HALF NELSON (US, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden)
One problem with the Sundance Film Festival is that its humorless selection committee has an incredibly narrow idea of what an American independent film should be about: dysfunctional families and/or substance abuse. And because Sundance is one of very few paths that an independent filmmaker can take to get his work theatrically released, many such filmmakers bend over backwards coming up with noble, gritty, depressing and dull stories that might appease the selection committee and ensure Sundance acceptance. Half Nelson is a good example. Indie stalwart Ryan Gosling stars as an inspiring inner-city junior high school teacher with an increasingly worsening cocaine problem. Newcomer Shareeka Epps is the quiet young student who befriends him, even as the lure of becoming a drug dealer looms on the horizon. The setup sounds like an instant cliche, but Fleck and Boden are dedicated to keeping the drama realistic, low-key and unsentimental. Unfortunately, as my wife quickly pointed out, because the filmmakers strive for so much even-handedness, it makes for a boring movie. I'm not saying melodrama would have helped here, but how is one supposed to react to a film which makes it look as though there's no serious, life-threatening risk in either cocaine addiction or a child cozying up to drug dealers? I will say that Fleck and Boden succeeded at making the film they wanted to make. Gosling, Epps and the rest of the cast are all very real and fairly appealing. The film is rich with slice-of-life detail, from the books in Gosling's apartment to Epps's fondness for Charms Blow-Pops. And it's nice to see a movie about drug addiction and inner city life where nobody gets shot or overdoses. However, Half Nelson's story remains a flat line, with no twists or turns along the way, and the momentum bogs down just as Gosling bogs down in his cocaine dependency. I left the theatre feeling neither shaken nor stirred. Like former Sundance poster child Maria Full of Grace, this is a nobly made film with its heart firmly in the right place, but it lacks energy and spirit. And as with Maria, critics and art house audiences will rave about it while it is still fresh in everyone's minds, but then they will quickly forget about it.

HAMLET (US, Michael Almereyda)
Michael Almereyda hopes that people make quite a lot out of his slick interpretation of the Shakespeare classic, which entails resetting the play in present-day Manhattan (Denmark becoming "The Denmark Corporation," etc.). However, this Hamlet is as serious and reverent as most old-fashioned productions of the play, adding no fresh insight in the retelling. Why even remake it, if you're not going to say anything new? I can only imagine that Almereyda chose a modern setting mainly so he can employ his characteristic grainy black and white video (the old Fisher-Price "Pixelvision" cameras). If he thinks his hipster film will finally lure Shakespeare-haters into digging Hamlet, he's got rocks in his head; I doubt there's a soul alive who's thinking, "You know, I avoided the Mel Gibson Hamlet and the Kenneth Branagh Hamlet, but Ethan Hawke as the tragic Prince? I'm there!"

That said, Hawke isn't bad. Nor is the rest of the cast, most of whom refreshingly speak Shakespeare's text like plain Americans (the exception being Liev Schreiber's Laertes, with his good but out-of-place enunciation). Okay, frankly Bill Murray makes no impression as Polonius, nor does Julia Stiles' dull Ophelia. But given mostly serviceable actors, how does Almereyda fare in his adaptation? Poorly. He has cut enormous chunks from the play - out of necessity, perhaps (God save us from another 4-hour version like Branagh's!), but he seems to have cut out too much for his own good. He even shuffles a couple of scenes around in hopes of getting his story back on track, but he's unable to cover up his gravest error: he actually thinks Hamlet is a depressed and suicidal character, which is as misinformed as all those old college productions we've had to endure. He excises the very important plot point of Hamlet planning to put on an "antic disposition" (i.e. act crazy) so that none of the royal court will be suspicious as he gets to the bottom of things. Instead, we have a sad and mopey Hamlet - an inactive Hamlet - and thus an inactive first half of the film. Finally when he decides to test the King's guilt (here the play-within-a-play has been craftily updated as an experimental film), things wake up. But by then I'd given up hope that this Hamlet would make me see the play in a new light. Read the play instead.

THE HAPPENING (US, M. Night Shyamalan)
My friend Bill, who I went to college with and who designed the credits for my two features, has also designed the credits for most of M. Night Shyamalan's films. He not only returns to the fold here with a dramatic opening title sequence, but he was hired by Shyamalan as the second unit director for this film, meaning Bill got to direct most of the scenes that don't involve principal cast, including all the shots of trees and what is already an infamous scene involving a lion. And that's the thing I've noticed about The Happening: other critics, at least the fanboy types on the Internet, seemed ready to eviscerate this movie months before its release. So certain scenes that were played for dread have been howled off the screen. I feel Shyamalan's pain, as I went through a lot of this with the horror geek reaction to my film Claustrophobia. Like my film, The Happening is an intimate, personal work for Shyamalan, where he uses genre to share his ideas about what's going on in the world. (For those of you who don't know, the story is about a strange airborne toxin, possibly spreaded by plants, that causes humans to commit suicide in horrific ways.) However, I don't want to come across as having liked The Happening. I didn't really. But I think Shyamalan more or less succeeded in telling the story that he wanted to. The problem I have with him is that I think he will frequently come up with a great idea for a script, but he writes it too quickly, then rushes it into production because he's so eager to shoot his movie instead of giving the script the time, care and attention it needs to become something great. And so there are some big problems with this screenplay that I couldn't get around. For starters, because the movie's about people killing themselves, not others (compare this to 28 Days Later), the danger level for the main characters goes down: not once do you believe that stars Mark Wahlberg or Zooey Deschanel are at risk of inhaling the toxin and committing suicide, so where's the tension? Also, while Shyamalan for once does not fully explain what happened, or why, or why some characters survive while others don't - a nice change of pace from a guy who tends to beat the audience over the head with his explanations (and I'm including The Sixth Sense in that assessment) - the results feel vague. He doesn't give us enough to go on. (I did hear about the rationale a while ago; perhaps there was something in the script which was cut.) I also defy anybody to explain to me why, at the end of the film (I'm giving nothing away), people are walking around in short sleeves in Philadelphia and Paris when it's supposed to be the middle of winter! I also found the performances to be wildly variable: Wahlberg is as earnest as Shyamalan, but he's stiff, in need of more direction; the usually spunky Deschanel seems to be in a trance; Betty Buckley hams it up mercilessly as an off-kilter widow the couple meets. Excellent actors have elevated films like The Village and Unbreakable. Here, Shyamalan's B-level cast is not up to the task, and thus much of the dialogue is awkward, the character relationships unformed.

I have a feeling that, in the coming years, The Happening will find its audience. I think M. Night Shyamalan has created some interesting ideas and images in his film, which people will start discussing more seriously once the anti-Shyamalan sentiment has died down. But the film left me cold - it even lacks the taut suspense that has long been Shyamalan's saving grace, even in his less successful work. On the upside, James Newton Howard - more than even Bill or cinematographer Tak Fujimoto, Shyamalan's most consistent collaborator - submits another outstanding score. And I'm very proud of Bill's first foray into second unit directing. But the film, while not nearly as bad as the wags want you to think it is, still warrants a pass.

THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS (Japan, Takashi Miike)
More crazed output from the fevered mind of Japanese auteur Miike, who directs literally half a dozen features each year. Usually known for his ultraviolent yazuka and horror movies, in which people have a tendency to explode, Miike put himself on the art house map recently with his austere ick-fest Audition, which at least has opened the doors to more of his films reaching American cinemas. The Happiness of the Katakuris is, like Audition, an unusual departure for the unusual Miike, but that's the only thing the two films have in common. The Katakuris are a hapless family of six - mom, dad, brother, sister, sister's little girl, and gramps. They decide to open up a bed and breakfast out in the countryside, but what few guests they manage to find have a tendency to die in horrible, disgusting ways. Did I mention that this film is also a musical? Did I mention that occasionally the actors suddenly transform into claymated figures? Welcome to the world of Takashi Miike. The Happiness of the Katakuris is so belovedly weird that you can't really hate it, but it is, I warn you, very, very silly. And not quite as funny as Miike probably intended it to be. Still, the song and dance numbers, which spoof bad Japanese pop videos and karaoke singalongs more than Hollywood musicals, are great fun, and, as with Miike's other films, in the middle of all the outrageousness what shocks most are the sudden moments of depth, sweetness and melancholy.

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY (UK, Mike Leigh)
Another of Leigh's trademark slice-of-life British comedy-dramas, using generally unknown (to Americans) actors who work with their director for months in improv workshops in order to develop fully lived-in, realistic characters, Happy-Go-Lucky's heroine is a 30-year-old Londoner named Poppy (Sally Hawkins) who is thoroughly unflappable in her optimism no matter the situation. Leigh gauges our tolerance for such an exuberantly happy person right up front when, after Poppy fails to engage a surly bookshop employee in conversation, she finds her bicycle stolen and says simply, "Oh no! I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye!" Craftily, this is the most outlandishly Pollyanna-ish Poppy gets. Leigh is no sentimentalist. Nor is he a sadist; a character like Poppy seems in line with the sacrificial lambs in Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark. But unlike the lead characters in those films, which I liked a lot, Poppy seems neither naive nor doomed. Von Trier or some Hollywood directors would set up a character like Poppy just to put her good nature to extreme tests (rape, cancer, etc.), and I think Leigh understands that audiences may cynically expect Poppy to get her comeuppance. He does touch on the downside to being nice to everybody, but he does so in a non-melodramatic manner that is truer to the realism of his film, and truest of all to his characters.

Sally Hawkins is wonderful, but the whole cast is great, especially Alexis Zegerman as Poppy's gruff but lovable roommate and the homely Eddie Marsan as Scott, Poppy's driving instructor, possibly the angriest man in England. The interaction between Poppy and Scott drives what little narrative the film has, and it's a pleasure to watch these two actors together. Scott is a bit like David Thewlis's character in Leigh's Naked, minus all charisma. What Leigh does is interesting in that most of the characters in the film are teachers of some sort. (Poppy, unsurprisingly, teaches little kids.) I'm still not entirely sure of the relevance here; perhaps Leigh sees teachers, whether happy or frustrated, as idealists. Indeed, Happy-Go-Lucky is about the bravery it takes to be an idealist, to be optimistic in a world that is anything but. (The film is shot in the plainest, most soulless areas of modern London, emphasizing the difficulty of keeping a free spirit in a place devoid of character.) I find this film endlessly thought-provoking and, in its way, inspirational. As one critic said of Poppy, I believe Leigh the utopian sees her as something of an evolutionary step in humankind; a woman out of place in 2008, perhaps, but a sign of the potential for kindness, empathy and joy that we all have inside us. To call Happy-Go-Lucky a "feel good" movie would be dismissive; it's a real drama, with real characters and real darkness. But in reminding us of the responsibility we all share in making the world a happier place, it is the sweetest, and maybe even the most important, film of the year.

HAPPY TIMES (China, Zhang Yimou)
Zhang Yimou is one of my favorite directors, and though Happy Times doesn't quite strike the nerves as deeply as most of his other films do, even mediocre Zhang is fine storytelling. With this film he continues his move away from his earlier tragic, beautifully-shot melodramas towards a fresher, less-measured approach, and his subject matter lightens up too (though still has great emotional pull). Happy Times tells the story of Zhao, a poor middle-aged bachelor who carries himself through life on an endless series of tall tales and outright lies. In order to woo a prospective bride (a fat and repulsive woman who isn't a prize in any sense), Zhao concocts a story of how he is running a successful hotel (actually a short-lived scheme of converting an abandoned bus into a parkside retreat for horny lovers) which will soon earn him the money he needs for a lavish wedding. In turn, the woman dumps her unwanted stepdaughter Wu onto him, demanding that he give the girl a job at his "hotel" and take her off her hands. This is where the film's pathos comes in, for Wu is a blind waif, and horribly mistreated by her stepmother, who dotes on her equally fat and repulsive son instead. Cinderella immediately comes to mind here, and, as Zhao tries to bond with his reluctant young charge, comparisons to Charlie Chaplin's City Lights are also unavoidable: like Chaplin's blind flower girl, Wu even pines for the operation which will restore her eyesight. The setup seems headed towards a predictable conclusion until you realize you are dealing with Zhang Yimou, who knows he would be a phony if he went for the standard happy ending at this point in his celebrated career. Much talkier than expected (the film is based on a stage play - a rarity for the Chinese films that make it to the States), but with touching performances by veteran actor Zhao Benshan and first-timer Dong Jie, Happy Times is another success, if a modest one, for one of the greatest filmmakers working today.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 1 (US, DavidYates)
At this point, thanks to David Yates, helming the third of his four Harry Potter features,the saga of everyone's favorite boy wizard feels like it's on autopilot - not that I haveany problem with that. Yates may lack the personal vision that Alfonso Cuaron and Mike Newellbrought to their Potter installments, which significantly goosed the franchise after theSpielbergian machinations of Chris Columbus wore out their welcome during the first twofilms, but he's a smart guy who knows why audiences keep coming back: It's the cast, J. K.Rowling's story and the special effects, stupid! So he directs his actors well, keeps thestory center stage, and lets his effects crews pull out all the stops. End result: A stringof satisfying if not particularly distinctive Potter movies. Although I have never read anyof the books, including this final one, I laud the decision to split Deathly Hallowsinto two separate films. The pacing can get a little slow in Part 1 - a good deal oftime is spent with Harry and his friends hiding out and not knowing what to do - but I thinkthey add to the richness of the characters and are much less boring to watch than magic wandbattles or Quidditch matches. The extra time also lets us indulge in some of Rowling's finerdetails: a stunning animated sequence that explains the origins of the Deathly Hallows is thebest thing in the film. And as this is the first installment to take place completely outsideof Hogwart's, the extensive location filming provides a breath of fresh air. I don't need togo on, as nothing I could write here would convince anybody to change their mind about themovie. I'll just state for the record that I enjoyed it just fine and I look forward to theconclusion. Needless to say, those who haven't followed the Harry Potter saga very closelywill be totally lost.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 2 (US, David Yates)
And so we come to the end of the most successful book and film franchise history has ever known, with the surprisingly short Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (well, at two hours, it's comparatively short for a Potter movie). Picking up right where Part 1 left off - so quickly that I had actually forgotten several key events from Part 1 - the film starts quietly, the calm before the storm. Soon enough, however, it dives into the storyline, which has Harry and his friends desperately trying to deduce, locate, and destroy the remaining horcruxes that contain parts of the villainous Lord Voldemort's soul. Knowing full well that this is the grand finale, Yates and company pack just about every Harry Potter character into the proceedings, even if it means you only see Emma Thompson for about five seconds and Hagrid just gets a couple of lines. Here I am reminded of the fundamental problem I've had with David Yates as a director: I understand the producers' decision to hire a journeyman helmer like Yates to handle the last four films. He wasn't already so famous, expensive, or in-demand that he couldn't be counted on to stick around and give a consistency to the franchise. But there's a reason why, for me, the third and fourth Potter films work so much better and linger in the mind so much longer - it's because they were made by true film artists, Alfonso Cuaron and Mike Newell, respectively. Cuaron's subversiveness and impressive visual style are what made The Prisoner of Azkaban - which otherwise could have been the breeziest, most forgettable Potter - so special. And Newell, long considered an actor's director, found an emotional richness in his characters that Yates, even after four movies, has proven unable to do. For crying out loud, the death of minor character Cedric Diggory in Newell's The Goblet of Fire still packs more of a punch than any of the many deaths of many major characters in the Yates-helmed films. If nothing else, watching these movies has been an exercise in the importance of a director's vision. Of course I still enjoyed Deathly Hallows 2; it is as always a handsome production with top-notch talent in front of and behind the camera. But now that the saga of Harry Potter is for all intents and purposes over, I'm going to spoil the party a little and express my mild but permanent regret over the selection of David Yates. He is a competent filmmaker, but his biggest mistake was assuming that audiences could easily follow the emotional and story flow from film to film, even after waiting a year or two. Focused as he was on delivering story points, he never understood the importance of taking some time in each movie to let us fall in love with the characters again - the supporting characters in particular. Because if we don't remember why we love them, then why should we care what happens to them?

HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE (US, Mike Newell)
Another lengthy but entertaining entry in the ongoing Harry Potter saga, Goblet of Fire succeeds mainly thanks to J.K. Rowling's ever-engrossing storyline. Director Newell, the first actual Englishman to direct a Potter film, doesn't have much of a background in visual effects but seems very comfortable with them - and Goblet of Fire far outdoes its predecessors in the CGI department. More! Better! Subtler! One wonders just where mainstream cinema can go next. The story, for those who haven't been following, concerns one Harry Potter, now 14 and in his fourth year of studies at Hogwarts Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry, as his name is mysteriously selected by the titular goblet, which enrolls him in the magic world's deadly Tri-Wizard tournament - the youngest student ever to participate. As he navigates the three treacherous games in the tournament, he and his friends also struggle against the treachery of puberty - and so you have teenage crushes, jealous rages (it's never believably explained why Harry's dear friend Ron suddenly won't speak to him for a good chunk of the film) and awkward hormones raging while the evil Lord Voldemort hatches yet another plan to destroy poor Harry. The cast is fine as usual and this installment's "guest stars" - Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson and especially Brendan Gleeson as Mad-Eye Moody - are welcome additions. As for Newell, his work isn't the revelation that Alfonso Cuarón's was, but then Cuarón raised the bar sky-high. Newell meets it but, lacking Cuarón's subversiveness, doesn't quite match it. However, he does deserve credit for the clever little details that give this film its personality - no mean feat squeezing them in, due to the wall-to-wall plottiness of Rowling's books. Newell has stated that his own special contributions to the Potter film series come from his own English public school background, and he throws in several amusing moments that reflect the unique character of British schoolboy life. He also deserves a pat on the back for hiring his frequent collaborator, British composer Patrick Doyle, who provides a powerful score - better even than regular Potter composer John Williams's work. (However, five demerits for Mr. Newell if it was his idea to give Harry and Ron those ugly long haircuts.) Some purists will bemoan all the story trimmed from the book (apparently the longest in the series), but it's still good, exciting fun. One of the few true successes in an otherwise dismal year for Hollywood cinema.

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE (US, David Yates)
The sixth entry in the Harry Potter series brings back some of the humor and awkward teenage romance of the underrated Goblet of Fire as well as the solving-a-mystery storyline of the first three Potter films. Which is my way of saying that, having recently seen it for a second time, I didn't much care for the fifth Potter film, the joyless Order of the Phoenix, in which not much happens and yet the scenes still feel rushed and perfunctory. I realize that there are many out there who are impressed with that film, but I am not one of them - and as a result, I didn't have much faith in director David Yates, the least experienced (as a theatrical filmmaker) of all the helmers in the Harry Potter franchise. I was surprised to learn that Yates was tapped to direct the final four Potter films (including the two-part Deathly Hallows finale) and assumed that this was because he wasn't a big enough director to go off and get work elsewhere, and was just enough of a hack to do the studio's bidding without raising a fuss. Happily, Yates has learned a lot from his previous film, and Half-Blood Prince is better paced and carries more emotional resonance. (Without spoiling anything, the major character death in Half-Blood Prince is given the weight and tragedy that it requires, whereas the murder of Gary Oldman's character in Order of the Phoenix fell totally flat. Still, Mike Newell's handling of the death of a fairly minor character at the end of Goblet of Fire was far more effective, a reminder that J.K. Rowling's source material still benefits from a strong director.) The cast also gets to do a bit more real acting, and they all seem to be having a great time. There is a sadness in Half-Blood Prince, not just because of its tragic finale but because we now know that there will be no more school uniforms, no more eccentric teachers, no more Quidditch matches, no more Hogwarts. The innocence has been lost and what lies ahead is deadly serious. So Half-Blood Prince's moments of warmth and levity leave a bittersweet taste. Though it doesn't stand up to Prisoner of Azkaban or even Goblet of Fire in terms of imaginative filmmaking, this is a likable movie that I would be happy to watch again. Above all, it makes me feel confident that Yates won't drop the ball when it comes to wrapping up this epic saga of Rowling's beloved boy wizard.

HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX (US, David Yates)
The fifth entry in the Harry Potter series, this is the shortest of the films, yet it's based on the longest of J.K. Rowling's books. Which is interesting, and I might have more to say about that had I actually read any of the books. But as I haven't, I can only review the movie on whether it works as a story, and not as an adaptation. And while I enjoyed this film, my experience was a bit uneven. This is the first Potter story to dispense with the usual "solve a puzzle" structure, opting instead to explore Harry's psyche and develop the mysterious relationship between the young wizard and his bete noir, the evil Lord Voldemort. Call it the Empire Strikes Back of the Potter saga. As such, it felt refreshing at first - and relatively unknown director Peter Yates brings some flashy new style to the franchise - but after seeing seemingly every guest star from the last two films make a fleeting appearance, and having to endure (I'm giving nothing away here) a lengthy and rather tedious fight scene between a bunch of people with magic wands and loads of white CGI energy fields whooshing about, by film's end I found myself wishing for a stronger story. But the cast is fun to watch as always, Daniel Radcliffe's acting is becoming impressively stronger as the ever-darkening storyline demands more from him, and the special effects are flawless as usual. But what I found most interesting in the film was a brief flashback that exposed the true relationship between Harry's dad and the weird Severus Snape (Alan Rickman), and of course this installment's guest villain, the diminutive Imelda Staunton as the priggish, syrupy school administrator from hell. She is delightfully nasty, so loathsome and so familiar - the chilly, stubborn bureaucrat we've all had to deal with at school, at work, at the DMV and so on - and perhaps a stand-in for the arrogant, myopic idiots that have populated the highest levels of American and British politics during the early 20th century: Rowling wrote Order of the Phoenix in 2002, during the buildup to the invasion of Iraq; it's not much of a stretch to guess that current events had some influence on the liberal-minded author. Substitute the millions of protestors chanting "No War on Iraq" and being soundly ignored for the smart, realistic Hogwarts students trying to convince school administrators that Voldemort has returned and you can see the connection. In fact, I suspect that talking about the meaning behind the story is more interesting than watching the movie (or, indeed, reading the book, which I've heard from many a Potter fan is a bit long-winded, self-indulgent and whiny). Still, I'm very eager to see the next two Potter films and find out what happens.

HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (US, Alfonso Cuarón)
I'm a latecomer to the whole Harry Potter franchise. I never read the books, and eschewed the first two movies because I'd heard they were unimaginative, if slavishly faithful, adaptations. But I had heard such advance praise of Azkaban that my curiosity was piqued; no less so because of its director, Alfonso Cuarón. So I rented the first two Potter movies - I do this all for you, dear reader, so that I may write a more informed review - and watched them, back-to-back, before heading out to the theatre to see Azkaban. This proved to be a worthwhile exercise, not so much because I got caught up on the Potter backstory, such as it is, but because to see The Chamber of Secrets just one day before The Prisoner of Azkaban is a lesson in the meaning of the role of the director. Chris Columbus, who helmed Chamber as well as The Sorceror's Stone, was never known as a great filmmaker. But compared to Cuarón's work here, Columbus is fully exposed as the hack that he is. He must be congratulating his successor through gritted teeth, aware that Cuarón's directorial talents so outshine his own that anybody who sees the films can't help but realize that Alfonso Cuarón is an artist; Columbus, merely a hired hand.

I'm having so much fun discussing how a director's stamp can change even JK Rowling's supposedly iron-clad vision that I'm going to dispense with any boring synopses of this film. Cuarón, well aware that both his characters and the young actors portraying them are now clearly teenagers, has set out to make a mature film, far from Columbus's gee-whiz kiddie fare. (One could argue, perhaps, that the sub-Spielbergian wonderment on display in the Columbus films befit the tales of the prepubescent Potter.) Harry and friends are now often found in normal teenage clothes, their hair a little punkier, their behavior more aggressive. And Cuarón slips in numerous allusions to teenage life - the opening of the movie has Harry playing with his magic wand under the bedsheets, for crying out loud! Which is great, since like any true artist, Cuarón likes to bite the hand that feeds him. This is the most subversive of the Potter films, and the folks at Warner Bros. must have been very brave or very blind to let Cuarón mold Rowling's story (much of which he cut, to some fans' consternation) to fit his own personal vision. In fact, I have long held that Cuarón is, frankly, a gay filmmaker. His earlier "children's movie" A Little Princess was so fabulous to look at that I doubted it could have been directed by a heterosexual man. As for Y Tu Mamá También, Cuarón's most recent (and most notorious) film, it's not hard to notice that the two male leads are far more attractive than the woman who shares them, and the "surprise" boy-on-boy action at the end was, to me, inevitable. So I wondered, would any of this make its way into The Prisoner of Azkaban? Enter this year's latest Dark Arts Professor, Remus Lupin (wistfully played by the great David Thewlis), who not only interacts rather intimately with the titular prisoner (Gary Oldman) but whose "curse" is played as a metaphor for his sexuality. At the end of the film, when he resigns from Hogwarts, he sadly talks about being outed at school, and how the children's parents would be upset, but he's used to it by now. The change is slight, but dramatic, from Rowling's book, where he quits because he fears he is a physical danger to the children. But I've gone on too long about the sexual dynamics of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. In short, it's easily the best of the three (even composer John Williams is jostled awake, and the bloated, theme-heavy music from Chamber of Secrets is replaced by a moodier, Renaissance-inflected score, leagues better). It will be interesting to see how director Mike Newell handles the fourth film, The Goblet of Fire, as he's known for being a good "actor's director," but uninspired around a camera. My guess is that Goblet will be well-acted but dull.

HEAVEN (Germany/UK, Tom Tykwer)
After his final film Red, the renowned Polish film director Krzysztof Kieslowski announced to the world that he was retiring from filmmaking. Secretly, however, he and his frequent collaborator Krzysztof Piesiewicz were writing a new trilogy of films, to be titled Heaven, Hell and Purgatory, respectively. Unfortunately, Kieslowski died after writing Heaven, and so never got the chance to personally bring it to the screen. Current Euro filmmaker darling Tom Tykwer, best known for Run Lola Run, was hired to take the reins instead. What he's given us is an interesting but not altogether satisfying film that touches on some of Kieslowski's themes of parallel souls, guilt, redemption, the aftermath of horrible mistakes, but little of the late filmmaker's transcendence. Of course, it's unfair to criticize Heaven as somehow not belonging to Tykwer. It's very much a part of the rest of his work, with the notable exception of Lola. Those expecting any of Lola's energy or enthusiasm will be disappointed; those who saw his last film, the ponderous The Princess and the Warrior, should have a better idea of what to expect. Cate Blanchett plays an Englishwoman living in Italy who, believing her husband's death to be the fault of a local drug dealer, decides to take the law into her own hands by blowing up the dealer in his own office. A major mix-up ensues and she winds up sparing him and killing four innocent people, including two children, instead. (The set piece at the beginning of the film depicts this with equal amounts of discretion and horror.) Repentant of her crimes, she is ready to pay the price - but not until she finishes her business of killing the drug dealer. Her English language interpreter (Giovanni Ribisi, an American actor more or less successfully convincing us that he is an actual Italian), who has fallen instantly in love with her, decides to risk it all to help her complete her mission - then talks her into escape. The two share common birthdays and names (she Philippa, he Filippo), and over the course of the film become practical mirror images of each other. Unfortunately this never amounts to anything in terms of theme or story. It's just a clever device in Tykwer's hands. Nice Italian scenery, but Blanchett and Ribisi make a most unlikely couple - though five years separate them in real life, his is such a baby face and she is so sophisticated that they seem more like mother and son. And let's face it: when you call your film Heaven and present your main characters as earth angels, there had better be some real sense of spirituality or at least mysticism. Here the film, unforgiveably, comes up empty. I left the theatre missing Kieslowski.

HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (US, John Cameron Mitchell)
Writer/director/star Mitchell takes his lauded Off-Broadway musical to the screen, with all the accolades in tow. You know to be suspicious when a film wins two major awards at the often-misinformed Sundance Film Festival, and although Hedwig is getting positive press, I fear much of it is kneejerk - not enough people are taking a step back and asking, "But really, what's so good about it?" In case you were wondering, the story is about Hansel Schmidt (Mitchell), a homosexual boy growing up behind the wall in East Berlin, who falls in love with an American G.I., changes his name to Hedwig and undergoes a sex change so that he may marry and move to the States, but when the operation goes awry, he is left with neither a penis nor a vagina, but an "angry inch" of flesh that is the center of his need for identity and respect. (Note to the easily grossed-out: you do not see this.) The story takes the shape of a rock musical, as bitter Hedwig, dumped by the G.I. and scores of others, dons a Farrah Fawcett wig and takes his band to play at "Bilgewater's Restaurants" across America, shadowing the stadium tour of young rock star Tommy Gnosis, Hedwig's former lover, who has become a world-famous millionaire off of songs that Hedwig actually wrote.

