KANDAHAR (Iran, Mohsen Makhmalbaf)
How time flies. Less than four months after the American attack on Afghanistan, I saw this couldn't-be-more-timely drama/documentary at a nearly-empty movie theatre. Perhaps lines would have formed around the block back in October, with audiences eager to learn more about the plight of the besieged Afghani people, but I guess the topic is now just so 2001. Too bad, because Kandahar is an intriguing film: surreal, bleak, eye-opening, and surprisingly objective. (Interestingly, half the dialogue is in English.) Exemplifying a common aesthetic in Iranian film - and Makhmalbaf is at the very center of current Iranian cinema - Kandahar is both fiction and nonfiction, following a Canada-based Afghani woman who is rushing to Kandahar as her depressed sister has written to say she will commit suicide at the next solar eclipse - in just three days. Along the way, the woman's journey takes on a documentary flair, as she encounters locals (all non-actors, many of them paraplegics thanks to land mines) who speak of their own troubles in their own tongue, and has a surprising encounter with an African American (a fictional character) who had come to Afghanistan to fight for the Islamic cause (remember, this film was shot more than a year before both the "War on Terror" and the discovery of John Walker Lindh) and later found that the best way he could help was by providing elementary medical assistance to the malnourished and uneducated people of the region. Despite its grim setting, Kandahar is visually stunning, with sun-drenched desert landscapes contrasting with the textural close-ups of dusty burkas and cracked hands. Among one of its most bizarre and unforgettable scenes is one in which a passing airplane drops several pairs of parachute-borne prosthetic legs into the desert, while dozens of legless men hobble furiously over on crutches to beat each other to the prize. Kandahar, like its heroine, wanders a bit, and the completely open-ended finale may put off viewers mistakenly expecting closure, but it's still worthwhile viewing - and not just as Current Affairs homework.

THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE (US, Nanette Burstein, Brett Morgen)
Glitzy memoir (I can't really call it a documentary) about Robert Evans, a legendary figure in Hollywood who, in short order, progressed from retailer of ladies' pants to clean-cut movie star to studio executive who single-handedly saved Paramount Pictures from ruin to an independent producer living the fast life to a tragic figure befelled by scandal, drugs and failure. Evans is undoubtedly a fascinating, Jay Gatsby-like character, fueled as much by hubris as by instinct, who has experienced highs and lows that few others will ever glimpse. Of course this film about his rise and fall (and reputed "rise" again, though the films he's produced in the past decade - stinkers like Sliver and Jade - don't hold a candle to the undisputed classics he produced in his prime, including Chinatown and The Godfather) is a big hit amongst the film industry crowd in Los Angeles. But will anybody who doesn't have a thorough education in how the studio system changed from the 1950's to the 1970's, or who isn't already aware of Evans's significance in the rise of the independent producer during that time, really "get" The Kid Stays in the Picture? Who knows? I myself felt frustrated that the film mostly skims the surface, trying to cram too much into too little time (less than five minutes are spent discussing the making of The Godfather, and the story only touches on Evans's years-long battle with cocaine, or his involvement with the notorious Cotton Club murder case). But it's entertaining on a splashy level: The filmmakers sure got their money's worth out of their Adobe AfterEffects license, filling nearly every frame with visual tricks. There are no tired talking heads here, just energized stills, fascinating archival clips, and gorgeous tours through Evans's seemingly haunted mansion, with Evans's own voiceover (taken from the audio book of the same title) our only guide. The effect is of viewing a chunk of Hollywood history through the eyes of one man alone. The film would be better experienced as just one part of a larger documentary look at the films and the era that Evans helped create; as it stands, the only thing that really impressed me about Robert Evans is how the man owes his entire career to the kindness of strangers and several spectacularly well-timed lucky breaks.

