" Have you ever felt so overcome by a movie's mediocrity that you could manage little more than "It was OK" in response?

That's how I felt watching Edward Zwick's "Defiance." Don't get me wrong - it was fairly good. Given his resume of historical epics ("Glory," "The Last Samurai"), Zwick unsurprisingly achieves grand scope and bombast in this true story of four Belarusan Jewish brothers who arm themselves and shelter fellow Jews from invading Nazi forces. But the shallow arc of the story and its coarse treatment of the characters' moral adversity ultimately prevents "Defiance" from realizing any kind of significant weight.

True to Zwick's work, "Defiance" trades in moral ambiguity - or tries to. As the Bielski brothers reel from their parents' murder, their ambitions splinter. Tuvia (Daniel Craig) wants to help his people survive, while Zus (Liev Schreiber) wants blood. They go their separate ways when Tuvia dedicates himself to heading the forest sanctuary hiding a few hundred Jews, and Zus allies himself with the Soviet army. As their ambitions drift apart and realign, both Bielskis encounter challenges to their character that they don't always meet admirably.

"Defiance" fails to convince the audience that the Bielskis are much more than reckless brutes with an imbalanced sense of moral purpose. But the Bielskis don't work as antiheroes, either, simply because Zwick doesn't bother to sketch out the convictions of the characters - or define them except through mild opposition to each other. Zwick instead places the burden of reconciling the Bielskis' actions on the audience. Soon as it became obvious that there were no refined moral ambitions in "Defiance" - just a skillful assembly of historical epic tropes - I surrendered.

-David "

" I've already written in this blog about Clint Eastwood's latter 2008 film, "Gran Torino." Last week I watched his earlier work from last year, "Changeling," in which Angelina Jolie's indomitable Christine Collins nearly matches Eastwood's Walt Kowalski from "Torino" in strength of will. While that quality manifested as an outwardly offensive old-world grizzliness in Kowalski, it instead strengthens inspiring, if unexciting self-possession in Jolie's embattled Collins.

Late 1920s Los Angeles is beset by corruption in its police force, which unlawfully murders criminals and commits anyone else it deems troublesome to the madhouse. Several months after Collins' son is abducted, the police alert her that they found him. But Collins immediately realizes that the boy brought to her at the train station - before the press - is not her son.

Despite her appeals to Capt. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) with an overwhelming amount of physical evidence and witness testimony that her real son remains at large, the police insist that they found him in order to preserve whatever shreds of positive regard it enjoys from the public. Her only ally of power is the Rev. Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), who comforts Collins while adding her plight to his case against the police.

Jolie skillfully conveys Collins' restraint even when her most obvious arguments for her son's misidentification are met with blithe denial by Jones. Her situation elicits a "Cuckoo's Nest"-like incredulity at the conspired deception of others - namely the police, mental hospital staff and the people who believe their side of the story - and her inability to dissolve the lie.

Jolie's performance is pulled under a bit by the lackluster screenplay, which nails its historical notes at the expense of compelling dialogue. Collins comes off redundant in her pleas, and the forces opposing her are cast as so singularly evil an antagonist that the depth of the film's conflict doesn't evolve beyond standard good versus evil - despite Eastwood's efforts to will any more out of this true story.

-David "

" I guess it's standard to preface any review of "Watchmen" by answering whether the critic has read Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' graphic novel about government-disbanded superheroes being hunted down by a mysterious assailant in an alternate-timeline Cold War America threatened by nuclear holocaust. No, I haven't.

And in my brief visits to internet forums for discussing the movie, its defenders seem to use the graphic novel to sharpen whatever counterattack they have for critics: If you've read it and don't like it, you didn't get the novel; if you haven't read it, you couldn't possibly get the movie.

I've always resented any attachment of a work's artistic value to another work: Movies that are only good if you've read the book, video games only good if you've seen the films that inspired them, albums only good if you've heard the artist's last. This isn't to say one work can't enhance appreciation of another, but any art worth a damn stands on its own.

At any rate, "Watchmen" was awful on its own merits. Director Zack Snyder lends audiences no indication that he's wiped from his face the infantile drool inspired by his overuse of fluid, slow-motion violence punctuated by loud smacks and the visual of dismembered bodies (see: "300").

In "Watchmen," Snyder also spills an intellectual drool coaxed by the ethical dilemmas his disbanded superhero characters face. They talk - really seriously! - about sexual indiscretion and murdering innocents, but the script seems too swept up in the gravity of the subject matter to actually say anything of substance. The only appealing character in this regard was Rorshach (Jackie Earl Haley), whose relative moral simplicity and Eastwood-esque gruff was at least refreshing from the muttering Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) and the whimpering Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson).

Strangely though, watching this miserable film has motivated me to seek out the graphic novel.

-David "

" Just when I thought the Coen Brothers couldn't possibly come up with something worse than Old country I had the misfortune to watch Burn after Reading last night. I had the dry heaves half way through. The sad thing is people buy into this crap. "

" Prior to watching "Two Lovers" last week, all I'd known about the film was that it was Joaquin Phoenix's last - or so he proclaimed - and that shooting it somehow warped Phoenix into the hermetic, shuddering beard-o who freaked David Letterman out last winter.

Phoenix's foray into hip-hop at the expense of his film career would be hilarious if the waste of talent wasn't so frustrating. In "Two Lovers" more so than "Walk the Line" or any other movie on his resume, Phoenix inhabits his character with a marvelous complexity. His boyish but wounded manner around the titular two women keeps him a likeable guy even as he insensitively weighs his fortunes with the out-of-reach Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow) against the safer Sandra (Vinessa Shaw).

As Leonard Kraditor, Phoenix begins "Two Lovers" by plunging into the Sheepshead Bay to escape the heartbreak of a marriage poisoned by his and his wife's positive testing for Tay-Sachs Disease. But Leonard chooses to surface, and within days meets Michelle and Sandra. Whereas Michelle embraces Leonard as a friend and eventually seeks his advice about her affair with a married attorney, Sandra openly acknowledges her romantic feelings for Leonard. Before long he effortlessly begins dating Sandra, but his swelling feelings for Michelle - with whom he shares a mutual sense of maladjustment - command his heart's attention.

Gray's restrained direction skillfully shies from melodrama despite the mental calamity, unfaithfulness and unrequited affections at work in the three main characters. Both Shaw and Paltrow perform impressively under this minimalist approach, but Phoenix anchors the movie by charismatically melding Leonard's vulnerability with his victimization of Sandra and, to an extent, Michelle too.

When it comes to the end of Phoenix's film career, anyone who appreciates masterful acting is a victim too.

