kylopod Reviews

How to Murder Your Wife (1965)

Promised a goofy black comedy, we get instead a pedantic treatise on men's lib

[4/10 · 25 May 2011]

At one point in "How to Murder Your Wife," a doctor explains to the unhappily married Jack Lemmon that a pill he subscribes is perfectly harmless unless taken with alcohol. Mixed with liquor, it makes a person engage in strange behaviors before collapsing on the floor. Appropriately enough, the people who made this movie--including, incredibly, George Axelrod, the screenwriter for "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's"--must have slipped such a pill into their own drink before working on the film.

I mean it. Quite a few movies from the mid- to late-'60s were like this, showing the influence of, shall we say, something a bit more stimulating than the average pharmaceutical. And while this movie may not be as far out as "Magical Mystery Tour," it doesn't look like the work of a mind that was totally sober. The plot is absurdly illogical in an almost dreamlike fashion, and although it is presented as a comedy, it thinks it has stumbled upon deep truths about the war between the sexes.

Lemmon stars as a popular cartoonist who has performers play out the story-lines he devises, after which he uses photos from the act to help him draw his comic strip, a serialized adventure. This is an intriguing idea, and the scenes involving the design of his strip are the best parts of the film. I wish they had been attached to a movie that maintained this level of creativity throughout.

Lemmon wakes up one morning in bed with a beautiful Italian woman (Virna Lisi) and discovers that in a drunken stupor at a bachelor party the previous night, they had gotten married to each other. This is not exactly an original plot device, but it's something that normally comes at the end of a movie, as a kind of cinematic punchline. It makes for a weak opener, because it's a situation that should be easy to resolve. The lengths to which the characters go to avoid doing the obvious is a wonder to behold. The film is heavy on Idiot Plot--the problem that would go away instantly if the characters weren't idiots--and it continues well beyond the initial setup, all the way to the inane courtroom scene at the climax.

First, there's Lemmon's lawyer friend (Eddie Mayehoff) who is apparently the only lawyer alive in New York. How do we know? Well, for one thing, the mansion-dwelling Lemmon never once considers fishing for a new lawyer, despite the fact that this one is a cartoonishly inept milquetoast kept on a leash by his domineering wife. For another, in the course of the movie he will serve as different types of lawyers, of which criminal defense attorney is only the last.

Terry-Thomas, who narrates the early scenes, plays Lemmon's butler/manservant/photographer. Fearing that the marriage will upset their gay relationship (in the "happy" sense...perhaps), he threatens to quit if Lemmon doesn't have the marriage annulled, which of course is exactly what Lemmon wants to do but finds himself strangely unable to. This is where the film begins to get surreal and dreamlike, as Lemmon can't accomplish what should be an amazingly simple task because all the other characters keep talking loudly over him and not listening to what he has to say except to misunderstand it.

The filmmakers must have gotten so hung up on the central premise--a cartoonist thinking up ways to murder his wife--that they didn't bother to come up with a plausible path to get there. Logic and common sense get thrown to the wind so that the Lemmon character can dream up a murder scenario for a situation with several perfectly sensible alternatives.

I have to admit I expected the murder plot to be more fun. I imagined some elaborate Rube Goldberg scheme (this is a cartoonist, after all), or perhaps a series of plans that keep going wrong. Evidently, it's just not that type of comedy. It seems to promise a colorful outcome with its "gloppita-gloppita" machine shown in the first scene. Though crucial, the machine plays a smaller role than we might expect from a movie titled "How to Murder Your Wife." The film has other ambitions, and they come off heavy-handed and insulting.

Apart from its flaws as a comedy and its far-fetched plot, what really got to me was the film's shameless misogyny. It develops as its principal theme a sort of bizarro reverse feminism, calling for the men in American society to rise up and assert themselves against the women who have enslaved them in unhappy marriages. And this isn't just some self-consciously ironic attempt to turn women's lib on its head: the movie seems at least half-serious on this point. It attacks women's traditional roles not out of sympathy for the women, who are depicted as mindless but malevolent creatures, but to give the men the freedom to pursue their ambitions, such as hanging out with their buddies at their all-male clubs, in peace.

I'm used to seeing older movies with sentiments that now look a bit dated, but I wasn't sure what to make of this one. It came out at a time when many of the old gender stereotypes in Hollywood were breaking down. If the film was intended as a backlash, it's a pretty lame one. I don't know whether the weird scene in the courtroom at the end was supposed to be funny or inspiring, but it succeeds at being neither of those things, and it leaves us with a peculiar feeling of discomfort.

The 10th Kingdom (2000)

An entertaining, somewhat grownup take on bedtime stories

[8/10 · 18 January 2011]

Hallmark's miniseries "The 10th Kingdom" is not based on any book, and given the staleness of so many fantasy adaptations, that may be a good thing. But it is reminiscent of a range of novels, the kind where modern big-city dwellers find themselves thrust into a preindustrial and typically magical setting. It's a genre that has rarely been done well on screen and is usually the domain of outright camp like "Army of Darkness" (not that there's anything wrong with that). Yet here it is, a straightforward epic fantasy in this tradition, and it doesn't embarrass itself.

About a decade after its original airing, which I missed, I picked up the DVD intrigued but not excited, impressed by the big names in the cast but hardly expecting anything more than a reasonably competent production--at best. I remembered the unhappy experience of Sci-Fi Channel's "Legend of Earthsea," which not even Danny Glover and Isabella Rossellini could save from sheer awfulness. I also remembered Hallmark's solid if unmemorable "Gulliver's Travels" with Ted Danson. I assumed that was the best these sorts of projects usually got. Halfway through "The 10th Kingdom" I was hooked, realizing I had never seen a TV fantasy serial this good before, and savoring every moment.

It begins in the realm of "the nine kingdoms," where an evil queen (Dianne Wiest) plots to take over by transforming the king-to-be (Daniel Lapane) into a golden retriever. The Dog Prince escapes by jumping into a magic mirror, which turns out to be a portal to present-day Manhattan, and crashes into a young waitress (Kimberly Williams) riding her bike through Central Park. At first she thinks it is a stray, until she starts noticing its rather un-canine behavior, such as tracing messages in spilled flour. The queen sends three trolls and a wolfman named Wolf (Scott Cohen) after them. The Wolf sells the waitress's dad (John Laroquette) a magical bean in return for the address of her grandmother's apartment where the girl is headed. If you think you can guess what happens next, you're probably only partly right. Here as in elsewhere, the miniseries follows the fairy-tale conventions only to subvert them.

I was a little uncertain about these early scenes, especially those involving the dim-witted trolls who seemed to have stepped out of a Saturday morning cartoon. They tromp through New York, or what they call "the tenth kingdom," calling each other "you idiot" and puzzling over such sorcerous objects as cars, boomboxes, and elevators. But the series picks up pace when the waitress and her dad, accompanied by the Dog Prince, enter the alternate world, where the classic tales of Grimm exist as historical events from a couple of centuries before. "Happy ever after didn't last as long as we'd hoped," the Dog Prince sullenly observes. The Wolf, appearing at first as a sort of Jim Carrey-esque comical villain, soon makes a hilarious and scarcely believable transformation into a fascinating character who dominates the whole story. Meanwhile, the queen sends a menacing Huntsman (Rutger Hauer) to track the group down, wielding an enchanted crossbow guaranteed to kill a living being every time it is fired.

The miniseries cruises through these events with a confidence in tone that screen fantasies often fail to achieve. It strikes a balance between seriousness and silliness, creating an involving and often funny adventure that grows in complexity as the protagonists traverse the different kingdoms. Some elements are more or less predictable, such as the way the mirror that will lead them home always manages to stay just beyond their reach. But the story has a couple of real surprises along the way, and as the Wolf character becomes the focus of attention, we realize we don't want the girl and her father to return home just yet; what's happening in this realm is more compelling.

Among the funniest scenes are their encounters with a blind, demented woodsman, a singing ring, and a trippy swamp with talking mushrooms swaying to "A Whiter Shade of Pale." We meet a few fairy-tale celebrities including a zaftig Snow White (Camryn Manheim) and a 200-year-old Cinderella (Ann-Margret), but most of the time the miniseries settles for more indirect references, such as a logical question that somehow never crops up in most tellings of "Rapunzel."

But "The 10th Kingdom" is not a "Shrek"-style parody. For one thing, while it isn't anywhere near as dark a subversion of fairy tales as "Pan's Labyrinth" or Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm," much of it seems aimed at adults, despite its being labeled in many places (including the DVD cover) as a family film. (That may be one reason for its poor ratings: people were unsure who the intended audience was.) For another, it takes the fantasy part seriously. It vividly imagines the nine kingdoms with their own history and rules, and although many of the elements will be familiar to those well-versed in the fantasy genre, they frequently come with a twist. (Even something as obvious as the werewolf legend is handled in an interesting manner, emphasizing the psychological over the physical.) As usual, the magic never works quite as well as it is advertised: it's unreliable, or unpredictable, or dangerously addictive.

With high production values and a supporting cast full of British character actors, "The 10th Kingdom" has the mark of quality. But it wouldn't have amounted to much if the story weren't compelling. There are several things that make it work: a warm, natural chemistry between Laroquette, Williams, and Cohen, as the father, the daughter, and the enigmatic Wolf; two juicy villain performances by Wiest and Hauer; and a continual inventiveness on the part of the filmmakers, who seem to have put much thought into the subject of fairy tales, but who didn't let their hard work stop them from taking many risks with the material, making the story a lot more fun than it had to be.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)

Well, the fans asked for it, and they got it

[8/10 · 22 November 2010]

Ever since the release of the first Harry Potter movie in 2001, I've wondered how a TV miniseries of the books would have fared. The movies so far have had difficulties showing enough of the books' events within a reasonable time slot to keep the story flowing. They've all had to omit significant plot points, which has not only disappointed the more literal-minded fans but risked the integrity of the story. This was most painfully evident in the fifth movie, "Order of the Phoenix," which awkwardly attempted to fit the longest Potter book into just 2 hours and 15 minutes of film. The result was a movie that felt choppy and barely coherent, almost dreamlike. The two best films up to now--the third and the sixth--worked in part because they took the most risks, often departing substantially from the narrative of the books, to the consternation of many fans. I was not one of the fans complaining, because I figured that as long as it wasn't a miniseries, the best approach was to interpret the story rather than present the events exactly as they appeared in the books.

Dividing the seventh book into two movies has given a taste of what a miniseries might have been like. "Deathly Hallows: Part 1" is a more faithful adaptation than any of the previous films. This surprised me a little, because the portion of Book Seven it covers is actually longer than the entirety of some of the earlier books. (As I was rereading it a few months ago, I correctly guessed where they'd end Part 1--it's at an important turning point in the story that occurs close to the two-thirds mark.) Most of the film's sequences are exactly as I had envisioned them, and sometimes better than I had envisioned them. I especially liked its approach to the Riddle-Hermione scene, to the matter of protective enchantments around their camp (which is handled with a nice dose of spookiness), and to a spell that distorts a character's face. Apart from the oversimplification of a few plot details here and there, any flaws in the story come straight from the book. The two-and-half-hour movie drags at some points, but then so did the book, particularly in the forest scenes. The plot concerns Voldemort's takeover of the wizarding world and pursuit of Harry, who goes into hiding with Ron and Hermione but repeatedly endangers them and himself in his daunting efforts to find and destroy a set of objects that keep Voldemort immortal, aided only by a few enigmatic clues Dumbledore has left him.

It is not a very accessible film for non-fans. People who haven't read or seen any of the previous installments will probably be lost. It never once pauses to explain the Harry Potter universe or anything about the background to these tumultuous events, not even a prologue like the one that began the third of Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" films. The good news is that it doesn't condescend to the audience. The bad news is that if you don't know or can't remember things like what a horcrux is or what happens when you point a wand at someone and say "Obliviate," you might have trouble following the story.

As a fan, however, I loved it. It's just well-filmed, and I had notably fewer complaints about acting and special effects than I had for the previous movies. The CGI is relatively unobtrusive, and there aren't too many fake-looking moments. (The house-elves look especially good this time.) Ralph Fiennes finally appears to have settled into the role of Voldemort, after having delivered somewhat phoned-in performances previously. The kids, who get to dominate more scenes than in any of the other films, when their presence was counterbalanced by a plethora of seasoned British performers who are mostly absent here, have really grown into their roles. They were well-cast from the start and always had a certain raw talent, but early in the series they possessed some of the amateur qualities common to young actors. They have become increasingly proficient as the series has progressed (which I suspect was what the studio intended when it eschewed the tradition of casting older actors in child roles). Here they display the kind of camaraderie that can only be developed gradually, after having acted together in several films, and it makes the scenes that deal with their relationship feel natural and unforced.

