Simpsons - The Movie (USA 2007)
Director: David Silverman

Finally, the most successful television cartoon ever turns its attention to the big screen. The result is not spectacular but it’s still the Simpsons. Occasionally touching on the big issues of our time such as global warning and government spying, it would not be out of place to say that the film is basically a vehicle for Homer’s stupidity. The bungling selfish imbecile has become dumber and dumber as the TV series has gone on and "Simpsons – the Movie" is far more centered around him than some expected. In addition, as every other character from the TV series is given at least a small appearance, there is even less room to develop anything worthwhile from Bart, Lisa, Marge, Ned Flanders, Moe, Milhouse or Officer Wiggum. So if anyone but Homer is your favorite character, you are going to be a little disappointed.

His ineptitude begins with the poisoning of Springfield Lake after he dumps several weeks’ worth of pig dung in it. (Of course, Homer has for no apparent reason adopted a pig and tried to domesticate it.) The federal authorities react with horror at the resulting pollution and decide to quarantine Springfield.

The rest is classic Simpsons although critics may say that rather than make a feature film, they have just strung three loosely connected episodes together. Certainly, this is nothing like the movie joy that South Park’s creators made. However, no matter what Prost Amerika says, we know you’re going to watch this anyway. And so you should!

Dan Castellaneta: Homer / Itchy / Barney / Grampa / Stage Manager / Krusty the Clown / Mayor Quimby
Julie Kavner: Marge
Nancy Cartwright: Bart / Maggie / Ralph / Nelson / Todd Flanders
Yeardley Smith: Lisa
Hank Azaria: Professor Frink / Comic Book Guy / Moe / Chief Wiggum / Lou / Carl / Cletus / Bumblebee Man
Harry Shearer: Scratchy / Mr. Burns / Rev. Lovejoy / Ned Flanders / Lenny / Skull / President Arnold Schwarzenegger / Kent Brockman / Principal Skinner / Dr. Hibbert / Smithers
Pamela Hayden: Milhouse / Rod Flanders
Tress MacNeille: Colin / Mrs. Skinner / Nelson's Mother / Homer's Pig / G.P.S. Woman / Cookie Kwan / Lindsey Naegle
Albert Brooks: Russ Cargill
Marcia Wallace: Mrs. Krabappel (voice)
Russi Taylor: Martin (voice)
Maggie Roswell: Helen Lovejoy
Billie Joe Armstrong: Himself

Michael Clayton (USA 2007)
Director: Tony Gilroy

Readers of this site will know that a certain amount of savagery accompanied our review of producer, Steven Soderbergh’s, last project with Clooney, "The Good German". Michael Clayton is slightly better and Clooney returns to what he does best, being a modern-day Sean Connery, but not as good. However, if Clooney is present to sell the film, it is Tom Wilkinson who makes it worth watching. The Yorkshireman stars as the brilliant but unpredictable attorney Arthur Edens, and illustrates why English actors of his caliber are in high demand. A troubled man, Edens works for top Manhattan law firm, Kenner, Bach and Ledeen. They in turn represent the villains of this film, U/North, an agrochemical conglomerate which is alleged to have polluted the environment and caused illness to a rural population. So there you have four of the five main protagonists, a bad guy polluter, its law firm, their unpredictable employee and of course the plaintiffs, the affected families. Somehow a fifth protagonist, Michael Clayton, has to be added into a pretty full roster.

On the cusp of settling the lawsuit at a fraction of its real value, Edens begins to have doubts. After he forgets to take some medication, his sanity and his commitment to U/North begin to unravel. What had looked like a cheap settlement situation for U/North now totters on the brink of a disaster, as Edens threatens to reveal some information which would destroy his client. Their executives are getting edgy and they ask, law firm partner, Marty Bach (Sydney Pollack) to fix everything. He naturally turns to Michael Clayton. Whether his job is called a bagman or a corporate fixer, his role at the law firm is to clean up unfortunate situations. (Perhaps that a leading law firm even has such an employee should be grounds for dubiety in the first place, but we can let that go for now.) Clayton refers to himself as a janitor but Clooney’s character neither seems devious nor unprincipled enough to be believable in this ‘fixer’ role. Nevertheless Clayton is charged with reining Edens in. This task becomes more difficult after he completes his full turn to the victims and their families’ cause.

From that point onwards, it becomes a good and evil romp with Clayton trying to steer a middle course. Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) stars as U/North’s in-house counsel and brings a steely performance as the powerful career woman who overcomes her natural tendencies to manipulatively drive U/North’s corporate interests. Where the plot thickens, her hand is invariably on the tiller. She is to be commended for her performance and we don’t see enough of her in Michael Clayton. If anyone bridges the gap between the rest of the cast and Wilkinson, it is her. It is the latter, however, whose strong performance forces the audience to see the drama through his eyes. Whether intended or not, it’s Arthur Edens not Michael Clayton whose fate you care about. Tony Gilroy, the writer, makes his directing debut here. Let’s assume that this was his intention and look forward to his next project.

George Clooney: Michael Clayton
Tom Wilkinson: Arthur Edens
Michael O'Keefe: Barry Grissom
Sydney Pollack: Marty Bach
Danielle Skraastad: Bridget Klein (voice)
Tilda Swinton: Karen Crowder
Wai Chan: Chinese Dealer
Alberto Vazquez: Player #1
Brian Koppelman: Player #2
Thomas McCarthy: Walter (voice) (as Tom McCarthy)
Denis O'Hare: Mr. Greer
Julie White: Mrs. Greer
Austin Williams: Henry Clayton
Jennifer Van Dyck: Ivy
Frank Wood: Gerald
Rachel Black: Maude
Matthew Detmer: Todd
John Douglas Thompson: Jail Guard
Merritt Wever: Anna Kaiserson
Brian Poteat: Deposition Lawyer
Christopher Mann: Lieutenant Elston
Edward Furs: Milwaukee Captain
Katherine Waterston: Third Year
John Gerard Franklin: Correction Officer
Remy Auberjonois: Fifth Year
Pun Bandhu: Fourth Year
Jason Strong: First Year
Robert Prescott: Mr. Verne
Paul Oquist: Caddy
Terry Serpico: Mr. Iker
Heidi Armbruster: Anna's Sister
Pamela Gray: Cindy Bach
Andrew Hunter Sherman: UNorth (voice) (as Andrew Sherman)
Kevin Hagan: Raymond Clayton
Julia Gibson: Stephanie Clayton
Sean Cullen: Det. Gene Clayton
Susan Egbert: Michelle
David Lansbury: Timmy Clayton
David Zayas: Detective Dalberto
Douglas McGrath: Jeff Gaffney
Gregory Dann: Cop
Cathy Diane Tomlin: Cop #2
Sam Gilroy: Copy Kid
Maggie Siff: Attorney #1
Sarah Nichols: Barry's Assistant
Susan McBrien: Jean
Jordan Lage: Partner
Neal Huff: First Associate
Paul Juhn: Second Associate

We Own the Night (USA 2007)
Director: James Gray

This film will hope to be judged by its action sequences rather than its plot, which is predictable. The lone wolf of a law enforcement family, Robert 'Bobby' Green, (Joaquin Phoenix), sees the error of his ways after some earth shattering event, in which he finally sees the value of good over evil.

Needless to say, his former accomplices don’t take too kindly to this ‘betrayal’. Other than the predictability of the cops v villains backdrop, everything is else fairly good. Robert Duvall as the father, Deputy Chief Albert 'Bert' Grusinsky, is one of the best still making film and carries the rest of the cast. Bobby’s brother and Albert’s son is Capt. Joseph 'Joe' Grusinsky (Mark Wahlberg) and is less than gripping as a character until the latter part of the film.

The premise of the film is somewhat hard to grasp in the first place. Bobby works as a manager at a nightclub, El Caribe, populated by drug dealers and criminals in New York. His father appears to be Chief of Police yet nobody at the club seems to know this. This is blithely explained away by the use of his mother’s maiden name. After that, it was hard to believe anything without suspending your connection to reality. Elsewhere, the villains aren’t that scary and none of the other roles give the characters much leeway. This film is more reminiscent of an overlong episode of Kojak than anything else and it seems to be set in 1988 for no discernible reason.

Without giving away the plot, there’s not a great deal else to say. Eva Mendes is quite sexy, the final showdown is as artificial an ending as I’ve seen since the Good German, the car chase is quite good and there’s probably a little too much graphic violence to take young children.

If you’re a fan of Duvall, you should definitely add this to your collection, but the best I can say about his performance is that he rescues this film from the slightly above average.

Joaquin Phoenix: Robert 'Bobby' Green
Eva Mendes: Amada Juarez
Mark Wahlberg: Capt. Joseph 'Joe' Grusinsky
Robert Duvall: Deputy Chief Albert 'Bert' Grusinsky
Alex Veadov: Vadim Nezhinski
Dominic Colon: Freddie
Danny Hoch: Jumbo Falsetti
Oleg Taktarov: Pavel Lubyarsky
Moni Moshonov: Marat Buzhayev
Antoni Corone: Michael Solo
Craig Walker: Russell De Keifer
Tony Musante: Capt. Jack Shapiro
Joe D'Onofrio: Bloodied Patron
Yelena Solovey: Kalina Buzhayev (as Elena Solovey)
Maggie Kiley: Sandra Grusinsky

For the Bible Tells Me So (USA 2007)
Director: Daniel G. Karslake

The Gephardt Family

The theology, thin as it is, behind using the bible to persecute homosexuals is also examined and both Jewish and Christian scholars offer alternative interpretations. But this documentary is far from anti-family. The strength and love of the family unit is demonstrated by the reaction of Congressman Richard Gephardt (Missouri) to his daughter Chrissie. When Chrissie describes her father saying “You are my daughter and I will love you always” in a café, the power of the moment was incredible. Having devoted all his life to a political career, Gephardt still put love of his family before it. If Dr Dobson wants to focus on the family, he could do worse than focusing on the Gephardts.

Most of the people who end up watching this will start off sympathetic to its central point. What may surprise them, as it did this reviewer, is that fundamentalist bigots are more than a source of laughter. They are also responsible for a great deal of pain.

