Death Proof is the second film in "Grindhouse," a two-film experience put together by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, who directed this film. "Grindhouse" is a throwback to cheesy, exploitation-style movies from the mid-to-late seventies, and the film certainly captures that style from the start. Scratchy film, bad splices, 70's-style credits and visual cues all are totally consistent. But that's all the film is: an exercise in style, and a boring one at that.

The film, ostensibly, is about a psychopathic stuntman, Stuntman Mike (very well played by Kurt Russell with all his Snake Plissken charm), who targets pretty young women with his super-souped up stunt car of death and kills them. Why does he do this? We never know. What about the girls? Is there anything about them that's interesting or would drive the narrative? Not at all. In fact, Tarantino is pretty damn misogynist in his approach to these women, painting them, almost without exception, as self-centered whores who use their pussies like weapons against men. They, no doubt, deserve to die. Even in the second half of the film (and it really is two movies in one, like the "Grindhouse" set of films itself), when a separate set of girls turn the tables against Stuntman Mike, they do so by becoming men in terms of speech and action — playing the stereotypical make vigilante, except that they just happen to be women. I suppose he might have thought it was empowering, or celebrating strong women. Not really, though. It's more just plain stupid.

It's all style with no substance, and, stylistically, once the film goes in to its second half, there's no more 70's shlock style. All the elements present in the first half of the film disappear save for a single bad splice towards the end, thrown in as if Tarantino had to remind the viewer that he ('cause it's such a boy's movie) was still playing in that old Grindhouse style. Don't forget about all the geeky references to "Vanishing Point" and other favorite crap films of Tarantino's youth! They give the movie meaning, really they do!

Yes, the stunt work on the hood of the car is impressive, but who cares. The movie is exhaustingly uninteresting up to that point, so there's little to go on, little to care about, and little to redeem the mess.

Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, of which "The Golden Compass" (or, originally, "The Northern Lights") is the first book, is an sprawling tale of free will versus authority, of the corrupting influences of power, and the end of childhood innocence. It's a fantasy, and a big one, and would be enjoyed by many fans of Rowling's Harry Potter books.

I had hoped that this film wasn't as muddled as most of the reviews I had read made it out to be. Alas, it turned out to be fragmented and inert, rushed and choppy, with only a moment or two of magic. The CG animals, very much the technological stars of the film, were a mixed lot: the animal representations of each person's soul looked quite good, with the notable exception of the cats. The polar bears, on the other hand, fared much less well. Looking too much like the polar bears from Coke ads, and without any weight when running or moving, they were a major disappointment. The only time the great warrior bears of the book had any real weight and power was during a fairly well-staged battle between an exiled bear prince and the bear who killed his father and claimed the throne for himself. Even then, the fight was hampered by an over-use of CGI camera work (as was the rest of the film), where the camera zooms in and spins around for no real storytelling purpose, but just because it a) can, b) costs money, and c) is supposed to make things look real advanced.

As for the narrative itself, it was so rushed that the pace of the film was relentlessly one-note, without shape or form. Short scene after short scene felt strung together with the sense that more details were missing, that a minute or two of character development here or there would have made us care about these people, this girl, and her attempt to save her friends who were kidnapped to the far north of the world.

There were a few saving graces, notably Nicole Kidman. Fabulously nasty and radiant, she was easily the best thing about the movie. The production design in London was very, very good (I wouldn't mind taking a ride on one of those electro-powered dirigibles), and the scene of the intercission process was suitably painful to watch.

As for the anti-(Catholic) Church nature of the books, it's in the movie. You'd have to try pretty hard not to see it. The books are all about free will vs. authority, about the end of youth and the quite Biblical sense of awareness of self once tasting the knowledge of adolescence. It is toned down from what you find in the books, but it's still very much there.

I doubt if New Line Studios will make a sequel. With the film making less than $30 million on its opening weekend and despite an excellent $55 million overseas on its first weekend, the critical and commercial yawn will be enough to kill the next two films. Perhaps in the hands of a better writer/director, this film would have been better, but the next two films become even more strange, more anti-authoritarian, and more difficult to translate in to movies. No ice bears, no witches, just a lot more weirdness, and the suffering of children. Not something the studio is likely to gamble on.

A Korean horror film of sorts, The Host is a strange blend of action, comedy, and horror. It's supposedly being remade by a U.S. studio, so I'm sure they'll change the ending from a somewhat un-Hollywood one to a very Hollywood one. [Spoiler Alert] After all, children can't die in Hollywood action movies, right? [End Spoiler Alert]

It's the tale of what happens to a dysfunctional, motherless family when the youngest member of the family gets dragged in to the river by a monster mutated from all the toxic waste dumped in to the river. It's a cautionary tale of environmental disaster played out on a single family, of course, but it's also about the ineptitude of the government to deal with such an environmental horror, and how often we treat toxicity with more toxicity.