I actually look forward to seeing the movie again at some point, just so I can sit back and take in more of the details. I think I didn't appreciate it enough the first time, distracted as I was by my knowledge of what happens in the book and the lack of any significant divergence in the film's depiction. There is not a lot in this film that will surprise fans; the enjoyment comes from seeing how vividly it is all brought to life.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

A great Harry Potter movie for fans, if not fanboys

[8/10 · 9 August 2009]

A reviewer for the Washington Post described "Half-Blood Prince" as a Harry Potter movie for non-fans. As a Harry Potter fan myself, I not only loved this film but thought it was one of the best of the Potter movies, rivaled only by the third, "Prisoner of Azkaban," directed by Alfonso Cuaron. The reviewer was confusing fans with fanboys. Of all the movies, this one is probably the least faithful to the source material. It eliminates large sections, makes subtle changes to what it does show, and includes one violent sequence that sharply contradicts the book. Fanboys (who are not, I should mention, all male) are deeply bothered by this, because they want the movies simply to replicate the events of the books on screen. Of course that would be impossible, unless each film was at least five hours long. The best they can hope for is what director Chris Columbus did with the first two films, stuffing as many events as he could manage into two-and-half-hour slots.

I, as a fan and non-fanboy, want the movies to bring the story to life, and to do that, sometimes it is necessary to depart from the literal narrative of the books. I want a movie that can stand alone and be judged on its own terms, without depending on prior knowledge of the book. In one particularly awkward moment from the previous film, "Order of the Phoenix," a character references the code names from the Marauder's Map, a plot point that had never been mentioned before in the films. Those who haven't read the books will have no idea what the character is talking about.

"Half-Blood Prince" is actually my least favorite of the books. It has an ungainly plot, it feels transitional, and it ends with a shocking but infuriatingly ambiguous climax. There is relatively little action, much of the plot centering on meetings between Harry and Dumbledore, in which the two enter the pensieve--a magical item that lets them relive various people's memories. In this book, they are attempting to piece together the dark wizard Voldemort's past to figure out a way to defeat him.

Dumbledore has hired a new Potions teacher named Slughorn who once taught at Hogwarts when Voldemort was a student. Dumbledore wants Harry to befriend the man so that he will divulge information he has been hiding. This task may be easier than it sounds, for Harry gets hold of a Potions textbook with notes, mysteriously attributed to the "Half-Blood Prince," that make him a star pupil in Slughorn's class. Meanwhile, Harry suspects Draco Malfoy and Snape of secretly working for Voldemort and plotting against Dumbledore. But Dumbledore trusts Snape completely and refuses to listen to Harry's warnings.

The book also deals with Harry's budding love life. Harry begins to find himself attracted to Ron's sister Ginny (who had a crush on Harry when she was younger). There's just one problem: Rowling never bothers to give Ginny a personality. I almost got the sense that Harry courts her because he wants to marry into the Weasley family. I would have preferred to see Harry hook up with a better-developed character, such as the flaky Luna Lovegood.

The movie follows this basic plot outline, but excludes many of the details. We don't get to see, for example, the memories of Voldemort's ancestors, an excursion in the book that answers some questions but hardly advances the plot. We do get to see Voldemort as a child, played wonderfully by an 11-year-old actor named Hero Fiennes-Tiffin. But the movie is not all plot; it remembers to put in the small moments that bring the characters to life: the conversations between the kids, and their interactions with beloved characters like Professor McGonagall and Hagrid (who gets a funny little scene involving the recently deceased giant spider from the second film).

A few subtle changes work nicely. While the movie is unable to make Ginny into a more compelling character, it gives her a greater role in certain crucial events. As in the book, Ron gets a girlfriend and makes Hermione jealous, but the movie has a well-conceived scene in the hospital ward that satisfyingly addresses this tension. The book depicts two apparently unrelated incidents involving the appalling combination of an invisibility cloak and a "body-bind" curse. The second time it happens, it seems like dramatic overkill. The film finds a better way to handle it.

The acting and visuals are nearly perfect, making this the first Harry Potter movie with no overacting (though I continue to be underwhelmed by Michael Gambon's Dumbledore) or phony special effects (though Robbie Coltrane still does not make a convincing giant). I reserve particular praise for Rupert Grint, as Ron. I always thought he was the least impressive of the three main kids. Here, he's terrific, especially in a scene where he becomes enspelled. Also noteworthy is Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy; there are many effective scenes where the camera pans over his face and we sense the inner conflict in his character. The eminent Jim Broadbent, as the movie's guest star, brilliantly captures the personality, if not the appearance, of the flutter-brained Slughorn.

At 153 minutes, the film is continuously compelling as well as entertaining, despite the introspective tone and scattershot events. Nobody is more surprised than I am, for the director is David Yates, whose previous venture into the series, "Order of the Phoenix," was by far the worst Harry Potter movie. The pacing was choppy, and the direction of crucial scenes was amateurish and clichéd. I was disappointed when I first learned that Yates was chosen to direct the remaining films in the series. Here, he has redeemed himself, and with it my confidence that the movies will continue to do justice to Rowling's books.

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Perfecting Baum's vision

[10/10 · 24 July 2009]

A book I was once reading referred to Frank Baum's use of a dream as a narrative device--revealing the author's ignorance that Baum's novel depicted Oz as a real place, not a dream. The idea that it was a dream was an innovation of the 1939 movie. I'm always amazed at how many people haven't read the novel and make mistakes like that. It's one of the most popular and enduring stories of modern times, yet it's remembered mostly through the 1939 film.

Ironically, Baum disliked the "It was all a dream" convention in literature. I agree with him. It's a convention that usually seems contrived. "Wizard of Oz," however, is a a rare example of a film that makes it work. One of the movie's secrets, I believe, is that it keeps the idea in the background most of the time and doesn't dwell on it. Dorothy's Oz experience is far too coherent and stable to plausibly represent a dream. It isn't like "Alice in Wonderland," a meditation on absurdity. Since it's adapted from a straightforward fantasy, the events are impossible but not absurd, magical but not nonsensical.

That's why it works so well. Too many filmmakers today think they have to present dreams as, well, dreamlike, full of weird and disconnected imagery. That may be realistic, but it doesn't make for good storytelling. As a result, movies about dreams usually range from turkeys like the John Candy comedy "Delirious" to bizarre tours de force like Richard Linklater's "Waking Life." Few movies treat the subject in a nonchalant, offhand fashion, the way "Wizard of Oz" did.

Granted, occasional scenes in the 1939 film do feel a little dreamlike. There is, for example, the "lions, tigers, and bears" sequence, where as soon as Dorothy thinks a frightening thought, it immediately happens. Then there's the scene where Dorothy can't remember why Scarecrow and Tin Man, both versions of workers from her Kansas farm, seem so familiar to her. Fortunately, however, the movie avoids anything strange or off-the-wall. We can take the story at face value even as our knowledge that it's a dream gives it an added psychological dimension.

The Oz sequences are broadly faithful to the book, though they do not include some of Dorothy's later adventures. Partly as a result of this trimming, the movie feels less episodic and more focused, with a certain depth the book lacked. Glinda, a composite of two relatively minor characters from the book, has a godlike, deus ex machina quality here, and there's a sense that she is watching over Dorothy the whole time. By placing Dorothy's final confrontations with the Wicked Witch and the Wizard near the end of the story rather than the middle, the film draws greater attention to their significance.

Most important, the movie creates a whole new storyline for the Kansas section. All these early scenes--Dorothy's feeling unloved by her caretakers, Dorothy's hanging out with the three farmhands, Dorothy's attempting to rescue her dog Toto from the ghastly Miss Gulch--were invented for the film. Yet they provide the setup for Dorothy's Oz experience, where she will meet versions of the people she knew in Kansas. This not only fleshes Dorothy out as a character, but adds meaning to the Oz sequences. She yearns to be taken away to a faraway land, only to discover that once she's there she faces simply a fanciful version of the problems she was running away from at home.

The book, in contrast, gave hardly any detail about Dorothy's Kansas life. Baum's Dorothy was consequently a more passive character, victim to circumstances beyond her control, and her journey to Oz was merely a random, insane event with no bearing on anything other than that it made for an entertaining tale. The movie gave her a will and purpose that Baum's protagonist never had. When she mournfully longs to be sent home, it resonates more strongly than in the book because we know the real cause of her separation wasn't the tornado but her own actions.

Adapting the book to the screen thus involved a bundle of wise decisions, made all the more impressive because when you read about what was happening behind the scenes, you're struck by how much could have gone wrong. The film went through no fewer than five directors. Judy Garland was first told to play Dorothy with a blonde wig and baby-doll makeup. "Over the Rainbow" was almost cut from the film. Margaret Hamilton suffered severe burns from a scene where she disappears in a cloud of smoke, the original actor to play Tin Man had to quit when his face paint made him ill, and the dog playing Toto had to be replaced after an actor stepped on the animal. These stories, which have been part of Hollywood lore for many decades, make the filming of "Wizard of Oz" sound more like a comedy routine than the creation of a classic.

As an expensive, high-tech production for its time, the movie could easily have lost sight of its spirit, as so many big-budget spectacles today do. Instead, it not only remained true to Baum's vision but infused it with additional layers of meaning that speak to people of all ages, in all generations. If you've never read the book, I encourage you to do so, if for no other reason than to gain a greater appreciation for what the movie accomplished.

Lady in the Water (2006)

A good Giamatti performance can't save a flat and convoluted story

[3/10 · 6 September 2007]

Shyamalan has had his ups and downs as a filmmaker, but all his previous films have been dependable in at least one sense: no matter how confusing they became, they always ended up revolving around a simple idea. "Lady in the Water" breaks that pattern, featuring a convoluted story that piles one arbitrary development upon another until finally losing any semblance of a coherent structure. The premise involves a youthful sea nymph who becomes trapped in the human world and must make her way back to her realm (which the film unwisely calls "the Blue World"), avoiding a wolf-like creature that stands in her path. She falls into the life of a lonely middle-aged superintendent (Paul Giamatti) by appearing one night in his swimming pool, stark naked. Any disturbing sexual overtones are kept in the background. This is a bedtime story, after all.

She is a "narf," the wolf-thing is a "scrunt," and she must wait for an eagle called the "Great Eatlon" before she can return home. Each of the apartment tenants has a specific role to play in the process. If any of this sounds bewildering, the movie does little to clear up the confusion. The film's rather forced attempts at allegory--such as naming the sea nymph "Story"--only further prevent this magical world from coming alive. It's just a tangle of exotic names and arbitrary rules.

Giamatti learns most of these details from an Asian woman who, due to some unexplained connection, knows a fairy tale describing Story's predicament. The woman speaks no English, however, and can communicate with Giamatti only through her daughter. This contrived plot device serves one purpose only, and that is to keep Giamatti from learning the necessary details all at once.

Ever since Shyamalan's film "The Sixth Sense" came out, I've heard occasional detractors complain that they figured out the main plot secret early on. My response is, well, good for you. That only shows that the secret was well-planted. (Or that these people are good liars who don't want to admit they were fooled.) Good plot twists always rest on sound logic, giving the audience an opportunity to anticipate them even if they are cleverly concealed. "Lady in the Water" is unpredictable in a bad way, surprising us without rhyme or reason--and that's ironic considering the movie's message about there being a purpose in everything.

Shyamalan is a religious man. He believes strongly that the universe is not random, and he uses this belief as an excuse for lazy storytelling, plugging in plot coincidences that are supposed to seem foreordained but which instead seem unconvincing because we're conscious of how he's manipulating the events. To put it another way: You can't prove God's existence by proving the storyteller's existence.

I've seen other movies handle the topic of cosmic coincidence more believably than he does. His problem, present in "Wide Awake" and "Signs" as well as this film, is that he so fervently wants the audience to see meaning in the events that he doesn't allow for any other interpretation, and this limits his possibilities. He's one of the few Hollywood filmmakers willing to tackle the subject of religion and faith, but I wish he took a less dogmatic approach.

The movie has another serious problem. All fantasies set in the contemporary world have to deal with the fact that people today do not generally believe in the supernatural. In most movies of this sort, the protagonist can scarcely believe what's happening, and all the other characters think he's crazy. That's not the only way of handling this plot convention, but "Lady in the Water" doesn't bother handling it at all. Giamatti never doubts that Story is a sea nymph, and the apartment tenants believe what he's saying almost immediately. None of the characters react the way we'd expect from ordinary human beings in such circumstances.