Chrissy Gephardt
Mary Lou Wallner
Tonia Poteat
Richard Gephardt
Gene Robinson
Desmond Tutu

Interview (USA/Canada/Netherlands 2007)
Director: Steve Buscemi

Sienna Miller

Buscemi is the film’s director and co-writer but also stars as Pierre Peders, a political journalist who has been downgraded to celebrity gossip, and has been dispatched to interview soap opera actress Katya (Sienna Miller). The interview is a disaster, but a series of events lead to them being brought together again. A game of verbal chess in the form of seduction begins, with most of the action set in her well-proportioned loft apartment. The film relies heavily on its dialogue but Buscemi and Miller don’t quite gel together, although there is a surprising ending which Buscemi builds up to relatively well. The lack of any obvious on-screen chemistry between the two hampers the film throughout, and Katya’s sudden changes between vacuous party girl and haunted and philosophical thinker demand a little suspension of disbelief.

However, the film is short for a feature and by the time you’ve run out of the will or energy to indulge its shortcomings, it will be over and you probably will have been entertained.

Sienna Miller: Katya
Steve Buscemi: Pierre Peders
Michael Buscemi: Robert Peders
Tara Elders: Maggie
David Schecter: Maitre'd
Molly Griffith: Waitress
Elizabeth Bracco: Woman at Restaurant
James Villemaire: Man at Restaurant
Jackson Loo: Fan at Restaurant
muMs da Schemer: Cab Driver (as muMs)
Doc Dougherty: Other Driver
Donna Hanover: Commentator
Wayne Wilcox: Hunky Actor
Danny Schechter: Political Pundit
Philippe Vonlanthen: Autograph Seeker #1

Longford (England 2006)
Director: Tom Hooper

Jim Broadbent as Lord Longford

It was into that highly charged emotional cauldron that Lord Longford stepped when he took on the case of Myra Hindley in 1965.

Hooper’s film intersperses the drama with documentary footage of the murders at the time and Longford’s tireless campaign throughout the years. But as you can’t really change the plot line of a drama based on real events (with the exception of "In the Name of Our Father"), Hooper has to rely on something else to catch the eye. In this case it is superb acting, probably some of the best you are likely to see. Jim Broadbent is a well-known name for most English readers, but even for a man with such credentials, this is fantastic stuff. He portrays hope, idealism, despair, and fear with genius; and one scene, where Hindley makes a revealing confession to him, will stick in your mind for ever. He won a BAFTA Award for best actor for this in 2007 and a Golden Globe in 2008. One small distraction was the prosthetic nose and chin that he wore to look as much as possible like the real Lord Longford. This gave a feeling of unnecessary artificiality to the character, though Broadbent's occasionally ridiculous appearance should not be allowed to detract from his overall triumph.

Although he carries the film, others assist. Lindsay Duncan plays his long-suffering wife, Elizabeth, whose character is neatly used to represent the voice of public opinion – especially those of women - in Longford’s isolated world. Andy Serkis as the evil Ian Brady is chilling but still manages to sow seeds of doubt in our minds as to where exactly the balance of evil lay in his relationship with Hindley. Initially the court refused to believe that a woman could be so evil and the judge’s summation expressed the view that she had been taken in to some extent by Brady, with whom she claimed to have been in love. To that end, the judge ruled that Brady would never be released but that one day Hindley might be eligible for parole. It was on these views that Longford’s campaign heavily rested initially, being later supplemented by the feminist perspective of Elizabeth.

But was it simply injustice that drove Longford on, to risk ridicule by the public, vilification by the press, dismissal by the Prime Minister Harold Wilson from his post as Leader of the Lords, and the respect of his family? Much is made of Longford’s religious convictions and the film raises issues of contrition and forgiveness, such as whether some crimes are so heinous that there can be no question of forgiveness, or are these cases just the ultimate test of our faith? Non-religious viewers may see comparisons between the suspension of reality Longford indulges in to follow his religion and the suspension of reality needed to believe in Hindley’s contrition. Indeed, his ability to delude himself despite warnings from friends and foes alike may seem irrational to many. Was he a religious idealist, a feminist, a liberal do-gooder, an arrogant egotist or a just a gullible old fool? Opinions will divide upon seeing the film as they did, and still do, amongst the English public.

Prost Amerika recommends you see this film before deciding but also that if you’re ever in Manchester, don’t bring the matter up with strangers. Although Hindley died in 2002, her name still invokes a strong reaction there. And feelings are still raw.

Jim Broadbent: Lord Longford
Samantha Morton: Myra Hindley
Andy Serkis: Ian Brady
Tam Dean Burn: Roy
Lindsay Duncan: Lady Elizabeth Longford
Kate Miles: Rachel Pakenham
Sarah Crowden: Lady Tree
Robert Pugh: Harold Wilson
Caroline Clegg: Longford's Secretary
Alex Blake: Paddy Pakenham
Roy Barber: Father Kahle
Ian Connaughton: Reporter
Charlotte West-Oram: Downing Street Secretary
Roy Carruthers: Albany Prison Officer
Lee Boardman: Talk Show Host

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (UK/France/Germany 2007)
Director: Shekhar Kapur

Cate Blanchett

Cate Blanchett takes the lead role as Queen Elizabeth and is well supported by the consistently excellent Geoffrey Rush who reprises the role of Sir Frances Walsingham he took in the 1998 original. The Queensland native has a resume of extraordinary length from the recent, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, all the way back to decades of television both in his native Australia and in England.

Elizabeth the Golden Age resumes the story of the 1998 original but it is the presence of Sir Walter Raleigh, almost comically played by Clive Owen, that begins to dominate the film. He is neither believable nor worthy of the attention as an Elizabethan Errol Flynn. In reality, Raleigh was a religious fanatic who took part in two massacres of civilians at Rathlin Island and Smerwick. However, here he is portrayed as a cross between Blackadder's Captain Flashheart and Casanova. It is Elizabeth's sexual fascination with him which becomes the center point of the film. At times, she appears to regard the impending Spanish invasion as an unwelcome distraction from her flirtation. Why bother with a historical drama at all if it merely to provide the backdrop to a love story? Finally her lady-in-waiting Bess Throckmorton (Abbie Cornish) gets involved and the film returns to a better purpose.

The relationship between the Queen and her closest maid is well done. Elizabeth seems to waver. Sometimes she lets the constraints of office restrict her behaviour, living life vicariously though Bess. However, on occasions Raleigh seems to be tempting her to let her true passion show. When she finally distances herself from Bess, the carrier of her emotional self, she rises to the divine warrior status, and leads her people to victory.

The loss of the Armada was the most humiliating loss in Spanish military history. Kapur notes that had the wind being blowing in a different direction, we would all be speaking Spanish now. He may be right but the portrayal of such monumental historical events probably deserves more than a supporting role to an unlikely romantic storyline.

Cate Blanchett: Queen Elizabeth I
Geoffrey Rush: Sir Francis Walsingham
Clive Owen: Sir Walter Raleigh
Jordi Mollà: King Philip ll of Spain
John Shrapnel: Lord Howard
Aimee King: Infanta
Susan Lynch: Annette
Elise McCave: Laundry Woman
Samantha Morton : Mary Stuart
Abbie Cornish: Elizabeth Throckmorton
Penelope McGhie: Margaret
Rhys Ifans: Robert Reston
Eddie Redmayne: Thomas Babington
Stuart McLoughlin: Savage
Adrian Scarborough: Calley

Away From Her (Canada 2006)
Director: Sarah Polley

Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent

Grant and Fiona Andersson (Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent) have been married for 44 years when Fiona begins to show some disturbing symptoms of memory loss and confusion. Both highly literate and articulate people (he is a former university professor), they wrestle with what lies ahead: the loss of memory, understanding and eventually personality itself as the brain slowly deteriorates. Grant wants to keep Fiona at home as long as possible, but she chooses to make the move to a nearby nursing home while she is still mostly functional and coherent.

The nursing home has a policy that new patients can't receive visitors for the first 30 days, ostensibly to make their transition easier, but as nurse Kristy (Kristen Thomson) suggests to Grant as he struggles with the parting from Fiona, it may be more for the staff's convenience. During those 30 days Fiona becomes attached to another patient, the silent wheelchair-bound Aubrey, and when Grant returns she seems not to know him, though there are hints that this is partly her choice, and perhaps connected with things that happened in their marriage many years earlier. Grant struggles to cope with this situation, and eventually makes contact with Aubrey's wife Marian (Olympia Dukakis), the final piece in the pattern.

All the major performances here are outstanding -- the patience and hidden terror of Grant, Fiona's dignity and fragility, Marian's bitterness and exuberance. The staging keeps things simple and leaves plenty of time and space for the story to unfold, with the Canadian winter and early spring as a backdrop. There are also subtle notes that add depth to the unfolding, such as the recurring image of ski tracks on pristine snow, or the way that the poetry Grant reads to his wife echoes their life together. Perhaps the slight detachment added by the scenery and the poetry are needed to make this emotionally wrenching story bearable, as it forces the viewer to confront powerful questions of love and mortality, of what he or she would do in Grant's place, or Fiona's.

Julie Christie : Fiona Andersson
Gordon Pinsent : Grant Andersson
Stacey LaBerge : Young Fiona
Olympia Dukakis : Marian
Deanna Dezmari : Veronica
Clare Coulter : Phoebe Hart
Thomas Hauff : William Hart
Alberta Watson : Dr. Fischer
Grace Lynn Kung : Nurse Betty
Lili Francks : Theresa
Andrew Moodie : Liam
Wendy Crewson : Madeleine Montpellier
Judy Sinclair : Mrs. Albright Tom Harvey : Michael

Klimt (Austria 2006)
Director: Raoul Ruiz

There seems to be an assumption that any film which stars John Malkovich is automatically a work of genius and if you don’t see it, then the problem is you. In fact this is a fairly irritating film in which it is often difficult to tell which characters are real and which are the figments of Klimt’s imagination. Nor can it be called a biopic as there are hardly any details about his life, and the focus of the action is contained mostly in one time period. Ruiz himself termed it a "phantasmagoria". The character himself is the usual template of rebel artist who defies authority and swears a lot. His womanizing gives Director Raoul Ruiz plenty scope for copious female nudity, and the era in which it is set allows for some excellent costume design. But in truth Malkovich mumbles his way through the film.