Got all that? It sounds crazier than it is, alas, for Mitchell takes his story far too seriously, and the camp and glam ultimately play second fiddle to a somber quest for self-realization led by a character few can identify with. Hedwig probably worked great onstage, with Mitchell belting out his songs to a live audience and skewing his monologues to suit the crowd's mood on any given night. Through the cold medium of film, however, you can't feel the energy of a live performance, nor can the artificiality of the stage be reproduced in the realism of film (and Mitchell, purposefully and wrongly, chooses to go for a rough, verite-style filmmaking instead of high theatricality). The songs (by Stephen Trask) aren't bad, and the film is hardly a stinker, but somebody should have tapped Mitchell on the shoulder along the way and said, "You know what - as a stage show, your story is really in its best form. Leave well enough alone."

HERO (China, Zhang Yimou)
Boy, the People's Republic of China sure went all-out when they wanted to make a fancy martial arts fantasy that was also pro-nationalist propaganda. For the most expensive Chinese feature ever (with a budget of a whopping $20 million - that's about as much as Adam Sandler makes per film), they hired one of their nation's greatest directors, Zhang Yimou, which is comical considering the Chinese government banned several of his earlier films for being critical of the regime; Asian uber-cinematographer Christopher Doyle, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon composer Tan Dun. Not to mention an all-star cast of Chinese luminaries including Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi (also from Crouching Tiger). It's no coincidence that I mentioned Crouching Tiger twice, for it's clear that China saw the success that their bete noir Taiwan had with the aforementioned 2000 blockbuster, and wanted a piece of that pie. Which is why Hero went into production in 2001. So why did it take more than two years to reach American shores? Blame their stateside distributor Miramax, who by various accounts sat on it either because they were hoping for a Crouching Tiger and were disappointed, or because they were waiting out any Crouching Tiger backlash by releasing it when Hero could deserve praise on its own. Though I'd more readily believe the former, the fact that the belated release grossed over $30 million in the US - a heady sum for any foreign title - suggests that there was method in Miramax's madness. Anyway, as far as the film goes, it retells a classic Chinese fable in Rashomon-like fashion, where in feudal China, still split into several warring nations, a nameless man (Jet Li) is allowed an ultra-rare audience with the Emperor of the largest region because he apparently killed the three top assassins the Emperor most feared. Only his story doesn't quite hold up, blah blah blah, and so they tell it again, twice, with significant changes. The thing is, whereas the multiple perspective of Rashomon was integral to the film's message that truth is subjective, there isn't much purpose to Hero's story structure, other than providing some neat color-coded costumes. The film is really a showcase of Zhang's and Doyle's sumptuous visuals. But what a showcase! I've made no secret before of how I love Zhang's visual style, and Doyle is simply one of the greatest cinematographers on the planet. Together, they spew out one indelible image after another - no small thanks to some of China's most eye-popping natural scenery. (The flying swordfight scene between Maggie Cheung and Zhang Ziyi amongst falling golden leaves is worth the price of admission alone.) The visuals are well-matched by Tan Dun's spectacular score (with help from Itzhak Perlman on violin and Japanese taiko drummers Kodo providing percussion). And then you've got that great cast, including one of my own idols, the unstoppably cool Maggie Cheung. Go see it on the big screen while you still can, to revel in the pictures and music. The story will leave you cold, but then I presume it even left the Chinese cold - one wonders if Zhang's infamously critical heart was even in this one, or if he was just happy to helm a hugely-budgeted epic with big stars and top-drawer technical talent. He seems to have been happy with the results, for he made a second martial arts film right afterward (House of Flying Daggers, due in the US just a few months after Hero).

HIGH FIDELITY (US, Stephen Frears)
Nick Hornby's popular British novel on which this is based (and which I haven't read) has been adapted to the screen and refocused from slackers in London to slackers in Chicago, John Cusack's home town, and what do you know - it's John Cusack! In this film, he plays a thirtysomething schlub named Rob, a not terribly with-it kind of guy who runs a barely-alive used record store, employs a couple of losers (the very funny Todd Louiso and Jack Black - Laurel and Hardy for the 21st century), and has just been dumped by his most recent girlfriend (Iben Hjejle, and though it's become an easy joke, she really is essentially a Danish Patricia Arquette). As Rob and his fellow music-snob record collectors are obsessive list makers ("top five songs to play at my funeral;" "top five dream jobs I'd like to have"), getting dumped inspires him to concoct a list of his top five breakups and track each ex-girlfriend down to find out just what went wrong.

Did I mention that he shares all this with the audience? Yes, John Cusack spends much of the movie talking directly to the camera, ala Ferris Bueller. At first it comes across as actorly, smug - just as the movie's initial guyishness reeks of anti-woman sentiment - but over time the characters slowly reveal their various colors, and several sad, funny and familiar truths about contemporary male-female relationships start hitting home. So in the end I quite enjoyed High Fidelity. This may, however, be due to my age (just a few years shy of the guys in the movie), my sex (male) and my vocation (a film geek is just as bad as a music geek). I do get the feeling that most of the story's truisms come straight from the pages of Nick Hornby, and that I'd probably enjoy the book more. I do have one beef with this film: for all the musical name-dropping Cusack and company engage in, it's at the level of your average yuppyish hipster: Stereolab, Massive Attack, Belle & Sebastian, et al. Most record store clerks' snobbish taste for obscure music blows these clowns out of the water. They revel in worshiping bands that maybe 5 or 6 people across the planet have ever heard. I suppose the filmmakers felt they couldn't get too far out with their musical choices, but it certainly feels fake to anybody who's had to put up with stubbly music lovers going on about Wire, Mission of Burma or the Mekons. (And even faker to those who consider those last three bands "too popular.") I also have a slight quibble with the number of well-known actors in minor roles (Tim Robbins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lisa Bonet, etc.) but they're all fine in those roles, so it's forgiveable.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (US, David Cronenberg)
Viggo Mortensen plays Tom Stall, an ordinary family man in smalltown Indiana who owns the local diner. One night, when a couple of bad guys try to rob the place, Tom swiftly and effortlessly dispatches them. Instantly he becomes a local hero, attracting the attention of the TV news - and, eventually, a trio of villains (led by a wonderfully thuggish Ed Harris) from Philadelphia who insist that Tom is actually Joey Cusack, one of their own, a cold-blooded killer for the mob. Although I won't reveal the truth, I am happy to report that this question of whether they have the wrong man or if Tom is hiding a terrible secret from his family doesn't take the film's full 96 minutes to resolve. But as another reviewer has pointed out, whether Tom is really Joey is a moot point, since in a way, by his initial act of violence towards the two robbers, he's now a killer by any name. I'll even take that theory further and claim that there really is no point to the story or even to Tom's character; both are simply in service to the film's theme. And every bit of this film is about one thing and one thing only: the visceral joy of violence, the thrill of hurting the bad guy. Cronenberg makes the audience complicit in this as well, not in a lunk-headed way like Oliver Stone did with Natural Born Killers but by simply staging each act of violence as exciting, cool, and well-deserved. Some people are going to get the wrong message out of this, but this isn't Tarantino we're talking about - Cronenberg is a serious filmmaker whose fascination with flesh and blood runs deep in all his work. A History of Violence is based on a graphic novel (which I haven't read), but it's hard not to grant the story's authorship to the director. This is a David Cronenberg film through and through - smart, well-acted and definitely suspenseful. My only complaint is that they didn't get the TV news coverage right. Only one reporter camped outside Tom's house when he comes home after his heroic act? Come on!

