Reviews

Hope Springs is a story of regret, patience, love, and acceptance—all in two short hours. I, who am twice divorced, have always been in awe of anyone who makes it past the five-year mark in a marriage. When I meet people who have been married for decades, I tell them it surely is their greatest accomplishment in life. Some look at me strangely, others nod in agreement, and still others make some comment or other about how it's not always easy. Whatever their response, I know there are secrets lying behind those knowing glances, pensive stares, or sarcastic comments. Hope Springs takes us inside those secrets, and I was grateful for the tour. It's a wonderful and uncomfortable movie.

First, I have to talk about Meryl. I want to thank Margery Simpson, the casting director, for not casting Diane Keaton in the role of Kay. Kay is a bit of a stereotypical housewife from days of old who gets in the rut of service to husband and family. She feels uncomfortable about it, but she is unable to express herself. Imagine a less sophisticated version of the role Diane played in The First Wives Club. Diane plays these women from our past without a hint of the submerged intelligence – the choice to hold back rather than speak their minds, and the price they paid to hold it back. Meryl plays the role perfectly ("What else is new," I hear you ask). It's hard to express intelligence held back without words, but Meryl nails it. When she does speak, we strain to hear her. "I might be less lonely if I were alone," is delivered with such thought, such care, that you know she has been sorting it out in her mind for years. Thank you Meryl for bringing the Achilles heel of my mother's generation to the screen in such a dignified and kind way. But the true star is Tommy Lee Jones, who broke my heart a million times during the film. His performance is worthy of an Academy Award, although we all know these chick flicks rarely receive the golden statue. This one ought to be an exception to this rule. What a complex character! What a range of exploration he needs to do in the short time he has to get it right or call it quits. Whether he's expressing his confusion about what is happening ("I was good, I really was. I never fooled around.") or struggling to try again, to let his guard down one more time, he is just on the mark. And talk about expressing yourself with more than silly words; he owned the screen. Owned it, I tell you.Steve Carell has to get a mention here, especially because his character could easily have ruined the film by being ridiculous. His one-liners needed to be laid gently on the therapy bed, and he did it perfectly. Also, his coat and tie were perfect. He is cute, isn't he? Not a leading man? He was the lead in Dan In Real Life, and I liked him in that, but I didn't think of him as the lead in it. And, he is a secondary lead winner. Nicely done, Steve. I think you should stick to more roles with depth, and leave movies like The 40 Year Old Virgin to Ben Stiller, who irritates me no end.

The therapy-session scenes are difficult to take. They made everyone in the theater uncomfortable. Long after another film-maker would have cut away to relieve the discomfort, we were still sitting there waiting for it to ease up. That was new to me. Rarely does anyone punish an audience for having spent money to be entertained, even if the punishment makes the point and tells the story. But I am glad David Frankel did. It wasn't just in the sessions either. Admit it, those of you who have seen the film, you were disappointed with the EcoHotel they stayed in and hated seeing them in there, didn't you? But it told the story as it needed to be told, so thanks for making me uncomfortable.

At some point in the movie, someone says to someone else, "What are you going to do with your one and only life?" I can't even remember who said it to whom. But that kind of comment calls for a large answer, some amazing thing you must do to make your mark, to be remembered long after you have left for parts unknown. Watching this movie, I felt for the first time that is not what one needs to strive for. It is more important to get it right with another human being; to really go through ups and downs and years of interaction might be the best thing you can do with your one and only life.

Go see it. If you are married, go with your spouse. But if you are divorced, be careful; you might find yourself wondering might have been if you had taken a larger-than-life step before it was over.

I saw a two-part documentary on Woody Allen a few months ago. At one point during the documentary, he pulls out a box filled with bits of paper and he says something to the effect that he is constantly writing ideas down on pieces of paper. From those pieces of paper he creates his scripts. I thought he meant that an idea then comes to fruition from the musings he has gathered. In To Rome with Love, it appears that he just reached his boney hand int0 the box, pulled out six or seven pieces of paper, and wrote six or seven separate little silly stories with the ideas from each.

There is no plot, just a series of conversations that speak to some neurosis of Woody's that must have been bothering him when he was working on the script.

There is no editing. There are no segues between scenes. Just a choppy sea that bounces us around on top of waves that randomly hit the bow.

There are just a series of scenes set in lovely Rome (which made me want to visit again; I haven't been there in ten years) that have no relationship to each other, and frankly, it is Woody Allen at his laziest. I have already determined that Woody Allen is a lazy writer and director. He mentioned in an interview that he's fast and on budget because he has other things he likes to do, other interests in his life, and thus has no desire to spend more time than he has to on the set. He is notorious for giving little direction, for not providing much input to enable actors to see his vision. Actors speak of this tendency with reverence as if no direction makes him a great director. Huh? I believe his technique of inserting actors into scenes as teachers of the scene's point is lazy too. He doesn't have to show us the way to anything, he just sticks someone into the scene who has no business being there to tell us what we are supposed to surmise from the action around it. That's Alec Baldwin's job in To Rome with Love, and he does it well. And the message he's giving us is so "Baldwin" that you are willing to sit and nod in agreement. Juliet Taylor is also well cast. But as a woman, the entire vignette about Monica, the manipulative, deceitful, seductress of the innocent, and Jack, who never had a prayer of escaping her black widow's web, makes me furious. And I think Woody thinks that way. He's just an innocent guy who has been made out to be the bad guy by women who always planned to destroy him Enough about Woody's personal life. Back to his lazy professional life. Looking back, I've decided he was lazy in Midnight in Paris too. He brought in all kinds of literary giants from another era, but he presented them in shallow characterizations, rather than doing some homework and really having them respond as they might have to some of the questions Gil could have asked them. Instead, they just showed up and bantered in a shallow, one-liner sort of way. It could have been truly thought provoking and unique if they had responded to questions about present-day intellectual challenges.