-David "

" New Wrath of Khan??? God I hope they really aren't going to try and do that remake. It would be sacrilege. Just like redoing planet of the Apes, some things just can't be or shouldn't be done. The recent Star Trek was alright, and it had its purpose because of the timeframe it represented. But when you have a proven commodity you don't screw around with it. Nothing disturbs me more than redoing classic films. Psycho for example. using the exact dialog without the sense of drama the original brought. But Wrath of Khan is a self standing classic. Any attempt to try and redo that would be like trying to redo Casablanca. Say it ain't so. "

" Remember when I weighed the pros and cons of converting my DVD library to Blu-ray last year? I said:

"...the process will be costly and even prolonged as I wait for each $30 movie to see new life on Blu-ray. Facing this process, I have to ask myself: Is it really worth a crisper picture and better sound? Is it worth the colossal headache that will strike with the next technological revolution, be it higher definition DVD or the ubiquity of movies on demand?"

I recently bought two movies newly released on Blu-ray, "Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" and "Ghostbusters." Since they push my Blu-ray library past 10, both titles will be referenced often as I reflect on my movie player upgrade (I also have a couple dozen Netflix Blu-ray viewings to draw upon in this discussion).

I'm still somewhat undecided whether the technical superiority of Blu-ray justifies the process of switching from DVD. There are certainly palpable enhancements to the viewing experience, and the sonic bombast of action sequences makes movies with more "kicksplode" like "The Dark Knight" and "Transformers" even more visceral. But the disparity between dialog and action is often far too wide to watch at one volume setting; either I cup my ear to hear a line or muffle it with a pillow when the violence ensues.

Visually speaking, newer movies like "No Country for Old Men" and "The Dark Knight" tend to impress more, though classic films such as "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" are realized with much more vividness in the picture. "Ghostbusters" and "Batman Begins," on the other hand, appeared faintly distinguishable from their DVD incarnations in depth of visual detail.

The in-picture menus that pop up while the film plays are a perk of the format. But the half-minute menu load times are an almost wholly counterbalancing headache. Even Blu-ray's biggest asset, its visual sharpness, is barely distinguishable to casual movie viewers I've hosted at my house.

At least it plays video games too.

-David "

" Bigal,

How did "The Wrestler" seem like a comedy?

-David "

" After purchasing "the Wrestler" on pay for view this weekend my first comment was "How glad I am I didn't go pay to see this joke at the movies". Certainly a Hollywood tribute to an actor that never deserved acclaim in the first place. But as a wrestling fan for decades I was really disappointed. This seemed like a comedy. Really. I cannot remember watching a supposed "great" movie that disappointed me more than the Wrestler.
I know one thing. There ain't gonna be no rematch. "

" Gforce was fun and a great family outing. Can't tell you when I had a better time at the movies. Certainly better than seeing any of the past years AA nominees. "

" Stoner comedies almost always have two things in common: They're funny and they're about marijuana, or at least in part. What separates the good stoner comedies from the bad is whether the filmmakers invite the impression that they wrote or filmed the movie while high.

Writing the movie while high would result in a scattershot screenplay full of non-sequitor episodes and a generally dull story (such as "Harold and Kumar," "How High?" and "Dude, Where's My Car?"). Taking a lucidly written screenplay and filming it while high would, on the other hand, yield a more entertaining crop of stoner comedy, such as "The Big Lebowski" or the film I watched last night, "Pineapple Express."

Reunited "Freaks and Geeks" alums Seth Rogen and James Franco are Dale Denton and Saul Silver, a go-nowhere process serving stoner and his space cadet dealer. After Denton witnesses a drug-motivated murder, he takes Silver on the run from the murderer (Gary Cole), who catches Denton and Silver's trail from the rare marijuana Denton dropped at the scene.

The paranoid pair of Franco and Rogen is ripe for silly hijincks, sincere bromance and classic buddy comedy. The movie gets especially hysterical when they share the screen with their third druggie-in-arms, Red (Danny McBride). McBride almost steals the movie as an eccentric, scatterbrained dealer who first battles Dale and Saul in one of the most brutal-looking on-screen fights I've seen in some time.

That fight is one example of "Pineapple's" disciplined script, which mostly ditches typically spaced-out stoner humor for well-planned gags and visuals, like Saul's foot hanging through the red slushie-coated windshield of a police car while he careens it through the streets. "Pineapple" is certainly not without its gaps in logic, such as Rosie Perez's policewoman character colluding with Cole's dealer in his backyard in broad daylight ... while wearing her uniform ... while her squad car sits parked outside. Still, this 2008 release from the Judd Apatow family tree of comedy smokes most recent stoner comedies - and even many of its brethren.

-David "

" "Waltz with Bashir" beautifully dissects the mind's means of distancing itself from traumatic events. This 2008 animated documentary follows an ex-Israeli soldier's attempt to decipher his memories of fighting in Lebanon in 1982 by the interviewing soldiers and other witnesses he can track down 25 years later.

Ari Folman's quest to erase the mystery blotting out his combat memories stems from a vivid flashback he has of bathing in Beirut while flares brighten the sky. At the urging of his psychologist, who stresses the living nature of memory, Folman - the documentary's central figure and director - seeks out another soldier he recognized in the flashback.

Through their conversations, and additional documentary-style interviews with an Israeli reporter and other interview subjects, Folman traces his memories back to the Sabra and Shatila Massacre of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians by Christian extremists in Lebanon - which the Israeli forces facilitated, under orders from superiors.

As director, narrator and subject of the film, Folman makes use of the animated medium to depict his current self and the events of the 1982 war as seen through several sets of eyes, namely his, others' and ours. His interviews reveal the manner in which witnesses to traumatic events shielded themselves from long-term torment, such as the photographer who detachedly snapped pictures of Lebanese scenes that meant no more to him than the sum of their aesthetic parts.

The animation also permits Folman to depict some of the combat with comic absurdity, though his reason for doing so ultimately reveals itself as aligning perfectly with the theme of "Waltz with Bashir." As the film's first real-time images of rotting carcasses cross the screen just before the credits roll, the viewer realizes that the previous hour and a half of delightful animation had served as the audience's own tool of detachment.

-David "

" It was recently announced that the Best Picture category of the Academy Awards would contain 10 nominees from this point forward, rather than five.

It's easy to interpret this change as a tacit admission to the elitist feel of the awards. This past year, box office smashes "WALL-E" and "The Dark Knight" were left out of the running for the top Oscar. But the snub didn't merely come at the expense of popular opinion. Both movies could also be frequently found on critics' best-of-the-year lists. A glance at Metacritic shows that "WALL-E," in fact, was possibly the most commonly cited movie on those dozens of lists.

Meanwhile, one of the five Best Picture nods was awarded to "The Reader" - a film that made $34 million domestically and charted at a lukewarm 58 on Metacritic. (I almost feel dirty citing Metacritic scores to speak to a film's merits, but it's an irresistibly convenient shorthand. Plus, I haven't seen "The Reader" yet.)

An additional five nomination slots could give the Academy the room to reassert its relevance in the minds of modern film-goers by permitting the "WALL-Es" to stand with "The Readers" on the award stage. But it's doubtful. There is no shortage of critical apparatuses in the discourse on film these days, and the Oscars are feeling the effects of the numbing. With film more accessible than ever due to Netflix and on-demand video, I can't help feeling viewers are becoming more adventurous than ever - and less reliant on the gold statuette to steer them right.