KILL BILL, VOL. 1 (US, Quentin Tarantino)
So Quentin Tarantino is back. Was he really missed? The reason his earlier work was so interesting was due to his writing partner Roger Avary. Once the two split ways after Pulp Fiction, the little that Tarantino wrote alone was either god-awful (From Dusk to Dawn, anyone?) or saved by good source material (Jackie Brown, which was little altered from the original novel Rum Punch by the incomparable Elmore Leonard). Finally, it seems to me that Tarantino is admitting that his true talent is not as a writer (or, God help us, an actor) but as a director. He knows how to have fun with genre, can direct iffy actors pretty well, and rips off his ideas from the best. So we basically get two hours of revenge-obsessed Uma Thurman tracking down the team of assassins who left her for dead on her wedding day, and killing everybody she can in the process. Buckets of blood, a deep bow to Asian trash cinema (including Sonny Chiba, Japanese schoolgirls and anime), a minimal amount of (stiff) dialogue and Tarantino's trademark nonlinear storytelling is what you get here. One big live action video game, basically. However, though it wasn't as exciting as it could have been, I didn't find all the Samurai swordplay that tiring; in fact, I rather wish Miramax had put out Kill Bill as one four-hour epic instead of splitting it into two separate movies. That way at least I could write a more informed review. All the same, I can at least state, with certainty, that Tarantino, composer RZA and various music supervisors have come up with a sophisticated soundtrack of obscure, strange and compelling tracks, leagues ahead of Pulp Fiction's aren't-I-a-clever-hipster soundtrack.

KILL BILL, VOL. 2 (US, Quentin Tarantino)
What's interesting about the release of this picture is that everybody's going around saying how much better it is than Kill Bill, Vol. 1 - i.e. how there is more character and plot development, more story. Well, duh, folks, that's because it's the second half of one long film. Take any movie, cut it in two, release the first half six months before the second, and people will say the same thing. The funny thing is, the claim of Vol. 2 being more satisfying is both right and wrong. In one sense, yes, the whole story finally kicks in and we get to know more about the vengeful Bride (the asexual but game Uma Thurman) and her love/hate relationship with the titular Bill (David Carradine, who gets a lot of screen time in Vol. 2 and proves himself, after all these years in a lackluster career noted mainly for the silly TV series "Kung Fu," to be a strong, charismatic performer). On the other hand, the nearly nonstop action found in Vol. 1 now takes a back seat to Tarantino's typical talkathons. Which is what, aside from a few too-short fight sequences and several moments of pure sadism that are fun, in a sick way, Vol. 2 is made of. And that's my main problem with Quentin Tarantino: whether he's being interviewed or he's putting words on a page, the guy just doesn't know when to shut up. I'll have to retract what I said in my review of Vol. 1: I am glad this saga was split into two separate movies. It would have been excruciating to sit through a single four-hour Kill Bill. There's still a lot of good times to be had: an extended flashback scene where Thurman is being trained by a kung fu master is charmingly 70's Hong Kong film-style cheesy, and adds much-needed life to the moribund proceedings. Daryl Hannah also goes to town with one of the meanest, nastiest characters Tarantino has ever written. (Both she and Carradine should be down on their knees, thanking their director for the opportunity.) But taken as a whole, Kill Bill is a mishmash. I do accept Tarantino's over-the-top love of B-movies and campy melodrama as being genuinely sincere, but I wish his work was more about these homages and less about his smirking, ponderous dialogue exchanges. That said, the very worst thing about Kill Bill, Vol. 2 is the appalling puffiness of Michael Madsen's face.

THE KING IS ALIVE (Denmark, Kristian Levring)
The fourth of the official Danish "Dogme 95" films - where the director is to adhere to a cinematic "vow of chastity" that includes no artificial lighting, post-production soundwork, non-handheld camera, and so on - and the first in English (the cast is mostly British unknowns and American semi-knowns including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Janet McTeer, Bruce Davison and the late Brion James, looking indeed very close to death here), Levring's psychodrama could be written off entirely as a pretentious exercise if it weren't for the gritty immediacy inherent in the Dogma style and the earnest - if variable - performances of its cast.

A busload of tourists is stranded in the middle of an African desert, seeking shelter in an abandoned mining town as they await help that may or may not ever come. As the group becomes literally bored out of their minds, the crusty old British actor among them begins transcribing Shakespeare's King Lear from memory, suggesting to his fellow castaways that they might as well put on the play. Their reactions to his idea are mixed - to say the least. However, though this would seem the central axis of the story, ultimately it comes off as just an artsy, mildly interesting subplot. The characters are too busy breaking up, breaking down, lusting for each other and screaming. Which is the main problem with The King Is Alive: it neglects to establish any of its characters, or their relationships to each other, before it tears them apart. So we're left rather coldly observing these unlikeable souls' random acts of cruelty and madness, without the benefit of having been introduced to them first as actual people. However, Levring deserves some credit for his exotic location (and its naturally beautiful light), as it makes a great case for shooting on digital video: I found the quality of the projected film transfer to be nearly as good as if it were shot on 35mm film. But that's just a technical note. If you want to see a Dogma film, check out the far superior The Celebration.