The last scene is worth the trip. "Volare" played by a brass and string band on the Spanish Steps is marvelous. I hummed it all the way home, much to the chagrin of my aunt and cousin, who attended the movie with me. But why not? I would have loved to have been there in the dark when they were filming it. No one around. The middle of the night. "Volare" wafting into the night. A little whimsy is a good thing.

I may be done with Woody Allen. I have said it before, but maybe this time I mean it. Work a little harder Woody, and quit resting on your laurels. Your sharp wit and pathetic neurosis are getting as old as you apparently feel.

I'm sure I wouldn't have seen Mirror Mirror if Julia Roberts hadn't been in it, and I'm sure I wouldn't have reviewed it if not for the cast, but I'm glad I went. The previews were all of animated movies scheduled to come out over the next few months, and since I seldom go to G- or PG-rated movies, I can see that I'm missing something just from the previews. Other than that, though, I do not think this movie is a must-see.

Okay, here is the thing. They got the feminist part totally right. The old Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs envisaged Snow White as a fabulous homemaker, sweeper-upper, cook, and kindly mother to the dwarfs—but she was basically a ditz who had no brain—and for that matter, no personality traits other than her love of service. This new Snow White, controversial eyebrows and all, is fabulous. She is strong, and she grows in her confidence and strength as she experiences successes. This is the message I would want sent to my daughter if she were young again. But there is a downside—a politically incorrect downside. Her strength and fabulousness come at the expense of the Dwarfs. The Dwarfs are buffoons, almost slapstick in their silliness and stupidity, and that portrayal makes a mockery of all the gains the little people have made over the years. I was very uncomfortable with it. And don't tell me I'm too sensitive. They run into each other, they can only beat bigger people by running around on stilts, they forget they have the key to get outside the house, and they show up late and throw snowballs to defend themselves against the big bad guy.

The Prince is boring, but Julia is lovely and the sets are amazing. I love the way the castle is set out on a cliff. It's really remarkable. Julia's wedding dress alone is reason enough for Vera Wang to go see this movie. I wish they had held the shot of those shoes lined up in a row a little longer, so I could really see them.

So let's change those fairy tales to stories in which everyone gets to be their best selves, okay? Then let's take our kids to movies like this and enjoy them as pieces of our history reborn, only better.

Red Tails is not optional. You have to see it for two reasons.

First, the studios wouldn't make it. They felt that an all-black historical story would have no reach overseas, and that its limited reach in the U.S. wouldn't be worth the effort. George Lucas—bless you, George Lucas—felt compelled to do it anyway, and invested at least $100,000,000, and possibly upwards of $200,000,000, to produce and distribute it himself. That alone means you must go. It is just not acceptable that movies are not being made because they won't be profitable enough. You don't have to make hundreds of millions in profit on every movie. You can do the action movies that generate huge profits from action-figures and other merchandise associated with the movie. But sometimes, for the rest of us, the 56% of us (women who go to the movies), you need to make movies whose profits are only tens of millions. Sheesh. Don't make me get really mad.

The second and perhaps most important reason you must see this film is that our dirty past, our outrageous behavior toward the people whose ancestors were brought here against their will a few hundred years ago, still hasn't been aired. It's not out there for us to own and apologize for and then move on. And for some reason that I can't understand, those amazing, strong people from Africa are willing to call this country their own. So we owe it to ourselves and to them to present our abusive past in the form of a movie now and again. It's the very least we can do in reparations. I can assure you we won't do anything else to make up for what has been taken from them or thrust upon them. So now that we agree about your obligation to see Red Tails, let's talk about the movie.

It starts off slow. The dialogue is terrible, actually. Stilted and poorly delivered. But sit through it anyway. In fact, just watch the scenes float by and take in the old planes, the uniforms, and the scenery. The meeting in Washington is when you need to start paying attention. That's when the action starts. That's when the real characters emerge, the meaning of their clipped words transcending their limited vocabularies. After this point, you are glued to your seat until the very end. As for the fighting scenes, I fast-forward through all the flying scenes in Top Gun. I'm told this is against the law, but I take my chances. The bottom line is I'm not an air-fight-scene person. But I was on the edge of my seat during the air battles in this movie. I'm sure it's a Lucas magician thing, but whatever it is, even women like me will love the action. Props to go Cuba Gooding, who isn't used to holding back. In Red Tails he plays the "I have a separate conversation going on in my head during all our conversations" character really well. His pursed lips tell us about the other conversation going on in his head, which is why his Academy Award should be on his front porch instead of in the back of his 'payback' closet. Well done, Cuba.

So I apologize yet again to my African-American countrymen. And I may go see Red Tails one more time just to do my part to support Lucas' attempt to change the way Hollywood does business. Either way, please see it.

The British always seem to have such interesting faces, and because of that their movies seems to have more depth and feeling than American movies. Toast is no exception. This movie contains little dialogue and relies much on visual communication, which could easily have turned it into one of those movies that makes you glance at your watch every twenty minutes. But the casting of such physically unique individuals makes it riveting.

The dynamics of family. I know, I know. Do we really need to go there again? Yes we do, and Toast puts it out there in a raw, you-are-scarred-for-life way that we can all relate to. It hurts to watch the way Nigel Carter, the British food writer on whose biography the movie is based, hurl insults at his dying mother, knowing this behavior will haunt him in the end. It's equally hard to watch the miscommunication between father and son—this could be any home in America where parents and children seem to speaking foreign tongues to each other, tearing the already weakened fabric of parent-child relationships. It's a wonder anyone survives.

But Nigel was a survivor. I liked how he listened to the voice inside him, ignoring society's pressure to fit in. In school he was the only male who chose to take home economics over shop, and he stood at his father's wedding by the cake he'd made so carefully, even though the wedding represented everything that would alienate him even further from his father. Our Nigel did it his way. I half-expected to to hear that Frank Sinatra song at some point during the film.