There are also many Lea de Castros but as they are all played by the same actress, Saffron Burrows, it becomes quickly impossible to distinguish them. The best vehicle to explain what is going on is undoubtedly Klimt’s conversations with the Third Secretary in Perpetuity (Stephen Dillane) but even these are clothed in analogies, clues and mysticism. As a result, the viewer’s cluelessness is only slightly diminished. This brings us to language. Spaniard Raoul Ruiz wrote it in French. Then it was translated into German for the crew in the Austrian and German filming locations, before Gilbert Adair then translated it again into English for the actors. The Austrian characters converse with each other in English which is of course supposed to be German. Then oddly, some of the characters actually speak German. One can guess it’s to represent that the entire art community lives inside its own bubble. Anyway, you will learn nothing about Klimt from this film but you will see plenty of bare flesh and pretty dresses. It’s art-house, it’s erotic, it’s also not very good.

John Malkovich: Gustav Klimt
Veronica Ferres: Emilie Flöge
Stephen Dillane: Secretary
Saffron Burrows: Lea de Castro
Sandra Ceccarelli: Serena Lederer
Nikolai Kinski: Egon Schiele
Aglaia Szyszkowitz: Mizzi
Joachim Bissmeier: Hugo Moritz
Ernst Stötzner: Minister Hartl
Paul Hilton: Duke Octave Herzog
Annemarie Düringer: Klimt's Mother
Irina Wanka: Berta Zuckerkandl
Florentín Groll: Messerschmidt (as Florentin Groll)
Miguel Herz-Kestranek: Dr. Stein
Marion Mitterhammer: Hermine Klimt

Talk to Me (USA 2007)
Director: Kasi Lemmons

Lemmons tries to recreate the Washington DC of the 1960s with this occasionally humorous biography of Ralph “Petey” Greene (Don Cheadle). Michael Genet and Rick Famuyiwa wrote this loose biography about a convict who rose from the streets to become an influential and successful disc jockey on local radio.

Soul, funk and R&B were popular on the streets of DC at the time, but added to the mix was an increasing sense that the black community did not need to tolerate the treatment that they suffered from the authorities, and that their musical tastes were being ignored by the mainstream media. With his determination to "tell it like it is", Greene, assisted by radio station program director Dewey Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor), charms and hoodwinks his way onto the airwaves at station WOL-AM.

Dewey Hughes is visiting his brother Milo (Mike Epps) in Lorton Prison when he first meets Greene, who is working on prison radio. Greene manages to cajole a promise of future employment from Hughes, and then finds his way out of jail much earlier than anticipated to take up the promised job. This is the beginning of a long and unusual relationship between the two. Both bring something new to the friendship/business partnership, something that the other lacks or perhaps fears.

The station's existing black DJs, Nighthawk (Cedric the Entertainer) and Sunny Jim (Vondie Curtis-Hall), are soon eclipsed as Greene brings his effervescence and disarming honesty to the airwaves. However, his façade of doing what he wants when he wants, which so infuriates station owner E G Sonderling (Martin Sheen), is challenged when external events end his disconnection from the outside world. The film is essentially about how he and Hughes deal with the exposure to life outside one's comfort level. As Hughes’ ambitions for his protégé increase, so does Greene’s obvious discomfort which reaches its peak when network television comes calling. He was a big name inside the smaller world of African-Americans in Washington DC, but couldn’t cope, or perhaps didn’t want to, when Hughes tried to drag him into a wider world.

The interplay between Cheadle and Ejiofor is interesting and on occasions electric, especially when Cheadle’s character “Petey” Greene challenges Hughes’ black credentials. Greene, although a somewhat repulsive and dishonest individual, is hard not to love, and you do find yourself rooting for him to succeed, despite the fact that his views on life may not be yours. Nowadays we would call him a shock-jock; perhaps he was one of the first.

Greene died of cancer in 1984, not before being welcomed into Jimmy Carter’s White House and having the ear of the powerful for a moment. Dewey Hughes went on to become a major figure in Radio One and gave the movie his personal stamp of approval when he attended its opening. Greene’s family were less pleased, and elicited a reaction from Kasi Lemmons, who said she wanted a movie not a biopic in answer to criticisms from Greene’s family about his portrayal as an alcoholic womanizer.

So we'll call it a movie - and not a bad one at that. I look forward to seeing what Ejiofor in particular does next.

Don Cheadle: Ralph Waldo 'Petey' Greene
Chiwetel Ejiofor: Dewey Hughes
Bruce McFee: Prison Sign-In Guard
Mike Epps: Milo Hughes
Peter MacNeill: Warden Cecil Smithers
Adam Gaudreau: Escorting Guard
Taraji P. Henson: Vernell Watson
Cedric the Entertainer: 'Nighthawk' Bob Terry
Martin Sheen: E.G. Sonderling
J. Miles Dale: Program Director
Sean MacMahon: Ronnie Simmons
Richard Chevolleau: Poochie Braxton
Martin Randez: Hadley
Todd Schroeder: Guard Captain (as Todd William Schroeder)
Vondie Curtis-Hall: Sunny Jim Kelsey

Hostel 2 (USA/Slovakia/Italy 2007)
Director: Eli Roth

Hostel was the highly successful horror movie set in a youth hostel in Slovakia where the residents were often kidnapped for brutal torture. It was controversial but quickly became a cult. Cult movies being often hard to follow up, it was never going to be easy to find a new angle for the sequel. They did. They tool the film from the point of view not of the victims, but the torturers themselves. Roth therefore asked himself what kind of people would want to do the torturing. How would they be found? What are the mechanics?

This proves to be the key to the success of the film in that Roth successfully manages to chop and change the character through whose eyes we see the ghoulish proceedings unfold. It also had the advantage of allowing Roth to explore another theme - the financial value which we put on human life if called upon to do so. In one of the early scenes, potential torturers bid on each new victim. Roth claims that this was inspired by his disgust at the Bush/Cheney regime which sent young men to die so that they and their business friends to profit. Whether we would all necessarily agree with that assessment is irrelevant, it is a valid question that he is entitled to ask although perhaps referring to the upturn in the business of human trafficking might have been a more apt comparison.

However beyond the politics, the technique allows for numerous changes of pace and prevents the viewer from getting too comfortable. In a sequel, we are far more certain that we know what’s going to happen and this can of course reduce the shock value. Roth’s new perspective prevents this and in fact two of our heroes, (and I use that word somewhat loosely), Stuart (Roger Bart) and Todd (Richard Burgi) are not in fact victims, but potential torturers. Other characters including of course victims Beth (Laura German), Lorna (Heather Matarazzo) and Whitney (Bijou Phillips) also take their time in the spotlight, and the film switches our attention cleverly.

Indeed it may be Matarazzo’s performance that critics and filmgoers remember for time to come in what will inevitably become known as the Bathory scene after Countess Elizabeth Báthory, remembered as the Bloody Lady of Čachtice. She was reputed to bathe in the blood of virginal girls in order to retain her youth in the 16th Century. The film is worth seeing for this scene alone and Matarazzos’ preparation for it was said to have been meticulous including yoga classes and hanging upside down for minutes on end.

We should also not forget the part the Slovaks themselves play in the movie. The Hostel team returns to picturesque setting of Cesky Krumlov and because Hostel 2 was not filmed in winter like Hostel, there are new parts of the village for them to explore. Former Slovak Minister of Culture, Milan Knazko, stars as Sasha, an Anthony Hopkins like leader of the cartel which organizes the torture. A very capable performance he gives too, both when speaking and not speaking such as in one chilling scene where he brings out the best from the Bubblegum Gang, a gang of local kids who seem to act independently of the all powerful cartel. It’s a strange dynamic as this cartel can find out minute details both on its clients and victims, and carry out acts of appalling savagery all over the globe but somehow cannot control a gang of homeless children on its own doorstep. Perhaps a theme for Hostel 3?

As the very successful Hostel was influenced by Asian cinema, director Eli Roth says this very watchable sequel was shaped by 70s Italian Giallo cinema. He has managed to make it different enough to the original so that we are never sitting comfortably with that degree of blasé that often accompanies watching a sequel. If you liked the first, you’ll probably like this one.

Lauren German : Beth
Roger Bart: Stuart
Heather Matarazzo: Lorna
Bijou Phillips: Whitney
Richard Burgi: Todd
Vera Jordanova: Axelle
Jay Hernandez: Paxton
Jordan Ladd: Stephanie
Milan Knazko: Sasha
Edwige Fenech: Art Class Professor
Monika Malacova: Mrs. Bathory
Stanislav Ianevski: Miroslav
Patrik Zigo: Bubblegum Gang Leader
Zuzana Geislerová: Inya
Ivan Furak: Big Guard

The History Boys (England 2006)
Director: Nicholas Hytner

Nicholas Hytner’s film started life as Alan Bennett’s stage play at England’s National Theater and it is the original cast of that play who star in the film. Our English readers will know of the near-legendary status of Richard Griffiths, who plays the aging and portly teacher Hector. Hector’s somewhat arbitrary teaching methods have lasted through the years at Cutlers, a Yorkshire Grammar school. His classes are forced to act out lines of great movies in Film Noir history and perform scenes from musicals. His pupils generally like him and tolerate his occasional timid forays into homosexuality with those he cajoles into taking a ride on his motorcycle. Some will protest that the attempted molestation of pupils by a schoolteacher is not a matter to be treated so flippantly as Bennett does here. Yet despite this, the viewer will not fail to take Hector as a sympathetic though pitiful figure. Frances de la Tour as feminist teacher Ms Lintott, Clive Merrison as the headmaster and Stephen Campbell Moore complete the excellent adult cast.

Hector’s troubles begin when a particularly talented group of pupils at Cutler’s reach their final year. The ambitious headmaster decides he wants to do all that he can to get as many of them as possible into Oxford or Cambridge (collectively known as Oxbridge) and that he needs to bring in an extra teacher to coach them. So Mr Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore) is hired. Immediately there is friction between his methods and Hector’s, as Irwin tries to focus the boy’s attention on their upcoming challenge. Hector is portrayed as cross between an educational dinosaur, a kind of English Harvey Lippschitz, and a restrained and fearful homosexual. Moore seems oddly miscast, being neither the screen villain nor Hector’s implacable enemy, and his teaching methods also seem unorthodox. It’s sometimes hard to see why the strict headmaster would prefer him over Hector.

This is a fine film with some superb performances from the young cast too. If you can get over your general unease at the overtly sympathetic treatment of Hector’s character, you will enjoy this, although the England it portrays seems more redolent of the 1950s than the 1980s. A certain amount of suspension of reality is involved, as the boys accept homosexual infatuations amongst pupils with equanimity, homophobia is absent and the characters are not always that believable. However if you can do that, and relish fine acting, this one is recommended.

