Movies of 2002

A fascinating if uneven omnibus project composed of 11 11-minute works centered around the events of September 11th, 2001. Some of the shorts are very impressive - in particular, those by Ken Loach, Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu, and Shohei Imamura stand out as both thought-provoking and cinematically challenging. Others are interesting but flawed, either because of incomplete thematic concerns or a less-than-satisfying emotional payoff. And, unfortunately, a few of the shorts (Youssef Chahine's, Sean Penn's) are dead-on-arrival, being neither intelligent nor compelling. However, when all is taken into account, the good outweighs the bad, and 11'09"01 is worth seeing for the few shorts that truly succeeds, and for the sheer diversity of issues it brings up (even if many of these are not truly explored).

Dir: Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu
Starring: Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio Del Toro

"With Amorres Perros, his ambitious and remarkably accomplished debut, Mexican director Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu vaulted himself onto the North American cinematic stage. Now, with 21 Grams, a film even more impressive than his previous work, he establishes himself as a force to be reckoned with."

Gritty, unconventional, and grimly realistic, Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later is less akin to a horror movie and more reminiscent of a nightmarish news report. Filmed on digital video with a low budget and centered squarely on the characters, it's also smarter and more provocative than regular genre fare. The story centers on a virus, that, released accidentally from a laboratory in Cambridge, transform the entire population of England into bands of feral, raving creatures that live only to kill those who aren't transformed. There are indeed, we learn, survivors. Jim is one of them: he wakes up one day, in a hospital in downtown London, to find the entire city empty, in disarray. He soon meets up with Selena, another survivor, and traveling togethor, they stumble upon Frank and his daughter Hannah. The small group, deciding that London is a death sentence, decide to follow a radio broadcast that promises safety for survivors. The film works because Boyle makes us care for the characters. We empathize with Jim's fear and with his compassion, we understand Selene's survival instincts, and we're overjoyed by Frank and Hannah's hope. On another level, we're also dismayed and terrified by the relentless one-mindedness of the infected humans, by the grisly sights of a destroyed city, by the chilling emptiness of the countryside, and by the echoes of current world events that we feel in the film. Boyle's film is episodic, and upon seeing it, I thought that it was perhaps too much so. However, as I'm writing this, a day after seeing it, I find it helps the film, making it feel even more realistic. You see, this is how a survivor would remember such times - not as one continuous journey, but as fleeting images, memories of specific events: a harrowing escape in a tunnel; a pack of horses running around an empty field; a car alarm ringing in an empty city. 28 Days Later is a remarkable, haunting horror film. See it.

Before the election that would cost him the leadership of Quebec's government, ex-PM Bernard Landry agreed to be the subject of a political behind-the-scenes documentary by Quebec filmmaker Jean-Claude Labrecque. Basically, Landry agreed to wear a microphone and to be followed by cameras every day of these last three months, and they caught everything, from the public events to the private meetings in back rooms, to the planning and rehearsing sessions, and even to the private moments between Landry and his wife. It's brilliant, no-holds-barred filmmaking, and manages to give not only a fascinating (and real) example of the an election campaign can be spun and manipulated by the press and the other parties, but a surprisingly human portrait of Landry, a portrait that transcends the public image to show the intelligence, dignity, and essential loneliness of the man. (Now, I'm a hard-core liberal and I certainly don't share many of Landry's ideas for Quebec, but I'll be damned if I don't respect the man a lot more nowadays.) In terms of cinema, the film is simple, yet brilliant. Every second of the film consists of behind-the-screen footage, but it's edited, shot, and scored so that even those who don't know the details of the politics can understand and be moved by the footage. It's provocative, intelligent, and surprisingly moving (especially the final moments), and it's no surprise that it played to packed screens at the Montreal Film Festival and at the Ex-Centris Cinema. It may not be as interesting to non-Quebecers, but to those affected by the politics of the province, it'll be fascinating. I think it's one of the very best films of the year.

8.0 out of 10

Dir: David Gordon Green
Starring: Paul Schneider, Zooey Deschanel, Patricia Clarkson

Lyrical without being melodramatic or maudlin, David Gordon Green's superb All The Real Girls achieves a fragile, exquisite balance between poeticism and realism, perfectly balancing honesty with beauty, and evoking the complex, often contradictory emotions that young love creates. Set in a rusted, dying mid-western town, the film centers around the difficult relationship between Paul and Noel. Paul is a young man living with his kind-hearted mother, and has a reputation as a womanizer who has slept with every girl in town; Noel is his best friend's younger sister, back in town after a few years of outside schooling. They quickly fall in love, but over the course of their relationship, they meet opposition and difficulty, both external and internal, at every turn. Green's screenplay is honest, complex, and astute: he encompasses and accepts the contradictions of love, its difficulties and its often illogical nature, and this gives the film a realism that is both familiar and fascinating. His direction also complements the subject well: often intercutting the character scenes with hypnotic shots of the rusted town and nature, Green gives the film a lyrical and poetic tone that alternates between euphoric beauty and sadness and pain. The director's skill also extends to the actors, which give uniformly excellent performances. In the lead role, Paul Schneider is excellent, realizing a character that is both likable and flawed, and whose confusions and dilemmas are always believable. As Noel, Zooey Deschanel is luminous and disarmingly affecting, giving a performance of great beauty that stands as one of the year's very best. In supporting turns, Patricia Clarkson and Benjamin Mouton (Paul's uncle) are worth mentioning for creating, in a few key scenes, complex characters out of their supporting roles. All The Real Girls is an moving, disarmingly honest film, and a film that has genuine compassion for its characters and their plights. It's one of the year's best.

Dir: Robert Pulcini & Shari Springer Berman
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Hope Davis, Harvey Pekar

"Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.", states Harvey Pekar, file clerk, underground comic book author, and the protagonist of American Splendor, and the same can be said about movies concerning ordinary people. On one hand, if the filmmakers are striving to create a personal, empathic connection with the audience, they must craft a film that is honest and emotionally sincere. On the other hand, this approach risks making the film too slight and understated to leave a lasting mark on the viewers. American Splendor, for better or for worse, possesses both these characteristics. Through an ambitious script that mixes fact and fiction by combining a dramatized account of Harvey Pekar's life with live interviews with the man himself, and through interesting visuals that combine comic-book illustrations with live footage, the filmmakers draw a portrait of Pekar that, while interesting and vivid, seems messy and incomplete, and fails to cohere into a singular vision of the man. A similar dilemma is presented by the performances. Taken on their own merits, they are excellent - Paul Giamatti is impressive and memorable as Pekar, and Hope Davis is both funny and endearing as his wife Joyce. However, once again, the slight stylization present in the actors' work dampens the connection between film and audience, and creates a tone that is neither raw enough to truly compel or stylized enough to attract the attention. However, while it might sound like I found the film to be a total failure, it isn't true. Some parts of the film work. What is disappointing is that it never truly coheres, emotionally, intellectually, or aesthetically, into a singular vision that lasts.

Bad Boys 2 is the epitome of all that a Michael Bay/Jerry Bruckheimer production stands for - it's long, loud, mindless, ultra-commercial, and flashy. Artistically, it may not be a very good movie, but for those looking for pure thrills without the added weight of story or logic, it delivers in spades. The sequel to Bad Boys, BB2 once again pairs Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as cop buddies, this time tasked with bringing to justice a powerful drug lord. The story isn't very important, however - in fact, it's almost absent from the proceedings, as the film consists of one extended action scene after another. As such, it's a good thing that the action sequences in BB2 are exhilarating - they may indeed be the loudest and most insane set-pieces Bay has ever directed. Standouts include a car chase that has more collateral damage than the one in Terminator 3 and a sequence set in Cuba in which an entire village is reduced to shambles in a Hummer's wake. It's important to mention, however, that the action in BB2 is not for those easily offended - indeed, the film gives no thought to the innocents that surely die in its elaborate pyrotechnics, and some lines and scenes in it are bound to anger more sensible viewers. When all is taken into account, however, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a good time. Yes, Bad Boys 2 is not a very good film, but it's an easy guilty pleasure.

