movies that can keep you on the edge of your seat.  I must admit that when I was in Vienna a few years ago and heard about "the Third Man" tours, I didn't really have any idea what they were about, making it quite obvious to me now that the film is probably a cherished gem from someone else's generation.  This film and the Manchurian Candidate changed my life, and this one did it with Joseph Cotton, not Sinatra.
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Cube - Yet another great Canadian film that came out of the blue and went nowhere.  It is a scary near-future fable/moral tale/fantasy about a doomed group of civilians trapped in a Hitchcock situation once they find them selves together in a maze.  Thankfully, no explanation as to why they are there is offered, with the film focusing on their attempts to escape.  Some people found their hostility towards each other a bit difficult to swallow, but it is just not that type of movie (i.e. Labyrinth, Mortal Combat, etc.).  Be prepared for a claustrophobic set, surprises, and delicious irony.  The best part of seeing this film on video is the chance to see an earlier short film by the same directors called Elevated following the main film.  At a mere 11 minutes, its concision makes it even a bit more enjoyable than Cube, although its Saki-esque or Roal Dahl-like evil humor may be a bit unsettling in the end.
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the Phantom of Liberty - When people think about Luis Bunuel, they probably think about the Discreet Charm of the Bourgoisie, but I think that few know about this movie.  Based on sight gags in the way that the latter is, it is still funnier in its unrelentless pursuit of the mysteries of existence, taking great delight in the inversion of the inappropriate and the appropriate - monks in a drunken gambling orgy, people who sit around the table to defecate together and then slip off to the toilet for a little bite to eat, and a girl who is reported missing when she can't be seen by anyone despite the fact that she is just in the room.  Call it theatre d'absurde or insist (like Wittgenstein) that there is a rhinoceros in the room, but do yourself a favor and check it out.
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Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia - Likewise with Sam Peckinpah, the master of the blood-splattered orgy of bullets, this little film doesn't always make the list with the Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs .  It's all about sleazy people, hitmen, double and triple-crosses, guys clawing out of the sand after they have been buried alive, and the smelly fly-infested head of Alfredo Garcia decomposing on the front seat of a car driving across Mexico.  It doesn't get much rawer than this, but if truth is stranger than fiction it stands to say that more than one life has gone down this same downward spiral...
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the Hunger - I saw this movie once years ago, my impression of it was "huh?"  I watched it again recently and was very impressed.  Catherine Deneuve is still stunning, Sigourney Weaver is young and sassy, David Bowie is handsome and cool and elegant, and the three have great sexy on-screen chemistry.  A lot of critics hated it, though, I wonder if they found it pretentious.  Well, yes, it was pretentious... it's no fun criticizing something for its obvious faults.  I can't believe that this is the first movie by Tony "Top Gun" Scott!
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Midnight Express - Fear fraught, yet luscious, it tells the harrowing story of a foolish tourist who rots in a Turkish prison for drug smuggling.  Nearly the whole film is a depiction of hell, with so little relief that the main character is visibly surprised when things change at the end of the film.  One of the surprise performances of the film is by Randy Quaid - anyone who has written him off for his wimpy roles ( Quick Change , etc.) will be surprised with his ferocious slugging character who is an unrelentless prison-breaking failure.
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THX-1138 - This is such a strange little movie, that it is surprising somehow that it was directed by a pre-Star Wars George Lucas and starred Robert Duvall.  In an ultra-capitalist utopian society where workers are kept drugged and loveless to increase efficiency, the film is all about perception as the stars go off their drugs in order to overcome their numbness and actually feel a bit of love.  "You are a true believer.  Blessings of the state, blessings of the masses.  Thou art an object of the divine, created in the image of man, by the masses for the masses.  Let us be thankful we have commerce.  Buy more, buy more now.  Buy and be happy."  Several of the scenes are very surreal including the one in the prison that has no walls, just an endless foggy whiteness.  Watch this one and try to find stylistic glimpses of the Star Wars universe, then just a glimmer in Lucas' eye...
