fierce competition with his eccentric nemesis, Vector (Jason Segel) who looks strikingly like a young Bill Gates (also known for his allegedly illegal business practices). Is this film a disguised allegory on PC versus Mac? It's beginning to make more sense to me now.

Gru seems to already have a limitless fortune (again like Jobs and Gates), as displayed by his house which sits atop a vast factory, which contains ample space for the construction of a space ship, a scientific research lab and housing for countless “minions.” He also has an arsenal of cutting edge weapons like shrink rays, freeze rays, and an array of futuristic battle vehicles for land and air. By the way, what are those minions – some one eyed, some two eyed? Did Gru find them on some oompa loompa-like island or planet? Did he create them? I’m curious, but get no answers. I do get a glimpse into Gru’s childhood in flashbacks which reveal his relationship with his mother (Julie Andrews) and the psychological root causes behind his anti-social behavior.

Part of Gru’s nefarious plot includes adopting three children (hauntingly reminiscent of Lemony Snicket’s waifs) to gain access to Vector’s fortress home and steal some needed technology (industrial espionage). The chipping away at Gru’s armor by the three little orphans is a gradual and enjoyable process to watch. They assume they’ve been rescued from the stereotypically cold and slave driving orphanage’s Miss Hattie (Kristen Wiig) by a Daddy Warbucks character -- bald, rich and with a heart of gold deep down, very deep down.

The 3D visuals are stunning, the plot moves fast while never losing heart and humor, the characters -- from Gru to the kids to the amorphous, annoying squeaking minions -- are fun to watch. Gru’s cohort scientist is only as a plot device to explain the technical side of the story and seemed to be wasted on Russell Brand’s immense comedic talent. The kids should enjoy this even if there’s not a whole lot there for us grown ups.

I once found a wallet, a big one with lots of compartments stuffed with credit cards and papers. I even found some cash in a very secretive section of it, though the money in the cash section was gone. Without hesitation, I simply looked through the papers for the phone number of the owner, called and said “I found your wallet.” We made an appointment for the woman’s husband to come by and pick it up -- her husband, just to be safe. He came by, he thanked me, took the wallet and left. Incident was over. So simple, direct and final.

Not so in Wild Grass probably because the wallet-finder in this case, Georges Palet (played by André Dussollier) has been damaged in some way and is under a lot of stress. He feels emasculated by being a house-husband to his patient wife, Suzanne (Anne Consigny). She does remind him to paint the door and mow the lawn, but she also thanks him very sweetly when he does. Still, in subtle ways, it grates on him. Also, it is suggested that George has had some health problems that might interfere with his once clear thinking (maybe that's why he doesn't have a job). To add to his frame of mind, Georges is going through a mid-life crisis, though I think Dussollier was miscast in the role, being several decades past such a crisis. He is a regular repertory member of Alan Resnais’ actors, having appeared is several of his previous films. Perhaps it’s just habit on Resnais’ part to cast Dussollier. And at Resnais’ age, 88, it may be difficult for him to distinguish too old

In any case, George agonizes over what to do with the wallet he finds in a shopping mall parking lot – call the woman whose photo ID he finds in the wallet, go to the police and drop it off, just forget it? He builds an elaborate fantasy life around this woman who is a dentist and has the adventurous hobby of flying small planes, Marguerite Muir (Sabine Azéma). He behaves obsessively, imagining conversations, writing long letters to her, visiting her home, attacking her car. He also imagines she and other characters in his circle behave eccentrically, or they actually do. Is he getting carried away by his over emotional reactions to every little nuance of communications with Marguerite, his wife, the police or is everyone a bit off kilter?

China invaded Tibet in 1959, causing the Delai Lama and over 100,000 Tibetans to flee with him to Northern India. Those who remained were subjected to and continue to be subjected to imprisonment, torture, murder, the destruction of their monasteries, desecration of their religious art, and all manner of subjugation to this foreign power. In addition, over a million Chinese have moved into Tibet by railroad to settle in this developing country and reap the profits of Tibet’s natural resources, to the exclusion of the native population.

And when he goes to Nirvana, what interference will
the Chinese place in the way of finding a new Delai Lama?

We knew all that before from many documentaries and features, besides non-front-pages stories in newspapers over the decades. All spoke in a more emotional palette (even the newspaper articles), each with particular perspective about particular subjects: be it the rape and murder of nuns, to the before and after photos of the physical destruction of ancient buildings, to the life of the Delai Lama and the steps taken to escape and then set up a temporary exile home for his country-people in Dharamsala, India.

“The Sun Behind the Clouds” is a good recap of the destruction of this several thousand year old culture by the Chinese. We have a new generation who may not be familiar with the recent history of Tibet and should be made aware that this is not the distant past, and Tibet wasn’t always a land of soldiers with guns harassing monks in yellow robes. Richard Gere did a lot to promote the cause of Tibet a decade ago, but Americans have a particularly short memory. The noise made by Tibetan protests during the 2009 Olympics was literally and figuratively drown out by the precision drum playing of thousands of choreographed Chinese in the opening night ceremonies. So, even if there are no productive efforts made by the international community on behalf of Tibet, at least, let this isolated, once peaceful country not be forgotten.

This film also explains the complex political situation Tibet’s religious and de facto only leader is in. As a Buddhist, the Delai Lama must promote only peaceful means to the end of going home to Tibet again. But unlike Ghandi before him espousing peaceful resistance, he must deal with the Chinese, not the British. The Chinese, even in dealing with their own population who demonstrate for human rights, are unmoving. Why should they listen to some monks at the edge of their border? The rest of the world is very emotionally supportive of Tibet’s situation, but none will sanction China while trying to deal with this huge and technologically emerging world power. The Delai Lama changed his public stance in the late 1980's from freedom for Tibet to a middle of the road policy. He has tried unsuccessfully to broker a co-existence between Tibetans and Chinese in Tibet with Tibetans’ autonomy. I don’t really know what autonomy would mean in this case, but it seems moot since the Chinese refuse to even discuss the matter with His Holiness. I can certainly understand Tibetans’, both in Tibet and in exile, disappointment over this change of policy. Many are compelled to disregard their great leader’s position and protest within and outside the country at peril to their own lives.

Directors Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam, themselves Tibetans, give a sweeping background of the political situation, on the one hand, following the Delai Lama as he speaks with almost-heads-of-state, such as Prince Charles of England – more a friendly chat rather than hard knuckled policy and tactics for returning Tibet to its people, on the other hand, following exiled Tibetans on a 1000 mile march through India and back to Tibet, where police regularly interrupt their progress before they reach the border and probably their doom.

I have never felt so hopeless for the future of Tibet. It will soon become a place of malls and mines and high rise apartments. No more mysterious Shangri La peeking out of the mists of the greatest mountrain range in the world. Tibetans will become the wondering Jews of Asia, homeless, but with a rich and unique culture upon their backs and in their hearts.

It’s so romantic and mysterious to bring back an old fisherman’s legend to present day Ireland. Actually, it would seem from watching “Ondine” that present day Ireland isn’t that far removed from that of Celtic legend. The men still go out in their fishing boats, cast out their nets and hope they will be lucky enough to catch fish to support their families. The rustic domiciles of these fishermen seem little removed from those we see in children’s storybooks. The village in this film also seems little changed. But if you look carefully, you’ll notice cars on the roads, modern clothes in the shops, and too much hard liquor and juke box rock n’ roll in the taverns.

Since first coming to America in the 1890's, the Hasidic Jews have been able to maintain their cultural and religious identity unscathed. Living in Brooklyn, taking the subway to work, walking the same streets and seeing and being seen by their fellow New Yorkers, Hasidim have changed very little in more than a century of exposure to the New World and its noisy, obtrusive culture. Still, the strong belief in God, family and tradition has cemented this subculture to the exclusion of almost any outside influence.

Jesse Eisenberg as to not-idealistic enough Hasid.

“Holy Rollers” is the remarkable, but true story of the chipping of the previously indomitable wall between Hasidic Jews and the rest of the world. In the late 1990's, Jews in New York were bringing in large

amounts of ecstasy from Europe, using Hasidic mules to get through customs. Who’d suspect Hasidic Jews of transporting drugs? This story focuses on one particular young man, Sam Gold ((Jesse Eisenberg), who within a few short months of being associated with this drug-running organization, loses all of his former morals in the pursuit of gelt. He is not only a successful mule, but is promoted to bookkeeper and recruiter of more Hasidic mules. I have heard no comments thus far that “Holy Rollers” is anti-semitic. This may be because in the depiction of this operation all the other Hasidim frown upon his actions, and, let’s face it, Jews are as likely to be involved in drug trafficking as any other race, religion or culture. Also, the erosion of Sam’s cultural identity is so sensitively written and performed, it is understandable and even tempting for the viewers to follow his path.

At the beginning of this story, Sam works in his father’s fabric shop in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and is frustrated that his father is such a poor businessman who won’t take his advice on how to run the shop to make a better profit. Sam is also hoping to culminate arrangements for a marriage. Unfortunately, the girl and her family opt for another choice. Sam blames a lack of money for all his problems, so when offered easy money, world travel, and helping doctors get new medicine into the country, he chooses not to ask any further questions and takes that first step outside his sheltered community. It plays much like a fable of good being tempted by the devil, Mephistopheles selling his soul for immortality, Sam rising in the world of illicit drugs at the cost of his family and all he has been taught is good and of real value. And it’s easy to see the fable-like qualities of the story because Sam and his community of Hasidim seem so foreign and timeless to us, the sophisticated audience. They dress and behave much as they did when they first came to the U.S. over a hundred years ago. The moral values are as simple and innocent as those held by country peasants of that time as well. So, the clash with modern day drug dealers and dangerous situations is all the more jarring.

This is the most empathetic rendering of the Hasidic community I have seen in film, including several documentaries – all the greater the loss to Sam at his self-expulsion. It’s an intriguing story about this insulated community and the ecstasy trade. And as an extra bonus, playing Sam Gold’s sister is Jesse Eisenberg’s real life sister Hallie Kate Eisenberg, whom we haven’t seen enough of since her memorable cola commercials of a dozen years ago.

Best Worst Movie is a documentary about the cast of Troll 2, a schlock horror film made back in 1990. Seems that over the years, there has been a slowly growing cult following around this ultra-low budget horror flick due to its awful acting, non-sensical plot, cheap effects, and ridiculous premise – vegetarian goblins trick humans into eating or drinking their specially prepared foods which turn them into half human/half veggie daily specials, the goblins’ favorite repast. We reconnect with the lead players of the film, most notably George Hardy who waxes most philosophical about the whole experience of being an actor then and being a cult favorite now along the revival circuit. His perspectives, and those of his fellow cast members, reveal a lot about unfulfilled careers, lost opportunities, and the meaning of fame.

I watched Troll 2 on IMDB.com and found it to be not that bad at all. The photography was good, and there were enough characters and situations to keep an audience interested. Most strange was that the actual director and co-writer, Claudio Fragrasso, and his wife and writer, Rosella Drudi, were not in the opening or closing credits. Instead, Drake Floyd was credited for story, screenplay and directing. We see a lot of both Fragrasso and Drudi in the doc discussing the fine qualities of the film, so this couldn’t be a case of their not wanting their names to be attached to the film, a la Alan Smithee. Too bad this possibly interesting aspect of the film’s history was not pursued.

Gregoire Canvel ( Louis-Dominique de Lencquesaing) is a French film producer with a wife and 2 children. If he’s not on his cell phone while spending quality time with his kids, he’s at meetings with various financial people trying to hold his failing film company together. This is possibly an interesting place to start. But the film barely moves from there. We spend lots of time with Gregoire and his three beautiful daughters and patient wife as they go from historic site to secret ponds

Louis-Dominique de Lencquesaing and real life daughter
Alice de Lencquesaing in a happy moment -- or is it?

and streams throughout the French countryside on weekends. We also attend countless meetings with bankers, investors, distributors, film processors, and assorted staff discussing the same problems over and over. They don’t have the money to keep the company afloat and it seems nothing can be done to save it. And that is where we end up 110 minutes later.