The only films that don't feel so accessible to audiences are the New York/LA-only releases that are just arriving on a national level as they're nominated for and/or awarded Oscars. It could be a convenient coincidence that those films dominate the Oscar ballot, and thus are most likely to benefit from the Academy's boost. Maybe with 10 nominations, the Academy will have the room to continue relishing its role in setting the public's film-going agenda while echoing popular taste that formed without its influence.

-David "

" "Revolutionary Road" might sully any starry-eyed memories of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in their 1996 blockbuster coupling, "Titanic," were it not for the unfocused bleakness of Sam Mendes' 2008 suburban drama - not to mention the 20 pounds of weight Winslet shed and DiCaprio gained in the 12 years before filming "Road."

As April and Frank Wheeler, a '50s couple locked into the monotony of traditional provider/homemaker gender roles, Winslet and DiCaprio each convey their own form of desperation that fuels a decision to leave their safe suburban world behind and move to Paris. The change in scenery will not only give grounded actress April a chance to bear the economic weight of their existence, it'll allow Frank the free time to find his calling in life - which most certainly isn't selling computers.

Their announcement of their departure from Anytown, U.S.A. (somewhere in Connecticut) invites mixed reactions from the couple's friends and acquaintances. Fellow "Titanic" alum Kathy Bates, as homefinder Helen Givings, can't fathom why anyone would leave their idyllic neighborhood. Her mentally unstable son, John (Michael Shannon), uses the couple's situation to articulate the absurdity and hopelessness of suburban life. And neighbors the Campbells scoff at the Wheelers' proposed overseas reversal of their prescribed gender roles.

Ultimately, it's Frank who also comes down against the move. Motivated by a promotion - and scandalous revelations of infidelity and unplanned pregnancy - his change of heart sets off a "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"-like chain of harsh screaming matches with April where they unflinchingly aim straight for the others' hearts.

Though their characters are almost equally unsympathetic, DiCaprio and Winslet each carry their weight in bringing Justin Haythe's screenplay (adapted from Richard Yates' novel) to emotionally eviscerating life. But the net result of their exchanges is a nihilistic perspective on relationships that paints them as lacking any reward.

Good thing the iceberg saved Jack and Rose from this fate.

-David "

" "Taken" is a brainless basketcase of a movie.

Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a retired CIA agent who ruthlessly pursues his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace), after she is abducted by human traffickers in Paris. All Mills has to act on is a brief phone call from Kim before her kidnapping, some dormant overseas connections from his diplomatic career and, as he tells his daughter's abductor, "a very particular set of skills."

We learn that those skills mostly involve creatively bludgeoning bad guys over the head and neck. There's some delight in watching the typically tranquil Neeson dismantle hordes of Albanian criminals with his bare hands. But the contrivance of him, at 55, doing so unscathed for most of the movie tired me out on "Taken." Laughable are the circumstances of him saving a pop singer's life in a scene early in the film, and later escaping the clutches of a cadre of bad guys while his hands are cuffed over a ceiling pipe.

Along with a few head-palmingly terrible lines from the no-nonsense Neeson, those scenes add up to a mindless, but safely fun action movie.

It's "Taken's" setup that feels really reckless. It not only preys on dark patriarchal feelings of paranoia and protectiveness, it vindicates them.

Prior to his daughter's overseas trip, Mills repeatedly warns her about the dangers abroad. If it were anyone but Neeson in the role, Mills' nonstop fretting and hounding of his daughter would come off like neurotic sheltering (if this movie were made more than 10 years prior, Clint Eastwood surely would have starred). From Neeson, it's still a bit much. And yet his worst fears are realized mere minutes after his daughter and her airhead friend step off the plane in Paris. Daddy to the rescue.

(SPOILER BELOW)

Maybe I've been watching too much "South Park" lately, but I half-expected Mills' estranged wife (Famke Janssen) and her new husband to kidnap the safely-returned Kim at the end of "Taken" as a senseless swerve to both reaffirm the film's cynical daddy complex and set up "Taken Two."

-David "

" I put off watching Michael Bay's "Transformers" for two years, but the hype for its summer tent pole sequel pushed my curiosity over the edge.

To be sure, "Transformers" is terrible. All of Bay's blustery hallmarks are intact: Laughably poor dialogue, ineptly filmed action sequences and swelling orchestral music that screams "What's happening now is very important!" at almost every turn of the film.

The product placement - fast cars, caffeinated soda, etc. - is obnoxiously omnipresent, if appropriately targeted. Perhaps the only highlight of the movie is Shia LaBeouf's surprising charisma as Sam Witwicky, the horny high school student who mistakes his first car - a '76 Chevy Camaro sheathing a benevolent Transformer named Bumblebee - for a babe magnet. Well, Bumblebee tries to be a babe magnet too - when it plays romantic music through its radio as Sam gives hottie Mikaela Banes (Jolie-in-training Megan Fox) a ride home in a face-palming scene early in the film.

Witwicky's wooing is interrupted by Bumblebee, Optimus Prime and the other Autobots, who seek a hand-me-down pair of glasses from the boy's Arctic seafaring grandfather. Imprinted in the spectacles is some sort of clue to the location of the Allspark, a cryptic cube of cosmic energy that would give the Autobots' enemies, the Decepticons, enough transformative power to kill Earth - or something.

Along the way, John Turturro delightfully hams it up as a Man in Black trying to capture Bumblebee and generally get in the way of our heroes. Jon Voight plays a kind of hokey secretary of defense. And a bunch of big metallic things smash into each other in claustrophobically filmed battle sequences that bludgeon the senses with buzzsaw noises and blinding flashes.

Might be a while before I see the next one.

-David "

" My interest whetted by the new "Star Trek" movie, I decided to re-watch the first three films in the series - which were conveniently re-released on Blu-ray around the time of the new film's premiere in theaters.

I won't dive too deeply into their individual merits as films. The first is still terribly plodding. "Wrath of Khan" is still a well-paced, old-fashioned showdown fueled by hate. And "The Search for Spock" is still somewhere in between, neither boring nor thrilling, but a little more the latter than the former (Christopher Lloyd's Klingon commander is still a hoot).

As Blu-rays, however, the movies' relative highs and lows invert. The first and third "Star Treks" appear most impressive in high definition, and "Wrath of Khan" somehow looks less stellar. Perhaps I was too busy trying to discern whether the 62-year-old Khan's (Ricardo Montalban) massive chest was real or prosthetic to pay attention to the rest of the detail.

Seeing the classic films again also helped me appreciate where J.J. Abrams took the U.S.S. Enterprise's characters in his recent re-boot. Chris Pine's James T. Kirk feels like even more of a charismatic maverick of a captain, Zachary Quinto's Spock feels more sympathetic as a de-iced living bastion of logic, and Karl Urban's Bones seems even more neurotic, but a little less prickly. Simon Pegg's Scotty also feels more acutely like the crew's center of comic relief.

Topping this superb new "first" "Star Trek" with its own "Wrath of Khan" will certainly be a bold challenge.

-David "

" Pixar continues its unprecedented winning streak of sorts with "Up," the tenth straight sterling film from the CG animation house since it made its name with "Toy Story" in 1995.

