DAHMER (US, David Jacobson)
It goes without saying that any biopic about one of the twentieth century's most notorious serial killers, homosexual necrophiliac cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, is going to wind up being pretty disturbing. But writer/director Jacobson's quiet, low-budget account takes the high road, avoiding both movie-of-the-week melodrama and Jason-style exploitation by focusing on a couple of nights near the end of Dahmer's final killing spree, as the lonely psychopath flashes back on his collected memories from the time of his first murder, at 18, to what he has become, mere weeks before his arrest. There is some blood, but thankfully none of the graphic mutilations or flesh-eating that Dahmer is best remembered for. The story does take liberties with certain facts, but focuses on the three most noteworthy aspects of the killer's career: that first murder, one of the only killings (out of 16 or 17) that he felt remorse for; the horrifying truth that one of his victims managed to escape, even being discovered by police, but was returned to Dahmer's apartment by said police (only to be murdered minutes later); and the one potential victim who did escape, inexplicably unharmed. As the eponymous murderer, Jeremy Renner looks a bit more like Tobey Maguire than he does Jeffrey Dahmer, but he puts in a credible, low-key performance. In fact, it's a great performance, possibly even a star-making one. And although Dahmer the movie sheds little light on the hows and whys behind Dahmer the person (though there is a suggestion that his violent tendencies arose from his own internalized homophobia), remaining as aloof as its subject (who it does not condemn), it nevertheless chills. However, it's clearly been a challenge for it to find its audience: macho fans of the serial killer subgenre may be, ironically, grossed out by the film's homoerotic content, whereas supporters of "Queer Cinema" who feel there aren't enough positive gay characters represented in film are definitely keeping this out of their festivals. Who can blame them? I can't imagine a worse role model for the gay community. Still, if you're curious, it is a fascinating film, well-told and well-acted.

DANCER IN THE DARK (Denmark/UK, Lars von Trier)
Maybe it's a Scandinavian thing, but I have long been a big fan of both this film's writer/director Lars von Trier and its composer/star Björk, so I was really looking forward to their first (and no doubt last) collaboration. I'm also one of the first to say that neither artist is for everyone. Trier warns you enough by his description of this film as a "musical melodrama." As neither genre has many fans in the U.S. anymore, it was no surprise that there was only a handful of people in the audience when I saw it, and most of them had European accents. Nevertheless, I was very much moved by this film, and I recommend it wholeheartedly to those who don't mind a bit of emotion and who didn't hate Trier's earlier Breaking the Waves (more on this later).

Björk plays Selma, a Czech immigrant in 1964 Washington state who is eking out a living working in a factory - and slowly going blind, due to a hereditary disease that she fears will soon affect her 12-year-old son. Thus she scrimps and saves every penny she can, in order to pay for his operation. Meanwhile, as her eyesight worsens, a horrible event occurs that sets off a great tragedy. Yet whenever life gets too bleak, Selma escapes into fantasy, where suddenly her grim circumstances are transformed into spirited song-and-dance numbers, and those around her - friends and tormentors both - become singers and dancers in the musical of her mind.

This gimmick may sound familiar to some cinephiles: Dancer in the Dark is essentially Lars von Trier's riff on Dennis Potter's Pennies from Heaven, the only major difference being that Potter's characters lip-synched to 1930's classics, whereas Björk sings her own songs. The film is also a variation on Breaking the Waves, showcasing what is now Trier's signature directorial style - handheld camera and noncontinuous editing creating a documentary feel - as well as its similar theme of a saintlike woman willing to sacrifice everything for the one she loves. Breaking the Waves made many women uncomfortable as its innocent heroine was also a sexual martyr; Dancer in the Dark may be more palatable as Björk's martyrdom is simply a mother's love for her child. That may be another of Trier's callow ideals of womanhood, and indeed his script forces poor Selma to suffer so much that at times it seems downright sadistic, but Björk's warmth (she is a natural actress) redeems Trier's harsh approach, and her songs are so wonderful. Dancer in the Dark asks a lot from its audience emotionally - some scenes are so intense that they are almost unbearable to watch (especially those with costar David Morse: could somebody please give him an Oscar already?) - but if you let yourself buy into it, as I did, the payoff is both beautiful and heartbreaking, the stuff of grand opera.

DANCING AT THE BLUE IGUANA (US, Michael Radford)
So-so drama about a group of miserable strippers in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley, this film stands out not only for giving you the chance to see several well-known actresses take their tops off, but for being that rare and risky bird: the workshop film. The actresses created their characters themselves, working with director Radford over several weeks of improvisation sessions; thus, the dialogue isn't really "written" but "developed." An interesting approach to filmmaking, made famous by the likes of John Cassavettes and Mike Leigh, but dependent on excellent performers to make up for its inherent lack of a tight storyline. Dancing at the Blue Iguana is a mixed bag as its cast is not of a singular quality. Sandra Oh fares the best, and its her story thread - as a poet (yes, really) who moonlights as a stripper - that is developed to the fullest extent. It's tough to make that character not come across as a ridiculous cliche, but she pulls it off. (She pulls off her top too, nyuk nyuk.) Daryl Hannah does a little less well as a terminally ditsy blonde who dreams of adopting a foster child, despite her career and her drug problems and her filthy apartment. Even one of my personal crushes, Jennifer Tilly, is given comparatively little screen time as a shrill bully who discovers she's pregnant (although she does have the funniest scene in the film when she does a little side business as a dominatrix). The other two featured actresses - Charlotte Ayanna and Sheila Kelley - didn't create very interesting characters, and so their tormented strippers' subplots barely register. There's also something kind of creepy about the way Radford films his cast: though he deserves kudos for allowing the women to play sexist stereotypes as honestly as they can create them, his camera never stops leering at them. I've been to a couple of strip clubs. I find them depressing. But Radford films the actresses' bodies in such loving close-up that I got the feeling he was getting turned on by these pathetic characters, just because they were willing to bare their breasts and shove their butts in the air. Of course if you want to see that, that's fine. I'm not above a little friendly leering myself.

