Reviews

Director Luca Guadagnino and James Ivory as scenarist have fashioned a luxurious, sultry and intoxicatingly romantic film from Andre Aciman's novel, Call Me By Your Name. And in the process of adapting this bittersweet story of gay love the filmmakers have improved on an often beautifully written novel that tends to ramble with its first person narrative, punctuated by vivid descriptions of the Italian land and seascapes it wallows in , often to the sensual delight of the reader. As he did with the equally colorful , Italy -based romantic drama of "I Am Love" (2009), Guadagnino paints with robust, sometimes subtle cinematic brushstrokes to bring forth an evocative atmosphere of heat, sun, flora and fruit as vivid background to the main story at hand.

What is it about the best Italian film directors whose penchant for telling stories is so entwined with production values that dazzle the eye, be it in black and white our color? Luchino Visconti, Frederico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni , Bernardo Bertolucci and Franco Zeffirelli all had this gift, and it is readily apparent that the torch has been passed on to Luca Guadagnino. Abetted by the brilliant acting of Timothee Chalamet, Michael Stuhlberg and the impossibly handsome and able Armie Hammer, Call Me By Your Name emerges as an unforgettable, erotic and deeply moving saga of love found, lost and remembered.

From the pages of Annie Proulx's poignant, sparingly written short story screen writers Larry McMurtry and Diane Ossana have woven an epic love story for the screen and with director Ang Lee guiding a perfect cast have created in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN a motion picture that ranks with the great classics of the past. So much has already been written and discussed regarding this prematurely famous film that it seems superfluous at this point to add another comment. But what I find amazing about this film is its dichotomy: on the one hand there is all the current brouhaha concerning the screenplay's "controversial" subject matter. At the same time here is a movie that dutifully follows the pattern of good, old fashioned Hollywood -style film-making. The 20 year saga of Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, their passionate love thwarted by convention and bigotry is given the full throttle treatment by Ang Lee who dares to take the time to tell this story at a leisurely pace. The film's opening section is deliberately paced but never boring. And as we come to know the characters of Ennis and Jack and their time on Brokeback Mountain, the rest of the story becomes an emotional journey for the audience as well. Once off the mountain, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN gains momentum. If the film's longer second half veers into soap opera, as some critics have charged, then it is soap opera of the most riveting and utterly believable sort.

Mere words cannot do justice to the performance Heath Ledger gives in this film. His Ennis is a man whose laconic nature barely hides the anger and passion just underneath the surface. I can't recall another performance where such inchoate feelings of love and loss have been so brilliantly rendered. The final minutes of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN are as heartrending as any you will see on the screen. Jake Gyllenhaal compliments Ledger's performance beautifully. His Jack is all feeling and frustration, a sweet-tempered man whose dream of sharing a life with Ennis is seemingly quashed at every turn.

Technically labeled by some as a western and/or cowboy movie due to its setting, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is really a universal story. However, time (the early 1960s through the early 80s) and place are evoked so completely that one feels immersed in those Wyoming mountain pastures (actually filmed in Alberta ,Canada for the early scenes). As with every other aspect of this film, the cinematography is stunning. Clear mountain lakes mirror majestic skies and pines; a lone campfire, an orange dot on a mountainside, is nearly swallowed in the immense darkness of night; sheepherders guide their lambs, ewes, dogs and mules through vast mountain terrain, one particular shot photographed from what seems like a perch on the moon; small western towns; garish, neon-lit Country Western bars; a nighttime Fourth of July celebration and weathered ranch homes, barns and trailers are registered just as beautifully. This is a movie where grace and grit go hand in glove. Rodrigo Prieto's camera work is flawless.

Ang Lee's achievement cannot be underestimated. He has pulled off an incredible hat trick in making a film that all audiences can relate to. No doubt there are many people who will resist going to see this film, but it will be their loss. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is an ineffably sad tale : an elegy for dreams never achieved and roads not taken. It is an American masterpiece.

Peter Jackson pays homage to a classic film and in the process constantly reminds one how truly great the original 1933 KING KONG is. No amount of storytelling embellishment, incredible recreation of Depression Era New York City or State-of-the-Art CGI effects can obliterate the memory of producer/director Merian C. Cooper's early sound masterpiece. Jackson's remake suffers from a surfeit of length. Admittedly the opening scenes of early 30s New York City are breathtaking to behold and the screenplay offers some humorous "inside" references to Old Broadway and Hollywood that should prove amusing to showbiz mavens but will go over the heads of average moviegoers. Everything in the new film seems anticlimactic and it's not just because the plot is familiar. The original KONG was a model of economical storytelling. Jackson's KONG is an interminable three hour extravaganza that works only in fits and starts. The Skull Island sequences, while offering some extraordinary special effects and sound editing, go on way too long and stop the movie's narrative flow dead in its tracks. As the film sputters along into its third hour most audience members are likely to find their haunches more affected than their hearts.

"The Wild Parrots Of Telegraph Hill" is something of an anomaly in current film-making these days. An unassuming, quiet little movie (excepting the various "chatter" of bird species featured in the production), it chronicles the day to day life of Mark Bittner and his flock of wild parrots. Bittner, a San Fransisco resident who moved to the city near the end of the Beat era and the dawn of Haight Ashbury, struggled for several years as a street musician before giving up his dream of having a successful music career. Living as a homeless man for over a decade with the occasional odd job here and there, Bittner eventually settled down in a rundown little cottage near the top of Telegraph Hill, a charming, picturesque area of the city dense with myriad foliage and fauna. A natural bird sanctuary, the hill was also a nesting area for exotic wild parrots from South America who inexplicably showed up years before and made the area their home. Some local residents are interviewed who give various (and often humorous) theories on how the parrots may have ended up there but in the end it remains a mystery.

The film focuses on Mark Bittner's relationship with these amazing birds. Taking on the role of caretaker, he feeds and cares for the parrots, consisting mostly of cherry-headed green conures. He identifies all 45 of these creatures by individual speckled markings and names. The camera hones in on a number of the birds to give the viewer a front row seat to distinct personalities such as Mingus, Tupelo and the lone blue crowned conure of the group, Connor.