Richard Griffiths: Hector
Clive Merrison: The Headmaster
Stephen Campbell Moore: Irwin
James Corden: Timms
Frances de la Tour: Mrs. Lintott
Samuel Anderson : Crowther
Andrew Knott: Lockwood
Russell Tovey: Rudge
Jamie Parker: Scripps
Dominic Cooper: Dakin
Samuel Barnett: Posner
Sacha Dhawan: Akhtar
Penelope Wilton: Mrs. Bibby
Adrian Scarborough: Wilkes
Georgia Taylor: Fiona

Golden Door (Italy 2006)
Director: Emanuele Crialese
Original Title: Nuovomondo

Salvatore Mancuso (Vincenzo Amato) is a poor Sicilian farmer who decides to emigrate to the United States with his mother Fortunata (Aurora Quattrocchi) and sons Angelo (Francesco Casisa) and Pietro (Filippo Pucillo), around the turn of the 20th century. Fortunata is reluctant to go but the hope of reuniting Salvatore with his twin brother persuades her to make the trip. Nevertheless, she resists anything new, foreign or intrusive with vigor. With incredible notions such as vegetables that barely fit in wheelbarrows and rivers of milk, Salvatore uses his imagination of what awaits in America to help him deal both with what he is leaving behind and with the perils of the journey itself.

During the process of boarding, a mysterious stranger, Lucy Reed (Charlotte Gainsbourg) appears. Quite how a refined English lady came to be packed onto a boat with poverty-stricken Sicilian farmers is never explained, but Salvatore’s life will not be the same again. Unfortunately, the lack of depth surrounding the characters makes it very difficult to attain any degree of empathy and you may wonder what exactly the point of the film was. Then again, Crialese may be leaving us with unanswered questions to whet our appetite for a sequel.

Charlotte Gainsbourg: Lucy Reed
Vincenzo Amato: Salvatore Mancuso
Aurora Quattrocchi: Fortunata Mancuso
Francesco Casisa: Angelo Mancuso
Filippo Pucillo: Pietro Mancuso
Federica De Cola: Rita D'Agostini
Isabella Ragonese: Rosa Napolitano
Vincent Schiavelli: Don Luigi
Massimo Laguardia: Mangiapane
Filippo Luna: Don Ercole
Andrea Prodan: Del Fiore
Ernesto Mahieux: Dr. Zampino

Evening (USA/Germany 2007)
Director: Lajos Koltai

Clare Danes

The story of that fateful weekend is told in long flashbacks. The young Ann (Clare Danes) arrives at the Wittenborn summer mansion, to be a bridesmaid for her best friend Lila (Mamie Gummer), a society girl whose other bridesmaids look down their noses at aspiring singer Ann. Lila's heavy-drinking younger brother Buddy (Hugh Dancy), who has a long-term crush on Ann, introduces her to Harris (Patrick Wilson), son of their former housekeeper and now a local doctor. Harris is charming and enigmatic, rejecting one woman and seducing another without ever giving much of himself away.

As the movie moves back and forth in time, the older Ann drifts deeper and deeper into the past, called out only by the need of her daughters, one of whom is still struggling with her own life in a way that sometimes parallels her mother. Both stories slowly approach their crisis, moving at a pace that neither hurries the climax nor lingers too long on the details.

There are many great performances here. Clare Danes and Vanessa Redgrave have both similar bone structure and the ability to bring intensity to their parts without ever overplaying it, and the sense that they are truly the same person 50 years apart is much stronger than in many similar movies. Meryl Streep also carries conviction as the older Lila, with the same calmness and resignation as her younger counterpart. Glenn Close does a fine job as Lila and Buddy's mother, the tightly-wound society hostess.

The male characters are not always as strongly drawn. Hugh Dancy as Buddy is sometimes overdone, and Patrick Wilson's Harris doesn't quite seem powerful enough to be the defining man in so many women's lives. In the present story, Toni Collette's Nina also somewhat overshadows her partner Luc (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). Whether this is actually an integral part of the film, where women's lives are on center stage and men only the supporting players, or simply an artifact of casting so many amazing female performers, in the end it doesn't really make a difference, though it may make this somewhat more of a women's movie than one with a wider appeal.

Claire Danes: Young Ann
Toni Collette: Nina
Vanessa Redgrave: Ann Lord
Patrick Wilson: Harris Arden
Hugh Dancy: Buddy Wittenborn
Natasha Richardson: Constance Lord
Mamie Gummer: Lila Wittenborn
Eileen Atkins: The Night Nurse
Meryl Streep: Lila Wittenborn
Glenn Close: Mrs. Wittenborn
Ebon Moss-Bachrach: Luc
Barry Bostwick: Mr. Wittenborn
David Furr: Ralph Haverford
Sarah Viccellio: Lizzie Tull
Cheryl Lynn Bowers: Peach Howze

Eastern Promises (England 2007)
Director: David Cronenberg

Steven Knight’s outstanding tale of murder and intrigue is set in London, where a midwife in Trafalgar Hospital, Anna Ivanovna Khitrova (Naomi Watts) gets inveigled with the Russian mafia, the Vory v Zakone, after a newly born baby arrives in the maternity ward. The baby’s mother, Tatiana (Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse) dies in childbirth but a diary is found on her. Anna, whose departed father coincidentally happens to be Russian, resolves to get it translated with a view to returning the baby to its family.

The film follows a tried and tested formula for success. It has a good storyline, good performances, and a good cast. West Wing veteran, Armin Mueller-Stahl, is outstanding as the outwardly charming Semyon, owner of the upscale Trans-Siberian restaurant and Anna’s problems begin when she goes to him to have the diary translated after her uncle Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski) refuses to get involved. Mueller-Strahl is both steely and believable, demonstrating an ability to use the slightest of gestures to convey thoughts as would befit a cautious mobster masquerading as a genuine businessman. However it is Viggo Mortensen, working with Cronenberg for a second time, History of Violence being the first, who steals the show as Nikolai. Ostensibly Nikolai is a Vory v Zakone chauffeur to whom Semyon entrusts the safety of his wayward drunk of a son, Kirill, played oddly by a Frenchman, Vincent Cassel. However he, the Danish Mortensen, the Pole Skolimowski and the German Strahl all make passable Russians, with Mortensen especially said to have researched the part heavily by traveling to the distant part of Russia from which his character comes.

Cronenberg’s film does not avoid or embroider the brutality of mobsterism. There are some very graphic scenes of violence; blades and axes are in evidence as members of the mob are dismembered. But his film is unpretentious in the extreme and even when it examines themes such as how far the loyalty between father and son outweighs that between right and wrong, he keeps it at a level that we can all relate to and that doesn’t distract from the plot.

Viggo Mortensen: Nikolai
Naomi Watts: Anna
Vincent Cassel: Kirill
Armin Mueller-Stahl: Semyon
Sinéad Cusack: Helen
Mina E. Mina: Azim
Jerzy Skolimowski: Stepan
Donald Sumpter: Yuri
Josef Altin: Ekrem
Aleksandar Mikic: Soyka
Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse: Tatiana
Lalita Ahmed: Customer
Badi Uzzaman: Chemist
Doña Croll: Nurse (as Dona Croll)
Raza Jaffrey: Doctor Aziz

La Vie en Rose (France/UK/Czech Republic 2007)
Director: Olivier Dahan
Original Title: La Môme

This epic biopic of legendary French singer Edith Piaf has an appeal well beyond the normal limitations of foreign language cinema. Marion Cotillard rises above her colleagues to deliver a performance which will be difficult to surpass regardless of wherever her future career may lead. Lasting over two hours, Dahan’s portrayal of both the poverty of Piaf’s early life and her tempestuous and self-destructive behavior when older ensures no shortage of drama throughout the film. The story begins with Piaf as a small child, then still Édith Giovanna Gassion (Manon Chevallier as the five-year-old Edith), growing up as a bemused onlooker in her grandmother’s (Catherine Allégret) Normandy brothel. From her childhood keratitis which nearly cost Piaf her sight, through her contortionist father’s morphine addiction, the hardships that shaped Piaf’s attitude to her life and music are put on open display.

No one should take this as a factually accurate portrayal of Piaf’s life. Several things are blurred or diminished, such as her death being from cancer as opposed to her lifestyle and a series of automobile accidents. Cotillard by her own admission did not attempt to mimic Piaf and her performance is better for this. Some viewers may find the frequent change of year irritating, and indeed it does hop from her childhood to her adulthood to her last days and back again. Makeup artist Didier Lavergne does a fabulous job making Cotillard resemble a 45-year-old who looks two decades older due to her health. Another critic confessed to being originally under the impression that two actresses had portrayed Piaf at each of those two periods of her life. Cotillard herself takes more credit for her physical portrayal of the rheumatism and frailty which bedeviled Piaf’s later life.

Almost all the songs ("Heaven Have Mercy", "Milord", "La foule", "Cri du cœur", "La vie en rose", "Padam Padam", "Mon Dieu", "Hymne à l'amour", "Mon manège à moi", and the classic "Non, je ne regrette rien") are Piaf’s herself, with "Parigote" singer Jil Aigrot performing another four ("Mon Homme", "Les Mômes de la Cloche", "Mon Légionnaire", "Les Hiboux"). Digitally remasterd, they remain as powerful today as they were in her day. One notable exception is of course La Marseillaise. La Vie en Rose joins those other classic films Casablanca, Napoléon, Escape to Victory, and Jean Renoir’s superb La Grande Illusion in their use of an emotive rendering of France’s National anthem. In La Vie en Rose, it is performed by the young singer Cassandre Berger.

Though many of the themes of tragic death, illness, a cruel childhood and the self-destructive streak that seem to be prerequisites for any biopic have been done before, and the plot and dialogue are sometimes weak, Cotillard’s performance makes this a film worth treasuring.

Marion Cotillard: Edith Piaf
Sylvie Testud: Mômone
Pascal Greggory: Louis Barrier
Emmanuelle Seigner: Titine
Jean-Paul Rouve: Louis Gassion
Gérard Depardieu: Louis Leplée
Clotilde Courau: Anetta
Jean-Pierre Martins: Marcel Cerdan
Catherine Allégret: Louise
Marc Barbé: Raymond Asso
Caroline Sihol: Marlene Dietrich (as Caroline Silhol)
Manon Chevallier: Edith - 5 years old
Pauline Burlet: Edith - 10 years old
Elisabeth Commelin: Danielle Bonel
Marc Gannot: Marc Bonel

Mona Lisa Smile (USA 2003)
Director: Mike Newell

A wonderful cast brings this somewhat template story line to life. Julia Roberts plays art teacher Katherine Ann Watson, who leaves California to take up a job as art teacher at a conservative New England womens’ college in 1953. The premise of the film is similar to "Dead Poets Society" in many ways as Watson arrives as an unorthodox teacher at a conventional institution, in this case Wellesley College.

