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While , the story of a Jewish woman who join the Dutch resistance as an undercover spy, may seem more elevated fare than director is generally known for, he still manages to bring his trademark erotic touch to the proceedings while using a filmmaking style that's more Casablanca than Basic Instinct.
40s-faced Kewpie doll plays Rachel Stein, a singer forced to go into hiding upon the Nazi occupation of Holland. After watching her family murdered before her eyes while attempting to escape to Belgium, Rachel changes her name to Ellis DeVries and reinvents herself as a Mata Hari for the bedraggled and idealistic resistance.

Ellis quickly beds and enthralls Hauptstormführer Ludwig Münze ( ) in a series of highly erotic seduction scenes that leave nothing of Ellis to the imagination.
Van Houten gives a brave performance, and not just because of the sex scenes. She plays Ellis's will to survive as an animal force that comes from both desperation and hope.

Early in the film, Ellis flashes her legs at a group of soldiers, giving them her sunny performer's smile--and it's the sexiest image in the whole film. She's an icon of the Second World War, the irrepressible survivor, the girl who continues to captivate our imagination when we think of the European home front. As brave and resourceful as Ellis is, Van Houten keeps her from becoming a goddess on a pedestal by playing Ellis's vulnerability both as a Jew and as a woman in love.

That's right--the Jew and the Nazi are together at last, as if never happened. Somehow, Van Houten and Koch sell their love affair, making it believable to the point of tragedy. American audiences will be familiar with Koch from the recent Academy Award-winning The Lives of Others, and he turns in another deeply nuanced performance in Black Book.

And special notice should be given to , secretary and lover to one of Münze's colleagues. It's a small role, but Reijn gives a delightful performance that's a wonderful counterpoint to Van Houten's.
Verhoeven is a master action director, and Black Book contains several breathtakingly expert sequences.

In one, he juxtaposes a birthday party for Hitler with a rescue attempt in the bowels of the SD headquarters, Ellis shifting gears from saboteur to chanteuse in a red dress with blackened feet from scrambling up a pile of coal. Unfortunately, his sense of structuring falters with an overstuffed third act that takes one-too-many turns, bringing an otherwise fast-paced story into the realm of "is it over yet?"
The Lookout, Out of Sight screenwriter 's directing debut, is a rare bird: a perfectly structured film that exudes spontaneity and risk.

It's a master class in the well-executed turning point, and a case study in the proper use of hoary old techniques like flashback and voiceover. It must have been a delight to read on the page--and how wonderful to report that it's also a delight to watch.
Not many people can look Chris Pratt ( ) in the eye.

He's invisible as the night custodian at a tiny bank in rural Kansas, functional but not quite a person. For his family, his very presence is a shameful reminder of the promise he squandered on a stupid joyride on a dark country road, leaving two people dead, one permanently injured, and Chris brain-damaged. His only companion is his blind roommate Lewis ( ), who's the only one that Chris allows to offer him help.

So when Gary ( ) shows up, offering Chris a life he can be proud of, Chris is ripe for seduction, ready to make a fool's gamble for what seems to be a small price: standing as lookout while his new friends rob the bank.
This kind of moral quandary is the stuff that ambitious spec screenplays are made of, but it's rare to see a concept like this actually get the execution it deserves. The Lookout bears a strong resemblance to that other cash-in-a-bag-what-do-I-do drama, , and pulls off the same combination of taut thriller moments and gut-wrenching character development.

Frank seems to be deliberately playing up the temptation melodrama angle, with Gary sounding like the devil taunting Jesus in the wilderness underneath the red neon cross blaring over Chris and Lewis's apartment. (Might this be the perfect movie for Lent?)
Gordon-Levitt is simply astonishing--with his soft, sensual mouth and hard, wounded stag eyes, he's the kind of boy who startles you by acting like a man just when you thought he still need to hold your had across the street.

Frank pairs him with (Wedding Crashers), daffy and ductile as a stripper who says she doesn't dance anymore. She has a marvelous scene with Daniels where the two circle around each other in a pissing match over Chris that shows off the depth beneath Fisher's cartoon features. Daniels doesn't quite pull off playing a blind man, but he more than compensates with his solid interplay with Gordon-Levitt.

As Chris barrels down the highway, headlights off so better to see the glowing fireflies dancing in the dark night sky, he exudes youth, vitality, and testosterone-infused teenage male sexuality. His transformation to shambling half-man is nothing less than a tragedy that the audience experiences from the inside-out, thanks to Frank's sensitive direction and Gordon-Levitt's nuanced acting choices. proves that a genre film need not sacrifice story and emotion to achieve maximum thrill.

Caption: Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Chris in THE LOOKOUT. Photo Credit Allen Fraser/ Courtesy of Miramax Films.
soft-eyed, hard-bodied charisma ends up saving , a conventional against-all-odds story, from drowning in a swimming pool of schmaltz.

Is it the most original movie to come down the pike? No. But it's an honest movie that means well, and even though this story has been told before, there's no reason not to tell it again with source material this inspiring.

Howard plays Jim Ellis, an unemployed teacher working (and living) in the soon-to-be-abandoned Marcus Foster Recreational Center managed by Ellston in the heart of West Philadelphia, 1973. They're supposed to be packing things up, but Ellis decides to fill up the lap pool, if only for his own pleasure. When the city removes the hoop from the basketball court outside, he invites a group of teens inside to cool off.

All he asks is that they follow the "no clowning" rules. Burly but not thuggish Andre ( ) challenges his authority by betting he can outswim Howard. He's wrong, and soon Howard takes the boys from swim lessons to a registered swim team: the PDR, Philadelphia Department of Recreation, or "Pride, Determination, Resilience.

"
The PDR faces all manner of hardships, from institutionalized racism to racism of the more casual sort, not to mention the Man threatening to shut Marcus Foster down and a drug dealer who wants Ellis to know that the boys are his. It plays out just as you'd expect, with complications in all the right spots and the requisite streams of tears underscoring the importance of the big moments. But Howard (Oscar-nominated for Hustle and Flow) brings a commitment to his performance that the other actors seem to instinctively respond to, elevating the by-the-numbers screenplay into a story with the power to move and inspire.

And for a "based-on-a-true-story" melodrama, emotion trumps craft any day.
's premise is so absurdly Hollywood that you can't believe it hasn't been made before, with Ashley Judd, or Gloria Grahame, or as a heretofore lost Hitchcock classic--and could Hitch's movie please have starred Donna Reed? Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) has just been told that her husband died in a car crash--yet she keeps waking up to find him still alive.