Director Judy Irving films this story of Bittner and his bird friends in a slapdash style that hardly calls attention to itself. She narrates at times and even discusses the fact that she wasn't quite sure what the focus of her film was originally going to be. The birds were a starting point but meeting Mark Bittner turned out to be more than just a happy accident. A lifelong naturalist and bird enthusiast, Irving rarely intrudes, letting her camera record very directly, simply and powerfully this story of a modern day St. Francis.

"The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill" is almost artless in its presentation. Unlike "Winged Migration", the French 2001 Oscar- nominated documentary about migratory birds, Irving's film is competently photographed but lacking in the lush visuals that distinguished the former film. The Parrots stay close to terra firma, a necessity considering the menacing Red-Tailed hawks often hovering overhead.

Mark Bittner's story is truly inspiring and ultimately surprising. Judy Irving makes it even more so with an even-handed approach that almost, but not quite, collapses at the end. What could have ended on a sugary and sentimental note emerges as clear, forthright and unforgettable.

Watching writer-director Paul Haggis' new film "Crash", I couldn't help thinking about another, much better film with a similar interlocking storyline. That was "Amores Perros" (2001), Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's gritty, no-holds-barred meditation on the lives of some fictional citizens in modern day Mexico City. Although the story was an obvious set-up, with a terrible car crash at its center and how that crash affected the lives of several disparate characters, the movie managed to be engrossing and utterly believable in its depiction of varying social castes in a huge metropolis. The film had the feel of a documentary and was so epic-sized in depicting the teeming life of a city that it managed to triumph over the screenplay's contrivances.

"Crash" is a whole other story. Although I can admire the intentions of its creator and the admirable work of a talented cast, the movie didn't work for me on any level. An ambitious contemporary parable about the need for racial tolerance and understanding, "Crash" offers up a nearly endless series of angry rants and speeches by characters who literally collide into each other on the highway or verbally clash in elegant homes, "mom and pop" grocery stores or utilitarian HMO offices. The movie is a frustrating experience because the acting by the entire cast is superb and there are several powerfully dramatic scenes.

Sandra Bullock and Brendan Fraser are perfect as a wealthy suburbanite couple obsessed with image. In fact Bullock has never been better, commanding the screen as a spoiled district attorney's wife whose prejudices erupt when her SUV is hijacked by two young black men. Matt Dillon is equally impressive as a bigoted LAPD cop who sexually harasses a woman whose car he has pulled over, only to attempt to save the same women in a horrific car accident the next day. A hotheaded Iranian store owner unjustly berates a Mexican American locksmith for not fixing the door to his liking after the store has been broken into and burglarized the night before. All these story elements (and several others) come to a dramatic conclusion that is at once operatic as it is mechanical. The fine acting, the grainy, unvarnished cinematography, the taut editing and a foreboding, mournful score can't compensate for the fact that "Crash" is an exercise in manipulation. Paul Haggis allows his characters to preach to the choir instead of giving them a narrative that relies less on shouting and coincidence and more on credible storytelling techniques.

Jane Fonda is one of the great stars in the Hollywood firmament. A beautiful woman and gifted actress, the motion picture camera has been an unflinching repository for her acting genius. Even in her lesser films Fonda always revealed a spark of creativity that often distinguished her from most of her acting contemporaries. With 6 Academy Award nominations to her credit and 2 Oscar wins for Best Actress, her legacy is firmly established. How sad it is then to report that her return to the screen after a 15 year hiatus is squandered on a wretchedly written, clumsily directed romantic comedy that is an embarrassment for not only Fonda but a talented supporting cast.

"Monster-in-Law" represents what seems to be an increasingly generic brand of comedy. Gone are the days of sharply observant romantic entertainments when writers knew where to throw in a bit of farce or add a dollop of cynicism. Directors such as Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges along with writers I.A.L. Diamond and Fay and Michael Kanin knew how to put an effective story together even if in hindsight the plausibility of the tale was suspect. Most contemporary movies are a completely different animal. Character motivation and good storytelling have been replaced by gross caricature and "connect-the-dots", formulaic writing that is as predictable as it is depressing.

"Monster-in-Law" takes many of its cues from an earlier Fonda comedy, the lamentable 1981 burlesque, "9 to 5". In that film three beleaguered secretaries wreak havoc on their sexist boss. The story was treated as pure farce and was marginally entertaining at best. There have been a score of "dumbed-down" comedies since. Unfortunately movie audiences seem easily pleased by this new comedy hybrid.

In "Monster-in-Law" Jane Fonda plays veteran television interviewer Viola Fields, a Diva from Hell who is determined to break up the impending marriage of her handsome, vacuous son (an L.A. surgeon) to Charlotte "Charlie" Cantilini (Jennifer Lopez), an office temp, part time caterer and dog walker. What starts out as only a mere semblance to reality quickly deteriorates into the most puerile farce imaginable soon after Viola makes her entrance. Viola is a psychotic mixture of brass balls and vulnerability and Ms. Fonda plays her to the hilt. Her star wattage is undeniable but this is not a particularly good performance. Most of the fault lies with Anya Kocheff's execrable screenplay and Robert Luketic's sledgehammer direction. Rationality is thrown out the window for the witless line and easy laugh. Only Wanda Sykes emerges relatively unscathed playing Viola's sarcastic assistant. Her Ruby is the one genuinely funny character in the movie. Otherwise "Monster-in-Law" is a mess and possibly the worst movie of Jane Fonda's career.