THE DARK KNIGHT (US, Christopher Nolan)
I don't like writing reviews for movies like The Dark Knight, because what can I add to the conversation? What can I do other than agree with all the other raves? Yes, Christopher Nolan and his cowriter brother Jonathan have matched the excellence of their earlier Batman Begins. Yes, it's good that they got rid of Katie Holmes, the only weak actor in the first flim, and replaced her with the more appealing Maggie Gyllenhaal. Yes, the cast is all fine, especially Gary Oldman - who knew he could play kindly and heroic so well? - and Michael Caine, who is arguably doing his best work now in his late career. And yes, Heath Ledger as Batman's arch-enemy the Joker absolutely steals the show. His smeared makeup and stringy hair may not be the tidy-looking Joker we all remember (though he's still a snappy dresser), but his performance defines the character. This is how the Joker should be: terrifying, unpredictable, and completely off his rocker. And yes, it's a sad reminder of the late Ledger's prodigious talents, and how contemporary cinema has lost one of its finest actors all too soon. Fortunately, his death doesn't distract from his performance.

So how can I diferentiate my review? Well, I'll start by saying that, while this may be the second best superhero film I've ever seen (Richard Donner's 1978 Superman is still my favorite), I don't think it's perfect: Aaron Eckhart, as the doomed Harvey Dent, creates a strong character but overdramatizes his dialogue a bit (well, this is a comic book movie); a subplot involving Chinese money launderers and a side trip to Hong Kong adds little; Hans Zimmer's hard-rockin' score in the film's first half is no match for the later orchestrations of the great James Newton Howard; and this final note isn't a critique, but am I imagining things, or was the Gotham City of Batman Begins more production designed, filled with more CG buildings and such? The Dark Knight's Gotham looks like an undoctored Chicago (where the movie was shot). That's fine by me. I rather like the added realism of the normal-looking city. It makes The Dark Knight more like a James Bond film. There's nothing supernatural or even all that futuristic here. Just a brooding playboy with a cool car and lots of fancy gadgets who battles an array of colorful villains. But it's a perfectly crafted summer action picture, rich with character and depth, and as with the first film, I appreciate the Nolans' ability to make their story feel big: compare the finale of Iron Man, essentially just two guys occasionally stumbling into traffic with a girl nearby, with The Dark Knight's ethics-fueled third act, where the lives of hundreds are quite palpably at stake. The very large roster of bit players gives the film that 1970s big-city feel, which is quite welcome.

There. You're seeing the movie anyway. But that's what I have to say about it.

DEAR ZACHARY: A LETTER TO A SON ABOUT HIS FATHER (US, Kurt Kuenne)
A true emotional roller coaster, this documentary was made entirely by one person, Kurt Kuenne, and was intended as a home movie to be given to the infant son of Kuenne's lifelong friend Andrew Bagby, who was murdered in cold blood by his monstrous ex-girlfriend when he was only 28. After a stunning series of twists and turns, Kuenne's "letter" to little Zachary, documenting the life and personality of the well-liked Bagby, became something much bigger and infinitely darker. The result is a film that alternately shocks, saddens, angers and occasionally even gives hope. Kuenne has created a work of art, delivering devastating subject matter in an intensely personal manner using an idiosyncratic editing technique that employs quick cuts and repetition to rich effect. Dear Zachary is so strong and so troubling that I can't find many words to describe it. That Kuenne made such a gripping documentary literally all by himself is even more impressive. This is one of the great films of 2008. Even if you have to wait for it on Netflix, you must not miss it.

THE DEEP END (US, Scott McGehee & David Siegel)
I really enjoyed the first film by these two directors, Suture, a sleek film noir about twin brothers, with the novel twist of having one twin played by a black actor, and the other by a white actor, and only the audience is in on the joke: all the other characters can't tell them apart. That the film worked - and not at all as a comedy - was a testament to the talent of these two new filmmakers, and I looked forward to their next effort. Well here it is, eight long years later, and McGehee and Siegel turn another noir standard on its ear. Here they take the 1949 film The Reckless Moment, the story of a mother covering up for the death of her teenage daughter's cruel boyfriend, and give it a spin by making the teenager a boy, and the dead man his gay lover.

English actress Tilda Swinton mostly succeeds at hiding her native accent as an aghast American housewife, trying to raise three kids while her Navy husband is constantly away, and quickly getting in over her head when she discovers the body of her son's tormentor dead on the shore of their Lake Tahoe home. Fearing her son might have been responsible, she quietly disposes of the corpse and opens the door to trouble. You'd better suspend your disbelief willingly if you're going to enjoy The Deep End, for there are moments aplenty where you want to yell out, "Why doesn't she just call the police?!" Just enjoy the film's moody, waterlogged visuals, held up by Peter Nashel's spare score. The luminous Swinton is fine (if a little too serious), as is Jonathan Tucker as her troubled son and Goran Visnjic as the blackmailer drawn into her family crisis. (Too bad Raymond J. Barry, as Visnjic's blackmail partner, overacts so much that he almost turns the film into a late-night Cinemax potboiler.) The Deep End is a clever, solemn little thriller that may leave you cold but is exceptionally well-crafted. And in the end it suggests that you're not supposed to pay any attention to its serpentine plot, or its vague conclusion, or its unanswered questions. That ultimately it's about the growing bond between mother and child, where Swinton's real test isn't in believing her son's innocence, but in accepting his sexuality.