"Up's" success comes in spite of some bold storytelling choices. I can't comment on the first of those choices - the film's presentation in 3-D - because the Fingerlakes Theatres doesn't show the movie as such.

"Up" nonetheless elevates itself over a few other self-imposed challenges. Like "WALL*E," Pixar's last triumph, "Up" deals in some less-than-bubbly themes. Its brilliant opening montage presents the idyllic married life shared by Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner) and his wife, Ellie, who passes away at the sequence's end. Ten minutes in and the film's already coaxing tears.

Carl's lonely existence in the house he and Ellie spent countless hours renovating is aggravated by encroaching urban developers. When a builder accidentally knocks Carl and Ellie's hand-printed mailbox off its stand, Carl despondently bonks the builder over the head with his cane. The scene features the first human blood I can recall in a Pixar movie.

Before Carl can be carted off to a retirement home, he makes good on his and Ellie's shared promise to see Paradise Falls, a beatific spot in South America. Carl levitates their home with hundreds of helium balloons, but unwittingly brings Russell (Jordan Nagai), an overachieving but endearing Boy Scout, along for the ride.

The dynamic between the ornery Carl and the spirited Russell carries the film along until they meet a few too-cute non-human characters that may annoy some older audience members. Having not known much about "Up" prior to seeing it, the introduction of the plot elements beyond the whole "flying house" premise was slightly much to take in at first. But Pixar, like always, rose above it, and I was all too grateful to have gone for the ride.

-David "

" Whenever someone's asked me whether I was a Trekkie, I replied that I was a diehard "Star Wars" fan. I couldn't fathom doubling up on the nerdy enthusiasm that drove me to devour every ounce of myth-building detail about the "Star Wars" universe.

But J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" just might motivate me to do that. Having never seen the original TV series or its more modern variants, and having watched only a few of the first "Star Trek" motion pictures, I've finally felt hungry about Gene Roddenberry's mythos.

I can't help interpreting this personal feeling as a sign of the sweeping success of Abrams' "Star Trek." It was clearly designed to appeal to old fans by virtue of bringing back the series' familiar characters and concepts. But equally important is reeling in converts by introducing compelling characters in a relatively simple action movie narrative: The U.S.S. Enterprise embarks on its first mission and brings together Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu and more to stop a Romulan (Eric Bana) from destroying Federation planets.

Ostensibly a reboot that establishes an alternate timeline to justify itself, "Star Trek" makes several impressive casting choices to stock the first Starship Enterprise with which many audiences will boldly go forward.

Zachary Quinto skillfully and compellingly crafts a logical veneer surrounding his half-human, half-Vulcan Spock's emotional volatility. Equally charismatic is Chris Pine, who makes James T. Kirk a winsome world-beater in spite of the actor's pretty boy newcomer status. The only performance that disappointed me was Anton Yelchin's Pavel Chekov. Though I was impressed with Yelchin in the title role of "Charlie Bartlett," his thick Polish accent felt like a distraction.

Abrams' action scenes are not particularly polished nor impressive in their scope, but it is his care for Spock and Kirk's characters - and the interplay between them - that makes "Star Trek" a worthy maiden voyage.

-David

(p.s. - Apologies for the lapse in updating, which was due to the Memorial Day weekend. Also, plasmatronix, I will check out that "Parrots of Telegraph Hill" documentary. Thanks for the suggestion!) "

" Last summer I was all too happy to skip "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Between its introduction of extraterrestrials to the adventure series' canon and its inclusion of Shia LaBeouf as a greaser tough in the cast (also heir apparent to Harrison Ford's fedora), I just pretended "Indiana Jones" was still a trilogy as of today.

Then I watched an episode of "South Park" that hilariously depicts "Crystal Skull" as a two-hour-plus-long rape scene of the Indiana Jones character at the profiteering hands of creators George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Thinking it couldn't possibly be that bad, I finally acknowledged the fourth - and probably not final - chapter of "Indiana Jones" by watching it in Blu-ray last week.

And did I ever think wrong. "Crystal Skull" really was that traumatically, head-scratchingly bad. There's its hammy introduction of '50s cultural shorthand, such as Indy's declaration that "I like Ike" and LeBeouf's whole character and the greaser/soc mob fight he instigates. There are its annoyingly wide gaps in believability, between the normally wise Indy's trust of his quadruple-crossing partner Mac (Ray Winstone), the uninteresting extraterrestrial hoopla and Indy's use of a freaking refrigerator to survive an atomic blast at a nuclear test site he sort of wanders onto. And then there's Cate Blanchett's Russian accent.

But what really bothered me about "Crystal Skull" was Ford, who appears less charismatic than ever as the aging archeologist. Granted, for Ford, even low charisma can make him more appealing than an entire supporting cast. But in the role that made him famous (along with that of Han Solo in the "Star Wars" films), Ford felt flat. And as "South Park" suggested, he may indeed have been metaphorically flat on his back.

-David "

" Many of us have guilty pleasure movies - the ones we love in spite of our instincts' screams that what we are watching is awful for any number of reasons. Some make guilty pleasures of paint-by-numbers romances or hackneyed comedies. In the summer season, it's mindless action romps that win us over without much in the way of artistic merit. Though I've yet to speak to the guilty pleasure crop of 2009's summer season, I have a hard time believing any will top 2008's "Wanted," which I watched on Blu-ray this week, in terms of sheer stupid fun.

James McAvoy stars as Wesley Gibson, a worker bee accountant suffering anxiety attacks in between bouts of an identity crisis. His routine gets pierced by Fox (Angelina Jolie), who tells Gibson that his father was a recently slain assassin. Fox and Sloan (Morgan Freeman) acquaint Gibson with his father's guild of assassins, The Fraternity, and their physics-defying arsenal of curved gunshots, stunt car maneuvers and other tricks. Gibson gleefully plucks himself from his ho-hum life and endures the Fraternity's punishing initiation with the promise of hunting down his father's killer.

Though intriguing enough to sustain an audience's attention, neither "Wanted's" story nor its characters are deep or abundantly compelling. But the key to "Wanted's" success as a quality two hours of stupid fun is its use of those elements to competently string together truly impressive stunts and action sequences.

The shootouts make use of the film's slightly supernatural mythos to concoct some dizzying displays of imagination in an action movie landscape arguably sucked dry of ingenuity for the last decade or so. The constant heartbeat sound effects (which serve a purpose in signifying Wesley's inhumanly heightened adrenal rush) combine with slow-motion photography to infuse the action with a visceral rush.

The other highlight of "Wanted" was, to my surprise, McAvoy. By far less known and billed than Jolie or Freeman, the young Scottish actor nonetheless makes Gibson an absorbing angry young man with enough charisma to carry the "Wanted" franchise along on his own.

-David "

" "Caprica" - like the Sci Fi series from which it spun off, "Battlestar Galactica" - begins as a movie. Set 50 years prior to "Galactica's" human holocaust at the hands of the Cylon robot race, "Caprica" documents how the Cylons were created.