Despite its awful title and a screenplay that occasionally takes a wrong turn, The Upside Of Anger is a consistently absorbing and entertaining depiction of one family's dysfunction in a present-day, fashionable Detroit suburb. Upper-middle class angst hasn't had such an impressive workout since Ordinary People and Terms of Endearment. And as with those two films, this new one is basically a well-dressed soap opera but the suds are put into brilliant motion by an impressive acting ensemble. Joan Allen, always a superb actress, outdoes herself here as Terry Wolfmeyer, an abandoned wife with four beautiful daughters who drowns her humiliation and rage with alcohol. Kevin Costner plays her next door neighbor, a retired baseball player whose good looks have turned to a paunchy but shabby attractiveness. Director-screenwriter Mike Binder (and actor: he is terrific as a sleazy Lothario pursuing one of Allen's daughters) sustains the tension in this romantic comedy-drama for most of its two hour running time. Even when the film's second hour slides into mawkishness and an unexpected late plot development nearly derails the picture, The Upside Of Anger manages to keep the audience hooked to what is happening on the screen. That is due in no small part to the wonderful chemistry between Joan Allen and Kevin Costner. Allen gives a ferocious performance, by turns funny, angry and sad. Costner has never been better. For once he seems to have let his guard down, giving a relaxed, warm and very funny performance as a man in search of love and companionship. For what it's worth, both actors deserve to be remembered at Oscar time next year. While the movie itself is a bit too facile and unconvincing to be considered a Best Picture nominee, it's assured pacing and technical know-how does indicate that Mike Binder is a director to watch for in the future. There is so much about The Upside of Anger that is first-rate.

FINDING NEVERLAND is a beautifully produced costume drama. Technically the movie is very impressive, boasting excellent acting, gorgeous cinematography, sets, costumes and a lovely music score that mimics composer Edward Elgar's more wistful compositions. The recreation of Edwardian England rivals the best Masterpiece Theater productions. But there is a huge hole in the center of this movie that prevents Finding Neverland from being anything other than a four hankie tearjerker.

The true-life story of famed novelist and playwright J.M. Barrie's friendship with the Llewelyn Davies family is given short shrift by a screenplay that insists on telling the tale as a genteel fantasy. Although the dark undercurrents of the story are there, David Magee's script (based on Alan Knee's stage play) elects to tell only part of the story and as a result much potential dramatic tension is lost.

There is nothing unusual about movies veering from the hard facts of biography. To make a an effective audience-pleaser it is often essential that real-life events be juxtaposed for effective cinematic storytelling. But in the case of Finding Neverland the actual events surrounding Barrie's life and relationship with Sylvia Llewelyn Davies and her five sons were so inherently dramatic that changing the story even minimally seems innocuous at best.

Unsurprisingly the best scenes in Finding Neverland deal with the creation, rehearsals and opening night premiere of Barrie's classic play, PETER PAN. The mawkish sentimentalism that pervades the rest of the movie is missing in these riveting scenes that swiftly chronicle the emergence of an immortal masterpiece.

James Matthew Barrie was a complex and eccentric genius whose decades-long relationship and obsession with the Llewelyn Davies boys was by turns nurturing , exploitive and ultimately tragic. Johnnie Depp, tall and handsome, cuts a dashing figure as Barrie, an incongruity considering that the famed author was a slight individual endowed with average looks. Depp's performance, while perfectly workmanlike, displays none of the dark moods Barrie was known to have. The actor simply seems to be a conjurer of fanciful tales, a charming babysitter to Sylvia and her sons and a jilted husband to his self-absorbed, philandering actress/wife.

The real story is heartrending and unforgettable. The movie is entertaining up to a point but it should prove disappointing to anyone with even a passing familiarity to Barrie's life and the world he created for the Llewelyn Davies boys. Andrew Birkin's biography J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys gives a thorough and fascinating account of this disturbing and epochal love story.

Watching George Butler's riveting documentary about John Kerry's tour of duty in Vietnam is an ineffably sad but ultimately inspiring viewing experience. Using archival photos, super 8 film and television video footage from the Vietnam War era, director Butler weaves a tale of one man's heroic journey into a real life Heart of Darkness more immediate and powerful than anything Francis Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" was able to muster. Beginning with his student days at Yale, John Kerry possessed qualities of leadership that belied most young men of his generation. His heroic actions in Vietnam are amply described by fellow comrades-in-arms, one of whom gives an electrifying account of his rescue by Kerry under the most perilous conditions imaginable.

The most revelatory part of this movie deals with Kerry's homecoming. Vietnam veterans were not greeted with a hero's welcome; in most cases the public treated returning soldiers with indifference, even revulsion. John Kerry's compassion and fortitude in working toward giving his fellow soldiers a place of dignity in a cold and uncaring world is heroic beyond measure. GOING UPRIVER has been described by some as one long campaign add for a presidential candidate. That may be so, but if this movie is a shameless plug for electing Kerry to the Presidency, it is also a heartrending social commentary of a time that is inexorably fading into a distant American past. That past , in order to be kept alive, needs movies such as GOING UPRIVER to remind American citizens that the foibles of war repeat themselves unto the next generation. The young, eloquent John Kerry speaking on behalf of his fellow veterans is an unforgettable image. GOING UPRIVER is a mourning for the past as well as an alarum for the future.

Even if The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences fails to recognize Michael Moore's FAHRENHEIT 9/11 with a nomination for Best Feature Length Documentary its place in film history is secure. This incendiary and powerful film is an unforgettable viewing experience and not only because it's a deliberate, muckraking attempt to besmirch the current president and his administration. Moore also takes aim at The Media in general, castigating The Powers That Be (NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN etc.) for a reckless mendacity that led to a televised War where TV Anchors and journalists joined the ride to Baghdad and reported and photographed only what Bush & Co. wanted the American people to see and hear.

In BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE (2002) Moore targeted The NRA as the Big Villain in allowing laxity in gun laws for creating the horrendous murders and maiming at Columbine High School in April of 1999. The film was a disturbing but often unintentionally hilarious expose of the state of mind of many Americans whose lives are controlled by fear and the need for firearms as weapons of defense. It was America turning the Gun on Itself, in stark contrast to its relatively placid neighbor to the north, Canada, where firearms are prevalent but murders by shooting are significantly lower than those in The States.

FAHRENHEIT 9/11 employs the same canny juxtaposition of images that made the earlier film such a deliciously barbed and caustic social commentary. Although Moore's main target is one George W. Bush, other big players in his administration are vulnerable targets as well. There is also open season on Democrats and The Media in particular. perhaps the most chilling aspect of this movie.

Whatever the outcome of the election in November, FAHRENHEIT 9/11 will be remembered for its unstinting bravery in stripping the layers of deceit that have plagued this country for the past four years. As with BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, it is a movie that will make you laugh, then make you cry, and ultimately make you angry. FAHRENHEIT 9/11 has an immediacy and importance that makes it the film of the year, and a clarion call to this generation and the next.