The movie's unintentionally funny sometimes, but that's less a function of poor production values than a cultural difference between narrative styles in Eastern films and those found here in the States. There's a bizarre, carnivalesque atmosphere to the film at times — certainly in the music — and logic seems to go out the window when it's narratively convenient (not that that's unheard of in US-made films), but clearly, there's a different set of cultural expectations being played in the movie, which makes for interesting watching. The overall narrative isn't half-bad either, and there's one seriously gross moment amidst all the not-so-successful attempts at horror.

Again, it'll be interesting to see how the US studio system, appropriately enough, mutates and turns the movie even more toxic. Michael Bay is probably attached to direct.

Enchanted is a very modern but classically Disney fairy tale. It wants to have its cake and eat it too, and, for the most part, succeeds. Basic plot: an animated Disney princess heroine is sent to New York City by a wicked witch, less she marry the handsome prince and thereby remove the witch from power as the Queen. What makes the film really work are a) the actors and b) the wicked magic the film manages to conjure up, in brief fits and spurts.

I can't say enough good things about Amy Adams. She's pitch-perfect as a 2D heroine that develops in to a 3D person. The moment when she touches the mostly boring Patrick Dempsey's chest hair for the first time is amazing feat of acting: pure and innocent, sexual and transformative all at once. She's hilarious and moving and absolutely perfect throughout. Without her, this movie would have fallen flat on its face.

James Marsden is also very, very good as the dimwitted prince who follows his love through the portal to this world and to rescue her. He's charming because he doesn't think and just is. He never needs to go beyond being a 2D hero, and that makes everything he does just simply work.

The magic the film manages to conjure up is really contained in two scenes: the hilariously twisted cleaning song, wherein the heroine summons the local animals to help her clean house. As the film is set in NYC, pigeons, rats and cockroaches show up. It's utterly bizarre and, again, pitch perfect against the Disney cannon. The other scene of magic is much more personal, and probably specific to me. There's a "Kiss the Girl"-style number celebrating the art and displays of romance that wanders through Central Park, sucking in more and more people until there's a standard Disney park parade marching towards the fountain of Bethesda. The song isn't particularly great (none of them are, though they sound like vintage Disney), but the sequence captures, for me, just how magical Central Park in the spring/summer can truly be. It's truly an otherworldly place, stepping out of the hustle of NY traffic, and in to this calm and beautiful respite from the rest of the work. It has its own rough magic, and the sequence, set in this place, wouldn't have worked anywhere else.

On the downside: Susan Sarandon. Looking utterly out of place and struggling with the basic physicality of her character, she ended looking up like a reject from a Cher concert in faux Bob Mackie. And the tacked-on, CGI-heavy climax featuring her character didn't help much either.

It would have been nice if the heroine could have not needed any prince and just went her own way to discover her own life in New York, but this being Disney, that's not to happen. Too bad she had to end up with Dr. McBoring.

So there's this whole sub-genre of direct (or close to direct) to DVD videos that usually start on the Gay & Lesbian film circuit and make their way to DVD very soon after. A lot of these movies end up on Netflix, and we wind up watching a lot of them. Some are medium-budget but most are fairly low-budget. Some are actually really good, but most are mediocre, at best. You get what you pay for, no?

Outing Riley is one of these films. I suppose it may have played in New York or SF or LA for a weekend, but never would it have made its way to Baltimore. On the good-to-mediocre independent gay film scale, it falls just below the midpoint. It's the story of a 30-something gay guy who hasn't come out to his Irish Catholic brothers, and what happens when he does. Some of the family interactions were actually well written and well played, and they could almost pass for a family at times.

But the film suffered from two major issues:

1. It's written and directed by and stars a straight guy and good Lord does it show. There are more perky naked breasts in this movie than in most "straight" films, and honestly, there was never a single moment in the film that I believed the guy was gay. Well, actually, I didn't believe his performance for one second in the film, but that was less egregious than the straight guy thinking he knew how to write a convincing gay character.
2. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. There were a number of bits in the film which were egregious (aside from the number of naked-boob shots) where it was obvious that the writer/director/star was like "Oh, I've always wanted to do a musical number/action sequence/metafilm scene, so let's do it!" So very, very unnecessary.

Interestingly, though, the film wasn't terrible. There really were some genuine moments of family interaction and brotherly bonding in the film. And that made it watchable, in spite of all the missteps. At the least, it's a good lesson in making bad storytelling choices, and a few good ones.

One of my favorite films of the year, Pixar's latest is a feast for the eyes and food for the soul, especially if you've ever been part of the creative process. Rats cook, inept humans engage in slapstick, Paris shines, and a digital kitchen has never looked so yummy.

Although there's some weird energy in the first 20 minutes of the film that can throw some viewers off, once Remy (our hero) climbs out of the Paris sewers, the film takes flight and is smart and hard about the process of creation and our ability to change. Anton Ego (voiced by the amazing Peter O'Toole) provides, in his review of the restaurant in which Remy cooks, one of the most concise and pointed descriptions of the difficulty of the creative process that I have ever encountered (and believe you me, having run a theater for a decade or more, I've seen a lot). The moment when Ego finally bites in to the rat's creations is, for me, hilarious and moving and utterly perfect.

