Reviews by lotr23

I'd gladly spend 163 minutes reading Rorschach's diary. The occasional voiceovers we get during Watchmen in which that character bluntly spews his not-so-optimistic views on the human race are a delight to listen to, and they pale in comparison to most of the other material that the film's script has to offer. Early in the film, Rorschach says of Manhattan that "the city reeks like an abattoir full of retarded children," and all I could think was, "Wow, can we hear more, please?" Many would agree that the mere presence of the word "abattoir" in there is, like... intellectually orgasmic.

I approached Watchmen with a little trepidation because the consensus appeared to be that you'd be completely lost if you weren't familiar with the graphic novel it's based on. So, I went in making sure to be as attentive as possible, and surprise of surprises, it wasn't hard to do so. Watchmen isn't nearly as confusing for the uninitiated as some are claiming it is. It just demands attention, which should be the case when a film of this genre tackles more adult themes and has more complexity than the average comic-based diversion. The purpose of the R rating isn't simply to allow the characters to say "fuck" as often as they do, but to allow it to explore darker areas of violence and sexuality that are largely absent from most movies of the genre. For most of its first two thirds, I found Watchmen to be engrossing: an expertly-made credit sequence that serves as a great prologue, followed by solid plot and character development.

It's in its final act that Watchmen loses its ability to connect the dots (or rather, it becomes difficult for audience members to connect the dots). This might, indeed, be where the complaint comes that people unfamiliar with the graphic novel will have no idea what's going on, and there are those who will say that you can't criticize that, because maybe the film was intended only for those who have read it. However, it's entirely inevitable that people unfamiliar with the source material were going to want to see it and comment on it, and the filmmakers should've been more than aware of this. There's been many occasions in which, while discussing a movie based on a book with someone, I've said I didn't like the film, and the person will then respond "Ah, well, you should've read the book! If you'd read the book, you would've totally been able to appreciate it." But that's a mistake. A movie is an individual work of art that should stand on its own, and I'm not the first or the last person to say this. The good news is that Watchmen, the film, mostly pulls this off, but loses its way towards the end, and it appears that the filmmakers realized this, too, as the climactic scenes feature a heavy dose of explanation that seems to be trying to fill in too many holes.

Now, if the confusing last segment of Watchmen were the only flaw to be found here, I'd still gladly give the film a recommendation, but sadly, there are other problems. While the movie is generally very well-shot and engaging, the fight sequences are incredibly generic, particularly for something of this genre. One of the biggest problems to come from this is the moment when the film intercuts between the television interview that Dr. Manhattan takes part in and the fight sequence involving Dan and Miss Jupiter. Dr. Manhattan's interview is one of the most dramatically effective moments in the film, and the decision to intercut this with that stale fight sequence proves to be a very bad one. The only exception to the mediocrity of the fight sequences takes place during the prison scenes in which Rorschach, whose real name is revealed to be Walter Kovacs (Jackie Earle Haley) kicks some major ass. Interestingly enough, Haley also proves to be the exception in terms of the quality of the performances, seeing as he's the only one who gives an authentic one. As Dan, Patrick Wilson (whose work I normally admire) is curiously artificial in many a scene. Malin Akerman gives an uneven performance as Miss Jupiter; sometimes she's good, and other times, particularly during the last scenes, not at all. Matthew Goode gives us a blah villain in Adrian, which is the opposite of what you can say of his deliciously evil work in The Lookout.

One can't help but notice the film's desire to identify itself as an unconventional story by having Adrian say towards the end that he's "not a comic book villain." This is somewhat reminiscent of some of the final lines spoken last year in the superior The Dark Knight, but it just doesn't work as well in Watchmen, because the words were spoken with more poignancy in the former film, and because the climax of Christopher Nolan's film was far stronger than what we get here. While I applaud the fact that Watchmen delves into deeper, darker waters and that it manages to be both complex and involving for most of its running time, there are too many elements that keep this from being a complete success. One of the last few lines spoken in the film is "Nothing ever ends," which I suspect may reflect the frustration of some viewers who will feel the strain of sitting in a theater for so long. While I didn't find the Watchmen experience to be painful, it doesn't end up providing the satisfaction that a film so heavy should deliver. As I said, I'd rather spend 163 minutes relishing Rorschach's acerbic musings instead.

As with most "horror" movies of late, particularly those that are remakes of Asian films, The Uninvited is teeming with atmosphere but lacking in scares. In addition, it has a twist ending that some have commended for turning things around in such a surprisingly drastic way, but to be honest, the film doesn't earn its twist ending. Take, for example, The Sixth Sense (and I won't reveal that film's ending either, in case someone reading this hasn't seen it yet), a movie that also has a twist ending that turns everything on its head. What's the difference between the denouements of The Sixth Sense and The Uninvited? It's the fact that, if you watch the former film a second time, everything fits PERFECTLY in accordance with the final surprise (there's not a single hole to be found), whereas The Uninvited thoroughly cheats and tries to explain the cheating it did by using some poorly-edited footage to suggest that certain things we saw during the film didn't actually happen. And no, it's not innovative and it's not cool - it's just cheating.

The quality of the performances is varied. Emily Browning, who plays the main character, does what she can despite being limited by the script, and she shows a decent amount of emotional range. Perhaps a surprise to some, Elizabeth Banks is quite good here at being creepy and mysterious, and one suspects that, in a better movie, she could be an excellent villain. The very talented David Strathairn is totally wasted, and he looks incredibly bored. But the one who comes off worst is Arielle Kebbel as Alex, who is terrible, terrible, terrible, and yes, it deserves to be said three times. I figured it couldn't be possible that she was cast simply because of her looks... but then I remembered that this is a horror movie, or at least it's supposed to be one.