The most absurd character, by far, is a film critic played Bob Balaban, brought into the movie for some rather unsubtle digs at that profession. His presence leads eventually to a "Scream"-inspired moment of self-referential horror, designed to provide humor at a point when we're least expecting it, but managing to shatter the movie's already shaky sense of reality. If Charlie Kaufman's "Adapatation" represents the best that the self-referential genre has given us, "Lady in the Water" falls well at the bottom. It shows how awkward this conceit can become if handled clumsily.

Giamatti is a fine actor, and the core of sympathy he brings to his character makes the film watchable even as the events around him become increasingly ludicrous. His performance is all the more remarkable when you consider that his character is underwritten. He has some terrible experiences in his past (paralleling those of the Mel Gibson character in "Signs"), but he never feels fleshed out.

Bryce Dallas Howard, as the sea nymph, disappointed me, especially after her promising turn in "The Village." In that film, her clipped and stilted speech was part of the faux-nineteenth-century effect that the movie wanted to evoke. Here it's out of place, and it makes her character distant and hard to relate to, which is fatal to her relationship with Giamatti.

Shyamalan still does a good job creating mood and atmosphere in many scenes. But the film is plagued by so many flaws that I'm not sure it ever could have worked. The storyline is intrinsically artificial and contrived, and he doesn't build up enough of a human base that we can overlook this fact.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

An adaptation that cannot stand on its own

[6/10 · 30 July 2007]

It's been years since I wrote the following words in my user comment for the first Harry Potter movie: "I enjoyed this movie immensely. But...I'll never know how I'd have reacted had I seen this movie without having read the books." By now, I must admit that the movie has held up well over all those years. It is a superior fantasy, despite my reservations about Chris Columbus's directorial style.

Unfortunately, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is not likely to hold up well in the future. It has precisely the problem that I worried the first film would have: it seems designed for those who have already read the book. Those who haven't will be confused out of their mind. Necessary plot connections are left out, and the relevance of certain material is never explained. One pivotal scene even references a particular character's code name from the Marauder's Map, something that has never been mentioned before in the movie series and which will make no sense at all to non-readers. And yet, as a reader, I did enjoy the film. I once called the first Harry Potter movie a "preview of the book," but this one fits that description much more.

Part of the problem is not the movie itself, but the gradual decline of the books. In "Order of the Phoenix," the series lost much of its sense of fun as it got bogged down in the ongoing story. It contained a few elements I really liked, amidst pages of matters I found unappealing. What held it together was a wonderfully horrible villainess, Professor Umbridge, who functions as a satire of England's educational system. Even as an American, I can relate to the criticism of schoolteachers who favor theory over practice, preferring textbook assignments to practical skill-building. In the Harry Potter universe, that leaves the students in mortal peril, keeping them from learning the skills they need to protect themselves against Voldemort, the super-villain whom Umbridge, a puppet of the magical government, denies has returned. Harry creates a secret club to teach students how to defend themselves. All the while, Umbridge inflicts a reign of terror on the school, with harsh and sometimes painful punishments for anyone--student and teacher alike--who steps out of line.

At 870 pages, it is the longest Harry Potter book, and I believe it should have been cut down. The manner in which Harry languishes through the ordeal becomes monotonous, with long sections in which not much happens. By contrast, the movie is the shortest in the series so far, less than 2 hours and 15 minutes if you don't count the credits. I expected this condensation to benefit the film, but instead it makes the whole proceedings choppy. Just a few minutes of extra screen time could have substantially improved the coherence. It gives me a greater appreciation for how the third movie--still by far the best one--achieved the paradoxical effect of streamlining the story while seeming richer and fuller in some ways.

I have never heard of the director, David Yates, and I don't understand why he's already been chosen to direct the next Harry Potter film. The series has already had two skillful directors, Alfonso Cuarón and Mike Newell, each brought on for just one film. Maybe Harry Potter directors face the same Catch-22 as James Bond actors, namely that anyone good enough for the job has better things to do in their career.

Yates makes a mixed impression at best. He gives the film some of the most unoriginal imagery the series has yet seen, drawing upon old horror movie conventions as Harry is haunted by dreams and visions of Voldemort. The technical credits show some lack of continuity with the previous films. A couple of creatures look different, and John Williams' charming score has been inexplicably replaced by a more generic one.

On the bright side, the performances are mostly quite good. Familiar cast members like Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, and Gary Oldman continue to bring warmth and style to their roles. Daniel Radcliffe maintains his natural, understated performance that goes well with the introspective tone of the story. Actors I have not admired as much, such as Rupert Grint as Harry's friend Ron, and Michael Gambon as Dumbledore, seem to have improved significantly. There are also some impressive newcomers to the series: Evanna Lynch as the flaky Luna Lovegood, Helena Bonham Carter as the Wicked Witch-like Bellatrix Lestrange, and Imelda Staunton, who seems to provide a perfect embodiment of the short and shrill Umbridge. The weakest link is Ralph Fiennes, whom I suspect spent no more than a day filming his scenes as Voldemort. He seems to disappear into the makeup, making me wonder what was the point of bringing such an esteemed actor to this role.

The movie has some nice touches that weren't in the book, such as Umbridge's office being lined with moving photographs of meowing cats (I suspect that Yates is a cat lover, like myself) and Filch crowding the walls with Umbridge's inquisitorial decrees. But my favorite scene from the book--Dumbledore's hilarious exit--is truncated here and considerably less effective. Other crucial scenes seem to have no purpose except for setting up what is to come in the later films. Overall, this is the worst Harry Potter adaptation to date.

Cloak & Dagger (1984)

Hitchcock for kids

[7/10 · 10 July 2007]

It's quite an experience watching a movie that you haven't seen since childhood. Your memories of the film are filtered through an innocent perspective you no longer possess, and as you watch the film again you're struck by how different it looks to you now, even as the memories flood back.

Some of my favorite films from childhood, like "The Neverending Story," have not stood up well as I've grown older. Others, I've found, have been enhanced by my adult perspective. "Cloak & Dagger" falls in the latter category. Interestingly, my overall opinion of the film has not changed. Back in 1984, I perceived it as a good but not great film. I still perceive it that way.

At age seven, I enjoyed how the movie blurred the line between fantasy and reality. That's one of the techniques that make for good children's movies, the recognition that a child's fantasy life can feel as real as anything else happening around him. And movies in which the child's fantasies literally come true seem like vindication to young viewers.

Henry Thomas of "E.T." fame plays a youngster mourning his mother's death by escaping into a fantasy world of adventure games. He has an imaginary friend called Jack Flack, a suave super-spy with a passing resemblance to the boy's father (Dabney Coleman, in a wonderful dual role). The father, a hardened Air Force pilot, loves his son but wants him to grow up, telling him that real heroes are those who put food on the table, not those who go around shooting people. That may seem a harsh thing to say to a child, but the boy does appear to be having psychological problems, unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality even though he's old enough to know the difference. So when he witnesses the actual murder of an FBI agent, who slips him a video game cartridge right before dying, the boy is the last person anyone will believe. He knows the murderers will be after him next, but how will he get his dad to believe him soon enough to stay home from work the next day?

What's nice about the film is the seamless way it combines the conventions of adult thrillers and children's adventures. The child as the murder witness whom no one will believe is a setup that would have made Hitchcock proud. I'm sure the filmmakers realized the connection, for there are many nods to Hitchcock, including a visual allusion to "Vertigo" as the murder victim plummets down a long stairway, and a plot that combines elements of "Rear Window" and "North by Northwest." Like the latter, the movie greatly exploits its locale. Viewers who have been to San Antonio will recognize many of the places, including the River Walk, the setting for a unique chase scene.

Then there is the MacGuffin of the "Cloak & Dagger" cartridge itself, a special copy containing information important to the bad guys (whom the kid perceives to be spies, but who may simply be mobsters). The Atari game looks quite primitive today, and the scenes in which the boy calls upon his geek friend (William Forsythe) to crack the code will probably not impress those who take interest in computer espionage. But that hardly matters. The filmmakers understand, as Hitchcock did, that the MacGuffin is there only to move the plot along, and is not independently important.

As the boy evades the villains, Jack Flack keeps appearing and giving him kernels of advice. Although we realize that Flack won't say anything the boy doesn't already know, he helps the boy keep his calm and use his ingenuity to defeat some dangerous men, while gradually learning he doesn't need an imaginary friend. This isn't like "Home Alone" where the villains are portrayed as cartoon idiots. The movie takes its relatively uncomplicated plot seriously and manages to make some sense, without feeling manufactured. While it doesn't pretend to be realistic, it does grow out of the basic truth that adults don't take kids as seriously as they should.

The movie also confirms, once again, that Henry Thomas was one of the best child actors of all time. A lesser actor could have easily sunk this movie, as indeed Christina Nigra, playing the girl next door, almost does. She is cute, but can't act to save her life. Thomas never feels like he's acting, and as a result we almost can believe in the absurd events even when we watch the movie as adults, long having set aside our own childhood fantasies.

Ushpizin (2004)

A wonderfully authentic portrayal of Hasidic Jews, but also a compelling story in its own right

[9/10 · 22 April 2007]

"Ushpizin" surpassed even my high expectations. I had heard it described by friends and family as one of the few movies ever to portray Hasidic Jews in a completely sympathetic and non-patronizing light. But it's so much more than that. What surprised me most was that it possesses some psychological depth. It's the type of film where you keep going back and reexamining character motives, gaining new insight with each viewing.

The story involves a rehabilitated criminal named Moshe (Shuli Rand) who has become a Breslover Hasid living in the Old City of Jerusalem. As the film begins, the Sukkot holiday is approaching, and he doesn't have enough money to prepare for it, having been passed over for a stipend. His wife Malli (Michal Bat-Sheva Rand) has not conceived after five years of marriage. He implores God to help them out, in what may be the most intense depiction of prayer I have ever seen in a movie. Then things start to happen. In a random act of charity (a common practice among Orthodox Jews), someone slips a thousand dollars under his door while only Malli is home. Out in the street, Moshe bumps into Ben Baruch, a sort of village idiot, who claims to have found Moshe a free Sukkah (the ceremonial hut that religious Jews eat and sleep in during the week-long holiday). What Moshe does not know is that the Sukkah was stolen from a neighbor.

Moshe and Malli think that their prayers have been answered. But the gifts are only the start of their problems. A pair of escaped convicts from Moshe's past life show up at his door, surprised at the direction he has taken in life. While not entirely comfortable, he invites them to stay with him for the duration of the holiday, according to a tradition to have ushpizin, or guests, on Sukkot. Meanwhile, he uses some of the money to purchase a very expensive etrog, or citron, the lemon-like fruit used for ritual purposes on the holiday.

The elements of this story fit well with Jewish teachings, including a tradition of stories stretching back to the Bible itself, involving people who are tested by being sent difficult guests. God, in this scheme, listens to prayers but is not a wish-maker. Every "miracle" is only the beginning of new challenges.

But "Ushpizin" is not just a simple religious fable. It has surprising layers of depth. This is partly due to director Giddi Dar, a secular Jew who interprets the story on a psychological level. Nothing overtly supernatural happens in the film. The religious motif depends on finding meaning in a series of apparent coincidences, all skillfully woven into the story in a way that never feels contrived.

The funny thing about character development is how crucial it is to most fiction, yet how rare it is in real life. People are usually set in their ways. Bad habits, such as a fiery temper, die hard. Criminals do get rehabilitated, often by religious communities, but a cynic might suggest that such individuals are simply channeling their aggression in a new direction. There's probably some truth to that assumption. "Ushpizin" recognizes these issues, amid its upbeat tone. What Moshe must ultimately learn is that he can't escape his past until he's truly confronted his own weaknesses. Morality comes not just from caring. It requires some level of struggle.

The production values of this complex yet entertaining tale are nicely high. Every shot has the mark of quality. A scene where several characters become drunk (possibly the basis for the movie's very mild PG rating) is portrayed with a subtly wobbling camera. The acting is strong all around, but the most astonishing performance comes from Michal Bat-Sheva Rand, a former theater director who never acted before this film. She took the role in accordance with her religious modesty standards, so that no one but Shuli Rand's actual wife would play his wife. With her intensely expressive face, she steals the film.

The character she plays is a tower of strength, which may come as a surprise to those people who imagine Hasidic women as weak and passive. The movie tears down negative stereotypes without ever seeming to try. It doesn't come off as the type of movie that's trying to prove anything. It is informative without being pedantic. And it is an amazing accomplishment from so many directions.