Not only that, but she keeps skipping through the days of the week in seemingly random order. She needs to unlock the mystery behind her apparently metaphysical time travel in order to save her husband from the death that's already happened. It's Donnie Darko as melodrama--and it's much better than it has any right to be.

That's not to say it's a great film, but Premonition excels where most films of its ilk--the gothic woman in jeopardy--fail. The plot is driven not so much by the mystery, as by Linda's growing acceptance of her circumstances and willingness to give into the oddity of it all--much like Groundhog Day's Phil, who could have given Linda a tip or two about the five stages of grief. There are scares to be had, but they're of the surreal, ambiguous kind, not the "watch out, the killer is behind you" kind, and for the most part they really work.

Premonition's premise and storyline beg for noir-esque execution, and it's here where the movie sags. The setup is as standard as it comes ("Of course we talked yesterday, we talk every day"), and the story utilizes some flashback elements that are filmed with the expected washed-out bleach bypass look. The secondary characters are merely pawns of the plot, showing up to deliver key plot information, then standing around waiting to be used again.

The one exception is , as the creepiest movie shrink since Leo G. Carroll in , showing up in a pair of scenes that show how dark this movie wants to be. Ultimately, though, the film caves to Hollywood formula, coating the splendidly unexpected ending in unwanted schmaltz.

There are two ways to write about : as a fan of graphic novelist , who wrote the book upon which this film is based, or as someone who is unfamiliar with the genre. This review is written in the latter mode. Hence, this piece will be nothing more than an evaluation of the merits of the movie as a movie, not as an adaptation of the source material.

Divorced from Miller, is 300 a movie?
The short answer is not quite. 300 lacks story, characters, and a dynamic plot.

It does have an abundance of striking, unforgettable visuals (but we're not talking about where those came from). Arrows filling the sky, blotting out the sun like a plague of locusts. A half-nude oracle, dancing as though underwater, filmy, luminous veils swirling about her in zero gravity.

A black horse that rears into tableau like a carved ebony chess piece. And the 300 themselves, noble Spartans taking on the massive army of the Persian King Xerxes at the doomed Battle of Thermopylae, dressed nobly in the red capes, black loincloths, and supple boots as befitting the finest heroes of the Worldwide Wrestling Federation.
The look of 300 is highly stylized, with nary a frame that hasn't been tweaked within an inch of its life, and the result is gorgeous beyond imagining whenever director (Dawn of the Dead) and cinematographer (Hero) aren't focusing on interactions between the characters.

Where the scenes are static tableaux, everything works, but as soon as there is more than one speaking character in a scene, the staging falls apart completely. In particular, a key scene involving two characters debating in a public forum ends up looking like a bad high school production of The Crucible, with characters performing unmotivated crosses with awkward, telegraphing gestures.
Star (Phantom of the Opera), playing ubër-male King Leonidas, fares as well as anyone can with the stiff dialogue he's forced to mouth, but (The Brothers Grimm) as the unfortunately named Queen Gorgo falls apart when tasked with delivering a rousing speech.

It's not her fault that said speech lacks poetry, fire, or logic, but she's out of her league impersonating an orator. But faring worst of all is Brazilian star (Love Actually), forced to play King Xerxes as the foppish star of a mid-90s Michael Jackson video, replete with facial piercings and heavy eye makeup. From afar, seated high on his massive pedestal carried by a hundred slaves, King Xerxes appears as the god he claims to be.

But up close and talking, he's a caricature and a buffoon.
The story shouts a vague message about the importance of freedom, but it's ultimately unclear how Spartans, enslaved as they are by their stringent traditions and violent culture, are as emblematic of liberty as William Wallace's blue-butted rebels. Because the film doesn't ground the battle in a solid, emotionally engaging narrative, their sacrifice comes across as mere macho posturing, instead of the inspiring bravery of the noble underdog.

There are a few sops to dramatic developments that don't go anywhere, like the deformed Spartan rejected by Leonidas, who ends up tempted into Xerxes's service. However, Leonidas has nothing invested in this man at all, so when he steps forward to beg Leonidas to kneel for the sake of Greece, his plea is devoid of anything approaching dramatic coherence. 300 is a delight for the eyes, but an offense to the heart.

After two hours and forty minutes spent in the company of some of the finest actors of this generation, plus several from previous generations and one or two that show promise for the next generation, there just isn't anything left to say about David Fincher's long-anticipated . Starring as Inspector David Toschi, the lead detective on the case, Zodiac plays like the made-for-TV movie spinoff of some classic 70s detective show that doesn't actually exist but should. It'd be a hit in reruns today.

The and its environs in the late 60s/early 70s, producing a string of unsolved mysteries and a stack of ominous anonymous letters. No arrests were made. All that ultimately came out of the affair was a bestselling true crime book penned by , played here by , working against his natural good looks to imbue Graysmith with a quirky, nerdy awkwardness that spirals into an obsession that's more fanboy than Parallax View.

Fincher takes a straightforward, unstylized approach that delivers all of the key exposition in an economical manner. The film is never boring, but it never quite soars, either, despite some stunning aerial photography and committed performances all around. is the standout; he plays San Francisco Chronicle writer Paul Avery as if Wayne Gale from actually survived the riot at Batonga and mellowed out, thanks to booze and pills.

He has great chemistry with both Ruffalo and Gyllenhaal. All three men are undone by the Zodiac killer in one way or another, and Fincher and screenwriter James Vanderbilt succeed in shading each story differently.
Of all of Fincher's films, this one has the lowest re-watchability factor.

At one point, Fincher tweaks audience expectations and references a key scene from the classic American serial killer movie--all to make the point that the Zodiac's story ends up not really being a story, per se, because everybody knows that it still doesn't have an ending. And without an ending, there's no real joy in the second viewing, because you already know there's nothing to discover. In the end, Zodiac is as inscrutable as those damned handwritten letters.

I'm guest posting at today, with a review of , opening today at Film Forum.

In the beginning was the Word, wrote St. John.

The ontology of the man at the center of Christian worship is defined through language. And so it is that Into Great Silence, director Philip Gröning's transcendent documentary about austere, cloistered Carthusian monks, ends up being a (mostly) silent film about communication. Gröning spent a year living in the Grande Chartreuse monastery, observing the rules proscribed for the monks: silence except when necessary for work, with a weekly four-hour exercise walk where conversation in encouraged.

Three hours of sleep at night, followed by two hours of prayer, then another three hours of sleep. Monastery chores and the business of daily life to occupy part of the day, with very little time that could be considered free. The cloistered monks live out the majority of their days alone in a small cell.