I was interested in watching The Uninvited because one of my favorite critics enjoyed it, largely because he felt that the surprise ending made it superior to all the other recent Asian horror remakes, like Mirrors and One Missed Call. Though I haven't seen any of the other movies in that long list of Asian horror remakes (seeing as they've all been panned heavily by critics), I have no doubt that he's right and that The Uninvited probably is a little bit better than movies like Mirrors and One Missed Call. That's why I'm not saying it's terrible... but it's definitely nothing special. Many will continue complimenting its surprising finale, but in my book, it simply doesn't earn it.

If you're seeking an uplifting love story or a romantic comedy, this film is exactly the opposite of what you're looking for: despite the alluring title, Two Lovers is a very grim movie, and that's a fact we find out very quickly, as soon as the film opens, and our protagonist, Leonard (Joaquin Phoenix), makes a clumsy attempt at suicide. This film isn't a portrayal of a cute love triangle (in fact, the two women who become romantically involved with the main character never even meet or speak to each other), but rather a story about frustration and heartbreak.

Leonard's parents have found someone who seems to be a perfect match for their son: Sandra (Vinessa Shaw), the daughter of the businessman who plans on buying the family's dry cleaning store to turn it into a more profitable venue. Sandra is very good at taking initiative in demonstrating her interest in Leonard, and she's very sweet. Heck, her favorite movie is The Sound of Music, which Leonard agrees is underrated (as a side note, I always appreciate it when a script gives way for characters to talk about movies they like - obviously, it's something that cinephiles watching a movie are always going to be curious about as they get invested in a character). Enter Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), who lives in the same building as Leonard and his parents. She's every bit as charming as Sandra, but has a wilder, spunkier personality, and is far less stable: she's having an affair with a married man and she takes ecstasy pills. She sees Leonard as more of a brother/friend, and has every hope to have things work out with the guy she's having the affair with. So, will our main character convince Michelle to put an end to her adulterous venture and stay with him, or will he choose the safer, more comfortable road of staying with the amiable Sandra, thus pleasing his parents?

The scenes between Leonard and Michelle are certainly the best material the film has to offer, doing a very good job of capturing the awkwardness and the sense of insecurity that emerges throughout courtship. Michelle describes herself as a "fucked up" person, and while her self-assessment is largely true, she still proves a delightful character to get to know. It's a shame that the scenes involving Leonard's relationship with Sandra aren't handled as well. Sure, this is partly due to the very obvious fact that Leonard is much more interested in the riskier choice of being with Michelle, but that doesn't justify that the transition from the first scene in which Leonard and Sandra meet each other to the second scene in which they see each other again is so jarring. It's a little hard to believe that Sandra is so smitten with Leonard. If it seemed as though she was doing it simply to please her parents, it'd be understandable, but as Vinessa Shaw plays her, she seems genuinely interested in being with him, which makes for a flaw in that more time wasn't devoted to Leonard and Sandra's time together (and it's a shame because Sandra's a pretty interesting character on her own, and I would've liked to get to know her better).

The final moments of the film totally unravel Leonard's dilemma in terms of choosing which of the two women to be with, a choice that ends up having even larger consequences for the route his life would take as we get near the end credits. As much as we know what he wants to do, these scenes still feature quite a bit of tension because there's this constant feeling that things may be out of his hands. I do suspect, though, that many viewers will be able to predict the ending. Without spoiling it, I'll simply say that, even if some consider it to be a predictable conclusion, there's no doubt that we get a nice helping of insight on people's priorities when it comes to the decisions they make in terms of their love lives, and the way that those decisions can have such a strong impact on others who essentially get shafted as a result of those decisions. While its grim nature may turn some people off, and despite the fact that one half of its love triangle is developed better than the other, this is a nuanced, affecting motion picture.

When I found out that the 2008 version of Funny Games was a shot-for-shot remake of the original, and even read things that said that you needn't bother with this one if you had seen the 1998 version, I immediately dismissed the idea of ignoring it, simply because of how engrossing and well-made the 1998 film was, despite minor flaws. I thought that the idea of there being no room for comparison between both films was ludicrous, because there is always room for differences in terms of how well certain scenes are shot, and there's also obviously room for differences in terms of the performances, seeing as all the actors in this remake are different from those who starred in the original. With that said, I've given the 2008 version a 7/10 rating, which is the same rating I gave the original. However, that doesn't mean that the films are 100% identical, nor does it mean that there isn't anything interesting to be said about Michael Haneke's U.S. version of his own film.

Both films are disturbing as hell, but in a way that it is very hard to look away from the screen. If we actually SAW the gore and violence on-screen, that might lead us to want to turn away (like some often do during scenes of graphic violence in other films), but since we don't actually see any of that in Funny Games, we are left absolutely enthralled by what we see on screen, and sometimes by what we can't quite see because it isn't quite in the camera's range, but we can still hear it and feel it. I've said it when talking about films like The Blair Witch Project, and I'll say it again, it is soooo much more effective when things like this are left to the imagination. Way more horrifying when you don't see something that is meant to inspire terror, since it leaves it up to your mind... and playing with the mind and the dirty scenarios it often comes up with is exactly what Haneke sets out to do.

The performances by Naomi Watts, Tim Roth and Devon Gearhart as the three members of the family that is terrorized are pitch-perfect and equally as great as those given in the original by their counterparts (Susanne Lothar, Ulrich Muhe and Stefan Clapczynski). I had no doubt that Watts, who always gives great performances (even in so-so movies like the recent Eastern Promises, which was way overrated), would pull off the critical part of Ann with no problems, and that's exactly what she does. This character is in nearly every scene of the film and the movie rests a lot on her display of emotions, so it may have been disastrous had a less-than-stellar actress been cast.