Eight Below (2006)

Good technical achievement, artificial storytelling

[5/10 · 18 February 2007]

"Eight Below" gave me a clue why I tend to dislike animal movies even though I love animals in real life. Like most movies of its kind, it makes the animals seem a bit too much like people. That misses the point of what drives us animal lovers.

The beginning of the film, sort of a prologue, concerns a professor (Bruce Greenwood) searching for a meteorite in Antarctica. He is guided by a scientist (Paul Walker) with a team of sled dogs, as a storm approaches. It is almost obligatory in a movie like this for there to be a sequence where a character falls into the ice. Here we get two such sequences in a row, the second a lot more interesting than the first. It is the second that provides the movie's best line: "Don't tread water! Grab onto the ice! You'll freeze to death slower than drowning!" The manner in which the rescue takes place makes the film momentarily seem like "MacGyver on Ice."

When the research team gets evacuated, they're forced to leave the dogs behind because the plane has only enough room for the people. That begins the main section of the film, where the dogs fend for themselves for months, while the human characters try to get back to Antarctica but experience some setbacks. This story is based loosely on real events, portrayed in an earlier Japanese movie. Nobody knows how the real dogs survived on their own in the icy wilderness, and so both films are largely speculative. "Eight Below" offers little insight, however, instead taking the easy route and showing the dogs acting like human beings.

There's a scene, for example, where the dogs are stalking a flock of birds that always fly just out of their reach. The dogs then huddle together like members of a football team and devise a complex strategy which I doubt even the smartest dog in the real world would be capable of planning. I'm not saying that dogs are too stupid to pull such a thing off. As Stephen Jay Gould once put it in his foreword to a "Far Side" gallery, "Animals have intelligence different from ours; they are not just primitive models of our achievements." That's the kind of insight that's missing from "Eight Below." It doesn't attempt to explore how the dogs might have survived by behaving like dogs, even though such an approach would have been more enlightening.

Worse still, the adventures of the dogs are constantly intercut by the boring exchanges of the human characters on their way back to the base. Walker is the moral center who really loves the dogs, Greenwood (a dead ringer for Sam Neill) is the foolhardy explorer, Jason Biggs tries unsuccessfully to provide comic relief as the team's goofball, and Moon Bloodgood is there for a romantic subplot with Walker. There isn't much passion in any of these relationships; they exist to fill space whenever the movie wants us to take a breather from the dog scenes.

The technical direction of the dogs is impressive, making me wish there was a special award for this sort of thing. Not only are the eight dogs easy to tell apart (even a pair of identical twins are distinguished by a scar), each one has a different personality. Through their body movements and the tones of their barks and whimpers, we always understand what the dog characters are supposed to be thinking. But it's basically a story of people in dog suits.

I suppose that we all anthropomorphize animals to some degree. It's part of how we're able to relate to them on any level. But for me at least, there should be an element of mystery, a sense of encountering a mind very different from our own. That's the area where "Eight Below" sorely fails. But then, that may explain why I like cats more than dogs.

Misery (1990)

The best horror film ever adapted from a Stephen King book

[10/10 · 11 February 2007]

"Misery" accomplishes something which Hitchcock achieved in "Psycho" but which very few modern horror films achieve: it entertains without seeming exploitative. Even the movie's most gruesome scene, which ranks up there as one of the more memorably horrifying moments in all of cinema, ends with a laugh that somehow doesn't cheapen the material--maybe because it arises so naturally from the basic situation which the movie takes very seriously. We're not being urged to find the violence itself entertaining, as is the case for so many horror films these days. Rather, the humor is a way of breaking the tension of a desperate, nightmarish scenario. It is, we suspect, what helps the protagonist survive the ordeal.

Like many of the greatest thrillers, "Misery" begins with a bizarre set of coincidences. A bestselling romance novelist named Paul Sheldon (James Caan) is on his way to the countryside to work on his next book when a blizzard causes his car to crash, leaving him severely injured and unable to walk. Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates), a retired nurse and obsessive fan who was following him, takes care of him in her house without letting him leave or contact anyone. She is upset that he has recently killed off a central character in his series, and she forces him to write the new book more to her liking, though in total isolation from the outside world. His family and friends fear him dead, but the local sheriff (Richard Farnsworth) is investigating a little more closely.

"Misery" belongs to a unique genre in which a single character is trapped in a small area and spends the entire story attempting to escape. I've been fascinated by this type of story ever since I first read Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum." With his fine attention to detail, Stephen King has made two notable contributions to the genre: "Misery," and the unfilmable "Gerald's Game" (where a woman spends the entire novel handcuffed to a bed in the middle of nowhere). Everything is topsy-turvy in a story like this. The protagonist must adapt to a weird new set of rules that put a diabolical twist on normal routines. To most people, a house is a mundane setting where you wake up every day and leave without blinking an eye. For a house to become a prison seems almost unthinkable. Stories like "Misery" have the urgency of a nightmare, where the thing you fear most is always on the verge of happening.

In particular, this movie has much in common with the 1962 suspense drama "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" (which I recommend). The basic structure of the story is the same, involving a disabled person in the house of an insane woman, who subjects her captive to physical and psychological tortures while almost everyone on the outside doesn't even know the victim exists. But in the older film, the motives were simpler, rooted in sibling jealousy and old wounds. "Misery" brings the conceit to a new level by making the captive a famous writer and the kidnapper a crazed fan. The movie makes much of the irony that she's a pretty good editor. She's not really sadistic or vengeful, as was the case with the Bette Davis character in "Baby Jane." The tortures she inflicts on Paul are the natural result of her trying to fit him into her bizarre little world.

Kathy Bates won an Oscar for her performance, one of only three horror performances ever to receive that award. (The other two are Fredric March for "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and Anthony Hopkins for "Silence of the Lambs.") One of the best actresses working today, she's fortunate not to have been typecast in this sort of role. She later proved herself quite adept at playing vulnerable women, like the battered wife in "Dolores Claiborne." She brings to the role of Annie a certain earthiness that you don't expect in this kind of role. She plays the character as a woman who doesn't perceive herself as insane, who acts bubbly and cheerful most of the time and seems to view her sudden mood shifts as merely a personal weakness. At times, the movie almost comes off as a demented parody of a normal relationship between a man and woman living together.

The very best of the Stephen King horror movies, "Misery" is a film which I count among my favorites even though it is so intense I sometimes have trouble sitting through the whole thing. With a screenplay by William Goldman, who has a knack for developing bizarre torture scenes (the Nazi dentist torture in "Marathon Man," the Machine in "The Princess Bride"), the movie manages to be scary and classy at the same time--a rare feat for a modern horror picture. Kathy Bates is in my nightmares!

Nanny McPhee (2005)

Poor man's "Mary Poppins" lacks wonder, a sense of fun, or good lessons

[3/10 · 3 February 2007]

"Nanny McPhee" begins by showing a group of cheerfully horrible siblings who wreck their house, terrorize the cook, and quickly drive away every nanny their absent father (Colin Firth) hires. He keeps hearing a disembodied voice telling him that "The person you need is Nanny McPhee." We presume that if he hires this otherworldly woman, the kids will learn proper behavior, and possibly he will learn proper parenting. It was at this point that I smiled. The setup seemed nearly perfect, promising a fun, quirky kid's movie.

But even then, I had some nagging doubts. There was just a bit too much buildup. I realized that the film would have to work hard to make this character live up to expectations. Her entrance is greeted with a thunderstorm, her silhouette possibly intended as a visual allusion to Alfred Hitchcock's famous portly figure. Then we see her warty, bucktoothed face as she enters the mansion and goes to the kitchen where the kids are presently making a big mess. They're just about ready to treat her the same way they've treated all the previous nannies, but then she strikes her walking stick to the ground, and....

Well, I won't give away precisely what spells she casts to protect herself from the children's wrath and keep them under control. I'm not out to ruin anyone's fun, what little of it can be found in this film. To understand what went wrong, we need only look back to "Mary Poppins," the most obvious inspiration for this film. One of the special qualities of Julie Andrews' Oscar-winning performance is that she played the character as if she didn't need magical powers to handle the kids. The magic served the same role as it does in most good children's fantasies--to inspire the children's imagination. When that film wanted to make points about parenting, it promptly returned to the real world, where it belonged. In "Nanny McPhee," on the other hand, the magic is simply wishful thinking, an implicit admission by the filmmakers that in the real world they would have no idea how to deal with kids like these except through brute force.

Meanwhile, the father is trying to court a rich bitch so that he won't be disinherited by an aunt (Angela Lansbury). The movie wants us to believe that the woman he really ought to marry is his young scullery maid (Kelly MacDonald) even though the chemistry between the two is somewhat less than bristling. The subplot in which the kids attempt to sabotage the father's plans mixes uneasily with the magical material. There is a scene involving a dancing donkey that the aunt is too visually impaired to notice. Yet the father is also standing there and acts as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened!

Eventually, the movie resorts to unoriginal slapstick. If you think that kids might like this film, I should mention that the children I was with seemed bored much of the time. The story starts from an adult perspective, and it never bothers to create a sense of wonder in the magical events. Although it tries to have fun with the nanny's powers, it's a bit too pedantic to succeed.

Emma Thompson plays the title character with considerable skill, but it's a thankless role. She seems weary and fatigued, not relishing the task at hand. She never shows any affection for the kids, not even tough love, and they don't really come to like her. Their growing appreciation for her is strictly utilitarian, as they find her powers useful in helping them out of sticky situations.

The conceit is that the warts and blemishes gradually disappear from Thompson's face as she completes her work on the children, and she will look normal and attractive at the end. We can only guess that she's been the subject of some supernatural curse in the tradition of "Beauty and the Beast." I assume that the book on which the movie is based provides some background on the character, but curiously the film never does: we never learn a thing about where she came from or where she'll go when she's done with the kids.

The movie has one great line, when Thompson explains to the children, "When you need me but do not want me, then I must stay. When you want me but no longer need me, then I have to go." Since the film never develops a convincing bond between her and the family, much less shows how she is able to transform them, the line only serves as a frustrating reminder of what this movie could have been if it had lived up to its promising setup.

The Producers (2005)

Springtime for Karaoke

[3/10 · 23 January 2007]

This may not be the first movie remake that practically duplicates scenes from the film that inspired it, but this approach is a particularly bad idea for a comedy. Success in comedy depends on the chemistry of the actors, something that cannot be faked. And this movie makes the colossal mistake of having the actors try to channel the chemistry of the original cast instead of developing their own chemistry. It's like a comedy karaoke machine--new people attempting the same jokes, in the same style as the original actors.

Nathan Lane is made out to look and sound just like Zero Mostel, while Matthew Broderick adopts the mannerisms of Gene Wilder's meek, neurotic character from the original film. The two actors even do the entire "I'm hysterical!" sequence, down to Wilder's gibberish. I admit that I laughed a little during this scene, perhaps more from nostalgia than from anything else. But I found the rest of the film surprisingly unfunny. That's because the new film doesn't just reenact the jokes, it beats us over the head with them. The musical numbers are part of the problem. In the scene introducing the gay director, for example, the movie gives us a long parade of gay stereotypes but can't find a twist that would make the material funny. The gay troupe's song is called "Keep It Gay," which violates one of the cardinal rules of jokes about gay people, which is that you never, ever say the word "gay."

There's only one really funny scene in the film, and that's the introduction of Will Ferrell as the Nazi playwright. Ferrell is pretty much doing his regular shtick rather than trying to imitate Kenneth Mars. Ordinarily that might be a put-down, but this film is so filled with impersonations that it's desperately in need of an actor being true to his own style. Uma Thurman, as a Swedish bimbo, also looks more comfortable in her role than most of the cast, though she doesn't quite steal her scenes. Still, it is worth noting that Ferrell and Thurman are the only major cast members who weren't in the play. Apparently, they weren't imprisoned by the demands of the play.

It's an important point. What works on stage doesn't necessarily work on screen. And Susan Stroman is a first-time director who probably didn't know how to adapt the material properly. I never saw the Broadway show, but my aunt did, and when she described to me the sequence where a crowd of old ladies do a dance with their walkers, it sounded to me like a clever and funny idea, which it probably was--on stage. On screen, the scene is curiously lacking. The surrealism clashes with the more traditional comic material in other scenes. Similarly, the jokes which come from the original film are over-the-top here because plays by their nature are more exuberant than films.

