November 2009

THE BAD LIEUTENANT:
PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS (2009)
The original “Bad Lieutenant,” as unrelenting and unsettling a film as you’re likely to survive, earning an NC-17 rating and featuring a wild-eyed performance by Harvey Keitel that falls somewhere between early Scorsese and soft porn, unearthed the sleazy, corrupt underbelly of an out-of-control New York City cop.

The sequel/remake, repudiated in no uncertain terms by Abel Ferrara, the director of the 1992 version, smoothes out the veneer and offers more of a plot, but ends up being a bit too ordinary for its own good. That’s not what I would have expected from Werner Herzog, the obsessive, usually daring German director whose return to fiction filmmaking produced one of the most compelling films of 2007, “Rescue Dawn.” With his new film, he and screenwriter William M. Finkelstein (longtime TV writer/producer who’s worked on “L.A. Law” and “Law and Order”) create a showcase for another weirdly off-kilter and frustratingly inconsistent performance by Nicolas Cage. As Det. Terence McDonagh, who moves from vicodin to cocaine following a back injury rescuing a prisoner in a flooded jail in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Cage believably captures a man who becomes a slave to his addiction.

Before you realize how bad off this guy is, he’s shaking down young couples for drugs and sex, stealing from the police evidence room and making deals with the city’s top drug dealer as a way to pay off a mobster he’s offended. But it’s not like he was squeaky clean before he turned into a coke head: his girlfriend is a high-class call girl (a sexy, but miscast Eva Mendes) and he gives most of his paycheck to his bookie (an unrecognizable Brad Dourif).

McDonagh is so messed up in so many ways and has his hands in so many illegal and unethical activities that it’s hard to get a handle on him or Cage’s performance. It’s bad lieutenant overload, yet Herzog keeps letting him off the hook, finding slices of light for McDonagh as he barrels down a dark tunnel. The director also allows Cage to reinvent his performance in nearly every scene—even his accent shifts in tone through the film. Maybe Herzog and Cage felt that approach worked because of the detective’s drug use, but it didn’t work for me.

The film is not without its frenzied moments as one would expect from such a lethal combination of director and actor, the best of which is when Cage takes advantage of a pair of young partiers. And Herzog offers up his own craziness (this is the man who made “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” and “Fitzcarraldo”) by featuring some very expressive iguanas and a cartoonish alligator scene. But there’s just not enough New Orleans atmosphere and way too many secondary plots to call this film a success.

Ferrara was so upset when he learned they were redoing this story that he reportedly wished horrible deaths for Herzog and his cast; who says there’s no passion left in American filmmaking. That’s a bit excessive, but please, don’t turn this into a franchise. What would be next? Michael Mann’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call Miami?”


GOD’S LITTLE ACRE (1958)
and BILLY BUDD (1962)
These emotionally charged, unapologetically symbolic dramas---one rooted firmly in the land, the other on the high seas---feature larger-than-life performances by Robert Ryan, arguably the most underappreciated great actor of the American cinema.

Ryan, who would have turned 100 on Nov. 11 if cancer hadn’t ended his life in 1973 at the age of 64, never scored leading man roles in major films, but instead became a mainstay of B-level crime and melodrama pictures and by the 1950s was among the most recognizable character actors in Hollywood. The lean, 6-foot 4-inch native of Chicago had the hardened, lived-in look of a man who’d spend time on the lam (he roamed the country doing odd jobs during the early years of the Great Depression) and wasn’t afraid to use his fists (he was a boxing champ at Dartmouth). Yet he could be gentle and caring in roles, in retrospect a more believable romantic figure than some of the slick, affected actors the studios preferred.

He studied acting in Hollywood and began working on stage in 1939, eventually reaching Broadway in the 1941 production of “Clash by Night” (he also starred in the 1952 film version). Ryan had small film roles before the war, but after serving as a drill sergeant in the Marines, he had his breakthrough role in “Crossfire” (1947), playing an anti-Semitic veteran suspected in a murder. The role earned Ryan a supporting actor Oscar nomination (the only of his career) but didn’t change his status as a B-movie player.

He gave what was probably his greatest performance two years later in “The Set-Up,” a film noir masterpiece directed by Robert Wise, one of the few movies to play out in real time. As Stocker, an aging, small-town boxer who defies mobsters who want him to throw a fight, Ryan gives a gritty, heartbreaking performance. With every facial expression, Ryan reveals this man as someone who never got the break he deserved. In large part because of Ryan’s background in prizefighting, “The Set-Up” is the most realistically brutal boxing picture made before “Raging Bull.”

Other must-see Ryan performances include his arrogant mobster in “The Racket” (1951); the unhappy, loner cop in “On Dangerous Ground” (1952); a wanted man in the James Stewart-starring Western “The Naked Spur” (1953); another racist in “Bad Day in Black Rock” (1955); and the cruel, heartless crime syndicate chief in “House of Bamboo” (1955).