Quite literally so-bad-it's-good, Beyond Re-Animator is a perfect examples of a B-movie that works. The story (or what little of it there is) is predictably flimsy: in prison after the events of Re-Animator, Dr. Howard West continues his experiments with the help of the new prison doctor. Of course, they go awry, and when combined with a prison riot, hilarity ensues. As far as characters go, Combs' Dr. West is the only one worth remembering, and the only one who can hold his own acting-wise; the others, including the protagonist (the new prison doctor) and his girlfriend are faces in the crowd, and often prone to hilariously stiff over-acting. None of this matters, naturally, once the wacky action takes over, and in this field the movie does deliver, as its extended sequences are gory, wacky, and sometimes refreshingly inventive (a rat-VS-severed-penis fight is a new classic). B-movies are largely absent from cinema's mainstream world, and for good reason, but Beyond Re-Animator is a good examples of why even this most shunned of genres can deliver.

Bruce Almighty marks Jim Carrey's return to the slapstick comedies that made him famous. The plot is, as usual, suitably wacky: Carrey's character, Bruce, a TV reporter plagued by bad luck, curses God so much that the omnipotent uber-being, played by Morgan Freeman, gets fed up and gives him his powers for a week. The premise has a lot of potential, especially when brought to life by a talented physical comedian such as Carrey. However, while some of the film's scenes are quite funny, the film fails to capitalize on all the wackiness that could have been pulled off, and slowly but surely descends into a fake seriousness and into schmaltz. In a way, I admire the script's insistence on being more than just a run-of-the-mill comedy, but in a film with such comedic potential, the seriousness is unwelcome. Overall, the film is a disappointment - I expected more from such a premise, especially given Carrey's presence. Oh, well, as far as Jim Carrey comedies go, there's always the upcoming Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

"A film not content with only delivering thrills and laughs better than any mainstream release this year, it is also a moving, extremely well acted and entirely character-centered meditation on old age, mortality, and dignity."

The horror cycle of the '70s is somewhat of a legend among cinephiles, being the source of dozens of cheaply made, artistically bankrupt but highly visceral (and often unintentionally funny) scare films. While their influences can still be felt in modern films of the genre, it's been years since a true example of such horror filmmaking has been released. Cabin Fever, written, produced, and directed by Eli Roth, is a competently made throwback to that legendary era of horror, and this is its mixed blessing. On one hand, the movie, thanks to the competent and knowledgeable direction of Roth, is exactly what it wants to be: a no-pretense, highly exploitative, gory, and often quite funny (in an irreverent, bizarre kind of way) piece of trash horror. On the other hand, all these things make for a film that, while never boring, never really achieves much of anything either: yeah, it's fun, but it's also forgettable and ephemeral. All this to say that fans of the '70s horror genre will be satisfied, as will be those viewers tired of the latest Hollywood glamour-fest horror film. Those looking for a horror film that actually scares and haunts, look elsewhere.

Note: if you're wondering about the quality of the acting/cinematography/score/writing, you probably shouldn't watch this movie... ;)

A blazingly energetic, vivid depiction of crime, violence, and death in the poverty-stricken areas of Rio de Janeiro, City of God is a impressive debut for director Fernando Meirelles. A chronicle, spanning three decades, of the brutal, ruthless lives of a number of denizens of the "City of God" ghetto, the film is overwhelming in its presentation, and finely illustrates the pervasive, inescapable nature of the violence that exists there. With a roaming, frenetic, chaotic camera, split-second editing, and a number of other gimmicks, Meirelles recreates with startling immediacy the chaotic, unpredictable nature of life -and death- in the City of God, and ultimately renders the audience as numbed to violence as the inhabitants of the film are. On a parallel nature, he also explores issues of moral ambiguity, and shows, through his characters, how even the most stalwart and good-intentioned people become corrupted by hate, greed, lust, and the anarchy that surrounds them. As ambitious and impressive as the film may be, however, it is not perfect. For one, the film suffers from being overstuffed with storylines and characters, which, in turn, render each character's narrative less developed than it might have been; in consequence, the audience finds it harder to care for characters which it, unfortunately, does not know enough. Personally, I would have liked to see more of the photographer's story, as he was the one character I connected emotionally with. Secondly, the film is also hurt, in some cases, by its own stylishness; indeed, while Meirelles makes, for the most part, good use of his array of flashy techniques and gimmicks (including several standout, highly memorable montages), some scenes would have been better suited to a more restrained hand. As such, some key scenes, which would have, if realized correctly, created important emotional links with the audience, are sabotaged by Meirelles' distracting direction. Overall, however, the film is very much a success, and a must-see because of its highly kinetic direction, fascinating subject, and impressive intellectual analysis.

The Core, a genuine pleasure of an action film, hankers back to the scientific adventure films of the 1950s. It uses a preposterous premise (the Earth's core has stopped spinning!) and it's full of questionable science, but it works because of memorable characters and a self-mocking, swashbuckling, and decent dramatic tone. Director Jon Amiel assembled a remarkably diverse cast, whose various talents work well. Each character is archetypal, of course, but the actors manage to give them a human depth that is most welcome. Most successful are Aaron Eckhart and Hillary Swank, who do much with their limited roles. Amiel also manages well behind the camera - the film is colorful, exciting, over-the-top, and so at peace with its own ridiculousness that it is impossible to dislike it. The Core is by no means a great film, but it's a welcome respite from the pretentiousness and cynicism of most Hollywood action films. I liked it a lot.

I consider myself a serious fan of the cinematic medium, and in most movies I watch, I look for intellectual and artistic depth and richness. My favorite directors include Stanley Kubrick, Ingmar Bergman, and Akira Kurosawa, and I feel that I've grown to appreciate most good cinema. But in spite of this all, I still like it when things go boom. In Cradle 2 The Grave, the latest rap-star-meets-martial-arts-master film from producer Joel Silver, lots of things go boom. Cars, helicopters, motorcycles, tanks - they all light up the screen with pretty colors. The story is standard thriller fare (involving a heist, a secret weapon, and a kidnapping), and as one would expect, it goes from decent to ridiculous in no time. Truth is, it doesn't matter, as one doesn't watch this film for its complex human dimensions. What one does watch a film like this for is the action sequences, and in this respect, director Bartkowiak delivers enough goods to make it worth the audiences' while. Chases, one-on-one fights, group melees, and heavy weaponry are the stars of the show, and even though they're shot in the handheld-close-up style that's become the mot-du-jour, they manage to entertain. Furthermore, Jet Li and DMX are convincing enough in their cardboard-cutout roles to keep the audience mildly interest in their predicament. Overall, Cradle 2 The Grave is passable entertainment if the mood calls for a good old mindless actioner. It's not good cinema by any means, but sometimes, that's not what one's looking for.

Dir: Mark Steven Johnson
Starring: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Colin Farrell, Michael Clarke Duncan

Mark Steven Johnson's adaptation of Marvel Comics' Daredevil franchise is a clichéd, melodramatic, pompous piece of film that fails on an almost unimaginable number of levels. In spite of the source material's potential and of the (mostly) talented cast, the movie falls flat on its face at every turn. Mark Steven Johnson's screenplay is standard comic-book fare: a young boy develops superhuman senses after losing his sight in a freak accident (involving, of all things, radioactive waste!), and following the brutal murder of his father, turns into a crusader who prowls the streets night after night, serving justice. In addition to being standard, Johnson, directing his own script, also commits the cardinal sin of being pompous, melodramatic, and arrogant. It's obvious that the film thinks very highly of itself, and this makes it all the more contemptible in my eyes. The cast doesn't fare much better than the script: Affleck is bland and forgettable, and lacks the charisma needed to hold the audience's attention, and as the villains, Colin Farrell and Michael Clarke Duncan are utterly wasted. The one exception is Jennifer Garner, who is more charismatic and attention-grabbing than all the other players involved, and who's the film's only saving grace.