Watching KING ARTHUR is an endurance test I recommend only to those not bothered by lugubrious pacing , mannered acting and a visual palette consisting almost exclusively of dark greens, blues and grays. Obviously filmed in Ireland amid endless days of fog and rain, director Antoine Fuqua's version of the Arthurian Legend is CAMELOT for the moron trade. The movie begins with the promise of delivering a gritty , historically accurate version of Britain's "Dark Ages" bur quickly descends into a quagmire of endless battle scenes that do little to illuminate the story but will undoubtedly please avid action buffs. Anyone looking for a satisfying film epic about Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table might want to check out John Boorman's 1981 Excalibur. That film also has its share of blood and guts but the telling of the tale is swiftly told and brilliantly photographed. Even Joshua Logan's CAMELOT (1967), as over-produced as it is, offers a traditional telling of the Arthurian legend that has its moments, most of them distinguished by Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave and a beautiful Lerner and Loewe music score. The new film seems to use Mel Gibson's BRAVEHEART as its inspiration. Gibson's opus had its detractors but at least it held the audience's attention for most of its three hour running time. KING ARTHUR, despite all its scenes of warriors shouting "Freedom!" and vast armies of men shooting arrows and wielding heavy swords, is a sluggish action film devoid of humanity. Clive Owen as Arthur and Keira Knightley as Guenevere have the required acting chops and are convincing in their roles but they are both undermined by a colorless script and pedestrian direction. Hans Zimmer's unrelenting music score, a tiresome , mournful dirge, just adds to the movie's oppressive atmosphere.

In "Young Adam" Ewan McGregor gives the finest performance of his career so far in a film that will surely claim classic status in the years to come. That McGregor's brilliant performance and this stunning production was virtually ignored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences proves once again that popularity and financial success often dictate what performances and films win for Best Actor, Actress, Picture etc. "Young Adam", based on a novel by the late Alex Trocchi, hearkens back to the "angry young man" British movies of the late 1950's and early 60's, the most celebrated being "Room At The Top" and "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning." Laurence Harvey and Albert Finney were the respective young anti-heroes in those films and Ewan McGregor is their great successor. As you watch his performance in "Young Adam" he almost seems to be channeling the Joe Lampton character (Harvey) from "Room" but make no mistake about it: McGregor contributes his own unique talent to this grim 50's drama. His portrayal of the amoral drifter Joe, who has an unrealized ambition to be a writer , is one of the great screen performances of the past decade. In telling this story of Joe, his chronic womanizing and his life aboard a family -run coal barge, first time director David Mackenzie and cinematographer Giles Nuttgens create an evocative world of gritty landscapes, weathered buildings and ever-changing skylines that run the gamut from oppressive gray to painterly pink hues. The barge's journey down the Clyde River (Glasgow region)is punctuated by verdant greenery providing brief respite from the typical dark and dank surroundings. All of this is magnificently photographed in widescreen Panavision and reminiscent of David Lean and Freddie Young's best camera portraiture.It may be true, as some critics have pointed out, that the film's story isn't particularly innovative. Those old 50's films haunt the proceedings in this one. Yet "Young Adam" is so powerfully acted and directed, so meticulous in its recreation of time and place , and so brilliantly photographed and scored that it possesses a verisimilitude that seems genuinely authentic.

It's the yardstick by which all other film epics are judged, and after 65 years "Gone With The Wind" still remains Hollywood's most fully realized super production, a brilliant one-of-a-kind meeting of perfect casting, great acting, superb direction (by a number of hands), magnificently photographed Technicolor tableau and possibly the most romantic music score ever composed for a movie. Sidney Howard's screen adaptation expertly distilled Margaret Mitchell's rambling, compulsively readable novel into a concise 3 hour, 40 minute running time that amazingly captured all of the novel's dramatic high points. "Gone with The Wind" is obviously the reel version of the American Civil War as opposed to the real thing but as entertainment it is an unparalleled achievement in cinematic storytelling. Since its release in 1939 very few films of its kind have matched it in sweep and spectacle.

"Gone with The Wind" does show its age : its special effects look downright quaint to 21st century eyes but in its inexorable depiction of a particular American War and Peace it is unforgettable.

A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE is Steven Spielberg's most problematical film. Originally the brainchild of the late Stanley Kubrick , Spielberg took over writing and directing responsibilities after Kubrick's untimely passing in the spring of 1999. Years before Kubrick had read Brian Aldiss' Sci-fi short story SUPERTOYS LAST ALL SUMMER LONG , a futuristic tale of a grieving couple who 'adopt' a robotic boy in order to assuage the pain of losing their natural born son who lies in a coma and is confined to a cryogenic capsule until a cure can be found for his terminal condition. Set in the not-too-distant-future, in a world overrun by massive flooding due to global warming , strict family planning is enforced to modify the world population. Robots , or Mechas , become an increasingly large part of the population , serving in various capacities as domestic servants. When a brilliant scientist creates a new prototype, a robot that possesses tactile feelings and human emotions, trouble ensues. Film critics seemed to be split down the middle in assessing A.I. : they either loved it or hated it. The movie-going public had a more immediate response. The movie was one of Spielberg's rare financial failures. A.I. has the unmistakable look of a Kubrick film with its often symmetrically composed images, a hypnotic slightly futuristic music score reminiscent of 2001 and a cold, somewhat sterile set design that evokes his famous space epic and A Clockwork Orange. The film's visual effects are astonishing, particularly in a climactic sequence when Haley Joel Osment's robotic boy (an eerily effective performance) searches the ocean floor of a sunken metropolis in search of an unusual mother surrogate. A.I. falters badly when it tries to incorporate the famous Pinocchio fairy tale into its story : it's a clumsy device that simply doesn't work, although it does afford some oddly fascinating special effects.

Although A.I. is a failure, it is not an ignoble one. There are images in this movie that are hard to shake, and despite its clumsy storytelling devices, the movie manages to convey a sad, eerie power.

It seems hard to believe (among us aging Baby Boomers, that is)that the opulent film version of the famed Broadway musical "My Fair Lady" is nearing the 40th anniversary of its original release.