In “God’s Little Acre,” the sex-soaked best seller by Erskine Caldwell, Ryan plays Ty Ty, the gold-obsessed patriarch of a loud, half-crazy rural Southern family who has dug dozens of holes all over his property in search of grandpa’s hidden treasure. Despite pleas from his family to plant cotton, Ty Ty has spent the past 15 years digging for a fortune he just knows God wants him to have. He’s also the moral center of the film, as he tries in vain to bring God back into a dysfunctional family. The cast is filled with performers who were on the brink of fame, including Buddy Hackett as a candidate for sheriff who longs for Ty Ty’s sexy, uninhibited daughter, Vic Morrow and Jack Lord as Ty Ty’s sons, Tina Louise as Lord’s unhappy wife who is really in love with Aldo Ray, playing the heavy-drinking, unemployed husband of another of Ty Ty’s daughters. And Michael Landon makes a bizarre appearance as an albino Ty Ty kidnaps to help him find the gold. The novel was tailor-made for a TV soap opera, and director Anthony Mann doesn’t shy away from the melodramatic aspects of the story.

The film offers both low-brow humor and moving insight as it portrays these men who stubbornly refuse to give up their dreams, no matter how far fetched, and the women who tolerate them. And while Ryan’s performance teeters on the verge of Southern gothic overload, he reins it in just enough. Maybe Ryan’s greatest strength as an actor was knowing exactly how far he could take a highly emotional character without letting him become a cliché. As much of a buffoon Ty Ty often comes off as, he also has the depth to tell his sons, when they complain about God’s silence, “All you boys seem to think about is the things you can see and touch. That ain’t living. It’s the things you feel down inside you. That’s what living’s for.”

In “Billy Budd,” Herman Melville’s novella of a British warship in the late 18th Century, Ryan plays Claggart, a smart, conniving and masochistic seaman in charge of the ship’s discipline. He takes special interest in Billy Budd (Terence Stamp in his debut), a seaman pressed into service off a merchant ship ironically named “Rights of Man.” There are few rights on the “H.M.S. Indomitable” under command of the by-the-book Captain Vere (subtly played by Peter Ustinov, who also directed the picture) and enforced with the lash by Master at Arms Claggart.

But he goes too far when he tries to frame the always upbeat Billy and disaster follows. There’s more than a hint of sexual attraction between Claggart and Billy, but what really gets under Claggart’s skin is that Billy understands him and isn’t afraid of him.

Few actors were better at creating a truly frightening, yet very human character as Ryan and here he’s at his best, smiling as the men he dislikes are repeatedly whipped and thriving on the fear he sees in the sailor’s eyes as he walks among them.

These two films show Ryan doing what he does so well: turn emotionally intense, often irrational characters that other actors would have played as caricatures into complex, fascinating people.

Ryan was just 53 in 1962, but he found few good roles after “Billy Budd,” instead focusing on stage work, including starring opposite Katharine Hepburn in Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra” and as James Tyrone in a 1971 revival of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” But he had two late-career film performances that stand with the best supporting work in film history. As Deke Thornton in “The Wild Bunch” (1969), he’s the cynical, disillusioned lawman after the Bunch who once road with Pike (William Holden) and wishes he still was. And he’s there at the end to mourn their valiant, bloody end.

Then, just months before his death, he played the world-weary, broken drunk Larry Slade, one of the barflies who endure the endless rantings of Hickey in “The Iceman Cometh” (1973). Ryan stands out in the great cast assembled by director John Frankenheimer, led by Lee Marvin, Fredric March (also his last film as he died two years later) and a very young Jeff Bridges. Ryan’s Larry looks and sounds like a man near his end, done in by a life filled with disappointments and failures.

In his own life, Ryan was a dedicated liberal, involved in the Civil Rights movement, anti-nuclear protests and other issues of the day. He and his wife, children’s novelist Jessica Cadwalader, started an elementary school in North Hollywood that remains a respected private school.

While Ryan isn’t a forgotten actor, he continues to be underrated, in large part because he never had that signature role in a blockbuster film. But much like his fellow RKO contract player Robert Mitchum, Ryan was instrumental in injecting a tough, unvarnished realism to post-war American films, while bringing both brainy instincts and a sadistic obsession with violence to society’s miscreants. That’s certainly a legacy worth honoring.


THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS (2009)
It’s not a bit surprising that the U.S. military brass would green-light a program to train a special force in New Age-inspired mind-control warfare. What’s baffling is that George Clooney and his writing-producing partner Grant Haslov (making his directing debut) couldn’t turn that idea into a decent comedy.

The film’s structure doesn’t help matters. Ewan McGregor, playing an annoying, mealy mouthed journalist desperate to make his name covering the war in Iraq, hooks up with the unpredictable, amusingly cracked Lyn Cassady (Clooney), a one-time member of this psychic-enhanced unit. The tale of this farcical program, told in flashback, and its inspirational gung-ho leader Bill Django (Jeff Bridges in full “Dude” mode) might have made a hilarious 20-minute subplot in a better film---there isn’t much that’s funnier than an Army officer attempting to walk through a wall. Unfortunately, it’s stretched beyond its limits and somewhat buried under the McGregor-Clooney road-trip routine.