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the Manchurian Candidate - Another tense political thriller, the title of which has entered the cultural lingo, even for younger audiences who have never seen it or even know what it is about.  A captain (Laurence Harvey) comes back from the Korean war and is awarded for his bravery in saving the lives of all of the members of his squad... or so everyone has been told.  The truth is that he and his men were captured by the North Koreans and everyone brainwashed.  Frank Sinatra plays a member of his squad who unravels the conspiracy and finds tentacles that touch North Korea, the Kremlin, and... Washington.  What sounds like a corny Cold War story (the stereotypes, which might have been serious business in 1962, don't quite seem real anymore) comes alive at the touch of director John Frankenheimer.  I can't remember what life was like before I had seen this film.
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Once Upon A Time In America - Sergio Leone's last film is an epic tale that is thoroughly engaging and seamless.  It tells the tales of Jewish mobsters, from childhood to adulthood, offering so many of the elements of comedy, suspense, drama, fear, love, betrayal, and maturity that a film can offer that the four hour running time doesn't seem long at all (beware shorter versions, they apparently destroy the continuity and are definitely not worth the time).  Set mostly in a luscious Prohibition era setting, it stars Robert DeNiro as a tormented and loyal (but love-bitten) strongman with James Woods (at his career best) as the shady bootlegging boss.  After having seen this movie, however, I have to ask myself the questions: which famous politician does he most resemble just before he dies?  Tenuous comparisons can be made to Miller's Crossing, although this is a much more ambitious and engaging film and belongs in the Lawrence of Arabia realm.  If you're planning on just going to sleep for four hours one evening, please do yourself a favor and give some time to this incredible piece of film history instead.
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Bitter Moon - On a cruise ship, a wheelchair-bound (and very sleazy) American tells the story of his many loves to an idealistic British newlywed, emphasizing in particular the stormy relationship he had with his wife, the virgin flower whom he molded into the embodiment of feminine carnality (and his own personal Frankenstein monster).  This film may seem tres corny to many viewers, but I was fascinated with this "hell hath no fury" tale of the heights of passion and the depths of despair, particularly when I stopped and thought about how easily this story could have become mine - it is a matter of meeting the wrong person at the right time.  Directed by Roman Polanski, this film is twenty or thirty times better than his wretched Frantic.  Both films star the luscious Emanuelle Seigner.
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Carlito's Way - Carlito, played by Al Pacino, gets out of jail and tries to go straight.  This is a film showing why he just can't seem to do that.  It has all sorts of drama, betrayal, action, comedy, and great characters - kind of a small scale Once Upon a Time In America .  Great performances by everyone mentioned - Al Pacino, a barely recognizable Sean Penn, Penelope Ann Miller, Luis Guzman and John Leguizamo as "Benny Blanco from the Bronx," the film's Bobby Peru.  None of the critics liked this film, but I couldn't understand their reasoning when I read their reviews (saying, for example, that Pacino is miscast!?).  I believe not too many people saw it but I think it stands the test of time.  For a while I was hesitant to watch it because I thought it looked like a downer, but when I finally rented it I was glad I did.  I am not a big fan of Brian De Palma (see below), whom I consider very overrated, but this one can be compared favorably with his other great film the Untouchables (I don't even want to talk about Scarface).
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Overrated Films (or There is No Justice in Film):