As for our villains (who are undoubtedly the reason why this is such an engrossing movie-watching experience)... well, the actors who play Peter and Paul in both films cancel each other out in terms of their performances. Frank Giering played Peter in the 1998 version, and he is slightly more successful than Brady Corbet at being the sidekick of the film's central evildoer. Arno Frisch did an adequate job playing Paul in the 1998 film, and his sly, malevolent nature was always palpable, but Michael Pitt is absolutely diabolical in the 2008 version. It never ceases to amaze me how a great director can actually get an actor who has given horrendously bad performances in other films to do amazing work. (I recently watched Silk, a film that could've at least been a decent dramatic period piece were it not for Pitt's lead performance, which was incredibly bad and devoid of any emotion) In both films, the first time that the "fourth wall" is broken and Paul interacts with the audience is when Anna is looking for the dog and Paul is messing with her, saying "warmer" or "colder" (depending on how close she is to finding the dog). In the 1998 version, Frisch's Paul gives us a wink that gives us an idea of his sly nature, but in the 2008 version, Pitt's Paul looks at us without winking, but he does so with a dreadfully haunting smile that is far more effective. Likewise, the last time that he breaks the "fourth wall" is actually the final shot of the movie, which remains on a still shot of Paul smiling while the credits come up on the screen. Frisch gives us a knowing smile that is adequate enough, I suppose, but there is no comparison with the look on Pitt's face, which is nothing short of purely demented. He's that good.

What makes both Haneke films very good movies that still don't quite reach the level of greatness? The extended interlude we get midway through the film when our villains disappear from the stage for a long time, leaving us with the family members who are still alive. I realize that moments such as the long take in which the TV is on while the victims are struggling on the floor are meant to be uncomfortable, but they get to a point that they are too long and boring, which is not at all what this film is about. Eventually, tedium that is meant to get under the skin turns into sheer monotony that no longer gets to you emotionally that much. The film would be better if its two vile creatures were on-screen during this interlude, still playing their sadistic games. In fact, I wonder why Haneke wanted to provide this respite to us. If he wanted the film to be a constantly disturbing experience, he wouldn't have given us a chance to get a breather like that. Still, both versions of Funny Games certainly represent a unique filmmaking achievement. The 2008 version, while equal in quality to the original, is certainly still worth seeing for its performances and for the simple fact that it stands on its own as an emotionally-arresting film.

Beautiful and heart-breaking, Stephen Daldry’s The Reader accomplishes what a lot of recent films dealing with the Holocaust and its consequences haven’t been able to do. It manages to be compelling without making the mistake of thinking that the theme alone should be enough to make it worthy of praise. In recent years, we’ve gotten Fateless, which was curiously unfocused, and The Counterfeiters, a wildly overrated movie that won the Best Foreign Film Academy Award at last year’s Oscar ceremony. There’s a tendency to think that when a film deals with a subject as moving and devastating as the Holocaust it must automatically be good, and that’s a severe mistake: no matter what topic it covers, a drama needs to have a cohesive plot and solid performances to be considered good, and it has to do a thousand times more than that to be considered great. The Reader works wonderfully because there’s no feeling of over-ambition, and all it uses the Holocaust for is to add a nice helping of dramatic potency to its story.

The film is divided into three main acts, the first of which is set in 1958 Germany and depicts the secret love affair between Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), a former Nazi guard, and teenager Michael Berg (David Kross). The second act takes place a few years later, when Hanna is accused for her involvement in the extermination of Jews during her days as a member of the S.S.; at this point, her relationship with Michael has been long over, but their paths cross again because Michael, now a law student, is one of the few pupils in an elite course that allows him to sit in on this trial, in which Hanna and several other Nazi guards are being charged. The third and last act is set in the 1980s, with an adult Michael (played by Ralph Fiennes), and obviously, an even older Hanna (still played by Winslet, with some heavy make-up work), but revealing more about this final act would force me to move into spoiler territory.

The Reader’s first segment is nothing short of great filmmaking. The sense of awkwardness and inappropriateness that the audience would normally feel from watching such an intensely sexual relationship between an adult woman and a teenaged boy is overshadowed here by a mixture of heartwarming tenderness and palpable sexual tension: the scenes are intensely romantic without being manipulative, and they are also sexy without being pornographic, which is certainly a credit to the fearlessness of both Kross and Winslet. As much as one tries to appreciate individual movies for the particular plot lines they follow, nearly everyone has a particular “type of movie” that they gravitate towards, and so, there’s no shame for me in admitting that I would’ve possibly given The Reader a 10 if it had expanded its first act into a full-length motion picture, but hey, that’s not what the filmmakers were going for here, and the movie is certainly not ruined by anything that happens in what comes after this first act.

The sequences featuring the trial are definitely the toughest to watch. Winslet does the impossible: she makes you feel tons and tons of sympathy for a former Nazi. Granted, it helps that the film doesn’t feature any flashbacks to the things she actually did, but one can’t help cringing as we witness Hanna sinking herself with her answers to the judge’s questions, and the moments are even more heart-breaking as they cut to Michael watching helplessly. The film’s “twist” of sorts is revealed during this second act, but to be honest, if you were paying attention during the early scenes, you’ll totally know what it is; however, it’s a nice touch because of the way it’s incorporated into the event that ultimately determines the trial’s outcome. As is so often the case, pride gets in the way of honesty, even in a case in which honesty may have actually been helpful – this is just one of the reasons why The Reader is such a successfully complex and well-made film.