I loved the reference to toast. "Soft inside the toasted shell, where the butter nestles in…" or something like that. I loved toast when I was growing up, and I think it is the only comfort food that doesn't have a sugar base. My personal favorite was cinnamon toast, but hey, to each his own. I have never met anyone who doesn't like toast, and it was a perfect metaphor.

Which leads us to wonder, is it possible Nigel's mother was that bad a cook? Is it possible that someone could boil cans for dinner and burn them? Go see Toast. Then cook something. Feed those you love with culinary delights you enjoy making and let the sweet and savory fetes roll.

Nice film.

I Don't Know How She Does It is really about just how she does do it. That high-powered working mother who navigates the maze of a to-do list longer than a lifespan and a day of activity like a run-on sentence has a method to her madness and a rhythm to her life. She recognizes that her life works, even on the brink of disaster, if all the parts stay oiled and on track. I loved watching it all play out; it was like part of my history that wasn't as clear to me when I was in the eye of it all.

That said, the movie has major flaws. I hate that laziness of stopping the action and letting a narrator tell you how you are supposed to feel about something. Every time Kate gets into the elevator and starts to tell us how she is feeling, with all other motion on hold, it irritates the hell out of me. Worse, it's unnecessary. Director Douglas McGrath did a fine job of setting up the characters and the mysteries of their lives, but he should have trusted us to be smart enough to figure it out without his lazy narration. I don't need Momo (Kate's research associate, played brilliantly by Olivia Munn) to tell me who Kate is and what her life is like. Why is it only male directors who seem to feel audiences need that extra explanation. Don't get me started.

I think this is the first movie I can recall in which I really wanted the woman to end up with both love interests, not one or the other. I like that about the film. I like that I was sad for Jack Abelhammer (Pierce Brosnan), who so deserved to be loved, and happy for Richard (Greg Kinnear), who earned her love over and over again with his acceptance. Isn't it nice that we don't need to have a cad in the movie at all; that accustomed can celebrate that it might be able to work out with more than one person? See this movie just for that aspect; I can't think of another that does that. I must admit I was waiting for one of them to lose because I'm so used to that movie model. Nice change.

Best line of the film: "Sometimes just OK is good enough." I must needlepoint that into a pillow and put it in every corner of my life. Knowing when just OK is good enough is the challenge. Knowing which things in our lives don't need to be the best is the challenge. Her house was a bit messy, but it was surely good enough. Her disheveled self could have used more time; but it was good enough. A lot of things were just good enough, and I think that is true for my own life as well. A lot of what I do is just plain good enough, and I must learn to embrace that.

Dear Sarah Jessica Parker; I can't lose Carrie Bradshaw when you are on the screen. Sorry. I think you might be better served by making an updated version of Sex in the City every few years so we can see how Carrie and crew cope with the way age changes the landscape of their lives. It's a good career, and one you could be proud to call your own. My movie partner, Aunt Nancy, pointed out that Sarah played the role of wife and mother well, but was not all that believable as a brilliant businesswoman. I am not sure I agree, but I do think that her buffoonery in the business role was just a tad overdone. I'm not sure who could have done it better, but I don't think it was a perfect casting call.

Greg Kinnear, are you ever evil? Find that bad side and show it OK? I really would appreciate it. Pierce, you are the bomb as always. The bomb. The man I have always wanted to call my own. I love the bemused look on your face when you look at your women, a look that borders on adoration that borders on awe that borders on lust. Love it. And, for the record, I bowled in college and had a yellow and white swirly bowling ball. Christina Hendricks was too young for the role of Kate's friend. Kelsey Grammar, it's so nice to see you as someone other than what's-his-name. Great facial expressions. Close-ups tell your story.

Look, you may not want to acknowledge the truth behind a life like Kate Reddy's. It's complex. It's unfair. It's got no blue-ribbon ceremony at the end, but it is the life of many a woman I call friend, and I loved seeing it on the screen with no underlying evil or downside. I love when she tells her husband at the end that she can't see her life without her career, when you were really expecting her to give it all up for him and the kids. It was a twist, albeit one that might have gone unnoticed. Notice it.

A late friend of mine, Bernice Kanner, once told me, "Chris, you can have any of the two out of three that you want: happy marriage, great mothering, brilliant career. But you can't have all three." I have thought of her words often, and I realize that it takes a village to have all three, but it is doable. Forge ahead, fabulous women. Do it all. And take your daughters to see this movie. Especially your teenage daughters who might just think that good is sometimes enough.

Well, hello Michelle Williams. Wow. Kudos to you for sure, for you are totally mesmerizing as Marilyn Monroe—or frankly, as anyone at all. No one can take their eyes off you when you are on the screen. You are more bewitching than Marilyn was by many percentage points.

My Week with Marilyn is a must-see. It's a one-week snippet of Marilyn's life, and it shows us her genius at manipulation and her vulnerability as a woman whose soul others can't see through her beauty. Lastly, it shows us how three extremely powerful players were all at the mercy of one very unstable Marilyn.

At one point, the young Colin Clark says to Marilyn, "The trouble is that Laurence (Olivier) is a respected stage actor who wants to be a star and you are a star who wants to be a respected actor, and somehow you are getting in each other's way." I thought that was oh-so-true. Being both is almost an oxymoron for a stage actor, by virtue of the fact that there is an intellectual approach to stage acting, and to aspire to the 'sell-out' of stardom that means you are anything but a serious actor.

Everyone is brilliant in the film. The filming is brilliant. It's all done with such effortless genius that you do not realize until after you have left how many layers there were to the plot. Marilyn's brand-new marriage to Arthur Miller was already on the rocks. Marilyn was a struggling actress, unable to see the world's admiration for her talent as anything other than adoration of her physical beauty. Laurence struggles to be taken seriously as a director and fails due to his inability to motivate and control Marilyn. Vivien Leigh's adjustment to old age is an issue that women in film still face.