Whereas "Galactica" was an ensemble drama, "Caprica" is structured as a family drama. Its straight-to-DVD pilot, released in late April, centers on the conflict between Joseph Adama (Esai Morales), father of Edward James Olmos' William Adama in "Galactica," and Daniel Graystone (Eric Stoltz), father of the Cylon.

The two patriarchs are initially brought together by the loss of their daughters (and, in Adama's case, his wife as well) in a terrorist bombing of a train. Shortly afterward, Graystone discovers a digital avatar of his daughter, Zoe, inhabiting a "Matrix"-like virtual space. Her similarity to the living thing motivates Graystone, a technology maven, to marry this digital consciousness to a robot.

Graystone enlists Adama to use his underworld connections to obtain the necessary materials for what would become first Cylon. But upon seeing his own daughter's digital replica, Adama grows wary of Graystone's endeavor and the stage for "Caprica's" core struggle is set.

It is interesting to see the Cylons' origins cast as an act of misplaced mourning, rather than greed or pride. Though it has yet to trade in "Galactica's" post-Sept. 11 ideas concerning torture and "collateral damage," "Caprica" so far shares some thematic territory with its father series, such as religious intolerance and the nature of identity. The show's emotional conflict is made compelling in Morales' and Roberts' skilled hands, and the imaginative technology of Caprica City vivifies their world - even as its end nears with Graystone's act of denying death.

-David "

" I recently watched The Duchess and really enjoyed it. I felt that it really brought the viewer into that time and setting. I wish I had bluray, it would have looked even better! I love Kiera Knightly, but still need to see Rachel Getting Married for Anne Hathaway's performance.

Unrelated, but have you seen The Parrots of Telegraph Hill documentary? I just saw it yesterday. I had it in my Netflix queue but had never heard of it (I also couldn't remember who recommended it to me!), so I almost didn't watch it. I'm so glad I saw it though, it was a really wonderful story! "

" Remember when I abruptly declared Anne Hathaway the best actress of her generation? That may have been premature. Unlike Hathaway, fellow 20-something starlet Keira Knightley has a few standout performances to pad her application for my lofty title: "Pride and Prejudice," "Atonement" and the film I watched last weekend: "The Duchess."

Georgiana Cavendish (Knightley) is selected to wed the philandering Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes) with the express purpose of giving birth to a male heir. As six years pass and the Duchess births two daughters but no sons, she endures the Duke's infidelity by becoming a socialite of sorts. Gambling, politics and fashion are her provinces in 18th-century England. But Georgiana's heart is still consumed by the strain of a love triangle with the Duke and Georgiana's friend Elizabeth (Hayley Atwell) - as well as her passion for the future prime minister Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper).

The film occasionally fails to sustain interest. Most of the conflicts feel tepid and anticlimactic, and the particulars of Georgiana's social life feel glossed over. But Knightley's performance redeems much of the dross. Her Georgiana has a healthy passion for love and slightly scandalous fun that doesn't deter her from devoted motherhood and friendship.

Knightley even holds her own in scenes with Fiennes, whose Duke is a compelling antagonist. Though he is singularly obsessed with his goal of obtaining a son, the Duke otherwise comes off surprisingly neutral and, at times, harmless. That he and Georgiana are last seen together in "The Duchess" blithely chatting at a party - after she bears his son - speaks to this curious facet of his character.

On an un-Knightley related note, "The Duchess" was one of the more impressive Blu-ray releases I've ever watched. The lavish 18th-century English sets and costumes are realized with stunning vividness in high definition, and I can't imagine standard DVD even approaching this superb level of detail.

-David "

" So it begins...again.

"The Lord of the Rings" was given a Blu-ray release date this week. But the version of the trilogy coming around Christmas 2009 is the theatrical edition - not the DVD-only extended editions, each of which boasts about an hour of additional footage.

This would be less egregious if the Blu-ray format wasn't capable of storing both versions of the three films on a single disc each. But in the spirit of The One Ring's corruptive influence, double-dipping once again rules all.

-David "

" In 2008, director Gus Van Sant received his loudest acclaim for "Milk." But while that film owes its praise largely to the performance of Sean Penn, it is Van Sant's small independent film "Paranoid Park" - also released in 2008 - where the director's talents take the spotlight.

Like "Elephant," Van Sant's 2003 drama about a Columbine-like school shooting, "Paranoid Park" unfolds at a deliberate, dreamy pace. Alex (Gabe Nevins), a 16-year-old skateboarder, accidentally murders a nightwatchmen while riding aboard the back a freight train with an older teen he met at the film's titled park. He balances his evasion of police and teachers' suspicions with more normal teenage maladies: fitting in, inattentive parents and an insistent girlfriend.

One potential knock against "Paranoid" is Van Sant's use of first-time actors he found through MySpace and skateboard stores. The cast's inexperience is most evident in their stilted way of speaking - especially Nevin's. "Paranoid Park" also employs a chronologically fractured narrative. Without a traditional arc, "Paranoid Park's" viewers may not always know where Alex stands in his journey.

These story-driven concerns pale in significance to the visual poetry in which Van Sant's movie finds its power. "Paranoid Park's" hypnotic rhythm of long-held close-ups and slow-motion skateboard tricks sweep the viewer up in Alex's world to make his crime even more haunting and lingering. Like "Elephant," "Paranoid Park" makes a compelling atmosphere of adolescence.

-David "

" Another week, another Paul Rudd comedy blending raunchy humor with honest sentimentality. This time it was "Role Models," which I watched on Blu-ray last weekend.

As common as films from the Rudd-Seth Rogen-Judd Apatow school seem these days, they manage a remarkably high level of quality. "Role Models" even triumphs over this respectable mean, largely thanks to Rudd.

Rudd's character, Danny, quips his way through a job moving energy drinks with Wheeler (Seann William Scott) while Danny's long-time girlfriend, Beth (Elizabeth Banks) grows impatient with his misanthropy. After she breaks up with him, Danny recklessly breaks the law. He and Wheeler are sentenced to 150 hours of service with a big brother program that introduces the two to Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse [McLovin' of "Superbad"]) and Ronnie (Bobb'e J. Thompson), respectively.

The live-action-role-playing-obsessed Augie's relationship with Danny is the major source of "Role Models'" charm, while Wheeler and Ronnie's foul-mouthed discussion of breasts balances out the sap with hilarious smut. Jane Lynch's big brother program coordinator provides the movie with a healthy share of random humor, most of which arises when she references her past drug abuse with absurdity.

Mintz-Plasse and Rudd's involvement firmly attach "Role Models" to the Apatow comedy canon, but in the hands of director David Wain, the movie feels anything but second-rate to the "40 Year-Old Virgin" director's best work.

-David "

" I've seen a lot of vampire movies, from Bela Lugosi's incarnation of "Dracula" to "Bram Stoker's," from "The Lost Boys" to "Blade."