KING KONG (US, Peter Jackson)
Though I haven't seen the original 1933 King Kong since I was a kid - and even so, I'm not sure if I sat through the whole thing - after watching Peter Jackson's epic 2005 remake, I gained a belated respect for the boldness of Ernest B. Schoedsack's and Merian C. Cooper's vision: at a time when the "talkies" were still new and most directors were basically making filmed stageplays, these two not only delivered a grand adventure with then-cutting edge special effects, they also gave us a story (Cooper cowrote the script with prolific author Edgar Wallace, who died during production) unmatched in its perverse novelty: A giant ape falls in love with a beautiful woman! The spectacle captured Depression-era America's imagination and became a huge box office success. Updating this classic has been a labor of love many years in the making for Peter Jackson. A fan of the 1933 film as a child, his first stab at a Kong remake fell apart nearly a decade ago. But after the success of his Lord of the Rings trilogy, the studios gave Jackson carte blanche to make anything he wanted. Thus his dream of bringing King Kong back to life is now our reality.

What I like about this Kong is what I liked about the Lord of the Rings movies: awesome special effects; inspired, if offbeat, casting; exciting action sequences; a genuine sense of humanity. But as with the Rings trilogy, Kong never engaged me emotionally. For me the movie is just too big, too busy, and - most notably - too damn long. Even Jackson has joked that he took three hours to tell the same story that Schoedsack and Cooper told in 100 minutes. Since Jackson's stated goal was to simply enhance the original story with the slickest CGI money can buy in order to appeal to contemporary audiences, I wonder if he really felt he needed an extra 80 minutes to do it. The Rings films earned their three-hour lengths, as J.R.R. Tolkien's books gave Jackson so much ground to cover. King Kong's source material, in comparison, is ultra-lean: Movie director discovers struggling actress, takes her to uncharted island to make an adventure picture, she is kidnapped by natives and is offered to a big ape who falls in love with her, the ape is captured and taken to New York, he goes nuts, climbs the Empire State Building, airplanes shoot him down, "It was beauty killed the beast," The End. (I hope I haven't spoiled it for any of you, but I think everybody's familiar with the monkey on top of the skyscraper.) Jackson's film is never really boring, but it is exhausting. From the start, every scene seems to go on for twice as long as it should. It's self-indulgent. And whether this is because Jackson's gotten used to making epic-length features (and because studios will let him get away with same) or because he loved this story so much that he couldn't tear himself away from it, either way he needed somebody to tap him on the shoulder and say "Cut back, Peter, cut back." Especially with the endless fight scenes involving scary dinosaurs and squirm-inducing giant insects on Skull Island. Jackson ignores a huge chunk of story - that is, how the humans manage to capture Kong, get him on a boat and make their way back to New York - and yet finds the time to establish a Fellowship of the Ring-like collection of characters who explore the island, fight valiantly and often die, only to disappear by the third act. (The segue from Skull Island to Manhattan is abrupt and awkward.) But I still liked this movie all right. I'm no fan of James Newton Howard's bland score (God only knows why Jackson fired his first composer, Howard Shore, who scored the Rings films), but the production values are flawless and the cast - especially Naomi Watts - is fine. Credit is due once again to "digital actor" Andy Serkis, who truly brings Kong to life and makes the ape the most fascinating and subtle character in the film, as he did with his interpretation of Gollum in the Rings series. Peter Jackson owes this man his life. Not that Jackson hasn't held up his end of the deal: perhaps because these two characters are 100% digital, he's invested the bulk of his creative energies into making them so human that they wind up upstaging their flesh-and-blood costars. Which makes the long wait for Kong's appearance in this film all the more exasperating. If The Lovely Bones is in fact Jackson's next film, let's hope he keeps it under two hours and fires all his animators.