But mostly it's about Marilyn and her young man, whom she lures into her web with no real intention for their affair to be anything other than an interlude. Colin doesn't tell us about the rest of his life, but I fear he was never any good for any other woman after falling for Marilyn, who was only toying with him.

I have thought a lot about how she studied method acting during the filming of a movie about a showgirl who falls in love with a young prince. "Hmmm," said I to myself. "That makes total sense. She could practice her acting with poor, unsuspecting Colin and get it right in front of the camera later." In other words, the Colin and Marilyn story parrots the story Marilyn was filming on the screen.

I think she used everyone around her. She was smarter than a fox, and her stupid "poor me" routine littered both sides of the Atlantic the bodies of her victims.

Michelle, this is the role of your lifetime, and we are all grateful that they saw it in you and brought you in to do it. It would not have been such a powerful movie without you.

The original Arthur came out in 1981 and starred Dudley Moore. Remember him? It was funny. It was poignant. It was believable in an "out of your own reach" sort of way. I walked out of the new Arthur after an hour, came home and immediately watched the Dudley version on Netflix's Instant Watch. It was as fun as I remembered it, even though rich then is so not rich now. Remember 1981, when there were only a handful of millionaires? Who knew? It really made me feel good about walking out and honoring the first version.

The problem with the new Arthur is that Russell Brand is silly… but only silly. Doing a silly movie with a silly actor means it can be silly and still not be not funny or believable. Arthur is not funny, and it's an embarrassment to Helen Mirren, who should have run after reading page one of the script. She is such a great actor; what was she thinking? Much has changed in the thirty years since the original Arthur came out. Liza Minnelli has turned out in real life to be as crazy as she appeared to be in Arthur and The Sterile Cuckoo. She always made me so uncomfortable in those roles. I just knew it was the true her, and that she could not possibly have a great life. I was right, alas. But Arthur needs to play opposite someone as nutty as him in order to make it believable, and no one in the new Arthur comes close to really being his soul mate. Dudley Moore's real life had a sad ending; he was always just a bit embarrassed by his own lack of seriousness.

So I have put to rest here the need to discuss the movie at all.It reminds us all that watching old versions of movies can be a fun thing to do on a Sunday afternoon. 'Night Dudley.

So Matthew McConaughey's fabulous character from Grisham's A Time To Kill is a few years older, and he's become a sell-out, a cynical "all about me" kind of lawyer. He returns to us in The Lincoln Lawyer, having lost the southern drawl (sort of). I forgot how much I liked good crime movies. Maybe it's because my fabulous Sarah (daughter extraordinaire in Harvard Law School, although I would never brag about it) wants to do criminal law. But maybe not, seeing as I liked them when she was seven and planning to be a vet. And while The Lincoln Lawyer is no Grisham plot, best-selling author Michael Connelly did a good job creating a plot that isn't obvious right out of the gate. It definitely has a ring of truth to it.

Matthew, Matthew, Matthew. Are you really so cool? You really aren't handsome. I think it might be the way you walk just one shade west of a swagger that brings a 'don't mess with me or anyone I care about' vibe to your presence and makes women want to watch you on the screen. I want you to take care of me, to look at me the way you look at Marisa Tomei's Maggie McPherson, and that's why I will see any movie you are in. It was even true in The Wedding Planner, and let's face it, that movie wasn't your finest hour. But good for you for waiting for a script that was worth it. I guess when you live on a beach in an RV, you can afford to wait for a great film before committing. More actors should try that way of life—they might avoid doing movies that make them look stupid just for the cash. I'm just saying.

I hate giving away plots, so I won't do that here. But I will say that we know right away the kid is lying and he did it for sure. I would have liked to have had a little more uncertainty, at least until the second hour. I never thought he didn't do it. He doth protest too much and all that. Ryan Phillippe tried and did a decent job, but it's hard to make the transition from a soap opera star in One Life to Live to an action-packed thriller with Matthew, Matthew, Matthew. It's not your fault. The true tension was created not by Ryan but by what Matthew was going to do with him.

The Lincoln Lawyer does make you pause a number of times to think about personal prejudices. And since it's always nice to pretend there is some moral or socially redeeming feature in every movie I see, I am happy to mention it. Prejudicial guilt in the court system, or our daily lives, is a bummer for sure, and I hate to think about the number of people serving time who shouldn't be. And the fact that I'm sure it could never happen to me makes it all more important.

The downside to the movie is director Brad Furman's use of the camera. He starts out with the camera jiggling around in a way that I assume is supposed to make me feel off balance. Then it goes to the close-up section, where all you see are close ups over and over again, and then back to panning across rooms and people with a stable camera. Make up your mind Brad, Director of Nothing Worth Noting before this. Don't test all your different ideas in one film. It sort of gave me a headache. And frankly, it made me not like you very much.

OK, this is a must-see for sure, though you could wait for it to come to Pay Per View. It's not one of those must-see-on-the-big-screen kind of movies.

Based on a true story about Monks realizing their end is near at the height of the Algerian Civil War in the 1990s, Of Gods and Men, won the Cannes Film Festival's coveted Best Film prize, so I went with heightened anticipation of a meaningful experience. Not so much.

I have never seen more amazing casting of amazing faces that move me. Each monk's face told a story, but I never got to hear what it was. Two monks, Brother Christian and the medic, Brother Luc, had stories which we got to learn but not experience. Christian was a scholar of the Quran, and Luc was a medic who healed the Muslims from the village, whom he clearly loved. But the others looked like they had amazing stories, but never got to share them. The way the cinematographer held the camera in a close-up of each of the monks for a very, very, long time, over and over again, made for an amazing set of portraits that would have been great as an exhibit in a museum or gallery, but it never came together as a film. I kept thinking that Annie Leibovitz would have loved the opportunity to shoot them, but she would have given their hard-life lines some sort of context. As far as the acting went, my feeling was that the director kept saying, "walk slower or look earnestly to left of camera." Like the portraits of the monks, each scene was shot in a still life set up that made you feel like you were in a fabulous museum with amazing artists, but the director never brought them all together into a story. The religious scenes of prayer and celebration were just too long and drawn out. And don't tell me you were trying to make the point that a good chunk of daily time went into the routines that make monks monks. I know that, but you can't shove it down my throat that way.