Some may argue it, but I feel that the film’s last act is definitely the weakest. Yes, Winslet is still great under all the make-up in her final scenes, but I feel that this would’ve worked much better as a shorter epilogue than as a sizable segment of the movie. Several scenes involving adult Michael are drawn out, and the sort-of subplot involving his daughter and his divorce are entirely unnecessary. I wonder if the fact that Winslet isn’t in this last act as much as she is in the others is the “reason” why she has, inexplicably, been lumped into the supporting role for this film. Seriously? Hanna and Michael are both main characters, and Winslet should be getting lead actress billing. Then again, if she were, it would make my choice of preference for the best lead actress of the year even more difficult (and it currently is already hard enough as it is, with Anne Hathaway, Melissa Leo and Meryl Streep), so in a way, it’s a good thing, I guess. This is Winslet’s best work since her breath-taking performance in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and if she doesn’t finally win her overdue Oscar, a great injustice will have been done. I was slightly critical of her acting in this year's Revolutionary Road, not at all because it was bad, but because I didn’t feel she was always on-par with her co-star, but in The Reader, she outshines everyone and everything, and I more than forgive her for any nitpicks I had with her work in the other film. Kross is solid as Michael, bringing a youthful brilliance to his role in the early scenes (and he’s equally as comfortable with nudity as Winslet is) and a deep emotional punch to the trial scenes. Only Fiennes, who did much better work in The Duchess this year, falters slightly as the adult Michael, though that’s probably due more to the film’s wandering nature towards the end.

Carried by Winslet's mesmerizing performance, The Reader is an impressive piece of cinema that works on several levels, as a romance that is both raw and beautiful (if unorthodox), and also as a heart-racing court drama. On a similar line as Boy A, one of 2008's best, Daldry's film features a character who was either fully or partially responsible for a heinous crime and seeks to live a normal life after the fact. Films like that can work only if they achieve the difficult task of getting the audience to feel for the character who committed the misdeed, and surprising as it may sound, The Reader largely succeeds at that.

There’s a sort of creepiness that I get whenever I’m visually reminded of life in parochial school, which I experienced for 6 years (2 of middle school and 4 of high school). Granted, that was from 1998 till 2004, whereas John Patrick Shanley’s play Doubt and his film adaptation of the same name are set a year after JFK’s assassination, but the atmosphere and set design featured in the film are so accurate that it makes for that familiar feeling of strain and confinement that I’ve happily been rid of for several years now. If anything, it’s a great credit to the filmmakers that they managed to capture the environment so perfectly.

One thing needs to be said right off the bat: Doubt could’ve easily been a disaster without its acting caliber. If the performances were even slightly off the mark, it would’ve been an exercise in ridiculous, over-the-top melodrama. Most importantly, if the final scene weren’t anchored by the relentlessly stunning Meryl Streep, it would’ve been a laughably bad conclusion. All of this is due to the fact that Doubt is a largely dialogue-based production that hardly shifts locations or has much in the way of “movement” per se, which means that the energy infused by the quartet of Streep, Amy Adams, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Viola Davis is basically the film’s driving force (though I think Adams and Streep are the most impressive of the group of four). One other great element of the film is that it ratchets up the tension during the heavy discussions by incorporating interruptions such as telephone calls and people knocking on doors at the most inopportune moment - not only is this great in adding to the stress we’re meant to undergo while watching the scenes, but it adds to the realism of the school setting.

Amy Adams’ Sister James is not only the most important character in the film in terms of the fact that the audience sees everything mostly through her eyes, but she’s also the character with the most fully-developed arc. I was concerned at first that we were gonna be dealing with this overly perky/innocent character who would end up being outraged by the things she witnessed, but instead, Shanley’s film takes the far more interesting path of having her acquire a fierceness that actually unfolds early on in the film when she argues with Sister Aloysius (Streep) over the use of “Frosty, the Snowman” as part of the school’s Christmas party. This happens to be a great example of Adams’ endless stream of talent: when she says “Well, I like Frosty the Snowman!” this could’ve easily elicited snorts from the audience, but she manages to give a compelling edge to laughable material. That fierceness slowly turns into quiet acceptance and resignation as the film goes on and her character loses control over a situation that she (arguably) started, by bringing it up in the first place. The only negative thing about that is that it makes Sister James sort of disappear during the film’s last third and not resurface until the final scene. Still, it’s hard to ignore the brilliance of Adams’ work, and this is her finest performance since Junebug.

Philip Seymour Hoffman undeniably has the toughest role in the film. His acting is far more difficult to judge than that of anyone else in the film, because Shanley has obviously directed him to make sure that Father Flynn exudes facial expressions that never fully give away whether he’s guilty or innocent. This is more of an issue with the plot than with the actor’s work: people will wonder why, if he’s innocent, he’s not more forceful in proving it, and why, if he’s guilty, he’s not trying harder to protect the misdeed from destroying him. But the film’s point is, precisely, to present two or more possible answers to every question, so all in all, it’s a good thing, and the ambiguity of Hoffman’s performance is probably exactly what was required of him to make this work. I’ll also add that he is fantastic during the three sermon scenes; as someone who’s sat through several of those, I thought that Hoffman looked as though he’d been at the pulpit for years.

