The Descendants (2011)

THE DESCENDANTS  (2011)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Alexander Payne
    George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller,
    Nick Krause, Robert Forster, Beau Bridges,
    Matthew Lillard, Judy Greer, Laird Hamilton
George Clooney plays a Hawaiian lawyer forced to take on a more active role as a parent after his wife goes into a coma. He's got two daughters, aged 10 and 17. They're just as smart and demanding and annoying as kids can be, and he hasn't got a clue how to deal with them. Other characters enter the picture. His older daughter's slacker boyfriend. His inflexible, hard-headed father-in-law. The realtor his wife was cheating on him with. The realtor's wife. And a whole slew of relatives who are waiting for  him to sign off on a land deal that could make them all rich. There are few surprises, but Payne gets the Hawaiian vibe about right, and he has a nice way of giving each character a moment of grace, even those you're inclined not to sympathize with. It's a sitcom, really, but it's a sitcom done real well.

Damn the Defiant! (1962)

DAMN THE DEFIANT!  (1962)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Lewis Gilbert
    Alec Guinness, Dirk Bogarde, Anthony Quayle,
    Maurice Denham, Richard Carpenter, Nigel Stock
Dispatched to Corsica in 1797 to escort a shipment of timber back to England, Captain Alec Guinness sails into the Mediterranean , facing down a mutinous crew, a sadistic fellow officer and the French fleet along the way. A good, old-fashioned naval adventure with tall ships exchanging broadsides backed by a rousing musical score. Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey would feel right at home.

Scarlet Diva (2000)

SCARLET DIVA  (2000)  ¢ 1/2
    D: Asia Argento
    Asia Argento, Jean Shepard, Vera Gemma, 
    Herbert Fritsch, Fabio Camilli, Daria Nicolodi
Asia Argento wrote and directed this gloomy character study about a movie-star actress whose life is coming apart. As a filmmaker, Argento doesn't mind making her self-absorbed, self-destructive heroine (played by Argento) look unappealing. So you get to see Asia shaving her armpits. And smearing makeup all over her face. And getting all ratty and strung-out on drugs. And engaged in some fairly unelegant humping. What she doesn't do is give you much of a reason to care. She has interesting tattoos, though.

Elevator To the Gallows (1957)

ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS  (1957)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Louis Malle
    Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly,
    Jean Wall, Charles Denner, Jean-Claude Brialy
An ex-paratrooper working for a high-end arms dealer kills his boss and heads out to a rendezvous with the old man's wife. Remembering a bit of incriminating evidence he left behind, he returns and gets stuck in the elevator. From that point on, things spin out of control for everybody: the killer, the wife, and the reckless young couple who steal the killer's car. Louis Malle's macabre first feature (after some documentary work with Jacques Cousteau) plays like a Hitchcock movie in French: tense, ironic and devious. Moreau at 29 already looks ageless. Musical score by Miles Davis.

The Cat's Meow (2001)

THE CAT'S MEOW  (2001)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Peter Bogdanovich
    Edward Herrmann, Kirsten Dunst, Eddie Izzard,
    Cary Elwes, Joanna Lumley, Jennifer Tilly
Elegant murder mystery/melodrama about what might've happened to movie producer Thomas Ince on a cruise aboard William Randolph Hearst's yacht off Southern California in 1924. Orson Welles devotee Peter Bogdanovich gets to make his own Hearst movie and indulge his fetish for old Hollywood at the same time. There's not much mystery to the mystery, but it's got a smart, witty script and some finely polished performances, especially by Herrmann as Hearst and Kirsten Dunst as Marion Davies. What Bogdanovich captures (that Welles conspicuously missed in "Citizen Kane") is the genuine and enduring affection between Davies and Hearst, which makes Hearst's ego-addled jealousy over Marion's dalliance with Charlie Chaplin both pathetic and frightening. As to what really happened on Hearst's yacht that weekend long ago, that's the enduring mystery.

Betty Boop For President (1932)

BETTY BOOP FOR PRESIDENT  (1932)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Dave Fleischer
Who wouldn't vote for Betty Boop?

The Way Back (2010)

THE WAY BACK  (2010)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Peter Weir
    Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Saoirse Ronan,
    Colin Farrell, Mark Strong, Dragos Bucur
An exciting, old-fashioned survival story about a handful of prisoners who escape from a Soviet gulag and trek 4,000 miles to India by hiking through Siberia, Mongolia, China and Tibet. It's a heroic journey, and there's not much in the way of physical hardship these characters don't endure: cold, heat, thirst, starvation, snow, mosquitoes and dust. They're political prisoners mostly, enemies of the state. One's an artist. Another's a priest. Guys who were unlucky enough to attract the attention of Stalin's secret police. Only one, a brute played by Colin Farrell, is a real criminal. Jim Sturgess is a Pole convicted of espionage because his wife was tortured into testifying against him. Ed Harris is an American known only as "Mr. Smith". Saoirse Ronan plays a fugitive of uncertain origin who joins them along the way. The locations are convincing. You can feel the blistering heat of the desert, and the cold looks cold enough to kill you. The prison camp scenes are horrifying, an unrelieved vision of hell from which (supposedly) there is no escape. Make it through the first couple of reels and you'll know one thing for sure: Death would be better than life in the camps.