When the movie premiered at NY City's Criterion Theatre in late October of 1964, the excitement anticipating its release was almost equal to the commotion that greeted the opening of "Gone With The Wind" in 1939. Producer Jack L. Warner spared no expense in transferring the Lerner and Loewe musical adaptation of Shaw's stage play "Pygmalion" to the screen. At the then astronomical cost of 17 million dollars, the Warner Brothers Studio artisans created the Edwardian world of Covent Garden, 27A Wimpole Street and environs into some of the most spectacular indoor sets ever created for the movies. Veteran cinematographer Harry Stradling captured all this in glorious Technicolor and Super Panavision 70, his camera lovingly recording for posterity Cecil Beaton's sets and costumes, lavish embellishments of the Broadway show. George Cukor, Hollywood's much revered "Woman's Director" guided his actors to thoroughly professional performances, with Rex Harrison dominating the film with his unforgettable portrayal of phonetics expert Henry Higgins, that irascible middle-aged bachelor who wagers a bet with an eminent colleague that in three months he can pass off a hapless flower girl into a duchess at an Embassy Ball. That flower girl, played in the movie by the lovely Audrey Hepburn, was a huge casting bone of contention among critics and public alike. Jack Warner hired Hepburn despite protestations that the original Broadway Eliza Doolittle, Julie Andrews, should repeat her memorable stage performance. But Andrews had never acted in movies, and Warner wanted to hedge his bets with a known name and quantity. In one of the great ironies of movie history, Julie Andrews took Hollywood by storm, starring in Walt Disney's own expensive musical extravaganza, "Mary Poppins", which beat "Fair Lady' to the screen a month earlier. It was "My Fair Lady", however, that triumphed at the April 5th, 1965 Oscar ceremony, winning 8 Academy Awards including the coveted Best Picture prize. In a delicious moment of sweet revenge, Julie Andrews picked up the Best Actress award for playing the titular Mary Poppins, the magical English nanny of her own Edwardian England. The other great irony in all this was that Audrey Hepburn failed to receive a Best Actress nomination for her very able work in "Fair Lady ". The question will always remain whether Andrews would have made "My Fair Lady " a better film.

Perhaps so. But Hepburn is luminous, especially her transformation into a proper English Lady, where she really comes into her own. Her singing voice is dubbed by Marni Nixon, a prolific "ghost singer" for many actresses in film musicals who were not up to snuff in warbling demanding Broadway songs. Both "My Fair Lady" and "Mary Poppins" were the Crown Jewel entertainments of 1964, a time when the United States was still healing from the terrible emotional scars of the assassination of President Kennedy the year before. Some critics quibbled at the time that producer Warner embalmed "My Fair Lady" more than preserved it.

Yes, it's stagy in the old fashioned Hollywood sense of the word. It's also a Grand Show that in its original 70 mm presentation was a visual knockout, something hard to duplicate in this age of Home Theatre Entertainment. The movie preserves for posterity one of the most brilliant musicals ever created, and with Rex Harrison's Henry Higgins, one of the greatest stage performances of all time.

"Mystic River" is a film of vaulting ambition and director Clint Eastwood's brave attempt to make a great American Tragedy in a style not unlike Theodore Dreiser's fateful novels or Italian director Luchino Visconti's calamitous domestic dramas. That he partially succeeds is due in great part to a magnificent ensemble cast, a methodical, old fashioned deliberateness in the storytelling and a haunting music score (composed by Eastwood) that reverberates throughout the film like a memento of past sins and regrets.

Unfortunately "Mystic River" falls far short of greatness. Brian Helgeland's screenplay, based on Denis Lehane's compulsively readable crime novel, preserves the fascinating domestic drama but also retains much of the pedestrian dialogue that made the book little more than pulp fiction of a very average sort.

The story of three boyhood friends whose lives are forever intertwined by a traumatic childhood incident becomes a seemingly endless maze where the history of two working class Boston families are enmeshed in crimes of the past that echo into the present and inevitably the future. The great American playwright Eugene O'Neill was a master at dramatizing a particular family drama wherein his characters wore the past like a millstone around their necks. Clint Eastwood does the same thing here on an almost grander scale.

Where the movie trumps -up is in the trite exchange between characters, particularly in scenes involving a murder investigation and conversations between a distraught husband and wife. The faults of the novel are repeated to some degree in the film.

That being said, there is much to admire here. The performances by Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney are brilliant . Kevin Bacon does an admirable job with a rather hamstrung role as a cop assigned to a murder case. His scenes with Laurence Fishburne (another superb performance) are well acted but undermined by "Dragnet"-like dialogue that clashes with the more sobering domestic drama. Eastwood's deliberate pacing pays off at the finale. Much of the film is shot under gray skies and dimly lit nighttime scenes. A patriotic parade under a bright noonday sun seems like a strange coda to end this film, until the camera pans across the murky Mystic River at dusk , when all the power of this earnest but imperfect movie seems earned.

Capturing another Era on film can be a very tricky business. It takes more than meticulously recreating the interiors and costumes of a time gone by or reproducing the cultural behavior of people who lived way back when. What makes a "costume" or "period" film dramatically convincing and satisfying is a well written screenplay, one that ultimately focuses on character development above all else. In recreating the atmosphere of Wellesley College circa 1953, the filmmakers of "Mona Lisa Smile" have outdone themselves in appointing each scene with painfully accurate sets and props. The movie's soundtrack is awash with vintage songs blaring from radios and phonographs. "I Love Lucy" and a vintage game show grace a professor's appropriately early 50's TV monitor. So many artifacts are on display in this Eisenhower Era college drama that the picture almost seems embalmed in its own nostalgia. The more vintage cars that passed by, the more chintz covered sofas with matching pillows and wall paper that were on display, the less convinced I was that this story was taking place in 1953. The main problem with "Mona Lisa Smile" is that it is a film of poses. Nothing seems to live and breathe in this movie, not the sets, costumes or many of the actors. There isn't a sense of life happening outside this fictional Wellesley campus despite all the references to contemporary events of the time. There are a few exceptions. The movie is obviously a showcase for some very talented young actresses. Julia Roberts gives an appealing Star performance as Katherine Watson, a UCLA Art History professor arriving at her new post at Wellesley and confronted with a class of defiant students bent on intimidating the new teacher. Roberts' first class with her students is one of the best scenes in the film, a trying test of nerves that nearly gets the best of her. It doesn't take long however for the movie's script to resemble a paint-by-numbers Van Gogh paint set that Professor Roberts uses to make a point to her students about Life AND Art. Slowly but surely she wins the students over to her side but not without resistance from higher ups in the stuffy Halls of Academe. There comes a point in watching this film where the inevitable end seems truly inevitable, and it comes right on time before the movie begins to pall with a surfeit of length."Mona Lisa Smile" runs a merciful 100 minutes.