Gregoire, a very charming man (we know that because we’re told several times), never comes up with any solutions, never reigns in any of the runaway expenses, but only asks for money from various money people. He is a really nice, calm, easygoing guy who bases his choices of film production of the director’s artistic talents rather than commercial viability. No wonder his company is failing. And all the people he meets with are likewise charming, patient, soft-spoken, empathetic and unable to help. Am I in France or Canada? His only solution is to leave the problems for others to solve, and they can’t either. That is pretty much the movie. Let me repeat – lots and lots of business meetings where different people say the same thing over and over. Along the way, we see him take under his wing a young screenwriter who only comes back later in the film to retrieve his script. What was the point of introducing him? We find out other facts about his past, but they are never brought to fruition. Why were we told this stuff, how does it relate to his actions? We see is wife attending meetings in his place, but she is as silent and passive as he.

“The Father of My Children” is more a fugue than a film. It poses a situation and we flounder in it, understanding as little at its culmination as we did in the beginning. It just states we have a financial problem (the dullest of all problems) and we’ll just take lots of meetings till the final credits roll. Quel triste.

Jeff Daniels has cornered the casting market on roles depicting neurotic writers. First there was 2005's, “The Squid and the Whale,” in which he was an author so self-deluded and obnoxious that it was hard not only for his family, but for the audience as well to remain in his presence. Then 2009 brought us “Arlen Faber,” about a writer whose whole career is based on the lie that he was told all the answers to life by God, which deception rendered him agoraphobic and crippled with back pain. Now, in “Paper Man” Daniels plays a blocked and not too successful writer who still depends on his childhood imaginary friend to get him out of cinches and offer advice. Since an imaginary friend, a figment of one’s own imagination, is only as knowledgeable and self-aware as the imaginer, Richard, played by Daniels, isn’t getting anywhere solving his problems. And did I mention this imaginary friend, a super hero named Captain Excellent, wishes Richard would finally grow up and move on? So no sympathy by the only one he depends on for understanding. Times are getting hard.

Richard has relocated to Montauk, the tip of Long Island, as far as one can get from his home in New York going east without getting wet. His wife, Claire (Lisa Kudrow) is the instigator of this move, ostensibly to rid him of all distractions, so he can concentrate on his writing. Meanwhile, she visits on weekends while continuing her practice as a thoracic surgeon in New York. Sadly, something as minor as the pattern of the couch upholstery can be enough of a distraction to halt Richard’s progress, not even allowing him to get beyond the first sentence of his book about the extinction of the American Heath Hen.

While distracting himself even further by taking rides around the area on the children’s bike he found in his garage, he meets a teenage girl, Abby (Emma Stone), and asks her to babysit for him on Friday. He has no children. Nonetheless, a friendship begins. To say this film is a comedy or even a dramedy is misleading. This is a sad, heartfelt story about Richard and Abby. Both are damaged and find they need more than imaginary friends can provide. There are some quirky lines like when Abby comes over to babysit and says, “Where’s the baby?”, and Richard responds, “There is no baby,”Abby responds, “That makes

I am ready to admit I am now an avid fan of the Hindi-Mexican soap opera genre – the banal plot about the star-crossed lovers, the betrayal, the rabid gangster out for blood, oh, and our hero, J., played by Hrithik Roshan, the most incredible hunk for whom I can think of no comparison. I was barely able to silence my gasps for each lingering close up of those incredible blue eyes that changed hue with each scene: the vibrant blue when explaining his life to the

If you love the legend of Robin Hood, down to his merry band of men robbing the rich and giving to the poor, you are going to be miffed by Ridley Scott’s latest contribution to the growing lore of the man in green tights.

Perhaps the old tale is a bit frayed around the edges from overuse, starting back with Douglas Fairbanks’ version, through the absolute gold standard set by Errol Flynn’s, to 50's TV’s Richard Greene’s, to the dueling Hoods depicted in the best forgotten Kevin Costner version and the unfortunately forgotten Patrick Bergin’s, as well as literally scores more. Resuscitation by Mel Brook’s “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” (1993) and Terry Gilliam’s John Cleese cameo in “Time Bandits” (1981) could only cause some laughs at the legend’s expense..

Rather than revisit the tried and true story, Scott refers to historical facts to enhance the fabric of the story. He takes us to the trek with the Crusaders back from defeat in the Holy Land. While crossing France, and fighting for wealth and food to get them back to terra England, Robert Longstride steals the identity and armor of a fallen knight, Richard of Loxley, and brings back to England the crown of dead King Richard. Yes, in this version, Robin is actually an identity thief, and his formerly dead father, Sir Walter Loxley is alive and welcoming. I admit, my head is swimming. Actually, Richard did die in France on the way back from the Crusades, but if Richard is dead, what hope do we have for England and Robin against the evil King John?

If you take a look at “Lion in Winter” (1968), which recounts the life of Henry II, his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, and their four sons, you will meet Richard and John, plus their other two brothers bickering over who is to receive the thrown upon Henry’s death. This is a preview of “Robin Hood”’s royal brothers. In “Robin Hood,” Eleanor is now an old woman stuck with her not too bright son whom neither she nor Henry

Micmacs
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Cast: Dany Boon, Andre Dussollier, Omar Sy, Dominuique Pinon, Julie Ferrier, Nicolas Marie, Marie-Julie Baup, Michel Cremades, Yolande Moreau, Jean-Pierre Marielle
Opening: June 4, 2010

The moustached and the innocent Michael Cera

I love seeing a perfectly good kid -- bright, moral, well educated, respectful -- throw it all away for the possibility of getting laid for the first time. Maybe all girls are evil and want ridiculous proofs of love or desire before they give out or maybe they just can’t help but take advantage of nerds who cross their paths. Thanks to Nick Twisp’s (Michael Cera) unscratchable itch for two person sex, we get to see some pretty extreme acts to satisfy the whims of Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday). One might suggest he pay a prostitute, but Sheeni promises a steady relationship, meaning regular sex; and a situation like that can’t be lightly set aside. So, off goes Nick to the deep end from a high cliff, even recruiting his doppelganger, Francois Dillinger, to help bolster his courage and give him advice on how to go about ruining the rest of his life.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave.... It all started out so simply – married construction manager, Raymond (David Roberts), is having an affair with married hairdresser Carla (Claire van der Boom). They might have talked about running away together before, but didn’t expect anything to come of it until one day Carla says her husband, Smithy (Anthony Hayes), is hiding a bag full of illicitly gained money in the house which she and Raymond should steal to run away and finally start their new lives together. All they have to do is burn down the house so Smithy thinks the money was destroyed in the fire. No one gets hurt and they’ll be together. Thus starts a tail of ever increasing mis-steps, violence, guilt and paranoia. The film is spellbinding in its intricate plot, including several red herrings which are just a natural part of the story, but not intrinsic to the denouement. You’ll have to wait till the end to figure out what didn’t matter. All the way to the surprising outcome – the myriad plot twists, various strings laying around to be tripped over, ever growing number of suspicious characters – finally, every detail is accounted for and makes sense.

I hear people say they like to go to the movies for some mindless entertainment. You might say Date Night was mindless entertainment. You don’t have to figure anything out. You won’t think about it afterwards. There are no messages, no social relevance. I hate mindless entertainment, usually. I feel my time was robbed from me. But not with Date Night. I wondered why I didn’t feel cheated

and I figured it was because I really like the people, Phil and Claire Foster (Steve Carell and Tina Fey). They have a stable marriage based on mutual respect and the ability to talk to each other. They are not stupid or unlikeable in any way. That one date night, they just got over their heads. Way over their heads.

It all started with Phil responded to a high end restaurant hostess repeatedly calling out the name of the next party for a table. Phil didn’t even have a reservation, but just wanted to treat his wife to a very special evening in the city, not the regular potato peels and salmon place in New Jersey they usually go to. So, Phil responds to the call for the Tripplehorns and he and Claire enjoy some very overpriced, but delicious food. Unfortunately, the Tripplehorns are being hunted because ... Well, they’re being hunted and now the Fosters have to deal with some very dangerous characters who put them in some hilarious and threatening situations. How they maneuver through this labyrinth is as much luck as quick thinking. Included is one of the most inventive and scarey car chases I’ve ever seen. Bullet and French Connection have nothing on this.

Also, the dialogue was fast, witty and often hysterically funny. Much of this is due to Fey and Carell improvising many of their lines. The outtakes at the end of the film are some of the funniest lines – probably not used because they were out of character for the Fosters, but too funny to leave out. Hopefully, the Fosters will come back for more thrills and misadventures. Their chemistry was endearing, their travails tightly scripted, their banter priceless.

I knew something was fishy in the opening scene – moving vans deliver a household full of expensive and beautiful furnishings, and even clothes on racks, to an empty house and no on is there to greet the movers. These movers place every article as if staging the house. Hmmmm. And when the Joneses arrive, they are all excited and happy to see how majestic and large the outside of the home is, never having seen it before. So, are they spies, terrorists, undercover FBI agents? It turns out they are representatives of four age and genders groups whose goal is to market expensive goods to a new neighborhood through their lifestyle – they live the products, from furniture to cell phones, golf clubs to big screen TVS and Wii video games, perfume and jewelry to clothes and sneakers. They are aptly named the Joneses because through the use of careful placement, amiable parties, charm and class, everybody wants to keep up with them. High school girls want to wear that cool new lipstick, men want their wives to have sex with them again because of the beautiful gifts they give them, women want to look beautiful and stylish, boys want the latest electronic and sports toys.

Of course, the problem is our perfect family is made up of marketers, not a real family, and they are individuals with their own idiosyncracies which often get in the way of performing their jobs. So, there may be trouble in consumer paradise.

The Greatest (2009)
Director/Writer: Shana Feste
Cast: Susan Sarandon. Carey Mulligan, Pierce Brosnan, Aaron Johnson. Johnny Simmons, Miles Robbins, Zoë Kravitz
Producers: Lynette Howell, Beau St. Clair
Rated: R
Time: 99 min.

How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
Directors: Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders
Writer: Cressida Cowell ( story), Adam F. Goldberg (writer), Peter Tolan (writer), Dean DeBlois (screenplay), Chris Sanders (screenplay)
Cast: Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse
Producer: Bonnie Arnold
Time: 98 min.
Rated: PG

I’ve been spoiled, as we all have. Since the first Toy Story, well, even since The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, I find it difficult to settle for flat cartoons. The only ones that I suffer now are The Simpsons, Spongebob Squarepants and Futurama. And now that 3D has been perfected and gone really deep – from just molded, shaped and shaded, to actual depth via glasses – I find myself squirming in my seat with impatience and boredom if I can’t reach out and try to grab something coming at me or wafting past me, as I felt when I viewed The Secret of Kells. And Kells’ animation is rather simplistic with few frames per second. What makes it even more difficult to watch is that its major competition is How to Train Your Dragon, with too many similarities to avoid comparison.


Kells' Brendon up a tree with Aisling.

Both have young boys as their protagonists. Brendan, in Kells, lives in a monastery about to be invaded by Vikings; coincidentally, Hiccup, in Dragon, is a Viking youth whose village is regularly invaded by dragons. So, do I hate the Vikings due to Kells, or empathize with them a la Dragon? Monasteries, such as the one in Kells, are dull with the only activity of building a wall to protect it from invasion breaking the silent, stern, foreboding atmosphere, oh, and the chase after a goose to pluck quills for writing and illuminating bibles. In Dragon, the viking village is constantly either under attack or is buzzing with rebuilding its burned houses or the youth are being trained to be the next generation to fight off dragons or Hiccup is in his workshop building new gadgets.