It's shocking to consider that there was a time when civilized men and women were not horrified and revolted by slavery--yet that time was still not so very long ago. chronicles the campaign led by William Wilberforce ( ) to abolish slave trade in Great Britain, which consumed a good portion of his life because otherwise decent people felt that slavery was necessary for the British way of life. Wilberforce's eyes were opened by preacher John Newton ( ), a slave trader who found God, renounced his sin, and wrote that long-enduring hymn "Amazing Grace.

" Wilberforce led a noble effort worth the canonization bestowed on him by this well-meaning but mediocre film.
The first hour of the film is laden with clumsily handled exposition. There's a lot of dialogue like "It's been five years" or "Do you remember when you said," and a number of the scenes lack dramatic energy because they're just doing service to the plot.

In particular, the titular song is introduced in a forced scene where Wilburforce, having left the company of a man flaunting his slave, announces he's going back to sing him a song. Instead of conjuring noble transcendence, the scene evokes an awkward dinner party where a guest who's had too much to drink decides it's time to give the guests a taste of "My Heart Will Go On." To his credit, the fine-boned, sexily earnest Gruffud of Horatio Hornblower fame gives Wilburforce a strong screen presence even when the material he's been given is at its weakest.

Director doesn't seem to be trying very hard, relying on conventional coverage cut just as you'd expect. (Dumbledore from Harry Potter) and (the other Truman Capote from Infamous) both make appearances in supporting roles, offering some good texture but largely relegated to the backround. Finney (Big Fish) has an affecting speech about his shame over the lives he destroyed, but the film as a whole never reaches the tears-streaming-down-your-face climax that it deserves.

Ghost Rider is everything that a movie should be in this day and age. The title matches the key art, making it easy to remember when standing at the ticket line, even for the illiterate. It features a motorcycle with a very loud engine, as well as some helicopters (again, very loud), and a lot of big explosions, all of which handily cover up the conversations that many patrons enjoy having while watching a movie.

The exposition scenes are direct and to the point, and recur frequently enough that today's savvy filmgoer can easily reload on concessions without losing the plot. The CGI is just as awesome, dude, on the big screen as it was in the TV ads. Plastic surgery advances seem to be on the verge of offering eternally youthful looks--as soon as they solve that fish lip problem--so audiences don't need to worry that the high school sweethearts played by Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes appear to be about 10 years apart in age.

Most of all, it makes the already excellent trailer for Grindhouse look even more audaciously exciting.
The basic premise is that young stunt motorcycle hotshot Johnny Blaze sells his soul to the devil (Peter Fonda, of course) because Mephistopheles promised to cure his father's cancer. In true "Monkey's Paw" fashion, Mr.

M. then cackles evilly while Johnny's dad announces he feels better than ever before dying in a motorcycle accident. Many years and many motorcycle stunts later, the devil calls in Johnny's debt by turning him into a flame-headed avenger.

Johnny Blaze gets a sweet new flaming bike and matching flaming whip, and finds out he's the devil's bounty hunter--whenever somebody escapes from hell, he has to bring them back. He also punishes the wicked with his "Penance Stare," so despite his hellish origins he's actually able to do some good in the word.
Mephistopheles isn't the central antagonist, though, it's his son, Blackheart, played by a very focused , tapping into the same daddy issues that drove him to stardom in American Beauty.

Blackheart has found a way to get his hands on a whole bunch of evil, and Ghost Rider has to stop him before he does something besides just stand around talking about how he wishes he could be more evil. Just cackling like his dad apparently doesn't do the trick, though his digitally enhanced voice does seem to be the aural equivalent of garlic breath.
According to the theology of Ghost Rider, it's possible to sell your soul to the devil for the right reasons.

Who knew? Apparently not Mephistopheles, who finds himself caught inside one helluva loophole after offering to cure Johnny's dad's cancer, instead of offering Johnny some hot premarital prairie sex with his white sundress-wearing girlfriend. Because of Johnny's purity, he has the power to do both good and evil--sometimes at the same time!

Not even Nicolas Cage, resurrecting his best schizophrenia act from Face/Off, can keep track of which side he's on.
"Phoning it in" doesn't even begin to describe the performances of most of the actors, particularly Sam Elliot, who seems so bored by his character than he can barely be bothered to open his mouth. Cage seems to realize that adapter/director has inadvertently made Johnny a low-level imbecile in many of his scenes, and whenever Cage plays up his character's stupidity the movie sparks to life.

Bentley's Juilliard training serves him well, as he makes his evil villain a master class in acting around effects, but poor is out of her league whenever she has to do anything more than let the light catch on her upthrust cleavage.
To say that Ghost Rider is moronic is to ignore the fact that . Call good evil, call evil good, call Ghost Rider in either situation, and watch the bodies pile up.

Mephistopheles wins no matter what, which should make us happy, or sad. Why not both? So if boredom is thrilling, then Ghost Rider is the best movie ever made.

Vroom vroom!
"I don't live in the past. It was so long ago.

" That's pop diva Cora's life philosophy, but she's too young to know any better. In the world created by Music and Lyrics, life's biggest moments are as effervescent as pop lyrics--and as unforgettable.
Hugh Grant plays against type and resurrects his sweet side as Alex Fletcher, the Andrew Ridgley half of a Wham!

-type 80s group called PoP, who were best known for a signature bump and grind that caused permanent hip damage for several of the members. Dangled the carrot of career resurrection, Alex has just a few days to write a song for Cora, a pop sensation who's managed to make Buddhism sexy. But Alex hasn't written an honest song in decades, and he's never had a knack for lyrics.

Lucky for him, his plants are being watered by Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore), a muttering hypochondriac with a knack for turning even the silliest phrases ("love autopsy" being one) into pop lyrics.
What follows is a by-the-numbers romantic comedy that's elevated by the presence of actors who seem to be genuinely enjoying themselves. Barrymore and Grant have charisma to spare, and succeed in creating credible characters out of a script that's coasting on better-than-average dialogue.

Kristen Johnson is a welcome presence, her larger-than-life energy well channeled as Sophie's overbearing older sister.
The indelibility of the past has proved a reliable plot engine for the romantic comedy, with lovers able to connect only when they finally manage to climb over all their baggage. Music and Lyrics puts this struggle in the foreground, with Sophie and Alex writing a song that expresses the need to leave the past behind in order to make their "way back into love.

" Apparently, the best way to make a fresh start is to immortalize life's pain verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus form. Once Sophie and Alex turn pain into pop, the slate is wiped and life starts all over again as if the past never happened.
Writer/director Marc Lawrence brings a light touch to the scenes, giving the actors room to make interesting choices.