THE KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS (US, Seth Gordon)
Crowd-pleasing documentary about two adult men in the 21st century who battle it out for the world record in the 1981 arcade classic Donkey Kong. Gordon skews the facts a little to give us the year's best screen villain: Billy Mitchell, the appallingly arrogant ubergeek who had held the record since 1982 (and is also the world champion in several other arcade games, including Pac Man). Mitchell, with his silly patrotic ties, country-star long hair and sleazy self confidence, is the type of guy you just want to see lose, and lose big. And who better to steal his crown than the quiet, even-tempered Steve Wiebe, who took up Donkey Kong in college and who, after losing his job, racks up a score to threaten Mitchell's comfortable lead? These two polar opposites (they even come from opposite corners of the country: Mitchell from Hollywood, Florida, Wiebe from Redmond, Washington) make for great drama as they struggle to outdo each other - even if they never officially meet. And while the film doesn't exactly lead up to The Big Ultimate Contest - this is reality we're talking about, after all - there's still lots of great suspense as to see what will happen and who will come out on top. (Of course, the real world continues even after the film concludes, and the Donkey Kong record is still trading off between the two gamers - so I'm not spoiling the ending exactly.) What The King of Kong is really about, however, is geek exclusivity. We've all seen those high school comedies where the hero - an outcast at school - has to outwit scores of bullying jocks and/or cheerleaders in order to realize his or her potential. But those high school outcasts often grow up to be incredibly mean, incredibly cliquish adults, far worse than their former tormentors. And such is the world of the video game record holders, a collection of superdorks straight out of central casting who have crowned Billy Mitchell their king, and gleefully do his bidding. Enter the outsider, Wiebe (whose name the powerful arcade referee refuses to pronounce correctly), an ordinary enough guy who himself played sports in high school and was likely a frat boy, and who tries to infiltrate their tight-knit mob. The adolescent coldness with which these grown men treat Wiebe is palpable, and for me - as a person forever trapped between the nerds and the norms - accurately capturing this sickening environment is The King of Kong's greatest achievement. And even if, in real life, Mitchell is as much of a caring family man as Wiebe, and Wiebe is as much of a competitive, obsessive freak as Mitchell, that doesn't distill the film's message, and I'll forgive Seth Gordon a little creative license.

KINSEY (US, Bill Condon)
Alas, not a movie about yours truly - that would be called Kinesy - this is the well-meaning if occasionally corny biography of Alfred Kinsey, the influential Indiana State University professor whose post-World War II interviews with ordinary Americans about their sexual practices blew apart countless old fashioned notions about sex in this country, and arguably opened the door to the Sexual Revolution of the 1960's. I went to this film with expectations that were, perhaps, too high. I felt a film about this man and his work could, if done right, encourage discussion and debate amongst current moviegoers about sex; for in today's America, as always, sex is something that everybody always thinks about but nobody ever talks about. So instead of learning more about each other, we have to settle with sensationalistic reports of celebrities' dalliances. Sad. Now, I'm as fascinated about people's sex lives as the next guy, but even amongst my closest friends, for all that we talk about, I know nothing about their sex lives. So let me take a moment and invite all those reading this review to contact me and tell me your stories. And I promise I'll share alike.

But we were talking about Kinsey. If I was disappointed in the film, it was not only by its surprisingly Hollywood sentiment (Alfred Kinsey was, if nothing else, totally unsentimental - and to be fair, Bill Condon writes his character, and Liam Neeson enacts it, truthfully, showing a Kinsey who was monomaniacally devoted to his work, to the exclusion of any talk of love, morals or consequences) but by its overly ambitious drive to cram in every detail possible about Kinsey's life. This is a standard problem with most biopics. While Condon and his cast are open about exploring issues of the characters' sexuality - indeed, it would be criminal to make a film about the world's foremost sex researcher while ignoring his own sex life - the most interesting scenes, such as when we see Kinsey and his "unquestionably moral" team of researchers (Chris O'Donnell, Timothy Hutton and a typically great Peter Sarsgaard) become shall we say personally involved in their research (with their subjects, with each other's wives, and even, sometimes, with each other), are never fully examined, since Condon has to rush off to give his next history lesson. This is a consistent let-down: There seems to be exactly one scene dealing with each aspect of Kinsey's life, and just as it starts to become something more than just a biopic, the story moves on. It's all the more frustrating because this is a well-made, entertaining and genuinely brave film. As a Hollywood filmmaker, Condon takes risks so assuredly that he clearly had a chance to explore deeper issues about sexuality and ethics, but he blew it, because he was too set on making a biopic. What might have worked beautifully would have been an approach similar to the great 1999 Japanese drama After Life. In that film, a number of the newly-dead are asked which one memory from their lives they would choose to take with them to Heaven. The cast of mostly non-actors start sharing their real memories, and the film plays out these interviews against the deepening story of the case workers assigned to these newly-dead. Kinsey could have been remarkable if the film simply consisted of Kinsey's interviews, contrasted with the man and his staff themselves, giving us a portrait of the complicated nature of sex, science, even the human condition, rather than wasting time showing Kinsey begging for money for his research. Instead, stretching for a cohesive storyline, Condon places it on Kinsey's glum relationship with his puritan father (played by John Lithgow with an almost cartoonish animosity towards his son). Ho-hum. I thought we were finally beyond the old "Blame the Screwed-up Parent" approach to explaining a character's psychology. Talk about old fashioned!

