O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (US, Joel & Ethan Coen)
The Coen brothers make it clear from the start that they are adapting Homer's The Odyssey with their Depression-era comedy about an escaped convict (George Clooney) who treks across the Southern U.S. with his simple-minded buddies (John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson) to get home to his wife, which should be a clue: ever the tricksters, if the Coens are telling you that they're basing their story on The Odyssey, it's no surprise that they're pulling your leg. Their "adaptation" is only a goofy pastiche of various elements from the classic poem, rearranged and mixed up with the typical Coen murk.

In fact this could easily be called a "Typical Coen Bros. Movie," much like their equally disappointing The Hudsucker Proxy. All the usual elements are here: crisp cinematography by Roger Deakins, exquisite period detail, pitch-perfect cast, wacky dialogue heavy on the vernacular, mystical characters, moronic characters, cruel jokes, vague allusions to things never explained, and familiar faces from the Coen Kingdom (Turturro, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, etc.). But is there a point? Nope! O Brother, Where Art Thou? (the title is lifted from the "serious" film Joel McCrea hopes to make in Preston Sturges' 1942 classic Sullivan's Travels) is clever but empty, a meaningless exercise in style. Some laughs, some fine performances, but generally unsatisfying, especially in the last act. However, I highly praise their liberal usage of American folk songs of the time; there are so many song cues, in fact, that one could almost call this film a musical! I've gotta hand it to the Coens: throughout their films they mine the riches of folk treasures to great effect. They must have fantastic record collections. I just hope that, for their next feature, they cut the smugness. Whenever they do that, as with Fargo and Blood Simple, they come up with a classic.

O'HORTEN (Norway, Bent Hamer)
Sweet little comedy, dry as a bone, about a train engineer named Odd Horten (Baard Owe) and the mild trouble he gets into after he retires from his job. Hamer gave us the similarly gentle Kitchen Stories and seems to have a fondness for the archetypal elderly Norwegian bachelor, stoic and silent but graced with a soft good humor. Lovingly shot and rich with detail, O'Horten may be the sort of film you could take your granny to (although there is mild profanity and even fleeting nudity), but somewhere among its episodic adventures is a quiet sadness about growing old and feeling left behind by the rest of the world. Worth a view, especially on a hot summer day (the story takes place during a typically freezing Norwegian winter).

OLDBOY (South Korea, Chan-wook Park)
Fantastically insane revenge melodrama about a man in his forties (Min-sik Choi in a delirious performance) who, after being held captive in a cell-like room for fifteen years, is suddenly and mysteriously released. His goal: To find out who had incarcerated him for so long, and why. To reveal anything further would be criminal, for one of Oldboy's joys is its twisty turny plot. The story itself confuses at times, but one by one, the odd kinks work themselves out, even though they require the audience to believe in a little mumbo-jumbo, and even as the film's ultimate moral remains obscure. Much has been said about this film's so-called ultraviolence - there was a minor uproar when it won the Jury Grand Prix at Cannes in 2004, thanks to a festival jury headed by none other than Quentin Tarantino - but it's overblown. I've seen far worse in most Scorsese movies. Outside of one gruesome dental torture scene and some grisly theatrics at the end of the film, the cruelty in Oldboy is all psychological. (Indeed, I have not seen so much pure sadism outside of Lars von Trier's canon.) But Park handles the dark, sometimes sickening proceedings with grace: There is little flash and dazzle to the film, its physical violence muted, its pace often quiet, its visual look - carefully composed shots, long takes - very much in line with the classical stylistics of Asian cinema. But in the middle of it all you have Choi's wild, take-no-prisoners performance as a man suffering from endless quantities of dementia. In the end, Oldboy winds up turning the goals of the revenge film on its ear, becoming more about the meaning of sacrifice than the worth of vengeance. It's not a great film, but it may be an influential one. (The American remake is already in the works - hooray for Hollywood.)

OLD SCHOOL (US, Todd Phillips)
Harmless though uninspired comedy about three guys in their thirties (Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell) who start a college fraternity as a way of recapturing the wild spirit of their younger days. Sort of. This is just a lame "high concept" plot, actually; a mere clothesline on which to hang a bunch of rather ordinary gags and slack Animal House rehashes. I have two fundamental problems with Old School: First, I saw the trailer too many times, and most of the funny bits were in that; second, none of these actors is leading man material. Wilson ostensibly holds the central role, but - though he seems like a nice guy - he doesn't have much onscreen charisma. He could be anybody. Vaughn and Ferrell ply their respective fast-talking cynic/unbalanced goofball schticks, and they certainly seem at ease doing so, but there's nothing new here. Too bad, since Phillips's previous comedy, Road Trip, surprised me. Its cast of mostly unknowns seemed to click more as a unit, especially DJ Qualls's transcendent performance as the geeky virgin. That, and some tighter, riskier jokes, lifted Road Trip a few notches above your average college comedy. Old School, on the other hand, maintains that average. The only bit that made me laugh was the wedding singer (Dan Finnerty) who spiced up his version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" with a few choice vulgarities. Now that's funny.