Anything by Brian De Palma or John Boorman or Joel Shumacher .  Who are these guys?  Who said that they could make important films?  (important exception: De Palma's Carlito's Way and the Untouchables).  I want to put Tim Burton on this list after seeing Sleepy Hollow , but Mars Attacks won't let me.

Armageddon - I still can't understand why anybody would want to see this movie.  It is quite clearly a B-movie with an "A"-cast.  Kind of like Sleepy Hollow , come to think of it.  Even the great Steve Buscemi was awful, not to mention Billy Bob Thornton who has obviously done much better work.  I knew this one would be awful before it was even released when I checked out the soundtrack and saw Aerosmith and Journey songs on it, and sure enough the end result was true to over-blown form.  I saw this movie in less-than ideal conditions - on an airplane as far away from the screen as possible.  The headset audio was fine, the video wasn't.  Redeeming feature - the caricature of the broken-down space station was good for a laugh or two.  Watch Con Air instead.

Jackie Brown.  Somehow this film was both overrated ("Man, what a great flick") and underrated ("how could the director of Pulp Fiction have come up with this crap?").  It was enjoyable as spunky, sleepy, somber, over-long high quality story-telling, but I can't find any reason to get excited about it other than that.  All of the performers have been better in most of their films, especially the ever-engaging Samuel Jackson who is generally just tiresome.  Exception to that statement is Pam Grier, who was quite fine.

The Truman Show - I guess Truman was a poor tortured soul.  I probably wouldn't have minded watching a sick movie about mental torture if it had been more interesting, but this should have been a sinister black comedy and not a drama/coming-of-age feelgood movie.  Jim Carrey haters naturally despise that Hollywood is taking him seriously, but I am not one of them - his fine acting still didn't register much of a blip.  Am I a grinch for hating this one?  It might have made a good short story or novella.

Fletch.  A painfully unfunny film.  Why is it so high in people's esteem?  Right down to the Herbert Faltemeyer soundtrack it is essentially an unviolent, unfunny remake of Beverley Hills Cop , which was no great movie either, although it did have execution.  And Serge.

The Batman series of films.  Maybe enough time has gone by that we can finally begin to admit that none of them were any good anyway.  The four films edited together may have enough redeeming features (set design, the Prince song, Pee-Wee Herman cameo, Jim Carrey's inspired manic Riddler) to have made one GREAT movie, but by the third movie Val Kilmer and Joel Schumacher and that Chris O' Donnell guy really flogged that dead horse even deader and deadder, leaving George Clooney out in the cold with a dreadful Arnold and Uma in the evil villain roles.  How likely is it that we will see a fifth Batman film with a fourth actor filling the suit?  Watch the animated series instead.
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Movies to avoid at all costs:

I have been neutral about quite a few films that other people have hated.  I really have at least a few good things to say about arguable bad films (or just "bad" films) that my peers despised like Titanic , the Mummy, Dances With Wolves, Bitter Moon , Canadian Bacon , the Devil's Advocate (or any other Keanu Reeves films), the Hunger , Lulu on the Bridge , Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion , the Mask of Zorro, etc.  Some of my favorite movies are badfilms like Top Secret , Betty Blue (what Roger Ebert called "a film about breasts"), and others.  Maybe it is my mild disposition... but!  There are a few films that have been created, perhaps with good intentions, that I ultimately cannot forgive.  In order to save you time and money, I am making a list of movies that I wish I had never seen...

Gojoe Reisanki: Bloody beyond any previously viewed excess, and with no discernable story or plot.  

The Hot Spot, Tightrope, Chicken Run, Great Expectations , Bringing In The Dead, the Legend of 1900, Agnes of God , Romeo Must Die - Not bad per se, these films were simply pretty boring and not worth their time, despite the talented stars and directors involved.  

Dogma - I wanted to like this Kevin Smith film, but in the end had to admit that it was pretty awful.  

Something Weird - Low budget sixties horror film that is pretty laughable.  Gangster type gets involved with a pretty woman who forces him to murder.  Turns out she's a witch!!!  

Soleil Rouge - Charles Bronson and Mifune Toshiro speaking French in the wild west!  This awful film was probably the first ramen western.  

Charisma - Awful Japanese horror that was completely imcomprehensible.  

Playing God - David Dukovny film.  Interesting set up of a drugged up surgeon slumming with gangsters, but quickly becomes awflu.  

Fletch - Can't understand why this is considered by some a comedy classic.  Unfunny rip-off of Beverley Hills Cop an embarassment for Chase, who was once actually a comedian.  

the Son of the Pink Panther - Despite the presence of Roberto Benini as a perfectly-cast son of Clouseau, this film has nothing to offer either fan and non-fan.  

Vampire In Brooklyn - Eddie Murphy intolerable as a vampire who is in love with himself.  Only one or two funny scenes.  Angela Bassett is good (as always).  