KITCHEN STORIES (Norway/Sweden, Bent Hamer)
In the late 1940's, a Swedish research institute seemingly hell-bent on collecting the most random data about Scandinavian household behavior sends a squad of researchers into rural Norway to study the kitchen habits of old Norwegian bachelors. The one rule the researchers must follow is to never interact with their "hosts": they must simply sit in the corner of the room (in ridiculous high chairs), observe silently, and take extensive notes on what they see. Tomas Norström is Folke, the hapless researcher who is assigned the cantankerous Isak (Joachim Calmeyer), a man of few words who regrets having volunteered for the study and who decides to sabotage it. It's inevitable that the ice will eventually melt between these two oddballs, but Kitchen Stories is more than just a tale of friendship and loneliness. It is also a whimsical literalization of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (that simply by observing something, you alter its "natural" state) as well as a metaphor for the resentment Norwegians felt about Sweden's "neutral observer" status during World War II, while Norway was occupied by the Germans. The story touches on this painful subject only briefly (if eloquently), but it subtly pervades the entire film. Kitchen Stories is something your mother would like, which isn't a bad thing. An intimate comedy that provides its fair share of dry chuckles as well as a genuine tenderness, it's certainly worth a look. And I'm not just saying that because I'm half Norskie.

A KNIGHT'S TALE (US, Brian Helgeland)
Breezy romantic comedy/adventure set in Medieval Europe about a young peasant (Heath Ledger) who, aspiring to be a knight, pretends that he is of noble birth so that he can compete in royal jousting tournaments. Naturally he's good at what he does, falls in love with a hot babe, and has his goofy but well-meaning buddies to back him up when things get bad. Thinking it was going to be uninspired pap, I waited until it hit the $3 theatre before I saw it, but was pleasantly surprised at how entertaining it was. Sure it's formulaic, but it's forgiveable when you have a smart script (Helgeland served triple duty as director, writer and producer), a fine cast of fresh faces (particularly Paul Bettany as a rakish Geoffery Chaucer) and a confident approach. The movie's gimmick is that, along with its Medieval score (courtesy of ubiquitous composer Carter Burwell), it makes whimsical use of several 70's rock songs - sort of like a sketch for Moulin Rouge - and it works. There is such a thing as a Good Hollywood Movie, and A Knight's Tale is it. As I write this, it is just now leaving the cinemas and will surely be on video shortly. So watch it with your family after dinner or watch it on a "stay at home" date. Either way, everybody will have a good time.

K-19 THE WIDOWMAKER (US, Kathryn Bigelow)
Another of those films that I was in no rush to see (as I am no longer an employee of Paramount Pictures, I can no longer see Paramount releases such as this for free), but I was in Grangeville, Idaho at the time, cleaning out my late grandmother's house, and when you're in Grangeville for more than two days, you are desperate for things to do. And K-19 was the film playing at the Blue Fox, Grangeville's lone cinema. So there I was, watching K-19. And you know what? It's not bad. Too bad it bombed; I suppose Paramount's traditionally square programming tendencies are to blame. After all, why watch sexagenarian Harrison Ford in that creaky old genre, the submarine picture, when you can have Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man or Vin Diesel as XXX instead? That said, K-19 should be a strong video rental. Sort of a cross between Apollo 13 and Titanic, this is an intelligent account of the real-life 1961 incident in which a Soviet nuclear submarine, sent out to sea before it was truly seaworthy, encounters a potential meltdown with its nuclear core while edging precariously near the United States. When telling a true story like this, there's inevitably a certain lack of suspense since we all know the world didn't blow up in 1961. Yet Bigelow and her cast and crew manage to create a sense of "so how did they keep such a disaster from happening?" and there's enough tension to keep some people (like my sister) on the edges of their seats. Also, the bonus of staying true-to-life is that the film avoids most of the typical twists that an original screenplay might embrace. The truth is, as we know, often stranger than fiction - and a lot more unpredictable. The big problem with the film lies in its casting of Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson as Soviet sailors speaking with Russian accents. Though they and the rest of the cast limit their brogues to the occasional R-rolling (instead of sounding like Boris Badenov), it's still a decision that might distract some viewers from getting caught up in the story. Too bad, because Ford plays one of the more interesting characters of his career, one who actually grows and changes.