DELIRIOUS (US, Tom DiCillo)
Steve Buscemi plays Les Galantine, an angry, lonely New York paparazzo who takes in Toby, the nicest, cleanest homeless kid in the world (21st century pretty boy Michael Pitt) and makes the handy young lad his assistant, only to lose his sweet-natured protege into the very crowds of beautiful people that he photographs. Writer/director DiCillo and Buscemi have created a great character in this Les - hotly jealous of the celebrities who are his bread and butter, and blaming everybody but himself for his misery, he is at once funny, sad, off-putting, and startlingly real. A character of tremendous depth and shading. Buscemi is the clear reason to see Delirious, and the movie drags whenever he's not on screen: the plot takes an unwelcome turn when Toby rather unbelievably becomes famous himself, and DiCillo takes his focus off of Les to explore the world of the famous and powerful. DiCillo seems to know the gritty side of show biz life more than the glamorous side, and Pitt, as usual, can't really hold a movie on his own. My guess is that DiCillo himself is more interested in telling Les's story, but tacked on Toby's rags to riches subplot in order to appeal to a broader audience and inject a rather by-the-books tension as Les, once he loses Toby, starts losing his mind as well. But Delirious is at its best when it explores the complicated relationship between these two hustlers - in many ways, it's a contemporary version of Midnight Cowboy, only with the homoeroticism even more unspoken. Actually, I found this film more depressing than funny - mainly because, as a filmmaker, I've worked with a few Les Galantines, born losers aggressively clinging to the fringes of an industry that, for whatever reason (lack of charisma, desperation, overly pushy attitude), they'll never be welcome in. Uneven but not unsatisfying, Delirious is nicely shot, and well worth a look for Buscemi fans.

DELIVER US FROM EVIL (US, Amy Berg)
The tone of this documentary, about an Irish-born Catholic priest who molested and raped scores of children in central California throughout the 70's and 80's, instantly brings to mind the incendiary Capturing the Friedmans. However, whereas Friedmans forced audiences to come to their own conclusions through morally ambiguous storytelling, Deliver Us from Evil isn't ambiguous about anything. Director Amy Berg specifically hopes to bring down Cardinal Roger Mahony, the powerful archbishop of Los Angeles, with this film. It's hard for a layman like me to dispute her rationale: that during the many years of Father Oliver O'Grady's horrendous actions, Mahony sought to cover them up, simply relocating O'Grady time after time instead of having him arrested or at least removing him from his priestly duties, despite O'Grady's own admissions of abusing countless children (several of whom, as adults, seek retribution against both O'Grady - who was deported to Ireland after serving time in jail, and now roams free - and the church leaders who brushed his appalling acts under the carpet). In this respect, Deliver Us from Evil is to Capturing the Friedmans what Fahrenheit 9/11 is to Bowling for Columbine: Highly effective as agitprop, but not something that will encourage the audience to question their own morality (unless they happen to be Catholics - but then how many Republicans were swayed by Fahrenheit 9/11?). There's not a moment in this film where you don't think Oliver O'Grady - who, most interestingly, provided Amy Berg with several stunningly candid interviews before his famous brother pulled the plug - is a sick, sociopathic monster; while charming and soft-spoken, he clearly feels neither grief nor regret for his crimes. Nor do you question the culpability of church leaders in this scandal, especially Roger Mahony, considered the true villain of the piece. He is seen as nothing but a ruthless careerist, more concerned about his own status in the church than in the safety of children. Other diocese leaders aren't cut any more slack; in fact, the entire Catholic church is held accountable for upholding a system that serves to protect its own leaders - at all costs - and no one else. So while this is a bold, angering film that I do hope brings down Mahony's corrupt regime, speaking as an atheist who never put any trust in the Catholic church anyway, it did nothing to challenge my own pre-formed opinions. Probably the best audience for this film would be Catholics, though something tells me they're not clamoring to see it. But I don't want to make it sound like Deliver Us from Evil is not worthwhile viewing. Far from it. It is a very powerful and disturbing documentary.

THE DEPARTED (US, Martin Scorsese)
I shouldn't be able to get away with calling Gangs of New York and The Aviator overly ambitious projects, for if Martin Scorsese can't be ambitious about making a movie then who can? Nevertheless, both films were bloated and overlong, stuffed with good ideas and at least one amazing performance but not as great as the sum of their parts. So while Scorsese can tackle any subject he wants, it's still reassuring to see him back in his old milieu, the modern mob film, a genre he more or less established and seems totally at home with. Here he (and screenwriter William Monahan) adapts the acclaimed Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, setting it in Boston where Irish-American mobsters led by one Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson, delivering a performance for the ages) match wits with the Massachusetts State Police Department. The story's gimmick is that Costello has two young apprentices, Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio, finally fitting into the big shoes that Scorsese keeps handing him) and Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), and that Billy is an undercover cop posing as a thug whereas Colin is a thug, indebted to Frank since childhood, who has become a cop. In a sort of cinematic yin-yang symbol, Billy is the spot of white in the field of black and Colin the spot of black in the field of white. They mirror each other so well that Scorsese even gives DiCaprio and Damon - who have similar builds - the same haircuts and wardrobe. Yet neither of them is aware of the other's existence, much less his hidden agenda, which creates the fine Hitchcockian tension of the film. Who will be found out first, and by whom, and when? This taut story - despite an ultimately unnecessary romantic subplot - is what makes The Departed a cut above Scorsese's last few films, with genuine shocks and double-crosses, especially during the last fifteen minutes or so, that are sure to keep audiences buzzing long afterwards. It's brutal at times, but fun. Eschewing the self-conscious camerawork and high-decibel rock soundtracks that he's become famous for, Scorsese allows the actors and the script to do most of the work, along with Thelma Schoonmaker's acrobatic editing, which at many points is the real star of the show. There's violence aplenty on display, but it lacks the gruesomeness of other Scorsese pictures, limited mostly to quick, efficient shots to the head. Most of the real violence comes in the often scathingly funny dialogue (Alec Baldwin has some especially good lines), the vicious acts of betrayal that fill the film's third act, and in the general character of Frank Costello, a gleefully diabolical creature who sees his own effortless cruelty as a way of doing business.

The Departed isn't quite a perfect movie - there's that messy love affair junk with a police psychiatrist that, while handled well, still feels a little contrived to start with, and Colin's motivations remain murky (why exactly is he so beholden to Frank that he's willing to risk everything, especially his unspoken political aspirations, to help out this lowlife? This is never satisfactorily explained) - but it's still the best American crime film I've seen in a while, and promises lots of jolts to even the most jaded moviegoer.

THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON (US, Jeff Feuerzeig)
I've always been ambivalent towards Texas-based singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston, who rose to cult status despite - or, rather, because of - his history of mental illness and frequent breakdowns. On the one hand, you can tell that deep down there is a brilliant, if cracked, mind at work. On the other, his music is so shrill and unlistenable that I've often wondered how many of his art-student fans genuinely like what he does, or if it simply makes them feel cool for being able to name-drop an "outsider" artist like Johnston. He's like a perpetual freak show on the college music circuit, which is painful to see. But Feuerzeig, for his part, seems to honestly feel that Johnston is a genius on the level of (similarly disturbed) Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson, and his engaging documentary about Johnston's life would have you believe that every single one of the singer's supporters love him unironically. I don't buy that, but Johnston is undeniably a sad and fascinating character, starting out as an eccentric if highly intelligent young artist and becoming, through a progressive disintegration of his sanity made worse by a handful of bad drug experiences and traumatic events, a hoarse, obese, barely functioning man in his mid-40's who is still being taken care of by his elderly parents, even while luminaries such as Beck and Tom Waits cover his songs. (Thank God for songwriter royalties - Johnston's music has even been used in a Target commercial.) Unfortunately Feuerzeig is too busy creating a thorough biography to take the time to explore not only the suspect nature of his subject's fanbase, but also Johnston's own egomaniacal ambitions to be a superstar. However, there is one telling moment in the film, where a young, pre-fame Johnston, who fortunately captured a great deal of his private life and thoughts on tape, records his mother screaming at him: "You're willing to make a laughingstock out of yourself just to get people's attention!" That one rant of hers tells the whole story of Daniel Johnston's professional career, and perhaps it's all the film really needed. That said, Feuerzeig has crafted a stylish, entertaining documentary worth seeing even if you know little about Johnston's music.

DIE ANOTHER DAY (US/UK, Lee Tamahori)
These days, does anybody actually refer to a new James Bond movie by its actual title, or do they just say "The new James Bond movie"? I wonder. Anyway, I wasn't going to see this because Bond just doesn't do it for me anymore (the last I saw was 1995's GoldenEye, and that was only because I had designed the web site for it), especially with the ho-hum Pierce Brosnan. But it was Christmas and my Mom wanted to go to the movies. So. I am happy to report that over the past four films Brosnan has grown into 007's shoes, but really, it's all become so high-tech and the villains have become so bland that I can't see how anybody can find this franchise exciting anymore. Sure, stuff blows up, and there are lots of chases, but there's no real sense of suspense or danger. Die Another Day scores a minor coup in terms of topicality by making its villains North Koreans; surely the filmmakers couldn't have foreseen the recent troubles with that country when they developed the idea. But I think that really what the owners of the Bond franchise should do is take some of the original Ian Fleming books - the ones that got awful treatment in the late 70's/early 80's by the sloppier Roger Moore outings - and remake them, set them in the early 60's with period technology, music and sexual mores. That might be something to see.

DINOSAUR (US, Eric Leighton & Ralph Zondag)
Admittedly, Disney's Dinosaur didn't sound like my cup of tea, so I wasn't planning on seeing it. But there I was, in Grangeville, Idaho with my sister over July 4, and that was the only movie in town. Nevertheless, I hoped for the best. And got mediocrity.

Dinosaur is about a dinosaur (gee!) stupidly named Aladar, who for reasons of cuteness was raised by tiny little monkey creatures, and after a meteor shower destroys their happy home, they eventually join up with a motley herd of fellow dinos who are trudging across miles of desert wasteland in search of some garden paradise. Of course, Aladar is smitten with a cute female dinosaur, and of course her brother is the leader of the pack as well as an absolute jerk, and before you know it, you're watching Disney Dinos, photo-realistic as they may be, and though thankfully they don't sing, they do everything else that Disney characters do, and that's what sinks Dinosaur. The movie's actually quite cool when everybody's just acting like dinosaurs, roaring and fighting and all that, but whenever they open up their mouths to recite their (very trite) dialogue, you're immediately aware that you are sitting through pat, cynical, sub-kiddie fare Disney marketing mush.

Oh, and did you know that this is the most expensive film ever made? Indeed. Even more than Titanic, with an admitted budget of $200 million (which means it cost much more than that!). Much as I loathed Titanic, I will at least accept it as an epic. It did feel big. Dinosaur, clocking in at just 75 minutes, feels simply like The Land Before Time, only computer animated. And though the animation is often impressive, as usual the animators overdo everything, so you get to see every little hair on every little monkey blowing in the wind. Probably $5 million alone was spent on animating those damn little monkey hairs. Does anybody care?

DIRTY PRETTY THINGS (UK, Stephen Frears
(Another one of those films I took several months to see.) Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a disgraced Nigerian doctor who has fled illegally to London where he works as the night manager at a hotel, makes a grisly discovery one night of a human heart in a hotel toilet. Realizing that something's amiss, he starts probing only to find out that the hotel he works for is a front for a black market for human kidneys. An absorbing, if low-key, suspenser that showcases London as the teeming mass of immigration it really is. No Hugh Grant here: the only white people in sight are still struggling immigrants. Miramax marketed the film as an Audrey Tautou vehicle (even stooping so low as to Photoshop her head onto the back of a naked girl in newspaper ads), but Tautou is more a supporting character. Though she is fine as a nervous Turkish Muslim, the movie belongs to Ejiofor, a British actor with a strong leading man presence. You won't find any chase scenes or shootouts in this thriller, but it's still lean and taut, and I appreciated the film for its subtleties, as well as for drawing attention to England's real working class. These aren't cockney chimney sweeps. Yet Dirty Pretty Things dares to take society's untouchables and hold them up to us as noble, loving, vital individuals. It's the film's great triumph.