Mention must be made of several standout performances by actresses nearly able to surmount a very shallow script. Maggie Gyllenhaal is superb as a sexually adventurous Senior known for sleeping around with various professors; Julia Stiles is perfect as a girl brought up on the conventional wisdom that a woman must know her place in society, an irrationality renegade teacher Roberts tries her best to dispel . Marcia Gay Harden is both moving and pathetic as an Etiquette professor whose entire world is confined to living on campus, self-imprisoned in her apartment after classes and spending nights watching TV , resisting Roberts' pleas to go out for "a night on the town".

Director Mike Newell ("Dance With A Stranger", "Four Weddings And A Funeral") directs competently but the facile writing prevents "Mona Lisa Smile" from being little more than a mildly entertaining diversion.

For anyone who thinks that SPARTACUS and GLADIATOR are the definitive Hollywood accounts of Ancient Rome vs. Early Christians and the downtrodden I heartily recommend Alessandro Basetti's 1949 black and white Italian production of FABIOLA. Released in the Unites States a few years after its Italian premiere, the picture unfortunately was hacked to pieces so that it could afford more daily showings in theaters. What once was a nearly 3 hour epic was reduced to an incomprehensible 90 minutes. Nevertheless, the fairly large scope of the film manages to break through and the striking production design and visuals (even on a poor print in a less than satisfactory DVD transfer) somewhat make up for a severely truncated screenplay. A well-spoken English narration does help to tie the loose ends together. One can only imagine what the original cut of this film was like, but from the skeletal remains on view I suspect this was an above average sword and sandal epic.

Jame's Cameron's "Titanic" struck a chord with movie goers of all ages for one simple reason : it moved. As corny and implausible as the screenplay is, Cameron nevertheless seamlessly weaved historical fact with soap opera fiction to create a movie that hearkened back to Hollywood's Golden Age. Is "Titanic" the equal of "Gone With The Wind"? Not by several knots. But it is a monumental production by any standards and in 1997 was the most sensational thing to come down the pike since the glory days of David O. Selznick and David Lean. "Titanic" is a grand, immensely entertaining extravaganza.

David Lean's unforgettable 1946 film "Brief Encounter" set the standard for cinematic love stories concerning characters who meet by chance in way stations, be it the dingy train depot in "Encounter" or the austere luxuriousness of Tokyo's Hyatt Hotel in Sofia Coppola's new movie, "Lost in Translation". Nearly 60 years separate the two films and yet they share a kinship that makes both films unique. Unconsummated love is not a popular subject among today's screenwriters and even a classic on the order of "Brief Encounter" was met with some derision by critics and audiences alike. Seen in 2003, "Brief Encounter " still has the power to grip audiences with its tale of an unhappy suburban wife and mother who fatefully meets a London physician while waiting to take an afternoon train home and starts a timid affair with the man, himself married. Furtive meetings ensue until the woman , racked by guilt and self doubt, ends the relationship. In 90 minutes of sublime film-making, master director Lean transported his World War 2 audience into a world of newfound love, simultaneously exciting and dangerous and finally heartbreaking in its finality. A deceptively ordinary story of two "ordinary' people was made riveting through brilliant directing , acting, editing, scoring and sound.

Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation" does not reach the artistic level of David Lean's masterwork but it is a very good movie. From its ravishing opening shots of nighttime downtown Tokyo as observed by Bill Murray in a cab to the closing shot of another cab speeding away from the city leading Murray to the airport and home, this new film consistently engages the audience's attention, even when the screenplay seems almost non-existent. An American movie star in Japan to film a whiskey commercial, Bob Harris (Murray) arrives in a jet lag stupor from which he never seems to fully recover. Ensconced in Tokyo's spacious but sterile Hyatt Hotel, Harris gets only a fitful night's sleep, then arrives at the studio the next morning to film his whiskey commercial. This sequence, one of several, showcases Murray in spectacular fashion. An increasingly frustrated Japanese director and a genial translator try to convey to the American actor what they want in the scene. Murray's reactions are priceless. His performance in the entire film is a marvel and the best acting he has ever done.

Complimenting Murray beautifully is Scarlett Johannson as Charlotte, the young American wife of a roving photographer of a rock band. The couple is also staying at the hotel, with husband John often away on assignment. Lonely Charlotte, feeling neglected by John, meets Harris one night in the hotel bar, and an innocent friendship results. Harris is nearly 30 years older than Charlotte but their May -December romance is wistful and consists mostly of late night talks, spur of the moment adventures in the big city and sharing a bed fully clothed back at The Hyatt. Through all this director Coppola casts an observant but unobtrusive eye on the proceedings. The movie is very strong in capturing the cultural differences between American and Japanese sensibilities, often to hilarious affect. In fact Coppola's penchant for concise observation goes a long way in covering for the unsubstantial screenplay, some of it obviously improvised. However, the acting by the principals is so strong, and Ms. Coppola's direction so self assured that the story effortlessly glides along, despite a few detours along the way that threaten to stop the film in its tracks.

The crux of the story centers on the Murray/Johannson romance, and it is truly sweet. When Murray converses on his cell phone to his wife in The States, we are privy to enough information to know that the marriage has soured. Charlotte spends a lot of time at the beginning of the film sitting on her hotel window sill, looking down on the vast Tokyo cityscape, her eyes brimming with tears. This is a movie about two lonely souls looking for fulfillment. Technically superb, with dazzling color cinematography, gorgeously ambient sound and an eclectic music score, this loosely structured film ends on a fairly pedestrian note, but even so it is deeply moving.