THE HOAX (US, Lasse Hallström)
Entertaining, if somewhat forgettable, Hollywood picture about the bizarre but true events surrounding author Clifford Irving (Richard Gere, in a fine if noticeably Oscar-hungry performance) who, in 1971, proceeded to convince the top brass at publishing house McGraw-Hill that he had been called upon by reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes to work with him on his official autobiography - even though Hughes had no idea who he was. Through an elaborate system of ruses, and counting on the hermited Hughes to not go public with the actual truth, Irving managed to lie his way to the top, swindling his publishers out of $1.3 million before his inevitable downfall. Although the film is about little more than Irving's strange lying streak (I wished that there could have been something more universal said about why pathological liars exist, or even why Irving did what he did - though the answer may simply be that he was a shallow, desperate man who enjoyed manipulating people and got off on the rush of telling bigger and bigger whoppers; possibly the weirdest thing about the film is that it's based on Irving's own nonfiction book about his incredible scam - now that's a complicated ego-stroke), what I was most struck by was the epic nature of Howard Hughes, and the power he held over the American imagination during the final years of his life. It's actually a more compelling portrait of Hughes - who does not appear in the film as a character, though a few audio and film clips of the real-life Hughes are used - than Martin Scorsese's The Aviator was, for it really gives us a feeling of the effect that Hughes had on the public at large, and how gigantic a figure he was in the 20th century. Hallström directs with aplomb, the big-name cast is all fine, and there's a nicely authentic 70's atmosphere, too. But it's not what I would call a must-see film.

HOLY SMOKE (US/Australia, Jane Campion)
Kate Winslet is an Australian girl caught up in a mystical Indian cult. Harvey Keitel is an American "cult deprogrammer" who takes her to the outback for 3 days to get her un-brainwashed. Though the first chunk of the film is excellent - Winslet's dreamy vision of India compared with her desperate mother's impressions of filth and poverty when she arrives to drag her daughter back home - it quickly bogs down into a tiresome "actor's workshop" filled with philosophical chatter, pointless sexual table-turning and murky statements about love and control.

I like Jane Campion's films (with the exception of Portrait of a Lady, which was duller than dirt), and I was really disappointed. The story has an annoying tendency to set things up with no follow-through. Things just happen. The film is supposed to be all about Winslet and Keitel's characters' relationship, but it takes so many frankly unbelievable and senseless twists and turns that I wound up disinterested in the whole affair. Campion and her cowriter sister want to say something about how the way we live and love is itself all "cultish" behavior, and how no relationship is as simple as black and white. But I didn't buy it. Winslet, at least, is quite a believable character (her first contemporary role in 8 films!) - she reminds me exactly of a girl I met from that part of the world who was by turns flaky, arrogant, tender, confused, and nasty. It's too bad the actress is swallowed up by a swamp of a story.

HORNS AND HALOS (US, Michael Galinsky, Suki Hawley)
Sometimes you can really see the difference between great documentary filmmaking and mediocre documentary filmmaking. Spellbound, for instance, takes an innocuous subject (kids in a spelling bee) and turns it into a gripping, thought-provoking American saga. On the other side of the spectrum, Horns and Halos squanders some highly flammable material thanks to its filmmakers' muddled sense of purpose. In 1999, sad-sack biographer James Hatfield decided to break out of his boring career of writing fluffy movie star books and penned an expose on then-presidential nominee George W. Bush. The biggest of all the bombshells in Hatfield's book was that Bush was arrested in 1972 for cocaine possession and then, using his powerful family ties, had the charges dismissed and erased from the record. A mere three days after the book, Fortunate Son, hit the shelves, it was suddenly discovered by the press that Hatfield had served time in jail for conspiracy to murder. His publisher, the respectable New York house St. Martin's Press, immediately yanked the book from the shelves. Horns and Halos picks up with Hatfield's partnership with his new publisher, a hyperactive punk rocker named Sander Hicks, who ran a do-it-yourself publishing house in the basement of the building he worked in (as the janitor!) and called it Soft Skull Press. Determined to Stick It to the Man, Hicks embarked on a 2-year-long odyssey to bring Hatfield's book back to the public. Both men encountered wild ups and downs - a 60 Minutes segment, a lawsuit from Hatfield's former murder co-conspirator, pressure from Bush's lawyers - only to see their story end tragically.

Great stuff here, so what's wrong with the movie? Well, it's not boring, it's not stupid, but come on - this is some majorly incendiary subject matter! It should be easy to make a left-leaning moviegoer like me angry at Bush! And yet filmmakers Galinsky and Hawley lack gumption. They become uncertain as to the validity of some of Hatfield's claims, and yet don't have the chops to try to answer the question, was Hatfield telling the truth? You sure want to believe him - especially when he claimed that it was none other than Bush's chief political advisor Karl Rove who fed him the cocaine arrest story (Hatfield claimed that Rove did so because he already knew of Hatfield's shady past, and knew that he could thus discredit the author's claims upon the book's release). But we see so little of Hatfield in the film, we don't really get to find out just what he's about, mainly because the camera wasn't there at the right moments. Instead we spend far too much time with the show-offy Hicks, a naive Henry Rollins wannabe whose devil-may-care demeanor, eccentric punk wardrobe and odd haircuts may have done far more to negate the significance of Fortunate Son than anything Bush's attorneys could have come up with. But Galinsky and Hawley don't seem to even fully recognize that. In the end we're left with a frustrating, unfinished-feeling portrait of a pair of strange bedfellows whose biggest mistake was keeping explosive allegations about President Bush on the cultural fringes, where they were written off as a couple of leftist kooks. This documentary doesn't change that one bit.

HORRIBLE BOSSES (US, Seth Gordon)
I admit that I am usually disappointed by American comedies. Most of them are just not funny. Yet once in a while I inexplicably feel a calling to head to a movie theater and watch one of them. I guess it's the optimist in me, because I find very few of them to be sharp, witty, inventive or surprising - elements that I think make for good comedy. And so I went to see Horrible Bosses, perhaps lured by the promise of gallows humor or at least a sexed-up Jennifer Aniston. And I was, once again, disappointed.

The movie's plot: Three put-upon friends (Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis) are so fed up with their unrepentently nasty employers (Kevin Spacey, Aniston, Colin Farrell, respectively) that they agree that the only way to deal with them is to murder them. Right off the bat, you can sense the number one problem with Horrible Bosses: the unbelievability of its premise. The script (by two TV writers and young actor John Francis Daley, from Freaks and Geeks and Bones) halfheartedly explains why these three sane, apparently competent men - with no families or major financial responsibilities - can't simply quit their jobs, but it fails to convince. Coupled with the equally unrealistic antics of their abhorrent supervisors (in particular Aniston's sexual obsession with the hoarse, hyperactive Day), this movie asks for one gigantic suspension of disbelief from its audience. It's not gonna get it, so all we can hope for are a few good laughs. And there are a few good laughs. But not enough to make it worth our time. The issue I have with Horrible Bosses is that it wants to be a lighthearted black comedy. But you can't make a black comedy with a light heart! You need a satirical edge, a sense of the macabre, a willingness to make your audience uncomfortable. Director Gordon and his writers have none of that. In order for the story to work, at least one of our protagonists has to be a little scary, the sort of guy who could kill someone after being pushed to the edge. But Gordon et al - or maybe just the studio - must have thought that would be a downer. So although I'm thankful that Horrible Bosses neither aims for pathos nor relies on gross-out gags, and I liked some of the plot twists in the third act, this movie simply has no bite.