I mentioned before that Lane is made to look like Zero Mostel. Actually, he looks more like a shrimp doing a Mostel impression. I never before realized how short Lane is. He looks almost like a dwarf standing next to Broderick, who isn't especially tall. That's not to mention how he looks next to Ferrell and Thurman. He isn't the type of actor like Al Pacino or Bob Hoskins who knows how to compensate for his diminutive size with a commanding presence. And that's a problem, because he's supposed to be playing a domineering character who walks all over Broderick.

Actually, the whole relationship of the two characters is different here. When Broderick first refuses to participate in the scam, he, unlike Gene Wilder in the original, offers no moral objections. His entire argument is that he's too much of a spineless coward to break the law. The problem is that we don't see this quality in Broderick's character. When he sings loudly about his cowardice and firmly says no to Lane, there's an irony that I'm not sure is intended. Broderick's version of the Leo Bloom character isn't really weak-willed at all. And he's just as lacking in a conscience as Lane's character is. As the film progresses, he's also revealed to be quite a schemer. I guess none of this is surprising. Broderick doesn't generally play nebbishes: his usual shtick is as a guy whose surface sweetness masks a certain depravity. So why did he even bother mimicking Gene Wilder? Why didn't he develop his own take on the character, more suited to his style? All he accomplishes here is diminishing the relationship between him and Lane. In the original, Mostel was supposed to have inspired Wilder, but you don't get much of that sense here. Broderick's character grows more assertive on his own, without any help from Lane.

I should point out that the movie gets worse as it goes along, so everything I've said so far doesn't even begin to capture how bad the later scenes are. "Springtime for Hitler" is shockingly lame here, which makes the whole outcome not make sense. Then Lane has a solo number where the film sets up a joke based on the idea of his life flashing before his eyes. The joke falls so horrendously flat that we wind up wishing the film had stuck to copying the jokes from the original.

Borat (2006)

A revolutionary comedy

[9/10 · 28 November 2006]

Many years ago scientists created a robotic bee that got accepted into a real hive. The experiment raises a basic question: What was more notable? The device itself, or the fact that real bees accepted it as one of their own?

That's the sort of question that crossed my mind when I watched "Borat." Even though Sacha Baron Cohen dresses up as a fictional character, he takes this character out into the real world and films the reactions of people who assume he is for real. Part of the humor comes from the character himself, but equally important is the way that innocent bystanders are taken in by his antics. Out of this footage and some staged material, he spins a fictional story about Borat, a Kazakhstani journalist filming a documentary while traveling across the United States.

At first, I had trouble formulating an opinion about the film, for the simple reason that it was so unlike anything I'd ever seen before that I had no point of comparison. Sure I laughed a lot, sometimes to the point of tears (the rodeo scene is tops for me). But usually when I'm watching a movie, I measure the experience by comparing it to other films. Here, my mind came up blank, because "Borat" is one of the few truly unique comedies I've seen. Not only is it one of the funniest movies in years, containing some of the most intriguing satire about racism since "All in the Family," it takes comedy to an entirely new plane.

I admit that I was slow to become a fan of Cohen's show. That's partly because his Ali G character was just a variant on something we've all seen many times before, even if the "Candid Camera" element offered a fresh twist on the material. Borat, however, is a highly original creation. If this character were to appear in a conventional movie, he would still be strange. At the same time, there's little doubt that his routines wouldn't be half as interesting if they didn't involve the general public.

Borat is, to put it nicely, an ignorant buffoon. He has no social manner, thinking it acceptable to talk in graphic detail about sex and bodily functions no matter what the occasion. He's also a first-class bigot, putting down Jews, blacks, and women. Of all of Borat's traits, his garden-variety anti-Semitism has gotten the most press, because Cohen is in fact Jewish, and it's fascinating the way he gets people to accept his character and then to say things they wouldn't normally say to a reporter. In one of the more memorable bits from his show, Borat went into a redneck bar in Arizona and sang a song called "Throw the Jew Down the Well." How did the customers react? Why, by the third verse they were all clapping and whooping and singing along, making horn symbols with their hands on their foreheads. Is this comedy or investigative journalism?

In the movie, Borat continues these sorts of shenanigans. Because the approach is so unique, even the familiar gags have a certain freshness. For example, we're all familiar with the cliché where a character eats a seemingly innocent food and then is told it's something gross. But I bet you've never seen a film where the star actually pulls the prank--for real--on an unsuspecting politician.

Looking back on the movie now, I realize that there are some principles of comedy at work. One is that if you create a disgusting, vulgar character, you shouldn't try to soften him at the end. That's a principle that many Hollywood movies neglect ("Bad Santa" comes to mind). Maybe it's because Cohen is British, not American, that he understands this principle. British comedy has long had a better grasp at how to handle unpleasant characters. Instead of half-apologizing for the material as American comedies tend to do, the British know how to take such material to its limits. One of Cohen's conceits is that his characters are static, never for a moment realizing their own idiocy. That's comedy.

Perhaps what makes the offensive material easier to stomach is that Borat never shows any malice or ill intent. The man behind the character may be cruel, but the character himself is cheerful, friendly, and completely oblivious to the havoc he causes. He has horrible attitudes, but only because he doesn't know any better. The movie's purpose in springing this character on the public is to unmask the veneer of sophistication that so many Americans wear, to reveal the little prejudices we try so hard to cover up.

There's a danger of something like this becoming a one-joke routine. "Borat" avoids that fate because the character is so multifaceted, finding so many creative ways to offend, shock, irritate, or just weird people out. And the movie spares no one. It isn't just an exposure of redneck bigotry. It also targets urbane, condescending liberals. One of the most hilariously revealing moments occurs when Borat sabotages an etiquette coach, who proceeds to shrug off his dirty, uncouth behavior as due to "cultural differences."

Underlying the comedy are themes that some viewers might miss. Take the way that Borat is anti-gay but doesn't recognize his own homosexual behavior. He seems to oppose the idea of things without having a clue about their reality. He doesn't even recognize a guy wearing a yarmulke as Jewish. Only after the man's wife identifies as Jewish does he go berserk. (And not in a mean way: Borat is scared for his life!)

Don't worry about the "plot," in which Borat travels across the country with the intent of marrying Pamela Anderson (who I'm sure was in on the joke). It's mostly just a string-line for the gags, but along the way it satirizes various movie conventions, and the manner in which it incorporates the real-life "stunts" into the mix is rather brilliant. Comedy will never be the same again.

Quiz Show (1994)

A colorful, well-written portrayal of a forgotten event in the history of television

[10/10 · 23 October 2006]

"Quiz Show" is the type of movie that invites viewers to ask themselves how they would act under similar circumstances. If you were a contestant on a TV game show and the producers offered you a load of money to do a fixed show where you're given the answers in advance, would you do it? Or would you turn your back on the producers and walk away? In this film, Charles Van Doren does not walk away, but he does hesitate. As played by Ralph Fiennes, he's a bright, likable fellow who seems like a good man despite his willing participation in a fraud.

The film is smartly written, tightly plotted, and populated by interesting characters. It is also entertaining. It unfolds like a great detective story, except that no murder has taken place. There isn't even any crime. As shocking as it may seem, there were no laws against rigging a quiz show back in the 1950s, because no lawmaker had considered that such a thing would ever happen. When the scandal came to light, those working behind the scenes who engineered the fraud managed to survive with their careers intact, and the people who suffered the harshest consequences were the contestants, who were simply pawns. That says something about the distortions of television culture, but this theme, among others, is nicely understated in the film.

Director Robert Redford has a gift for finding the drama in seemingly mundane topics, but not in a contrived or manipulative fashion. The '50s quiz show scandal is the sort of topic that could easily have made for a preachy and artificial TV movie. It's a great credit to Redford's film that it doesn't contain any long moralizing speeches. Though the movie has many great quotes, the characters talk like real people, and the situations grow out of their personalities. We end up rooting for several characters at once. We want Richard Goodwin (Rob Morrow), the lawyer sent to investigate the show, to succeed in uncovering the scandal. But we also feel for Van Doren, who almost comes off as a tragic hero. We even feel a little for the pathetic and unlikable Herb Stemple (John Turturro), the whistle-blower who's been bamboozled and humiliated by the producers.

The movie works on the most basic level as simple drama, the high points being those scenes where Goodwin uncovers each new layer to the case. The first time I saw the film, I was put in mind of a detective story like "Colombo." There's no mystery, of course, since we know from the start who the perpetrators are, what they did and how they did it. But the labyrinth of corruption that Goodwin must probe is fascinating to behold.

Goodwin naively assumes he's practically taking down the network (the movie hints that the scandal goes to the very top) even though no laws were broken. The situation has the feel of a conspiracy, the people talking in euphemisms like they were mob bosses or something ("For seventy grand you can afford to be humiliated"). The contestants themselves are no dummies: they are smart, knowledgeable people who could very well have been used honestly on a trivia show. The producers simply wanted to control the responses to make the show more dramatic. What made this unethical was the amount of deception it required. It's one thing to have entertainment that everyone knows is fake (e.g., pro-wrestling), it's quite another to pass off something phony as something real. Of course now I'm getting preachy, something I praised the movie for not doing. But that's exactly my point. In a lesser movie, there would have been characters explaining the distinction. Here, it's left to us to assess the situation. That's the best kind of movie, the kind that invites further discussion.

Above all, the movie is about integrity and what defines it. Goodwin (in a classic reversal of our culture's typical view of lawyers) is the boy scout in the story, who says at one point that he would never have participated in the fraud if he were in Van Doren's shoes, and we believe him. But a large part of the film involves his relationship with Van Doren, a man he likes and doesn't want to hurt. His desire to protect Van Doren (but not Stemple) from ruin while bringing down the true perpetrators of the scandal leads to one of the movie's most memorable lines, when Goodwin's wife calls Goodwin "the Uncle Tom of the Jews," because he's sticking up for a corrupt Gentile. We respect Goodwin and admire his reluctance to hurt Van Doren, but we, too, wonder whether he's handling the case with the proper objectivity.

The movie has some interesting subtexts dealing with the anti-Semitism coming from Jewish producers themselves. In one scene, producers Dan Enright and Albert Freedman basically explain to Van Doren, in so many words, that Stemple is too Jewish for the show. This is a phenomenon I've rarely seen dealt with in the movies, possibly because there aren't too many films depicting the history of television.

The film is often criticized for departing significantly from the facts of the case. For example, the real Goodwin actually played a minimal role in exposing the scandal. I can understand why those involved in the case may have resented these inaccuracies. But filmmakers do have dramatic license. Probably this film should have changed the names of the characters from their real-life counterparts, to reinforce the fact that it's not an exact account of what happened. The purpose of movies isn't to duplicate real life, but to reflect on real life, to gain fresh insight, and "Quiz Show" achieves that purpose with dignity and style.

The Brothers Grimm (2005)

Does not do justice to its subject matter

[4/10 · 8 October 2006]

People have a curious tendency not to notice how bizarre and gruesome children's fairy tales often are. Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm" does notice. Unfortunately, that's just about its only insight into the subject. The film shows no understanding of what makes fairy tales memorable and exciting, or why they have endured through the ages.

A much better handling of the subject is the 1962 film "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm," which intersperses a realistic though nonfactual account of the brothers' lives with dramatic recreations of the tales they collected. I'm not saying that Gilliam had to do a retread of the same material. I would be very happy to see a remake with a radically new approach, as long as it respects the underlying subject matter. Gilliam's film does not. Its storyline is mostly a long string of fantasy and horror clichés that remind us far more of contemporary movies than of classic fairy tales. The Big Bad Wolf, for example, has been reduced to a standard-issue wolf-man (brought to life with digital effects that are just a tad too jerky to be excused in our age of high-tech movie-making).

In this version, the brothers (Heath Ledger and Matt Damon, both inexplicably adopting English accents) are con artists who go from town to town posing as conjurers who can protect the local populace from evil spirits. A French general (Jonathan Pryce) catches on to what they're doing and forces them to work for him, on pain of death. But when they're sent to a new town, their old tricks prove useless against an age-old curse that really does haunt the woods.

The movie belongs to the old genre where famous writers become characters in their own stories. It's a genre I've never much liked, maybe because it suggests a failure to comprehend the powers of human imagination. ("No one could have made up these stories; they must have really happened!") But I have enjoyed a few films of this kind, such as the 1979 movie "Time After Time," where H.G. Wells builds a time machine and travels to the 1970s in pursuit of Jack the Ripper. This type of story has to work hard to achieve the willing suspension of disbelief. "The Brothers Grimm" fails on that front because it changes its reality too often. In an early scene, we're shown an intense battle with an awesome-looking banshee. Then the whole battle is revealed to have been staged. And then, later on, we're asked to believe that magic really does exist in this world after all. These repeated shifts in the story's reality are profoundly disorienting.