Bill Murray's great performance has a lot to do with that, and he is ably abetted by the lovely Scarlett Johannson. When these two look in each other's eye's, it is the most sensuous sight imaginable.

You walk into the local Art House Cinema complex expecting to see a pleasant, quirky little foreign film about a modern day Maori girl who challenges her tradition based grandfather in the male oriented notions of ancient New Zealand Culture. As you pass the high priced candy counter offering expensive slices of assorted cakes and special coffees, you think at best the movie will have the air of one of those 4 o'clock After School T.V. Specials so popular with kids twenty years ago. As the lights dim and the movie starts, you look at the opening credit sequence and expect a National Geographic-type travelogue kind of experience, not an unpleasant way to spend an hour or two. But as the white letters inform of the cast and crew, they give way to an undulating close-up of an infinitely dark ocean surface. From that point on Niki Caro's WHALE RIDER holds you in thrall, as assured a piece of film-making as you will ever see. This is a deceptive movie, even though there is not a false note to be found in its entire 108 minute running time. It is deceptive in a thrilling way, as it slowly builds its story of a family patriarch whose beliefs in a culture and tradition dominated by men is challenged by a most unlikely source: his 11 year old granddaughter, a child born of a turbulent birth that has literally torn the family apart. As the little girl known as "Pai" grows, she becomes obsessed with her ancestry, a passion her loving but headstrong grandfather is incapable of stopping. So this seems to be very much a film about different generations, the old pitted against the young, fathers against sons, unquestioned creeds challenged by new interpretations. But WHALE RIDER is much more than a Family Drama per SE ; it has the mien of the otherworldly about it, immersed in the knowledge that Pai holds so dear of the Epic Odyssey of Paikea, borne by a whale and finding the dwelling place of New Zealand. As this young girl comes closer to seeking her own identity, the movie takes a turn into a flight of fancy that manages to be both enchanting and terrible in its beauty. WHALE RIDER is one of those unique films that defy description. As with the recent documentary WINGED MIGRATION, it is , among other things, a stunning example of the Art of Cinematography. The rugged beauty of the New Zealand coast is never far from view. It can be seen beyond the mundane backyards of Whangara, the seaside village where this movie was filmed.

When the camera dwells on the oceanfront itself, the ancient myth of Paikea becomes an almost certain reality, enhanced immeasurably by this film's superb use of sight and sound.

Technical perfection is one thing, but when great acting is added you have something very special. In the persona of young Keisha Castle Hughes, WHALE RIDER emerges as a timeless classic, a film that no doubt will be as moving 50 years from now as it is today. This astonishing child actress creates an unforgettable character, a little girl of dogged determination and heroic bravery who cherishes her cultural past with almost fanatical devotion.

Miss Hughes' performance is so monumental in fact, that talk of possible awards in the future seems beside the point. No one who sees this film will ever forget her school auditorium speech as she pays homage to her grandfather, represented by an empty chair in the audience. It's an incredible acting turn, not the least bit sentimental. It comes directly from the gut. WHALE RIDER is a movie that stays with you, with its lingering images of a majestic primordial seascape and a young girl gazing out at the ocean, as far as the eye can see.

From the opening credit sequence showing extreme close-ups of dental X-rays to its less than satisfying conclusion, THE SECRET LIVES OF DENTISTS manages to keep the audience on edge : not so much the edge of the seat as the edgy feeling one gets while waiting in the dentist's office with a bad toothache. Alan Rudolph directs this domestic Drama / Comedy / Satire in much the same manner that distinguished his disconcerting 1997 marital comedy AFTERGLOW. And like AFTERGLOW, this new film starts out strong but quickly falls apart, depending too much on fantasy sequences that fall flat or wear out their welcome with repetition. A husband and wife who share a dental practice seem to be living an ideal upper middle class life, but like the constant drone of those dentist drills, there are reverberations just under the service.

When husband David Hurst suspects that wife Dana is having an affair, his mind creates an inner-world of imagined trysts in which Dana revels uninhibitedly with co-workers and patients in the work place. An obnoxious patient from real life, a bellicose musician named Slater, also inhabits David's brain, and eventually takes on an unseen physical presence in the Hurst household. This character, played with characteristic pugnaciousness by Dennis Leary , becomes a "inner voice" for David. What may have once been typical family squabbles reach a fever pitch, literally, once Slater infiltrates his brand of aggression into the family dynamics.

Although this theatrical convention of the Invisible House Guest From Hell is amusing and works for awhile, it starts to pall as a full length plot device. An extended sequence of the Hurst family coming down with a nasty stomach virus loses its humorous impact once the bodily fluids start emitting a little more often than this viewer thought necessary ; a directorial suggestion for Mr. Rudolph : sometimes less is more! THE SECRET LIVES OF DENTISTS is saved in part by fine acting. Campbell Scott successfully conveys the insecurities and second-guessing of a cuckolded husband. Hope Davis is superb as the wife whose verbal inflections and body language leave no doubt that something is definitely going on. The Hurst offspring are brilliantly played by three little girls who perfectly capture the bratty qualities of kids no one in their right mind would ever want to baby-sit. The major caveat of this film is Dennis Leary's character. A menacing presence at the plot's beginning as an angry, dissatisfied dental patient, Slater wears out his welcome fast as a permanent house fixture. Watching THE SECRET LIVES OF DENTISTS is similar to expecting a teeth cleaning only to be told that a root canal is required.

Classic Americana and a coherent storyline meet an impasse on the road to NORTHFORK, the Polish Brothers' strikingly photographed but pretentious new movie. Time: 1955. A huge, Federally funded hydroelectric dam is about to engulf and bury forever a small Montana town under water. Ominous looking government agents, dressed funereally in long black coats and fedoras show up in a last ditch effort to evacuate the remaining inhabitants. These townsfolk are a diverse and peculiar lot : a sickly little boy abandoned by his parents and under the care of a slovenly priest ; a religious zealot who refuses to leave his Noah's Ark-like house; and four "Angels", seemingly ghosts from the last century who dwell in a dust laden Victorian mansion and offer hospitality to the little boy. All these characters live in a indescribably haunting setting conjured up by Mark and Michael Polish as an elegy to the past and the dearly departed. Death hangs like a drape cloth in nearly every frame of this movie, giving the eerily beautiful Montana landscape and buildings a dried bone skeletal look. Think Georgia O'Keefe without the flowers.