Please don't get me wrong. It's worth seeing, just for the amazing shots and faces. But don't expect to understand anything about what was happening during that tumultuous time, and don't expect to walk away really feeling like there was a point to it all.

I am beginning to think that if you do something different, and shoot it really, really well, then you can win lots of awards. Dialogue matters in a film. It's part of the weave that makes a story, and it was sorely missing in Of Gods and Men. To win Cannes with no dialog says, "Shame on Cannes." And the same can be said of the plot. You knew from the get-go what was going to happen, and they just took a long time to tell you that you had it right from the opening scene.

When you know that Frank Langella, Susan Sarandon, and Liv Tyler are all going to be in a movie, you think to yourself, Gotta get me to Robot and Frank. Love those actors and haven't seen them for a while. Time to go see what old friends are up to. I'm afraid that, just as Frank was past his prime and no one had much use for him anymore, these actors did the movie because they are no longer on the A-list and this is what they could get. Robot and Frank is not a good movie. The plot is not developed, and while I won't ruin who is really who in the movie, the surprise relationship revelation was not properly set up, and it is totally not believable. None of the relationships are well developed. None of them. And when you have Susan Sarandon on the screen, you'd better let her show the development of her relationships.

The dialogue. Oh my. It's so very bad, and the cast can't make it work. And Frank wakes up too many damn times in this movie, metaphorically and physically. Is that the only way the writer knows how to set a scene? Lastly, I'm so sorry Mr. Langella, you aren't a romantic lead. No one wants to be kissed by you. Promise. You play a bad guy really well, and Frank is not really a bad guy, so you are miscast. Yes, miscast I tell you. Loved you in Frost/Nixon though, and Eddie was your finest moment.

Even the locations are mismatched. The house inside is not the same as the house outside. I am sure of it. The house outside is newer than the one inside. And even if I am wrong and it's not, they should have made the front door from the same period as the inside of the house. And just how far is the walk into town? And if the town is as small as they made it seem, why doesn't the shopkeeper know who Frank is? Okay, the robot's cute. He really is. And you can see how we humans can form a relationship with anything that communicates with us—or anything or anyone that serves us. The robot should have been named, however, and I'm sure there is some pseudo-intellectual reason why he wasn't—to prove to us that he was erasable, or some such nonsense. But he deserved to be named, and we all know that anything that is erased in technology is retrievable. Sheesh guys, come on.

So unless you have missed Frank, Liv, and Susan so much in real life that you just want to see what they look like now, you can skip this flick. Now erase this review.

You have to see In a World — if for no other reason, it's the perfect story to explain to someone the glass ceiling faced by most women. In a World is genius. It's brilliant, amazingly well written, and filled with all kinds of nuances that speak to our lives and what is right and wrong with them. Family issues. Sibling connections. Loving someone out of your league. Commitment and its challenges. Self confidence. Need I go on? Rarely will you go to a movie that offers so many mirrors of yourself to look into. Thank you, Lake Bell.

So, who is Lake Bell and where did she come from? This movie is in the Juno category, and even if it's a one-shot wonder, I want to know this person who is behind it.

It took me a good ten minutes to figure out where I'd seen Lake Bell before. Then it hit me. She's the dragon tattoo lady married to Meryl's ex in It's Complicated. I was stunned. It's so rare to see someone on the screen who can be more than one persona. When I realized she'd written it, directed it, and starred in it, I was blown away. Blown away, I tell you. I have very little desire to meet Hollywood players, but I would have lunch with Lake. Dinner. Breakfast. Tell me where and when, and I'll be there. I want to pick her brain. What made her think of it? What was her father like? Has she done voice-overs? Oh my, maybe we should spend a weekend at Canyon Ranch? One meal isn't enough time.

The cast is obscure and perfect. The sisters look like sisters. Rob Corddry, who plays Lake's sister's husband, will tear your heart out. He makes the case over and over again for marrying the nice guy, not the guy who sends your heart into cardiac arrest. Ken Marino, who plays Gustav and has the difficult task of walking close to the line of ridiculous, nails it. There is one weak link, however. Fred Melamed, who plays Lake's father, is off. I'm not sure exactly why, or whether he was playing it the way she directed, but he's not quite believable.

Here is what I love, love, love about In a World: It proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you can make great movies without a star attraction. It proves that there can be many Hollywood writers. It proves that we can rework this industry, and women can have a voice and a place in film. It shows the sheer depth of resources that exist for making films that are unique, compelling, and funny.

Let's hope this is the last time Linda Lovelace gets screwed. Lovelace, which premiered on HBO movies this week, is a disgrace to the movie industry. The woman who inspired the film deserved better. It's written, directed, and acted like a high-schooler's first movie, but I felt like I should watch it from start to finish, if only to honor this abused and resilient woman.

This story should be told the way Marilyn's story has been told several times over the past few years — with a deep respect for what women were up against in a world dominated by men, who held little value for women lying on the bed before them. Why is it that the women are always the stars in porn? Why is the audience for porn predominantly male? What differentiating gene makes men want to watch rather than participate? Or am I wrong — do women like it too? And if that is the case, why aren't we more active in making the kind of porn that appeals to our fantasies? These are all questions that I am not going to think of again after I post this review.