Manhunter - Some people like this early Hannical Lector film, but I thought Michael Mann didn't do a very good job.  Still, nice to see Dennis Farina again.  

Secret Society  - Intolerable British comedy drama about fat women doing sumo.  "The ways of the orient are so mysterious" patronizing crap.  

Battlefield Earth - I heard that this film was bad, but I wanted to at least watch it for a few laughs.  It was so bad that there really was nothing to laugh at.  

Dragon Fight - With Battlefield Earth one of the worst movies ever made.  Gladiator movie that makes absolutely no sense at all.  Painful to watch.  

Gorgeous - Painfully bad Jackie Chan movie.  Nothing could have prepared me for how awful this film was.  Poor Jackie.  

Breakfast of Champions - Making a film out of an absurd Kurt Vonnegut novel is a bit of a long shot, but nothing prepared me for how truly awful this film was.  Astounding!

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Some people loved this pointless and murky film (read the viewer comments on the Internet Movie Database to see what I mean), but I think the appeal to this film lies in a long history of heavy drug use.  It was unwatchable, and possibly even worse than Toys!

Toys - This probably gets my vote as the most unnecessary movie ever.  The director was clearly trying to do something different with this film, like re-create some kind of magical child's world we could all wish to escape to, but nothing about this movie worked. Most unnecessary was this film's plot (some people don't believe that there was one).  Maybe it should have been a documentary or a "mockumentary."  I actually shut this one off near the end when I watched it on video, something I almost never do (although I did it for Consenting Adults , see below).  If I had taken a date to see it in the theaters at the time, I might have ended up slitting my wrists.  Robin Williams has rarely been this awful, and his list of awful performances is actually pretty long!  Check out Good Will Hunting to see what he can do if he sets his mind to it.  I laughed when I re-read the Roger Ebert review of this disaster - he struggles to find nice things to say about it.  Sorry Roger, you're a fraud if you liked this terrible flick.

Consenting Adults - You'd think that Kevin Kline and Kevin Spacey would be good together, especially under the direction of Alan Pacula ( Sophie's Choice, All the President's Men, the Parallax View and Klute, among others).  I found this film about an average joe (Kline) who makes the dodgy choice of wife-swapping (gross!) with a murderer (Spacey) unwatchable and generally worthless, making it yet another movie about simple people leading happy lives who can't resist the temptation of making their lives miserable.  I couldn't stand the pain after an hour, so I actually turned it off - something I rarely ever do with even the most awful ripoffs (although I did it for Toys, see above).  I did watch Pacula's bland the Pelican Brief from start to finish, though, so maybe I can see another case of the great director going wrong.  Kevin Spacey is still a skilled actor and he really gave me the creeps in this movie.  I shouldn't diss a good actor plying his trade, but maybe if his character hadn't been quite so thoroughly revolting...

Killer Condom or Kondom des Grauens.  What a disappointment after a promising first half, which portrays the comic rather faithfully but then branches out into an even broader plot about homophobia at large.  Sexual liberation good, homophobia bad!  Maybe the film version was the original "Killer Condom" plus a new story "Clones of the Killer Condom" all rolled into one.  Read the much superior comic instead (even if you don't understand German) or switch off after the first killer condom is disposed of about an hour into the flick.

The Avengers.  Nothing could have prepared me for how bad this movie was, since I must admit that I was intrigued at the prospect of seeing Sean Connery as a "bad guy."  He was OK, so was Uma Thurman's body suit, but there was nothing else that worked in this movie, especially not Ralph Feinnes.  It was almost as bad as Mission Impossible , which at least had nice cameos by Jean Reno and Ving Rhames , two guys who can improve almost any movie.

The Hollywood Godzilla.  Maybe I have a soft spot for the big guy, but making him an evil Jurassic Park escapee, then blaming his creation on the French, was just too much for me to take sitting down.

Walker - I wanted to like it, but it was pointless trying.  Ditto with Blue In The Face and the Cool World.  What were these directors thinking?  .