However, his shooting and editing style leave much to be desired, as he stages several scenes in awkward shot-reverse-shot. As lovely as Barrymore is, the back of her head just isn't that expressive. He does strike gold with the clever PoP music video that opens the film, but nothing else in the film that comes close, visually--a fact that's underscored when the video is replayed with the end credits.

The best choice he makes, however, is to restrain himself from pushing the satire, allowing his characters the dignity of being real people.
The story structure is clunky, with all of the turning points laid out in the most on-the-nose fashion possible, but the dialogue is better than average. Barrymore does well with her character's quirky bons mots, and both actors manage to sell the sincere scenes thanks to the original dialogue.

The songs that pepper the film, written by Adam Schlesinger from Fountains of Wayne, deliver. They're catchy, with witty lyrics like "three hearts are one too many," and have the ring of authenticity.
Music and Lyrics is a charming, though not overwhelming, love story.

More than that, it's an apologia for pop culture. As Alex puts it, tight pants "force all the blood to my heart." He's joking, but the film is serious in its assertion that there's nobility in the commonplace.

The songs that get stuck in our head can be just as life changing as the books chosen for prestigious awards--if not more so. At its Valentine's Day-ready heart, Music and Lyrics is most of all an elaborate justification for its own existence.
Cannibalism.

The very word evokes revulsion among enlightened modern folk. Its eradication is seen as an unequivocal good even among the most strident critics of colonialism. The Geins and Dahmers among us who eat human flesh for sexual pleasure are unquestionably our most fearsome monsters.

So why has the eating of people held such an attraction for people throughout the ages? Honestly, there's only one answer.
We must taste really, really good.

But you'd never guess it to watch Hannibal Rising, the origin tale for America's favorite epicure, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Adapted by Thomas Harris himself from his recent prequel to the trilogy encompassing Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal, the film does its level best to convince the audience that cannibalism, inadvertent or otherwise, is the trauma to trump all traumas.

In doing so, Hannibal Rising unravels the perverse spell woven by Anthony Hopkins's epic creation and unmans the most fearsome villain that contemporary cinema has produced.
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Craig Brewer's debut feature showed off his technical skills, but his choice of subject matter--a pimp who earns the audience's sympathy--left questions as to whether or not he gave any thought to the human price paid by the women exploited by men like Djay (Terrence Howard). In , Brewer puts those fears to bed.
A parable wrapped in an exploitation movie, Black Snake Moan is immensely entertaining.

Christina Ricci plays Rae, in love with boyfriend Ronnie (Justin Timberlake), but unable to conquer the "itch" that has her spreading her legs all over town. When heartbroken loner Lazarus (Samuel L. Jackson) finds her half-naked, beaten and unconscious in front of his home, he takes her in and cares for her.

As soon as Rae's awake and alert, she switches into full-throttle nymphomania. Rather than taking advantage of what's freely offered, Lazarus decides to save Rae--by chaining her to the radiator. "We done broke the fever.

Now we're going to break the hold the devil's got on you."
At once sensual and spiritual, Black Snake Moan offers salvation through dirty blues and fervent prayers. There's nothing shy about this movie, with Ricci seducing everyone around her (including the audience), and Jackson unleashing the full force of his powerful personality.

Each gives a mesmerizing performance. Together, they're a sticky August night, cold beer and heat lightning, too many ways to sin but there's always church on Sunday.
Flannery O'Connor described her approach to storytelling by saying, "you have to make your vision apparent by shock--to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the blind you draw large and startling figures.

" Underneath the kinky visuals and shocking premise, Brewer is actually making a serious point about the right and wrong ways that men treat women. Or, to quote Luscious Jackson, "When a man knows where he came from/He can tell me I am shameful/And I will call him supersolid."
Lazarus has no problem calling Rae shameful, because he intends to treat her the way she deserves to be treated--just because she's asking for it doesn't mean it's right to give it to her.

By no means anti-sex, Black Snake Moan indicts the way that sex is taken for granted by those who would lionize Hustle and Flow's Djay. There's nothing subtle about Black Snake Moan, but the story Brewer's telling is more than a match for Ricci's half-shirt and that heavy, clanking chain. Early on, Lazarus says to someone who's seeking forgiveness for a profound wrong, "You come here to ease your heart.

Well, I ain't gonna help you do that." Brewer's got a hard road for his audience, but at least he makes it sexy as heaven.
In 1965, Britain was shocked by the murders of several children, committed by lovers Ian Brady ( ) and Myra Hindley ( ).

Brady and Hindley quickly became two of the most hated criminals in recent history, particularly Hindley, who was the one who lured the children to their gruesome torture and death. Unforgivable is the word for Brady and Hindley--except Frank Parkenham, Earl of Longford, doesn't believe that anyone is unforgivable.
follows the relationship built during the visits that Frank ( ), a devout Catholic and champion of prisoners' rights, spent visiting Hindley in prison.

Convinced that she was genuine in her profession of repentance, Frank ended up championing Hindley's release from prison against the tide of public opinion. Frank staked his public reputation on his fervent belief that penitent Hindley should be forgiven and freed.
Whether or not Hindley deserved Frank's trust is beside the point in this achingly heartfelt film.

Her motivation is suspect from the beginning, but the movie never makes Frank out to be a fool--even when he's being fooled. Scriptor Peter Morgan was also responsible for The Queen, and he brings the same intellectual rigor and attention to detail to Longford. Broadbent imbues Frank with dignity and humanity, but doesn't shy away from the man's pomposity.

He's a fascinating character, one well worth watching. Morton makes Hindley accessible, sympathetic and terrifying, and Serkis's Brady leaps off the screen.
Longford presents a portrait of a man under duress, forced to confront the ramifications of tenets upon which he's staked his life.

Forgiveness is a concept that's easy to mouth but difficult to practice, and Frank's stance, while unpopular, is certainly brave. It's inspiring to see faith in action taken seriously, and a reminder that religion has its share of saints as well as hypocrites.
Confidences are the commerce of love, and the first revelation is the scariest moment of all in a budding relationship.

In , Tim (Khan Chittenden) is poised on the brink of trust with new girlfriend Jill (Emma Booth). She knows he lives with his mother, but that's all she knows about his family. Tim takes a deep breath, laced with the incense Jill has used in her attempt to seduce him.

"My parents." Tim's a virgin, who needs to trust Jill before he can take the plunge. "They're entertainers.