The source of disarray in the woods is an undead queen (Monica Bellucci) trying to regain her youth in an elaborate spell that will be completed once she sacrifices a series of children from the town. She resides in a tower in the woods, appearing as a skeleton on one side of a mirror and as a beautiful woman on the other. Her magical control over the woods serves as an excuse for numerous scenes of mysterious enchantment, most of which have a very tenuous connection to the central plot. The trees in the forest seem to have a life of their own, walking around when no one's looking. A mysterious creature lurks at the bottom of a well. The wolf-man is a servant of the mirror queen, using magic to ward off would-be visitors. But a coherent story never emerges from these elements. The screenplay seems to make up the rules as it goes along, inventing whatever is convenient at any given moment. Every now and then, some familiar quote is referenced--"Who is the fairest of them all?"; "What big eyes you have"; "You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man"--but always gratuitously. The movie's magical story is formless and convoluted, lacking any consistent narrative logic. It comes off as a series of elements arbitrarily glued together.

As a result, the magical sequences lack payoff. We keep waiting for something wondrous to happen, then nothing does. In one sequence, for example, two children named Hans and Greta are making their way through the woods, leaving a trail of bread crumbs in their wake. We eagerly await the children's encounter with the gingerbread house run by the cannibalistic witch, or at least something of comparable interest. But just about the only thing that happens is a mysterious sequence involving a levitating shawl. Like many other sequences in the film, this one doesn't go anywhere and has only the faintest connection with the mirror queen story.

No doubt there's an important theme at work in scenes like this. The movie is suggesting that the classic fairy tales are the result of accounts that have been embellished over time. But other writers have handled this theme much more effectively. Gregory Maguire's novel "Wicked," for example, turns "The Wizard of Oz" into a sophisticated adult fantasy with complex character motives and sly social satire. In that novel, there is a definite implication that we are being told the "real" story, and that the conventional version is the corruption. But the novel handles this conceit by expanding on the story, not degrading it. There's no point in creating a revisionist fairy tale if it's going to be less fleshed out than the original.

Brazil (1985)

Intriguing mixture of comedy and dystopia

[9/10 · 25 September 2006]

One of the truest statements about originality in art comes from T.S. Eliot: "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal." Terry Gilliam is one of cinema's mature poets. His "Brazil" features homages to numerous other films, ranging from "Modern Times" to "The Empire Strikes Back," and its plot is broadly similar to "Nineteen Eighty-Four." Yet the result is intriguingly fresh and creative.

The best adjective to describe the movie's tone is "whimsical." It's the type of sci-fi film with an almost childlike fascination with strange sights and happenings. Rarely has a film so pessimistic been this much fun. Many sci-fi films since "Brazil" have attempted a similar approach, usually with little success. The chief problem with most such films (e.g. "The Fifth Element") is that they get bogged down in plot at the expense of emotional resonance. "Brazil" avoids this fate: while the movie possesses psychological and thematic complexity, its plot is fairly simple, and the humor, quirky as it is, never relies on throwaway gags. Even the oddest moments have a certain poignance.

The story seems to take place in a fascist alternative world. It isn't "the future" exactly. The technology is weird-looking but hardly superior to anything in our world. Money transactions are sent through pipes in what looks sort of like a crude version of ATM. (One of the film's several nods to silent movies occurs after a character tries to stuff one of these pipes with wads of paper.) The pop culture references are positively retro, from the title song to scenes from the film "Casablanca."

The evil of the government in this film is driven not so much by cruelty as by bureaucratic incompetence, much of which is played for laughs. But some of the scenes look eerie today, in our post-9/11 world, and are good fodder for conspiracy theorists. Pay particular attention to the scene where the official boasts that the government is winning its war against "the terrorists." The movie is ambiguous as to whether there are any real terrorists, and we have a sneaking suspicion that the explosions are caused by the government itself. The plot is set in motion by a typographical error leading an innocent man to be arrested instead of a suspected terrorist. The movie is not about this man but about a meek government worker, Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), who's observing from the sidelines. Robert De Niro has a cameo as the wanted "terrorist" whose crime, from what we see, consists of doing home repairs without the proper paperwork.

I have noticed that most of the classic dystopian tales are fundamentally similar to one another. But "Brazil" approaches the genre in a uniquely psychological way. Sam Lowry is different from the standard protagonist who rebels against the government due to noble motives. He doesn't seem to have any larger goals than his own personal ones. He isn't trying to make the world a better place. He's only longing for a better life for himself, one more exciting and romantic than the humdrum existence he currently occupies, where he's beset by an overbearing mother, a pitiful boss, and a dull job. In the midst of this bureaucratic nightmare state, he cares only about such matters as getting his air conditioning fixed and stalking a female stranger who physically resembles his fantasy woman--or so he perceives. The woman, as played by Kim Greist, appears in his fantasies as a helpless damsel with long, flowing hair and a silky dress who sits in a cage while he battles a giant Samurai warrior. The real-life woman he pursues, also played by Greist, sports a butch haircut, drives a large truck, and has a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth.

It's a testament to Pryce's performance that he commands our total sympathy the whole time. We feel for him and go along with the romantic adventure he attempts to create for himself. His nervous, stammering personality is one that would have been easy to overdo, yet Pryce strikes just the right note, especially as we begin questioning the character's sanity. At one point, another character tells him that "You're paranoid; you've got no sense of reality." But who wouldn't be paranoid in such a setting? The scene brings to mind the old joke that goes "You're not paranoid. Everyone really is out to get you." The movie inhabits such a whacky, surreal world full of strange people and sights that Sam Lowry almost seems sensible by comparison. Creating a character like this was a fresh, innovative twist on a genre that normally loses sight of human personalities.

The Village (2004)

Shyamalan's most under-appreciated film

[8/10 · 19 August 2006]

I don't think I've ever been more shocked by how much I liked a film. I had very low expectations when I decided to watch "The Village," because I knew how much critics had panned it. I'm not saying that I regard the consensus of the critics as sacrosanct. But the movies I love are rarely ones that have earned critical scorn, so by the law of probability I doubted that this one would be any good. Besides, I had noticed a steadily downward slope in the quality of M. Night Shyamalan's films since "The Sixth Sense." When "The Village" was released and subsequently panned, it seemed to fit the pattern that I myself had noticed. So I didn't go and see the film. Only recently did I take a look at it on cable, more out of curiosity than anything else.

And alas, I found the first fifteen minutes rather slow. The movie has a lot of characters, and it doesn't quickly establish which ones are the most important. All we see is this primitive nineteenth-century village in the midst of woods that the villagers believe to be haunted by ominous, sentient creatures who will not harm the people as long as they don't set foot in the woods. The villagers have all sorts of rituals to protect themselves from attack, such as avoiding the color red (what is it with Shyamalan and red?) and wearing yellow hoods. But rules are meant to be broken, and a quiet, mysterious young man played by Joaquin Phoenix wants to journey into the woods so that he can visit "the towns" on the other side, which boast superior medicine. Among other things, he wonders if he'll find a cure for his mentally handicapped friend (Adrien Brody). In the meantime, he's falling in love with the blind girl (Bryce Dallas Howard) whose role in the plot will expand as the movie progresses.

The love story between Phoenix and Howard is well-handled and believable, transcending the romantic clichés. The two characters seem to possess a common understanding and don't have to talk much in order for us to feel the developing bond between them. But what they do say to each other is intriguing. My favorite line is "Sometimes we don't do things we want to do so that others won't know we want to do them." Their personalities also transcend stereotype, particularly with Phoenix: while stoic and courageous, he's also shy and withdrawn, as revealed in scenes where he passes letters to the public council instead of speaking in front of them. His ultimate significance to the story turns the heroic convention on its head.

Everyone in the village speaks in an oddly formal manner, using big words and avoiding contractions. The accents are American, but the diction is like that of a nineteenth-century English novel. Amazingly, the actors make this language sound natural as it rolls off their tongues. The cast includes several familiar faces: William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Brendan Gleeson, and the aforementioned Phoenix and Brody. But the star of the film is the as-yet unknown Howard, who delivers a performance so compelling that it's a shame the film was trashed by critics.

Much of the film concerns the relationships of the characters in the village, but the mystery of the creatures also dominates the plot. This is more of a quietly creepy "Twilight Zone"-style tale than outright horror. Like Shyamalan's other films, it ultimately carries a message of hope and optimism. But Shyamalan does not forget his horror roots. No other Hollywood filmmaker today is better at crafting scenes where a character is being haunted by an evil presence. These scenes work because of Shyamalan's acute sense of how nightmares feel. Like all skilled horror directors, he knows not to focus on the monster itself but on the panicked reaction of the character being stalked.

While the use of a blind character is hardly a new device, Shyamalan handles the scenes with Howard in an interesting way. Instead of the usual approach of teasing the audience by showing exactly what the blind character doesn't see, he practically makes us blind along with her. He has the camera follow her as she walks, so that we don't see what's in front of her. We soon realize that we are seeing little more than what she is able to discern about her surroundings. In crucial scenes, we are effectively almost as much in the dark as she is.

I cannot say much more about the plot without ruining the movie's surprises, which are abundant. Critics dismissed "The Village" as a crude exercise in plot manipulation. I couldn't disagree more. While I'm not certain that the logistics of the plot work in every detail, most of the criticisms I have heard reflect a superficial reading of the story.

The film has the same basic structure that Shyamalan always uses, where we are swept up in the events and only at the end do we find out what the movie was truly about. From there, we have to think backwards to understand the ultimate meaning of the story. I have seen the movie three times now, noticing new things each time. The social themes make me think that Shyamalan is familiar with Joseph Campbell's works on primitive societies and the origin of drama. The back story is very well thought out compared to that of the average thriller, and I feel some disappointment that more people aren't able to appreciate it. The beauty and genius of this film is a well-kept secret.

Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)

Turgid adaptation of the Vonnegut classic drains the story of its creativity, wit, and dynamism

[5/10 · 4 August 2006]

"Slaughterhouse-Five" begins with a man, Billy Pilgrim (Michael Sacks), typing on a sheet of paper that he has become "unstuck in time." He's caught in a time warp causing him to shift back and forth without warning to different points in his life. This premise sounds a lot more interesting than what the movie delivers. Is he calling out for help? We can't tell. The movie never lets us in on Pilgrim's reaction to what's happening. We don't know if he's upset, scared, perplexed, happy, bemused, or anything. We are simply shown various points in life, connected in odd ways. One moment he's a POW in World War II, threatened by German soldiers who are about to shoot him; the next he's at his wedding and people are "shooting" him with a camera.

The problem is, this looks more like a narrative device (and not a particularly original one, at that) than evidence of time travel. It's more like a story told out of order than a story about a man caught in a time warp. Sure, something weird is going on whenever he appears to "remember" the future, like when his younger self starts addressing his future wife, and a fellow soldier standing there thinks Pilgrim is propositioning him. But the film has relatively few such moments, and we can't help thinking that what we're seeing is simply the perspective of an older man experiencing flashbacks, a distinct possibility considering that we later learn that the older Pilgrim had a nervous breakdown.

I tend to enjoy movies with fractured story-lines of this sort, because the task is not merely to see events unfold, but to piece together what has already happened. Unfortunately, this movie lacks a narrative focus. Pilgrim seems a very ordinary fellow, and the movie never explains what makes his life story worth telling. Nothing about him is particularly attractive, or particularly repulsive, either. He's just bland. We see him as a POW, where one soldier has an inexplicably passionate grudge against him, while another befriends him. There will be some tragedy, some bombings, and some killings along the way. By flipping forwards and backwards in time the movie struggles to make all this engaging, because it all comes off rather tame for a war movie. An account of the bombing of Dresden is filmed with surprisingly little emotional power. There's a lack of thematic focus in these scenes; they seem to be there only to provide biographical information about this character, without actually contributing to the movie's larger purpose.

The later scenes are all over the map. There is even a Hollywood-style car wreckage sequence that probably cost more to film than anything else in the movie, including the scenes on Planet Tralfamadore. This bit of broad comedy feels out of place in the mostly contemplative story and brings the movie to a grinding halt.

The movie's message--that time is static, that everything which happens is inevitable, and that one's task in life should be to cherish the good moments rather than try to control what happens--is provocative enough. But the film lacks the grace and elegance that allowed Vonnegut's book to bring this message alive. Take, for example, the book's description of an attractive woman as a "sensational invitation to make babies." The book abounds with playful, wry prose of this sort that reinforces Vonnegut's mechanistic outlook on life. The story at its core is a philosophical argument, but Vonnegut prevents it from becoming dry and academic, which I cannot quite say about the film.