Wellesley and its contemporaries were essentially finishing schools for society wives masquerading as educational institutions, where Ivy League men could find suitable partners. "Mona Lisa Smile" tells the story of four of these girls and the way their paths intersect with Roberts' character. Kirsten Dunst just about steals Julia Roberts’ spotlight here with a convincing performance as the spiteful but insecure student Betty Warren. Some of the interplay between Warren and Roberts’ art teacher Katherine Ann Watson is magnificent to watch. Watson's methods are unorthodox and she confronts and affronts a crusty establishment, represented excellently by the President of the College Jocelyn Carr (Marian Seldes). As well as Roberts and Dunst, there are excellent performances from a full cast of supporting characters, with Maggie Gyllenhaal as student Giselle Levy and Juliet Stevenson as nurse Amanda Armstrong especially standing out.

In an era where many critics opine that not enough good parts are being written for women, "Mona Lisa Smile" defies that, and the film is actually at its best in the scenes without men. Indeed, the male characters are fairly one-dimensional in Mona Lisa Smile, mostly portrayed as either dismissive of women’s ambitions and talents or serial womanizers. The cast do as well as is possible with these roles but in reality, there is more for a female audience in this film than for men.

Life in 1953 is very different for women and Mona Lisa Smile raises feminist issues without ever lecturing us. Watson encourages her students to seek further education and fulfill themselves intellectually but comes up against a culture where a woman’s ambition was supposed to reach its zenith at marriage. As such the film does serve as a useful reminder that women have had to fight for even the equality they enjoy today, incomplete as it is.

Julia Roberts: Katherine Ann Watson
Kirsten Dunst: Betty Warren
Julia Stiles: Joan Brandwyn
Maggie Gyllenhaal: Giselle Levy
Ginnifer Goodwin: Connie Baker
Dominic West: Bill Dunbar
Juliet Stevenson: Amanda Armstrong
Marcia Gay Harden: Nancy Abbey
John Slattery: Paul Moore
Marian Seldes: President Jocelyn Carr
Donna Mitchell: Mrs. Warren
Terence Rigby: Dr. Edward Staunton
Jennie Eisenhower: Girl at the Station
Leslie Lyles: Housing Director
Laura Allen: Susan Delacorte

Once (Republic of Ireland 2006)
Director: John Carney

"Once" is a 21st-century musical, a boy meets girl story that's more about the music they make together than the possible romance between them. Indeed the title comes from the Irish habit of talking about that which might happen but never does, for example “Once, I’ve passed my exams, I’ll do this”, or “Once I have some money, I’ll emigrate to England.”

The unnamed guy (Glen Hansard, frontman of the Irish rock band the Frames) and girl (Markéta Irglová) meet on Rathlin Street in Dublin, where he is a busker and she sells flowers. We never find out their names. Caught by the emotional lyrics of one of his songs, she stops to talk to him and initially makes several attempts to inveigle him into her life. Reluctantly, he gets sucked in and it becomes clear that they have some things in common. It turns out that she is a musician too, a Czech immigrant who plays a borrowed piano in her lunch hour. From then on, the songs are cleverly stitched into the story and used as a tool both to demonstrate their coming together but also the things that keep them apart. Hansard’s character demonstrates a particular inaptitude at persuading her to take the relationship to the next stage. His inability to find the right things to day verbally is more than made up for by his ability to tell his life story through song, at one point changing accents and even musical styles to describe a particularly painful episode. But while both parties seem scared of the lyrics, they are drawn together by the music. Soon they are creating it together and the music begins to define their friendship rather than the other way round.

The film's most powerful and emotional moments are all expressed in song, as when the guy explains his feelings for his ex by those musical changes in style, or the girl begins to fit tentative lyrics to an unfinished musical track written by him, walking down the street singing to herself in the dark. When they speak to each other, they're awkward and cautious, but when they sing everything becomes clear and direct. Unlike a traditional musical, the music is always an organic part of what's happening, never a showpiece that is set aside from the narrative. "Once" captures that creative intensity and makes it as real for the viewer as the artificial setting of a musical can, through real and stumbling human beings who can sing what they can’t say.

There are a few cinematic clichés here which will irritate the hardened movie-goer, such as the use of water an ocean to remind us that the moment is deep, and a motorbike ride to let us know they had fun on their day out. Carney expresses himself better in the musical moments, and Irglová makes a notable cinematic debut. The songs are mainly written by Irglová and Hansard themselves and can be found on his first solo album “The Swell Season”.

Lovers of anything Irish will adore this film just because of the Celtic charm of its surroundings, and musicians will be interested to see the creative process at work, but it would be stretching things to call it a great film. It eschews deeper investigation of issues like emigration and how they can affect relationships, which the film probably had time to dwell on a little more. It’s a good film however with some excellent performances and certainly recommended for a date movie.

Glen Hansard: Guy
Markéta Irglová: Girl (as Marketa Irglova)
Hugh Walsh: Timmy Drummer
Gerard Hendrick: Lead Guitarist (as Gerry Hendrick)
Alaistair Foley: Bassist
Geoff Minogue: Eamon
Bill Hodnett: Guy's Dad
Danuse Ktrestova: Girl's Mother
Darren Healy: Heroin Addict
Mal Whyte: Bill
Marcella Plunkett: Ex Girlfriend
Niall Cleary: Bob

The Good German (USA 2006)
Director: Steven Soderbergh

Somewhat overlengthy post-war drama based on the novel by Joseph Kanon (2001) in which George Clooney and Cate Blanchett don't quite hit it off. The Good German is filmed entirely in black and white and set in post-war Berlin. Soderbergh bravely attempts to emulate and copy a cinematic style of decades ago, not just with the medium of black and white, but also some of the cloak and dagger scenes which were positively Marlowesque in their direction.

In the period between Germany's surrender and the end of the war in Asia, Berlin is a cauldron of political intrigue as the occupation by the four allied powers, USA, Britain, the Soviet Union and France has caused the city to be divided into four zones. The Good German's action is centered around the Soviet and American attempts to pick away at the carcass of the Third Reich for anything of value, in this case German scientists with weapons knowledge. Set against the backdrop of the Potsdam peace conference where Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt assembled to settle Europe's post war borders and the conduct of the remaining war against Japan, Jake Geismer (George Clooney) arrives to cover the conference for the New Republic magazine.

Clooney is miscast here but luckily the early scenes are stolen by Tobey Maguire (Tully), who we meet as his designated driver helpfully provided by the US Military Governor. We quickly learn Tully is a great deal more than he seems, but sadly for the film we don't see enough of Maguire's character, who has a great look reminiscent of many a character in this genre of film in its heyday.

Paul Attanasio's screenplay touches upon some contentious issues particularly the guilt of an entire nation and the rarely touched issue of America's ambivalence in World War Two prior to Pearl Harbour. A Congressman (Jack Thompson) in the opening stages voices this: "There’s nothing wrong with the Germans. Plenty of good Germans back in Shenectady." Pragmatism over morality is a recurring theme of "The Good German" but the viewer is blinded by the cinematography and it's often hard to focus on the story.

Sadly though, Soderbergh's attempt to be Casablanca, (the last scene is an utterly obvious and frankly ridiculous replication), reminds one more of Woody Allen's spoof "Play It Again, Sam" than the great film itself. Soderbergh uses modern technology well to recreate the look of a 40s film but, sadly, the plot and the casting are not up to the standard 21st Century audiences expect.

Jack Thompson: Congressman Breimer
John Roeder: General
George Clooney: Jake Geismer
Beau Bridges: Colonel Muller
Tobey Maguire: Tully
Cate Blanchett: Lena Brandt
Dominic Comperatore: Levi
Dave Power: Lieutenant Schaeffer
Tony Curran: Danny
Ravil Isyanov: General Sikorsky
J. Paul Boehmer: British Press Aide
Don Pugsley: Gunther
Leland Orser: Bernie
Robin Weigert: Hannelore
Tom Cummins: British Interviewer
Brandon Keener: Clerk
Gianfranco L'Amore: The Butcher (as Gianfranco L'Amore Tordi)
David Willis: Franz Bettmann
Christian Oliver: Emil Brandt
Igor Korosec: Russian Soldier
Boris Kievsky: Russian Soldier
Vladimir Kulikov: Russian Soldier
Yevgeniy Narovlyanskiy: Russian Soldier
Aleksandr Sountsov: Russian Soldier

Go for Zucker (Germany 2004)
Director: Dani Levy
Original Title: Alles auf Zucker!

Jackie Zucker (Henry Hübchen) loves to gamble. And just as with every other passionate gambler it's all or nothing for him. Unfortunately, much to his wife Marlene’s (Hannelore Elsner) chagrin, it's mostly the latter for him, in real life as well. Consequently, his marriage is on the rocks, his daughter (Anja Franke) has grown apart from him, and to his son (Steffen Groth), an ambitious banker, the ever-bankrupt father proves to be a millstone around his neck when it comes to his career.

At present, the out-of-work former GDR sports commentator is down on his luck again – in a big way this time. His wife is threatening to leave him for good and the bailiff is going to throw him in jail if he doesn't repay his debts immediately. It's rien ne vas plus for Jackie, or so it appears. When he gets wind of a highly lucrative pool tournament, all of a sudden the tables in his gambling mind turn and it's anything goes again.

Amidst his preparations for the big day comes the breaking news of his mother's demise. Via telegram his brother Samuel, an orthodox Jew who in his day had left Jackie behind and fled to Western Germany together with their mother, informs him of an impending inheritance. There's a catch in it of course: In her testament the mother requests that the entire family sit shiva for seven days after the funeral in order to get the two brothers to finally bury the hatchet.