Bridges’ patiently outrageous character, another goofy gem in his recently unpredictable career, makes “Goats” a must-see rental for fans of this versatile actor. As the guru of the New Earth Army, Bridges gives an impressive, nuanced performance, locating the perfect balance between sincere conviction and doped-up mysticism.

As Cassady, Clooney brings his smooth, unflappable persona to the film; the character’s insistence that this psychobabble is real (he does kill a goat by staring at it or at least makes the poor animal faint) drives what plot there is, but it’s far from enough.


NICKELODEON (1976)
Peter Bogdanovich, despite directing one of the true masterpieces of the American cinema, the dark look at a dying small town and its desperate residents, “The Last Picture Show” (1971), has become better known as an occasional actor, full-time personality and chronicler of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

His continued high profile (he turns 70 this year) disguises the fact that his film career has been one of the great disappointments of the past 40 years. Instead of more great films, he helmed “At Long Last Love” (1975), “They All Laughed” (1981), “Illegally Yours” (1988) and too many TV movies, knocked off track by his obsession with two voluptuous blondes, Cybill Shepherd and Dorothy Stratten. In the sad case of Stratten, Bogdanovich went so far as to marry her younger sister after the Playboy centerfold model was murdered.

Along the way, he made the occasional interesting film, including “Paper Moon” (1973), “Saint Jack” (1979), “Mask” (1985) and “Texasville” (1990), but nothing that came close to his early masterpiece. Finally seeing “Nickelodeon,” his homage to the early days of filmmaking, I’d add it to the above list. It’s Bogdanovich’s best comedy.

Most interesting is the parallel plotting structure he and co-writer D.W. Richter use to characterize a group of movie pioneers as the pratfalls and corny plots of their lives are turned into the basis for their films.

Ryan O’Neal, the director’s actor of choice during the 1970s (“What’s Up Doc? “Paper Moon”) plays a lawyer who hooks up with H.H. Cobb, an egotistical loudmouth who runs an independent production company. Cobb, hilariously played by Brian Keith, recruits (bullies) O’Neal’s Leo for his roguish troupe, first as a scenario writer and later as a director.

Burt Reynolds, at his impulsively nutty best---even his clothes are comical---ends up hiring on as an enforcer for a coalition of major filmmakers, paid to sabotage the production of minor players like Cobb.

First these two goofballs end up with each others suitcases when they both attempt to woo a wannabe actress----magazine cover model Jane Hitchcock makes her debut in a role written for Shepherd (coming off two box office bombs, she was rejected by the studio)---then they become filmmaking partners. With Reynolds and Hitchcock as the romantic stars and O’Neal the director, they make a series of action silents in the California desert years that become box office sensations.

What Bogdanovich does best here is capture the seat of your pants philosophy of these early filmmakers and how inventive people took a blank canvas and created the template for the next 100 years of moviemaking.

As a director, Bogdanovich never stopped trying to recapture the style and spirit of those early filmmakers he so admired---DeMille, Walsh, Dwan, Hawks, Ford and Hitchcock, all of whom started in the silent era. It was his strength as a director, but also his limitation. He was never going to be the innovator his fellow Roger Corman grads Francis Coppola and Martin Scorsese were. Doing it the old fashioned way only worked to a point, but for “Last Picture Show,” “Nickelodeon,” “Paper Moon” and a few others, Bogdanovich’s traditional style perfectly matched the material.


RED CLIFF (2009)
John Woo, after establishing himself as one of the most accomplished directors of action films in his native Hong Kong, the filmmaker relocated to Hollywood, where he made tons of money and second-rate movies.

“Face/Off” (1997) and “Mission: Impossible 2” (2000) represent the height of Hollywood junk food----brainless, pretentious, characterless action. No matter what the results, his return to the Chinese cinema would be welcomed, but with “Red Cliff” he has made a stirring historical epic that succeeds as an exciting battlefield adventure and a smart, insightful study of men struggling for power. It’s also the most expensive and, already, the most popular film in Chinese history.

The battle of the Three Kingdoms, a 3rd Century event that changed the face of China, comes alive in Woo’s film (released in China as a two-film, five-hour event) as he combines computer graphics, thousands of extras, hundreds of horses and first-rate portrayals of the legendary figures involved.

It all starts with Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi), an egotistical warmonger in the ruling Han Dynasty, who bullies the weak emperor into agreeing to attack two rebel warlords, the aging Liu Bei (You Yong) and a younger insurgent Sun Quan (Chang Chen). But the more interesting characters are Liu Bei’s soft spoken, but brilliant military strategist Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Sun Quan’s intellectual, music-loving general Zhou Yu (Tony Leung, who gives the film’s most memorable performance). Leung, one of the most accomplished Asian actors who’s best known in the West for Woo’s “hard Boiled” (1992) and “In the Mood for Love” (2000), turns Zhou Yu into a compelling hero who personalizes the colorful, wide-screen warfare.