KNOCKED UP (US, Judd Apatow)
When The 40 Year Old Virgin came out in 2005, I was as surprised as everybody else at how good it was. I hate romantic comedies, and yet, despite its occasional flaws, I thought 40 Year Old Virgin was pretty terrific. So I was excited to see writer/director Judd Apatow's follow-up feature, the dreadfully titled Knocked Up. But while it's a decent, and occasionally quite funny, movie about ordinary people dealing realistically with an uncomfortable situation (career-minded beauty has a one night stand with a poor, ambitionless slob and gets pregnant), I found something lacking. Maybe it's leading lady Katherine Heigl, who is pretty and perky but thoroughly generic. Maybe it's leading man Seth Rogen (who owes his career to Apatow, a filmmaker who tirelessly champions Rogen's beefy talents in seemingly everything he produces, from the TV series "Freaks and Geeks" to Anchorman to Virgin and finally to Rogen's first starring role here) who, while amiable, doesn't have the star power that Steve Carell displayed in Virgin. Or maybe it's just that I could more readily identify with Virgin's clean-living, sensitive, sexually clueless dork than I can with Knocked Up's well-cast collection of perpetually stoned slackers. But while I didn't find anything strictly wrong with Knocked Up, there was nothing about it that bowled me over. I didn't laugh very much. I didn't feel very much. I didn't like any of the characters very much. I still think Hollywood comedies should aspire to match this film's honesty, bluntness, and willingness to give us fresh faces instead of Sandra Bullock for the 100th time. But for me that's like saying Willie Nelson is a good country singer. Like the legendary Nelson, Knocked Up is a very good entry in an otherwise unbearable genre of entertainment. There should be better romantic comedies being released, but there aren't, so if you must see one, it might as well be Knocked Up.

K-PAX (US, Iain Softley)
Or, Mork from Ork stars in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I didn't know much about this film before I saw it, except that Kevin Spacey plays a guy who may or may not be a visitor from outer space, Jeff Bridges plays the psychiatrist assigned to him, Spacey eats an entire banana, peel and all, and it would probably wind up being one of those life-affirming "dramedies." So I took a chance, figuring it could be stupid or it could be beautiful. Voila, it wound up the former. Actually, K-PAX (named after the planet Spacey says he's from) isn't really stupid, it's just a string of sequences that continually test the audience's willingness to suspend disbelief. For starters, the moment Spacey's character Prot (pronounced "Prote") bumps into a cop in New York's Grand Central Station and mentions that he's from another planet, he's handcuffed and whisked off to a well-funded psychiatric ward. This in a city full of thousands of mentally ill people dying on the streets! And of course the ward is populated by the kind of lovable, hygienic and articulate loonies we only see in movies. Nobody's soiling their pants or drooling or cutting themselves in this genteel sanitarium.

To make matters worse, the story doesn't know what it's trying to be. At first it seems like magic realism: we are shown, over and over, so many instances where Prot is obviously an alien - he can perform mathematical equations unknown to even America's brightest astrophysicists; he can communicate with dogs; he cures his fellow patients in a matter of days - that it seems silly for Bridges to keep insisting that Prot is actually a delusional human being. But then, in the time it takes to say "Aha! So there is something going on," Prot freaks out after an innocuous event at a party, and the good doctor decides to put him under hypnosis to find out who he really is. Why didn't he think of that earlier? Because, that's why. So then the film becomes another tiresome "psychoanalysis" picture, where the key to a character's inner turmoil can only be brought out by a clever shrink asking the right questions. We've seen it before - Good Will Hunting, Ordinary People, Spellbound (the Hitchcock film), etc. And as expected in this genre, Kevin Spacey gets to do lots of actorly over-emoting during his hypnosis sessions. The solution to the mystery of Prot's past is as predictable as it is implausible. Ho hum. Can't say much good for K-PAX. This is the kind of self-congratulatory Hollywood dreck tailor-made for Oscar nominations. See Jeff Bridges do the alien thing himself in Starman instead.