The stories go: Kells: Brendan (Evan McGuire) lives in the monestary with his uncle, Abbot Cellach (Brendan Gleeson). While the Abbot is busy getting a wall built around the monastery, Brendan is secretly learning the art of illumination from the newly arrived Brother Tang (Liam Hourican). It is necessary for Brendan to leave the security of the monastary to find a tool to help paint a blank page in the book. In the forest, Brendan meets Aisling (Christen Mooney), a forest nymph, who helps him reach his goal. So, Brendan regularly slips away from his uncle to go to the writing room.

Dragon: Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) is the littlest nerd in the village, a real disappointment to his father (Gerard Butler), and scoffed at by all his peers, including the beautiful Astrid (America Ferrara). Hiccup secretly builds gadgets in his workshop. One of his inventions, a catapault, wounds a dragon, which Hiccup finds, trains, and enlists in his quest to liberate all dragons from their ritual which includes pillaging the village. So, Hiccup regularly slips away from his father to train a dragon., eventually taking Astrid into his confidence.

And don’t forget – Brendan is flat and Hiccup is taking us flying breathlessly along the rocky Scandanavian coast with even more exuberance and realism than Jake Sully did in Avatar. What a roller coaster ride without the coaster! But most significant was the infectious humor, joy, and excitement of Dragons. The script is smart and humorous. Hiccup is a dragon whisperer who attempts to save both his town and the dragons from extinction. He is funny, witty, and ingenious. I really enjoyed myself watching Hiccup solve the world’s problems and get the girl. I feel conflicted about Kells’ Brendan devoting his life to illuminating a page in a book that is supposed to light the world through the Dark Ages, knowing that in actuality, the Catholic texts and the bible were tools for keeping the Dark Ages dark, and all science and literature at a standstill through the Inquisition and other horrible tactics for 500 years. Yes, the Vikings and other barbarian hordes really did scourge much of Europe, raping, pillaging and causing mayhem. But they’re so

Dragon's Hiccup up a tree with Astrid... and Dragon.

much more fun in Dragons. After all, don’t we go to see animated films for pleasure? On all counts, Dragons is a much more pleasurable experience than Kells. Except for one thing – Vikings don’t actually speak with a Scottish accent or the strange Christian Slater intonations Hiccup used. Dragons’ voices were annoying for me; were there no Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic or Danish actors who could do the job? I did enjoy the accurate Irish lilts in Kells.

As for violence, I felt the Kells invasion scene was too dark and violent for young children. Okay, there was violence in Dragon, too, but it just seems more beautiful and fun in 3D. Both are rated PG and that’s okay. Parents, aunts, uncles and all extended family should go with the kids to see How to Train Your Dragon.

Rock and Roll, drugs, sex – in that order is what the film, The Runaways, is about. We go back to the mid-1970's and relive the times, the music, the forming of the first all girl rock and roll band, the Runaways, featuring Joan Jett, Cherie Currie, and Lita Ford. There has to be a genetic link between musical talent, or at least the strong desire to be in a band, and the predisposition to drug abuse. The Runaways confirms this theory, as do all rock music films, as do all actual accounts. Or maybe it goes to early childhood situations – absent parents (either actual or emotional) causing unsupervised children to rebel and act out – becoming rock musicians and drug heads. Oh, I’m getting too sociologically analytical. It’s just a movie – your typical kids yearning to be free, famous, rich, sexually active and rolling in pills and booze. It is also a true story. Joan Jett executive produces this story about the formation and demise of her first band, the Runaways. Coincidentally, none of the members were runaways. They just said goodbye to whatever family was still at home and went on the road.

I love rock and roll, but I never loved girl bands. In this case, it’s not because they aren’t as good musicians (they are), it’s not because they aren’t as tough or as cool (they are), it’s not because their songs aren’t as well written or played (they are). But the voices are just too little. Except for Grace Slick and Janis Joplin, there have been far too few voices big enough and gritty enough while still in tune to keep up with the heavy metal and pounding drums of good ole rock and roll. In The Runaways, the intro on guitars and drums rises to a fever pitch, then the voices join in and it sounds to me like the engineer speeded up the voices a la the Chipmunks while leaving the instrumentals at normal rate. Hate me if you like, that’s what I hear.

And band manger, Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon) tried everything he could to get front woman Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) to belt out those tunes with a vengance comparable to a hard core, well heeled biker with a sordid past. But he was asking too much of the

Looks like Ben Stiller is going the way of Adam Sandler in Funny People (2009). Take a serious story with room for humor to showcase the star’s acting skills so he can be taken more seriously – Hollywood style. I say Hollywood style since Greenberg is far from a serious drama, but more serious than previous Stiller vehicles.

Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans and Ben Stiller
peruse Musso & Frank's menu.

Stiller plays, not a near do well, but a not interested in doing well who just wants to do nothing, at least for a while. Roger Greenberg is just chilling out after recently being released from a mental institution for a breakdown. His brother, who is taking his family on a vacation to Viet Nam, has offered his home in Los Angeles for some rest and

recovery. And Roger’s brother’s assistant, Florence (Greta Gerwig), is available to help with any errands or other help Roger may need. Having been raised in L.A., but living in New York for many years, Roger sees this as an opportunity to catch up with his old friends. But his psychological problems, past and present, make revisiting the good old times difficult. Being insecure and self-deluded, having a touch of obsessive compulsive disorder, and having experienced a painful breakup with his old band mates from back in the day, all add up to some very uncomfortable encounters. Seems Roger Greenberg was always obnoxious and inadvertently hurt people often and deeply.

I was uncomfortable to be around this Greenberg character, and with his being present in every scene, I was pretty much uncomfortable the whole 107 minutes. If Ben Stiller doesn’t share these characteristic with Greenberg, he really is a consummate actor. I disliked him and didn’t want to be around him even though I knew the purpose of the film is to expose Greenberg to life’s lessons and help him become a better man. He just wasn’t good enough for my company the whole way through the film. I had to question the motivations of Florence, the assistant, who was always ready to try again to have a relationship with Greenberg. He gave her lots of mixed messages, but the last message of every encounter was insulting and final. A bad relationship with her father was suggested as the root cause of her psychology. But still, I would have kicked her in the head and forced her to keep away from Greenberg. Anybody is too good for him.

There were a lot of insightful remarks put in Greenberg’s mouth by writers, director Noah Baumbach and co-producer/actor Jennifer Jason Leigh, especially about the youth of today. I couldn’t help wondering if Baumbach and Leigh had Stiller in mind when they were writing the story. He is such a perfect fit for the role – not to say he’s obnoxious, but... he fits. I found it interesting that Leigh was so adept at exposing the mind of misanthropic Greenberg. She also gave herself a small part in the film. Even though she was on screen for only two short scenes, it was refreshing to see her again. It was also enjoyable seeing her calmly deal with Greenberg. “Want to go out and have dinner some time?” “No.” She smiles and follows the waiter off camera to get the check for the coffee they shared during this brief meeting. I am so with her.

Maybe I’m too short on sympathy for Greenberg. Maybe I should just hope he’s swayed by the good people around him into seeing the error of his ways, open up, and allow love to enter his heart. Maybe I should just let you try instead.

You can’t make up this stuff! That’s why documentaries were invented – because if you saw a narrative movie with a similar plot line, you’d say, “This is ridiculous – too far fetched to be believed. Stop it, already.” Prodigal Sons, though starting out as a documentary about a son who decides to return to hometown Montana for the 20 year high school reunion, has so many extreme and unexpected twists and turns to it – from the introduction of high school football hero, Paul McKerrow, the prodigal “son” returning home as a women, filmmaker Kimberly Reed, and all the background that goes along with having made that decision, to adoptive older brother Marc who not only has childhood jealousy issues and a history of mental problems due to a severe accident that necessitated the removal of a chunk of his brain, to the discovery of Marc’s world famous birth parents, to youngest son, Todd, being a gay architect who pretty much opted out of the family dynamics, to all the subtleties and nuances of all three siblings and their mother interacting – you just wouldn’t buy it as a movie. It really had to be true to be believed. And it is artfully documented by filmmaker Kim Reed and cinematographer John Keitel over the course of several years.

And what I found most fascinating was that this was an ideal family situation to start. Mom was a school teacher, dad was a doctor -- affluent, comfortable, loving, supportive and intelligent people in a community that boasted the Montana “big sky” and a population that is, if not sophisticated, open and accepting. Golden boy Paul, football co-captain who was vied for as date to the school proms, felt uncomfortable in his body, though attracted to the opposite sex. Yet, there was no mother who dressed him in girl’s clothing, nor an absentee or overly strict dad, nor any other obvious environmental factor which might cause stress, discomfort or a sense of ambiguity. Whatever social reasons one might attribute to digression from the “norm” of gender identity, none where there. Nor did these parents exert pressure on

Three strangers end up in the same car for several days, going south on a path parallel to the Mississippi river. None would admit to making a conscious decision to share each other’s company, or even having ever made an important decision in their lives. All are sad, lonely, outsiders who have no destination or are afraid to admit to themselves they do. One is 15 year old Martine (Kristen

Happy Tears is really Parkey Posey’s vehicle. Through the course of her travails as a woman whose husband doesn’t want a baby while she does, whose sister upbraids her for her damned luck of marrying rich and being irresponsible, whose father deteriorates into dementia before her very eyes, and whose mother’s most precious belongings disappear into the hands of her father’s crack head girlfriend, she seems to be falling deeper and deeper into


Rip Torn, Parker Posey and Demi Moore --- watch the dribble!

a breakdown. I have to admit, I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for Jayne (Posey); she’s spoiled, selfish, and regularly drifts into dreams to escape the harsh realities that demand her attention. Kindly, he dreams also take us to

a prettier, mostly happier world and comparably happier memories, and out of Dad’s (Rip Torn) cluttered, dirty home and his physical needs of washing feces off his butt and changing his vomit stained shirt.

Laura (Demi Moore) is the stalwart sister to deals with problems and has a history of protecting her baby sister from life’s harsh realities. Now she wonders if all that early protection was a mistake – seeing how incapable Jayne is of coping with or facing reality as an adult. There are no climactic all out, drag down, clear the air fights that are de rigeur for dysfunctional family dramas and that I much appreciated. Perhaps this family is not so much dysfunctional as just trying to get by, trying to find happiness, trying to do what’s right. These are just two sisters with very different personalities trying to deal as best they can with their present problem – Dad and is future. And Dad himself, as damming as his past may be to his character, is a cheerful fellow who just appreciates having his “girls” with him and his treasure buried nearby in the backyard. Well, treasure, you say? Along with the rest of her dreams, Jayne has high hopes of finding the treasure, though how Dad could have possibly accumulated any amount of wealth is unknown, and Jayne is certainly not hurting for money.

Please note that Ellen Barkin, as Dad’s buzzed girlfriend who poses as a nurse because she’s got a stethoscope draped around her neck, is absolutely brilliant and worth the price of admission. If this stellar performance is due to her being too old to be considered a leading lady anymore and she now feels free to really bust her acting chops, what a pity. We could have otherwise been enjoying her fantastic performances for the last 20 years. Taking into account the strength of my stomach, I could watch her do her “Shelly” schtick all day.

As for the overall theme of the film, oh, baby boomers, this is what you have come to or will come to in the near future. Expect more films like Happy Tears, Play the Game (2008), The Savages (2007), Away From Her (2006), The Boynton Beach Bereavement Club (2005), and The Notebook (2004) -– the institutionalization of your generation.

A disgruntled and unhappy cop from a capitol city is transferred to a small, peaceful, crime free town near the edge of nowhere. There is no explanation for the absence of the previous police presence. At least one person in town has disappeared and nobody seems to care. It is a difficult adjustment from cosmopolitan to village

Bully Kim Bodnia rounds off with Marshall Jakob Cedergren

sensibilities for the cop. Sound like a description of “Hot Fuzz”, the fast paced, hysterical crime comedy of 2007? Terribly Happy couldn’t be a more diametrically opposed cop-out-of-water film. Where all the inhabitants of Hot Fuzz’s village were sociable, polite and charming, the denizens of Terribly Happy’s outpost are moody, taciturn and almost hostile. Whereas British citizens are dropping like flies in a summer evening’s electric fly zapper, one must be very patient to find any crime at all in this Danish psychological thriller.