Dir: Lars von Trier
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Philip Baker Hall, Paul Bettany, Patricia Clarkson

A spartan, rigorous masterpiece, Dogville is a powerful and complex experience that, through brilliant direction and acting, provokes both the intellect and the emotions.

Every once in a while, there comes a science-fiction movie that does justice to the genre by combining an intelligent and compelling universe with complex thematic elements. Dreamcatcher is definetly not that movie. However, it does have one unique attribute - intentionally or unintentionally, it comes closer than any movie I've seen in recent years to the alien invasion B-movies of the 50's. The story is incredibly messy, combining every alien invasion cliché you've ever seen with just as many clichés from other genres - and naturally, one would think that such a script would quickly become a incredible bore. However, the storyline is so gleefully insane in its incoherence that it becomes special. Furthermore, Lawrence Kasdan's direction succeeds in taking succeeds in transforming this insane piece of screenwriting into a compelling and attention-keeping yarn. Indeed, the director, along with the able cast and crew, throw themselves at the story with a blackly funny élan that makes Dreamcatcher seem less like a horrifically bad movie and more like a so-bad-you-can't-help-but-like-it piece of film. Don't go in expecting a good movie, and you may end up enjoying yourself

Messy, incoherent, and derivative, Final Destination II is a forgettable failure. The film follows the stereotypical group of teens who, after escaping death in a gruesome (and well-visualized) car accident, end up on death's hit list and are disposed of in mean-spirited and gory ways. And while some of these particular deaths are inventive and entertaining in their mean-spiritedness, the film is so incoherent and messy that the story just doesn't feel compelling. There isn't any sense in talking about the acting, direction, visuals, or music - they're all standard commercial studio fare. Overall, the film just doesn't offer anything of interest except some violent set-pieces that, while entertaining in their own little way, don't amount to any sort of final product.

Dir: Andrew Stanton
Starring: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, Willem Dafoe, Geoffrey Rush

Pixar's track record has been, up to now, the envy of Hollywood, and Finding Nemo is but the latest in the long string of successes that has become synonymous with the animation studio. First off, the animation is stunning, elegant, inventive, colorful, and in the end pretty much everything you'd expect from Pixar. The fish emote wonderfully, and there are some great Easter Eggs hidden throughout the movie for those who pay attention. The story itself, while not as inventive and complex as that of Monsters Inc. or the Toy Story series, is really quite good, and the script contains enough material to entertain both young kids and adults. The film, however, is carried by the voice acting, which is really quite remarkable. Albert Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres are perfect as the protagonists, as is Alexander Gould as Nemo. Other standouts include Willem Dafoe as Gill, the mysterious fish, Allison Janney as the starfish Peach, and Joe Ranft as the hilarious French shrimp Jacques. On the whole, the movie is quite a success, and while it's not as amazing as the previously mentioned Pixar landmarks, it's a great time at the theater.

The level of enjoyment obtained from Freddy VS Jason is directly dependent on the setting in which the viewer finds himself. Watch it alone, and the film will seem pointless, gross, and boring, and little fun will be found in the experience. Watch it with a bunch of like-minded friends, with a higher-than-average blood alcohol level, and it'll be good, gory fun. Truth is, other than the gratuitous (and surprisingly explicit) violence and the occasional T&A scene, there's not much here -- but hey, sometimes, that's all we look for.

An extraordinary experimental film, Gerry uses the formal elements of cinema to go beyond narrative and achieve a gestalt, an experience that amounts to much more than the sum of its parts. The storyline is simple, to the point of non-existence: two young men, both named Gerry (Casey Affleck and Matt Damon), go on a hiking trip and get lost in the desert; the film visually narrates their subsequent trek through the unforgiving desert. The film, however, through Van Sant's brilliant, demanding, direction and the stunning photography, uses its plot only as a starting point, exploring much deeper and more abstract existential issues. Through Gerry, van Sant observes the loss of all rational meaning that occurs when men are placed in an environment devoid of all life. The contrast between the two men, mere specks in the distance, and the stunning majesty of the lifeless rocks that surround them is flawlessly realized, and Van Sant is so deliberate in his pacing and so careful in his shot composition that after some time, one not only understands but feels the characters' spiritual situation. Indeed, by the end of the film, when the characters' trek ends, Van Sant's technique has guided the audience into undergoing the same internal journey as the characters, and the ambiguity and extremely powerful emotions felt by one of the characters when looking back on the journey is as haunting for him as it is for the audience. Many have accused Gerry of being an empty exercise, a film without meaning, and in this they have missed the point. The film is about the loss of all meaning of existence in the face of insurmountable and silent odds, and Van Sant makes the audience a participant in his abstract -and yet deeply emotional- exploration of this concept. In this, the film is not only remarkably daring, but also extremely successful, and ranks as one of the few 2003 films with the potential to be remembered, in coming years, as a visionary masterpiece.

Dir: Peter Weber
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Colin Firth, Tom Wilkinson

What an intoxicating, sumptuous, and beautifully detailed film this is. Based on a novel by Tracy Chevalier, Peter Weber's film centers on the creation of Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer's eponymous painting, and on web of relationships that engendered it. The main character is Griet (Scarlett Johansson), a young girl newly working as a maid in the Vermeer household. Through a series of events, she develops a half-artistic, half-romantic relationship with Vermeer, much to the displeasure of his mercurial, iron-fisted wife and mother-in-law, and much to the fascination of his patron, the womanizing Van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson). Much of the film's beauty comes from the elegant directorial touch shown by Weber. Indeed, he succeeds in eliciting superb performances out of his cast (Johansson is luminous in one of the year's most unique female roles; Firth is subtle and conflicted; Wilkinson is dark and fascinating), and in creating a compelling, moving, and lyrical story out of a plot based on intangibles. However, Girl With A Pearl Earring is first and foremost a sensual masterpiece, thanks to the superlative work by cinematographer Eduardo Serra, production designer Ben Van Os, and composer Alexandre Desplat. Serra's work is the best I've seen this year - he creates images that are akin to moving paintings, and his work with light. rain, and snow is beautiful. Ben Van Os achieves a period feel that is entirely convincing and exquisitely detailed - from a studio for mixing paints to the stalls of a bustling marketplace, the realization of the 17th century is uncanny. And Alexandre Desplat provides a lush and romantic score that perfectly complements the story and atmosphere of the film. Given the subject matter, Girl With A Pearl Earring could have easily been adapted into a hermetic and dry film; thus, it is to the considerable credit of all involved that it turned out to be one of 2003's best films.

[Second viewing notes, May 29th, 2004: Still a very good film, and one of the year's best, but it felt more hermetic and tonally monotonous this time around; it lacks the directorial oomph that would have propelled it to true greatness. That being said, Eduardo Serra was truly and utterly robbed at the Academy Awards: I dare anyone to look me in the eye and tell me that Russel Boyd's work on "Master & Commander" was superior to this.]

"Neil Jordan's "The Good Thief", a re-imagining of Melville's "Bob Le Flambeur", is very much like its lead character, Bob - somewhat rough around the edges and at times a bit problematic, but quite entertaining and ultimately irresistible."

Dir: Zhang Yimou
Starring: Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi

"An astonishing visual achievement, an involving film of impressive emotional power, and a fascinating exploration of heroism, of truth, and of good and evil, Zhang Yimou's "Hero" is an experience not soon forgotten."