After a lifetime under communism, nothing could be further from Jackie's mind than religious observance, but the possibility of financial bliss and his wife's insistence bring him reluctantly around, and next thing he knows he's living in a newly kosher household, at least until his relatives go home. It's clear from the outset that the family reunion won't be a bed of roses for all concerned, and that Jackie won't forgo participating in the pool tournament just because of his mother's last will and testament. The game's up? Not for Jackie Zucker…

Henry Hübchen: Jackie Zucker
Hannelore Elsner: Marlene Zucker
Udo Samel: Samuel 'Schmul' Zuckermann
Golda Tencer: Golda Zuckermann
Steffen Groth: Thomas Zucker
Anja Franke: Jana Zucker
Sebastian Blomberg: Joshua Zuckermann
Elena Uhlig: Lilly Zuckermann
Rolf Hoppe: Rabbi Ernst Ginsberg

3:10 to Yuma (USA 2007)
Director: James Mangold

Elmer Leonard’s novel was first brought to the screens in 1957 by Halsted Welles and Delmer Davies with Glenn Ford starring as villain Ben Wade and Van Heflin as Dan Evans. Fast forward half a century and James Mangold has remade this Western in a far more difficult era for the genre, both commercially and sociologically. Ignoring the temptation to make a western that looks and acts like a western ought to, Mangold successfully crafts what he claims is a buddy-movie set in the era and geography in which westerns normally reside.

There are some outstanding individual performances here. Haverfordwest (Pembrokeshire) born Christian Bale, is rapidly ensuring that the legacy of Welsh greats will not end with Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins. He plays Dan Evans, a wounded Civil War veteran who has become a rancher after the war, and to be frank, hasn’t proven terribly adept at either. With a young son ailing from tuberculosis, property barons trying to force him off his land, a drought blighting his crop, a missing foot, and the imminent arrival of the railway about to change his town of Bisbee for good, Evans doesn’t have his troubles to seek. Furthermore, his eldest son, William (Logan Lerman) is becoming a man and is increasingly voicing his lack of respect for his father. Almost by accident, he gets involved in the ongoing and violent battle between the Southern Pacific Railroad as it inches into Arizona and Ben Wade’s (Russell Crowe) gang.

Wade leads a gang of killers for whom robbery and murder are job descriptions rather than criminal acts. Wade himself, however, though unarguably evil, often seems to remain aloof from the activities, and Crowe cleverly portrays him as a kind of bored king, more amused than in charge of his errant flock. The adventure rather than the profit seems to be his motivation, but he commands exceptional loyalty, especially from his psychotic sidekick Charlie Prince (Ben Foster). Foster’s performance has already sparked some ferocious debate and we are not going to baulk from taking sides. His loyalty and fanaticism for the cause reminded me of the portrayal of bitter-ender Nazis in war films, still devoted to the cause despite the lack of leadership and the increasing senselessness of the battle. You can look deep into Charlie Prince’s eyes and only see madness and if this indeed is what Mangold asked of him, then Foster delivers. His violence and fury are controlled and give the impression of being his method of release of something deeper simmering inside.

Crowe himself masterfully displays just why this Ben Wade commands such reactions. Even in short dialogues, you can sense Wade start to build relationships with the other characters by pushing their buttons. Often they are short lived and he drops the project as quickly as he started it, but in his brief dialogues with barmaid Emmy Nelson (Vinessa Shaw), lawman Tucker (Kevin Durand) and Evan’s wife Alice (Gretchen Mol), you can detect how Wade’s presence affects those around him. His charm is as unarguable as his evil.

But this is not a classic good guys and bad guys western. Certainly there are protagonists and antagonists. One set of characters is determined to get Ben Wade on that 3:10 prison train to Yuma and one set is determined to stop him. But Mangold eschews the temptation to make the characters all good or all bad. Others will discuss with passion the realism of the ending of the movie. But what is not in doubt is that "3:10 to Yuma" resurrects the status of the western in our decade and continues to enhance Crowe’s reputation as a lead actor.

Russell Crowe: Ben Wade
Christian Bale: Dan Evans
Ben Foster: Charlie Prince
Logan Lerman: William Evans
Peter Fonda: Byron McElroy
Dallas Roberts: Grayson Butterfield
Vinessa Shaw: Emmy Nelson
Alan Tudyk: Doc Potter
Luce Rains: Marshal Weathers
Gretchen Mol: Alice Evans
Lennie Loftin: Glen Hollander
Rio Alexander: Campos
Johnny Whitworth: Tommy Darden
Shawn Howell: Jackson
Pat Ricotti: Jorgensen

Susan for Now (USA 2007)
Director: Robin Franzi

Robin Franzi’s documentary into Seattle’s BDSM community will shock some people -- not because the people she interviews are wild and out of control, but because they seem to be relatively well balanced and coherent about who they are. Her own journey into investigating the scene followed a divorce, frustration at the intricacies of the middle-aged dating game, and a desire after a prolonged period of celibacy to investigate the Seattle sex scene. One thing led to another, and that led her to this once outcast but now increasingly mainstream community.

Franzi possess an ability to put the interviewees at their ease, and although many claimed that they keep their lifestyle away from family and work colleagues, they are mostly happy to appear on camera without disguise. There are some bondage scenes but nothing too offensive and the hardest to watch concerns, not whips, but a rather enthusiastic body piercer taking his needles to a willing victim. Additional input from a legally trained participant whose contribution further removes the edginess of it, and Allena, the Director of the Seattle Sex Positive Community Center, almost sanitizes the whole activity. Certainly I’ve seen documentaries about far less likable people than these and whether BDSM is for you or not, you can’t help but slightly admire the ease with their sexuality which most of the interviewees exude.

I Know Who Killed Me (USA 2007)
Director: Chris Sivertson

As an art form, the horror or suspense thriller can be done very well in one of two ways. You can either use a good script, a good plot and great actors to make a classic, or if you have one of those pieces missing, make a spoof and have a laugh along with the audience. If you choose the latter, you can avail yourself of every cinematic cliché known to man and still get away with it because you are satirizing the genre.

However, Chris Sivertson’s film falls between these two possibilities. Despite deploying several horror film staples some of which risk telegraphing the plot, the viewer is never given the impression that the film is doing anything less than taking itself completely seriously. It may be fashionable to knock Lindsay Lohan’s acting skills but she isn’t bad at all in this and none of the cast put in bad performances. The angst of Daniel Fleming (Neal McDonough), father of the kidnapped Aubrey, is played pretty well in the early stages as news of her kidnapping is relayed to him. Other members of the cast make sterling efforts not to over-dramatise their roles, and this is to their credit, especially Spencer Garrett and Garcelle Beauvais as detectives Phil Lazarus and Julie Bascome.

Lohan herself plays two characters, the angelic Aubrey and her alter-ego, the temptress stripper Dakota Moss who tries to convince her family and the police that she is not Aubrey while hopping about on one leg and using an artificial hand. Readers should be warned that this is macabre in places and there are graphic scenes of dismemberment which do not spare the viewer any details.

The number of plot deficiencies and non-sequiturs will irritate the more serious filmgoer and you may find yourself yelling "For god’s sake, phone the police before you go there!" several times. However, despite the predictability of it all, there are some fairly scary scenes so, although Lohan will surely find better vehicles in the future, the project was not a total failure.

Lindsay Lohan: Aubrey Fleming / Dakota Moss
Julia Ormond: Susan Fleming
Neal McDonough: Daniel Fleming
Brian Geraghty: Jerrod Pointer
Garcelle Beauvais: Agent Julie Bascome (as Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon)
Spencer Garrett: Agent Phil Lazarus
Gregory Itzin: Dr. Greg Jameson
Bonnie Aarons: Fat Teena
Kenya Moore: Jazmin
Thomas Tofel: Douglas Norquist
Rodney Rowland: Kenny Scaife
David Figlioli: Lanny Rierden
Jessica Rose: Marcia (as Jessica Lee Rose)
Megan Henning: Anya

Fateless (Hungary 2005)
Director: Lajos Koltai
Original Title: Sorstalanság

Fateless narrates the suffering of a 15-year-old boy, György Koves (Marcell Nagy), who gets caught up in the Nazis' extermination machinery, but manages to fortuitously survive, and, ravaged by disease, returns to post-war Budapest.

At the start of the film, the Jews of Budapest are not especially disturbed when some men are transported to work camps. But György's father is also taken after he brings his family together one last time to say farewell to his nearest and dearest. The youngster is left to work alone in a factory at the edge of town. One morning, he and several other Jews are arrested on the way to work despite holding valid paperwork. This kicks off an odyssey of terror which takes György to the concentration camps Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Zeitz.

The Hungarian author and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Imre Kertész, for a long time refused to agree to a film adaptation of his best seller 'Fatelessness'. When cameraman Lajos Koltai chose the Holocaust-era drama for his cinematic debut, Kertész changed his mind and was even willing to write the screenplay.

Kertész himself (the author) suffered as a teenager from the torments of Auschwitz and Birkenau. Later, he tried to explain the incomprehensible events of his own fate in his novel. Because the author brought up the matter of Hungary's guilt in the deaths of Hungarian Jewry, Kertész was not totally appreciated in his homeland for a while.

Koltais' attempt at authenticity, due to his fixation on the fate of one individual, is successful thanks to excellent performances by the actors. György tries so hard to make sense of the incomprehensible events around him, that the camp is not portrayed as a hell. "The difference is" he said "that there are no camps in hell."

The nightmarish not so distant view of the Holocaust is clearly and deliberately different from films like "Schindler's List" and "The Pianist". The digitally finished processing generates monochrome pictures which aesthetically work well in their contrast with the cast. Ennio Morricone's score may have turned out a little too melodramatic for some and too reminiscent of an old western soundtrack. And although these people may also accuse the film of taking an overly naive and childish outlook, Lajos Koltais' attempt at a quite unique perspective on the Holocaust has really succeeded.

Marcell Nagy: György Koves
János Bán: Vater
Judit Schell: Stiefmutter
Aára Herrer: Annamaria
Aron Dimeny: Bandi Citrom
Andras M. Kecskes: Finn
Joszef Gyabronka: Unfortunate man
Daniel Craig: American Sergeant

Monty Python's Life of Brian (England 1979)
Director: Terry Jones

This hilarious and timeless biblical epic from the Python team follows the life of hapless Brian Cohen (Graham Chapman) as he attempts to dip his toes in the waters of revolution against the Roman Empire's occupation of Judea by joining the Judean People's Front (or is it the People's Front of Judea?). The sketches are intricately woven together and the film contains classic moment after classic moment, as John Cleese, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin join Chapman in lampooning the more ridiculous parts of the bible story. Amazingly, this was accused of being blasphemous at the time and the religious fraternity did manage to get it banned in some cinemas, but it seems to be relatively harmless satire now.