As the mother of the “child in question” (who ends up being a “child in question” for more than just one or two reasons), Viola Davis is on screen for a very short amount of time, but she makes the six minutes unforgettable. Due to the fact that we don’t learn much directly from the child himself, this is the scene in which we truly learn a lot of the immensely painful, underlying things that are going on here, and it’s certainly one of the few scenes in the film in which we actually get answers to questions. Davis’ work is incredibly heart-breaking, and it’s a shame that there is something that is fundamentally wrong with this scene that keeps her great performance from having the impetus it could’ve had. Since most of the scenes in Doubt are set in small rooms in which people don’t have much space to move around, Shanley apparently wanted to vary things and elected to have this scene between the mother and Sister Aloysius take place outside, with them walking (the script uses the excuse that the mother needs to get to work, in order to have them walk outside of the office). First of all, there’s the fact that it just doesn’t seem too realistic that this conversation would be had in a public setting in which they could be heard by anyone associated with the school. But more importantly, it deprives the scene of that excellent sense of trapped helplessness that we get in all the other scenes that take place in Sister Aloysius’ office. It’s fine to want to vary things by having an exterior scene with people walking, but it was a mistake to pick this particular scene to do that. Davis would’ve been able to impress even more if she had been standing in front of Streep in a closed room, and if the two women had been able to raise their voice during the scene. Many are saying that Davis manages to accomplish the insurmountable task of outshining Streep in this scene, and my response to that is that it obviously looks that way, but that’s only because Davis has a lot more to do in the scene, but I don’t think it compares to the totality of what Streep does during the entire film.

Put simply, Streep is electrifying. If you thought she played a bitch in The Devil Wears Prada, wait till you see this. Shot from behind during her first few on-screen seconds, she perfectly captures the role of the strict figure who notices even the smallest detail (like an inconspicuous earplug that is not allowed at the school) and doesn’t flinch to punish where she feels punishment is due (a philosophy that clearly influences how her character approaches the film’s central conflict). Her portrayal of Sister Aloysius ranks among her best. The scene towards the end when she removes the cross has to be seen for its devilish intensity. As I mentioned, she pretty much saves the film’s final scene from giving Doubt a calamitous ending. Shanley’s script is at times a bit obvious and heavy-handed, and such is the case during this last scene, when the script attempts to accentuate the significance of the film’s one-word title, as if the events of the film itself hadn’t been enough for a viewer of average intelligence to understand the constant presence of doubt in all that has transpired. But Streep rescues the movie from this misstep by making us question just what exactly Sister Aloysius has doubts about: does she simply think she may have made a mistake in what she decided to do, or are her doubts of a larger scope? Is she having a crisis of faith? Streep takes a scripted line that tried to give an awfully simplistic ending to the film and opens it to interpretation. That’s the stuff of magnificent acting.

[color=black][font=Tahoma][color=black][font=Tahoma][color=black][font=Times New Roman]Is Doubt too theatrical? Many have argued that it is, but I feel like the problem surfaces only on a few select occasions, and I don’t think they’re enough to condemn the film, even if they keep it from reaching heavenly perfection. Shanley’s film often takes the road of symbolism to convey particular elements that affect the plot, and this is a wise choice in a film that, at its core, deals heavily with religious values. Yes, the face-off between Father Flynn and Sister Aloysius is propelled initially by the situation with the child, but especially towards the latter part of the film, it’s obvious that there’s a larger scope to their duel of words: Sister Aloysius turned to the service of God (?) after her husband was killed in battle in Italy, and she has a relentlessly strict and traditional approach, whereas the friendly (?) Father Flynn, who also coaches basketball to the boys and gives them advice on how to approach girls, is a more liberal-minded priest, so the dissent between both characters is inevitable, and this ultimately becomes the center of their bitter battle. This blesses the film with a wider thematic scope, and that, along with the excellent acting, leaves no room for any doubt that this is a very good motion picture.

It's hard to find movies that are extremely successful thanks in large part to the script. Screenplays that are merely adequate are often elevated to above average quality when turned into film thanks to solid direction or to a stellar performance or to a number of other things. So, it's rare to come across written material that is as expertly constructed and as piercingly observant as Justin Haythe's adaptation of the novel Revolutionary Road. Couple that with the keen direction of Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Jarhead - not a single unimpressive title to his credit), and you've got a supremely good cinematic exploration of the prisons that are suburbia and married life.

April and Frank Wheeler (Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio) are regarded as an exemplary couple by the other people who live in their neighborhood, but both April and Frank are dissatisfied in their own respective ways with the conventional lifestyle they've succumbed to. As the more idealistic of the two, April couldn't be sicker of the housewife role, and she proposes to her husband that they move with their children to Paris, where she can get a job as a secretary while Frank can try to find himself and figure out what he really wants to do with his life, seeing as he despises his current job. A wide-eyed April asks Frank, "What's stopping us?" The more pragmatic Frank can think of "a number of reasons" stopping them, but ultimately agrees with the plan to move to Paris, because he craves the freedom as much as April does; as Frank states earlier in the film, when he was younger the last thing he wanted was "to end up like [his] father," and now he works at the same place of employment that his father did. This is one of the many great things about Revolutionary Road: rather than following the familiar plot line of having the wife be the only one trapped and unhappy, with the husband being the tough, traditional spouse, the story instead has BOTH characters exude unhappiness and struggle to break free, each for particular reasons. April's desperation is every bit as palpable as Frank's angst to get a release from monotony.

The scene in which April and Frank reveal their moving plans to friends/neighbors Milly and Shep Campbell (Kathryn Hahn and David Harbour) is flawlessly executed, from the awkward way in which the Wheelers make the announcement, to the Campbells' initial misunderstanding and subsequent pretense of being happy for them, and to the Wheelers' apprehensive stab at explaining their decision. This is followed by a scene, once April and Frank are gone, in which the Campbells are alone, and Shep breaks the silence by commenting that the Wheelers' plan "sounds immature," to which Milly responds to by breaking down crying, but from joy, saying she's "extremely relieved." Though the lead characters aren't even present during this scene, the scene itself is perfect in encapsulating what Revolutionary Road wants to get across: Milly probably feels just as incarcerated in suburban hell as April and Frank do, and when she heard that the two of them were making a move to escape from said life, she got worried, perhaps thinking that maybe she could do it as well, deeply scared of the prospect of making a decision that would greatly alter the comfortable course of her life. So, upon hearing her husband dismiss the Wheelers' plan as immature, she can go back to the way things were, and the peace she gets from knowing she can remain in eternal hell is so intense it makes her cry - how ironic.