Dir: Vadim Perelman
Starring: Jennifer Connelly, Ben Kingsley, Shohreh Aghdashloo

"Based on a remarkably crafted novel by Andre Dubus III, adapted and directed by first-time director Vadim Perelman, and performed by a group of actors led by Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly, “House of Sand and Fog” is one of the year’s must-see films."

Dir: Ang Lee
Starring: Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliot, Nick Nolte

"The Hulk, directed by acclaimed art-house filmmaker Ang Lee, is altogether different, being the first mainstream comic-book adaptation to attempt to enhance the original material's themes and ideas and to create a character-centered story all while delivering epic, colorful action. Unfortunately, the ambitious feature is not altogether successful, but there is much to enjoy and admire in it. "

A textbook example of a plot twist wrecking the film, Identity is a film that starts out great and midway through, crashes and burns. The first 45 minutes are no less than excellent: on a dark, rainy evening, chance and coincidence bring a number of strangers to a seedy highway-side motel. There's the bodyguard and his employer, a demanding actress; the family man with his wife and their shy son; the high-class call girl; the young, unhappy couple; and the Corrections officer transporting a prisoner. They each get their rooms, and after a bit of character development, people start dying. The plot may sound a lot like Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None", and it is, really (at least until midway through), but that's not necessarily a bad thing - I would have loved a tight, atmospheric little mystery-thriller. Unfortunately, the script veers off in a direction that makes it impossible to take the rest of the proceedings seriously. It's hogwash, really, and it wrecks what could have been a very satisfying film.

In these days of dime-a-dozen thrillers that are nothing but rehashes of last summer's hits, a solid, genuinely gripping thriller comes as a welcome surprise. When the said thriller, however, is also found to be intelligent, morally ambiguous, and well-acted, the reaction is closer to shock. Infernal Affairs, a striking, razor-sharp police thriller from Hong Kong, is perhaps the year's most exciting film. The film, directed with striking energy, flair, and intelligence, concerns the strange dual relationship between a mole in the police force and an undercover cop, and is extremely fast-paced, with sub-plots, characters, and details weaving along at breakneck speeds. From the first montage to the final, ironic, yet genuinely satisfying ending, the audience is caught in the film's complex web of deceit, lies, suspense, and danger. That is not to say that the film is purely plot-driven, however. Indeed, in the two main characters -brought to life in some of the year's best performances by Andy Lau and Tony Leung- are complex, morally ambiguous, and well-realized, and it is to the testament of the writers that all their actions, as misguided and condemnable as some of them may be, are understandable and believable. Infernal Affairs may not be a truly original film, as its themes and ideas are indeed somewhat familiar. However, it is rare to see such an effective combination of story of craftsmanship in a pure thriller, and even rarer to watch a film that perfectly delivers both ideas and excitement. Yes, Infernal Affairs has both brains and brawn.

The Coen Brothers' first true foray into mainstream filmmaking is also their most conventional film. With Intolerable Cruelty, the brothers attempt to parody/homage/satire the Howard Hawks-ian romantic comedies of the '40s and '50s but, being limited in their flights of fancy by the commercial nature of the project, the film lacks bite. Indeed, while the elegance of the technique is pure Coen, Intolerable Cruelty seems too tame and too forgettable to fit in the Brothers' canon, and pales in comparison to their other genre-twisting works (The Man Who Wasn't There, The Big Lebowski). All of this is not to say that the film is a complete failure. For one, George Clooney is excellent in an off-beat, highly charismatic role, and Catherine Zeta-Jones is suitably devious, and the plethora of bizarre supporting characters make the proceedings compelling, if not at all challenging.

Perhaps the closest recreation of a nightmare ever put on film, Gaspar Noé's schocking, unforgettable Irreversible is an assault on the senses, on the mind, and on the soul that never lets go. The story, played in reverse, starts with a dizzying, explicit chase through a gay bar, as a man (played by Cassel) desperately searches for an individual named Le Ténia. Le Ténia, we later learn (and see, about half-way through the film, in a horrific 9-minute sequence), raped Cassel's girlfriend a few hours earlier. Through its structure, Noé centers Irréversible's story around these events, and even the scenes that happen before the crime, in the first (last?) half of the story, resonate deeper and more ominously with the knowledge of what is to come. However, the film's real power comes from the ruthless, unflinching execution. Noé's camera is a tunnel to hell - through it, we witness ultra-violence, rape, murder, suffering and blood, and the dizzying, rotting visuals plunge us into the mindset of the characters, making us physically feel their disgust, dismay, and devastation. Similarily, the soundscape, composed of nightmarish humms and industrial sounds, is genuinely headache-inducing. Irréversible is definetly not for all tastes - indeed, many viewers won't be able to stomach the brutality of the opening sequence, much less the agonizing length of the rape scene. However, for those with an interest in seeing just how effectively cinema can recreate states of mind and of soul, Irréversible is a must-see.

Dir: F. Gary Gray
Starring: Mark Whalberg, Charlize Theron, Donald Sutherland

A heist film so badly written and ineptly directed that one wonders how it was ever made. The script is worthless, a walking cliché, an amalgam of every single possible convention of the genre. Everything, from the dialogue ("I don't fear people - I fear the devil inside them.") to the horribly structure of the plot, which deflates any sort of excitement or build-up, to the utterly clichéd individual scenes (which are so conventional that one can literally predict the content and outcome of each of them from the very first shot), is conventional, uninspired, and predictable. Unsurprisingly, character work amounts to a big fat zero, making the people populating the movie cardboard cutouts lacking any sort of weight and unable to generate any sort of interest for the audience. The direction is pretty much as impotent as the script. F. Gary Gray is just as inept at directing action scenes (a chase scene, in his mind, is a succession of shots of vehicles moving without any sort of establishing shot for the setting or master shot for the chase) as he is at directing dramatic ones (supposedly serious scenes between characters are as tedious and devoid of emotion and meaning as they are laughable), and most of his attempts at creating humor fall flat on their face. Given the quality of the script and direction, the actors themselves can be excused for sleepwalking through their roles - they literally had nothing to work with. Overall, The Italian Job is an exercise in conventionality and blandness so utterly devoid of anything even remotely interesting that it doesn't even warrant seeing it for free. The second worst film I've seen this year, behind the appalling Daredevil.

While it brings nothing new or inventive to the horror genre, Jeepers Creepers 2's single-minded approach succeeds in making it watchable. The premise will be familiar to anyone who has watched more than two horror movies: a school bus full of attractive young people breaks down on an isolated highway, and the passengers are picked off (literally) one by one by an evil "bat out of hell". With such a premise, time spent characterizing the various characters would have been both boring and useless, and the director, Victor Salva, wastes no time with such things - he cuts straight to the chase and delivers enough non-stop gore and action to satisfy the audience for the entire running time. Also, in contrast to the first movie, he injects the film with a dose of very dry, macabre humor (oddly reminiscent of From Dusk 'Till Dawn's sun-soaked ultra-violence), and watching the Creeper toy around with its helpless victims is quite a lot of fun. To make a long story short, Jeepers Creepers 2 is a pretty bad movie, and viewers looking for intelligence or thematic depth will be disappointed. However, it's quite a lot of fun if it's taken as what it is - an unapologetic, no-nonsense exploitation horror flick.