Standing out from the pack are several moments including Cleese as a Roman Centurion correcting the appalling Latin grammar of Brian's anti-Roman graffiti in the manner of a cruel Latin teacher. Other scenes such as Jones as Brian's mother addressing his followers have spawned lines as famous as any Python moments, such as "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy". Idle excels in many roles but notably as the bazaar keeper who refuses to sell a beard to the fleeing Brian without a good old-fashioned haggle.

There is so much more in this film that will stand the test of time that my best advice is to stop reading this review right now and get to the video store.

Graham Chapman: Brian Cohen, Biggus Dickus
John Cleese: Reg, Jewish Official, Centurion, Deadly Dirk, Arthur
Terry Gilliam: Jailer, Northern Irish Prophet, Frank, Audience Member, Crucifee
Eric Idle: Mr. Cheeky, Stan (Loretta), Harry the Haggler, Culprit Woman, Warris, Intensely Dull Youth, Jailer's Assistant, Otto, Lead Singer Crucifee
Terry Jones: Mandy Cohen, Colin, Simon the Holy Man, Helpful By-passer, Alarmed Crucifixion Assistant
Michael Palin: Big Nose, Francis, Ex-Leper Beggar, Announcer, Ben, Pontius Pilate, Boring Prophet, Eddie, Shoe Worshipper, Nisus Wettus
Terence Bayler: Gregory
Carol Cleveland: Mrs Gregory
Kenneth Colley: Jesus
Neil Innes: Weedy Samaritan
Gwen Taylor: Mrs. Big Nose
Sue Jones-Davies: Judith
John Young: Matthias, Son of Deuteronomy of Gath
Chris Langham: Alfonso, Giggling Guard
Spike Milligan: Spike

Battle in Heaven (Mexico 2004)
Director: Carlos Reygadas
Original Title: Batalla en el cielo

Anapola Mushkadiz
© Tartan Films 2005

There are long moments of silence here where nothing happens but they don't seem to add anything to the film. The chauffeur is often so morose and unreactive that you begin to wonder how the baby didn't outrun him. Anapola Mushkadiz puts in a brave performance as the General's daughter who works in a high class brothel to relieve boredom but she alone can't save the film. Reygadas handles some of the sex scenes well inasmuch as they are real. But they also seem unnecessary to the plot.

When asked in an interview what the title of the film meant, Reygadas's answer could be paraphrased as "Your guess is as good as mine." You'll find yourself saying that phrase often when discussing this film with someone else who's watched it.

Marcos Hernández: Marcos
Anapola Mushkadiz: Ana
Bertha Ruiz: Marcos' Wife
David Bornstein: Jaime
Rosalinda Ramirez: Viky
El Abuelo: Chief of Police
Brenda Angulo: Madame

In Vanda's Room (Portugal 2000)
Director: Pedro Costa
Original Title: No Quarto da Vanda

Set in the slums of Fonthainas area of Lisbon, Costa's depressing work focuses on the lives of the junkies who live there. Various friends of Vanda, including childhood friend Nhurro, wander through her room, each with their own tale of desperation and poverty. There is incessant drug use in this film and the central characters though self-pitying evoke no compassion from the viewer.

The recurring themes of poverty, homelessness and petty crime are the backdrop to petty and meaningless conversations. Unless you like watching people shooting up heroin while feeling sorry for themselves, I'd give this a miss.

Lena Duarte
Vanda Duarte
Zita Duarte
Pedro Lanban
António Moreno
Paulo Nunes
Fernando Paixão

Fido (Canada 2006)
Director: Andrew Currie

Imagine if you will a Technicolor 1950's neighborhood where girls in pony tails jump rope while boys in crew cuts ride their bikes around saying things like “gee whiz”. But instead of faithful dogs wagging their tails behind them it's their faithful zombie that follows their lead. Thanks to the amazing invention of a driven scientist, these undead creatures no longer lust for brains but are as docile as a household pet and take on several roles within this nirvana…butlers, milkmen, gardeners and, well…companions.

The plot centers around little Timmy Robinson (K'Sun Ray) and his pet zombie Fido (Billy Connolly). As the film proceeds, Timmy grows attached to his zombie like a boy to Lassie, and when Fido gets in trouble, Timmy's loyalty causes conflicts in the neighborhood.

The scenery and costumes are perfect and an ensemble of highly talented actors seems to effortlessly draw you into this madcap world, but one in particular is worth noting. Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix), gives an extraordinarily believable performance as Helen Robinson, Timmy's wholesome, picture-perfect mom, with just a dash of modern day "get it yourself, Bob" attitude.

Fido is a unique blend of Americana (although actually made in Canada) and Zombie culture. This inventive collaboration of three virtually unknown writers (Robert Comiak, Andrew Currie and Dennis Heaton) is well worth seeing. Even the squeamish would give it a nod. This worthwhile effort makes you wonder what they'd come up with if forces were joined once more.

Carrie-Anne Moss: Helen Robinson
Billy Connolly: Fido
Dylan Baker: Bill Robinson
K'Sun Ray: Timmy Robinson
Tim Blake Nelson: Mr. Theopolis
Henry Czerny: Mr. Bottoms
Sonja Bennett: Tammy
Jennifer Clement: Dee Dee Bottoms
Rob LaBelle: Frank Murphy
Aaron Brown: Roy Fraser
Brandon Olds: Stan Fraser
Alexia Fast: Cindy Bottoms

El Violin (Mexico 2005)
Director: Francisco Varga

Ángel Tavira

Don Plutarco (Ángel Tavira), his son Genaro (Gerardo Taracena) and grandson Lucio (Mario Garibaldi) represent three generations of peasants struggling against poverty and the repression of the ever-present military. Tavira gives a sterling performance as the violin-playing family patriarch, and the relationship he develops with career military officer Dagoberto Gama moves us away from a simple good and evil stagnancy. Gama's character, El Capitán, has an appreciation of music and shows much empathy with Plutarco, and occasionally threatens to deviate from his central loyalty which is to the army and his orders. Vargas takes us on a mazy trail as we wonder which side of the soldier's personality will triumph in the end.

Vargas does not hide from us the injustices of an army oppressing the local indigenous population, but it is not the centerpiece of the film. Shot in black and white, the slow pace might unnerve those corn-fed on a faster rhythm, but this film is worth watching for 81-year-old non-actor Tavira's performance alone.

Ángel Tavira: Don Plutarco
Gerardo Taracena: Genaro
Dagoberto Gama: Capitán
Mario Garibaldi: Lucio
Fermín Martínez: Teniente
Silverio Palacios: Comandante Cayetano
Octavio Castro: Zacarías
Mercedes Hernández: Jacinta
Gerardo Juárez: Pedro

Hansel and Gretel (Germany 2005)
Director: Anne Wild
Original Title: Hänsel und Gretel

Nastassja Hahn and Johann Storm

Anne Wild's adaption of Grimm's story whisks you effortlessly back to the thrill of your childhood, the goosebumps, the hairs standing up on the back of your neck; the conflict between the desire to hide under the blanket and the equal pull of listening to the story under cover of darkness with your eyes forced to stay open.

It's the story of brother and sister Hänsel and Gretel (Johann Storm and Nastassja Hahn), who are left alone in the woods by their father (Henning Peker), a poor woodcutter who can't feed his family anymore, and their stepmother (Claudia Geisler), who regarded the children of her husband's previous marriage as a nuisance from the outset. Unable to find their way back home, they stumble hungry and tired upon the gingerbread house belonging to the local witch (Sibylle Canonica), who as they soon finds out eats children. When her brother Hansel is locked inside a cage to be fattened for the slaughter, it's left up to Gretel to plan the escape.

The great performances of both young actors, the screenplay's poetry and the Norwegian artist Mari Boine's dazzling musical score soon get your pulse racing. From there, they spread like a fever till your cheeks glow while beads of sweat begin to form on your forehead.

Sibylle Canonica: Hexe
Johann Storm: Hänsel
Nastassja Hahn: Gretel
Henning Peker: Father
Claudia Geisler: Mother
Christian Habicht: Waldbauer
Christian Steyer: Narrator

A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory (USA 2007)
Director: Esther Robinson

Danny Williams

Those interviewed deserve a great deal of credit for their honesty, especially filmmaker Paul Morrissey who clearly did not get along that well with Williams. The emotional superficiality of all their interpersonal relationships is not hidden by Robinson, and the honesty of John Cale adds to this when he coins the term "incomplete people". To describe the interviews with remaining Warhol Factory members as intimate would do them and Esther a disservice.

It is notable that none of those interviewed feel inclined to glorify Warhol. Unquestioning fans of his may regret this, but it makes for a better film.

Callie Angell
Brigid Berlin
John Cale
Nat Finkelstein
Gerard Malanga
Albert Maysles
Paul Morrissey
Billy Name (Archivmaterial)
Julia Robinson
Nadia Williams
Chuck Wein
Danny Fields
Ron Nameth
Jeff Scher
Harold Stevenson
David Williams

The Robber Hotzenplotz (Germany 2006)
Director: Gernot Roll
Original Title: Der Räuber Hotzenplotz

Christiane Hörbiger and Piet Klocke

Good advice doesn't come cheap though, and a good idea is worth its weight in gold, so Kasperl and Seppel for their part decide to paint the words "Caution Gold" on a crate full of sand to lure the robber. Like perfect plans have the habit of doing, this one went wrong and it needed the combined powers of the official clairvoyant Portiunkula Schlotterbeck (Katharina Thalbach) and the good fairy Amaryllis (Barbara Schöneberger), who had been turned into a toad by the magician Petrosilius Zwackelmann (Rufus Beck), to arrest the Robber.

Kasperl, Seppel, the Grandmother, the Robber, the Policeman, the evil magician and the good fairy: in Gernot Roll's "The Robber Hotzenplotz", all the characters necessary for an authentic pantomime appear on demand. The cast, consisting of Germany's cinematic and television glitterati, deliver a pleasure, perhaps borrowed from our childhoods, to all of us brought up on the classic children's books of Ottfried Preußler that inspired the imaginations of millions of children across the globe and taught them that good always triumphs over evil.

Roll's original screen adaptation of Preußler's "Hotzenplotz“ imparts this with so much sensitivity that if there are children in the audience, then even in the brief 35 years which have elapsed since the book's publication, they will still impatient to scream "YESSSS!" to Kasperl's question "Kids, are you all there?".