Unfortunately for the Wheelers, ostensible "obstacles" get in the way of Paris: April becomes pregnant and Frank gets an unexpected promotion at the job he hates. What's most interesting is the way in which each of them hides the obstacle from the other until it's literally impossible to continue doing so. After getting the promotion, Frank pretends to still be studying the French dictionary, and he exhibits an inability to say things directly to his wife by one day at the beach casually telling Shep (while April listens) about the promotion, rather than just announcing it face-to-face to April while they were alone at home. This sets April off, thus propelling the decline of the couple's relationship, and it all gets even worse when April has no choice but to reveal the delicate condition she's in.

Throughout Revolutionary Road, two crucial visits are made to the Wheelers' home by the family composed of the realtor who got them the house, Helen (Kathy Bates), her husband Howard (Richard Easton) and their son John (Michael Shannon), whom Helen claims has mental problems, even though he turns out to be the one character who is most aware of what is happening, or at least the only one with the balls to say things the way they are. There's a magnificently set-up scene in which the dialogue features Helen commenting on how beautiful the day is, while at the same time John makes blatant, incisive remarks about April and Frank's relationship. One of the film's greatest insights comes when John states (in reference to settling into standard suburban/married life) that "plenty of people see the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness" - people are generally capable of sensing that they're unhappy, but they often don't realize that it isn't going to get any better unless they do something to change it. John is the voice of this film, and his apparent omniscience comes across even moreso during the second visit to the Wheelers' home when the couple reveals they won't be able to go to Paris because of financial reasons. Dismissed as insane, the deeply observant John wisely points out that money is always a good reason not to do something, but it's rarely the real reason, and he scans the looks on the faces of April and Frank and immediately deduces the real reasons why the Wheelers aren't leaving, and he exposes them, poundingly. Helen repeatedly apologizes for her son's insanity. Meanwhile, husband and father Howard remains curiously quiet throughout these scenes, and it's not until the final, brilliant shot of Revolutionary Road that we discover the reason for his reticence.

I've quoted a lot, and I wish I could quote more, seeing as this film is one of 2008's most fiercely observant cinematic achievements, but you're better off receiving said insight by actually watching it. Another aspect that is handled masterfully is the score - I don't often look at the credits for this, but Thomas Newman's name must be mentioned, for he has created a score that never fails to perfectly match each scene's emotional tone, and some moments would've easily felt somewhat flat if it hadn't been handled the way it was.

If there's a quibble to be had with Revolutionary Road, it's one I would've never expected I'd write in this review, and I'm very sorry to say it, but in the early scenes, Winslet simply doesn't measure up to DiCaprio. There's an air of artificiality to her performance when she's acting excited about going to Paris, and while it's nothing extreme, it's not on par with DiCaprio's consistently great work, and it's also a shocker, because Winslet is an excellent actress (and none of said artificiality was present in her work in 2006's Little Children, another deft examination of suburbia and married life). In three days, I'll get to watch her much-praised supporting performance in The Reader, and I look forward to seeing her in top form there. To be fair, though, during the final, crucial scenes of Revolutionary Road she does get her act together, and thank God she does, because if she hadn't, the film's climax (which requires a lot from her) could've been a failure. But it's DiCaprio who doesn't once stray from perfection; here's an actor who is savagely committed to every role he plays. Watch Frank's reaction in response to the remark "I hate you!", and after watching that, I dare you to say that DiCaprio isn't great in this film. The Academy will have made a serious error in judgment if it makes the same mistake it made 11 years ago with Titanic of nominating Winslet and not DiCaprio. As an added bonus, the actor is finally able to incorporate his unfading boyish good looks to a role after not being able to do so in his recent films (his characters in Blood Diamond and The Departed were both getting into fights and whatnot all the time, and in this year's Body of Lies he was, unfortunately, required to sport a hideous beard). From amazing performances as a child in both What's Eating Gilbert Grape? and This Boy's Life, to a bunch of great roles in between, to his work now in Revolutionary Road, this is what I call an incredible performer, and one from whom I have no doubt there'll be continued great things to come. In the supporting department, Kathy Bates is wonderful as the seemingly perky Helen, whom we learn a lot about during the film's final scene, and Michael Shannon gets under your skin and stays there, as the supposedly insane John.

Promoting Revolutionary Road as "Kate & Leo's reunion" (and don't forget Kathy Bates, too!), while seemingly a good marketing strategy, isn't exactly a wise thing to do because this film is strikingly different from Titanic, a movie that was basically appealing to just about everyone, while Revolutionary Road will appeal to a far more limited set of moviegoers. It's not fair at all to compare them, but if we have to, then my opinion is that Titanic is an epic, ravishing masterpiece of mainstream entertainment, a sure classic, a perfect combination of romance, action and comedy, and #4 on my all-time top 10 list, while Revolutionary Road is a near-perfect, relentlessly raw look at the implosion of a marriage, and very likely to be on my year-end top 10 list for 2008.

This is Sam Mendes' second superior examination of suburban life after 1999's American Beauty. The only reason why Revolutionary Road falls a wee-bit short of being as great as American Beauty is that American Beauty had a wider scope in that it fully examined more characters, whereas Revolutionary Road focuses heavily on April and Frank, while the supporting characters don't quite get the full-fledged development that those in American Beauty did. However, the less expansive approach works for Revolutionary Road because the couple's collapsing relationship is indeed the center of this superb story.