Only afterwards did a big gaping plot hole come to mind: a human heart was found in the toilet. Yet there is no investigation into how it got there, or what happened to its owner, or why the prostitute (Sophie Okonedo) who eventually comes to Okwe's aid didn't realize that it was clogging up the toilet of her own room. It's your classic Hitchcockian MacGuffin (the thing that sets the story into motion even if it's ultimately unimportant) but still. It would have made more sense for there to have been a chopped-up kidney in the loo - the results of a botched surgery. But a perfectly severed human heart brings up a lot more disturbing questions than either Okwe's colleagues or screenwriter Steve Knight care to address.

A DIRTY SHAME (US, John Waters)
Amusing but forgettable little trifle from John Waters, who is clearly no longer the iconoclastic underground filmmaker he once was and has long since settled into his current role as avuncular campmeister. The bare-bones plot: in a quiet Baltimore suburb, a random assortment of locals are becoming rabid sex fiends after each one receives an accidental blow to the head. What follows is a litany of sexual fetishes, some of them kind of disgusting but all of them showcased as fun, silly and perfectly acceptable as long as it's between two consenting adults. I think the old Waters wouldn't have bothered with that whole "consenting adults" clause, and that's the difference between his old films, which still have the power to shock and disgust, and his new ones, which espouse an increasingly creaky liberalism that basically says "free-thinking, sexy people good; close-minded, prudish people bad." Well, duh. In fact, the film follows the same formula as Waters' previous Cecil B. Demented, with a frigid middle-aged lady falling in with a charismatic rebel and and his gang of wacky acolytes - only here Waters substitutes kinky sex for Cecil's underground filmmaking milieu. A Dirty Shame is more successful only in that its leads, Tracey Ullman and Johnny Knoxville, are far better at recapturing the fever-pitch lunacy of classic Waters than were the weak stars of Cecil, Melanie Griffith and Stephen Dorff. They, and the rest of the cast, are enjoyable to watch, but most of the film is been-there, done-that. I mean, I'm no great sexual adventurer, and even I had already heard of all the kooky fetishes that Waters trots out, as if showing us for the first time. And the politically correct asides actually dampen the fun. This is one NC-17 rating that doesn't feel earned.

THE DISH (Australia, Rob Sitch)
I only finally got around to seeing this film right before it went to video. Fine. Rent it. Because The Dish is a delight, a laid-back look at the four mellow scientists (led by Sam Neill) who ran the enormous satellite dish in Parkes, Australia and were responsible for transmitting the first live images from the Apollo 11 moon landing to the world. Not much high drama or suspense (history has proven that everything turned out all right), but so what? The characters are so richly detailed, and the film (directed by Sitch but "conceived, written and produced" by Sitch, Santo Cilauro, Jane Kennedy and Tom Gleisner) so lovingly captures the era, and the one week in a turbulent time where all the world shared in an inarguably positive experience, that you can't help but fall in love with the film. Something to see when Grandma's over and wants to watch a movie with the family. The Dish is lighter than air, but its wistful nostalgia is genuinely touching.

DOGMA (US, Kevin Smith)
Kevin Smith must really be full of himself. I came to this conclusion after seeing Chasing Amy a couple years ago. I had avoided his first two films and caught Amy shortly before filming Foreign Correspondents in order to see what other filmmakers were doing with budgets similar to mine. I walked out of Amy thinking, "I just watched some okay actors mouthing fairly decent dialogue - but it didn't seem at all like I was looking at real life or real people." The problem is, I believe Smith actually thought he was capturing real life. Hogwash. Nevertheless, I looked forward to Dogma simply because the trailer made it look like an imaginative outing.

By movie's end, however, I had come to a new conclusion: Kevin Smith is an amateur. Nothing wrong with that, but you'd think that after 4 features he'd have some clue as to how to make a motion picture. But no - he still doesn't know how to pace a film, where to put a camera, how to get an engaging performance out of an actor, or frankly how to tell a story. The plot: two fallen angels (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) learn that they can get back into heaven through a loophole that the Catholic Church has just introduced. All they have to do is find a particular church in New Jersey, walk through its doors - and they're free. Naturally(?) this proves the fallibility of God and will supposedly negate all existence. So another angel (Alan Rickman) comes to earth to recruit a lapsed Catholic abortion clinician (Linda Fiorentino) to stop the angels. Various wacky folk team up with her on her quest. And the audience has to endure endless scenes of "revisionist" religious banter.

The main reason I consider Smith to be an amateur is that he keeps doing the same things that I saw countless guys doing back when I was in film school. His three mistakes: 1) He thinks he has something really, really important to say; 2) He thinks he needs a lot of dialogue to say it; c) He honestly believes that nobody else has thought of any of it earlier. True, he makes a couple of good points in the film. Thing is, he's trying to make hundreds of good points. It was bad enough when he was trying to educate the world about his brilliant discoveries about human relationships in Chasing Amy. Now he thinks he's the first guy to come up with such "radical" ideas such as, what if God's a woman? What if Jesus was black? Ho hum. His faith in God seems sincere, but it's too bad he is surrounded by fan geeks and brown nosers who tell him daily how brilliant he is. He will never grow as a filmmaker that way.

By the way, I saw Dogma as a double feature with Clerks. I liked Clerks. You could tell it was a low budget film by the first frame, and its lack of pretentiousness and surprisingly bawdy humor really made it enjoyable. I can understand how it made Smith a star. What I can't understand is how people can see Chasing Amy or Dogma and believe they're watching anything more than self-conscious film school-level ramblings.