"
Tim's mum is comedienne Jean Dwight, played with boisterous good humor by Brenda Blethyn, in top form as a nightclub performer still dreaming of her big break. She loves Tim and his brain-damaged older brother Mark (Richard Wilson) fiercely and possessively, and can't stand the thought that either of them will ever leave her.
Clubland, written by Keith Thompson and directed by Cherie Nowlan, is a straight up family melodrama, as classic as they come.

Superb performances all around (with Blethyn shining brighter than ever) carry this well-crafted movie straight towards a beautifully resonant ending--the kind that elicits simultaneous tears and laughter. It's lovely and refreshing to see a film this old-fashionedly life-affirming amid the gloom and doom that's been characterizing the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Clubland proves that a solid story about real people doesn't have to be ashamed because it makes people feel good--because it's telling the truth about people and life.

There's still a place for that in the world, after all.
Pairing very Britishly dry humor with a light-hearted exuberance, takes what could've been a gimmicky premise and turns it into a highly original comic adventure tale.
Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner) is a sweet-faced little boy whose membership in the austere Plymouth Brethren denomination separates him from his peers.

Sent out into the hallway because he's not allowed to watch movies, not even the educational kind shown in class, Will encounters bully Lee Carter (Will Poulter) who rooks him out of his dead father's watch, then invites him over to play. At Lee Carter's, Will sees his first movie ever-- , which Lee Carter is ambitiously remaking in the hopes of winning a contest for young filmmakers. Will transforms himself into the Son of Rambow, filling his notebook with absurd cartoons of his travails to defeat the Scarecrow and rescue his father.

When Lee Carter discovers Will's notebook, he knows he has his storyboards--and his star.
Milner's shy openness recalls young Craig Warnock, who played Kevin in Terry Gilliam's , and it's the lack of guile or irony in his performance that carries this film to heights of both comic genius and genuine emotion. Lee Carter, on the other hand, comes off at first as knowing and arrogant, but as the layers strip away Poulter shows the innocence at his character's core as well.

The friendship the two boys forge is simply lovely. Even haughty, cooler-than-you French exchange student Didier, who uses his rock-star status at school to get a part in the movie, gets to show his sweet side. There isn't a single character in Son of Rambow who isn't fully three-dimensional.

Son of Rambow's set pieces are brilliantly constructed, a standout being the 6th Form common room envisioned as an 80s nightclub, complete with bouncer and Depeche Mode. Lee Carter watches Will become wrapped up in his newfound celebrity and steps outside to get some fresh air. As he sits at the top of the steps, the door flies open and a kid who's been doing Pop Rocks and Coke bursts out to puke over the railing, and the look on Lee Carter's face is familiar to anyone who's ever had a bad night out that lasted far too long.

For all its farce, aspires to be a lot more than just another Rushmore, and it achieves it in spades. , who produced , is behind Son of Rambow, and the film has its share of inventive visuals, though never to the detriment of the story being told.
got sold a bill of goods.

Playing Lewellen, the Elvis-loving protagonist of , gives her yet another opportunity to prove how frighteningly talented she is, but the movie is an absolute disaster from start to finish. Fanning does a yeoman's job making Lewellen burst off the screen, but writer/director asks the young actress to perform the unthinkable, and the result is unconscionable.
The much-ballyhooed rape scene turns out to be one of the most restrained moments in the film.

There's nothing exploitative about the way Kampmeier stages the scene; this is no . It's the singing that degrades Fanning, particularly the final catharsis where she sings out her pain with an all-black blues band. It's an embarrassing story choice that's made worse by Kampmeier's fumbling earnestness.

Fanning has a lovely singing voice, and even a little bit of soul, but the moment is completely contrived and false--making it all of a piece with the rest of the film, laden as it is with Southern clichés.
There's some kind of story here involving Lewellen's father Lew ( ) and his sometime girlfriend Ellen (the too-beautiful-for-this-movie ), but it never quite gels because Kampmeier tries and fails to tell the story sideways. Wright Penn shines as usual, particularly with a well-written monologue where she's recalling her childhood, but the scene has nothing to do with the rest of the film.

Morse is given nothing to do but look silly in a bad wig, while does her best in the collection of stereotypes that comprise Lewellen's grandmother. The actor who fares worst is , an older black man who's filled with mystical folklore and exists only to connect the white characters back to what's True and Real. Not even the finest actor could make this character a real person, as hard as Omilami tries.

Lewellen, as Fanning plays her, is a light in the darkness. The young actress commands the screen with her intelligence and charisma, and she deserves praise for her capable handling of difficult material. Hounddog, for all its bravura, doesn't have even one iota of the authenticity that Fanning brings to this hackneyed material.

Screenwriter (Go, Big Fish, Charlie's Angels) makes his directing debut with , an interlocking metaphysical puzzle that amuses, engages, frustrates, and leaves audiences with a lot to chew on.
, showing a great deal of unexpected depth stars as three different characters: a TV star, an aspiring TV showrunner, and a videogame designer in three short films that interconnect in creative and confounding ways. ("Gilmore Girls"), (American Splendor), and (Babel) round out a superb cast, each one doing a great job differentiating between the different characters they are playing.

August is going way, way conceptual with The Nines, and gives a run for its metaphysical money. Peeking underneath the surface might be a profound meditation on the nature of existence and God's place in our lives, but The Nines doesn't reveal its secrets that easily.
Reynolds's characters go through varying degrees of existential confusion, and August effectively uses the tropes of reality television and massive multi-player gaming well.

He doesn't go for satire; rather, he's genuinely interested in what these media have to say about existence. The Nines is an intelligent film, and it puts questions in the audience's mind that are worth exploring. A second viewing might reveal whether or not it has the answers.

Sophie (Vera Farmiga) would have the perfect life if only she and her successful husband Andrew (David McInnis) could have a baby. Andrew is the child of Korean immigrants, and family is everything to him, but no number of fertility treatments can change the fact that he's the one that's the problem. At the clinic, Sophie overhears Jihah (Jung-Woo Ha), a young Korean man, being rejected for sperm donorship because he's illegal.

Sophie follows Jihah to his apartment in Chinatown and makes him a bold offer. "I'll give you $300 every time." He doesn't understand at first.

"$30,000 if I get pregnant. Now do you understand?"
from writer/director Gina Kim is a marvelous film, a haunting meditation on love, desire, and hope, with a radiant central performance from Farmiga, in a role that couldn't be more different from the cocaine addict she played in Debra Granik's .