The Nordic femme fatale, Ingerlise (Lene Maria Christensen) is the brunt of regular beatings by her husband and town bully, Jorgen (Kim Bodnia), but she won’t file a report so Marshall Robert Hanson (Jakob Cedergren) can’t take legal action. Ingerlise, as a very desperate housewife, and Marshall Bob get as hot and heavy as any comparable scene from The Postman Always Rings Twice (the steamier 1981 version). The tension builds until a shot out, not shoot out, in the local bodega between the Sheriff (I mean Marshall) and cowboy Jorgen (decked out in cowboy hat and bolo tie) where the audience loses count of beers and shots downed between the two battling testosterone sacks.

As dark and tense as the film gets, surprising incidents give us the relief we all need – a cat talking, a bicycle found in a bog, the town whore housecleaning when nobody’s around. The pace of the film is European just right – there’s time for the tension to build, but the story never slows down. I’m sure there will be an American remake on the horizon. When a foreign country gets it right, Hollywood surely follows with it’s version which is never as good as the original. Suffer the subtitles and see it. These people don’t waste words and there’s no problem keeping up with the text.

The film starts with a functional family. Everybody loves and supports each other, and they all have a great time together. They play together, eat together, talk, watch tv and listen to 11 year old Alfie play his guitar and sing. I had hopes this would be a very boring, but unique, film about a singular situation: no enemies, no neurosis, no pain, just lots of love and mutual respect. I was half right.
For some undisclosed reason, dad comes home beaten up by his cousin, and little Alfie decides to seek revenge. Actually, it took a very long time to get to this point in the film. We are subjected to endless repetitive scenes of Alfie riding his bike, climbing a tree, looking off into the distance, and again riding his bike, climbing a tree, looking off into the distance. I could go on, endlessly, repeating these scenes. This may be why it took less than 2 weeks to shoot the whole 84 minute film. Oh, he is hidden in his brother’s attic where he thinks about, dreams about and forecasts riding his bike, climbing a tree and looking off into the distance. Each repetition gives the viewer a bit more info: a longer cut of the same shot which includes a word or sentence of dialogue, making each repetition a few seconds longer. Possibly, writer/director Ricky Shane Reid thinks this technique builds up interest or tension, but it is unnecessary because any viewer who is still awake has already figured out where the whole film is going. It takes 84 minutes of viewing to impart about 20 minutes worth of content, while questions, if anyone is still interested, could have been answered that may have been more difficult to write/shoot/edit, such as why dad was beaten up; who these violent, hateful cousins are; what happens to dad after the attack; what

What a dismal, deadening life -- at least in Essex, east of London, as depicted in “Fish Tank,” and probably in all the small cities throughout England. Well, maybe it’s bad all over. I am just adjusting to the fact that things are worse all over and that we’re all getting used to it. I was brought up in an age when we expected things to get better and better, and they did to a point. I can’t remember at which recession all that stopped. But let’s not get into economics and politics now. Back in the early 1960's, England developed a unique genre – the “Angry Young Man,” films – such as

Katie Jarvis reflecting on suburban hopelessness.

“Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner” (1962), “Look Back in Anger” (1959), “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” (1960), “This Sporting Life” (1963), and even the comedy “Billy Liar” (1963). Tom Courtney, Albert Finney, Richard Harris, and Richard Burton were the poster boys of the disappointed,

If people in England’s pre-Beatles 60's were angry, the people who inhabit cities like Essex today are downright furious, even more alienated and hopeless. Mia (Katie Jarvis) is so angry, so representative of her time and place, that it’s hard to empathize with her. She is a nasty piece of work, already so hardened by her environment that it’s hard to find the humanity in her. But through the course of the film, we find she’s not completely deadened yet. She wants to help a horse in a garbage strewn field who she thinks in being abused, she wants to compete in a dancing contest with the hope of bettering her situation, and she finds compassion and a glimmer of a better future with her mom’s new boyfriend (Michael Fassbender).

Is she fooling herself, at 15 still to innocent to see the inescapability of her situation? Perhaps Mia will or won’t find a better life, but Katie Jarvis, the girl who plays her, has. Jarvis, an unemployed drop out who had no intention of becoming an actress, was found in a train station arguing across platforms with her boyfriend by director Andrea Arnold’s (“Red Road,” 2006) casting people. Since her very admirable performance in “Fish Tank,” which earned her several acting nominations and awards, she has an agent and has already been in another British television production. So, no matter what happens on the screen, the film has a happy ending.

A good story can be told again and again. And to make it more interesting, the characters can be changed a bit, maybe the locales, maybe little incidental plot devices. So, here again is the story of a woman on a quest to marry the man she loves, who has to travel a great distance, experience new things in a different culture and re-evaluate her life choices. And along the way, she has adventures that disrupt her equilibrium, test her flexibility and force her to see the mistakes she’s been making, as well as see the right alternative.

Wasn’t this the plot to “It Happened One Night” (1934)? A rich girl (Claudette Colbert) who wants to get to her betrothed while avoiding the paparazzi\ is helped on the road by reporter Clark Gable who is critical of her lifestyle and ethics, and while on the road, they fall in love. Oh, how romantic.

“Nine,” the film, was adapted from “Nine”, the stage play. But it should not be forgotten that both “Nine”’s source material was “8 ½,” or “Fellini’s 8 ½,” as it was called in America in 1963 when it debuted, not only because Fellini was the director, but the film exposes the history, dreams, fears and very soul of Fellini. In "Nine," the Fellini character, Guido, is suffering writer’s block on his latest film as it is about to start production. Quietly panicked, he tries to hide from his producer and the paparazzi (a name originally dubbed by Fellini himself) by going to a small spa in the countryside, only to be followed by his whole production crew, his mistress, his wife, his memories, and his fantasies. Unfortunately, copying a master is very much like the analog comparison of taking a photo of a work of art – one loses clarity, detail, awe inspiring craftsmanship, artistry and originality. I suggest one not see “8 ½” before viewing “Nine.” See it fresh and enjoy it. “Nine” does stand very strongly on its own. And it really isn’t fair to make comparisons; nothing could compare to Fellini’s most powerful, truly amazing work which even today blows minds. “Nine” reminded me more a Fosse production, except the dancing wasn’t as sexy. The very American flavor of the musical numbers, especially Kate Hudson’s Italiano, are exciting and very entertaining. All the actresses happen to have great voices. You already knew that about Kidman from “Moulin Rouge” (2001), Cotillard from “Edith Piaf” (2007), and Fergie, obviously. But what a surprise to see Cruz, Dench and DD Lewis belting out their numbers.

I did miss the trademark Fellini music that is still his trademark, written by Nino Roto for most of his films. How can any Italian themed film not include at least a few riffs in the style of Rota? Actually, I was distracted by not hearing it.

I thought Penelope Cruz was gorgeous, Nicole Kidman elegant, Kate Hudson adorable, Judi Dench timeless, Fergie raw, and Marion Cotillard the true embodiment of love – until Sophia Loren appeared on the screen. At 75, she is still the ultimate woman and overshadows all others. I don’t mean I remember how she was, or I pay homage to her past glory. She still is! I want to thank the Weinstein Company for bringing her to the big screen again.

In the first 5 minutes, I felt “The Missing Person” proved the film noir genre was a unique thing of the past that should not be disturbed. The genre was famous for its lighting (making the Venetian blind a mainstay of cinematographers and gaffers forclose to 15 years). The opening of

Good old fashioned eavesdropping by Michael Shannon.

The Missing Person” is just dark, without subtlety, gradation, mood or artistry. There isn’t even a neon light outside a flophouse room interrupting the dull blackness. Sure, it’s got a loud, high speed subway mere feet away from the window, but is that enough?

A guy wakes up to a phone call. His typical gumshoe voice, drenched in old martinis and bad dreams, jaded and fatigued, accepts a job entailing following a man on a train from Chicago to L.A. $500 a day plus expenses can’t be turned down in his economic state. But even his voice is too flat, too monotone to involve an audience. This actor is trying to hard to play a stereptypical private eye, and in the process, falls far short of the greats: Humphry Bogart with his wry intonations, Robert Mitchem with his undertone of anger and sexuality, Robert Ryan with his seething madness just under the surface.

“Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Squeakwell,” is all you’d expect it to be. The plot is safe and time worn, but the kids probably haven’t seen it yet – if they’re very young. The characters are sweet and amicable, with one blatant villain easy for kids to undestand and boo at. The animation is very lifelike and the whole audience will soon forget that the creatures are not real, and will happily suspend disbelief. But most of all, the music is hot. It was obviously intended for an older audience, so parents bringing their children will have a good time despite the over-acting and lack of surprises. It’s their music –- some of the most rockin’ hits from the 70's and 80's are brought back with the distinctive Chipmunks treatment. As soon as I got home, I whipped out my Chipmunk Punk album and reminisced to the beat of “My Sherona.” Yes, I have a Chipmunk album and am proud of it. This is not children’s music, though they can enjoy it as much as we adults do.

Wonder what it was like being in the presence of or working with Orson Welles? Do you even know who Orson Welles is? “Me and Orson Welles” is a unique opportunity to get up close to one of the most iconic, unabashedly outspoken, creative and original film and theater artists America has possibly yet produced. Back in 1937, in the depths of the Depression, before his Halloween radio production of “War of the Worlds” that threw the East Coast of the United States into a panic, before “Citizen Kane,” which at the same time brought Welles to international fame and almost doomed his budding career, Wells directed and starred in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”. In this story, which is mostly true, a young boy recounts playing a small part in the play and being introduced to the “theater”, theater people, and Orson Welles.

It is easy to suspend one’s disbelief because the actor playing Welles is making his first appearance in a feature film, and though he doesn’t think so, he is a dead ringer for the young Welles. Not only does Christian McKaylook eerily similar to Welles, but he brought his basso voice down a few notches and even got the reverb right. And the overpowering character of Welles is recreated perfectly. I really felt in the presence of Welles. Director Richard Linklater even admits he would have chucked the whole project, after buying the rights to Robert Kaplow’s novel, investing most of his own money and finding investors for the balance of the project, securing all other cast and crew, if he had not found McKay in a production of “Rosebud,” of all plays, in a 50 seat theater on off

Leslie (Meg Ryan), when told by her husband, Ian (Tim Hutton), that he doesn’t love her anymore, won’t let him go, figuratively and literally. She insists she will convince him he still loves her as he did in the past. She will change whatever made him believe he doesn’t love her anymore, whatever is wrong with their marriage. He even tells her he is now in love with another woman, but she is undeterred in her dogged and relentless pursuit of his once vital love.

Okay, I’m not with this woman. Not only do I think the guy’s a jerk and doesn’t deserve a real grown up woman as opposed to the typical much younger, idealistic, naïve woman/child he will run away with (Kristen Bell), but I can’t stand Meg’s desperation. In her various attempts to reconcile, her behavior is so extreme, I start seeing visions of Kathy Bates in “Misery” (1990), forcing her captive, James Caan, to love her. I am reminded of Michael Madsen singing and dancing in front of thecaptive cop in “Reservoir Dogs” (1992), wielding a straight razor and suddenly cutting off the cop’s ear without missing a beat of his musical routine. I figured this film was going to turn very, very dark and there would be blood. But Meg plays it for the laughs, though it really is not funny. She plays a border line sociopath, but the audience is supposed to think she’s cute when she hugs her tape-bound husband and shows him slides from their wedding. I am spooked and know that it could not have been the intention of screenwriter Adrienne Shelly (“Waitress” 2007) to spook. “Waitress” was quirky, but followed a particular philosophy throughout that made sense. And please give a moment of silence for the horrendous murder of Ms. Shelly in 2006, shortly before the opening of her break out film. Was it Cheryl Hines’ miscalculation as first time feature director, having been in many comedies previously (TV’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm”)? I hate to cast blame, but there you go.