Armin Rohde: Robber Hotzenplotz
Martin Stührk: Kasperl
Manuel Steitz: Seppel
Rufus Beck: Petrosilius Zwackelmann
Katharina Thalbach: Portiunkula Schlotterbeck
Piet Klocke: Constable Dimpfelmoser
Barbara Schöneberger: Good Fairy Amaryllis
Christiane Hörbiger: Grandmother
Armin Maiwald: Photographer
Paul Maar: Photographer's Assistant
Jürgen Schopper: The Magic Hand

Grave Decisions (Germany 2006)
Director: Marcus Hausham Rosenmüller
Original Title: Wer früher stirbt, ist länger tot

Landlord “Kandlerwirt” Lorenz and his two young sons, Franz and Sebastian, live in a small Bavarian village. Ever since his wife died a couple of years ago Lorenz has been running the family-owned local pub all by himself – that's why fellow villagers keep suggesting that it's time for Lorenz to go and find a new wife.

When 11-year-old Sebastian accidentally discovers that his mother died giving birth to him, all hell breaks loose. Sebastian, a rascal by nature featuring an outstanding catalogue of sins for someone his age, considers himself guilty of his mother's death and, hence, sets out to redeem himself for fear of ending up in eternal purgatory. Over numerous glasses of beer the regulars of his father's pub readily offer Sebastian their advice, asking for trouble with regards to the overzealous, repentant boy. A blown up rabbit, an indecent proposal to his young and attractive teacher Veronica, plus a nearly killed old lady soon prove that the road to redemption is a bumpy one.

Salvation seems to come into range, though, when Lorenz miraculously falls for Veronica, Sebastian's teacher. Mistaking his father's new-found affection for a sign of his dead mother, Sebastian assumes the role of the matchmaker firmly believing that finding his father a new wife will get him the much desired ticket to heaven. Trouble is brewing when he finds out that Veronica's married to Alfred. Consequently, Alfred has to die…

“Grave Decisions” is a comedy so black it brightens the darkest of moods. Classic coming of age stuff is riddled with subtle, sophisticated insights into the easily misguided juvenile soul and the shortcomings of grown-ups shaking the fragile adolescent belief system at every turn, thus weaving the fabric every youngster's nightmares are made of. Whoever remembers the time when they felt the devil's demons breathing fire down their back for stealing out of grandma's purse or bullying that kid who practically asked for it is in for one hell of a ride.

Markus Krojer: Sebastian Schneider
Fritz Karl: Lorenz Schneider
Jürgen Tonkel: Alfred Dorstreiter
Jule Ronstedt: Veronika Dorstreiter
Saskia Vester: Frau Kramer
Franz Xaver Brückner: Franz
Hans Schuler: Graudinger (as Johann Schuler)

Taxidermia (Hungary 2006)
Director: György Pálfi

© Tartan Films 2006

The film is in three parts with the soldier the star of the first and his illegitimate offspring Balatony Kálmán (Gergely Trócsányi) who represents the Honved club of Hungary in the ‘sport' of champion speed eating, the star of the second. This gives Pálfi and co-writer Zsófia Ruttkay great opportunity to further nauseate us, as he and his fellow contestants serial vomit everywhere in preparation for the next round of eating.

German actor Marc Bischoff carries the third part as an overtly thin, sex-starved taxidermist who has to look after his bloated ageing father, Kálmán. Disgusted as he is by his father's gastrointestinal obsession, he has his own surreal life as a taxidermist, with the bizarre link that Kálmán is training his cats to speed eat competitively.

Whether you regard this as a deep examination of the human fascination with the corporeal or a lazy director using cheap and disgusting bodily functions to shock (like a poor man's Monty Python's Meaning of Life), I wouldn't recommend you let your kids watch this. Or your grandmother for that matter.

Csaba Czene: Morosgoványi Vendel
Gergely Trócsányi: Balatony Kálmán
Piroska Molnár: Hadnagyné
Adél Stanczel: Aczél Gizi
Marc Bischoff: Balatony Lajoska
Gábor Máté: Öreg Balatony Kálmán
Zoltán Koppány: Miszlényi Béla
Géza D. Hegedüs: Dr. Regõczy Andor
Erwin Leder: Krisztián

Honor de cavalleria (Spain 2006)
Director: Albert Serra

Lluís Carbó

There are no adventures, and no recounting of the story of their lives together, just day-to-day dreariness and occasional friction. Lluís Carbó's Quixote is querulous and scatter-brained, and Lluís Serrat's Sancho is stoic and phlegmatic; there are occasional touching moments between the two of them but mostly they seem poorly matched and with little sense of the longterm bond of so many years together. At times the film feels more like a low-budget travelogue of Catalan scenery, and if you enjoy video wallpaper of rugged hills and overgrown fields, this may be for you, but otherwise don't waste your time on it.

Lluís Carbó: Quixot
Lluís Serrat: Sancho

The Landlord (USA 1970)
Director: Hal Ashby

Hal Ashby's "The Landlord" was made in 1970, and while it some ways it now seems dated, in other ways it is ahead of its time. It centers around Elgar Enders, a rich white kid played by Beau Bridges, who is still living in the family mansion at the age of 29. One day he decides he needs a home of his own, and buys a tenement in a poor section of New York City, with the intention of kicking out the tenants and renovating it into a luxurious townhouse for himself. But as he begins to encounter his tenants, he gradually turns into their live-in landlord and sometime friend.

There are many misunderstandings and confusions along the way, and Elgar becomes involved with two black women, one of them a married tenant and the other a dancer at a nearby club. Ashby creates moments of understated but scathing social commentary, as when Elgar, proud of his open-mindedness, brings his girlfriend Lanie (Marki Bey) to a country club costume party, and unthinkingly asks a nearby black man for a scotch and soda with surprising results.

The scenes at home with Elgar's family are a repeated contrast to the life of the city, inhibition and privilege set against something more down to earth. These worlds collide in fascinating ways, most notably when Elgar's aging-belle mother (Lee Grant) shares a bottle of home-brewed wine with another of Elgar's tenants, fortuneteller Marge (Pearl Bailey), and becomes far more relaxed and open then she ever is at home. But in the end she runs back to what is safe and known, and Elgar is often close to doing the same; for most of the film his new life is just a post-teenage experiment, a way to shock his family's conventions.

Overall, Elgar's growth is haphazard and grudging, and glimpses of real understanding of the black experience happen alongside playboy dabbling. He does the right thing in the end, but almost by accident, and his choice of a different life is in some ways made for him by Lanie; you sense that without her strength he might simply return to his sheltered roots not much changed by his excursion into reality.

Beau Bridges: Elgar Winthrop Julius Enders
Lee Grant: Joyce Enders
Diana Sands: Francine Copee
Pearl Bailey: Marge
Walter Brooke: William Enders Sr.
Louis Gossett Jr.: Copee (as Lou Gossett)
Marki Bey: Lanie
Mel Stewart: Professor Duboise (as Melvin Stewart)
Susan Anspach: Susan Enders
Robert Klein: Peter Coots (as Bob Klein)

The Lives of Others (Germany 2006)
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Original Title: Das Leben der Anderen

This powerful political drama is set in the dying years of the fatally flawed East German state. Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) is a playwright who has tentative approval of the Communist authorities despite keeping company of which they are clearly nervous. When his girlfriend Christa-Maria (Martina Gedeck) attracts the roving eye of a senior party apparatchik, the lines between enforcing socialist orthodoxy and advancing personal interest become blurred. As they begin to redefine themselves, Stasi agent Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) is assigned the role of digging up the dirt on Dreyman to please his political masters. Dreyman, manipulated by his dissident friends, is meanwhile unwittingly contriving to give the apparatchik, the Minister of Culture, the evidence he wants.

von Donnersmarck's film raises many themes beyond the rights and wrongs of intruding on privacy; including that of what principles one should compromise to avoid being vocationally ruined, imprisoned or persecuted. Wiesler's intrusion into the private lives of Dreyman and Christa-Maria opens his eyes to a world of color, passion and ideas glaringly absent from his own. Ulrich Mühe's portrayal as the functionary from whose eyes the facade masking the real nature of the Communist state gradually falls is superb. Mühe's own career was hurt by a Stasi informer close to his family, so he brought something personal to the role and his death in July 2007 was a loss to German cinema.

This is without doubt one of the finest German films Prost Amerika has reviewed. You will be talking about it for months after. Wiesler's reactions to his role in a psychological ménage-a-trois range from initially being unphased by what he learns to being forced to confront the contrasting emptiness of his own existence, his own existence being a surrogate for the wider fragility of the East German state.

Martina Gedeck: Christa-Maria Sieland
Ulrich Mühe: Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler
Sebastian Koch: Georg Dreyman
Ulrich Tukur: Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz
Thomas Thieme: Minister Bruno Hempf
Hans-Uwe Bauer: Paul Hauser
Volkmar Kleinert: Albert Jerska
Matthias Brenner: Karl Wallner

In My Father's Den (New Zealand 2004)
Director: Brad McGann

Matthew Macfadyen and Emily Barclay
© Tartan Films 2006

Matthew MacFadyen gives a haunting performance as Paul Prior, a 30-something, run down war journalist who resides in England but, returns to his childhood home in New Zealand when his father passes away. His brother and family are no happier about his presence than he is. Prior's now anglicized accent and success as an international press photographer cause immediate tensions but there is more than class and cultural alienation going on. The film slowly but surely unravels the answers to his family's history and why he stormed off that one day many years ago. As the town's ghoulish past begins to reveal itself, a guessing game begins, and some very raw emotions emerge.

Emily Barclay won Best Actress at Australian Film Institute Awards for her stellar performance as teenager Celia Steimer, who develops a fascination with the newcomer. The film beautifully uses the backdrop of New Zealand's South Island as a calm which conceals some dark secrets. Some very troubling issues are addressed but it is a serious spellbinding film that never ceases to captivate.

Based on a 1972 Maurice Gee novel of the same name, In My Father's Den won nine awards at the New Zealand Screen Awards in 2005, including best picture and best director. The film is a fitting tribute to Brad McGann who died tragically of cancer at the age of 43. You can read an obituary here.

Matthew Macfadyen: Paul Prior
Emily Barclay: Celia Steimer
Miranda Otto: Penny
Colin Moy: Andrew
Jimmy Keen: Jonathon
Jodie Rimmer: Jackie

9 Songs (England 2004)
Director: Michael Winterbottom

Margo Stilley and Kieran O’Brien
© Tartan Films 2005

The scenes are fitted around nine songs performed by bands at various London theaters with performances by Primal Scream, Franz Ferdinand, Michael Nyman , Super Furry Animals, Elbow, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the Von Bondies