So, if youre trying to get caught up with the biggies, let us help.
Yet hes a dynamo of an actor.
Im afraid, though, that he doesnt quite do it.
Credit: Ray: Nicola Goode
His antimonopoly stance is unassailable, yet the fight comes off as a generic anti-corporate crusade.
It doesnt work as a consummation of Hughes majestic vision.
More crucially,The Aviatorfails to present Howard Hughes as an entirely coherent human being.
Its the essence of his on-screen nature.
InFinding Neverland, Depp, as the Scottish-born turn-of-the-century playwright J.M.
Its Johnny Depp committing what no other actor can perform quite as well: a gentle blasphemy.
The boys enjoy a surrogate father who teaches them to fly kites and make up stage plays.
This surrogate family of latter-day childhood moves him to write the play he calls Peter Pan.
The movie glows, all right.
It just never soars.
Image credit: Million Dollar Baby: Egon Endrenyi DO YOU FEEL LUCKY?
Toole, turns out to be a movie of tough excitement and surprise, even grace.
His job was to be a healer who brings the pain.
It is also gently, unstatedly romantic.
For a while,Million Dollar Babyis a gritty fairy tale in the tradition ofRockyandThe Color of Money.
But thenMillion Dollar Babytakes a sudden dark turn.
As a musical biography,Rayis driven by the primal excitement of rock-and-soul at the moment of its discovery.
The music gets everyone so delirious that theyre only too happy to moan out the chorus.
Even off stage, Ray has a supple musical charm.
When things dont go his way, the purr turns to a cutting growl.
They face each other down in an indelible duet of resentment.
The flashbacks to Rays childhood have the sharecroppers-village-at-Disney World tone ofThe Color Purple.
Yet his ability to lie wins us over.
Despite his affliction, he sees three steps ahead of everyone else.
Hes also the master of psyching out anyone who thinks they can take advantage of a blind black man.
Rays obsessive shrewdness pays off.
For Ray, however, marriage isnt the same thing as settling down.
Hes got his babes on the road, and also his beloved heroin habit.
The savvy beauty ofRayis that it never pretends you could have had one without the other.
And homeland moviemaking, as well as movie lovers, reaps the pleasures.
Who could have guessed that contentment would become him?
The road-trip tour of vineyards is Miles bachelor-party gift to Jack.
Sidewaystakes scenic detours for piquant adventures.
Its damned hard to resist piling on the grape-based metaphors in admiration.
So heres a toast toSideways.
The superb actor holds on to his subjects ordinariness, never playing hero.
(Sophie Okonedo fromDirty Pretty Thingsplays a wife gentle enough to strengthen a mans courage.)
Her presence grew domesticated and a bit lackluster.
Now, at last, shes got it back.
Julia, you see, has manufactured the entire brouhaha (without quite being aware of it).
Lucy (Guilied Lopez), a fellow mula met in passing, becomes a comrade in desperation.
Kaufman doesnt just think outside the box he makes you think that the box is scarcely worth saving.
So does everything else in the movie.
Once there, Joel decides to undergo the procedure himself.
They die softly, sadly.
Theyre like peak moments of lost love unspooling in the revival theater of his mind.
Each of Joels memories unfolds before us at the moment its being wiped out.
Kaufman, never shy about excess, keeps multiplying the structural complications.
Yet the cumulative impact leaves the audience happily and profoundly buzzed.
These two couldnt be more different, yet deep down theyre matching wrecks.
The flaws of Joel and Clementines edgy bond create the very electricity that holds it together.
In effect, they add up to a two-headed monster that wont stop yapping at itself.
This time the buddies really are at odds.
At that point, the cabbie is stuck.
Collateral, a propulsive action morality play, generates suspense by dividing our sympathies in clever and unexpected ways.
Foxx plays Max as a benign loner with a center of honorable sadness; he has a no-frills humanity.
They never become the two-headed monster.
Cruise and Foxx are so good together because they allow the two characters to get under each others skin.
Theyre buddies and enemies at the same time.
They should have stayed that way.