What makes this better than an imitation of the jaw-dropping Kurosawa war epics is the care Woo and his writers take to turn these dusty names from history books into very real, fascinating characters, integrating their personal stories with the impressively stages arrow battles. Most memorable are the battles on the Yangtze River in which Zhuge’s military genius, along with his meteorology skills, wins the day.

As in all Chinese period pieces, the ravishing palaces, brightly-colored outfits and, best of all, the fantastic array of hat wear add to the pageantry. Woo’s film is jam-packed with everything you’d want from this kind of old-fashioned historical adventure.


A SERIOUS MAN (2009)
The consistently unpredictable Coen brothers, coming off their 2007 Oscar-winning picture “No Country for Old Men” and a way too hip 2008 black comedy “Burn After Reading,” have written and directed a Woody Allen movie. This dry, unassuming comedy, filled with hilarious one-liners and wonderfully wacky characters and set among the Jewish community of Minneapolis of the 1960s, brings back memories of the comic master’s best work of the 1970s and ‘80s.

The Coens’ protagonist, the nerdy, nervous, overwhelmed Larry Gopnik could easily be the younger brother or second cousin of Alvy Singer from “Annie Hall,” Miles Monroe from “Sleeper” or even Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose, as he bungles one crisis after another. Even his name seems like an invention of Allen.

It begins for Gopnik, perfectly played by Michael Stuhlbarg, when his wife casually informs him that she’s retained a divorce attorney and has fallen for the recently widowed Sy Ableman (an imposing, intense Fred Melamed). His two children also have complaints: His son, days away from his bar mitzvah, wants the TV antenna adjusted so he can watch “F-Troop,” while his daughter wants Uncle Arthur (the marvelous Richard Kind), constantly lancing his neck cyst, out of the bathroom so she can wash her hair.

On top of that, the committee considering his teaching tenure---he’s a physics professor--- has been receiving anonymous hate mail about him. And one of his students has offered him a bribe to improve his grade. Also his gentile neighbor keeps encroaching on his property line----Gopnik, understandably, feels like the weigh of the world is crashing down on him.

Behind his thick glasses, the constantly squinting Stuhlbarg turns Gopnik into a classic wimp, a passive, nearly invisible man who gets pushed around by everyone around him.

But the most memorable performance comes from George Wyner, best known for playing an assistant DA on “Hill Street Blues,” as a rabbi counseling Gopnik relating an uproarious tale of a dentist who discovered a message written in Hebrew on a gentile patient’s teeth. It’s a beautifully written and performed set piece, emblematic of the film’s adept mixture of sarcasm about and insight into the Jewish character, utilizing the same kind of cultural stereotypes the filmmakers worked with in “Fargo.”

Nearly every member of the cast has a memorable moment of two, including Sari Lennick as his uncomfortably blunt wife, Adam Arkin as a continually stunned divorce lawyer, Kind as Gopnik’s loyal but burdensome brother, and Melamed as the insufferably understanding Sy.

Joel and Ethan Coen won’t be winning Oscars or might not even score a writing nomination for “A Serious Man,” but it’s one of their best pictures, the funniest and smartest they’ve made since “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (2000).


OUT OF TIME (2003)
After winning the 2001 best actor Oscar for his full-throttle performance as a corrupt cop in “Training Day,” Denzel Washington has had a disappointing decade. The actor never gives a bad performance, but, as of late, he’s picking heavily plotted movies rather than the character-oriented pictures he excelled in during the 1990s.

Instead of “Malcolm X” (1992), “Philadelphia” (1993), “Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), “He Got Game” (1998) and “Hurricane” (1999), Washington chose action-driven films such as “Man on Fire” (2004), “Inside Man” (2006), Déjà vu (2006), “The Taking of Pelham 123” (2009) and “Out of Time,” the kind of movies that don’t lend themselves to complex performances. In Spike Lee’s “Inside Man,” the actor turned what could have been a cardboard character into an interesting and entertaining role, but it’s still a long ways from the depth he brought to his ‘90s films.

His best chance for great performances this decade were in Jonathan Demme’s disappointing remake of “The Manchurian Candidate” (2004) as a war veteran who uncovers a political conspiracy, and in Ridley Scott’s “American Gangster” (2007) as a smart, quick-tempered New York City drug king. Whether it’s the fault of the directors, writers or Washington himself, neither role turned out to be memorable; other than a few emotionally charged scenes, the films offer little chance for the actor to stretch beyond his comfort level. Probably his best performance this decade was in a supporting role as a military psychologist in “Antwone Fisher” (2000), his debut as a director.

He plays an idiot in “Out of Time.” As the sheriff of a small Florida town, he finds himself in the middle of a murder-fraud scam, attempting to get to the bottom of the crime while misleading the county murder detectives (led, if you can believe this, by his ex-wife). He commits about a dozen crimes and breaks another dozen ethical standards en route to the heroic finale. And he gets away with it.