Each take on the mythic race of blood-suckers attaches to them a unique set of supernatural characteristics. Some must be killed with wooden stakes, others suffer only silver. Some react violently to garlic, others have no such vulnerability. After factoring in all cultural variations on the myth - film or otherwise - it becomes clear that there's not a single unifying vampire trait (except obsessive-compulsive disorder, if Fox Mulder of "The X-Files" is to be believed).

For all those equally unbelievable spins on vampirism, none has ever felt more ridiculous than "Twilight's" take on the creatures' common aversion to sunlight. Rather than bursting into flames like in most tales, vampires in "Twilight" harmlessly glitter when they stand in direct sunlight.

Like just about everything else in "Twilight," the glittering skin is a transparent means of gearing the movie toward young women - in this case, by beautifying the film's tween-bait vampire Edward Cullen. (Actor Robert Pattinson does his part by visibly straining to wring his most pouty and brooding looks from every muscle in his face.)

My irrepressible interest in vampire movies led me to Netflix "Twilight" against my better judgment, and its pointed emasculating of vampiric mythology was punishment enough for doing so. Everything else about the movie felt like surplus sadism.

I normally try to qualify my blogged opinions about movies in some depth, but "Twilight" was too objectionable for me to even delight in mocking it. The writing felt as contrived, self-serious and devoid of logic as the dialogue to a tween girl's daydream about kissing her dream guy. The acting ranged from Kristen Stewart's woodenly sullen Bella Swan to Pattinson's far overdone Cullen. And the special effects looked faker than plastic fangs.

Three more movies of this and I'd be thirsting for someone's blood too.

-David "

" I never thought much of Anne Hathaway. Until recently, I'd only seen her in "The Devil Wears Prada," where she was competent, though clearly outclassed by Meryl Streep - and in "Brokeback Mountain," where her spoiled sexpot character felt peripheral and flat (not through any fault of her own).

Last week I saw Hathaway's Oscar-nominated performance in "Rachel Getting Married" on Blu-ray. Not only did the "Princess Diaries" star convince me she's one of the best actresses of her generation, but I think I have a new best film of 2008 (if not the best, then handily top five).

I've rarely seen a movie so skillfully weave ugly, mouth-clasping moments with tearfully joyous ones. As Kym, sister to the titled Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt), Hathaway returns from rehab for years of drug addiction that, we eventually learn, caused the death of her and Rachel's little brother in a car accident. The years of tension and resentment bred by Kym's disease haunt her and Rachel as she prepares to marry Sidney (Tunde Adebimpe).

For every heart-wrenching surfacing of emotional scars, following up is an equally heated moment of love and happiness - mostly arising from Rachel and Sidney's union. Though touching to the audience, these glimpses of the pair's passionate bond only alienate Kym further and spur along her next meltdown.

Director Jonathan Demme chains together this affecting episode in Kym's life in a meandering but meaningful way. "Rachel Getting Married" does away with many narrative conventions in favor of a natural story flow commanded solely by the emotional thrust of the film's events. It's not the easiest movie to stomach, but "Rachel Getting Married" is a mesmerizing avalanche of ire and mirth that insists upon being watched.

-David "

" Anyone who has seen "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" or "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" knows that the mind behind those movies, writer Charlie Kaufman, breeds some weird ideas.

But Kaufman, for all the freshness and ingenuity of his screenplays, has always seen his ideas filtered through another creative mind in the director's chair, be it Spike Jonze ("Adaptation") or George Clooney ("Confessions").

"Synecdoche, New York" marks Kaufman's directorial debut, and his increased creative stake shows in the film's unfocused sprawl of even more batty ideas than those from his earlier body of work. Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as Caden Cotard, an aspiring playwright assaulted by an non-stop chain of physical, personal and professional disarray. A Macarthur Grant gives Cotard the chance to realize his masterwork, which he stages in an always-growing life-size replica of New York City raised in a massive warehouse.

As Cotard casts actors to play the key people in his own life, the truth his personal catastrophes bleeds into the creative thrust of his play. The film's dreamlike mapping of the struggling artistic mind feels like Fellini's "8 1/2" mixed with the abstract, reality-blurring storytelling of Lynch and the horror of the human body's debilitating secrets that marks Cronenberg's work.

The ambitions of "Synecdoche," however, prevent it from achieving any of the lasting meaning or impact in those three directors' best movies. Kaufman's film instead feels like a fantastical fugue through bizarre moments, some of which prove more memorable or clever than others. Because Cotard's character suffers from the skilled Hoffman's lack of direction, the audience suffers the lack of an absorbing central figure to tie those unbelievable and occasionally unpleasant moments together. Though its title describes a curious destination, "Synecdoche, New York" has no such thing.

-David "

" "I Love You, Man" combines many now-standard conventions of the Judd Apatow sentimental comedy school, which finds its foundation in "Superbad," "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," "Knocked Up" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall."

There's an amusing clash of personalities and soulmate-like affection bonding the staid but endearing protagonist to his much wilder but no less endearing buddy. There's an enthusiasm for obscure geek culture (in this movie's case, the music of Rush). And there's a non-stop string of low-brow jokes (sexual taboos, abrupt sight gags, etc.) laid against a credibility-restoring pseudo-hipster soundtrack.

All these conventions have crystallized to the point of threatening the movies carrying them with monotony. They share so much in common that I was alarmed to learn Judd Apatow had nothing to do with "I Love You, Man" - though its stars, Paul Rudd and Jason Segel, are long-time Apatow collaborators along with Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill, most frequently.

As prechewed as "I Love You, Man" may play, it still finds more success than boredom. There's very likeable chemistry between Rudd and Segel as a groom-to-be searching for a best man and a prospect for that position, respectively. The depth of their relationship may draw blithe dismissals of the vogue "bromance" theme, but the movie truly offers a thoughtful take on the value of same-sex friendship. Occasional jokes indeed break up the sweeter moments with bitter sights and sounds of projectile vomit, farting and viral sex videos. But there's much to love about the men at the core of the comedy.

-David "

" Last Friday, "Resident Evil 5" was released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Yes, this is still a movie blog.

Readying myself to follow the latest adventure in the video game survival horror saga meant tracking down the movie "Resident Evil: Degeneration." This straight-to-video feature bridges together the relatively standalone story of "Resident Evil 4" with that of "5." Animated entirely in CG, it bears no relation to the "Resident Evil" film trilogy starring Milla Jovovich.

"Degeneration" provides a glimpse at the power vacuum that follows the collapse of Umbrella, the pharmaceutical company behind the zombie breakouts of the first four games. New giants like WilPharma and Tricell now stalk the bioweapon field. As "Degeneration" unfolds, longtime "Resident Evil" heroes Claire Redfield and Leon Kennedy learn that these companies' continuing work on Umbrella's zombie-spawning viruses is fetching high prices from terrorist groups on the black market.

But this blog isn't about the artistic merits of the "Resident Evil" mythos. The movie went straight to video for a reason.

The more compelling point of "Degeneration" is its testimony to the current state of CG animation. In Blu-ray, the photography's depth of detail is stunning. Viewers can see the individual pores on characters' skin in close-ups, and the drippy cellular degeneration of the zombie hordes is as terrifying as the dead characters of any Romero film.