The only reason Lovelace is getting any attention is because Amanda Seyfried plays Linda Lovelace, and she, as you all know, is a mini-me star from Mama Mia and most recently, Les Miserables. I didn't give her a good review in Les Mis, and although the Lovelace script gave her absolutely nothing to work with, she continues to impress me with her inability to understand the complex characters she plays. She would have done well to spend six months delving into the porn industry, talking to the women who are in porn now, and hearing their stories and the stories they know about those who went before them. She doesn't have the depth as a person to be able to play this role. And what a shame, because it could have been so much better. It's not the dialogue that matters in this film; it's seeing the transformation of the victim.

I have nothing to say about any of the men. They all rolled into each other. Mustaches. Lots of mustaches that blend into each other. And Big, what the heck are you doing in this film? Looking to break out of your mold? This was not the place to do it my friend. You are way too good an actor to get caught in this web of mediocrity. Shame on you for not seeing that before you accepted the role.

A few things a feminist like me wants you to note: Linda Lovelace was asked to take a polygraph test by her book publisher before they would accept her memoir. I'm thinking maybe they should do that more often, or explain why she had to do that when so many others who write tell-all books do not have to do it. Interesting. As the movie closes, before credits are run, a few facts come scrolling across the screen. Lovelace received $1,250 for her work on Deep Throat, a movie that is said to have brought in more than $600,000,000. Unfathomable.

So rest in peace Linda Boreman aka Linda Lovelace. You deserve it.

Inherent in the very title of the film Still Life lies its biggest challenge – how to convey a sense of stillness in a medium that by its very name is supposed to, yes, move. And yet, Uberto Pasolini, who wrote and directed Still Life, rivals the Flemish masters of old. What a triumph. What layers of plot intertwined with those images to tell the story of a man who will break your heart a thousand times in each still life moment he creates in his very, very, very deliberate life. I am grateful to have seen this movie.

I named some of the still life images that were seared in my mind. Man in Kitchen with Plate on Drainboard. Man at Bus Stop… Alone. Safe Office Prison. Happy Death. Train Ride with Meat Pie. They go on and on. Two Drunks on Steps. Each and every scene is a moving still life that speaks to a life of safe deliberation that turns to moving outside the net of safety, that is punishable by death. We all know the dangers of leaving safe plodding behind. Those moments outside the box of life's monotony will be worth it in the end – and they were.

The acting is perfection. I'm sure even Lucian Freud would want to paint the actors Pasolini gathered for this film. How can we thank Eddie Marsan for bringing Mr. May to life with such dignity, charm and humor? Does he utter more than fifty words in the entire film? I don't think so, and yet, I heard his voice through the entire showing. And, Joanne Froggatt, (yes, from Downton Abbey), gifts us with a portrayal of Kelly Stoke that is the perfect answer to Marsan's May.

I have to confess when I went to the film I didn't realize that Pasolini was the producer of The Full Monty, The Emperor's New Clothes, and The Closer You Get. Producer? No way. Stick with writing and directing, sir. You are surely one of the best in the business.

Death will come to us all. It is our hope that we never die alone, with no one to celebrate our lives afterward. In fact, few of us think about those that do die without anyone to put them to rest. Still Life will change a lot of things for you if you can take it in as if it were a museum tour of a great exhibit. I think it's a 'see it more than once' film for sure. And yes, forgive the pun, it is an incredibly moving experience.

This might be The Hampton Film Festival's best sleeper this year. Congratulations. Oh, and thank you.

If the love to which Nina Davenport refers in First Comes Love is the narcissistic love of oneself, then she has picked the perfect title for her documentary, which follows her over the two years following her decision to be a single mom Don't get me wrong. Nina packs a mean camera. Since she does her filming herself, I have to give her kudos for her control of the camera as she films family conversations, the public humiliation of her father, and her own manipulation of her friends and family into doing the work while she sits back and experiences the day. Not everyone can pull it off. She does. The problem is that she pulls it off at the expense of so many around her.

There is a need for these documentaries. Many women who are not in love relationships are desperate to have children, and time is not on their side, so the odds are never in their favor. Their experiences charting that difficult course are worth noticing. But I have to agree with Nina's dad. It's not fair for her to bring a child into the world. She is not self-sufficient, so how can she possibly take on the added burden (and joy) of a child. He was right. Six months after her fabulous son was born, she was at her father's house asking why, oh why, wouldn't he support her? Her, a Harvard grad who just wants to be a filmmaker and take years, years, and more years to make films that will not pay her bills. It's that sense of entitlement that comes from having grown up entitled.

Her journey is one worth recording. Her version of her journey is so reminiscent a woman looking into a pond and admiring her own image that it's hard to stomach. She should try watching her own documentary as if she were any of the other people in it – from their perspective and she might see, just for a moment or two, why those around her don't find her all that easy to be around. That said, I wish her and her son all the best. And, a piece of advise from the mother of a twenty-seven year old. Give him a bedtime. We all need one.

I'm not blessed with a natural sense of curiosity, so the question of how Dutch Master, Johannes Vermeer, painted his extraordinary masterpieces has never kept me up at night. Tim's Vermeer made me realize I should be kept up at night by the mysteries of the past. I love this movie. I love that I paid close attention through it all. I love Tim Jenison's biting humor. I love the mystery surrounding his theory. I love that even back then, there were people doing things behind the scenes to make the ordinary extraordinary. And I love that we will never know if it's true.

Let me bring in my friend Heidi Sullivan to explain the meat and potatoes. Heidi and I made our yearly trek this year to the Hamptons together for the Hamptons Film Festival. She is an award-winning documentarian, and much, much, much smarter than I am. She also picks the movies we see because she is a deep-sea diver who spends time diving into things, while I am a water skier, flying over things on the surface level. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Anyway, in the interest of making sure you get the whole thing, I asked her to write the paragraph explaining Tim's theory on Vermeer's painting process. Here is it. After you read it, you will be glad I asked her. She is nothing if not articulate when it comes to complex issues. She went to Harvard. Just sayin'.