So I end up in limbo with a bunch of characters I don’t like in a situation I can’t relate to. Make it a suspenseful drama or play it like a typical Hollywood romance, much like the new Hugh Grant, Sarah Jessica Parker reconciliation film, “Did You Hear About The Morgans?” (2009), or really go for blood and get Meg earning her big bucks as an actress, not just a cute Hollywood darling.

I can’t give away too much more of this mish mash, except I did find the last third of the film really interesting and surprising. I still won’t give it a reprieve since I find the basic premise and execution very faulty. And I did enjoy Meg’s explanation of why she doesn’t want to be a divorced woman. So true.

A tiger can't change his stripes, an elephant never forgets, birds got to fly and fish got to swim. So, foxes must thieve -- stealing chickens, partridges, as well as smoked hams and apple cider, and many items still nailed to the floor. Try as he may to fulfill his promise to his wife never to steal again, Mr. Fox just can't resist. The plan, the execution, the danger, the fine repasts are all too much temptation, at least for a fox with a fox's nature. The repercussions to his family, his animal community and the whole environment wreak havoc on this pristine environment.

I didn't think I'd enjoy "Fantastic Mr. Fox," but I thoroughly did. I expected the plot to be thin and tired. I expected the 1960's type stop motion animation to bore me within minutes. After all, I've seen "Up," the best of 3D animation -- and I'm still mesmerized by the flow of the balloons wafting over the house. I tried to figure it out afterwards -- why did I like this film so much? Maybe George Clooney's rather matter-of-fact delivery, a perfect blending of over-self-confidence and Ocean's coolness. The animation was a 21st Century improvement of a 60's format and added subtle color and action. The dialogue and jokes, though directed at grown ups, were still get-able to the children in the audience. Maybe it was just the indescribable heart without schmaltz or sentimentality.

This film was sooooo bad, it was.... fun. Not good, but good fun. It is a devastating criticism of science fiction books, their writers, the hopefuls and all sci fi enthusiasts. You may say they are all easy targets and have been the brunt of insults in film and television many times before, but this film is by far the most insulting in its tackiness, raw stupidity, and underlying genius in exposing those at the top of this particular heap.

Ben (Michael Angarano), dressed in one of his mother's creations,
being publicly humiliated by renown author
Chevalier (Jermaine Clement)

Woeful, young Ben (Michael Angarano, “Man in the Chair” 2007) writes sci-fi fantasy novels not only to escape his odd, lonely life in a very cozy geodesic dome with his loving, home-schooling mom Judith (Jennifer Coolidge again playing an off kilter lady, this time mom and nightgown fashion designer [once the standard poodle owner in “Best in Show” 2000]), but also in remembrance of his father. The main character of his novel is Bronco, an incarnation of his dad, who fights evil, cylops, yeast miners who want to create a superior army based on his excised scrotum’s valuable genes. The constant references to laser blasting teats, testicles, projectile vomit, character names that sound like anus and references to other sundry human parts is not so much reflective of the authors’ adolescent intelligence, but well chosen examples of the sci-fi fan mentality. Marrieds Jared and Jerusha Hess co-wrote “Nacho Libre” (2006) and “Napoleon Dynamite” (2004) as well as “Gentlemen Broncos,”, so they seem to have a direct

Bronco (Sam Rockwell) mounted on military buck

line into the mind set of the off kilter youth of America. Well, somebody’s got to do it, or at least profit from it. No, really, I loved “Napoleon D.” for the psychological complexity hidden under the seemingly dead faces and monotone voices of its American heartland characters. It really spoke volumes about the stoic, yet troubled characters that populate that film and possibly our country.

Back to “Gentlemen Broncos” (even though there is only one multi-faceted character called Bronco in the film). Ben goes to a sci-fi symposium, meets fellow home-school students Tabatha (Halley Feiffer in her first major role) and her filmmaking buddy (Hector Jimenez, “Sin Nombre” 2009), and listens in awe to recognized giant among sci-fi authors, Chevalier (Jermaine Clement, “Diagnosis Death” 2009). From hopeful writing contestant, to plagiarized failure, to a writer whose work has been bastardized in film, Ben’s life seems to always find a way to get worse. Leaps in logic; hysterically pathetically drawn characters; adolescent plots and absurd special effects (the sound is always good) in both Ben’s real life and the various versions of his book, all keep the audience jaw-dropped while laughing -- no easy feat. Of course, Sam Rockwell (“Moon” 2009) as both incarnations of Bronco was a blast (literally) to watch even though he was unrecognizable.

Directors: Wen Jian, Mira Nair, Shunji Iwai, Brett Ratner, Allen Hughes, Shekhar Khapur, Natalie Portman, Fatih Akin, Joshua Marston and Randy Balsmyer.

Writers: Emmanuel Benbihy, Tristan Carne, Hall Powell, Israel Horovitz, James C. Strouse, Shunji Iwai, Hu Hong, Yao Meng, Joshua Marston, Alexandra Cassavetes, Stephen Winter, Jeff Nathanson, Anthony Minghella, Natalie Portman, Fatih Akin, Yvan Attal, Olivier Lecot, Suketu Mehta,

Cast: Bradley Cooper, Andy Garcia, Hayden Christensen, Rachel Bilson, Natalie Portman, Irrfan Khan, Abe Karpen, Emilie Ohana, Orlando Bloom, Christina Ricci, Maggie Q, Ethan Hawke, James Caan, Blake Lively, Drea de Matteo, John Hurt, Shia LaBeouf, Julie Christie, John Hurt, Drea de Matteo, Burt Young, Chris Cooper, Robin Wright Penn, Ethan Hawke, Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman, Anton Yelchin

Time: 1:52
Rated: R

I can imagine a round table production meeting of all the writers and directors of “New York, I Love You,” a table that dwarfs King Arthur’s, where somehow everyone agrees on how all the stories intersect, how the tone, color, and overall feel of the film develops into a beautiful mosaic from a pile of multicolored shards. Actually, I can’t imagine it. Really, how did they do that—meld 12 five minute short films into one flowing fugue in homage to New York?

For those of you unfamiliar with New York City or not in the art or rock music fields, you may not know about the Chelsea Hotel. For years it has been considered a dive with a great artistic tradition in the Chelsea area of Manhattan (perhaps named after the hotel itself, or vice versa). It boasts, besides some of the great emerging artists of New York; multi-day parties of drunken and drugged revelry; many deaths, some accidental, some not; and a quixotic manager who wouldn't charge some and gouged others.

In all her glory.

Even as a resident of New York, I wanted to spend one night at the Chelsea, but didn't have the nerve or the need. I only lived a few blocks away anyway. I was on 24th and 2nd; the Chelsea was 23rd and 7th. Typical for New York, the crossroads of the world, and the Chelsea being a hub within that hub, I was walking past the Chelsea one day and some men called out to me by name. They were a Belgium dance performance group I had interviewed for my San Francisco TV show earlier that year. Years later, another friend of mine, a research scientist from Santa Rosa, CA, working in England, invited me for lunch while she was staying over.

Producer Jen Gatien was living in the Chelsea Hotel when rumors of the change of management started to swirl around its hallways. She then decided to document the hotel's illustrious reputation and coming changes, enrolling her father's long time friend, filmmaker Abel Ferrar to direct.

More than historic documentary, the film is actually a recordation of what the Chelsea has been recently, and includes interviews with many of it's tenants and a look at its changes from a residency/day hotel for artists of all ilks, whether they could pay or not, to a boutique hotel with rates starting at $225 all way up to the best and most expensive any hotel can rival. You can learn a lot more about the hotel from Wikipedia or the film's website (www.aliquotsum.com). But the filmmaker, Abel Ferrare, the long time residents, and those who hold dear the traditions of the Chelsea, warts and all, want to yell and scream about what a great place the Chelsea once was and what it's turned into under the new regime.

I certainly don't mind what was covered in this doc, even though the transitions to dramatizations were sometimes confusing, even though there were no names of people speaking printed on the bottom of the screen, even though Abel Ferrara constantly speaks off camera, injecting annoying monosyllabics and useless comments. I would have liked more information about the history of the hotel, integrating more of its illustrious guests and the impact each made upon the other. We never heard from the new management of the hotel either. Was this because they had no comment or Ferrara decided what this documentary should impart? Though all documentaries do have a perspective and agenda, "Chelsea on the Rocks" is decidedly partial, giving only a partial story and a partial perspective. I have no doubt the new management is only out to make a profit at the cost of the artist community and the legacy promulgated by the hotel's manager for the past 50 years, Stanley Bard, but one can juxtapose another documentary, "Crude," which extensively interviews Exxon's spokespersons regarding poisonous crude oil pollution in Ecuador to bring into clarity what liars and ruthless environmental killers they are. Ferrara should have trusted that, given the opportunity, the new management of the Chelsea Hotel would have condemned themselves as well.

Since "Chelsea on the Rocks" is the only film out there about the Chelsea Hotel, once a frightening hell and artistic haven at the same time, now completely sanitized, sterilized and depersonalized, you really ought to see what's left of it.

Reconciliation is definitely the high road, one not often enough taken. Both sides in the "troubles" in Ireland believed God was on their side and they felt they had to do something. Lives were lost, yet your neighbor may have been your son's killer 30 years earlier. Understandably, it may take more than time and even prison sentences to heal these wounds.

In "Five Minutes of Heaven," for those who have not found closure, a popular reality TV show brings the opposing parties together for a meeting, forgiveness and an resolution to that episode of their lives. People who were hurt during those times can finally confront the perpetrators. The producers and staff of this show are sensitive to the emotions surging under the skins of their guests and do their best to calm them and get both sides into the same room for civilized discussion. One guest, Alistair Little (played by Liam Neeson, "Batman Begins"), at the age of 17, put on a ski mask and went to the home of his target, saw a young boy playing ball outside the house, walked past him and up to the window of the house, and killed the target -- who happened to be the young boy's brother. The other guest, Joe Griffin (played by James Nesbitt, "Match Point"), is the same brother who witnessed the murder.

Now, it's bad enough to witness one's brother's death, but even though the culprit was brought to justice and served a prison term, there seems to be no end to the nightmare. Obviously unfairly, Nesbitt's mother blamed him, at the time a child of no more than 12, for not stopping the man with the gun from killing her son. So, besides grief, there is shame, loss of one's mother's love, feelings of cowardice and a strong need for revenge.

Girls always have a hard time getting permission to partake in sports. Remember "Bend it Like Beckham" (2002) and "Ice Princess" (2005), among others? Well, maybe it's not so easy to remember "Ice Princess." Nonetheless, parents would still rather see their daughters pursuing academic careers or family life rather than competitive sports, be the sport as culturally accepted as soccer or as pristine and elegant as figure skating.

Little Ellen Page in the center.

Certainly roller derby, the grittiest, most violent, lowest common denominator sport, played in abandoned warehouses by women of dubious pasts and social habits, ensconced in ripped fishnet hose, tattoos and far too much makeup, is simply not acceptable. This milieu is certainly not accepted for Jenny (Ellen Page - "Juno") who at the age of 17 is still being dragged by her mother (Marcia Gay Harden - "Miller's Crossing") to beauty competitions and is being groomed for college.

So, Burke (Aaron Eckhart) lost his wife three years ago. This devastating experience led him to write a book on dealing with grief, which led to his giving seminars, and attracting the attention of media moguls who want to turn him into a virtual grief guru with TV show and a line of lucrative products including diet powder since surveys have shown that grieving people gain weight.