“Out of Time” is a surprisingly dumb picture from filmmaker Carl Franklin, who has done excellent work in the past, including “Devil in a Blue Dress” starring Washington as private detective Easy Rawlins and “One False Move” (1992), the fast-paced crime picture co-written by Billy Bob Thornton.

At 55, Washington remains a viable box office attraction and one of Hollywood’s most talented actors. Yet he’s so much more than an action star and needs to take advantage of his star-power while it lasts and find some dramatic powerhouses he can sink his teeth into. He’s too great a talent to be standing around while cars blow up.

October 2009

THE PRISONER (1968, TV)
Among the accomplishments of my year of unemployment was watching all 17 episodes of the cult television show “The Prisoner.” First aired on CBS during the summer of 1968, this one-of-a-kind hour-long series remains an intellectually challenging, dramatically daring examination of ominous government control and the loss of individualism in modern society.

In part because of its setting in the hermetically sealed world of “The Village,” but also because of its timeless themes, the series rarely (most notably the hair and dress of the women) shows its 40 plus age. It would clearly be the most inventive and best written show on contemporary TV. AMC is counting on that as it plans to unveil a remake of the series starting Nov. 15, starring Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in “The Passion of the Christ.” I’m not sure how much updating the new series will do, but they are using at least some of the episode titles from the original.

For the uninitiated, Irish actor Patrick McGoohan, fresh from the spy series “Danger Man” (also known as “Secret Agent”), plays an unnamed British intelligence agent who, in the open credits, resigns the service and goes home to pack for an unknown destination. Before he can finish, he’s gassed and awakes in a quaint, resort-like community known as “The Village” and he’s now referred to as Number 6.

Filled with mostly older residents who go about their quiet, somnolent life as if they’re brainwash victims, the Village is ruled by a revolving series of Number 2s and a group of technocrats who operate a sophisticated surveillance system, control balloon-like trackers called rovers and subject residents to an array of futuristic psychological and hallucinogenic treatments. Number 6 quickly becomes Number 2’s main headache as he and others attempt to pry out of him the reason for his resignation. The assumption seems to be that they expected Number 6 to sell his secrets to the enemy.

So it goes for 17 bizarre, only superficially connected episodes as Number 6 ends up winning the psychological warfare even as he fails in his constant attempts to escape or, at least, confront the never seen Number 1. There are moments of humor and fun, most notably when Number 6 engages another villager in “Kosho,” a sporting contest played out on trampolines with contestants wearing dark orange jumpsuits and black helmets. It’s a bit like a pre-historic version of “American Gladiator.”

One of the “Prisoner’s” most intriguing shows, “Many Happy Returns,” has Number 6 waking up to a seemingly deserted Village and escaping by sea, eventually making his way back to London and contacting his former bosses. They seem to buy his story and set out to locate the Village. Unfortunately for Number 6, they succeed in finding it.

In another memorable episode, “Living in Harmony,” Number 6 finds himself in an American western town, circa 1880s, where he butts heads with everyone because he refuses to carry a weapon. It’s the one episode of the series banned by American censors during its original run.

Every episode manages to convey a sociological message as it comes up with a more difficult hurdle for Number 6 to overcome. Yet even the most bizarre episodes can’t compare with the final two shows. Not until “Twin Peaks” did anything come close to the feverish theater of the absurd atmosphere of “Once Upon a Time” and “Fall Out.”

Veteran British character actor Leo McKern plays Number 2 in these episodes (he had also played the role in the second episode), engaging Number 6 in a marathon, psychological fight-to-the-death therapy session in a room filled with over-sized children’s toys. Written and directed by McGoohan, as is the final, the episode is filled with overwrought emotions and clever wordplay as No. 2 digs into his rivals deepest memories. “Once Upon a Time” unfolds like a Pinteresque puzzle, reaching out into the darkness to understand the basic instincts of man.

“Fall Out” ends the series with a carnival-like courtroom scene in which Number 6 finally gets his day of judgment as the Village rulers preparing for Armageddon. Not to be too subtle, the soundtrack blares out the Beatles anthem, “All You Need Is Love.” A monk-like, mask-wearing jury decides to free Number 6 as “The Kid” (a manic Alexis Kanner) from the “Living in Harmony” episode returns to sing the spiritual “Dem Bones” over and over and over again. Don’t ask.

Number 6 and Number 2, along with his ever-present butler (Angelo Muscat), manage to simply drive out of the Village and into downtown London. They’re free, or so it seems.

McGoohan, along with producer David Tomblin and script supervisor George Markstein, created a remarkable, 17-part piece of experimental theater, as avant-garde as anything television has ever attempted, before or since.


AN EDUCATION (2009) and WHIP IT (2009)
The settings of these two films are basically opposites: the prep school world of early ‘60s England in “An Education” and the rowdy, sweaty Roller Derby arenas of Austin, Texas in “Whip It.” But they tell the same story. Both portray a teenage girl on the verge of adulthood who decides to take a different path than what has been planned for her. And the strength of both movies comes from insightful, luminous performances by young actresses who perfectly capture their times and the boundaries society has drawn for them.