DOGVILLE (Europe, Lars von Trier)
You've gotta hand it to Lars von Trier: possibly the only contemporary filmmaker who can actually raise a ruckus among cineastes, he championed digital filmmaking, revitalized Scandinavian cinema, made stars out of Emily Watson and Björk, and spearheaded the sole new film movement of the last 30 years (Dogme). And even so, he manages to take major artistic risks with each new feature. Dogville, his latest, is a successful blend of his early, formalistic work (Europa, aka Zentropa) and his recent gritty tragedies (Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark). Nicole Kidman stars as his latest martyr, a desperate woman on the run from gangsters in Depression-era America. She flees to the titular small town, whose tight-knit residents, wary of her dangerous past, reluctantly agree to grant her asylum - in exchange for her performing tasks for each of the townspeople. As time passes, Dogville becomes more dependent on her labors even as its citizens pay her less and demand more, inevitably including sexual favors. Trier serves up another harsh look at human cruelty, while drawing parallels between Kidman's trials and the immigrant experience in America. Setting Dogville apart from his previous work is its bold visual presentation, in which the entire town is depicted as a mostly bare soundstage, the houses mere chalk outlines on the floor, the windows and doors invisible, with sound effects creating the creaks and bangs as the actors mime opening and closing them. This theatricality suggests both Thornton Wilder and Bertolt Brecht, with good reason, for Dogville is nothing if not a fierce Brechtian satire on Wilder's smalltown American ideal, where the greedy establishment pisses on the working class, and blackmail is a way of life. Detractors of Trier's recent films who were offended by watching women subjected to all manner of indignations will find more of the same here, until a satisfyingly shocking conclusion which not only turns the tables on the film's characters, but also suggests Trier may finally be abandoning his running theme of woman-as-martyr. (In any case, neither his nor David Lynch's films are anywhere near as sexist as those of Hollywood good guys Ron Howard and Robert Zemeckis.) Dogville is not for everybody: if you're not turned off by the sparse visual style or the emotional, physical and sexual abuse, then how does a three-hour running time sound? Not to mention John Hurt's pompous narration. But for the brave, Trier provides a smorgasbord of memorable scenes and ideas, with an excellent Kidman leading an ace supporting cast. Dogville is a great achievement, sure to inspire argument and imitation, and further establishing Lars von Trier as one of the most important filmmakers working today.

DOLLS (Japan, Takeshi Kitano)
Shot before Kitano's most recently released feature (his lively Zatoichi remake), Dolls is an extremely slow, quiet drama that weaves together three tragic tales of love and loss. The central story is about a young man who abandons his girlfriend in order to marry his boss's daughter. Upon hearing that his girlfriend has attempted suicide, he leaves his bride at the altar in order to care for the woman he wronged - who is now nearly catatonic. They embark on a mysterious journey across the Japanese landscape, which Dolls returns to again and again - to increasing tedium, I'm afraid. Far more interesting, to this reviewer anyway, are the other two stories. The first involves an elderly Yakuza kingpin who remembers the girl he left behind forty years earlier, and returns to the park where she once told him she would return every Saturday to wait for him - only to discover her there, now as old as he, still waiting for him with his lunch. The final and by far most absorbing story is about a teenage pop star who, after a car accident disfigures her perfect face, goes into seclusion - and her biggest fan, a lonely and slightly creepy man in his thirties who tracks her down. Though it doesn't fit thematically with the other two episodes, it remains for me the most haunting - which may be due to my own fascination with the relationship between celebrities and their adorers. Nevertheless, I was impressed by Kitano's take on the obsessed fan. Instead of letting the character become psychotic and dangerous, as most filmmakers would, his story focuses on the crushing loneliness of the man's life, and how much this pop star meant to him. It is the saddest of three very sad fables, and is the one most worth seeing. As for the film as a whole, it lacks the humor of Kitano's other work (possibly because of the absence of the deadpan Kitano in front of the camera) and the repeated imagery of the couple wandering through the countryside, though beautiful, is a little too artsy - and it certainly bogs down at times. Nevertheless, if you like a good depressing movie, Dolls is for you.

DONNIE DARKO (US, Richard Kelly)
I suppose shallow people will find this film very meaningful. Set, for no particular reason, in October 1988, the story tracks four weeks in the life of its eponymous hero (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), an alienated teenager living in the ubiquitous Posh American Suburb we see in movies but never in real life (the gang from American Beauty must live right down the street) and struggling with the normal issues teenage boys have - as well as the possibility that he might be going insane. You see, Donnie's got this imaginary friend named Frank, a guy in a bunny suit with a metallic skull face who induces Donnie into committing major acts of vandalism. Debut writer/director Kelly seems very much convinced that he's making an important movie, but has nothing to say. If it's a satire, then what is it satirizing? Late 80's conservatism? Donnie's parents are Republicans but aren't seen as that bad; the film's two villains (Beth Grant as a clueless right-wing teacher who confuses author Graham Greene with actor Lorne Greene - ho, ho - and Patrick Swayze as a successful motivational speaker who just happens to live down the street from the Darkos) are played too broadly to have any real bite. Is it a horror movie? Not really, because there's no suspense. A character drama? I suppose, but everybody's so thinly sketched that nobody stands out, not even Donnie.

Look, I was an alienated teenage suburban boy in 1988. I think I can remember what it was like. And Donnie Darko was completely foreign to me. Donnie is supposed to be feeling extremely alone, but he's awfully outspoken in class, can articulate his feelings to friends and family, and has no problem asking a girl out. Back in high school we called guys like Donnie "popular." Of course, there's a twist at the end that puts the four weeks of the story in great question, so you aren't really sure whether you're watching the real, day-to-day Donnie Darko or not. And admittedly, the final 5-10 minutes of the film are quite moving, thanks in no small part to a haunting cover of Tears for Fears' "Mad World" on the soundtrack. They almost push Donnie Darko into the category of "mediocre film saved by a strong ending," but not enough. Kelly's idea of depth and darkness is very sophomoric, not a big surprise considering he's a 26-year-old directing his first script after graduating from the USC film school (notorious for its smug young students who barely know anything about film history and even less about real life). Lucky guy; once Drew Barrymore tripped over his script, she liked it enough to get it bankrolled (she serves as executive producer and has a small - and poorly played - role as Donnie's English teacher). Call it sour grapes, but I'm always suspicious when an unknown writer's first script gets made so quickly and painlessly. It suggests pedestrian material masquerading as serious art. And voila: Donnie Darko. Final note: Kelly apes that old Stanley Kubrick schtick - having his main character stare at the camera, face underlit, deranged-looking - about twenty thousand times.