But where CG has improved at a much slower pace is its capacity for animating human faces in service of emotion. The cheeks and eyebrows of "Degeneration's" characters appear mostly wooden and provide little visual weight to the anger or sadness audible in the film's competent voice acting.

Putting all those technological resources behind photorealism, and none behind pure drama, is indeed evil.

-David "

" While teens and tweens were swooning over the star-crossed vampire romance of "Twilight," a Swedish film was turning the concept into a film that didn't suck.

"Let the Right One In," which releases on DVD tomorrow, follows the meek 12-year-old Oskar as he reels from schoolyard bullying and fascinates over his new female neighbor. Eli, also 12, enchants Oskar with her sullen but strong-willed attitude when the two children first meet on the frozen playground outside their apartment building.

As he grows closer to Eli, Oskar's confidence swells and he stands up to his aggressors at school. But the budding, sexless bond between Oskar and Eli is threatened by her nighttime hunger for blood - which she must coax from innocent necks when her adult guardian/supplier is caught.

Vampirism can be hokey when used as a dramatic crux, but "Let the Right One In" absorbs serious attention through long-held, static shots and sparse dialogue. Contrasting the sterile, calm Swedish setting are haunting flashes of bloody horror. Through minimalist coverage, the violence is presented in a way that inspires pure shock, not laughter or revulsion.

Kare Hedebrant, as Oskar, presents a smitten young boy - chaste as the blonde hair on his head - whose winsome fixation with Eli is framed as a wondrous sort of salvation for him.

As Eli, Lina Leandersson casts her character's vampiric hunger as a personal demon she accepts without pleasure. Even with her face splashed by blood, Eli never approaches the disgust or vileness most movie vampires provoke. She always comes off as a sweet, beautiful child the audience wants to see "go steady" with Oskar. At least their nights wouldn't lack excitement.

-David "

" Before I COMMENCE: DIATRIBE, I would like to stress that I do, in fact, like movies. And get excited for them when they appear promising.

But this summer's release lineup looks like a big bore. More "Transformers," more "Harry Potter," more "Ice Age." More Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller and Jack Black vehicles. More remakes, reboots and revisits: "Fast and Furious," "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra," "Star Trek." More Christian Bale: "Terminator: Salvation," "Public Enemies" (though the latter could prove a rare bright spot given the involvement of Johnny Depp, as bank robber John Dillinger, and director Michael Mann). And more Pixar, but the CG animation studio has yet to disappoint.

The schedule reeks of safety. Mainstream audiences will bring some degree of familiarity to almost all of these movies, and that feeling casts them as safer bets than novel stories told by new faces.

Please bear in mind, I'm conveying disgust but by no means surprise with it. Sequels and remakes - official or thinly veiled, as is often the case with Ferrell's films - pretty much rule Hollywood and its summers in particular. I just can't recall ever feeling so apathetic about the box office's big season. Last summer at least brought "The Dark Knight" and the summer prior featured "Spider-Man 3" and the third "Pirates of the Caribbean" (yes, those last two were atrocious, but you probably thought they'd be decent too).

This summer? Hugh Jackman's Wolverine could lift "X-Men Origins" to tolerable levels. And I guess it'll be fun watching Quentin Tarantino direct Brad Pitt and Mike Myers in World War II spaghetti Western "Inglourious Bastards." But even that one RE-eks: It's partially based on a 1978 Italian film. Even Hollywood's bad boys follow some of the rules.

-David "

" Another year, another example of the misnomer that is the Best Picture Academy Award.

"Slumdog Millionaire" taking the prize wasn't quite as egregious as "Crash" winning in 2006 or "Shakespeare in Love" in 1998, but Danny Boyle's latest act of cinematic bludgeoning was nonetheless not deserving of the purported top honor in film. Were it up to me, I would have chosen "The Wrestler" or, among the actual nominees, "Milk."

Since 1997 - when I watched "Titanic" beat out the far better "L.A. Confidential" for the prize in my first year of following the Oscars closely - the closest I come to agreeing with the Academy on the recipient of its Best Picture statuette was last year. Though I felt "There Will Be Blood" was the best film of 2007, Best Picture winner "No Country For Old Men" could have claimed that distinction almost any other year.

The Academy's award selection process seems subject to some askew criteria. Sometimes awards appear to be cumulative and reflective of past work outside a particular nominated film - such as Al Pacino's Best Actor win for the "Scent of a Woman" in 1992 and, last night, the six-time-nominated Kate Winslet finally taking Best Actress for "The Reader."

And as outstanding as Sean Penn was in "Milk," I can't think of any other reason than Academy politics for him winning Best Actor over Mickey Rourke. "The Wrestler" star stood taller than anyone in the category with his performance as Randy "The Ram" Robinson. But given his outlandish award show outfits and bizarre acceptance speeches for the prizes he did win, Rourke probably seemed a risky pick to the Academy - especially with Penn providing a slightly reasonable alternative.

As I said, I long ago stopped expecting the Academy to make the right choices.

-David "

" Where "Man on Wire" inspired me and "Encounters at the End of the World" awed me, another 2008 documentary, "Bigger, Stronger, Faster," simply broke my heart.

Three brothers loom at the center of this discussion of performance-enhancing drugs and the American psyche that encourages their use. Chris, Mark and Mike Bell were bred on a cultural diet of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies and Hulk Hogan wrestling matches before they set out for their own conquests: the football field, the weight room and, in the case of Mike, the wrestling ring as well.

Chris, the movie's director and the only one of the brothers not to take steroids in any long-term fashion, chronicles his siblings' abuse of the drug. Their justifications for using steroids are contextualized through a broad look at the American attitude toward steroids - and its inherent contradictions.

Bell makes clear his belief that the demonization of steroids in the media is far out of proportion to its lethality as a drug. He then asks the viewer to reconcile the condemnation of steroids with the apparent endorsement of Tiger Woods' corrective eye surgery, musicians' use of beta blockers and other tactics every bit as performance-enhancing as a testosterone-filled syringe.

But Bell is no steroid apologist. He does not shy away from the physical harm the substances do to their users or the social and psychological harm they do to their users' loved ones. The prevailing point Bell makes is that bigger muscles are not nearly worth the troubles attached to the drug.

There is no more poignant case for Bell's point than his brother Mike, whose steroid use coincided with abuse of painkillers and other drugs. In perhaps the film's most despairing moment, the Bells' father abruptly transitions from matter-of-factly telling the camera why his sons take steroids to confessing that he soon expects to receive the phone call notifying him of Mike's death.

Yet we sympathize with Mike's self-destructive decisions when he stresses to the camera, with despondently teary eyes, his need to be the best. His absolutist interpretation of that ideal reinforces Chris' contention that steroids are largely a symptom of America's cultural deification of conquest.

Bell died on Dec. 14, 11 months after the premiere of the film.

-David "

" Along with "Man on Wire," which I've praised in this blog previously, Werner Herzog's breathtaking "Encounters at the End of the World" made 2009 a standout year for the documentary.

