Reviews

Jealous husband Ray Milland plots to kill philandering wife Grace Kelly. She's having an affair with American mystery writer Robert Cummings. The murder weapon? A rotary telephone! (Kids, ask your grandparents what a rotary telephone was.)

Alfred Hitchcock's only foray into 3D. He dismissed the technology as a gimmick—are you listening, James Cameron?—but achieved impressive results: never have mechanical telephone switches looked so menacing. What Hitchcock can't overcome is the stagey origins of the material: after a pitch perfect first act, the second is a little talky. The addition of police inspector John Williams doesn't quite make up for the loss of dodgy rogue Anthony Dawson.

SPOILER ALERT: Ladies, always keep a pair of scissors handy.

A group of kids are making a zombie monster movie. They get more than they bargained for when a REAL monster shows up in their small town, courtesy of the U.S.A.F. and a spectacular train wreck.

Set in the 1970s, SUPER 8 is filled with references to disco, new wave— Blondie's "Rapture," the Knack's "My Sharona"—and CB radios. It's also filled with references to Steven Spielberg movies from the era—E.T.: THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, JAWS, even THE GOONIES—not surprising, given the producer.

Unfortunately, writer/director Abrams can't escape Spielberg's penchant for sentimentality. There are not one but two single, dysfunctional fathers raising alienated, resentful children. Needless to say, they will all learn valuable life lessons by the time the movie's over. Those expecting another CLOVERFIELD will be disappointed. The best part of SUPER 8 is THE CASE—the kid's zombie monster movie-within-a-movie— which screens during the closing credits.

Evil mutant Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) plots to start World War III. He is ably assisted by bad girl mutant Emma Frost (January Jones). He is resisted by good mutant Charles Xavier (James McAvoy)—the future Professor X—and ambivalent mutant Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender)— the future Magneto.

This prequel to the X-Men franchise has a groovy, Sixties James Bond/Mad Men feel. There are go-go dancers, miniskirts, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK, Khrushchev, and SPOILER ALERT a certain adamantium-clawed mutant all make cameo appearances. But at the center is fan favorite Mystique's (Jennifer Lawrence) contemporary struggle to accept her mutant identity. You can almost hear Lady Gaga singing "Born This Way" on the soundtrack.

Director Matthew Vaughn does a good job keeping the action moving, but with all this plot—not to mention six different writers—some of the character development gets lost. We barely get to know one mutant before he's killed off. Still, overall, this is a successful reboot, and the fanboy in me is looking forward to a sequel. Sentinels, anyone?

Poor Wolverine! You would think a mutant with razor sharp, unbreakable Adamantium claws would have a better edited, more tightly scripted screenplay for his movie, but I'm afraid not. X-Men Origins: Wolverine starts all the way back when Wolverine and Sabretooth are wee lads and follows them through the Civil War, World Wars I and II, Vietnam (what, no Korean War?), and some post-Nam black ops in Africa before Wolvie finally bonds with his Adamantium and breaks free. This is the critical point in the plot and should have been the opening scene; everything else could have been told in flashback or—better yet—excised.

X-MO: W is also loaded down with second-string mutants—Gambit, Blob, Wraith, Deadpool, Agent Zero, Bolt, Silverfox—that seem to have been thrown in strictly for their action figure merchandizing possibilities. Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber do their best to try and hold this mess together, but mostly they are reduced to spouting Cain and Abel platitudes and growling at each other. In the end we see a group of young mutants, including Cyclops and Emma Frost, being herded away by Professor X—an obvious tie-in to the Young Mutants TV show Fox is said to be preparing. There is a final after-the-credits scene of Wolverine drinking sake in a bar in Japan, an apparent setup for a sequel, but given the poor box office for this incoherency, that seems unlikely. I had hoped after the disappointing X-M 3: Last Stand, Fox would try to redeem this franchise, but no dice.

The most interesting thing about the new Indiana Jones movie is that Indiana Jones is blacklisted. Unlike the previous Indiana Jones movies, which were set in the forties during World War II, INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDONM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL is set in the fifties during the Cold War. Instead of Nazis, the bad guys are Russian commies who seem to have stepped out of FROM Russia WITH LOVE. When Jones is forced to help the Russkies steal an alien corpse from Area 51 (yes, we are getting into X-FILES territory here), he is accused by the FBI of being a Red. The Bureau leans on Jones' university, and he loses his professorship.

This can be interpreted as a subtle Hollywood dig at the Bush administration's war on their terror, and their "you're either with us or against us" mentality. The clincher comes when a general defends Jones, citing all the medals he was awarded during WWII. "Yes," the FBI agent replies, "if he really earned them," sounding uncannily like one of the SWIFT boaters attacking John Kerry.

The rest is pretty much by the numbers. Both Harrison Ford and Karen Allen seem a little long in the tooth for this kind of action/adventure flick. Shia LaBeouf is thrown in to provide some youth appeal, but looks ridiculous trying to play a cross between James Dean in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and Marlon Brando in THE WILD ONES (with a little bit of TARZAN thrown in for good measure). There's lots of exposition, indicating script problems. There are a lot of chase scenes, but none of them have the wit or impact of the first film. Only Kate Blanchett comes off well as the leader of the Russkies; one wonders what she could do with the sort of roles that are usually offered to Angelina Jolie.

Classic courtroom drama. Jazz playing, fly fishing small-town lawyer Jimmy Stewart must defend slimy army lieutenant Ben Gazzara against murder charges. With an all-star cast, including Lee Remick as Gazzara's sexpot wife, Eve Arden as Stewart's wisecracking secretary, Arthur O'Connell as his lovable but alcoholic partner, and George C. Scott as the icy assistant district attorney. Plus a jazzy score by Duke Ellington, who appears as "Pie Eye" in the movie (Stewart and the Duke play a duet!), and the cutest little flashlight carrying dog.

*** SPOILER ALERT *** It's interesting that Stewart gets Gazzara off on a temporary insanity defense. You still root for Stewart to win, but I doubt a movie with this premise could be made today. The temporary insanity defense has fallen into ill repute, to say the least, and I'm skeptical that a sympathetic audience could be found.

The first three quarters of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN are great. It contains all the elements we have come to expect from Coen brothers movies: quirky characters, colorful dialogue, grotesque/comical violence, sharp editing, etc. Javier Bardem turns in an instant classic performance as psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh. (He reminded me a little bit of Alan Arkin's character in WAIT UNTIL DARK. Coincidence?) But then it goes off the rails. After steadily building up to a final violent showdown between good guy Josh Brolin and bad guy Bardem, the Coen brothers perversely refuse to, ahem, pull the trigger: Brolin is killed off screen (!), and world-weary sheriff Tommy Lee Jones always just misses Bardem. Bardem is badly injured in a random car accident—is God punishing him? and if so, for what—having a bad haircut?—but limps away to kill again another day. I'm sure this is suppose to say something deep about the senselessness of violence, and our complicity as voyeurs, but it does not, alas, make for a satisfying ending.

A very different movie from Max Ophuls' masterpiece, THE EARINGS OF MADAM DE…While her husband is away for Christmas, lonely, harried housewife Joan Bennett is blackmailed by handsome, suave extortionist James Mason. Romantic complications ensue when they fall for each other. In the end, Mason dies nobly to protect Bennett's reputation, and Bennett goes back to her husband. Mason and Bennett don't even kiss, much less sleep with each other. The plot is pure Hollywood hokum, but Mason shines as always—has he ever turned in a bad performance?—and there is some of Ophuls' signature gliding camera work. Ophuls appears to be sending up the film noir genre as much as celebrating it.