There's a great bonus feature on the DVD: a cleverly animated look at the relationship between rats and humans over the past 1000 years. Plus there's Paris in the film, over and over. I'm like a moth when I see the lights of that city at night, whether digitally rendered or real. I'm drawn, and want to return again and again and again.

It's a twofer weekend! Next up from DVD viewing: The Painted Veil. Set in pre-Communist China, it's the story of a married couple struggling back from the near-destruction of their relationship and fighting a cholera epidemic in rural China. The scenery and cinematography is quite beautiful. I've always wanted to go to Western China before it's either destroyed from overpopulation or overdevelopment, and every time I see those unearthly mountain formations, I want to go even more.

Naomi Watts is excellent, as always, displaying growth in subtle but measured ways. Edward Norton is good, though it seems as if his British accent is getting in the way of his acting. The story is interesting and well-paced, though everyone's a bit too noble for their own good in the story. Maybe that's the adaptation, or maybe it's the source material from W. Somerset Maugham.

All in all, not a bad way to spend two hours, but it's certainly not in the league of the masterful period pieces of the last decade or so.

The Lives of Others, a German film which won the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award for the year 2006, is the story of East Germany just before glasnost, and the Secret Police whose mission was to "know everything." It follows one interrrogator/inspector, perfect (of course) in his methods and his fidelity to the state, and his unraveling while spying on a successful playwright and his actress girlfriend. It's a very observant, well-acted, highly detailed look at the terror and betrayals of living in a police state — especially one that encouraged you to turn on your friends, neighbors, and loved ones, and one that made no bones about destroying your life when it wanted to.

The film, alas, beat out the far superior Pan's Labyrinth for the Academy Award. While the two films are different, there are a lot of similarities: life and resistance under a totalitarian regime is the major focus of both. "Lives," however, lacks the imagination and depth of Pan's Labyrinth. While Lives is clear and calculated, Pan's Labyrinth is harsh and brutal in its truths, and beautiful while being ugly and cruel all at once. It's a much, much better film, but, I suppose, being a "children's tale" filled with monsters and the fanatasitcal, it wasn't "serious" enough to be worthy of an Academy Award.

I'm not even suggesting that Lives is a bad movie. I just that it's once again an example of how the Academy robs truly great films of their due. Hello E.T.! Hello Brokeback Mountain!

Little Children, the film adaptation of the book by Tom Perrotta, has been sitting next to my DVD player for about 3 months now. This isn't because I didn't actually want to watch the movie. It's more because between WoW, travel, working in the yard, and other stuff going on in life, I haven't watched anything on DVD in about that time.

But to the movie.

An "anthropologic" view of white, upwardly-mobile, socially conscious parents and their children and their family, Little Children is about violations of the law. In particular, the film is about adultery and pedophilia (though not treated with equal screen time). It's an excellent dissection of the ennui of marriage and children and the upper-middle class suburbs and the desire for more life when being crushed by routine and normalcy. I won't go in to all the details, because the film is worth seeing without knowing too much about it. It's witty, ugly, very well acted, a touch melodramatic, and features first-rate performances by Kate Winslet and Jackie Earle Haley.

Jackie Earle Haley, you may not know, had quite the carrer back in the late 70's with films like The Bad News Bears. He couldn't get out of the child actor mold, and did very little until this film. And then he got an Academy Award nomination for his work. It's excellent work. He's creepy and disturbing and sympathetic and before you know what he's doing, he's manipulating you as a viewer as much as his victims in the film. It's excellent work, and very much worth seeing.

And Kate Winslet. I love it when actors can show about 3 distinct emotions at once, and there's truth in every one of them. Why did she get nominated for an Academy Award as well? Just watch those 15 seconds after she sees her lover's wife for the first time.

Has anyone seen her be bad in a movie? I mean, not that the movie was bad, but that her performance was bad? I haven't.

A deliberate throwback to the good old days of mindless teen sex comedies of the early 80's (witness the Charlies Angel's-style opening credits), Superbad is damn funny, but not quite as funny as its spiritual predecessor, Knocked Up. I'm not going to rehash the plot (guys want to get laid so they try to buy booze for the hot chicks), but want to say what I liked about the move.

I think that the screewriters (one of whom was Seth Rogen, who starred in Knocked Up) absolutely nailed the despair that teenagers not in the "cool" clicks in high school feel at ever getting laid or being cool or having their moment in the sun. I thought that while most people would find the character Seth's insistence that they get the booze at any cost and his willingness to forget everything decent and right in the pursuit of getting laid was pitch perfect. Michel Cera as his best friend, Evan, was excellent, but I wouldn't expect anything less from him after his work in my favorite TV show of the last decade, Arrested Development.

There were a number of things that didn't work in the film (the time focused on the two bad cops spent in the film was excessive, but when one of them is played by the screenwriter and executive producer, what do you expect?), and some of the jokes weren't all that funny. But the film has heart and respect for its characters (which is why it's not a direct child of 80's sex comedies), and it's very, very funny. Oh - and the super homoerotic scene in the sleeping bags after a night of drinking and failed attempts at sex? Pricelessly uncomfortable.