HOTEL RWANDA (UK/Italy/South Africa, Terry George)
Powerful political drama, based on fact, about Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), the manager of the posh Hotel Milles Collines in Kigali, Rwanda, who inadvertently turned the four-star hotel into a harbor for over a thousand frightened Rwandans during the terrible massacre of Tutsis by rebel Hutus in 1994. The film serves two purposes: The first is to recognize Rusesabagina's modern heroics - no fighter, this man, he uses only his wits - bribing when he has to (common practice in third world countries anyway), lying and blackmailing when it comes to it, all in the name of saving the lives of innocent people. The second is to show the grave injustice done to the suffering of Africans. The film pulls no punches by indicting western culture's disinterest in the fate of third world peoples, even when they are being killed out in the streets, and it's impossible not to feel guilty watching the heartwrenching scene in which UN peacekeepers are ordered to clear only the white people out of the Hotel Milles Collines, abandoning the terrified Rwandans to their fate. (That the film itself was no great box office success compounds the truth of the matter.) For the American-born Cheadle, it's the role of a lifetime, and he plays it for all it's worth: His Rusesabagina is a complex hero, one as dedicated to his job as he is to helping people. He's an ordinary man who never aspired to greatness, but had it thrust upon him simply by necessity. The film itself, by putting faces and names to a people's suffering, will hopefully inspire more people to become aware - and active - when a crisis in an African nation once more demands attention. Oh, who am I kidding? Less than ten years after the tragedy in Rwanda, a similar one has exploded in Sudan - and who in the west cares about that? If that last statement sounds angry, it's because Hotel Rwanda is, in the best sense of the term, an angering film. Though Rusesabagina's own story is an uplifting one, deep down the film's message is profoundly disheartening.

HOT FUZZ (UK, Edgar Wright)
When the first feature from director-cowriter Edgar Wright and star-cowriter Simon Pegg, Shaun of the Dead, came out in 2004, it caught everybody by surprise. Not only was this tribute to zombie movies funny, sharp, scary and extremely well-made, but it was also poignant and real - something nobody expected out of a zombie movie. The two set the bar sky high for their follow-up film, and Hot Fuzz does not disappoint. Like Shaun, it is not a parody of a genre (in this case, the genre being the loud, bullet-riddled cop buddy movie) but a genuine homage. Ultra-serious workaholic London cop Nicholas Angel (Pegg) is so good at his job that his superiors feel like he's making them look bad. And so they transfer him to an idyllic English village where the only action is chasing down the occasional shoplifter or escaped swan. Angel feels stifled, and the rural police force he's stuck working with treat him like a fool - especially when certain villagers wind up brutally murdered, something only Angel (and the audience) suspect. For much of the film's running time, Hot Fuzz doesn't seem like much of an action movie. More like a murder mystery. It's only after a hilariously unexpected plot twist that the third act kicks in, and so does the mayhem. (I'm giving nothing away, but be patient, for that third act is well worth the wait.) Ultimately Hot Fuzz is not so much a satire of Jerry Bruckheimer-produced action pictures as it is a satire of British life, just as Shaun of the Dead was, and it's the unique style and worldview of Wright (and Pegg) that set the film apart from lame American spoofs such as Scary Movie or Loaded Weapon I. If it doesn't quite achieve the greatness that Shaun did, it's only because it lacks the seriousness and depth of its predecessor's character relationships, and that third act, as spectacular as it is, doesn't hold back on the trite action movie cliches, either. So Hot Fuzz is a little less original and a little less profound than Shaun of the Dead was, but it's still great, witty fun.

THE HOURS (US, Stephen Daldry)
Dreary and annoying Oscar bait that examines the parallels between three troubled women: English novelist Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) as she writes her masterpiece Mrs. Dalloway in 1923; a Los Angeles housewife (Julianne Moore) reading the novel in 1951; and a Manhattan literati (Meryl Streep) living the life of Woolf's title character in 2001. It's a neat concept, courtesy of egghead author Michael Cunningham - the story traces the day's events of the women as each prepares for a party, a structure identical to that of Mrs. Dalloway. But the novelty dissipates quickly as the maudlin tone sets in. All the women are depressed, they are all suicidal, maybe they're all lesbians, who cares? There's not a sympathetic or even interesting character in the whole film, save for Woolf's long-suffering husband Leonard (Stephen Dillane). Woolf herself, one of the greatest figures in modern literature, comes across here as just an unhappy shut-in with a nervous tic. Celebrated hack Stephen Daldry, who also helmed Billy Elliot, overdirects as usual: when one character commits suicide by jumping out a window, there are no less than three shots of the body dramatically falling, finally landing - splat - right on the camera lens! Tacky. This sort of ham-handedness trashes what should have been a delicate story. As a result, there's not a lick of joy, insight or genuine feeling in The Hours. It's like a big-budget Lifetime TV Movie, so caught up in its own seriousness that it forgets to be about anything. Philip Glass's typical deedly-deedly score only adds to the tedium.

HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (China, Zhang Yimou)
In ancient China, one of the Emperor's generals (Takeshi Kaneshiro) is sent to a brothel to track down a blind showgirl (Zhang Ziyi) who is believed to be part of an underground group of rebel assassins called the House of Flying Daggers. So he pretends to be a confederate of hers, later "rescuing" her from prison and, while on the lam, letting her lead him straight to the House itself. For a while, that seems to be all the story there is to this film, a mere clothesline to hang numerous swordfighting and martial arts scenes on. Midway through, however, the first of many surprise twists occurs, and the plot, as they say, thickens. Although there's still plenty of room for more fight scenes - including an amazing sequence in a bamboo forest that's worth the price of admission alone. With this film, Zhang Yimou seems less interested in playing to a Western audience than he did when making Hero, his epic foray into what I'll call "flying swordfighter" cinema. (Probably because by the time Flying Daggers was made, Hero was a big hit in China but was still gathering dust on Western distributors' shelves.) Thus, it's not as slick or as large-scale a production, and the music and cinematography don't quite measure up to its predecessor. Zhang compensates by shooting Flying Daggers in gorgeous locations naturally glowing with late autumn color (almost the entire film takes place outdoors, in various forests) and, unfortunately, getting a bit too gaga with the computer effects and slow-motion. It lacks Hero's class, so instead it attempts to be your basic Hong Kong film - Kaneshiro and costar Andy Lau are HK mainstays, and the twisty-turny plot, trite dialogue and high melodrama feel right at home with most every other HK action picture. Once in a while it reminds you that it's a Zhang Yimou film, however, and he infuses the mostly by-the-numbers proceedings with his trademark sensuality. Then there's that fantastic central performance by Zhang Ziyi, whose luminous presence makes up for the often stiff, hammy Kaneshiro and Lau. Given a better script, the two Zhangs could have made something transcendent. But a shallow storyline - credited to Zhang Yimou and his Hero cowriters - and two game but uninspired male leads ultimately keep House of Flying Daggers earthbound.

HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG (US, Vadim Perelman)
Northern California, the late 80's: Jennifer Connelly is Kathy, a recovering alcoholic who discovers one morning that her house is being repossessed by the county to be sold at auction, due to a bureaucratic mistake that she did not notice or fix in time. Ben Kingsley is Behrani, a former colonel for the Shah of Iran who escaped Khomeini with his family to seek a better life in the United States. When Kathy's house comes up for auction, the money that Behrani has saved working two humiliating jobs is finally put to use, and he snaps up the house immediately. What follows is an indictment of both pride and prejudice on both sides, as we are made to sympathize with both Kathy and Behrani's family, even while they refuse to budge. You can tell from the start that bad things are bound to ensue, but fortunately House of Sand and Fog never becomes mawkish or melodramatic. It's not irritating, either: I mention this because sometimes tragedies that unfold due to the pigheaded actions of its characters are so painful to watch that you almost feel like leaving the theatre. But Connelly and especially Kingsley are so right in their roles that you understand the justification behind their actions, instead of merely shaking your head and saying "Oh no, you idiot..." That's not to say House of Sand and Fog is a flawless film. Far from it. The supporting cast is unfortunately weak (especially Ron Eldard as a rookie cop who falls in love with Kathy and whose actions really are at the center of the story), the dialogue is somewhat stilted and Perelman applies his visual symbolism - birds, blood, water - a little heavily. Worst of all is a completely unnecessary plot device (apparently not in Andre Dubus's original novel) where Kathy's mom is due to visit in two weeks. It's meant to add a "deadline" element, but only distracts - there's no way all that happens in the story can take place within two weeks! Anyway, Roger Deakins's cinematography is breathtaking - the fog-shrouded Northern California coast never looked so good - and even the usually overbearing James Horner composes a score that is restrained and bittersweet. A mixed bag, but I can't emphasize enough how strong Kingsley's performance is. It's far better than Sean Penn's more-lauded turn in Mystic River. And it may seem strange to add, but Connelly is sexier in this film than she's been in ages.

THE HULK (US, Ang Lee)
What a strange specimen, this picture. Ang Lee set out to make The Hulk look like a living comic book without thinking that maybe a movie should look like a movie instead. His hyperactive use of split-screens, zoom cuts and superimposed shots suggests that he's trying to compensate for an unpolished script. It's as though the film's comic book veneer should somehow make us forgive its story's plot holes and contrivances by playing up the outlandishness of it all. But The Hulk is so serious most of the time that this method falls flat, and the editing effects become more of a distraction than an enhancement. You know the story: scientist Bruce Banner (Eric Bana, somewhat generic in his U.S. starring debut) gets pounded by gamma rays and becomes a super-strong green monster whenever he gets angry. Here, Lee and company (including frequent collaborator, screenwriter/producer James Schamus) invent a reason for Banner's inner rage, a - ho-hum! - repressed memory of something horrible that happened to his mother when he was a child. Do we really need to dredge up this tired old plot device again? Does it ever add much to a film? Even when the suspicious dad turns out to be a manic Nick Nolte, the story just doesn't feel like it needs him. But then there's not much else to do other than listen to Banner mope while Jennifer Connelly plays another Endlessly Supportive Love Interest (shame on Lee, who usually has strong female characters in his films). Meanwhile, the audience waits impatiently for the scenes where Banner "Hulks out" and starts smashing up stuff, which are fun. A sub-plot about an industrialist trying to bottle the Hulk's radiated powers provides more comic book kick, but it's over well before the film is, and we're left with a confusing tension between Bana and Nolte which culminates in an extended confrontation scene that for all intents and purposes is filmed theater. Very weird. The Hulk is a mishmash of realism, psychedelia and computer animation with a surprisingly (for a Hollywood picture) hallucinatory tone that reminds me less of Lee's obvious models King Kong and Frankenstein than of Ken Russell's Altered States. The filmmaker, and his cast and crew, seem totally at sea here. Worth viewing only for the curious.

HUMPDAY (US, Lynn Shelton)
Ben (Mark Duplass) is a thirtysomething Seattleite whose party days are long behind him and who has a normal job, a house, and a loving wife (Alycia Delmore). One night his hippieish old pal Andrew (Joshua Leonard) shows up unannounced at 2am, and before Ben knows it, Andrew's made some new "friends" in town and is dragging him to an all-night party. Drunk, and trying to look as with-it as the bisexual hipsters they're hanging out with, Ben and Andrew announce that they, two thoroughly heterosexual men, are going to have sex with each other for an amateur porn video festival in town. The rest of writer/director Lynn Shelton's funny and knowing film is about how Ben, Andrew, and Ben's wife deal with this, once the guys decide to go through with it even after sobering up. Here I must stress that there is not a note of homoeroticism in this entire film: Ben and Andrew are kind of doughy and not at all attracted to each other. Shelton's after larger prey, and what she does is something akin to magic: she takes a farcical, over-the-top concept and treats it with absolute sincerity. There isn't a single disingenuous second in this film, partly due to the improvised-sounding dialogue and the fact that Shelton and her cast treat their characters with sympathy and respect. These people are smart, likable and self-aware. Shelton has made a chamber comedy (there are only five speaking parts in the whole film) that manages to cover a lot of ground: not just squeamishness over gay male sex (which is actually a very minor element) but male fears of aggressive female sexuality, fear of growing up and becoming boring, the shame of calling yourself an artist when you never finish anything you start, and most of all, the pressure to be as hip as humanly possible (which is especially a fact of life in Seattle - the "Humpfest" that they're entering is based on an actual event up there - where the white urban culture is rife with mockery, self-conscious irony, and an exhausting cooler-than-thou attitude. There's no way this story could take place in Los Angeles or even in New York). Humpday is like a (much) talkier and more ribald version of Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy, another recent film made by a woman about two men in the Pacific Northwest whose paths have diverged after what was once a close friendship. Old Joy is an interesting film, but it's nowhere near as entertaining or as thought-provoking as Humpday. Shelton and her cast have perfectly captured what it means to be liberal and in your thirties in 2009. If this describes you, then you really need to see this film.

THE HURT LOCKER (US, Kathryn Bigelow)
Almost unbearably tense thriller about an American bomb disposal unit during their last month or so in Baghdad, when a reckless new commander (Jeremy Renner) is called in to replace their beloved leader (Guy Pearce) who is killed in action. An apolitical drama about Iraq in 2004, The Hurt Locker is hard to classify even as a war movie. Although there are a few scenes of soldier bonding and soldier resentment, this is primarily a you-are-there experience, with one taut, gripping set piece after another. This is a relentlessly suspensful film, and Bigelow and her editors do a truly masterful job at keeping us on the edges of our seats. The cast, namely Renner and his equally undercelebrated costar Anthony Mackie (as a by-the-books Army sergeant), contribute flawlessly realistic performances. Renner's character is an adrenaline junkie who thinks nothing about walking into a war zone to diffuse deadly IEDs, but the actor grounds him in reality. This is a far cry from Tom Cruise in Top Gun. He, Bigelow, and screenwriter Mark Boal understand that it takes a very particular sort of person to want to go into bomb disposal, and so the character feels as authentic as the film itself. What surprised me most about The Hurt Locker is that, despite the thrills it provided during the two hours that I watched it, I've actually been thinking about it a lot afterward. It doesn't seem like the sort of film to give you much to think about, but it's so well made that it practically implants the memory of going to war into the viewer's head. I highly recommend the film - even to those who, like me, dislike war movies for the same reason they dislike horror movies. (I'm glad to report that despite the subject matter, there are no sudden loud noises designed to make you jump out of your seat. However, be warned that there is one distressingly gory scene involving a "body bomb".)