"Unlike those of his contemporaries, none of Vermeer's sketchbooks have ever been found, nor have X-rays of Vermeer paintings revealed any pencil marks underneath the paint, Intrigued by this fact, Jenison reasoned that Vermeer must have used a camera obscura, the 17th-century equivalent of a camera, to obtain his hyper-realist look (as the film points out, camera obscura literally means darkroom). To test out his theory, and limiting himself to objects and pigments that would have existed in Vermeer's day, Jenison positioned a mirror on a stick, placing the mirror at an angle to reflect the image to be painted onto his tablet. To match the color of the reflected image exactly, Jenison continually kept his eye on the edge of the mirror. Looking between the mirror and the reflected image he was painting, if the color he was using was too dark or too light, the edge of the mirror was visible to his eye. But once he mixed his colors to match exactly, the edge of the mirror seemed to disappear – his eye and the mirror functioning as a sort of photo-sensor. It was an incredibly painstaking paint-by-numbers process, but one that yielded uncanny results." Amazing right? But more amazing is Tim's exploration of this question. His journey to see if he could replicate is told with honesty, humor, and intelligence. Perhaps best of all, it approaches an extremely difficult topic with a sense of comic perspective. No one is curing cancer. He was responding to his own internal boredom with a project he admits he would have abandoned had not the cameras been rolling. There were 2,500 hours of film to edit. A feat in itself.

There is a moment on film that I couldn't leave behind. Tim's daughter spends her week home from college posing for the painting. She has to be perfectly still. A contraption is strapped to her head that makes it look like she has just broken her neck and is in traction. She has a Diet Coke on the table, and the moment when she reaches for it and takes a drink is priceless. Coke should use it in a commercial. And, Tim's comment that she couldn't wait to return to school was priceless.

I have to mention Penn Jillette, who was the 'Director' of this movie. But he really wasn't. He was the famous person whose backing allowed it to be made. Or so it seemed. I'm not a fan anyway, so having him associated with the film would have been a reason not to go, rather than a reason to pay attention.

I like stick-to-itiveness in a person. I do. I can't wait to see a Vermeer and at the Met the next time I am in New York City. I like to be smarter than I was a few hours ago. I like to know things. For those reasons alone, go see the Tim's Vermeer. Become smarter. Ask yourself if Vermeer could secretly have been a paint-by-numbers kind of guy, hiding it because he knew it was a form of cheating? If the answer is yes, what else is possible?

Who would have thought that a Flemish movie could bring Blue Grass music to mainstream America? I have to start the review of Broken Circle Breakdown with the music. It was illuminating. A whole new music for me to love. Right under our American snob-ridden noses. Harmony from Heaven and a Capella perfection seemingly from under the arches of Princeton. And the lesson in banjo history delivered right from the movie's start by the actor extraordinaire, Johan Heldenbergh, gave new meaning to the poor cousin of the violin, Mr. Banjo. Did I mention the director placing that banjo intro right after one fabulous, sensuous love scene making the banjo, the man, and the woman a threesome with perfect harmony? Mostly though, the music for me made a sad, tragic tale palatable. Without it, I couldn't have stayed.

The story is not a happy one. It's about a young, innocent child dying of cancer. It's about the flame of a perfect love unable to withstand the harsh winds of life outside the circle of their love. And, it's about choices during life that are made by each of us, by ourselves, and for ourselves. Add it all up, and it's a tough movie to take without the music.

All the actors are marvelous. I am sure that had it been cast in the U.S., Harry Connick Jr. would have played Didier and Reese Witherspoon, Elise. Trust me on this, which is why foreign films are inevitably better than American films for very serious stories needing to be told. Veerle (Elise) and Johan are not perfect specimens of the human race, and their faulty teeth and imperfect thighs bring the realism to the screen that is always missing in U.S. dramas. Interestingly enough, the sex scenes are more sexy by the imperfections and their immersion in the roles far beyond what the Academy rewards here.

The movie is being submitted by Belgium for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film. I nominate it now for best screenplay as well. Every word in the dialog belongs there, like a set that has nothing in it for show. And, while we are piling on nominations, how about Best Direction? The direction is steady and sure, with timing that shows it's not just comedy that needs to have a steady rhythm. Broken Circle Breakdown has perfect dramatic timing.

There is a God theme in Broken Circle Breakdown where Elise is a believer and Didier is not. It's the age old fight in us all that wants to believe but needs the proof that is never really to be found. I see it woven in, but for me, it's not what the film is about. It's about life while you are here, not about life after you are gone.

There is a moment when Elise says she should have known that love couldn't really be that generous. What a thought. That the cocoon of a perfect love cannot last because love just can't be that generous. First time I've heard love had the power to be generous and it will be with me for a long time to come. It's the stuff poems are made from.

As an American, this is the first film I can recall where I can see the outside world's version of my country, and, its fall from grace as our underbelly of political posturing sets aside that in us that could be greater still. At this particular moment in time, it makes a girl pause for a moment and lament our leaders and my poor voting record in electing them. Had to say it. Enough about politics.

I have to stick just a short sentence in here about the tattoos. Makes you want to go out and get one. According to the credits, the movie was based on the play "The Broken Circle Breakdown Featuring the Cover-Ups of Alabama". But don't think Elise used her tattoos to hide from her real self. Instead, they were adjectives in the story, side bars that showed us how she got there. They are beautiful, and I might just go out and get one that says, Be generous with my love.

Great pick Hamptons Film Festival. It was one of the first movies shown, and that's a high bar to set.

I went to The Heat this weekend because I wanted to add my one lousy ticket to the numbers to make sure the Sandra Bullock/Melissa McCarthy movie's opening outdid the boy-toy White House Down, Detention of the Dead, and let's see… that cinematic masterpiece, Man of Steel. Well, they didn't need me. The Heat made double what any other movie made this weekend, and once again women are sending the message to Hollywood that we do matter, and that chick-flick movies can make real dollars. Is anyone listening? And, aside from all that blather, I loved this movie.