Though it's set in the 1950s, Mendes' film should more than resonate with present-day audiences. Despite the fact that there are more openly liberal minds out there today than there were in the 1950s, the truth remains that people still settle for the seemingly quaint nature of suburban life, and marriage still appears to be this crippling thing that, for whatever odd reason, keeps people from doing anything groundbreaking with their lives, and instead forces them to just stay put. In fact, the makers of Revolutionary Road take advantage of the time period in which it's set to foreshadow the further decline in the years to come: when being offered his promotion, Frank is tempted by being told, "You'll be a part of something exciting: computers!" The criticism could not be more evident, as it's gotten to a point that computers have severely affected people's desire to be adventurous and separate from the monotony of relying on man-made objects, and it's also led to a desensitization as a result of people communicating through typed text, which arguably leaves little room for emotions to flow, and thus, it doesn't exactly make you feel alive. April and Frank find themselves in a situation in which they're both having a very hard time feeling alive (as Frank puts it, he no longer feels "filled with blood"), and Revolutionary Road is a powerfully amazing depiction of the crushingly ruinous results that can come from being caged in that situation.

Keira Knightley and I have at least one thing in common, and that's a definite appreciation for the period film. In the past two years, the actress has gone from starring in the ravishingly masterful Atonement to the critically-panned Silk (which I didn't think was good per se, but I didn't hate it either, which is probably due in part to my positive bias towards this type of movie), and now she's carried out the title role in The Duchess, which isn't exactly a memorable period piece or a masterpiece of said genre, but it's still an enjoyable entry into it. As I said earlier this year in regard to The Other Boleyn Girl, if you like this type of movie, you'll be perfectly fine. To be clear, I don't just like any and all period movies I see (and there are some horrible ones out there), but it just happens to be a genre I gravitate to, which explains why I love the slow-moving Barry Lyndon but wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone.

If The Duchess aspired to being considered for any awards, it was surely in the costume and set design categories, as the film is stellar in those areas. Though conventional, the story manages to be consistently interesting, and Keira Knightley infuses an energy into her character that we haven't seen since her Lizzie in the 2005 version of Pride & Prejudice. As Georgiana, she doesn't miss a beat, and one suspects she may have had a better shot at an Oscar nomination (which she got for Pride & Prejudice) if this weren't such a lightweight, somewhat inconsequential film. Ralph Fiennes was honored with an unexpected Golden Globe nod in his supporting role as the Duke, but now that I've seen the film, it comes as no surprise because Fiennes (who has played the role of villain a couple of times) brings a twist to his performance, by never being the cardboard "bad guy" of the period piece (rude and close-minded), and instead displaying the anxiety that his character experiences, always letting us know that he, too, isn't exactly thrilled with the way things work out for neither himself nor for our heroine.

The flaw to be found in the plot of The Duchess is that the film rushes unnecessarily through several key points. Normally, I have the opposite criticism, but this is actually a case in which the movie could've afforded to be longer. It glosses over the development of the secret romance that unfolds between Georgiana and Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper), so the chemistry between the lovers isn't always palpable, and similarly, the blossoming of the friendship between Georgiana and Bess (Hayley Atwell) and the predictable turn of events that occurs once Bess starts sharing living quarters with her and her husband is also handled haphazardly. However, I did think that the captions at the end that explain what would occur over the course of the years following the film's climax were a nice touch and didn't suffer from the annoyingly imposing feeling we usually get from those in other films - one of the most interesting aspects of The Duchess is that even though it doesn't have a fully happy ending, there's still a fair amount of joy to be drawn from the closing, and that gives me more satisfaction than any other type of conclusion. Ultimately, I wouldn't refer to The Duchess as a regal motion picture, but it's still worthy of being enjoyed by its target audience.

Though the story is somewhat lacking in creativity, The Wrestler is an involving drama with a linear story that will likely provide a decent amount of emotional satisfaction to most who see it. The first third of the film is effective in its realistic depiction of the world of wrestling, particularly the staged elements of it - in the changing room, before heading out to the ring, we see fighters who will be facing off discussing how the fights will play out. Darren Aronofsky's film shows us that this is still a sport that can yield many real physical wounds, and Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Mickey Rourke) not only knows every major wound in his body, but remembers the year in which he got it and the fight in which it was dealt to him. An even more dire consequence of Randy's participation in said brutal sport comes when he has a heart attack after a fight and is informed by his doctor that he can no longer wrestle. This marks the beginning of the core of The Wrestler's plot, which essentially depicts how no matter how physically hurt you get participating in a sport like wrestling, the chances are much higher that you'll get hurt in an even worse way when you decide to face your demons in the real world, as is the case with Randy in his frustrated attempt to establish a romantic relationship with the night club dancer Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), whose real name is Pam, and in his equally fruitless efforts to make amends with his daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood).

I'm not completely straying from majority opinion here because I do think Mickey Rourke gives a very good lead performance as the film's main character, but when it comes to dramas, one's opinion on an acting job is all about how that individual viewer was impacted by the performer's on-screen work, and in my case, I've seen a handful of better dramatic performances. Rourke is at his best during the scene at the beach when he breaks down while trying to establish a paternal relationship with Stephanie, but I didn't find many other scenes in the film in which he had much room to shine. In fact, I was more impressed with Marisa Tomei's work: as one of today's best working actresses, she gives a fearless performance as the stripper who is also a mother, never succumbing to the hokey "innocent prostitute" role, and her reaction shots during the final few minutes of her appearance on the film are great. Evan Rachel Wood also proves yet again that she's an excellent emotional performer, as she started showing in her early days on the TV show Once & Again and still today in The Wrestler despite not being in the film all that much (she had more space to display her range in this year's earlier The Life Before Her Eyes).