Aaron meets a lot of people in his travels, including lots and lots of women, from seminar participants to talk show and magazine interviewers to photographers. But one day he turns a hotel hallway corner and bumps into Jennifer Anniston. Ah, she's the one! This is where the film looses me. Couldn't come up with a better plot device to pierce his long standing grief/guilt/isolation than a bump into Jennifer? Romantic to some, damned Hollywood lack of attention, lack of imagination, lack of experience among the film's writers to me. In any case, I go ho hum in my seat and from that point on watch with my head instead of my heart and wish I had more popcorn to munch on. But it doesn't stop there. The pat Hollywood romantic pap continues through the predictable plot. Jennifer plays hard to get then relents, Jennifer comes up with really cute ideas to make a date more fun than imaginable, Aaron screws it up so they break up and then can get back together again. Lordy, lordy, have I been there before? Well, yes, but never in so much rain as in this Seattle-based film. Humor me -- watch one commercial for "Love Happens," then explain the whole plot to whomever you are around at the time. Don't forget to include the public confession that is de rigeur in such films. You will not be far off. Ever think of becoming a Hollywood writer? This seems to be a year for dishonest self-help gurus. In "Arlen Farber," Jeff Daniels writes a book about his conversations with god and how now the enlightened Arlen can answer all life's questions. Of course, everyone believes him on face value and craves answers. Actually, his answers are very good; he just doesn't take his own advice. You'll cringe at this public apology as well. But I found his meeting with his love interest more imaginative.

"Love Happens" hasn't proven to me that grief is a good source of romantic comedy. The TV detective comedy "Monk" has -- underlying every moment of his daily life, Monk is aware of how much of him died with his wife. I find Eckhart's fluctuations between dating game maneuverings and dealing with his festering wounds of grief and sorrow unconvincing. And I had to laugh at his first meeting with Jennifer where she pretended to be deaf to cut short a conversation with him. In his almost first film, "In the Company of Men" (1997), Eckhart plays a misogynist who plots to manipulate and ruin the life of a hearing impaired woman who works in his office. I had to chuckle.

And I have to admit, I have always thought there was more to Jennifer A-nniston than being just perky and cute and needing to get a man in her life. She showed such great promise as an actress in "The Good Girl" (2002), tackling much more interesting material. This was a film that explored real human feelings of quiet desperation, not one that dazzles its audience with 20 different beauty shots of the Seattle needle. That's an example of content versus style. "Love Happens" is one step less unsettling for me than her last foray in acting, "Management" (2008), a romantic comedy about a stalker who wins over a cute, yet serious girl. Okay, she was much more somber in this one.

Eckhard and Anniston find true happiness again.

The point is, if I'm comparing "Love Happens" to so many other films, it's because my mind was drifting to better places while I watched this one. Show me something new, not necessarily a whole original film, but one thought, one scene, one something that hasn't been beaten to death, often better, in a plethora of other films. If you've never seen a Hollywood romance before, this might be very fresh and charming. There are new audiences going to films for the first time all the time. "Love Happens" has all the elements you like and will learn to expect in romances. Eckhart and Anniston make a lovely couple who are very sweet. There are no bad guys in this film and I like that. Nice date movie for young people who haven't seen it before.

Inga (Ursula Werner) delivers a pair of pants she has altered for a customer (Horst Rehberg) to his home. He's surprised she came all this way to deliver the pants. Though a happily married woman, she smiles coquettishly. I swear I can see her eyelashes flutter. He can't help but pick up on her obvious, adolescent flirting and responds accordingly. Within minutes, they are undressing and are in the throes of passion, nakedly writhing, intimately touching, reaching climax together, relaxing in each other's arms. Now, here's the kicker. Inga is 67 years old and Werner is 76.

Ursula Werner and Horst Rehberg -- afterglow

The plot to me is married old woman meets old man, they fall in love, ecstasy and guilt follow. Really not much of a plot. Nonetheless, I am fascinated because: first of all, this is not an attractive woman. Even in her prime, she could only have been considered plain, and I love honing in on the lives of real people, especially older women, the most undeserved in the film world. The recently released "Seraphina," explored the true life of an unattractive, overweight, silent, hardworking woman who happened to be a very talented artist. In that review I admitted I was disappointed to find she was exceptional in some way and that made her biopic valid. I wanted the typical life of a woman, not particularly beautiful, talented, gifted or extraordinary, but a woman like most of us in this aging world population. Voila, or should I say, Ach de lieber, here is Inga.

Secondly, the subtlety of the script explores in small nuances and suggestions the life and character of Inga and her men. Her husband was her second. If you do the math, Inga was 37 when they married. What happened to the first husband? I assume he died because we see her daughter (Steffi Kühnert) from her first marriage and there is no mention of the adult child's father. We explore Inga's feelings about being in love, passionately, again after all this time and the resulting confusion about her relationships with her lover and her husband. Though we explore the many ramifications of her adultery, very little is suggested about the issue of age. How long will she have with her new man if she stays with him? Should she give up all she has for this probably brief relationship? How does she justify her actions to her husband? How does he react?

And the reason all of these psychological facets of Inga's relationships are so fascinating is because Ursula Werner is a consummate actress. Very often people are awed by great acting. Meryl Streep gets all her accents right from "Sophie's Choice"'s Polish to "Doubt"'s Rosie O'Donnell Long Islandese. We watch the twitch of her brow inflected at just the right moment in the dialogue, her gestures, her intonations. Not to take away from Ms. Streep, as I never would, Werner's talent can slip right past you. You don't watch the actress work in scenes from erotic euphoria to annoyance to guilt to joy; you live it with the character. She is flawless in embodying her character and we are carried with her on her emotional roller coaster.

It's good to see old people living their lives; to note that emotionally they're the same as ours. They are not necessarily wiser than the next guy, or crotchety, or Altzheimic, or simplistic. They are what we are; the whole wide range of people they were in their youths. It's good to know that. It's good to see people live out their lives, meet challenges, make choices -- and they don't have to look like Katherine Heigl as the girl who can't get a date. They look like real people and live real lives. Hey, Americans, we can take it. Aren't we all a little bored with the pretty people imitating us unconvincingly, pathetically, insultingly. Inga looking at herself naked in a mirror may not be a pretty sight, her close-ups may be unsympathetic, but we are all mature enough to appreciate her life and join her in it for an hour and a half.

If "My One and Only" is a comedy, it is a human comedy, based on human situations, not jokes, pratfalls, unrealistic situations. The opening credits of the film make it clear that this is a story that takes place at a certain time, the 1950's, with an image and music filled montage, the age of the blossoming American family, a time from which much of America has never recovered or at least changed, a time of the housewife, either middle class and a good mother, or upper class and a Manhattan socialite. Women were wives or not talked about at all.

In this environment, we find Ann Devereaux (Réne Zellweger), wife of successful bandleader, Dan (Kevin Bacon), catching said husband in flagranto delicto with another woman. With class that I immediately admire in her, she helps zips the other woman's dress, packs her own bags, and leaves. No fighting, no displays of emotion. What's the point? He's ruined their marraige and she's gone. Oh, yes. She takes her two teenage sons with her. She can't leave them with him. Now, where to they go to school? Okay, she finds them, packs them into a new Cadillac, and starts a journey she believes will be short and successful -- to find a new husband.

Back in 1974, in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," Ellen Burstyn (the housewife) and her son start fresh. She faces her own disappointments and inner growth while dealing with the real world. "Alice" is a more gritty film than "My One and Only" that rings very true in a time when women were struggling for independence and the ability to fulfill their dreams. "Auntie Mame" (1958) depicts Mame (Rosalind Russell), not only a socialite, by a very eccentric one, raising her nephew while hunting for a rich husband. Now, that fantasy really was fun, sumptuous, lighthearted. There's no reality in "Mame," though it reflects the type of women who never wants the party to end and would marry when funds got low (think Gabors). Surprisingly, and I really was surprised at the end of the film, "My One and Only" is a biopic. There was such a woman who in the early 1950's believed

Extract is a pleasant enough comedy. I laughed several times, I empathized with our frustrated protagonist, I stayed awake. But the pathos of "Funny People," or the biting, satirical, political commentary of "In the Loop," or the extreme shock and daring of "Bruno" just weren't there. So, it seemed to me I was watching a TV movie, pleasant, safe, predictable, comfortable. Oddly, writer/director Mike Judge is the TV co-creator of such programs as "King of the Hill" and "Beavis and Butt-Head," as well as contributing to "Saturday Night Live," all of which take more chances in their themes and stories. Is Judge mellowing out with age?


Ben Affleck with beard dispenses advice as well as booze.
Jason Bateman as frustrated husband unfortunately follows it.

It's not easy making a comedy about teen suicide. I'm not even sure it's commendable that Bobcat Goldthwaite attempted it. I am sure just the publicity, advertisements, trailers, and talk about this film will cause tremendous pain and outrage among the growing population of parents who have lost children to suicide. But all the most serious comics will tell you that no subject should be taboo or the socially redeeming, cathartic and valuable criticism attached to comedic social commentary will be drowned in conservatism and overly energetic political correctness. We need to exercise our artistic and creative juices, commenting on any subject, or what's the First Amendment and the funny bone for?

Having said that, Goldthwaite sets us up to want to kill off this kid, Kyle, too convincing played by Daryl Sabara (all the "Spy Kids"). He's not just obnoxious, stupid, ugly, overweight, and slovenly, but he hates his father, loving, patient Lance Clayton (played by Robin Williams). How can you hate Robin Williams? Kyle is also literally perverted, fantasizing about feces covered bodies while asphixiating himself during orgasm. Really, his kid should not live. One wonders how he keeps his one friend, a quite, respectful, pensive boy, Andrew (played by Evan Martin in his first film). He might rather be friendless, except he appreciates spending time in Kyle's house, away from his alcoholic mother.

As if this situation weren't dismall enough, Lance himself feels he is a dismal failure as a writer, having written 5 novels among other works, none published, and he's about to lose his poetry teaching job due to a tightening budget.

Things happen I'd rather not give away. Suffice it to say, Williams manipulates a few facts following an accident; the outcome is he tastes success, but eventually it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. I like that,

under the circumstances, we all might have done what he did. That's not to say this film mirrors reality in any way, but the choices made under these odd circumstances are believable.

Interesting note: I pondered after the film about Williams' character's wonderful writing ability, yet his failure to be published. During the film, anyone who had read anything he had written honestly and sincerely felt the work was very good. This is a sad commentary about the possibly many unpublished, wonderful writers out there who, for one reason or another, never made it. How come?

Unfulfilled: I never got enough information to figure out why fellow schooltecher Claire (Alexie Gilmore of TV's "New Amsterdam") was involved with Williams. She is sweet, warm, friendly, honest. On the one hand, she really seemed to like him. On the other, she bounced over to his rival as the winds blew fair or foul. Never really understood the motivations behind her affair with Williams. I felt unfulfilled as an observer of their relationship.

Confused: The ending of the film seemed very out of context, un-led-up-to and perplexing. Sadly, it was not very attractive either. Sorry, Robin. I can say no more.

Moral of the story: if you kill yourself, you don't get to control how you're remembered.

Young grandson, David (Paul Campbell, the new “Knight Rider” and “Battlestar Galactica”), wants to help his 84 year old grandfather, Joe (Andy Griffith, “Matlock” and “Mayberry, R.F.D.”), out of his suicidal funk. Joe just can’t find the strength to live without his wife/companion/one true love. Even though she made him promise on her death bed that he would look for companionship, he just hasn’t been able to do it. David decides to inspire Grandpa with his sure fire techniques for playing the game, and if not find love and companionship, at least have some fun and a zest for living again. At the same time, after years of womanizing, David has met the woman he believes is his true companion (Maria Sokoloff) and pursues her -- disastrously using his otherwise successful tricks.

So goes the plot of “Play the Game.” For it to be effective, this genera-tional comedy must contrast the lifestyles of these two men. David is a player who knows how to make women believe they are picking him up, then bed them and politely move on. Grandpa Joe has only had one women in his life -- his wife. I find it interesting that every generation believes it has invented the pleasures and diversity of sex. The flappers of the Roaring 20's did. The more independent self-sufficient women of World War II America did while their husbands and beaus were

On the other hand, Grandpa has a few really wise words to impart to his more experienced grandson. Regarding the woman who is one’s true companion -- you’ll know it the moment you meet her or when she leaves. The seesawing between the two approaches to love also is a source of higher comedy which I found much more interesting. Grandpa can teach as much to David about the heart as David can to Grandpa about manipulation.