DON'T TEMPT ME (Spain, Agustin Diaz Yanes)
Intermittently imaginative comedy kept afloat by star power, Don't Tempt Me (the direct translation of the original Spanish title, No News from God, being much better) is about an angel (Victoria Abril) and a demon (Penelope Cruz) both sent to earth to fight over the soul of a loser boxer (Demian Bichir) who is on the verge of being killed - either in the boxing ring or on the streets by a corrupt pair of cops whom he owes money. The boxer's fate, for reasons coyly skirted around, carries great significance for both Heaven and Hell. Heaven (pictured as a black and white Parisian fantasia) is a nearly bankrupt paradise co-managed by Abril's boss, French actress Fanny Ardent, whereas Hell is a combination prison/high-rise corporation whose current manager, Mexican "It" boy Gael Garcia Bernal (Y Tu Mama Tambien), is worried that his old-school style of devilish dealmaking is in danger of being usurped by a committee of soulless British bean counters. And so the strings get pulled on Abril and Cruz, back and forth, as they in turn try to sway Bichir to each other's side. This is a very light movie (though it has plenty of violence and bloodletting, common sights in Spanish cinema), and Yanes's script, despite some clever twists, isn't meaty enough to leave any lasting impression. Starring two of Spain's most popular actresses, however, it's highly acceptable as a star vehicle (though Bernal steals all of his scenes and Ardant simply needs to smile to win our affections), and both do well in offbeat, showy roles. If you're a fan of either actress, you'll enjoy the film. But if you miss it, no great loss.

DOT THE I (UK/Spain, Matthew Parkhill)
Though Dot the i debuted at Sundance in January 2003, it took two years before the producers finally wrangled a US theatrical release for it (after it played in dozens of other countries first). One must blame some bad distribution deal for that, especially since its star, Gael Garcia Bernal, was already white-hot art house box office material by then. Or maybe it's just that it's not that great a movie. The opening sequence sets the tone: Carmen (Natalia Verbeke), a young Spanish woman living in London and about to marry, is out on a "hen night" with her friends at a fancy French restaurant. Dared by the management to kiss her singlehood goodbye by planting a smooch on the most handsome man in the room, she chooses Kit (Bernal), who has been somewhat inexplicably videotaping her with his buddies at the end of the table. That kiss between them winds up being more intense than Carmen expected, and it throws her marriage plans to the dull Barnaby (James d'Arcy) out of whack. It seems like another tiresome love triangle, but from the get-go, with sudden cuts to mysterious POV shots of somebody videotaping private scenes, and other split-second cuts that may either be flashbacks or flash-forwards, you get the feeling that - everybody now - things are not as they seem. So watching Dot the i becomes an exercise in "guess the plot twist." And when it eventually comes, it's neither surprising nor disappointing. It's just there. "Ah," you say. "So that's the twist. Okay." To writer-director Parkhill's credit, he pulls a Vertigo and keeps his story unfurling for another 15-20 minutes even after the big reveal, which adds some suspense, but because there's no substance to back up the gimmickry, Dot the i is finally unsatisfying. Like most contemporary young British filmmakers, I think Parkhill is too preoccupied with being clever.

DOWNFALL (Germany, Oliver Hirschbiegel)
I think to fully understand the significance of Downfall, you have to be German. Not only because all Germans continue to deal with the Nazi legacy, but because for decades, it's been essentially verboten to not only feature Hitler as a central character in a German film, but to pay him the slightest amount of sympathy. Downfall, which chronicles the last two weeks of the Third Reich from the point of view of Hitler's inner circle, may be a novelty to American audiences simply because for once we get to see an actor portraying Hitler who is actually speaking German. (No offense to Anthony Hopkins or to any of the scores of English and American performers who have also "done" the dictator.) But for Germany's beloved Bruno Ganz - best known to stateside art house audiences for his leading role in Wings of Desire - to take on the part of history's biggest villain, and try to find the humanity in him, it was quite a turning point. No matter what country you live in, though, it's hard not to be impressed with the exacting detail with which Hirschbiegel and his crew reenact the Third Reich's chaotic final days. Maybe it's all that German (as opposed to German-accented English) that adds that extra layer of realism. Or maybe it's that the script, based on eyewitness accounts of the survivors of the inner circle (especially Hitler's personal secretary Traudl Junge, who serves as the central observer in the film), leaves no stone unturned, no fact unchecked. I'm no expert in World War II history, but to me the film feels accurate down to the smallest detail. So much so that its strength is surprisingly independent of the performance of its leading man - and to be honest, while Ganz is a fine actor whose craft shines especially in the quieter scenes, he looks no more like Hitler than anybody else would when wearing that infamous moustache and haircut. In fact, few of the cast members really look much like their real-life counterparts, but it's the essence of their performances that feels spot-on, especially Ulrich Matthes as Hitler's sinister right-hand man Joseph Goebbels, who - in this film, at least - comes across as an even more frightening figure than der Führer himself. (To be fair, though, Hitler at this stage was a shell of his former self, weakened by Parkinson's and paranoid beyond any rational thought.) Downfall is best recommended to WWII history buffs, and to anybody who likes a good war movie and is curious to learn more about this fascinating chapter of history. Its objective, documentary-like stance may bother those who prefer their Nazis stripped of any humanity, but those people most likely won't see the film anyway.