Carey Mulligan’s Jenny is the brighter of the two, bound for Oxford and a first-class education when she meets David (Peter Sarsgaard) a smooth, well-spoken, art-loving sophisticate who fancies much younger girls and knows all the tricks to seduce both them and their parents.

Jenny’s “education” happens in a few exciting, whirlwind months when David, along with his dilettante friends bring her into their world. In addition to an appreciation of art and music and glamorous nightlife, Peter and his friends are amateur cons who target the elderly to score easy paydays.

What elevates this story (based on the memoirs of writer Lynn Barber) beyond the usual coming of age tale comes from a smart, morally ambivalent script from novelist Nick Hornby (“High Fidelity,” “About a Boy”), who leaves all the usually clichés at the door. A mixture of humor and tragedy, the film isn’t afraid to say that Jenny really is getting a valuable education from David, despite the inevitable heartbreak. This is a 16-year-old who understands life better than many of the adults around her. And even though David turns out to be a despicable cad, as portrayed by the charismatic Sarsgaard, he’s hard not to like.

Danish director Lone Scherfig, making her English-language debut, guides Mulligan (she’s actually 25, but still looks like a teen) to a star-making performance. The actress has mostly worked in British TV, but did have a role in this summer’s “Public Enemies” and will play Michael Douglas’ daughter in the sequel to “Wall Street.” In addition to first-rate work by Mulligan and Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina shines as her naïve father. Molina has turned into one of the top character actors in the business, having recently given impressive performances in “Frida” (2002), “The Da Vinci Code” (2006) and “The Hoax” (2006).

Maybe the most poignant scenes in the movie come when Jenny, having committed to a life with David, questions her teacher (Olivia Williams) and headmaster (Emma Thompson) about the few options available to a woman, even with an Oxford education. This is a story about questioning accepted truths and morals and how sometimes teens deserve to be heard.

“Whip It,” Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut, produces some emotional heat when it deals with the incompatible goals of a mother and daughter and how they both find ways to compromise. But Barrymore and writer Shauna Cross (from her novel) rely too much on repetitive, cliché Roller Derby action and easy sports symbolism----it’s colorful but not very enlightening beyond creating some simplistic dramatics.

Ellen Page, nominated for best actress for “Juno” (2006), portrays Bliss, a small-town teen seeking her identity, when, almost by chance, she joins a Roller Derby squad, keeping it secret from her parents. Without the over-wrought cleverness and crutch of pregnancy that marked Page’s work in “Juno,” her performance here shows she’s a skillful actor who can create a complex, emotionally truthful character. While she learns toughness and self-esteem from the eclectic group of toughs on the Roller Derby team, not much happens of interest after she settles in. Comic relief is provided by Barrymore, who plays the dumbest member of the squad, and Juliette Lewis, as the aging diva of the sport who sees Page as a rival to her crown. Both over-act in their roles, pointlessly drawing screen time away from Page’s Bliss and her development.

Director Barrymore does her best work in the scenes between Bliss and her mother, superbly played by Marcia Gay Harden, who has pushed her daughter into beauty pageant shows. The frustrations of both mother and daughter come out in their uncomfortably real arguments. It’s clearly an area Barrymore knows well from her own experience as a deeply troubled youth.

While “Whip It” doesn’t have the pedigree or depth of “An Education,” this entertaining picture explores the same crucial teen theme: the difficulty in finding the right path of life and convincing others to support the decision to take that often unpaved road.


THE PHENIX CITY STORY (1955)
This film demonstrates how difficult it was to depict violence before the movie rating system was in place. To truthfully show the frightening atmosphere that was inflicted by a crime syndicate on this small Alabama town, producers of the picture had to include a 13-minute news report, with interviews of a local newspaper reporter and residents of Phenix City, as a prologue to the feature.

The artless, rather uninformative news report does little more than what a “based on a true story” title would have done, but it satisfied the era’s censors. That allowed the movie that follows to tell the incredible “Phenix City Story” by graphically dramatizing the horrific, ruthless actions of the crime bosses who controlled the town’s gambling and prostitution.

The movie dates itself with its high-toned moralizing on the evils of sins, but the core of the story, written by Daniel Mainwaring and Crane Wilbur, focuses on intimidation and gang rule.

John Patterson (Richard Kiley), just out of the military and the son of the town’s most respected lawyer (John McIntire) gets drawn into the citizens’ fight against the corruption in red-light district, which has prospered serving the solider from the nearby military base. McIntire, a solid character actor in film noir and Westerns throughout the 1950s who became a familiar face on episodical TV from the ‘60s through the 1980s, has one of his juiciest roles as this outspoken, serious-minded lawyer.

His son’s determination to fight back takes on a new level of vigilance when the mob murders a young black girl, the daughter of a friend of his, and then tosses her body on his yard as a warning.

With the corrupt local police offering no help, the only hope they have relies on getting a sympathetic ear in the state capitol. Reluctantly, John’s father runs for attorney general.