Total Eclipse - Rimbaud and Verlaine shagging in England, Belgium, and France.  This should have been a more interesting, given the source material and the presence of David Thelwis and Leonardo DiCaprio, but somehow it wasn't.  Maybe Thelwis would have done better playing both roles.

Postman - just writing this is as good as admitting that I watched this film voluntarily, despite smelling the stink from miles away.  I still find it hard to believe that this is the same guy who directed Dances With Wolves, which I don't mind admitting I enjoyed... although it is easy to believe that it was made by the same guy who "starred" in Waterworld.  Please never confuse this waste of film with Il Postino, which was a wonderful film that really everybody should see.

The Scarlet Letter - Demi Moore is in this one... so what!  I wish someone had warned me just how awful this adaptation was.  I want to cry now...

Clear and Present Danger and Patriot Games - When I think that people take movies that star Harrison Ford like this one seriously, I just feel empty inside.  And I want to cry again.

The Saint - Yuck.  Val Kilmer as the master of all disguises, trying to make money as an international man of mystery, seducing large-breasted rocket scientists, etc.  Some people told me that this was their favorite movie of the year, but how can I take them seriously now that I have seen how bad it is?  The Russian bad guys has more character than anyone else in this dumb flick.  Watch Kilmer in Top Secret instead, please.

Ghost in the Shell - This is rumored to be a great anime classic, along the lines of Akira, but I did not find this to be true at all.  I found it boring and pointless.  Akira actually was a good movie.

Space comedies like Spaceman or Rocket Man.  These went straight to video for good reason: it is because they are very painful to watch.

Sequels that should never have seen the light of day - the Exorcist 2: the Heretic, Darkman 2, Mortal Combat 2, the Crow 2, Highlander 2, Escape From L.A., Addams Family Reunion , Star Trek 3, Farway So Close, Austin Powers: the Spy Who Shagged Me, etc.
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Not awful - movies that were unfairly drubbed

Coming after movies to avoid at all costs, some of which received semi-favorable reviews by apologist critics (" Toys " and "Last Action Hero " come to mind as examples), comes a short list of films that were drubbed despite the fact that they are actually pretty good films.  I am not trying to say that these were good films, but I do believe that these movies are at least as decent as the average "decent film," maybe even a little bit better.

What Dreams May Come - people hated this movie, I thought it was stylish and trippy, good stuff from Vincent Ward, Kiwi director of "Map of the Human Heart."
the Beach - Leonardo Dicaprio movie set in Thailand, wildly unpopular and part of a clear decline in the films of its director, actually wasn't all that bad.
Big Trouble in Little China - John Carpenter's loving homage to kung fu action sterteotypes, this film should have been bigger than that dumb Die Hard flick.
Johnny Mnemonic - A William Gibson story, a Matrix prototype, Beat Takeshi and Henry Rollins.  Despite Keanu Reeves' lead, this film wasn't awful at all.
8mm - The fabulous Nicolas Cage, on the hunt for a snuff film ring.  Even though it was a Joel Schumacher project, this film wasn't awful at all.
Bitter Moon - Sick sexual politics, courtesy of Roman Polanski.  Wasn't awful at all.
Carlito's Way - Al Pacino is one of his most sympathetic roles since Dog Day Afternoon.  Wasn't awful at all.
Purple Rain - Sure Prince is gross, but try to hold the tears back at the end.  Wasn't awful at all.
Canadian Bacon - A funny spoof of the Can-Am rift, something I have been living for years now.  Wasn't awful at all.
The Astronaut's Wife - Creepy, cool, spooky.  Could have been a Twilight Zone episode.  Wasn't really that awful at all - what were you expecting from this type of film anyway?
the Devil's Advocate - Creepy, cool, spooky.  Could have been a Twilight Zone episode.  Wasn't awful at all.
the Hunger - Sexy, stylish, and it even has a plot.  Wasn't awful at all.
Ace Ventura - I know several people who back me up with this one.  Jim Carrey's William Shatner impression in this film must be what made him famous.
Judge Dredd - Sly Stallone was made for this role.  What did you expect of a comic book adaptation?  Wasn't awful at all.

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All original writings copyright Peter Hoflich, 2000

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