THE DREAMERS (France/UK/Italy, Bernardo Bertolucci)
Dull "erotique" drama about a young American named Matthew (Leonardo DiCaprio lookalike Michael Pitt) who goes to Paris in 1968 to study French and avoid Vietnam. He befriends Theo and Isabelle (Louis Garrel and Eva Green), two French-English siblings who share his passion for the movies, and when their bohemian parents leave town for a few weeks, they invite him to stay with them. What follows is an essentially plotless, weak and pretentious lust triangle, with all three getting hot and bothered by each other, resulting in lame stabs at controversy - incest! bisexuality! masturbation! - which, in the end, all amounts to just a big tease. Worse yet, it's not even an exciting tease. What the ads fail to tell you is that much of The Dreamers consists of these three youths - spoiled brats, really - running off at the mouth, alternately arguing and gushing about cinema. What they have to say is neither fresh nor familiar. You know me: I love the movies. And for me not to connect with a film about people supposedly just like me, well, there's something wrong. The story takes place against the backdrop of the 1968 Paris riots, which began as a response to the government firing the head of the Cinematheque Francaise. This real-life event is meant to justify the three characters' rather unbelievable obsession with film, as if to say "This was a time and a place where riots could happen due to people's love of cinema." Well great, I mean, I went to film school, I've had many passionate, heated arguments over films, then and now. But that doesn't make it fun to watch people doing same on screen, especially when they're not actual film buffs but beautiful, career-driven young actors who probably wouldn't know the difference between Keaton and Chaplin if you held a gun to their pretty little heads. (Green even has her armpits shaved - what leftist French girl in 1968 would do such a thing?) The frequent use of classic film clips only reminded me of how good those oldies were, compared to this overbaked perfume ad of a movie. Visually, it's great stuff: the camera is lively and the apartment that Matthew, Theo and Isabelle are more or less confined to is wonderfully decorated and lit. And the kids are good-looking. But few things irritate me more than something meaningless pretending to be meaningful. There is nothing titillating or even interesting about the film, down to its self-conscious title. And Bertolucci can't help but inject more of his tireless cheerleading for Communism, which once seemed relevant, then became outmoded, and now simply seems nostalgic. Cinema - and cinephiles - have outgrown 1968 Paris. It's too bad Bertolucci hasn't as well.

DREAMGIRLS (US, Bill Condon)
The first ten minutes or so of Dreamgirls explode with energy: Set during a talent show in early 60's Detroit, it showcases one powerful African American performer after another, belting out strong, intense, and unapologetically Black music. A trio of teenage girls calling themselves The Dreamettes squeak onstage at the last minute and wind up bringing the house down. In the shadows lurks a Cadillac salesman named Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx), whose solemnity barely masks his oiliness. Quickly he becomes manager for the Dreamettes, getting them a job singing backup for a James Brown-like singer named James "Thunder" Early (Eddie Murphy) and eventually driving them to stardom as The Supremes. Er, I mean The Dreams. It's well-known that Dreamgirls is based on the true story of The Supremes and Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr.; when it originally opened on Broadway in 1981, however, the bit of pop music history that it covers was so recent that the show's producers and writers futzed with enough story details to make sure neither Gordy nor Supremes frontwoman Diana Ross could sue them. With an extra quarter-century of distance, however, writer/director Bill Condon, who adapted the hit musical for the screen, makes some smart decisions in bringing the story closer to the reality on which it was based. And so Curtis hails from Detroit, home of Gordy, instead of the stage's New York; Curtis's Rainbow Records is more closely modeled on Motown (complete with an ersatz Jackson 5), and light-skinned Beyonce Knowles is cast as Deena Jones, the Diana Ross stand-in, whereas the show's Broadway director Michael Bennett had insisted on the dark-skinned Sheryl Lee Ralph. These are not just surface changes: It strengthens Dreamgirls's relevance as a film, which is beneficial, given the dated theatricality of its source material.

That said, my brain and my gut had different reactions to the film. On an intellectual level, I cannot fault anything about it. Yes, it's too long, and the ending is corny, but blame the Broadway show for that. And yes, many of the songs are sappy, a couple of them downright insipid. But I think that's part of the point: The story is really about the character of Effie White (a revelatory Jennifer Hudson), the loud, chubby lead singer for The Dreamettes who is relegated to the background by a ruthlessly ambitious Curtis - her lover, no less - who seeks to ingratiate the group to a wider (read: white) audience by placing the bland but beautiful Deena in the lead. (Effie is based on Florence Ballard, the doomed founder of The Supremes.) So while Effie's - and Jimmy Early's - numbers shimmer with the gospel-tinged rawness of black music, the songs that the other characters croon are syrupy and mundane, reflecting the white bread world that they aspire to. Very clever, but you still have to sit through some pretty cheesy songs. At least Condon, who knows that the old-fashioned Hollywood musical doesn't fly with contemporary audiences, finds a way around the goofiness of people breaking into song by shooting each number on stage or in a recording studio, so that even as the characters sing to each other, it is still in the context of their milieu. But even though the songs advance the story, as good musical numbers are supposed to, they frequently fizzle onscreen. There's a reason why the only two really successful movie musicals over the last four decades - Chicago and Cabaret - are both Kander and Ebb shows: These two songwriters chose to mimic the music of the eras their stories were set in, so the films worked as period pieces. By following a similar formula, Dreamgirls (music and lyrics by Henry Krieger and Tom Eyen) almost succeeds as a time capsule of the 60's and 70's pop world, but the songs lack the authenticity. Still, no matter what you might think of the film, you can't deny that it gets ten times better whenever Jennifer Hudson is on screen, and especially when she sings. She's downright amazing, and the irony of her being cast in the role of the hapless Effie (as Hudson was a hit on "American Idol" but similarly lost the competition to Fantasia Barrino) only enriches her performance. Murphy is quite good too, and there's some poignancy to the once-hot comic actor, whose recent career has been embarrassing (if lucrative), playing a man fighting to stay relevant in changing times. Knowles is appropriately bland and Foxx, who seems a bit stiff at times, personifies the soullessness - in all senses of the word - of Berry Gordy, whose Motown may have created a string of hits that most of America now finds nostalgic, but who, as Dreamgirls would have you believe, sucked the very life essense out of black music in his attempts to make it palatable to the white majority. Despite the feel-goodness of the film, it's a bitter sentiment, and Dreamgirls is an open poison pen letter to Gordy's empire.