Farmiga looks like a toy, spindly little legs peeking out from under bell-like skirts that evoke Dior's New Look. Behind her large, scared, bluer-than-blue eyes Sophie has steel she doesn't know he has. She doesn't want to be this strong, and surprises herself by how far she's willing to go in her determination to make things better for the husband she genuinely believes she loves.

Although the shooting style at times evoked typical 90s indie, with artfully unsteady handheld shots and a muted score, the script has far more baroque aspirations. It could be a lost Fassbinder film, of a piece with and . Sophie's journey is deeply internal and the mode pure melodrama of the very best kind.

Her final decision has weight and importance because Kim doesn't let herself use the easy language of irony. Instead, she lets emotion and passion fuel the film, and the result is a small masterpiece.
isn't a love story, no matter what anybody says--unless, of course, that person is also saying that The Shining is a love story.

In which case, run.
(Morvern Callar, In America) and (Narc, Your Friends and Neighbors) play Claire and Jay, two of the most hated people in all of Los Angeles. They're traffic cops, cruising the streets in their funny little cars, issuing tickets that earn them all flavors of vitriol from people whose only crime was running out of time.

Their techniques couldn't be more different, however; Claire's the one who'll let someone have two minutes for a pickup, whereas Jay's not afraid to throw a punch when someone sasses him. Despite their vastly differing worldviews, Jay takes a shine to Claire, and she comes out of her shell to have her first relationship in years.
Morton and Patric are a wonderful team, and the first hour or so is extremely funny.

Patric's Jay is brusque, and given to absurdly abrupt changes in temper, and watching guileless Claire puzzle him out offers some wonderful comic moments. Writer/director Cecilia Miniucchi has a great knack for subtle dialogue, and she keeps the pace moving quickly and lightly.
In , tabloid Sienna Miller more than convinces that she can carry a film, which bodes well for the upcoming .

She's the definition of lovely, and far outshines this poorly scripted remake of slain Dutch director .
The bulk of the film takes place in the huge SoHo loft owned by Katya, the TV celebrity played by Miller. Director Steve Buscemi co-stars as Pierre, a journalist pissed he's been assigned a celebrity fluff piece instead of a breaking Beltway story, and his lack of enthusiasm leads Katya to walk out of the interview.

Pierre jumps in a cab, but when the driver rear-ends a truck because he's ogling Katya, Katya takes pity on his bleeding head and invites him inside for an icepack and some very expensive Scotch. What follows is the kind of cat-and-mouse dialogue game whose only purpose is to provide the actors with meaty soliloquies of the "deepest darkest secret" variety.
Pierre and Katya bicker, dance, flirt, kiss, weep, and lie, but the story never offers any compelling dramatic reason for their conversation to continue.

Katya wants Pierre to leave, so she doesn't kick him out. "I don't know why I'm still talking to you." It's a question the story never answers--and this is such a basic screenwriting gaffe that it's infuriating.

The satire falls flat as well. The movie can't make up its mind if Katya is Tara Reid, Sarah Jessica Parker or Kristin Cavallari, but none of these actresses inhabit the same universe. If Katya is such a big TV star, with a show on Fox, why is she in the 4th installment of a slasher franchise?

It makes no sense at all.
Miller gives a charismatic performance that's a lot of fun to watch, but Buscemi is dour, even repellent at times, and they don't have much chemistry at all. Despite its pedigree and curious origins, Interview is a big waste of time--Miller's most of all.

When director Donal MacIntyre tells notorious Manchester crime boss Dominic Noonan that he seems to have a "touch of the lavender," the last response expected is "yes." But Noonan's homosexuality is just one of the many contradictions MacIntyre discovers in Noonan in , a documentary that's long on character and short on technique.
MacIntyre, a journalist who's spent a lot of time undercover, hit the jackpot by gaining access to Noonan, who seems to trust the director a great deal.

He's a hardened criminal, and MacIntyre mostly succeeds in presenting a nuanced look at his life. It's hard not to admire Noonan's power and standing in his community, but the effect he has on his teenage crew and on his son and godson (a chainsmoking redhead all of 8 years old) is horrific. Noonan may have his knight-in-shining-armor moments, but he's destroying the community he purports to love.

MacIntyre's style evokes . He's not shy about inserting himself in the narrative, both with voiceover and by including himself in the shot. At one point, during an interview with Noonan, MacIntyre cuts to a reaction shot of himself, and that's one of many intrusive authorial moments that break the spell of the story.

On several occasions, he stages elaborate crane shots, meant to give Noonan's story an epic quality, but the fancy camerawork, so clearly not spontaneous, only raise questions about the genuineness of the rest of the material.
The soundtrack is a big distraction, starting with Dick Dale's "Misirlou," , followed by the obvious gangster rap and the use of "Wonderwall" by Oasis to underscore a montage showing Noonan's family. The best musical moments, however, come from Noonan's nephew Sean.

"I sing at weddings, funerals, and acquittals," he says. "Mostly acquittals." At the funeral of Noonan's crackhead hitman brother Desmond, Sean gives a rendition of "My Way" that's piercing in its sincerity, breaking through the spectacle and the cameras and the family's pompous bombast to give Noonan a gift he doesn't deserve.

There are so many moments like this in the film, where the characters break through the screen. Too bad MacIntyre's directorial choices leaned towards "Laguna Beach," raising questions about the authenticity of those wonderfully poignant moments.
The devoted head of her school's chastity club, virginal Dawn ( ) doodles wedding dresses in her school notebook and gives public speeches on the virtues of virtue.

She keeps a smile on her face despite her mom's serious illness and her stepbrother's perverse interest in her budding womanhood. Her innocence makes her the target of a predator purporting to be revirginized, but when he forces himself on her in an idyllic cove, Dawn's not the only one who loses something.
In , writer/director takes a kicky premise--that Dawn has the fabled vagina dentata--and pushes it to absurdly gory campy extremes.

Weixler plays her part perfectly straight, and this no-winking performance makes the movie wickedly funny. Amid the laughs, Lichtenstein manages to convey the horror of rape in a visceral way that's harder to watch than the no-holds-barred graphic castrations (yes, more than one).
Teeth is a superhero movie in horror genre trappings, and its closest kin might be M.

Night Shymalan's (with "Strangers With Candy" alum in the Sam Jackson role). It's hard not to cheer at Dawn's final scene, even though the path she's headed down is so very, very wrong. She really doesn't have much of a future--unless she forms a superhero club with mute avenger Thana from Abel Ferrara's , poor beleagured , and the lupine sisters of .