Natalie Portman and Jude Law!
Talking dirty, nasty, hurtful, and loveless!
Why, refined sprite Portman even plays a stripper!
Im just not authentically shocked not even when Julia Roberts character compares the tastes of two mens semen.
The setting is present-day London.
The place, the costumes, the staging of sexual provocation and betrayal are refined studies in luxurious understatement.
Something, though, douses the licks of fiery emotion that ought to makeClosera too-close-for-comfort movie experience.
Its not the cast.
(On the London stage, Owen originated the part of Dan.)
And Law effectively dulls his marketable sex appeal and gets nicely ugly.
The dissonance isnt her fault its a casting directors world.
The polished elements of the production cant be faulted either.
But surely the work wants to unsettle.
The release ofKinseydispels all rumors of quaintness.
Kinsey is patient and educational and never (darn it) rude or shocking.
is already out of the bag.
new Pixar productionThe Incredibles.
Having hung up his Mr. (Only baby Jack-Jack appears normal.)
You cant count on anyone especially your heroes!
Syndrome whines, a guy who has attended too many fan conventions.
That mutual trust and respect are not sitcom punchlines.
And that family survival necessitates risk-taking valor, too.
Which may be this movies greatest feat.
All we need to know is that the family headed by Mr.
Incredible proves they really are, in tights and out, indeed incredible.
And thatThe Incrediblesreally is too.
The first movie, in its American-indie-gone-Eric Rohmer way, was a tad precious in its youthful ardor.
It doesnt extend the characters so much as fulfill them.
Do the old sparks fly?
Im jazzed for a sequel already.
COLD CYCLE Hey, before we start this revolution?
The movie has no pretense, really, of dealing with uprise politics.
He has little fire and few hints of ego or inner conflict.
It allows the audience to project their hindsight fantasies of Che onto Bernals deeply uninteresting performance.
The man who embraced violence for change?
The film operates under the spectacularly simpleminded idea that Marxism came down to caring.
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE, WHO NEEDS ANEMONIES?
Okay, maybe thats too unlikely.
That person may live an otherwise fulfilled and accomplished life, no doubt.
The characters are underdeveloped even for 2-D players.
And those who know the provenance of the line Are you not entertained?
can feel superior to those who dont.
(You heard me.)
Its the deadpan lunacy of the joke that gooses you.
The first Shrek, for all its nattering brio, was a glorious hymn to imperfection.
He conquered his self-hatred, which is what made Shrek the rare animated fairy tale with lasting adult resonance.
Shes Martha Stewart with a wand.
Christine believes that the Phantom is the ghost of her dead father.
For a moment, the Phantom is right where he should be: inside your mind.
The rest of the time, hes in the worlds most lavish furniture showroom.
The problem withThe Phantom of the Operais that Schumacher isnt vulgar enough.
Yet theyre photographed stiffly, without decadent atmosphere or visual flow.
(He should have realized that the songs come with their own glue.)
Hes too roaringly overpowering in the Broadway manner to invite us into the Phantoms exquisite torment.
The movie achieves a newly stodgy style of corporate excess: Call it under-the-top.
His tolerance grows quickly, though.
Super Size Me is witty, gross, smart, outrageous, and so clever it just about pops.
The movie lays bare the insidiousness of American fast-food culture by feasting on it in big, hungry bites.
At the beginning, a group of children jubilantly chant McDONalds!
Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut!
a pledge of allegiance they can truly believe in.
Through it all, he casts his own Golden Arches odyssey as a perversely exciting adventure.
What happens to Spurlock?
He gains nearly a pound a day, and his liver turns to pate.
Yet the real news isnt so medical.
But the innocence never disappears.
What fused the two sides is that he remained, in his bones, an actor.
When he presents himself as a nihilist street ruffian, its not a pose.
Its more like a role thats become real because of how fully he played it.
The conspiracy theories that surround Shakurs murder are scarcely mentioned.
(He had the event filmed and it was broadcast on Spanish TV.)
All this is conveyed in Alejandro Amenabars velvety Spanish biopic.