Of interesting note: Clint Howard plays David’s father, a cold, wife-deserting, used car sales manager. Here’s the amusing connection -- besides being a well known Hollywood staple for the last 45 years, from child actor to father of the lead, he is also Ron Howard’s brother who played Andy Griffith’s son in “The Andy Griffith Show.” Clint himself was a guest on the show five times. Clint and Andy didn’t share any scenes in “Play the Game,” but I’m sure they spent some time reminiscing about the old days.

I love the nursing home/condo in which Grandpa Joe resides. He has total independence, respect, privacy, gorgeous accommodations and the administration does not frown on intimate relationships or interfere in them. I want to go there when my time copmes, if such a place exists.

This film may not appeal to the younger crowd because it can’t compete with the over-the-top antics of films like “The Hangover,” and others of that genre. But Grandpa Joe’s generation may really appreciate the representation of their situation in life, if they’re not insulted by some of the moments.

Director/co-writer/producer and medical doctor, Sarab S. Neelam is a Sikh born in Toronto and now working in Detroit. He wanted to bring his story to the screen, the story of being raised a Sikh in Canada, thousands of miles away from his native Sikh culture in India, and then the leap to the United States and it's pressures to assimilate.

Dr. Amrit Singh (Omid Abtahi), a surgeon specializing in organ transplants, is offered a dream job in Detroit, heading the whole transplant wing of a major hospital, getting millions of dollars in research money, choosing his own staff -- so "Ocean of Pearls" goes. To accept this job, he must leave the Sikh religious and cultural womb of Toronto, his family and his fiancé. He doesn't hesitate, asking his fiancé to consider moving there as well. As always, he dutifully wears his turban, never cutting his hair and beard, as God intended, though the beard does look suspiciously short for a man his age. Never mind. Being a Sikh anywhere has its drawbacks. In India during the partition in 1947, Muslims set about trying to exterminated the whole sect. In the 1960's, the Hindus were in conflict with them. In Canada, the taunts of school children and bullies as well as the profiling by airport personnel is a constant cross to bear (pardon my mixing of religious metaphors). But the pressures of conformity to attain success in the United States, even if one's goals are altruistic and humanitarian, seem insurmountable.

Paul Giamatti plays himself, the respected actor, rehearsing "Uncle Vanya," and having a very hard time with the actor's process and developing the character. His anguish, frustration, psychological pain, confusion and sense of defeat are overwhelming. He hears about a new medical process by which one's soul can be removed and stored, leaving the patient light, angst-less and more able to function. He does it. This certainly sounds like a deal with the devil and you know there will be a price to pay.

This is a comedy. I tell you right off since you may not notice. It is deadpan, straight faced comedy. The actors play for drama, but the dialogue and the absurd situations are high satire and commentary on our society which constantly aims to rid people of the discomforts that make them unique and human. Not to say the soul is exclusively human, but without it, life becomes emotionally numb, empty and purposeless.

The film questions what the soul actually adds to an individual, what it's like to be soulless, what it's like to use someone else's soul instead of one's own. Of course, I saw it all already in an episode of "The Simpson's" in which Bart sells his soul and then tries desperately to get it back, feeling a ghost of his former self.

Well, Paul also feels the need to get his soul back and finds out a group of Russian soul traffickers have taken it. Oh, those Russians -- the new bad guys. They're white, so we can't be accused of bigotry. They're alien, so, they're accent gives them away. And unfortunately, they've developed a reputation, probably well earned, for mafiosa-like criminal dealings since the fall of Communism. And there's no Russian antidefamation league yet.

Asperger's Syndrome is a condition in which one has difficultly reading people's facial expressions or subtext or irony or sarcasm. But it is an asset in "Adam," a film written and directed by Max Meyer, about an Asperger's victim or in this case, recipient. Due to his innocence in social situations, he can be trusted to always tell the truth, be gentle and slightly timid, never cheat on a girlfriend, always try extra hard to please. And being played by adorable Hugh Dancy is the cincher-- he's the perfect boyfriend. Rose Byrne's character, Beth Buchwald, who just ended an unhappy relationship with a high powered stockbroker/cheater, finds a quiet haven in Adam, an uncomplicated, yet accomplished electrical engineer who can earn a good living once he finds a new job, and he is seriously looking.

Asperger's has obviously knocked out Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as the entertainment industry's new neurotic behavior de jour. We've gone from "As Good As It Gets" (1997) to "Monk" (now in its last season) among other films and TV shows, and probably for the next few years variations on Asperger will be grist for the mill. Actually, a new, feature length, animation called "Mary and Max," highlights a very different Asperger's sufferer. Max is old, obese, gruff and voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Since he's not cute and endearing like Adam, instead of a lover, a child pen pal keeps in touch with him throughout many years of correspondence.

This is the fictionalized story of a fat, middle aged, unattractive woman who works hard for a living doing manual labor. Really! I'm hooked. I want to watch this and discover what makes her film-worthy. What is her inner life? What secrets does she hold?

Séraphine Louis lived from 1864 to 1942, most of her life as a servant, launderess, and maid. She came from the lowest class in her town of Senlis, France, and was treated accordingly -- with disdain if at all. When not working, she spent her little free time painting flowers in her small rented room. She said she was told by the angels to paint. So, there is already an inkling of insanity in her behavior when the film starts, shortly before World War I. A well known German art collector and critic rents a house in the countryside near her and she is hired to keep the place clean. Purely by accident, he sees her work and recognizes its merit.

Séraphine (Yolande Moreau) is finally appreciated
for her work by art critic (Ulrich Tukur)

One could possibly say Séraphine was a victim of poor timing. Already close to 50 years old, her talent is discovered shortly before WWI by a German who must flee the country for his life. He all but forgets her after the war when his sister runs into her work in a small Senlis art show and reminds him of his previous high hopes for Séraphine. He encourages Séraphine to continue her art and give up the drudgery of manual labor, and becomes her patron. But before she can achieve the fame she deserves, the 1939 economic crash throws not only the U.S., but Europe and most of the world into crisis. There's not much art buying during the Great Depression.

During the course of her life, especially after she becomes recognized as an artist, she slowly and gently drifts into insanity. I question: was it artistic recognition that effected her mind, or to put it another way, did her ego literally get the better of her mind; did intense exposure to oil paints in her unventilated room cause brain damages (many say Van Gogh was effected by too much chromium yellow fumes); did the pressures of her upbringing as a have-not cause irreparable damage to her psyche at an early age; did accumulated disappointment in her personal life and artistic career push her over the edge? All are possibilities. None are explored other than to present the circumstances of her life.

I have to say I was almost disappointed to see she had a genius for something -- a talent that made her special. I really wanted to explore the life of an ordinary, not-attractive, older woman who, due her culture and circumstances, had no hope of reprieve from drudgery and ultimately a lonely death. I empathized with her. I wanted to love her for who she was -- an overlooked and forgotten human being who by accident of birth suffered poverty and isolation. But no, just another brilliant artist who should have received recognition for her paintings.

Still, it's wonderful to finally discover Séraphine Louis and to enjoy her beautiful, vibrant, "insect like", moving flowers. How does a culture or a world democratize art so it can be seen by the world, artists can receive the acclaim they deserve whether they are male or female, critically acclaimed or not, with the appropriate background and education or not? Silly me -- the Internet, of course. I would be remiss if I didn't direct you all to my sister's website: www.bonniesteiger.com/ssyindex.htm . It just so happens, I personally know and am blood related to an artist with the genius and vision on par with Séraphine Louis, if I say so myself. How could you not take a peek at her etchings?

The film, Bruno, concentrates on this Austrian model’s sexuality and need for fame. Cast out of Europe’s hip social circles, he goes to America to seek fame. He tries many different strategies, including hosting a celebrity talk show (I know that doesn’t work); brokering peace in the Middle East; representing a “cause” like global warming or the Rain Forest or AIDS, whatever is hottest right now; adopting an African baby; even going straight since so many famous people are. His naivety represents the gullibility of the American and world public, the people he recruits to help him represent the manipulators and power brokers. Both sides are greedy, self serving, and extremely stupid -- but one side has all the money and the other side wants it. Am I taking too grand a view of this film? I’m sure Sacha Baron Cohen considered this view while he and his colleagues wrote it.

I hear the European version of Bruno is more explicit than the American version. That’s okay. I don’t need more details -- I get it, more than get it, got it up to here. And then some. There are only a couple of black overlay boxes to protect the audience’s sensibilities during amusing sex scenes. I was glad the boxes were there. Anything that is in the European version that isn’t in the American version is just more porn and certainly not necessary to the story.

By the way, I know a lot of the situations and scenes were done with actors. How do I know? ‘Cause nobody was laughing at Bruno’s antics in the film. You may be a straight laced bigot or an outraged audience member of a talk show, but if you don’t crack a smile, you have to be from Central Casting.

Sometimes people are so damaged by their childhood experiences of sexual and emotional brutality that there's just no healing, there's no way to be among the living, there's only constant suffering and dreams of release to whatever the afterlife may bring. Christian heaven -- that may be too wonderful to hope for. Buddhist nothingness -- a welcome blessing. Having another chance through reincarnation is too scary -- "can't do this again."

I have never enjoyed comedy based on stereotypes. It’s too easy to poke fun at people who are clichés, and they don’t really exist anyway. The obnoxious American, the hot Spanish divorcees, the loud and raucous Australians, the stuck up English woman, the pathetic old people. It lacks subtlety and true humor based on the ironies of the human condition. I’m not into slapstick either, but that’s a complaint for another movie. But the plot “My Life In Ruins” is based on tired, old, themes of humanizing characters initially portrayed as clichés and a woman becoming happy (and giving up all higher goals) when she falls in love.

Talk about clichés -- when a TV is on in the background, which happens several times, the only thing seen is “Zorba the Greek.” Please.....

Richard Dreyfuss’ stereotype is the older man of wisdom who spouts little philosophical jewels and may even have supernatural powers with which to help people.

What got me through this film were the beautiful backdrops that are Greece: the ruins, the sea and sky as a backdrop to the little white and blue villages perched along the dry, jutting hills. And one joke that still makes me chuckle, I’m ashamed to say -- the bus driver’s name is Poupi Caca. Say it and savor it. Poupi Caca.

If you want to see a foreign woman’s experience in and of Greece, in a film that is funny and wonderful, please rent “Shirley Valentine” (1989). It will inspire all dissatisfied, incomplete, unhappy women of all ages to move to Greece. At best, “My Life In Ruins,” will inspire you to get coffee and cake after the film to feel better.

Of course, "Big Man Japan" will be compared to "Hancock," the Will Smith vehicle about a socially inept, reluctant and ostracized super hero. Daisato, who comes from a line of super heros, he being the sixth, does not enjoy the renown, adoration or wealth that his forebears did. It is suggested the line began due to the radiation from the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We don't really learn why Daisato is so scorned. I'm sure all super heros fighting monsters in Japan racked up as much collateral damage as Daisato does. But these days, the populace is fed up with the mess, the loss of wild birds, and the havoc caused when Daisato does his government sanction and paid job.

Technology takes a giant leap back for fun,
sentamentality, tradition?

What's interesting about "Big Man Japan"'s approach is it uses the mockumentary format, which even includes archival footage. An off-camera voice tentatively asks questions of the hero who looks more like a dejected, homeless man. He answers slowly, carefully, and often only revealing part truths if any at all. While he is interviewed, rocks from angry neighbors crash through the windows of his less than modest abode. He doesn't even notice since he is so used to the abuse by the public. If he is not considered an unwanted pariah, he is anonymous. The local chef where Daisato eats 3 times a week doesn't even know who he is. The people on the street who are asked their opinion of him are very convincingly realistic and all their responses about him are negative. It's the authenticity and realism of this "documentary" that adds so much humor to it. It's dry, straightforward and hysterical. His family life; his relationship with his employer, the Department of Defense; his tribulations with his agent and her insistence he wear brand names for advertising revenue; his childhood -- all are explored. We sympathize, but we can't help laughing.