Sure, those poor women have been resigned to a life without healthy sexual expression, but that's a small price to to pay for ridding the world of all those misbehaving penises.
Jackie (Kate Dickie) is watching.
Behind a bank of televisions she's privy to the open secrets of Glasgow, the first line of defense against pickpockets and miscreants, controlling the closed-circuit police cameras installed for the safety of the citizenry.

Jackie's sharp eyes and zooming lenses protect and serve every day. But Jackie's not an objective--her eye is human, after all--and when she catches sight of a familiar face, her spying gaze leads her into an destructive obsession.
Writer/director Andrea Arnold infuses with carefully measured reminders of the joys available to Jackie if she can just let go of her grief--the sight of an old aunt dancing at a wedding, a group of drunken friends singing along to Oasis in one of those awful bachelor pads that are made for parties--but the sum of the parts feels derivative.

This story has been done before, and not just by the far more audacious , which Red Road conjures through its bleak Glaswegian streets and dour central performance from Kate Dickie. It hits all the story marks that have come to characterize screenplays that get processed through the Sundance Institute, where Red Road was developed.
Jackie's the kind of movie character who sleeps with the ashes of her husband and daughter, and who has perfunctory, alienating sex with a married man, story choices that feel very contrived here.

Despite the script flaws, Dickie gives a brave, compelling performance, and she finds the truths in Arnold's story. Her choices as an actress elevate this shopworn material into a heartbreaking, moving film.
knows how to let kids be kids.

In , his feature film debut, as in his Academy Award-nominated documentary , he presents adolescence as it really is. His characters are capable of poise and insight, but Blitz never forgets how immature teenagers usually are, frustrating and annoying in their awkwardness and intensity. Blitz's teens earn our respect because they fight for dignity, and win our hearts when he lets them lose.

Hal Hefner ( ) is a stuttering high school student singled out by sexy fast-talker Ginny Ryerson ( ) to join the debate team. It's a ludicrous proposition. Hal can't even order pizza from the cafeteria, he's so tongue-tied.

But Hal decides to go for it anyway, and starts getting ready for his public speaking debut--mainly because he's enthralled by Ginny's shiny, clean hair and irresistible confidence.
Blitz makes some missteps. He uses a third-person narrator to bookend the film, but the device ends up being more confusing than illuminating.

And Hal's closing speech strikes the kind of wrong note that Blitz so expertly avoids, turning Hal into a movie teenager that has all the answers. There are some structural weaknesses; however, it was refreshing to see a script that hasn't been developed within an inch of its life.
The cast is uniformly superb, with Thompson doing a marvelous job at performing a stutter without showing off the technique.

as Hal's older brother Earl is a comic gold mine, and newcomer steals every scene he's in as Lewis, Ginny's overly confident, socially inept neighbor. Lewis's idea of making friends is to ask Hal if he wants to see a bra, and blithely continue putting it on even while Hal's sidling out the door.
There's enough plot available to carry the film through a series of outlandishly comic set pieces, expertly directed by Blitz and edited by .

A sequence set to "Kiss Off" by the Violent Femmes is reminiscent of the great revenge sequence in Wes Anderson's Rushmore, but the comparison only an invocation. Rocket Science absolutely stands on its own. Especially when it's tripping on itself.

Yeah, that's Sylvia. She told a bunch of lies about my sister Paula and now she's being punished. If you want, you can put this cigarette out on her arm.

You won't get in trouble because Mom says it's okay.
It's no secret that actors are drawn to roles where they have to portray suffering and in , the latest feel-good slice of Americana from Killer Films (Boys Don't Cry), (Hard Candy) got handed a role worth going Method for. Not only does she get to scream her head off playing innocent scapegoat Sylvia Likens, she gets to suffer at the hands of master actress , playing torturer mom Gertrude Baniszewski.

Page's performance is captivating, fresh and intelligent, and the rest of the cast lives up to her standard and that of the subtle Keener, but the story itself never quite transcends true-crime exploitation.
Erstwhile comedy director (Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss, Ella Enchanted) is aiming for importance and tragedy, but ultimately he wants too much from the true events from 1965-66 that constitute the source material. Gertrude Baniszewski is a single mother with six kids who takes in Sylvia and younger sister Jennie ( ) for $20 a week from their carny parents.

Gertie was prone to depression and hooked on cough syrup, and when Sylvia angers Paula ( ), Gertie starts to punish Sylvia, growing increasingly more sadistic. She invites her children to participate, who then bring in neighbor children to join in the fun, who defend themselves with the old "we were just doing what we were told." Sylvia Likens ended her life in a filthy basement, covered in cigarette burns and with the phrase, "I'm a prostitute and proud of it" tattooed on her stomach.

It's an awful story, showing the ease with which a group mentality can lead people to commit acts of atrocity that would normally be unthinkable. Unfortunately, this is also a familiar story, and O'Haver doesn't come up with a strong enough reason for weighting his movie with such a portentous title. Quite simply, O'Haver doesn't have a tragedy on his hands.

That what happened to Sylvia in the basement of the Baniszewski house was evil is undeniable, but An American Crime doesn't offer a context that gives her story larger meaning and purpose.
As Sylvia herself puts it, "God has a plan, I guess. I'm still trying to figure out what the plan was.

" Despite the outstanding performances, solid plotting and good directorial choices, it's not clear why this story needed to be told. By chickening out on looking for meaning, An American Crime buries poor Sylvia in cold ground.
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Nine years was far too long to wait for Tamara Jenkins's sophomore feature, , her astonishingly mature follow-up to the quirky coming-of-age comedy . The time must have been well-spent, because The Savages feels like the work of a far more seasoned director, and manages to land a KO punch squarely in the jaw of the . The Savages has depth, resonance, and meaning, and delves into the scary heart of our deepest fears about aging, and it does so from a point of view that is honest and human.

stars as Wendy, an anxiety-prone wannabe playwright with a married boyfriend and a pointless cubicle temp job. Her estranged father ( ) has begun to slip into dementia. When Dad's girlfriend dies leaving him homeless Wendy and younger brother John ( ), a PhD specializing in Bertolt Brecht, fly to Arizona tasked with the burden of making the kind of hard decisions that mark the final passage into adulthood.

In the parking lot of a swank retirement community that won't take Dad because he's too far gone, John reminds Wendy that people are dying inside. And there's nothing that any amount of landscaping or bingo or carefully chosen room decorations can do about it.
Adult brother-sister siblings are rare onscreen; in fact, the only other recent movie that's captured this relationship with any accuracy is , which starred Linney as a tightly-wound older sister.