Unfortunately this magnificent tableaux is wasted on an esoteric screenplay that will infuriate many viewers. NORTHFORK is an incomprehensible mess, filled with enigmatic sentences, unclear character motivations and off-putting, flippant remarks. Director Michael Polish has a gifted camera eye but he needs to learn how to speak more clearly to his audience. Eloquent imagery isn't enough.

The experience of reading Laura Hillenbrand's SEABISCUIT is one of those rare instances where the right author and subject converge to give the mass readership an unforgettable interpretation of a famous historical character and the events that surrounded his life. The fact that the main protagonist is a diminutive Thoroughbred race horse whose nascent racing career was nearly ended by trainers who misunderstood the beast, and the resulting triumph of that beleaguered animal and his human cohorts who brought him to glory makes this Depression Era Saga all the more compelling. Hillenbrand's great narrative gift was to immerse the reader in another time and place, in this case the gritty, vivid world of America's Depression years. Spanning the entire decade of the 1930's, this true tale of a "little horse that could" becomes much more than just another horse story.

SEABISCUIT is really an Epic, covering the sweeping changes in the transportation industry as well as the dramatic events that shaped the first half of the Twentieth Century in America. How those industrial changes and social events are tied to the main characters in Hillenbrand's story makes for indelible reading.

SEABISCUIT has a narrative drive and epic sweep not unlike Margaret Mitchell's GONE WITH THE WIND.

In transferring this modern American Classic to the to the screen, director Gary Ross took on a daunting task. As Hillenbrand wrote it, the book covers an awful lot of ground. It starts with a young man on a train trip West with 21 cents in his pocket and ends 44 years later in the high country of California. It is peopled with unforgettable characters: Charles Howard , a former bicycle repair man who became an enormously wealthy automobile dealer ; his beloved second wife, Marcela, who turned Howard's life around after a family tragedy and became a savvy business partner in her own right ; Red Pollard, a down and out jockey who traveled the amateur racing circuit looking for his big break ; Tom Smith, a taciturn, tight-lipped horse trainer who had a secret communication with the equine world ; and George Woolf, the colorful, dashing jockey who raced into the History Books

The movie of SEABISCUIT is a horse of a very different color. Director Garry Ross has made a staid and stately film of Hillenbrand's book. Technically the movie is very impressive, with its beautifully composed panoramic shots, authentic sets and costumes. The acting by the main principals is hard to fault. Tobey Maguire, a master of understatement, does some real stretching here ; his Red Pollard is a scrappy, moving performance. Chris Cooper offers a more amiable take on the Tom Smith character.

Jeff Bridges plays Charles Howard with a sad eyed countenance. As for Seabiscuit , whatever alchemy created this equine character for the screen, it's a great portrayal. The nag is captured in all his moods, from stubborn and rebellious to cunning and victorious. Unfortunately, Ross's film is terribly disappointing. As impressive as the picture is in its physical recreation of the times, it trips up in what should be its most important element : the screenplay. The dialog spoken by the main characters is reduced to cliché ridden bromides. It's understandable that certain dramatic licenses are taken to make a filmed story work dramatically, but in this case there doesn't seem to be the "ring of truth' to the verbal exchanges. As a result it undermines the movie's authenticity and what emerges is a larger than life historical pageant that only occasionally moves and thrills. Nevertheless, SEABISCUIT does offer a glimpse into the American Past. It's an earnest and honorable effort but It's no substitute for Laura Hillenbrand's saga, a story teeming with the sights and sounds of The Depression and Thoroughbrd Racing on every page. And that is the great difference. The movie has no life of its own.

THE CORE is one of those big budget Science Fiction extravaganzas that is so bereft of excitement and imagination that it becomes an endurance test for the audience to sit through. No doubt the filmmakers had every intention of making this into a taut, edge-of-your -seat thriller ; the film's promising first half hour consists of two spectacular set pieces guaranteed to whet the viewer's appetite. The opening segment in Boston is a spectacular display of instant chaos, where the camera pans from an executive dropping dead in a skyscraper boardroom to the outside street where over a score of drivers and pedestrians are simultaneously stricken by some unknown phenomena. An even more impressive segment follows with what seems like thousands of pigeons haphazardly flying into buildings and windows or dropping dead in mid flight in downtown London. The cause? Apparently the earth's core has stopped spinning, which results in turbulent conditions on the planet's surface (earthquakes, tidal waves and intense electrical storms.) To the rescue come an eclectic assortment of scholarly and scientific types to save the world from imminent disaster. These characters are played by A-list actors in roles more suited for a cast in a B Movie. My only guess is that the likes of Hilary Swank (pretty, quick-thinking Astronaut) , Aaron Eckhart (hunky, disheveled Geophysicist professor) and Stanley Tucci (obnoxious , attention-seeking scientist) had time on their hands before their next big projects. Along with veteran players Alfre Woodard, Bruce Greenwood and Delroy Lindo, the entire cast gives it a game try but can't overcome the kind of pedestrian dialog that induces voluble wisecracks from theater audiences. Jules Verne did it much more effectively with his novel JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (and the old Pat Boone movie is far more entertaining!) The actual journey to the earth's core in this new film is strictly standard stuff, punctuated by scenes of the crew being pinned under heavy equipment at the worst possible moments, a sure sign that the director and scenarist are desperate for ideas.

Nondescript visual effects become visually monotonous very quickly ; granted, no one knows exactly what a journey like this would actually look like if it were even remotely possible, but a more fanciful imagination would have helped. Ironically, the only terror the movie produces in the audience is eerily unintentional.

The film opens with a space shuttle in crisis just before landing. A later scene involving The Golden Gate Bridge invokes an unsettling feeling that has nothing to do with the suspense on screen. THE CORE is a product of miscalculation on several levels.