The most fun in the film is watching Daisato battle the myriad of monstrous creatures. With advances in special effects technology, those fights in the obvious cardboard skyscraper sets of urban Japan are no longer confined to men in rubber outfits of T-Rexs or gorillas. The threatening creatures and Daisato himself are computer creations of humorous imagination though the sets are still as flimsy and fake as ever -- this time intentional since they are software created. In one scene Daisato picks up a truck and throws it at a monster. It sounds like a plastic toy. I assume this is a sentimental tribute to the traditional monster movies of Japan which started with the best, "Godzilla."

After having seen every episode of Six Feet Under and CSI, as well as the first season of Dexter, I didn’t think there was much more I could glean from a film about dealing with the dead. Sure, we’re taken to several body preparations, where, as customary in Japan, the family and friends witness the ritualistic ablutions, as opposed to the private, tile roomed basement of the American mortuary which includes embalming. And in a social context, people are even more uncomfortable being around a mortician in Japan than they are in the U.S. Our hero’s wife leaves him because of the stigma associated with preparing the dead. But this is more a story of a cellist who gives up his music career, moves back to his deceased mother’s town and house and takes the very well paying though highly distressing job.

When our hero, Daigo (played by Masahiro Motoki), was 6 years old, his father abandoned him and his mother. It’s not so much that he never got over it as he wrote the man off and has continued on with his life. He’s married to a very sweet, patient and loving wife. Though the symphony he worked with was dissolved, he and his wife are making a go of it in his hometown with his new career which he tries to hide from her. His boss is the inscrutable Asian, wise and philosophical, saying little, imparting much (he’d make Pat Morita in his “Karate Kid” role proud). But over the course of his adjusting to his new career path, we question just how much his childhood may actually be effecting his present life.

This is a lovely film, verging on the overly sentimental -- a flock of swans punctuates the schmaltz. I’m a total sap for cello solos and there are a few very moving ones. Reverence for the dead, displayed in its various forms, plucks at our compassion and own sense of mortality. Bring a hankie -- one should suffice.

I pride myself on having a lot of general knowledge. Like a textbook Gemini (if you can call a book on astrology a text book), I dabble and flit around lots of subjects, not specializing in anything. I am very familiar with Salvador Dali, his melted watch surrealism, his maternal relationship with his wife, his party-going in the 60’s in New York where I’d often ran into him. I know Garcia Lorca’s plays and fastidiously read through them looking for audition monologues

Even in 1922 Spain, life was
a Ralph Lauren ad.

I might use (never did; they were too depressing). I watched Luis Bunuel’s films, cut goat;’s eye, cockroach sandwich and all. Yet I didn’t realize they all knew each other, went to art school together, and had evolving, tumultuous relationships. It was very elucidating and interesting learning about their relationships to each other and to their times in Spain.

All three are formulating their art through painting, filmmaking and literature, tempered by each other’s influence, which runs the gamut from intellectual discourse through sexual passion, as well as their social environment, which includes social repression and the impending Spanish Civil War. Each takes a different path. This is not only historically informative, but beautifully shot and sensitively acted.

I have to admit, I was not too happy seeing the civil war that decimated the population and ended in totalitarianism for the next 50 years depicted as a struggle for homosexual liberation. Yes, it was that, but so much more. The view was myopic and unbalanced. It is also very difficult to have a flowing, coherent film when covering a large time span. It often tends to turn significant moments into tableaus, sacrificing a flowing story line for salient moments which may even seem out of context. Unfortunately, I found much of this film jarring in its selection of what the writer and director decided where the brief moments to focus in on. And some scenes were just simply jarring. We see a tragedy taking place in the countryside, then jump to a bar in the city where friends are laughing and drinking, back to the countryside to see more of the tragedy, back to the bar where the friends are listening to a news report of the tragedy. They stand up, make a toast and cry. Huh?

“Little Ashes” hones in on three gifted men’s relationships, two of whom are lovers. They are historic figures tangled in dangerous political times. The choices they make in the face of political and social pressures inform us of who they are as men and well as artists. This is a flawed film with high artistic and biographic aspiration.

Well, it happened again. How many times have we all gone unsuspecting into a theater to enjoy a film, be it a mystery, comedy, drama or, in this case, a feature 3-D animation, and suddenly find ourselves transported to, of all places, San Francisco? It’s got to happen more often to us than any other city’s citizens. Well, partly, it’s due to movie trailers making it clear when a film takes place in New York or Los Angeles and the audience is prepared for it. Or if a film does take place in New York or Los Angeles, we expect it because so many films are actually shot and set in those cities. But it is a delicious surprise every time we watch a film unfold on the screen, and up pops the Golden Gate Bridge or some other familiar landmark.

This time it was even better because San Francisco looks absolutely fantastic in 3-D animation. We fly over a slightly altered bridge, watch Mt. Tam pass to our left, glide down to a Crissy Fields road, only to see the Pyramid Building loom large before us. We are even given the sage advice, “Go hide in the city, but stay out of the Tenderloin. It could be dicey.” This is a Dreamworks production, not Pixar. Neither Speilberg, his associates, the writers nor directors hail from San Francisco. But boy, they got it right.

Yes, there is also a kind of plot that rings familiar: an alien wants to inhabit Earth causing the extinction of all present life. Marginalized outcasts of society, in the form of monsters, are called upon to save us all. These monsters are also very recognizable, especially to Sci Fi buffs. We have the blob; a scientist intentionally self-semi-transformed like the Fly, but this time to a cockroach who has a better chance surviving any earthly catastrophe; the missing link who now sports a back fin; a moth reminiscent of the insects enlarged by exposure to radiation; and our star, the 50 foot woman.

And we have lots of famous actors voicing these characters. I quickly get bored trying to attach the voice to the character, so the names listed above are of little importance to me. Unknowns who often depict cartoon, oops, I mean animated characters, are just as good and perhaps interfere less with the suspension of disbelief.

Goodwin desperate to find the man
Anniston desperate to marry hers
Connelly oblivious in her marriage

Let the children come and fall in love with dogs. Let them understand there are too many dogs without homes who are in danger of being killed in shelters. (All right, they're being killed in the thousands every day in this country, but that's not clear in this G-rated film.) Let them learn to love and appreciate homeless dogs. Take your children to "Hotel for Dogs."

The story goes -- sister and brother orphans, Andi and Bruce (Emma Roberts and Jake T. Austin) are hiding their family dog from their foster parents (Lisa Kudrow and Kevin Dillon), a couple of wanna be rock musicians who lock the food up and share no love with the forlorn waifs. The kids' adorable terrier, who they hide from their foster parents, is captured by the dogcatcher and when they go to the shelter to pick him up, they realize the problem so many dogs face once picked up by the system. The parallels are inescapable and the children's hearts go out to canines in even more dire situations than themselves. With Cosmo's (their dog) help, they find an abandoned hotel and, with the help of their pet store employee friends and another dude (Kyla Pratt, Johnny Simmons, Troy Gentile) start collecting, saving, feeding, exercising and training homeless dogs. Bruce's inventive Rube Goldberg-type machines help in the process. Don Cheadle is the good man from social services trying to do the best he can for these orphaned good-kids.

Dinner at the Hotel for Dogs.

The dogs in this film learn how to poop in toilets, all get along, enjoy doing wonderful tricks and exhibit perfect behavior throughout. Okay, this is not a documentary, but obviously made by dog lovers, as demonstrated in the closing credits. There seems to be a need for bad guys, so the shelter workers get the thankless roles (in actuality shelter workers are often given free psychiatric counseling because the constant killing of so many healthy, affectionate, loving dogs is so hard on them).

Two-thirds of the dogs, around 70 including mutts and pure breeds of various ages, were found in rescues, including Cosmo who, with two other very similar looking Jack Russell Terriers, played Friday, the canine star of the film -- that's the fluffy white guy who belongs to the kids. All were trained by Mark Forbes of Birds and Animals Unlimited in very few months, and no special effects were used in the film. That really tells something about the capabilities of all dogs, including dogs scooped up from the streets and surrendered due to economic and/or "behavioral" problems.

Of all I've done in my life, the proudest is having fostered 25 dogs. Unlike in this film, I only had 1 or 2 at a time and it took a few years, but I saved 25 lives and would still be doing it if the owner of my building hadn't put her very loud, adament and incontrovertable foot down. My own dog was found roaming the streets of San Jose and was kept in a shelter for 2 weeks before she could be released to a rescue where I found her. It's been 8 ½ years and we're still loving every moment together.

It's one thing to be an outsider. You're looking from the outside to where people are enjoying themselves, having good conversations, good relationships, a good time. Okay, it's kind of sad being alone and watching from a distance. But being inside and not being a part of a social occasion is hell. Good people around you, even trying to engage you, but you just don't belong, you are not a part of this group in find yourself in -- that's hell!

Kate Walker (Emma Thompson) is on a blind date with an obviously younger man. They awkwardly try to carry on a conversation. He's a nice guy; nothings wrong, it's just not right. Then friends of his run into him at the bar and join them. Kate can find no way to fit in, even though the young group tries to include her. She is just not part of their social set, their time and place. Oh, the pain.

But that is nothing to Harvey Shine's (Dustin Hoffman) experience. First, he comes to London to go to his daughter's wedding. His ex-wife (Kathy Baker) has rented a house for the whole wedding party -- except him. So, he's alone in the hotel. At the dinner the night before the wedding, he has to listen to the stories of the whole family's fun in Italy the year before. He's seated at the end of the table furthest away from bride and groom. He is obviously not a part of this family. His daughter even tells him she'd like to be given away by her step father (James Brolin) than him since stepdad has become such an integral part of her family. Harvey is redundant and superfluous. Feels like all eyes are on him while at the same time no one looks at him or acknowledges his existence. I feel for this guy; I've been there.

These two lost souls meet and Harvey quickly recognizes there is hope and potential joy with this new woman. He doggedly, more puppyishly, pursues her. There is quiet peace and acceptance between them, there is redemption for them, after a few rough spots there is the promise of happiness.

The Spanish tend to make thought provoking, interesting, mature films. On the face of it, “Timecrimes” is such a film. A man returns to his charming, bucolic home and his loving wife after doing some nursery shopping for the garden. Life is relaxing, uncomplicated; he’s probably retired or on vacation and using the time to unwind and

catch up with home projects like his wife’s gardening. While she’s away shopping for tonight’s dinner, he spies a pair fo tits through his binoculars off in the wooded distance. Oh, boy. A man, binoculars and tits. We’re in trouble. His brain has now fallen below his waist and no good can come of it. His adventure down the rabbit hole includes a time machine and one thoughtless mistake after another -- until I’m about to scream “Somebody shoot this guy and end this film now!”

In his relentless effort to undo the harm he’s done, he just keeps stepping on his own dick -- so to speak. I don’t understand why he does much of the things he does. Could it be a case of sheer stupidity on the part of the screenwriter to propel the plot -- the lowest form of writing usually accepted and expected in horror screamers about campers and angry spirits who seek revenge? Has the exhaulted Spanish filmmaking community sunken this low?

And yet, the film looks so good, the acting so professional, the cinematography so moody and accurate for the subject matter. What an unsettling combination of bad script choices with all the other factors that make for a good film. I am so confused, but I refuse to be fooled! “Timecrimes” is an exercise in frustration for the viewer -- the main character doing incredibly thoughtless, stupid things for no appearent reason and compounding the stupidity with every opportunity to right them by going back in time. The moral of the story is -- if you nave the opportunity to go back in time, don’t! You’ll just fuck it up no matter how smart you are. Or maybe going back in time effects your brain and makes you a moron. Or maybe writing a movie about going back in time makes you a moron. Somebody stop me!