KUNG FU HUSTLE (Hong Kong, Stephen Chow)
Ah, I remember those halcyon days of the early 1990's, when, thanks to John Woo's The Killer, Hong Kong cinema had a surge of popularity here in the US. It wasn't uncommon to find HK movies playing in local cinemas or even having their own mini-festivals. Then the DVD arrived, and for Chinese and American fans alike, it became more sensible to simply buy the video for less than the cost of two movie tickets. As a result, not being much of a DVD-watcher myself, I missed out on the last ten years of Hong Kong cinema, Wong Kar-Wai notwithstanding. (The one film I did catch on DVD - Expect the Unexpected - is terrific.) So when Kung Fu Hustle came to town - mere months after its smash success in Hong Kong - and was actually playing in theatres, I rushed out to see it. The verdict? Well, despite huge advances in computer-aided visual effects, I fear not much has changed over the last decade for the martial arts comedy. You get the same mixed bag of juvenile humor, witty character performances, and occasionally superb effects-laden fight scenes, with a sometimes confusing storyline and assorted ridiculousness. The plot of Kung Fu Hustle, put as simply as possible, is about a small town in sorta-1930's China overrun by bloodthirsty gangsters, and the humble locals who turn out to be the butt-kicking Shaolin masters that save the town. I won't ruin anybody's fun by revealing the surprise heroes, as that's the bulk of the (thin) charm that the film draws upon. Writer/director/producer/star Stephen Chow, now a bigger box office draw in his native Hong Kong than Jackie Chan, employs plenty of sight gags - some sidesplittingly funny, others weak - and he's picked an eclectic mix of veterans and neophytes for his cast (Qiu Yuen as the belligerent Landlady being the most inspired choice - especially with only one other film to her name, a James Bond outing from 1974!). However, the film never amounts to anything more than an hour and a half of rampant silliness. Despite enjoying myself sporadically, I didn't find much more here than in the average Bugs Bunny cartoon - and Bugs Bunny cartoons only go on for seven minutes.

KUNG FU PANDA (US, Mark Osborne, John Stevenson)
Those of you reading this review along with my reviews for the concurrently-released The Happening and Bigger, Stronger, Faster may think I'm either a pathetic name-dropper or Mr. Connected. Because in a rare instance, I saw all three of these films on the same week, and all three had very dear friends of mine working on them at substantial levels. And you can't get much more substantial than director, so I was very excited to see my old CalArts chum Mark Osborne finally get a shot at directing a feature-length animated film. As a filmmaker, Mark's had his ups and downs over the years, and Kung Fu Panda is his chance to finally prove to the world what he's capable of. (Of course I won't neglect the contributions of veteran co-director John Stevenson.) And he is frankly the only reason I saw this film. Spoiled by the work of Pixar's crack story team, I've had little interest in the countless Dreamworks animated features that rely on celebrity vocal talents and anthropomorphized animals while letting us down with drab scripts. Kung Fu Panda's own screenplay, credited to no less than four writers, is a simple, harmless affair. It lacks the twists and turns of Pixar's famously fast-paced storylines, and for that the film doesn't quite achieve greatness. But the acting - meaning the animation of the characters, not the vocal work - is wonderful. The subtlety in the characters' expressions, and the detail and whimsy of the Hong Kong-inspired fight scenes, are absolutely top-notch. The backgrounds are breathtaking as well, especially on the big screen. I wasn't very impressed with the character design, and vocally the film is very much the Jack Black Show (which you may love or hate; I'm not a big fan of the man myself). The voicework of Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu and Seth Rogan adds nothing. I would have liked to have heard more Asian actors such as the very welcome James Hong and Randall Duk Kim. But I'm getting nit-picky. This is a cute film with some gorgeous visuals, I chuckled a few times, and mostly I hope its success will allow Mark to make films that are less studio-driven and more personal.