ONCE (Ireland, John Carney)
Simple, sweet-natured movie about a poor Dublin singer-songwriter (Glen Hansard) who has a chance encounter with a Czech piano player (Marketa Irglova) and winds up playing music with her, writing songs with her - and maybe falling a little in love with her. Shot digitally on a shoestring budget, Once has already become one of the sleeper hits of 2007. Perhaps the ladies in the audience swoon for the rough but gentle Hansard and his aching love songs: one thing that makes Once stand out is that writer/director Carney - who was in a band with Hansard - allows his characters to sing their songs in their entirety. So in many ways, Once is an old-fashioned musical. But how much you like it depends, I think, on how much you dig Hansard's music - he's an actual singer/songwriter, and what you hear in Once is his own work. Personally, I didn't hate it, but I didn't find it particularly memorable either. Basic troubadour-in-pain stuff that I've heard a million times from aspirants who clog the small clubs in Los Angeles. But he does have a certain easy-going charisma, as does the elfin Irglova. I understand the two have played music together for some time now, and while their real-life friendship makes for some good musical chemistry, I couldn't really buy any sort of romance kindling between them. Still, as they're non-actors, their work is natural and honest, and Carney's quiet direction never goes limp. (The film's short running time may help.) Once is a nice little movie. I just don't think it's one of the best films of the year or anything like that. Only creepout: Hansard is fully eighteen years older than Irglova.

ONE (US, Tony Barbieri)
Nearly three years after its debut at Sundance, One has finally been allowed to briefly grace a few U.S. movie screens, and if it comes to your town, I urge you to see it. It's a shining example of what American independent cinema is supposed to be about. Artful, original and unsentimental, One might be better titled Two, focusing as it does on the friendship of two lonely, ordinary San Francisco guys: Charlie (cowriter Jason Cairns, looking like a young Christopher Walken), who has just been released from prison and hopes to rebuild his life, and his only buddy Nick (Kane Picoy), a proud loser with a fresh mouth who still lives with his parents and fights with his regret over blowing his chance at being a major league baseball player.

One is an affecting character study told with grace, sensitivity and style. It's not perfect, but it's clearly made with love. The supporting cast is wholly believable, and Barbieri is a clear-eyed director who has great respect for his audience. His second film The Magic of Marciano has been completed, but alas it will probably also face an uphill battle in getting seen. The curse of being an honest filmmaker, I suppose.

ONE HOUR PHOTO (US, Mark Romanek)
Much-hyped change-of-pace for Robin Williams, who plays Sy Parrish, a pathologically lonely man who works for the local SavMart (think Target) at the one-hour photo counter and has developed an obsession with what he deems to be the, um, picture-perfect family: the Yorkins (Michael Vartan, Connie Nielsen and Dylan Smith as their 9-year-old son). The Yorkins have been bringing in their photos for years, and Sy always makes sure to keep extra copies of each photo for himself, with which he proudly fills up one wall of his otherwise empty apartment. I suspected that this film would quickly fall into the same old trap of lonely-weirdo-gets-involved-with-wonderful-family thrillers such as The Stepfather, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Fatal Attraction, etc. in that Parrish would eventually go nuts and start killing people, only to finally be offed in the end by our reluctant father figure - you know the drill. But writer/director Romanek (heretofore best known for making Nine Inch Nails videos) subverts our expectations at the very beginning, where we see that Parrish has been arrested, is unharmed, and doesn't seem to have killed anybody. This shrewdly shifts the focus off the story and onto the character, which is all One Hour Photo is about: it's a portrait of a singular individual that gives Robin Williams a chance to finally inhabit a non-Robin Williams like character for once. He all but disappears behind the bleached hair, pilot frames and nerdy clothes, and mostly keeps his portrayal restrained. Of course Parrish does eventually go nuts, which anybody could tell from the tell-all preview, but Romanek stays true to the character and doesn't make Parrish a sudden expert in firearms or torture or anything. He remains entirely a pathetic creature. There are moments when I wish Williams could have kept himself restrained all the way through: the final scene - which I'm not giving away - does explain why Parrish is who he is, but Williams plays it far too actorly, and there are other moments where he activates the tear ducts, and those moments deflate rather than enrich his characterization: Sy Parrish is a lot creepier, and sadder, and more real, when he merely stares off into space. Anyway, despite Romanek's music video training, he doesn't smother his story in fancy visuals, though he seems rather overfond of sterile white environments. It's as though Sy Parrish lives in his own private Kubrick film. That said, the multiplex crowd will be disappointed in the lack of a blood bath, and in fact the film isn't scary or even suspenseful at all. So if you're looking for any of that, look elsewhere. And the story doesn't fully satisfy, due to its too-frequent lapses in logic (i.e. if somebody is fired from their job, do you really think they would still be allowed keys to the workplace?). It's merely an interesting character study, giving Robin Williams a chance to finally convince the moviegoing public that he has range. The film doesn't offer much more than that, but then it doesn't really need to.