Phil Karlson, best known for his B-level noirs such as “Kansas City Confidential” (1952) and his late career cult hit, “Walking Tall” (1973), captures the pure terror of the situation and how law-abiding citizens are pushed to the edge of vigilantism. Shot by B-movie veteran Harry Neumann, the drama rarely moves out of the shadows; even the interiors are underlit to emphasize the dark evil that has enveloped the city. While individual scenes are more memorable than the film as a whole, “The Phenix City Story” paints a disturbing picture of a community under siege.


THE DAMNED UNITED (2009)
I know very little about soccer and have even less interest, yet this story about a rivalry between two managers of English soccer teams in the 1970s held me riveted from start to finish.

Peter Morgan, the screenwriter responsible for “The Queen” and “Frost/Nixon,” turns another real person, Brian Clough, into an egocentric, larger-than-life movie character who never fails to entertain. Working from a book by David Peace, Morgan fashions an intriguing study---again using TV appearances as key moments----of how hubris can destroy even the most talented.

Michael Sheen, who had key roles in Morgan’s other works (Tony Blair in “The Queen”; David Frost in “Frost/Nixon”) brings an irrepressible energy to Clough, who becomes a coaching legend when he turns second division Derby County into national champions. But his obsession with Leeds United team (the New York Yankees of English football) and their tough, old-fashioned manager (the always convincing Colm Meany, wearing a simply awful toupee) leads to his alienating Derby’s exasperated owner (Jim Broadbent) and his loyal assistant coach, Peter Taylor. Timothy Spall, the plump, rubber-faced character actor, who has enlivened numerous Mike Leigh dramas, gives the performance of his career as Taylor, a simple, sincere sport who is loyal to a fault to the younger, ambitious Clough.

Tom Hooper, who directed the multi-Emmy winning HBO series, “John Adams,” smartly doesn’t let the film get bogged down in on-the-field scenes. Maybe the most dramatic moment and most visually arresting scene of the film comes when Clough refused to watch an important contest and awaits the results in his office. Because the office is built under the stands, he can watch the ebb and flow of the game, seeing the shadows of the crowd rise from their seats when the home team does well. It’s subtle, smart filmmaking steeped in classic cinematic storytelling.

Great writing, great acting, an authentic setting---the rainy, muddy English countryside becomes another character----and a pitch-perfect recreation of the era make “The Damned United” one of the year’s most thoughtful and enjoyable pictures.


THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT (1970)
and THE STEPFORD WIVES (1975)
Read enough film critics and you’d think every movie released in the 1970s was either a ground-breaking masterpiece or an underappreciated gem falling just shy of greatness. I’m just a culpable; but let’s face it, compared to the past 20 years of movies, the 1970s are easy to aggrandize. But these two high-profile pictures, both statements, of a sort, in the emerging feminist movement, haven’t aged well, In fact, I can’t imagine why anyone ever though much of these movies.

“The Owl and the Pussycat,” adapted by the usually reliable Buck Henry from the stage hit by Bill Manhoff and directed by Herb Ross, is offensively stupid and unrelentingly loud. If the rest of the country had a negative image of New Yorkers at the time, this just played right into those prejudices. Barbra Streisand’s Doris, a part-time model and wannabe actress, and George Segal’s Felix, a boorish, struggling writer, scream at each other for 95 minutes in a pointless and shrill battling of wits.

They’re thrown together after Felix spies Doris---she lives in the same building across the courtyard----having sex and then accepting money, which he reports to the building’s super. She’s immediately evicted (without, no one ever mentions, any real evidence) and shows up at Felix’s door demanding a place to stay. But first she starts calling him a “queer” and berates him, as if she’s in junior high, for not “liking” girls. I’m not sure how the writer made the leap from a man spying on a woman having sex to the assumption that he’s gay, but it’s a running theme----later she’s shocked that Felix’s friend has a girlfriend (fleetingly, porn star Marilyn Chambers!) I guess gays weren’t expected to have straight friends in 1970.

The unlikely couple experience a hellish night together as they attempt to find a place to sleep---but it’s not near as bad as the suffering viewers endure watching this shouting match. Yet it was a huge hit, no doubt in large part because of Streisand’s popularity.

“The Stepford Wives” became one of those films that everyone knew about even if they never saw it. It became a punch line for comedians and a talking point in any discussion about suburban living. Certainly its central idea is fascinating---that a group of men would want to replace their wives with lookalike robots----but the film takes way too long to get to its point and spends too little time on the motivations of the husbands. The ugly reality that these men are murdering their wives is never thoroughly addressed.

Katherine Ross, stars as Joanna, whose husband (Peter Masterson) insists on relocating the family in the suburban community of Stepford, Conn. Immediately she notices that the other wives only talk about cooking, cleaning and pleasing their husbands---and they dress as if they’re going to a church social circa 1956.