The lackings in The Wrestler are, predictably, the same ones that tend to afflict dramas that are good but don't quite reach the potency they aspire to. Some scenes are forced. Though I mentioned that Wood gives a very good performance as Randy's daughter, the scene in which she suddenly seems to accept him as her father and dances with him in the empty ballroom comes much quicker than it should, as it didn't seem that enough had happened to warrant an event like that just yet. When Randy has no choice but to start working at the deli counter at the grocery store he works in, the scene that depicts him walking towards the deli counter shooting him from the back with the background noise of the cheering crowd (to establish a parallelism with his wrestling days) is too obvious and goes on longer than it should. The event that sort of propels Randy getting pissed off at the deli counter features an old woman telling him, back and forth, "a little more, a little less," forcing him to adjust the serving quantity each time, and again, it's a little bit exaggerated, and the filmmakers could've surely come up with a more believable situation to set the main character off, in order to jump-start the film's climax.

During this decade Darren Aronofsky's films have now officially run the gamut in terms of quality. In 2000, he gave us the searingly masterful Requiem For A Dream (one of those rare movies that is indeed great, but I could never watch again, because it's simply too hair-raising for more than one viewing), and in 2006 he gave us a horrible misfire with The Fountain (an absolute mess of an artsy film, with gigantic ambitions that end up amounting to nothing). Now he's given us The Wrestler which is admittedly good, but I have to disagree with the majority opinion that it's one of the year's best dramas - it simply doesn't feature much that hasn't been done equally well or better in other movies. Nonetheless, it is very well-performed, and it benefits from a hefty amount of sincere and poignant moments.

Underdog stories are a dime a dozen, and that's the reason why it's so difficult to come up with above-average movies that follow said type of storyline yet don't feel like recycled material. So, how DID director Danny Boyle manage to create such a good underdog story with Slumdog Millionaire?

A. His film has the best soundtrack of the year
B. Though set in India, his film has a universal quality to it that will make it appealing to all moviegoers
C. The main character is one of the most likable underdogs we've ever seen in this type of movie
D. All of the above

18-year-old Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) was raised in the slums of Mumbai, India, and now works at a telephone company's call center, not as an actual phone operator, but as a chaiwalla (tea server). So, when he becomes a contestant on India's version of the popular game show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? no one expects him to do well at all. He manages to answer the penultimate question correctly for 10 million rupees, and time runs out before he can be asked the final question for 20 million rupees, so he'll have to come back the following day for the next episode. As soon as he leaves the set, police take him away to interrogate him, believing he must have cheated his way through the questions. This marks the start of the narration of Jamal's story, which gradually reveals how the answers to the specific questions he was asked were all things he came across at some point in his life as a slumdog.

I'm sure it wasn't hard to figure it out, but the answer to the question was indeed D. All of the above. Slumdog Millionaire is blessed with an energy-filled soundtrack that fits every scene very well and makes the scenes have a vibrancy that they'd lack if they didn't have such great music as their background. Another noteworthy aspect here is that the awesome theme music for the show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is used to great effect here, particularly during the final scenes that involve Jamal's participation on the show. It's no coincidence that the filmmakers chose this particular TV show as a piece of the plot, as it makes it recognizable to everyone; while the film is about an underdog in India, the fact that he's trying to win the grand prize on a show like this one will make it easy for people around the world to root for him. Speaking of that, rooting for Jamal turns out to be extremely easy to do, as Dev Patel is note-perfect. He doesn't fall into the trap that most actors and actresses playing underdogs would fall into of overplaying the nervousness. While on the "hot seat," he infuses a lot into what could've easily been dull blank stares if anyone else had been playing the role, and the random moments in which he says something funny to break the tension are great.

One of the reservations some may have with Slumdog Millionaire is something that I had figured would probably be a problem before I watched the film, while reading the synopsis; obviously, it's awfully convenient that Jamal happened to run into situations throughout his childhood in which the answer to a question he'd be asked years later on a game show was somehow exposed to him, and that he'd always manage to remember it. However, I think this is forgivable because you just NEED that contrivance for the movie to be able to move forward. Similarly, some may not like that the film has a standard-order happy ending, but that, too, is okay because, when it comes down to it, despite great things like the soundtrack and Patel's performance that elevate this movie above average fare, this still is a conventional underdog story, and there's no avoiding that. However, there are certain flaws that can't exactly be overlooked. While the predictable happy ending is to be expected, the film overplays the destiny card ("it is written") in order to justify said happy ending; it's fine to have destiny be an element that contributes to navigating the plot, but it's not fine to make an exaggerated amount of references to it, almost as if it were necessary to do so to explain why any other type of conclusion would be impossible. Also, most of the flashback scenes depicting Jamal's childhood work pretty well, though some don't ring as true and aren't as engaging - basically, even though it's obviously the same character, I definitely cared more about older Jamal than about younger Jamal. The romantic element of the plot is helped immensely by a resonant, sublime score (again, all of the music-related elements are perfect), yet the story itself isn't the most interesting on-screen romance we've ever seen; we root much more for Jamal to answer that final question correctly than we do for him and the girl he loves to stay together.

All in all, though, there are plenty of things that make this far better than your standard rags-to-riches story. The folks over at Awards Circuit are referring to Slumdog Millionaire as the current front-runner in the Best Picture race, and while I admit that I disagree with that and could name several other films released this year that have been superior to it, it's hard to ignore what a wonderfully colorful and euphonious piece of cinema this is. Oh, and if you go see it, do NOT stand up right when the movie has seemingly ended and the screen fades to black, because the film's last scene is followed by an amazingly well-choreographed Bollywood dance sequence that you simply can't miss. It's better than any musical number we've witnessed in film this year (and puts to shame the crap that tried to pass as dance sequences in Mamma Mia!), and it's a worthy conclusion to this delightful movie-watching experience.