Thirteen (2003)

THIRTEEN  (2003)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Catherine Hardwicke

    Evan Rachel Wood, Nikki Reed, Holly Hunter

    Deborah Kara Unger, Jeremy Sisto, Kip Pardue

The horror of being a 13-year-old girl, and the even greater horror of living with one. Powerfully acted. Massively dysfunctional. If life was this fucked-up for everybody, we'd all commit suicide in early adolescence.

The Saga of Anatahan (1953)

THE SAGA OF ANATAHAN  (1953)  ¢ ¢ ¢  

    D: Josef von Sternberg

    Akemi Negishi, Tadashi Suganuma,

    Kisaburo Sawamura, Shoji Nakayama

Josef von Sternberg traveled a long way from Hollywood to make this oddity, filmed on a studio set in Japan. It's about a group of Japanese sailors going to pieces on a Pacific island where they're stranded for years after the end of World War Two. There are no subtitles, the actors speak Japanese, and von Sternberg's ominous, awkward narration constantly telegraphs events before they occur. But there are moments of strange power, especially at the end, when the survivors return home, and the ghosts do, too. The movie barely got released, bombed critically and commercially, and all but disappeared, effectively ending von Sternberg's career.

Letters From Iwo Jima (2006)

LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA  (2006)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Clint Eastwood

    Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya,

    Tsuyoshi Ihara, Ryo Kase

Clint Eastwood's second straight film dealing with the Battle of Iwo Jima, this time from the point of view of the Japanese. It's more tightly focused than "Flags of Our Fathers", which had to tell not just the story of the battle, but the subsequent war-bond campaign back home. The scale's more intimate, and it has two outstanding performances, by Ken Watanabe as the army general assigned the suicidal task of defending the island, and Kazunari Ninomiya as the grunt soldier through whose eyes much of the battle takes place. It's a harrowing portrait of men in combat, with at least one scene, involving an American G.I. guarding a couple of Japanese prisoners, that Clint might not have gotten away with if he hadn't made "Flags" first. On its own, "Letters" is a great war movie, full of admiration for the men who fight, and a passionate sense of war's horrible waste and futility. Its heroes, our enemies then, are ordinary people, not much different from ourselves. What happens to them is both tragic and heartbreaking.

Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS  (2006)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Clint Eastwood

    Ryan Philippe, Adam Beach, Jesse Bradford,

    Barry Pepper, John Benjamin Hickey, Jamie Bell,

    John Slattery, Paul Walker, Robert Patrick

Clint Eastwood's epic recreation of the Battle of Iwo Jima and the famously photographed flag-raising on Mount Surabachi, with the focus on the three men in the photograph who survived the battle and then were shipped home and showcased as heroes in a public relations campaign to sell war bonds. Eastwood has spent much of his career exploring the nature of heroism, often subverting or debunking it. Here he salutes the real thing, in a film about three undeniably brave men who don't consider themselves heroes at all. The fact that there's little to distinguish one G.I. from another, especially in the battle scenes, doesn't help the picture dramatically, but it does underscore how a generation of soldiers saw themselves, as ordinary guys trying to get a terrible job done, hoping to survive and go home, and then later on not talking about it very much. We know some of them. They're our fathers, our grandfathers, and those who remain are quite old. They might've left the war behind at Iwo Jima, or Normandy, or Anzio, or Leyte Gulf, but as this ambitious, respectful and unsparing movie suggests, the war never really left them.

Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)

TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY  (1946)  ¢ ¢ ¢  

    D: Richard Whorf

    Robert Walker, Lucille Bremer, Van Heflin,

    Dorothy Patrick, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra,

    June Allyson, Lena Horne, Van Johnson,

    Cyd Charisse, Angela Lansbury, Dinah Shore

A musical biography of composer Jerome Kern, from his start as an eager, young, turn-of-the-century songwriter, through "Showboat" and beyond. Formula script - Kern himself thought his life was too dull to make a movie about - but lots of great songs, and typically lush MGM production values. Lena Horne torches "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", Angela Lansbury hoofs her way through "How'd You Like To Spoon With Me?", and Lucille Bremer and Van Johnson cut the rug to "I Won't Dance". To wrap it all up, a skinny kid from Hoboken takes a shot at "Ol' Man River", and knocks it out of the park.

Lena Horne

(1917-2010)

Underworld (2003)

UNDERWORLD  (2003)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Len Wiseman

    Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Bill Nighy

Vampires. Werewolves. Kate Beckinsale in a shiny black catsuit. Plenty of roaring sound and computerized fury, but an army of monsters with automatic weapons isn't as scary somehow as a couple of quiet, stealthy monsters with fangs and claws. Especially when the monsters with the guns are such lousy shots. 

Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll (1987)

CHUCK BERRY: HAIL! HAIL! ROCK 'N' ROLL

    D: Taylor Hackford                              (1987)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

Chuck Berry's in his 80s now, and for all I know, he's still out there somewhere, doing the splits, duck-walking across the stage, and playing those famous, ringing guitar licks to "Roll Over Beethoven" and "Johnny B. Goode". This documentary captures Berry at the relatively young age of 60, doing all those things in a concert produced by Keith Richards, and discussing his life and work. It's an illuminating portrait of a true musical pioneer, with Berry proving to be alternately (or simultaneously) charming and charismatic, shrewd and mischievous, cranky and obstinate, a man who unapologetically is who he is, take it or leave it, just don't ask him about his periodic run-ins with the law. Besides Richards (who has rarely looked more alive), the backup band includes Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, Etta James, Julian Lennon and Linda Ronstadt. All of Berry's rock classics get performed, but the highlights, surprisingly, are two ballads - "I'm Through With Love" and "A Cottage For Sale", which closes the film. Witnesses include Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers, Bruce Springsteen, Bo Diddley and Little Richard, all more than willing to pay their respects. Rock & roll might've happened without Chuck Berry. It's just hard to imagine, that's all.