In the book, the time-tripping never feels like a mere narrative device; it feels like it's really happening. Even though there's still a distinct possibility that the experience is occurring only in Pilgrim's mind, it at least comes off as an actual experience. Pilgrim, in the book, is oddly calm and resigned to what's occurring, but not emotionless. He cries at one point. He's anxious about the situation. He's unsure about how to define himself. In the movie, we get none of the sense of Pilgrim struggling to adapt to the situation, of being forced to grow as a result.

I found, when reading the book, that the disparate sections of the story connected a lot better. The war scenes were there not only because they allowed Vonnegut to insert semi-autobiographical material into the novel, but because they tied into the story's questions about human existence, dwelling as they did on the moral dilemma underlying the bombing of Dresden. Being caught in an eternal time warp, Pilgrim doesn't fear death. But he doesn't really value life either. He shows no love for his rich wife, described in the book as fat and plain (though played in the movie by an actress who was neither of those things, but who still utters the lines about thinking nobody would marry her and promising her husband she'd go on a diet). He shows no love for anyone, indeed, even himself. So we're left to ponder whether his liberation from the human time scale is really desirable.

The movie, unfortunately, can't seem to portray his apathy without also making us feel apathetic. When I watched the movie, I was repeatedly tempted to turn it off in the middle, because I simply didn't find the story engaging. The book, on the other hand, I could not put down. I suppose the difference with the book, besides its witty prose, is that I found myself able to show concern even for a character who had lost sight of that very concept. Vonnegut understood, better than the movie did, that the glimpse we get of life on a cosmic scale does not take away our essential humanity.

Batman Begins (2005)

A mature if imperfect take on a comic book universe

[6/10 · 22 July 2006]

Though flawed, "Batman Begins" is the best Batman film since the 1989 Tim Burton blockbuster. What fascinates me about the series is how many different possible interpretations there are. The Schumacher films seemed an attempt to recapture the campy innocence of the 1960s television show. Burton seemed more interested in the mythic undertones of the original comic strip.

Christopher Nolan, the director of "Batman Begins," has yet a different approach. He treats the story almost as if it weren't based on a comic strip at all, as if it were a straightforward thriller. The villains are presented in such a low-key manner that I practically forgot they were traditional comic book villains. There are no evil cackles in this world. The film is, indeed, a lot less action-oriented than most superhero films. The action scenes, which occur mostly toward the end, are rather bland and unmemorable. There simply aren't that many intense physical fights, because this version of the Batman character relies less on physical force than on psyching his enemies out.

The movie's best scenes are the early ones, where Bruce Wayne learns to control his own fear and use it to defeat his enemies. I like how the film explores the moral dilemmas underlying vigilantism, something none of the other Batman films even tried to do. They just took for granted that Batman's lifestyle was heroic. Here, learning how Bruce Wayne developed his secret persona, we realize that the issue is not so simple. He's shown as a young criminal recruited by a sinister vigilante organization that teaches him most of his fighting skills, but he eventually parts ways with them over their ruthless approach to justice.

The movie handles these themes very well at first. As I recall, the 1989 film implied that the Joker was the mugger who killed Wayne's parents. That movie then became a story of revenge, a common theme in fantasies. "Batman Begins" repudiates this idea and draws a distinction between revenge and justice, presenting the mugger as a desperate individual whose crime, though unforgivable, pales in comparison to those of the thugs running Gotham City.

Unfortunately, the later parts of the film shortchange these complex ideas as the story degenerates into a conventional struggle against villains who believe the end justifies the means. It might have been more interesting if Wayne would have faced some difficult moral choice. The movie teases us with gray areas but ultimately bows to the conventions of the genre.

The casting is, for the most part, superb. I particularly liked Michael Caine in the role of Alfred, and it was also fun seeing Liam Neeson, Ken Watanabe, Morgan Freeman, and Gary Oldman in supporting roles. Still, the overall impact of these fine actors was not as strong as I would have expected, maybe because the characters they play aren't drawn as vividly as they could have been. As for Christian Bale, I consider him the best actor ever to play Batman, and I thought his presence would for sure make this film a winner. But I went away from the film uncertain of how I thought of his performance. He adopts a gruff, monosyllabic, Clint Eastwood sort of manner that is probably not recommended unless you actually are Clint Eastwood.

Among the newcomers, the most intriguing is Cillian Murphy, whose boyish looks and slight frame (he's actually shorter than Katie Holmes) kept me from realizing he was one of the main villains. Because his incarnation as the Scarecrow was presented as simply a tool he used to disorient his victims, I didn't even think of it as a dual identity. It wasn't until after I finished watching the film that I realized he was a traditional comic book villain. He had more the aura of an ominous henchman.

The movie's greatest flaw is Wayne's romance with the Katie Holmes character. There isn't much chemistry between the two, and the subplot feels tacked on. The Superman and Spider-Man movies worked in part because they convincingly established a conflict between the main character's superpowers and his ability to maintain a romantic relationship. While I'm not saying that the Batman movie had to repeat this formula, there was a notable lack of urgency in the romantic subplot. She's supposed to be a childhood friend, and the main thing standing between their romance is his seven-year disappearance when he was presumed dead. As soon as he returns, the film handles their relationship with a considerable lack of depth.

Despite the flaws, as origin stories go "Batman Begins" is far superior to the massively over-hyped Star Wars prequels. The movie's explanation of how Batman became Batman is well-done, and it's fun to see a version of the character who's more vulnerable than the one we're used to. It's only toward the end that the movie turns more conventional, and since the special effects are so under-emphasized, the ending fails to strike a chord at any level. But it's an impressive effort, and I'm hoping that the next film will rise above this one in the same way that "Spider-Man 2" did for its halfway decent but flawed predecessor.

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

So-so thriller has gotten a free pass because of its outlandish ideas

[5/10 · 4 June 2006]

To some people, no two films could be more different than "The Passion of the Christ" and "The Da Vinci Code." One affirms traditional Christianity, the other skewers it. But the two are similar in the sense that someone not raised in a Christian culture might be excused for wondering what the big deal is. Outside a Christian context, it is strange that conservative audiences were attracted to a film as violent as "The Passion," and it is equally perplexing that a relatively formulaic thriller like "The Da Vinci Code" would inspire so much emotion, for better or worse.

It is ironic that people defend the film from its alleged anti-Catholic bias by suggesting that it's merely a fantasy, not to be taken seriously. If most people saw it that way, I doubt the film would be so popular. The attention it has received, both positive and negative, is almost entirely rooted in its unique claims about Church history. When evaluated without paying attention to what it says about our world, the film is really nothing special.

The beginning of the movie shows some promise. I enjoyed the scene introducing Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) as he delivers a fascinating lecture about common symbols that throughout history have had very different meanings from what we're accustomed. But as soon as the movie's plot unfolds, numerous holes begin to appear. Langdon is sent to the Louvre to help solve the murder of a curator. We already know that the murder was committed by a crazed monk (Paul Bettany), but Langdon is unaware of this fact. As soon as he arrives, people attempt to tag him with the murder, and he must go on the run with a cop (Audrey Tautou) who's helping him for reasons I found unclear, and who's involved because the slain curator was her grandfather. The two must work to solve the series of puzzles the victim left in his dying moments, which hopefully will lead them to better understand the murder and also account for why everyone's after them. Why the curator had to communicate his secrets in code is, again, not clearly explained.

As an academic scholar going on adventures, Langdon's character has naturally been compared to Indiana Jones. But he has none of Indy's charm, bravery, or quick wits, and he never seems in control over what's happening. Most of the time, he's being led along by the story's events, often acting rather dopey and clueless. That would be okay, I suppose, if the movie established him as a Walter Mitty figure thrust by the circumstances into a heroic role. But he rarely does end up acting heroic. Even his intellect doesn't prove all that impressive, aside from his ability to solve anagrams in his head.

The plot gets particularly shaky when Langdon's old friend Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen) lays out the conspiracy theory that is at the heart of the story. At first, Langdon is skeptical. Sir Teabing presents not a shred of concrete evidence to support the wild claims he's making about the Catholic Church. He does, however, point out some rather fascinating details about a particular Da Vinci painting. On the basis of this demonstration alone, Langdon becomes an instant convert to Sir Teabing's unorthodox theory! I was practically yelling at the screen at this point.

The Indiana Jones films may have featured some preposterous notions, but those movies were never about ideas. They were nail-biting adventures that worked because they focused on execution, such as mood and special effects. If the religious ideas weren't altogether accurate, the plots at least had internal consistency. Our enjoyment of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," for example, has very little to do with whether we think it plausible that an archeology professor would search for the Ark of the Covenant, much less find it.

"The Da Vinci Code," in contrast, depends greatly on its ideas, and its execution is poor. The acting is shaky, with the best performances coming from the supporting roles, and the worst coming from the main players. Hanks gives his weakest performance in a long time, creating a character with little color or vigor. Tautou is woefully miscast; although the IMDb claims that this French actress "speaks excellent English," that was not the impression I got from listening to her labored speech, and she lacks the sense of authority necessary to make her into a convincing police officer. Paul Bettany and Ian McKellen, though, are superb, and I also enjoyed seeing skilled veterans like Jean Reno and Alfred Molina doing what they could with their limited roles.

Adventure movies often gain their strength from colorful villains, but here there are simply too many villains for any one to dominate the story. The focus therefore falls on the two rather bland heroes, and the movie never pauses long enough to make their relationship either believable or interesting. I'm sort of glad the movie resisted the temptation to develop a romance between Hanks and Tautou, given their age difference. But the movie makes a point of showing that they both had traumatic experiences as children. There was potential to develop some kind of relationship between them here, as there was when they have a couple of brief conversations about their religious beliefs. But all of this stays on a superficial level, and I felt no connection with these characters. The villains, with the possible exception of Bettany's monk, are no better drawn, and their motives are poorly established. This causes the film to have a very mechanical, calculated feel. As the movie bounced from place to place, I felt like I was inside one of those old sleuth video games like "Carmen Sandiego." Maybe if it had been interactive, I would have enjoyed it more.

Millions (2004)

Beneath its surface charms lies a myriad of flaws

[5/10 · 23 March 2006]

"Millions" is one of those movies about characters (in this case, children) who stumble upon a wad of cash, decide to use it for their own purposes instead of turning it in to police, and ultimately learn a valuable lesson about materialism. This is not exactly a new idea. I am told that the director Danny Boyle has himself used it before, in his more grownup 1994 film "Shallow Grave." The twist in "Millions" is that England is about to switch over to the euro, so the kids have only a short time to use the money they have found!

It's a clever twist, with numerous plot possibilities. One of the things I liked about the film was that it avoided the usual route of assuming that the kids would be motivated by greed. The main kid, played by Alexander Nathan Etel in an exceptionally good debut performance, is obsessed with Catholic saints, and has a strong philanthropic impulse. The main thing he seeks to do with the money is to help poor kids in the neighborhood, or at least kids he thinks are poor. It is the adults who end up being more materialistic. One of the best scenes involves an argument between the child and his father over what to do with the cash, and it is the father who comes off as more selfish--though not necessarily wrong. What's nice about the scene is the way it avoids taking sides, and falls well in the tradition of stories where a child discovers that the world is more complex than he first believed.

Unfortunately, that scene is one of the few that really work. The film, for all its charms, has a myriad of flaws. Why didn't most critics take note of them? Probably because the film has the sort of artsy feel that critics love, with its visual creativity and its quirky British humor. These elements, while entertaining, mask weak plot development. For example, I found it hard to believe that the adult characters would continually fail to pick up on what the kids were up to. For the first hour, indeed, it is as if the adults are absent in the manner of a "Peanuts" cartoon, and when they do finally figure into the story as we expected they would, we're not sure why it took them so long.

I could have forgiven the movie for this plausibility problem if the ending had provided a sense of closure, but in that arena the movie also falls short. In most stories of this kind, there is a point when the main character realizes that the money has brought him nothing but misery, and he decides to destroy it. When that point finally does arrive in this film, it is based more on plot manipulation than on rational judgment, and it left me unsure what the movie's attitude really was toward the money.

I admit that it is easy to confuse weak plotting with mere subtlety, especially since this film has an abundance of both. It's the sort of film where very little is spelled out, where much is left to implication. Only twice is it hinted that the kid's vivid fantasies are hallucinations, and it requires some effort to determine whether some scenes are real or imagined. The older brother's resentment at his dad's girlfriend also goes unexplained. Mature viewers will discern that the mother's death is at the heart of these two children's erratic behavior, both the older brother's anger and the younger kid's withdrawal into a fantasy world. I wish the film had focused more on the death and bereavement theme instead of leaving us to speculate about how it affected everything. Ultimately, the film short-circuits this plot point with a trite message about the true meaning of "miracles."

