What the Flick

You've seen him in various places over the past year or two, but suddenly this summer he's breaking out in 2 very different leading roles. In CRASH, he plays a successful black TV director whose patience snaps after one too many unprovoked humiliations at the hands of the LAPD, and in HUSTLE & FLOW, Terrence Howard carries the show as a pimp scrambling to survive and pull his crew up from the hot, tough streets of Memphis. From his sexy and riveting eyes that reveal a fierce intelligence to his manly demeanor and walk, Mr Howard is an actor who commands the screen. So, yeah, he sure is someone I'm going to enjoy keeping an eye on in the future.

Ah, those British in Africa. Besides setting fashion trends for Ralph Lauren to follow in perpetuity, they sure did stir up a whole lot of trouble. In THE CONSTANT GARDENER, set in present-day Kenya, the shenanigans of the Brits are examined through the lens of political payola, big business, and one man's broken heart.

Yeah, like "good luck" staying awake in this George Clooney-directed pseudo-docudrama. I appreciate a serious message movie as much as the next person, but GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK (which actually is two sentences in the title credits) is an earnest effort that represents some of the worst instincts of "edu-tainment." It's both preachy and boring, and fails to really educate us on the context of the times in which the story takes place. It tells a very specific part of the story of Edward R. Murrow's (David Straithairn) broadcasts during the twilight of the Army-McCarthy hearings and ask us to draw parallels with events of today. But, what's that you say, young people? Who? And the what? Thank you! GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK fails mostly by giving its audience too much credit for bringing background information to the theater (but you can catch up here with this good summary).

Capote. Ka-POTE-tay. However you want to say it, just go see it! This tale of Truman Capote as he researched and wrote "In Cold Blood" has now shoved CRASH aside as my favorite movie (drama) of 2005. CAPOTE is lush, beautifully shot, gorgeously acted, and dramatically complex. I want to say something snarky about it, as I'm known to do, but I am at a bit of a loss. But don't give up, I'll think of something. Meanwhile, the film opens with the single most beautiful image of the Great Plains I've ever seen (and, yes, I've seen PARIS, TEXAS and BADLANDS, and southern Minnesota at dawn), followed by the grisly discovery of the shotgun-murdered Clutter family, before zooming in on the fabulous late 1950s life of the writer charming guests at a swanky party.

Is it wrong for me to love Jake Gyllenhaal so? I've admired this young actor since his work in the uplifting OCTOBER SKY and the intriguing DONNIE DARKO. To me, he seems like the thinking girl's hunk, a role in need of filling since David Duchovny's Agent Mulder turned in his badge. Now he's arrived on screen in 3 films over the past few months. In a nutshell, his best work this fall is in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, but JARHEAD is also of interest. PROOF, on the other hand, was one of those oddly unsatisfying movies: I can't really say what was missing from it, but at the end, it just felt not quite whole.

You know the old saying, "there's a lid for every pot?" I can't say I'm convinced this is true: too many good 'pots' who I know are still lid-less for me to put much stock in it. But in fiction at least, the pot and lid always find their way to each other, no matter how many obstacles or dish racks are in their path. Wait, what was I talking about? Oh, right, true love. Anyway, today let's talk about 2 very different love stories that excellently illustrate the maxim: PRIDE & PREJUDICE and WALK THE LINE.

Seeing the top 10 lists reminded me that I never got around to sharing my opinion of David Cronenberg's A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, which I saw way back when in the fall. It was one of those movies that left me feeling very ambivalent -- it was good in its own way, but at the final scene I kind of felt like, "and then... what?" There was a 1970s feel about its ambiguity (think Carnal Knowledge, Chinatown, and The Conversation, just in the letter C); like many of the best movies of that decade, it left you without an easy answer or even a neatly tied ending. This is undoubtedly a good thing.

Two bits of 2005 business to wrap up -- KING KONG and SYRIANA -- and you may wonder what the connection between them is. So what do they have in common? In a nutshell, they both involve a lot of monkey business with tropically hot places, natives in colorful costumes, and consequences right back here at home. Although both were of more than middling interest, they had fatal flaws that undermined their entertainment value.

For example, what can possibly be entertaining about...

Only 3 days until the Academy Awards are announced here in LA on Sunday, March 5. Here's my take on two nominated films, TRANSAMERICA (Best Actress, Felicity Huffman) and MATCH POINT (Best Original Screenplay, Woody Allen). That leaves only MUNICH to be seen, which is on my last-minute agenda for tomorrow.

Frankly, I'm disappointed that MATCH POINT didn't receive more notice from the Academy. It's a deftly acted drama that entertains and raises interesting questions during post-theater drinks. The basic plot starts off when Chris, an Irish almost-pro tennis player (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), takes on a wealthy tutoring client, Tom (the very Britishly handsome Matthew Goode), who befriends his tutor and, in the way wealthy people sometimes do...

I'm telling you, if Helen Mirren does not get an Oscar nomination and then actually win an Oscar (I think it's just scandalous that she's never gone home with that little gold man) for THE QUEEN, there is no divine justice in this world. She is amazing here portraying Queen Elizabeth II during the days after Princess Diana was killed in a car accident in Paris, letting loose on the world one of current society's least appealing spectacles, the public grief fest. QE2, good WASP that she is, believes that grief is...

Finally, a movie has made me happy that I'm not engaged and sporting a gigantic diamond. First, because then I'd have to feel guilty about sooo enjoying that scene of Leo in a towel (which I think we can all agree, deserved to be a lot longer than it was). And second because, duh, conflict diamonds. Seriously, though, BLOOD DIAMOND brings home in a dramatic and brutal way the cruel shenanigans that went on in Sierra Leone in the late 90s as the diamond trade...

Kate Winslet, so pretty and winning in the live-action shopping catalog known as The Holiday (with Cameron Diaz, Jude So-Fracking-Gorgeous Law, and Jack Black), really frumps herself up to play the disenchanted suburban housewife, Sarah, in Little Children, a role for which she's received an Oscar nomination as best actress (sorry, Kate, it's going to Helen). Which is kind of funny, because the guy she ends up commiserating with, Patrick Wilson, is like...

You know how sometimes you'll be walking around and remember something and think, "note to self: check out those shoes;" or "note to self: use some mascara," or whatever? Well, seeing NOTES ON A SCANDAL did that to me, so here goes: note to self, don't become a cat-loving, bath-taking, diary-writing, gold-star awarding, psycho-stalking crazy old lady teacher. Because if I did become that, there's no way I'd be anywhere near as convincing and scary as Judy Dench in ...