Dir: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Darryl Hannah, Sonny Chiba, Gordon Liu, David Carradine

Bar none, the coolest movie of the year, Quentin Tarantino's blood-splattered hymn to exploitation, grind-house and '70s kung-fu epics is a glorious celebration of style and cinema. The film plays out like a film fan's favorite moments reel: each scene, each shot, each piece of music homages a genre classic; furthermore, it is to Tarantino's considerable credit that the film, while episodic and containing numerous tonal shifts, rarely feels incoherent or jarring, but rather flows naturally and smoothly. The story concerns The Bride, a pregnant, retired assassin attacked and left for dead on her wedding day by her legendary, enigmatic former employer, Bill, and by her former colleagues. Shot in the head, the Bride wakes up from a coma four years later, and embarks on what the movie advertisements call a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, seeking to kill those who left her for dead. Uma Thurman, as the Bride, is superlative, giving a physical performance filled with alternating fierceness and pathos, and effectively carrying the movie. In key supporting roles, actors like Lucy Liu (in her best-ever performance), Sonny Chiba, Julie Dreyfus, and David Carradine add enormously to the proceedings. One must also give credit behind the camera, to mavericks like Director of Photography Robert Richardson, who combines dozens of different visuals styles (color, black-and-white, animé...) while keeping the film aesthetically coherent, and to Tarantino and The RZA, who use new and classic musical cues to create an eclectic soundtrack that stands as the year's best. The film may not be flawless (as of one viewing, it does feel a bit disjointed at times), but it stands among the best and most unique experiences I've had in a theater this year, and thus receives a heartfelt recommendation.

"The truth is, however, that while some elements of The Last Samurai may entertain and impress, the ones that matter the most (the script, the acting, the direction) don't. And this flawed base, when all is taken into account, undermines the rest of the film, making it into a sometimes enthralling, sometimes impressive failure."

16 years old, living somewhere in what once was the Soviet Union, Lilja is abandoned as her mother and her new husband move to the United States. Alone, without a job or an education, she is taken advantage of by relatives who use what little material resources she had, and is eventually relegated to living in a tiny, drab apartment without electricity or heat, and to selling her body for money. But all is not without hope - she befriends a boy, two years younger than her, who is also abandoned by his family and seeks companionship and affection, and a curious relationship forms between them. Later, she also meets another man, a bit older than her, who becomes her boyfriend and who promises her a new life in Sweden. A curious mix of naiveté and intelligence, both ressourceful and vulnerable, brash yet inherently good, Lilja is a fully-developed character we immediately understand and care for, and Oksana Akinshina's luminous performance (the best I've seen this year, so far) brings all the complexities of the character to evocative life. The film is also brilliant because of how convincingly it illustrates Lilja's tragic descent - every step in the gradual journey of her life is convincing and honest. We can understand her actions, and because we care for her so much, we become implicated in them, both emotionally and morally. One of the film's most revealing scenes comes when Lilja is browsing through a high-class Western airport store not unlike those many of us frequent - after the drab, poverty-stricken environment of her home, the store is as jarring to us as it is to her. This scene also serves to illustrate Moodysson's directorial style, which is ever-present, and which brings the script to life with a style so honest, compassionate, and unselfish that when combined with Akinshina's performance, it achieves a lyricism of great and heartbreaking power. Lilja 4-Ever is a great film, the best I've seen in the first half of 2002, and it stands as an important film, a must-see, both in and of itself, because of its relevant, powerful content, and as an exercise in honest, humane filmmaking.

Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola's tone poem about being stranded in a foreign culture and in life, is a film of glorious subtlety. The delicate tone, the restrained performances, and the fragility of the main characters' infatuation make for an experience that might seem, at least at the beginning, slight. However, by the end, no such judgment is possible: the film is as moving and -yes- profound as any I've seen this year. Bob Harris, a famous American actor in Japan for a high-paying but entirely unrewarding commercial gig, is a man in a rut. Disconnected from his family, unable to find joy in his work, he spends his nights drinking the whisky he's advertising in the bar of his Tokyo hotel. There, he meets Charlotte, a young woman accompanying her ever-absent photographer husband on a job. Fresh out of college with a degree in philosophy, she's also in a rut, unable to choose a future path. These two souls, emotionally and intellectually stranded, seek help in each other, and form a fragile, ephemeral bond of friendship and love. The performances carry the movie. As Bob, Bill Murray gives a career performance - he's restrained, nostalgic, funny, touching, and sad, creating a character that's deeply likable and genuinely human. As Charlotte, Scarlett Johansson matches him scene for scene. Tapping into unexpected depths of humanity, she fashions Charlotte into a subtle, intelligent and romantic woman, whose feelings we all can relate too. Behind the camera, Sofia Coppola understands the quality of her performers, and surrounds them not with flash but with a sensuous mood that enhances their work. Her direction is deft and light, and walks a fine line between humor and melancholy without ever faltering. A review of Lost in Translation cannot to the film justice, however. The slightness and subtlety of the film may be construed as signs of a weak, forgettable film - which could not be further from the truth. Indeed, their cumulative emotional power is such that the film becomes haunting. Lost in Translation is like a whiff of the best of perfumes: subtle, elegant, and complex.

Dir: Andy and Larry Wachowski
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishbourne

"Reloaded [is] a strange beast, both wildly ambitious and inherently flawed, at times exhilarating, at times dreadfully boring, and occasionally bizarre."

Dir: Andy and Larry Wachowski
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishbourne

"The Matrix Revolutions, the second of the two Matrix sequels, is surprising in more than one way. Having been shot at the same time as Reloaded, the franchise's second film, one would have expected the two films to be very similar; however, for better and for worse (generally for worse), the final chapter of this controversial series is different from both its predecessors."

More than anything else, Patty Jenkins' examination of prostitute-turned-serial-killer Aileen Wuornos is an act of empathy, The film paints Wuornos not as a bloodthirsty, man-hating murderer, but as a desperate and delusional woman, victimized by society, clinging to half-dreams and living life on the brink of spiritual disintegration. Charlize Theron, who plays Wuornos, is revelatory, and carries the film single-handedly. It's a bravoura performance, stunning even: Theron plumbs hidden depth, and illustrates the fragility of her character's outer shell as well as the volcanic turmoil existing underneath. There is also a key supporting performance: that of Christina Ricci, in the role of Selby Wall, Wuornos' lover and the only element of affection present in her life. While not nearly as powerful as Theron, Ricci is nevertheless good, illustrating the immaturity and the confusion of her character capably. Behind the camera, credit must be given to Patty Jenkins, who wrote and directed the film. Rather than create a serialized account of the crimes, she concentrates on Wuornos herself, and on her relationship with Wall, and fashions a movie more akin to a character piece. Perfect "Monster" is not - it doesn't quite deliver that emotional payoff that would have made it great, and it is a bit too bland sometimes, but it's a must-see, for Theron's superlative performance, and for the empathy and even-handedness of Jenkins' direction.

An intimate, charming, and humane character piece, told with complexity and emotion by director Patrice Leconte, The Man On The Train also sports two of the year's best performances. The story is simple yet subtle: a lone man named Milan (Johnny Halliday) arrives by train in a small French village, and discovers that all the hotels are closed. He meets up with a retired teacher, Monsieur Manesquier (Jean Rochefort), who offers him a room for the night. Milan is enigmatic, restrained, and while polite, he keeps his distance; the audience, and Manesquier, can sense however that he is a weathered man, who has led an adventurous and possibly dangerous life. Manesquier, on the other hand, befits his country professor image - never married, he lives alone in a old house, reads, smokes his pipe. His life has been one of restraint and calm, which he at times regrets. To say more about how these two characters interact would be unfitting, because much of the film's charm and depth comes from seeing the subtle nuances with which Milan and Manesquier interact, and how they influence each other in surprising ways. Since the film's emphasis lies solely on the two central characters, excellent performances are required from Rocherfort and Halliday, and unsurprisingly, they don't dissapoint. Indeed, their performances rank as some of the year's best, mixing depth and nuance with charisma and humor, and it is genuinely pleasurable to see actors play off each other and exercise their craft with such skill and passion. The Man On The Train is, I'm sure, a film that will pass under the radar come Oscar time; indeed, few people seem to be even mentioning it now. It's unfortunate, too, because it stands as one of the year's best films.