127 HOURS (US/UK, Danny Boyle)
Boyle's follow-up to his Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire is the true story of hiker Aron Ralston (James Franco), who was trapped in a Utah canyon, his right hand pinned by a fallen boulder, for five days until he took extreme measures to get himself out. It should be no surprise that the two reasons to see this film are Franco's honest (as usual) performance and Boyle's inventive (as usual) direction. The film is ostensibly a one-man show, but unlike the vaguely similar Buried, Boyle sees no need to have all of the action take place within his protagonist's claustrophobic surroundings, and instead he (and cowriter Simon Beaufoy) loot through Ralston's head much of the time, visually depicting the unlucky adventurer's every delusion, desire, memory and hope as well as his physical struggles for survival. It's a gripping, funny, highly original piece, and if a scene or two may not be for the squeamish (you must have lived in a cave yourself over the past decade if you don't know how Ralston escaped), don't let that deter you from seeing the film. It's really good. And in the end, Ralston is depicted as both an everyman stuck in a grim, what-would-you-do situation and as a a particularly selfish adrenaline junkie who comes to accept his fate as something deserved. On a personal note, I found it interesting that Ralston became trapped on April 26, 2003 - my 33rd birthday. I remember the day well, as I was working on the audio mix for my feature Claustrophobia before heading out to dinner with a girl I was dating at the time. As the film takes detailed notes of the hour and date of nearly every scene, it was a strange reminder that as I was tooling away on my movie, Ralston was battling his boulder.

OSAMA (Afghanistan, Siddiq Barmak)
Well-meaning tragedy that ultimately feels like propaganda, Osama is notable mainly as being the first film made in post-Taliban Afghanistan (not that any films were probably made during the Taliban's joyless reign). Marina Golbahari stars as a nameless 12-year-old girl who, in order to make money to feed her widowed mother and grandmother, must shear her long locks and pose as a boy to get work. It's a dangerous task that winds up with the girl in a Taliban training camp, where she must hide her sex or face potential execution. As a drama, there is plenty of tension in this setup (the only boy at the camp who knows of her gender is the one who dubs her "Osama" - the significance of the name not unintentional), and so Osama is somewhat gripping, considering its slow pace. But it doesn't do much other than to point out the barbarities of the Taliban, which it does often heavy-handedly. It's made at a strange time, when officially the Taliban are no longer in power in Afghanistan, but when field reports clearly indicate that they still hold control over rural areas of the country, and in any event women are still mistreated and kept virtual prisoner despite the UN-friendly goals of the new Afghan government. So while President Bush urges Americans to watch Osama as sort of a rationale behind "why we fight," in the end the joke is on him, since the film's issues remain sadly relevant even after American forces invaded and the public eye shifted away. Nevertheless, there is a masochism inherent to Osama that had me feeling as hopeless as its young heroine. Call me a culturally ignorant American, but I can't believe that there isn't a whit of hope or strength in the women of Afghanistan.

THE OTHERS (US, Alejandro Amenábar)
Perhaps I was predisposed not to love this film. The story's setup - a repressed woman (Nicole Kidman) watching after two spooky kids in an English mansion that she believes may be haunted - feels awfully reminiscent of Henry James's classic novel The Turn of the Screw, which was adapted so memorably in one of my favorite films, 1961's The Innocents. But the similarities end there. Set on Jersey Island in the English Channel just after the end of World War II, Kidman plays a woman whose husband has disappeared on the battlefield and who dotes - punishingly - on her two sickly children, who have a rare allergy to sunlight that forces Mum to keep all the curtains closed and all the doors locked, so that they don't wander into the light and get themselves killed. It's a clever reversal on the old dark house formula: in this case, it's sunlight that's the danger. Enter a trio of mysterious house servants (led by Fionulla Flanagan) who just happen to walk by the house looking for work, and just happen to have worked at that house long before Kidman and her brood moved in. Sound fishy? Well, just in case you aren't suspicious enough, Flanagan keeps saying portentous things like "Oh, there's going to be some surprises soon!" and "No no, don't tell her yet, she'll find out soon enough." As well as continuous hushed references to "What Happened That Day." But its sophomoric mystery is too heavy-handed, and unlike true psychological horror such as The Innocents, the characters only exist to serve the plot, which would have made a good "Twilight Zone" episode but isn't strong enough for big-screen treatment. Still, it's a good-looking film, and Amenábar and his Spanish crew evoke a creepy atmosphere. But see The Innocents if you can. If you're hoping to get spooked, that film is infinitely more satisfying.