Here, she's the younger sibling, but Wendy thinks she should be the responsible one--and that dynamic rings so true for sisters. Brothers run around with their shirts untucked and live on ramen noodles well into their 30s and have disorganized relationships. They're not the ones who are expected to take capable charge of end-of-life decisions.

That's supposed to be women's work--but Wendy's lost from square one.
Wendy's growing realization of her brother's competence and tender compassion unmoors her. As the story progresses, her eyes grow wider and blanker, silently screaming "I don't want to be here" even as her sense of guilt turns her into stone.

John's stoic acceptance of the situation and confident decision-making infuriates her, and she ends up telling a stupid, childish lie in an attempt to wrestle some control over her part in the family psychodrama. She's in real danger of not making it, of checking out forever and condemning herself to an empty life, but the pull of family--however screwed up--might just be what saves her.
The film's portrayal of the devastation and heartbreak that dementia wreaks on the children of the afflicted is spot on, thanks to a superb performance by Bosco, an underrated actor who shows admirable restraint in some very difficult.

In , Jenkins showed an acute insight into the way a teenage girl's body betrays her, and here she turns that same perception onto the gross indignities suffered by the aging. As John puts it, "Death is gassy."
There's a standout scene early in the film when Wendy's flying Dad back to Buffalo, where John has found him a bed in a nursing home.

After loudly demanding that Wendy take him to the bathroom NOW, Dad shuffles painfully down the narrow aisle, Wendy carefully holding his arms, looking him in the eye but unable to hide the fact that she wishes this wasn't happening. He looks down at his feet, in the classic "someone is about to pee their pants" shot, and as he keeps walking, the suspense is excruciating. He stops; his eyes widen, then Wendy looks down.

He hasn't lost control, it's just that his pants have fallen down because Wendy didn't like the suspenders he was wearing. And then Jenkins cuts away for a shot aching with poignant horror: Dad in the middle of the aisle, wearing adult diapers. He's incontinent and unloved , and Jenkins and Bosco are brave enough to give it to us straight and unvarnished.

As sad and serious it is, The Savages has some wonderfully funny moments, including some physical humor from Hoffman in a weighted neck brace that adds some welcome leaven. Hoffman and Linney exceed expectation with nuanced performances that are never showy, even in the most dramatic moments. Jenkins knows how to get out of the way of the story, and rarely missteps.

A scene between Wendy and one of Dad's caregivers falls a little flat, as does an odd bit with John's Polish ex-girlfriend and some eggs that inexplicably make him cry, but these are minor quibbles. The Savages sets a high bar for Sundance '07 and marks a standout return by a director who's the real deal.
Bobby Seale was bound and gagged.

An American citizen in an American courtroom under the watchful eyes of the Founding Fathers was bound and gagged.
Yes, Bobby Seale was bound and gagged--but what does this have to do with January, 2007?
Brett Morgen, director of 2007 Sundance Film Festival Opening Night film Chicago 10, along with civic-minded financing entity Participant Pictures, believe passionately in the contemporary relevance of the events surrounding the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention.

With kinetic editing, audacious animation, and a fist-pumping score featuring Black Sabbath, Rage Against the Machine, and Eminem, Chicago 10 is tellin' y'all it's sabotage.
Archival footage from Chicago is intercut with animated realizations of the courtroom transcripts, rotoscoped and otherwise, in a roughly chronological progression. Day 1 of the protest follows Day 1 of the trial, with commentary provided by animated lectures by head Yippies Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, voiced by Hank Azaria and Mark Ruffalo, respectively.

There's not much more structurally going on here; Morgen's approach is strictly just the (flashy) facts, relying on the larger-than-life personalities and still-shocking imagery to keep audiences connected, engaged, and presumably applying historical lessons to current events.
Despite Morgen's best intentions and the considerable skill of editors Stuart Levy and Kristina Boden, the film never coalesces into a fresh contribution to these well-told events. Chicago 10's main weakness stems directly from Morgen's directorial choices.

By eschewing traditional documentary techniques like talking heads and text slates, Morgen denies himself his best tools for presenting necessary background information and nuance. It's a daunting--though not impossible--challenge that Chicago 10 doesn't meet.
The 10 in the title refers to the original eight defendants, the most famous being Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin representing the Yippies, pacifist David Dellinger, Tom Hayden and Rennie Davis from SDS, and Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale (whose severing turned the Chicago 8 into the Chicago 7).

John Froines and Lee Weiner also faced indictments. All served jail time, as did defense attorneys William Kunstler (voiced by Liev Schreiber) and Leonard Weinglass. Morgen adds to his 10 with prosecutor Thomas Aquinas Foran and Judge Julius Hoffman, (Nick Nolte and Roy Scheider, both making very obvious choices in their vocal performances).

1968 was nearly 40 years ago, if you can believe it, and what Morgen doesn't seem to realize is that the generation that will most appreciate his visual style is largely ignorant of the fact that the groups represented by the defendants weren't necessarily pursuing the same agenda. Younger audiences probably have zero knowledge of even the most basic facts of the story, and this movie isn't going to change that. The animated sequences of Rubin and Hoffman speaking to college students or in night clubs make them look like comedians traveling the same circuit as George Carlin and Lenny Bruce, only with less funny jokes.

The big question unanswered by Chicago 10 is the biggest of them all: What beliefs did they hold that were worth all the brouhaha? Uninformed audiences will have some vague awareness that non-violence was involved, and so will be confused by the incendiary statements made by Hoffman--statements that were deliberately orchestrated to provoke the police into violence against the mostly innocent protestors. The general perception of a homogenous hippie peace movement that younger audiences will bring to this movie is not challenged by Morgen, and that's the movies biggest downfall.

Chicago 10 is not a movie about ideas, history, or even current events. It's a movie about wishing something this exciting would happen again, no matter the price.
If anything, Chicago 10 should teach us to beware of demagogues, catch phrases and buzzwords, of blindly following our chosen leaders into a course of action with a hidden agenda.

Hoffman's cavorting in the courtroom is just another media moment, ultimately no more meaningful than George Bush's donning of an Air Force uniform inside Morgen's context-free movie.
Back to Bobby Seale, with those shackles. All Morgen shows us, through a one-note vocal performance by the usually subtle Jeffrey Wright, is a hysterical black man hollering about his constitutional rights.

The actual rights he's referring to are never explained. When he's hauled off, it's almost a relief, to get an end to shouting that seems so pointless. The power of seeing a black man in chains in a courtroom is shocking, but that's all it is.

The true failure of Chicago 10 is that its heroes seem ultimately no less arbitrary in their decisions and dogmatic in their positions than those the movie wishes to criticize for our own endless, meaningless war.
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