Dir: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Marcia Gay Hayden, Laura Linney

Among the best high-profile American films to come out this year, Mystic River also stands as a rarity in modern Hollywood filmmaking, a character-centered crime drama featuring exceptional performances and remarkably professional direction. Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon play Jimmy, Dave, and Sean, three men still living under the shadow of Dave's nightmarish four-day kidnapping some thirty years before. Not having spoken for years, their paths -and demons- nevertheless cross again when Jimmy's 19-year-old daughter is found brutally murdered. Brian Helgeland's script, adapted from the novel of the same name, is excellent, centering the story on the characters and not on the murder itself, which remains a secondary subplot. The characters are impressively defined and complex, and the entire story is drenched in a determinism that makes it both compelling and thought-provoking. As the director, Clint Eastwood complements the material well, using his veteran directorial skills perfectly. Unlike most younger director, he understands understatement, and foregoes flash and superficial dazzle in favor of a professionalism that not only lets his performers and his story shine, but that builds an emotional power far greater than any other venue would have done. And speaking of the performers, Mystic River's elite cadre of actors delivers in spades, with many of the actors giving career-defining performances. Highlights include Sean Penn, powerful and vivid as the obsessed Jimmy; Tim Robbins, as the haunted, damaged Dave; and Marcia Gay Hayden, as Dave's wife, and a woman who loses everything. Granted, the film is not perfect - Eastwood takes his time with the story, and while the deliberate pacing may mostly benefit the film, tighter editing around certain edges might have resulted in a more effective final product. And the film's ultimate scene between Penn and Linney, while interesting in and of itself, feels somewhat out of place within the overall thematic cadre. Nevertheless, qualities easily trump the slight shortcomings, and make Mystic River not only Eastwood's best film since Unforgiven, but one of the most distinguished and ambitious entries in this season's big-studio race.

A successful surrealist movie is somewhat of a rarity - most films that attempt this feat fail to find a balance between the surrealist aspects and the humanity necessary to connect with the audience. In "Northfork", filmmakers Mark and Michael Polish almost achieve success, crafting a film that's cryptic and surreal, and yet moving. The film is set in the titular town of Northfork, located in a desert in the heart of America ... a desert destined to become the basin of a hydroelectric dam. And therein lies the problem: there are still a few families in Northfork that refuse to relocate. Thus, a group of government men are tasked to convince these families to relocate at all costs. There is also a parallel, and much more abstract, plot to the film: that of a dying child who, while drifting in and out of consciousness, lives in a parallel world inhabited by angels, and who strives to convince these angels that he is one too. These two plot lines seldom truly interact (one of the film's flaws), and sometimes prove to cryptic and minimalist for their own good, but they act as counterpoints, complementing each other emotionally and thematically. Much of the credit must go to the solid cast - in particular, James Woods, Mark Polish, and Nick Nolte register strongly as a father-and-son government team and Northfork's priest, respectively. Furthermore, it's impossible to ignore that the Polish brothers have brought this plot to life with a remarkable visual element. Shot with diffuse light, in grey and silver hues, the film often seems like a painting. Also effective is the score, which enhances the emotional resonance of the visuals. I do not pretend to understand all that Northfork is about - given the film's oblique and surreal content, it requires several viewings. But even on the first one, the themes explored by the Polish brothers tantalize and intrigue, and their emotional resonance is a testament to the quality of the filmmaking.

There's not much to say about Old School, simply because it belongs to that well-known category: the raunchy comedy. Indeed, Todd Phillips' film fits the genre to a T, and while it doesn't offer much in the way of intellectual (or any other sort of reward), it does provide some cheap laughs, and doesn't quite hit the bottom of the barrel, as many -including yours truly- predicted. The basic premise of the film is suitably moronic: a man, on the rebound after a failed relationship, is encouraged (coerced?) by his irresponsible friends to creating a fraternity in order to be allowed to live on the local university's campus. The fraternity quickly turns into an alcohol-fueled version of Fight Club, and much chaos ensues. The characters that populate the script are as inept as one would expect: we have the "normal" protagonist, the two crazy best friends, the evil dean, the likable love interest, the comic relief, and so on. Some of the characters are made more interesting by the actors (Vince Vaughn in particular is fun to watch), but in the end, it's all predictable, and all fairly boring. In spite of all these shortcomings, however, the film would have succeeded on at least some level if it was genuinely funny - as it happens, it's not. Sure, there are laughs to be had, but they're not true laughs. Most of the material is amusing without really being funny. In the end, Old School is bland, predictable entertainment, that falls flat on most levels. It's not a dismal failure, but it's a failure nevertheless.

[Second viewing notes: Funnier the second time around, mainly because of the charismatic actors: Wilson is instantly likeable, Vaughn steals the show as the foul-mouthed, ruthless stereo store owner, and Ferrell plays his usual shtick to great comedic effect. Not a very good film, but as two hours of disposable fun, it ain't bad.]

Alternatively insightful and superficial, Oliver Stone's exploration of the Israel-Palestine conflict is a mixed work at best. The good comes from the contrast differing Israeli and Palestinian viewpoints provide; in particular, interviews with Shimon Peres and a group of Palestinian freedom fighters are intelligent and provocative. The bad is due to the film's failure to cohere into a provocative or enlightening viewpoint. Indeed, while Stone collects potent opinions from both sides of the fence, he fails to synthesize them into a conclusion that enlightens or clarifies the situation. Watching Persona Non Grata is like reading an opinion piece without an opinion - the argumentative work is there, but it doesn't build up any specific argument. The bottom line? There's value to the film, and for those interested in the politics of the region, it's worth a watch. Just don't expect excellence.

Dir: Joel Schumacher
Starring: Colin Farrell, Kiefer Sutherland, Forest Whitaker

A tight, taut piece that showcases the talents of both actor Colin Farrell and director Joel Schumacher, Phone Booth is an good example of a genre piece. The film works because both the script and the director understand the limitations of the story, and focus on delivering a concentrated burst of adrenaline that remains within the boundaries of logic and believability. The story centers around Stu Shepherd, a media agent that, while using the titular phone booth, is contacted, and subsequently held at sniper-point, by an unknown, mysterious sniper. Their subsequent interaction unravels the character of Stu, as he is threatened by both the lone gunman and the police, who suspect him of a murder. In front of the camera, the audience's attention is held by the excellent talents of Colin Farrell, Kiefer Sutherland, and Forest Whitaker. In particular, Sutherland excels at creating tension and menace by his sheer voice. Behind the camera, Sutherland's direction is aided by the skill of Director of Photography Rodrigo Prieto, who styles the street corner in which the Phone Booth is situated into an interesting and colorful space. Overall, Phone Booth succeeds at being a tightly crafted and engaging genre film that, while not amazing, delivers enough entertainment to warrant a look.

Dir: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush, Keira Knigthley

The pirate genre is one of the hardest to get right, given that it is hard to achieve a tone that is dramatic enough to be taken seriously and tongue-in-cheek enough to be fun. Fortunately, Pirates of the Caribbean hits the right spot in this regard, and while the film is far from perfect, it provides an entertaining and refreshingly old-fashioned swashbuckling adventure. The story is surprisingly convoluted for a summer blockbuster, but it works well enough - needless to say, it involves pirates, damsels in distress, a curse, and treasure, as well as secret lineages and sword fighting galore. There is some repetition to the story, and by the end one feels there are too many confrontations, escapes, and showdowns, but even the most repetitive proceedings are made palatable by the excellent cast. As the main protagonists, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley are solid and possess good chemistry, and as the main antagonist, Geoffrey Rush is suitably evil. It is Johnny Depp, however, as the anti-hero pirate Captain Jack Sparrow, who steals every scene he's in. Supposedly inspired by Rolling Stones legend Keith Richards, his performance is an example of pitch-perfect overacting, a wild mix of insanity, charisma, intelligence, drunkenness and charm, and it stands as the best mainstream performance I've seen this year. Pirates of the Caribbean is not a great film, nor is it the most watchable piece I've seen this summer (that honor belongs to T3). However, it is an example of solid craftsmanship, and of a summer blockbuster made with humor and verve.