Ross finds an ally when the feisty Paula Prentiss moves into the community and they pair up to get to the bottom of the weirdness. Their sarcastic chit-chat is the only saving grace in this misguided assault on couples who gave up on city life in the 1960s and ‘70s. Otherwise, the women keep discovering more evidence that something’s not right in their community instead of just getting the hell out of there. Yet, to me it was the husband’s story I wanted to know more about. How did that conversation go when they were first told their wives were going to be disposed of and an obedient, subservient duplicate (with, in most cases, enhanced breasts) would become their new partner.

Bryan Forbes, the skillful British filmmaker who directed “Séance on a Wet Afternoon” (1964) and “The Whisperers” (1967) and screenwriting legend William Goldman (“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “All the President’s Men” among many others) clearly struggle to extend the underdeveloped idea from Ira Levin’s novel into a full-length movie. The revamped version with Nicole Kidman and Bette Midler, released in 2004, was just as dumb but at least had a brisk, humorous pace.

The 1970s were a fertile time for the cinema, but the era wasn’t short of turkeys, including the musical version of “Lost Horizon,” the “Death Wish” series and all the “Planet of the Apes” sequels. These two don’t reach those depths, but are very disappointing attempts to address the feminist movement, dulled further by the passage of time.


SUNSHINE CLEANING (2009)
There’s a deep, underlying sadness that can be seen on the faces of nearly every character in this unassuming film; people struggling in low paying jobs, complicated relationships and paying heavily for foolish decisions. Christine Jeffs, who directed the underrated “Sylvia” (2003), the story of one of the 20th Century’s most famous depressed women, poet Sylvia Plath, again paints a dark picture of disappointment, this time disguised as an amusing slice of life. First-time screenwriter Megan Holley finds just the right balance of lightweight humor and unflinching character study.

At the center of the picture is yet another poignant, thoughtful performance by Amy Adams, this time playing a former prom queen who, as she approaches thirty, finds herself a struggling, dissatisfied single mother working as a house cleaner. Her Rose Lorkowski has also appointed herself guardian of her hopelessly confused and anti-social younger sister (Emily Blunt) and her feisty but unreliable father (Alan Arkin), both, as she is, forever damaged by the long-ago suicide of the girls’ mother. On top of all that, her son gets tossed out of grade school for his disruptive antics.

Rose finds a semblance of salvation when she follows a suggestion by her police detective lover (Steve Zahn)---her ex-boyfriend from high school now married---to start a crime scene cleanup business. Sequences of Rose and her sister cleaning up after suicides, murders and the death of elderly are played for comedy and pathos, but as with everything in her life, it seems bound to go wrong at some point.

Adams manages to create a character who remains hopeful in the face of one disappointment after another but never seems like a fool. She’s exactly like dozens of classmates you knew from high school who seemed destined for picture perfect lives but got stuck in that hometown rut that’s often hard to escape.

Beside Adams, the outstanding performance of the film is given by Clifton Collins Jr., playing the one-armed owner of a cleaning products store, who helps Rose out as she starts her business and ends up becoming something of a father figure for her young son. If you saw “Capote” (2004), you’ll remember Collins, who gave a heartbreaking, Oscar-worthy performance as Perry Smith, the jailed killer who becomes Truman Capote’s special project. He’s nearly as good as Winston in “Sunshine Cleaning.” Between these two first-rate roles he’s mostly worked in television, but I’d be surprised if he didn’t become a regular player in major films in the next couple of years.


ROUSTABOUT (1964)
The great movie stars of the 1930s and ‘40s who survived to work in the 1960s found good roles few and far between. The studios had shifted their focus to a youth market that had little interest in seeing movies starring 60 year olds, which explains the sad sight of the great Barbara Stanwyck in this brainless, forgettable Elvis Presley vehicle.

Stanwyck, her hair white though she was just 57, acquits herself well as the no-nonsense tough-talking owner of a traveling carnival who takes Elvis’ Charlie Rogers under her wing. The role is similar to her starring performance in the memorable TV series “The Big Valley,” which ran from 1965 to 1969. But in this picture, nothing she does can improve Presley’s acting skills or save the nonsensical script.

Charlie, an up-and-coming guitar-playing singer (a real stretch for the King), ends up jailed---and fired from his roadhouse gig---for defending himself against three smart-ass college dudes. It’s just the beginning of plot points that make no sense.

As a roustabout for Stanwyck’s carnival, he makes inane jokes about the performers and carny life, delivered with the stiffness of a non-actor. After 16 films in 9 years, he’s no better an actor than he was in his debut, “Love Me Tender.” In fact, I think Elvis became a worse actor as his career went on, no doubt in large part because he simply lost interest. Not even the songs in “Roustabout” are very good and Elvis’s singing performances are mostly lackluster.

Other than Stanwyck, the highlight of the watching the movie was spotting 17-year-old Teri Garr as a scantly clad carny dancer, in her fourth (!) Elvis flick. Leonard Maltin points out in his summary of the movie in his “TV Movie” annual that Rachel Welsh also has a bit role, but I didn’t notice her. I was probably too focused on the jaw-dropping dramatic acting of Elvis. Fifteen films and five years later, this unfortunate interruption of his ground-breaking, unparalleled singing career came to a thankful end.