I am not a lover of slapstick humor in movies. I didn't like Bridesmaids, Melissa McCarthy's breakout movie, because I felt that once again Hollywood was selling women short; women turning on women isn't funny to me, no matter how good the one-liners. Enter The Heat, in which Sandra and Melissa dislike each other from the start for reasons that don't involve fighting over some boy or other, and they bond when it's clear to both of them that they are better together than apart.

The dialog is hysterically funny. Bullock and Melissa both have perfect timing. They fit together. They make the unbelievable believable, and even when the story gets beyond the pale, you do not give a good goddamn because it is just too funny. It's a little long — okay, it's way too long — but it has all the elements it needs to succeed. Many of the jokes are exaggerated to make the point, but you laugh out loud because they remind you of your own life. At the end, a touch of kindness from the hard-ass character makes you realize that friendship is everything.

Grab a couple of girlfriends and head out to The Heat to give a sister some box-office numbers to make sure there will always be movies like this for all of us to see. Girls rule!

It's another movie about old people, (there have been so many recently) with an amazing cast and a storyline that tugs at the heartstrings and makes terrible faults bearable. Yep, Unfinished Song (released in the UK as Song for Marion) is a must-see, a nostalgic look back at a life we all share, filled with successes and regrets, that in the end is filled with the gray we all have in our own lives.

When we left the movie, my cousin Gary, a man of few words, indicated that he hadn't loved it. "It took me on too many rides," he said. "Happy, sad, mad, up and down, over and over. It was too much." The stories of our lives are sometimes too much, and the three months or so that we travel during Unfinished Song is a roller-coaster through all of it: missteps, loss, laughter, success. Gary's right, it's tough to take. But it's worth the ride. Just don't make plans for after you see it.

And the acting. Oh my God, the acting.

What is there to say about Vanessa Redgrave that hasn't been said? I think I've found something. Her body is old. Really old. And she wore it unabashedly, exposing herself and her oldness without one ounce of self- consciousness — unlike my friends and I, who find ourselves embarrassed to be aging around one another. I admire her. I am grateful for the lesson. Watch her in the opening scene, when she is singing with her choir-mates. Watch her body move, and ask yourself if you would let yours do the same in public.

Terrance Stamp. Who knew sir? Well done. Vanessa is not the star; you are. You embody all the qualities of that sons-of-WWII generation, who never quite learned to wear your feelings on your sleeves, let alone utter a word that might make you vulnerable. And you can sing? You should get kudos for this performance, although you won't because no movies that play in June and July ever do. I will give you an award, however, and I hope to see you at the Globes and the Academy Awards next February.

Billy Joel wrote "Lullaby (Goodnight My Angel)" a lovely lullaby for his daughter, Alexa, which I downloaded and listened to years and years ago. It's the song our Arthur sings to his departed wife, about their departed life, and I love that song more now than I did then. Listen to it. Listen to the words and dare to hope that you might have someone you would like to sing it to.

Unfinished Song is a movie that has music, not to be confused with a musical. And if you want to cry, or you want to think about what you might want to fix now rather than waiting until later, take a trip to the theater and watch this beautifully directed film.

The Way explores every dysfunctional stereotype we have ever seen. We have the father whose son died before the father was able to accept him just the way he was. We have the woman who left her abusive husband, but not before aborting her daughter so as not to bring another soul into the world for him to batter. And let's not forget that she is also trying desperately to quit smoking. We have the writer with writer's block, who starts off behaving like a schizophrenic and ends up writing a great novel about the long walk along the Camino di Santiago, which for centuries has been taken by people on spiritual quests to find themselves or their Gods. And last but not least, we have the fat man whose wife won't sleep with him because he has a big stomach—although I hesitate to let him write off her disinterest as merely fat-related when he clearly had no qualms about leaving his whole family to spend months walking through Spain on his way to a church (OK, a cathedral, and a stunning one at that, but still…).

So The Way was a two-hour journey to nothing unexpected.

Martin Sheen, who is the real-life father of director and screenwriter Emilio Estevez (Sheen's birth name was Ramón Estevez), plays the father who needs to make peace with his son's death by completing the son's walk on the Camino for him and spreading his ashes along the way. Estevez dies mysteriously at the beginning of the trip, and we see him in visions along the trails from time to time. Emilio, I have to give you credit. You wrote it. You directed it. You acted in it. But you should have done just the writing and acting. You wrote the dialogue very well, but unfortunately, you directed it terribly. It doesn't flow well. The views are not fabulous, and they need to be. Great moments are lost by camera angles, which is something I ordinarily never notice, so you know it is bad. Worst of all, your dad is rushed through his performance in a way that makes him neither the hero nor the protagonist, and I needed him to be one or the other. He walks too fast. He talks too fast. He is too angry. Too sad. Not really there, if you know what I mean. And, who could blame him? While The Way was being filmed, brother Charlie Sheen was doing his Charles-Manson-without-the- violence impression for the world at large, right down to the scary eyes and wild hair.

The acting is good. The dialogue is not bad. A shout out to the priest, Simón Andreu, who wears his yarmulke as well as can be expected on a trail more than 800 kilometers long in order to shade his skin-cancer ridden head. And also Antonio Gil as Ishmael, the gypsy, who stole my heart by trying to rise above the stereotype of his people as thieves. Ishmael's sullen son is as a gypsy thief who clearly has not reformed.

But decent acting without character development never works. We never see enough of Sheen's father/son issues to understand his pain. We need to know more about the other travelers—perhaps flashbacks to their lives would have helped. You gotta create some back-story if you want the audience to understand the characters, and a few lines of dialogue from each explaining why they are there just doesn't do it.

Here is the strange part—I'm really glad I saw it, and I hope you go see it as well. And congrats to Emilio for not being one of those ne'er-do- well sons of stars who live off their fathers' successes.