The effortless naturalism present in every aspect of Raising Victor Vargas is the key to its success. The story is simple enough: Victor, a somewhat immature boy in his late teens, lives with his two siblings and his old-fashioned grandmother in a poor section of Brooklyn. During a hot day in the summer, he gets caught in an unpopular girl's bedroom, and to save his tarnished reputation, he decides to go after the neighborhood's most popular girl, Judy. What follows, through the film's trials and tribulations, is a process of discovery both internal, as Victor comes to understand honesty and integrity, and external, as Victor and those around him come to terms with the changing and unfamiliar concepts of adolescent life. Similar stories have supported coming-of-age films for decades, but rarely have they been so convincing, or rang so true. Peter Sollett, a relative newcomer from New York, works with a cast of non-actors, extracting wondrously natural performances from each of them, and surrounds them in an environment that feels as real as one's own home. Furthermore, his direction is remarkably self-effacing and subtle, trusting his actors to illustrate complex emotions and thoughts physically, and his audience to understand and empathize. As such, his film feels less like a calculated product, and more like a story of a friend or acquaintance, and never one rings false. Watch it - you'll be glad you did.

The Recruit is, quite frankly, an insulting piece of film. Not only is it moronic, inept, and monumentally clichéd, but it's also quite pretentious, handling itself like a masterpiece of the genre. I like Roger Donaldson: his Thirteen Days was one of the better films of 2001, and his Species is an entertaining guilty pleasure. However, here, he shows a lack of skill that is disquieting. His direction navigates the annoyingly familiar, pointlessly twisty script mechanically, soullessly, making the film not only dumb, but limp. Al Pacino and Colin Farrell, two actors known for their intensity and their ability to hold the audience's attention, are absolutely wasted here. Pacino, one of the few actors who can effectively over-act, is given such a hollow cliché of a character that even his over-acting is wasted, and Farrell has little to do but look determined or worried. That being said, I'm usually able to enjoy (on a base level) even a bad movie if the cinematography is good, or of it provides some nice action sequence. This is most certainly not the case here. There's really nothing of note in The Recruit - everything is familiar and mundane, and there's nary a shred of inventiveness or fun in sight. Too bad.

Dir: Peter Jackson
Starring: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen, Sir Ian McKellen

Perhaps the best thing that can be said about Return of the King upon first viewing is that it induces, by sheer scope and cathartic power, a sense of numbness. The film is so replete with events, so majestic, and so large in dramatic and visual scale that it is impossible to take everything in after only one viewing. Some things, however, are impossible to ignore: the third Lord of the Rings film has lost none of its predecessors' qualities. The conviction and confidence of Peter Jackson's direction is intact, as is the quality of the performances and the wondrous richness of the technical elements. And thanks to the culminating quality of the story, the writing is better than in either of the two installments, distilling and streamlining Tolkien's voluminous texts to a narrative that is both dramatic and intelligence. There is, of course, much more to say about about the film, but one viewing is not enough to synthesize coherent thoughts. A longer review will be posted after a second viewing.

Dir: Peter Berg
Starring: The Rock, Sean WIlliam Scott, Christopher Walken

Would have stood its ground as a respectable B-grade action flick (a la Commando), if it were not for an overdose of garish stylization, courtesy of director Berg . Seriously, does every action scene have to be edited at two cuts per second, and shot from bizarre camera angles, in a high-contrast, overexposed stock? I wish action directors would take a good look back at the seminal ass-kickers of the late '80s and '90s (The Terminator, Terminator 2, True Lies, Die Hard...); all of them were products of lean, clean craftsmanship, and were better off for it. But I digress. The Rock is (surprisingly) good here - he's a natural in front of the camera, and shows off an easy-going charisma that works well in this context. However, and perhaps unsurprisingly, it's Christopher Walken who steals every scene as the villainous Hatcher, and his standout scene, in which he attempts to cultivate a group of Brazilian mercenaries on the finer points of Tooth Fairy mythos, is a diamond in the rough.

It's not funny. I could go on at length about all the problems that plague this catastrophe of a movie: the abominable script, utterly devoid of originality; the wasted performances from actors who have done infinitely better work in spoofs; the lifeless direction, utterly devoid of anything resembling passion or excitement; or the fact that the PG-13 rating virtually castrates a film that should have gloried in its bawdyness. But I won't. Because, in the end, the quality of the film is not what matters. The first two Scary Movie films were, by all objective assessments, terrible films ... and yet they worked, because they were funny. I fully admit to laughing shamelessly at the parade of tastelessness present in those two films. In contrast, I didn't even crack a smile at this one. And in a film such as this, that is death.

A gentle film about good people helping each other through hard times, Seabiscuit is a good film with little aftertaste. Director Gary Ross's direction (and the excellent work by cinematographer John Schwartzman and composer Randy Newman) gives the picture nostalgic 1930s sensibilities, a decision that acts as a double-edged sword. On one hand, the vintage tone complements the material well; on the other, it offers nothing provocative to a viewer interested in more than just the film's content. Thankfully, however, the content is good enough to warrant a look. The film, named after the undersized horse who became legendary against all odds, follows three men at difficult stages in their lives. Charles Howard (an excellent Jeff Bridges) lost his son in an accident, and has little passion left for life; Tom Smith (a similarly good Chris Cooper) is the horse trainer lamenting the disappearance of the American frontier; and Red (Tobey Maguire) is the young jockey abandoned by his family. Obvious parallels are established between the three men, the horse, and American society, and as one can guess, the film is reverent and chaste in its ideas and themes, but the process of healing that each character undergoes is satisfying enough to warrant a look.

Shanghai Knights is a film of highs, an uneven entry that surprises in certain respects and disappoints in others. The first two pleasant surprises are the cinematography and the score, which are quite impressive for such a movie. The film looks great, with excellent lighting and a pleasing style that's always easy on the eyes. The score is also excellent, and often funny in its Mickey-Mousing. Not surprising is the inimitable charm of Jackie Chan. He's the star of the film, stealing the show with physical antics that, this time around, homage the broad physical comedy of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Owen Wilson, his co-star, is as charming as in Shanghai Noon, but isn't given much to do. These highs, however, are off-set by lows that diminish the overall experience considerably. One of the film's main problem is its script, which fails to create tension or to present a compelling or exciting story. It also fails to generate as many laughs as before, and because of this, the supposedly comic scenes between the action sequences fall flat on their face. However, when all is taken into account, the film does offer enough physical comedy to warrant a look - just don't expect too much.

Dir: David Cronenberg
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson, Lynn Redgrave, John Neville

Anchored by the tremendous performance of Ralph Fiennes and shaped by the exquisite direction of David Cronenberg, Spider is a compelling and tightly crafted exploration of mental illness. The story centers around Dennis "Spider" Cleg, a schizophrenic who spends his days reliving his childhood memories, and through vignettes, we find out about his abusive father (Gabriel Byrne) and his enigmatic mother (Miranda Richardson). Cronenberg stages these flashbacks expertly, revealing the truth about the characters progressively, and adds a disturbing cinematic touch by making the adult character of Spider (Fiennes) present in them. To reveal more about the story would be to detract from the truly fascinating experience of unraveling Spider's twisted mind by yourself, and so I'll restrain myself to saying as much: the film is extremely complex on a psychological level, and as of writing this review, I am still unsure of exactly what conclusions to draw. I am quite sure, however, of the fact that the film is as tightly crafted and deliberately created as any I've seen lately. In front of the camera, the compact cast produces admirable performances - in particular, Ralph Fiennes gives a performance of great power, that is as convincing and disturbing as any recreation of mental illness I've seen, and Miranda Richardson, playing two (three?) characters, is uncannily effective. Behind the camera, the results are just as accomplished. Cronenberg brings his usual style and strength to the proceedings, and longtime collaborators such as Director of Photography Peter Suschitzky and Howard Shore add immeasurably to the experience. For some, unraveling the enigmatic layers of the deliberately-paced Spider may be a frustrating experience, but for those up to the task, the film presents a superbly crafted challenge.