Of course, this is all heavy stuff that younger viewers are unlikely to understand. But contrary to what you may have heard, "Millions" is not really a children's movie; it is basically an adult movie depicting a child's perspective on the world. I didn't have a problem with that. There is a wonderful Swedish film called "My Life as a Dog" which uses a similar approach to great effect. What bothered me about "Millions" was its failure to provide a clear sense of its events, or to follow through with its themes.

American History X (1998)

Highly compelling, but not entirely convincing

[7/10 · 13 March 2006]

The concept of a reformed neo-Nazi is so intriguing that it's a wonder there haven't been more movies on this topic. Once you see "American History X," however, you will understand why. The movie's racial themes are provocative and unsettling, far outside the comfort zone of the average viewer, and the movie additionally has the challenging task of explaining how a violent criminal changed his ways. Does the movie convincingly explain that transition? Not entirely.

It's an engrossing movie, nonetheless. It uses a device more common in literature than in the movies: inter-cutting between several story-lines. First we see Derek (Ed Norton) as a free man, newly released from prison, and having developed a conscience. Then we see earlier points in his life when he was a white supremacist, and finally the prison experience that changed him. The non-chronological approach is very effective, making the movie about as engaging as any thriller, even though the plot itself offers few surprises. Had the film followed a more conventional timeline, we'd have quickly grown impatient waiting for plot developments that were inevitable. With the way it's structured, our focus is on the process more than the outcome: How did a bright kid like Derek become a racist? And what turned him around?

The movie takes great pains to show how articulate the younger Derek is when he justifies his hatred of blacks by citing the statistics of black crime. (His more personal motive is that blacks murdered his father.) His arguments hit upon common politically conservative themes as he finds fault with affirmative action, glorification of criminals like Rodney King, and liberals who blame (white) society for the problems facing blacks. But Derek takes this reasoning a step further and argues that blacks have a "racial commitment to crime." Of course, by taking that step, he undermines his own arguments. For example, how does his harping about "personal responsibility" square with his belief in judging people for factors beyond their control, like their race? Responsibility requires choice. If race were the reason for black crime, then black criminals would be morally blameless. But no character points out such contradictions in Derek's views. When he debates a liberal teacher played by Elliot Gould, the gentle Gould character acts like a milquetoast, unable to provide a strong rebuttal. It's a powerful scene, and more than plausible: as in real life, people aren't always prepared with eloquent answers, even when confronted by someone with indefensible views.

Still, it's disconcerting that the film never fully addresses the "intellectual" side of his bigotry. The main impetus for Derek's change is internal: once he learns to respect himself, he starts respecting others--a nice thought, no doubt, but I'm not sure it would be a strong enough fulcrum for change in this character's racial views. Although some would assume that Derek is too intelligent to remain racist, I would assume he's too intelligent not to come up with yet more rationalizations.

There are other factors at work, too, including his treatment by white inmates and his befriending of a charming black inmate (Guy Torry). But all this seems to provide, at most, an emotional response to the earlier scenes. The movie made me realize how much the public attitude toward race has changed since the late 1960s, when optimistic films like "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" confronted racism by creating immensely likable African-American characters and ignoring any other social and cultural tensions that might pose a barrier to interracial relationships. In AHX, almost all the black characters are gang members and criminals, and there seems to be an underlying cynicism in the film's reluctance to provide a clear-cut refutation to Derek's right-wing arguments. Implicitly, the movie argues that there's a cycle of hatred going on between white and black gangs, and that the white racists aren't solely to blame for this situation. Aside from his relationship with Dr. Sweeney (Avery Brooks) and his prison friend, the basis for Derek's turnaround is largely negative: he realizes that he's no better than the black outlaws he so despises. That isn't exactly the most inspiring message about race relations.

My main reason for wanting to watch this movie in the first place was to understand better how an extremist hatemonger could change. But that turns out to be the least convincing aspect of the film. The root of the problem probably lies in the conception. The filmmakers started with the intelligent skinhead character, then they thought, "What sorts of events will lead this character to transform?" That's why the conclusion feels just a tad contrived. It's a good film, overall, but ironically where it's weak is in the very area that makes the story the most interesting.

The Believer (2001)

The fine line between love and hate

[9/10 · 8 March 2006]

"The Believer" contains rare insights into Jewish identity, and it's a shame that the film was withheld from mainstream audiences due to ongoing controversy. But it deals with an ugly subject, and it handles that subject in an ambiguous way that makes many people, including many Jews, uncomfortable. Make no mistake about it, though: the film is uncompromisingly pro-Jewish, and the director, himself a Jew, has said that he became more religious because of his work on the film. Ironically, the film is likely to resonate the most with Jews, though it also contains universal themes familiar to anyone who has ever struggled with faith.

The idea of a white supremacist who's secretly Jewish is not new to me. I've long known about Frank Collin, who caused a national controversy in the 1970s when he planned to have his neo-Nazi group march in a predominantly Jewish suburb of Skokie, Illinois. It was later discovered that Collin's father was not only Jewish but a Holocaust survivor. This case is so bizarre that it leads one to assume the guy was simply insane. While there may be some truth to that assumption, it isn't a satisfactory explanation. What would possibly lead a Jew to join a group that believes in the inherent evil of all Jews? What is such a person thinking? How does such a person live with himself, rationalize his own actions?

What "The Believer" accomplishes is to go inside the head of one such person and provide a compelling, believable explanation for how such a person could exist. The film is based loosely on a 1960s incident in which a high-ranking member of the KKK was discovered to be Jewish. The movie updates the story to modern times and depicts the young man, Danny, as a skinhead rather than a Klansman. His characterization is speculative but reveals a deep understanding of human nature.

What's truly bizarre about this story is that Danny never abandons his Jewish roots entirely. After attending a neo-fascist meeting, he goes home to his family, whom he treats with respect. He even performs Jewish rituals in private. Yet he terrorizes a Jewish kid on the subway, tells his neo-Nazi buddies that he wants to assassinate a prominent Jewish diplomat, and spouts what sounds on the surface like typical white supremacist ideology. But he's not, as we might suspect, a hypocrite saying things he doesn't believe, or a two-faced lunatic. His philosophy is surprisingly coherent. Sure, he's a walking contradiction, but so are many other people who have a love-hate relationship with their religious background.

His anti-Semitic beliefs all revolve around a single idea: he thinks Jews are too weak and passive. Sometimes he adopts a macho outlook, since he doesn't want to be associated with a people stereotyped as brainy intellectuals. On a deeper level, he dislikes the persecution theme in Jewish history and culture. But is this theme a sign of weakness or strength? Danny isn't sure. He eventually decides that Jews gain strength from their persecution; they seem to grow stronger the worse they're treated, and the biggest threat to their survival is not those who want to destroy them but those who don't care. This is a far more Jewish idea than an anti-Semitic one. Several Jewish holidays, including Passover, Purim, and Chanukah, commemorate events where Jews grew strong after periods of persecution. Many Jews today believe that assimilation into the culture is a greater danger than genocide, because it could signal the disappearance of Jews as a distinct people. As Irving Kristol once remarked, "The problem is that they don't want to persecute us, they want to marry us."

The implication is that Danny actually admires Judaism, and that his anti-Semitism is his own warped way of affirming his Jewish identity in a world where, he fears, Jews are increasingly seen as irrelevant--not loved or hated but simply ignored. His ambivalent feelings escalate as the movie progresses. When he has his neo-Nazi buddies deface a synagogue, he can't bring himself to damage the Torah scroll, and he secretly takes it home with him. His intimate knowledge of Jewish beliefs and practices looks strange to his fellow skinheads, to say the least. He tells them that he studies these things in order to know the enemy, pointing out that Eichmann did the same thing. Do they buy this explanation? Apparently they do, but Danny's girlfriend is a little smarter than that, and she finds herself strangely drawn to the religion he's running away from.

Like "American History X," this movie contains disturbing scenes where the protagonist articulately expresses his bigoted ideas. There are other intelligent characters who argue back, but not everything he spouts gets answered, so I can understand why this movie makes some viewers uncomfortable. In one particularly distasteful scene, Danny mocks Holocaust survivors, and while they do answer him eloquently for the most part, his raising of the old "sheep to the slaughter" canard is left open.

Nevertheless, this a powerful and compelling film, with a lead performance by Ryan Gosling that manages to rival Ed Norton's Oscar-nominated performance in "American History X." We see early on that Danny is capable of doing appalling things, but his moral conflicts are then presented so persuasively that we cannot help but empathize with him. The climax is painfully ambiguous. Those who are looking for easy answers may want to skip this film. But they will be missing out on what is easily the most authentic and profound exploration of Jewish self-hatred ever portrayed on screen.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

Worst of the Bond films I've seen

[2/10 · 16 February 2006]

If there is an enduring mystery, it is why so many people consider this movie one of the best, if not the best, in the James Bond series. I first watched it shortly after re-watching some of the early Bond flicks like "Goldfinger" and "From Russia with Love," both of which hold up well today, even after having been imitated and satirized countless times. The inferiority of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was evident to me in just the first few minutes, which feature a repetitive and almost incoherent sequence of events where Bond goes about his business and keeps getting suddenly attacked by henchmen hiding behind the curtains.

What immediately struck me was the stunningly bad acting from Sean Connery's replacement George Lazenby, as he woodenly delivered the standard one-liners. I know I'm not the only one who has had this reaction. But I keep hearing people say things like, "Well, Lazenby was bad, but not as bad as Timothy Dalton." That response leaves me bewildered. Dalton may not have been right for the Bond role, but he's a classically trained actor who had an impressive résumé long before being cast as James Bond. Lazenby wasn't an actor at all; he was a fan who somehow won himself the role, perhaps because of his looks. It's true that people with no prior acting experience have been known to give fine performances. Playing an action hero doesn't require great thespian ability, anyway: Arnold Schwarzenegger has demonstrated that again and again. But Lazenby lacks even a basic screen presence. He walks with the grace of an elephant (actually, that statement is highly unfair to elephants), and he sucks energy away from the screen. His one redeeming quality is that he's a fine athlete. He should have been the stunt double.

Unfortunately, this film calls for more acting chops than the usual Bond flick, because it deals with Bond falling in love. It features scenes of high drama, but Lazenby blows them all because he is unable to show the needed level of complex, understated emotion. If Lazenby was to appear in any Bond film, I would think this one would be the least appropriate candidate.

The movie deals with Bond's romance by having one of those video sequences where we see the two chatting and enjoying themselves together in various casual locations, but we don't hear anything they're saying. The message is that they're falling for each other, even if we don't have a clue why or how. This type of sequence is a sure sign of amateur direction. We need to experience the relationship along with the characters. That's one of the purposes of movies.

The sequence occurs early in the film, then the girl promptly disappears until much later. It's just as well, since there's no chemistry between the characters, not even for a moment. The center of the movie involves Bond disguising himself as a Scotsman and traveling to an institute where people are receiving weird hypnotic suggestions about loving the flesh of chickens. I'm not sure if the humor here is intentional or not. But there's no excuse for scenes like this, considering that the earlier Connery films managed to avoid camp.

What do people see in this film? Presumably that it has good action sequences. There's a nice chase scene through the snow, but it doesn't compare to the best parts of "Goldfinger," and it comes after two hours by which time I was already getting fidgety. Telly Savalas is well-cast as the villain, but he makes too few appearances, and there isn't much about his mad personality or snide dialogues with Bond. He's all business. The movie contains no scenes remotely as exciting as the fight with Odd Job, or the dialogues between Bond and Goldfinger. Or that fantastically filmed scene in "From Russia With Love" where the agent is following Bond and we see his face appearing in each of the train windows successively. (Now that is good direction.)

Sometimes I had the feeling that the people involved in the film knew it was terrible and were trying to sabotage it. I've seen only a handful of Bond films, but I'm guessing that this is the only one that shows 007 looking into a Playboy magazine. (What is the world coming to?!) I suspect it's also the only one to make a joke at the expense of Bond's manhood, when the "Scottish" Bond drops his kilt in front of a woman and she immediately bursts into hysterical laughter--supposedly because she is surprised to find out that the "rumor" about Scotsmen and kilts is true. As Dr. Evil would say, riiiiight. "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is a disgrace to the series and doesn't deserve any more respect.