Lassie (2005)

LASSIE  (2005)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 

    D: Charles Sturridge

    Peter O'Toole, Samantha Morton, Jonathan Mason,

    John Lynch, Peter Dinklage, Kelly Macdonald, 

    Edward Fox, John Standing, Jemma Redgrave

It's 1938, and with the mine closing down and the war closing in, an impoverished Yorkshire family sells its beloved pet collie to a wealthy nobleman. The dog keeps escaping and running back home, so the duke ships her up to the north of Scotland, 500 miles away. Naturally, she escapes again, but how can she make it home from way up there? A good, old-fashioned family movie shot on location in Scotland and Ireland, with a standout cast playing backup to the world's smartest dog. Young kids especially should love it, but be careful showing it to them. First they'll want to watch it again. Then they'll want you to buy them a copy. Then they'll want a dog. You see how it could go . . .

Inga (1968)

INGA  (1968)  ¢ ¢ 

    D: Joseph W. Sarno

    Marie Liljedahl, Monica Strömmerstedt, 

    Thomas Ungewitter, Casten Lassen

Softcore sexploitation from Sweden, about a 17-year-old girl's erotic awakening. It's kind of slow going, but Liljedahl's nude scenes are nice. Its advertising art - a smoldering graphic of the heroine in what appears to be mid-orgasm - resurfaced more than two decades later on a memorable rock-&-roll poster.

Joseph W. Sarno

(1921-2010)

The Science of Sleep (2006)

THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP  (2006)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 

    D: Michel Gondry

    Gael Garcia Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg,

    Alain Chabat, Miou-Miou

A young artist moves to the city, where he gets a dreary job doing cut-and-paste for a calendar company, and divides his time between dreams and reality as he becomes more and more attracted to the girl in the flat across the hall. Gondry doesn't always seem to know where he wants to go with this, maybe nowhere, and maybe that's the point, but he has created a fanciful reflection on unrequited love in all its funny, agonizing, irresistible hopelessness. If you've ever gotten totally hooked on somebody who only just wanted to be friends and then proceeded to drive you completely nuts, this is the movie for you.

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)

IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD  (1963)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Stanley Kramer

    Spencer Tracy, Phil Silvers, Jonathan Winters,

    Sid Caesar, Mickey Rooney, Buddy Hackett,

    Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, Edie Adams,

    Dorothy Provine, Dick Shawn, Terry-Thomas,

    William Demarest, Peter Falk, Zasu Pitts,

    Buster Keaton, Barrie Chase, Arnold Stang,

    Edward Everett Horton, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson,

    Joe E. Brown, Leo Gorcey, Andy Devine, etc.

A thief played by Jimmy Durante kicks the bucket (literally), leaving a bunch of greed-crazed motorists with some cryptic instructions to a buried fortune in stolen money. A big, loud, frantic, marathon comedy with a virtual who's who of early '60s comedy stars, most of them acting hysterical, but not hysterically funny. Jonathan Winters has the best scenes, destroying a gas station and wobbling down an empty highway on a little girl's bicycle. Jack Benny, Jerry Lewis and the Three Stooges, appearing uncredited, get enough screen time to be recognized, and that's all.

Dorothy Provine

(1935-2010)

Intermission (2003)

INTERMISSION  (2003)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢  

    D: John Crowley

    Shirley Henderson, Kelly Macdonald, Colm Meany,

    Cillian Murphy, Colin Farrell, Brian F. O'Byrne

    Ger Ryan, Barbara Bergin, Deirdre O'Kane

A good, street-level ensemble piece from Ireland, in which a couple dozen characters slip in and out of a dozen different stories, most of them trying in some way to get a grip on love. There's a small-time hood, two supermarket clerks, a tough-talking cop, a bus driver, a filmmaker, a bank manager and his wife and mistress, a young woman with facial-hair issues, a quadriplegic barfly and a kid on a bicycle with a rock. Some of them get what they're looking for, more or less, and many pints of Guinness are consumed. It's Colin Farrell, arguably the movie's biggest star, who gets the worst of it here. His wardrobe's ugly, his haircut's ugly, and his character's an abusive thug who only gets to be charming once, as a prelude to slugging a woman in the face. And if that's not enough, Colm Meany pisses on his shoes. Welcome back to Dublin, Colin.

China Seas (1935)

CHINA SEAS  (1935)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2 

    D: Tay Garnett

    Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery

    Lewis Stone, Rosiland Russell, Robert Benchley,

    C. Aubrey Smith, Hattie McDaniel, Dudley Digges

Sailing the South China Sea, with Gable as the British captain of a transport vessel, Harlow as the dame he can't quite let go of, Russell as the old flame who's traveled 15,000 miles to track him down, Beery as a pirate, Stone as a coward seeking redemption, Benchley as a drunk, and on and on. A typhoon blows up (of course), and the pirates come aboard looking for a fortune in gold, and Gable has to decide whether he wants to retire to England with Roz, or stay in the Orient with Jean, hauling cargo between Hong Kong and Singapore. An enjoyable, old-fashioned adventure yarn with some lively dialogue courtesy of screenwriters Jules Furthman and James Kevin McGuinness. The drinking game in which Harlow bounces up and down in her seat is worth keeping an eye out for.