"...viewers looking for a challenging film that, while often frustrating, offers a disturbing view of a society in crisis and a haunting message about the state of Japan's youth will be amply rewarded."

François Ozon's Swimming Pool is a tease of a film, a slippery, fluid merging of genres and themes that, while not cohesive in the traditional sense, leaves a beguiling and wholly satisfying aftertaste. Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling, in a performance of exemplary nuance and control) is an acclaimed British crime fiction writer whose inspiration has run dry. Her publisher John -whom she is secretly attracted to- senses this, and suggests that she recoup at his summer house in sleepy, rustic France. She accepts, hoping that she'll find peace and quiet there; however, only a few days after her arrival, she is confronted with a new guest: Julie, the rebellious, insolent, sexually liberated daughter of John's (played by a wildly erotic, strikingly poised Ludivine Sagnier). Ozon, who also wrote the screenplay, creates in Sarah and Julie characters that are not only diametrically opposed, but archetypes of their particular nationalities and ages. Sarah is quintessentially English, prim, proper, and brittle; Julie is liberated, exuberant, and decadent. And it is the interaction of these two characters that constitute the heart of Swimming Pool. Sarah and Julie fascinate, scare and provoke each other, and as their dynamics eventually reach a breaking point, Swimming Pool reaches its most remarkable and unique heights. Indeed, what starts as a character piece soon takes the shadings of one of Sarah's crime novels, and Ozon sprinkles nuances of murder and mystery with tact and subtlety. The film's transformation goes even deeper, however; indeed, by the end, Ozon renders his film ambiguous and fluid, forcing us to question the very nature of what we have seen, and explore the very nature of mystery and fictional creation. This striking leap from the real to the metaphysical may be problematic for some viewers, but I found it exhilarating - while removing something from the surface nature of the narrative, it adds a strange and unique aftertaste to the film, and lifts it a cut above most suspense films. The unconventional nature of Swimming Pool may not satisfy all viewers, but those with an open mind and a taste for experimentation will find much to savor here.

Dir: Jonathan Mostow
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, Claire Danes

Terminator 3 is a movie that knows what the audience wants and knows how to deliver it. It's also a film that's easier to like than to admire, because in giving the audience an entertaining and easily palatable dose of hard-core action, it eschews the higher, more intellectual and complex road that its predecessors took. T3 is a lean, mean ride, that begins (literally) with a bang and doesn't relent for its entire running time. At its core, it's a chase movie, in which John Connor and Kate Brewster (Nick Stahl and Claire Danes, in solid performances) are protected by a T-101 (Arnold Schwarzenegger, as good as ever), from another killer machine, the T-X (Kristanna Loken, memorable) sent back through time to kill them. The first action scene in the best, a visceral, explosive car chase that one-ups, in thrills and sheer destruction, any other action scene this year. The subsequent ones don't quite live up to that excellent beginning (especially a mano-a-mano fight between Arnie and the T-X in a bathroom), but they are all more than adequate, and thankfully don't suffer, like so many other blockbusters, from an overuse of CG. As likable as the excellent action sequences make T3, it's harder to admire the somewhat limited and unengaging story. At its core, T3 is not far from T2's premise, and the writers don't stray far away from what that movie accomplished. As it stands, the plot isn't bad - however, it's not very memorable or refreshing either. All in all, T3 is a formulaic blockbuster that gets the formula right - it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do and provides a lot of bang for the buck. Not bad at all.

Dir: Catherine Hardwicke
Starring: Evan Rachel Wood, Nikki Reed, Holly Hunter

"The caliber of the performances, the intelligence of the screenwriting, and the energy of the direction elevate Thirteen above the usual trappings of its genre, and serve to make a film that is both convincing and provocative."

It takes real flair, and a extremely sensitive artistic sense, to do justice to '50s animated films by homaging them, and fortunately, both these qualities are in full view in Sylvain Chomet's stylistically vibrant, visually stunning animated feature. The film, the story of one grandmother's journey in search of her kidnapped grandson, is an essentially European vision of the Golden Age of Disney cartoons. All the qualities that made the era's animated feature distinctive are present - the intricate, instantly recognizable visual style; the memorable, period settings; the musical numbers; albeit with a bawdier and more grotesque edge, and with some sharp, relevant political and social subtext. This subtle and finely crafted mix of the old and the new allows for a richness of detail seldom seen in modern animated films, and Chomet makes full use of this opportunity, crafting an utterly compelling film that practically requires two viewings to really sink in. The extremely high quality of The Triplets of Belleville in this regard makes its few but noticeable flaws even more unfortunate. For one, the film clocks in at under 80 minutes, a running time that makes the film feel rushed, and that prevents it from making a truly lasting impression. And similarly, the film's ending is misguided. Disney's films were notable for the lush emotion of their endings, and unfortunately, Chomet's film opts for emotional understatement instead, to the detriment of its overall power. It still remains, though, a sight to see, and all fans of animation -and unique filmmaking in general- should take a look.

Whale Rider is everything Hollywood films aspire to be, and it achieves this precisely because it doesn't aspire it. It is the year's most uplifting film, but not because it tries to manipulate or tug heartstrings - it moves naturally and deeply because it's honest, authentic, and personal, and deeply empathic to its characters and their plights. Set in modern-day New Zealand, the film follows a young Maori girl, Paikea, and her attempts at gaining the respect and attention or her grandfather, Koro, a tribal chief intent on finding a successor to lead his people. Paikea presents all the qualities of a chief, but being a female, she goes utterly unnoticed by Koro, who seeks to blindly uphold cultural traditions, and faces failure in doing this. The evolution of Paikea and Koro's relationship is at the core of Whale Rider, and is beautifully -and subtly- brought to life by the key players. As Paikea, Keisha Castle-Hughes is astonishing, giving a nuanced and evocative performance that eclipses many of the more publicized acting turns this year. Rawiri Paratene is similarily excellent as the stubborn, determined, but wounded Koro, and brings the contradictory nature of the man to life beautifully. And behind the camera, director Niki Caro works wonders, creating a film that achieves a delicate balance between authenticity and etherealness, and that shows genuine empathy and respect towards its characters and their conflicts. In trying to achieve only this, and nothing more, Whale Rider reaches true heights. It's one of the finest films of the year.

Dir: Bryan Singer
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry

X2, the sequel to 1999's excellent X-Men, is an muscular and well-crafted action film that succeeds in delivering the first truly entertaining blockbuster of the year. The film works because of a number of reasons: the acting is spot-on, and the actors inhabit their characters well, making them believable and entertaining. The direction is also excellent, and Singer, freed from the budgetary constraints that plagued the first outing of the franchise, delivers a film that is both stylish and exciting. Of course, even an action film can't succeed without a workable script, and X2 is blessed with a solid one. The story is compelling from beginning to start, and the screenwriters do an excellent job of creating action-filled set-pieces that nevertheless allow enough character development to keep the characters from being cardboard cutouts. There isn't much more that can be said about X2 - it's an excellent genre piece that will make both newcomers and diehard fans happy, and stands out as the first blockbuster triumph of 2003.