Herzog, the veteran German director behind "Aguirre: Wrath of God" and "Grizzly Man," journeyed to Antarctica to capture life at the spot on the globe where all the lines converge, as one interviewee describes it. Herzog chronicles the work of deep-sea divers, volcanologists and biologists staking out new species. We watch new arrivals wear buckets over their heads to simulate the blinding conditions of winter storms. We hear transplants dissect their carefully arranged knapsacks and recount their most desperate travel conditions.

The common thread in everything Herzog films is the passion these people bring to their lives on the continent. Several interview subjects speak of an invisible force that attracts Antarctica's residents, no matter their vocation or field of study, to the bottom of the world. Herzog not only traces this inscrutable force, he makes it infectious to the viewer. The director romanticizes carving ice blocks to build a makeshift igloo and limiting all your belongings to one backpack. The cold and desolation are not discouraging either - through Herzog's camera, they're the sources of a stunning visual poetry that ties the tale together with shots of towering ice structures and the luminescent sea creatures lurking below them.

-David "

" Maybe the most headline-grabbing entertainment story of the week happens to feature a Cayuga County native.

Unfortunately it's in the dubious role of Christian Bale's verbal whipping boy that Director of Photography Shane Hurlbut, of Aurora, has received attention in news stories by CNN, the Associated Press and TMZ.com.

A three-minute audio clip from last summer captures Bale swearing violently at Hurlbut on the set of "Terminator: Salvation," the 2009 summer blockbuster both men were filming at the time. Bale felt Hurlbut had committed a faux pas by breaching the actor's field of vision on the set, thereby interrupting his in-character mindset.

Having only listened to the audio and knowing no more about the situation, I hesitate to speak with certainty whether Bale or Hurlbut was at fault for the flare-up. But I have a hard time believing Hurlbut did anything to deserve the degree of vitriol - and F-words - Bale spat at him over the course of those three minutes.

Having spoken with Hurlbut over the phone for about an hour in 2007, when I wrote a profile about him in The Citizen, I can speak to his amiability. It also seems that Bale was bothered by something beyond the set of "Terminator," as he was accused of verbally assaulting his mother and sister that month as well.

What disturbs me most about the news is not the story itself, but the fanatical defensiveness with which Internet posters have rushed to lay the blame for Bale's blow-up at Hurlbut's feet. Certainly Batman couldn't have just been having a bad day.

-David "

" As a cinephile, I was spellbound by the romanticism with which "The Wrestler" painted the allure of the canvas stage.

As a wrestling fan, I was nauseous.

Make no mistake - "The Wrestler" is one of the finest 2008 movies I've seen. And that's largely because of Mickey Rourke's performance as Randy "The Ram," a professional wrestler who fell from Hulk Hogan-esque heights to taking staple gun shots into his skin before a crowd of hundreds in a bingo hall. Darren Aronofsky's gritty, bare approach to the subject matter sharply contrasts his own stylized canon, but it deftly externalizes the Ram's deteriorated mystique.

It's precisely because "The Wrestler" pinpoints the desperate condition of its titled performer - and his industry - that the film felt like a sickening guilt trip to me as a former fan of professional wrestling.

Since growing out of the childish awe with which I regarded the faux gladiators I first watched when I was 6 or 7 years old, I've gradually come to realize that the true lives of most wrestlers are hardly heroic. For long I've known that drug abuse and neglected families were endemic to the industry. "Beyond the Mat," Barry Blaustein's 1999 pro wrestling documentary, only scored the loosest of headlocks on the horror. That film portrayed its estranged, junkie father subject, wrestler Jake "The Snake" Roberts, as the exception and not the rule that his miserable life actually represents.

Sure, the drama of wrestling is fake - so is any live theater. But the physical toll of the performance gives rise to self-medicating with painkillers, the superficial demand of the role invites steroid abuse and the travel-heavy schedule destroys any pretense of a normal family life.

The Chris Benoit murder/suicide in 2007 gave me a sharper glimpse at the magnitude of professional wrestling's scum quotient. Since then, I've watched less and less each week until I realized I'd given up on it altogether a few months ago. "The Wrestler" composed a poetic coda of my main reason why: enabling. That is the role into which Aronofsky thrusts the wrestling fan whose cheers - or money, or support in any shape or form - pushes performers to push themselves perilously harder.

The fault for the industry's decrepitude vigorously extends to an epidemic of personal irresponsibility on the part of wrestling promoters and performers. But the fans who silently condone the state of professional wrestling through their fervent support of it are not immune to blame either. And that's a responsibility I can no longer grapple.

-David "

" Any time I'm asked what I thought of "Gran Torino," I reply, "It was a pretty decent sitcom."

There was one moment when I fully grasped how much glib absurdity Clint Eastwood's latest shares with light comedy. Early in the movie, his character's son and daughter-in-law give their widowing father a large-buttoned telephone and a grabbing arm, then hurry to introduce the idea of moving him to a senior care center. Eastwood's broiling response is humorously rendered with a slow dolly-in - the type of over-the-top style choice you'd expect from, well, comedies.

Eastwood's character, Korean War veteran Walt Kowalski, reminds me most of Old Snake from "Metal Gear Solid 4." He's the most grizzled I've ever seen Eastwood, and his penchant for slow puffs on a cigarette and packing heat strengthen the parallels to the stealth video game hero. But Kowalski's personality veers toward Archie Bunker territory when he unflinchingly - yet, somehow, harmlessly - spits every conceivable racial epithet in the book in the presence of the offended race. Kowalski's racism is indeed played as both a source of humor and the base of his humanizing, but it's almost never cast as the gravely corrosive force it constitutes in the real world.

The for-laughs aim of "Gran Torino's" first half undercuts the heady ambitions of its second half. Kowalski's initial conflict with his new Hmong neighbors are portrayed with saccharine culture clash humor. As Kowalski befriends them, he becomes absorbed in their struggle with a local Hmong gang.

But because their relationship feels built upon the contrived interactions of a comedy, the Life Lessons (c) Kowalski and the neighbors learn in the course of this conflict also feel contrived and heavy-handed. The inexperience of Eastwood's supporting cast further cripples "Gran Torino's" dramatic thrust. In fact, some moments in their performances persuade you into thinking the film really is a comedy.

-David "

" Stage-to-screen adaptations are often scorned for the transparency of their origins. Films that make no effort to distinguish themselves from their theatrical incarnations - recent examples: "The Producers" and "Rent" - feel cheap because they lend the impression that the director simply pointed the camera at yet another staging. Their storytelling eschews techniques unique to film, such as editing and authorial cameras (e.g. angles, dollies), and lets the actors shoulder the burden of enlivening the material.

"Frost/Nixon" invites the opposite reaction to the no-frills adaptation: Not simply warmth and favor, but graciousness at seeing - in as unadulterated a form as possible - a compelling drama one might not have caught in the theater. The credit for this achievement of Ron Howard's film goes mostly to Frank Langella, who portrays freshly resigned President Richard Nixon with a charismatic mix of reluctant humility and self-righteous stubbornness.

Based on Peter Morgan's 2006 play, "Frost/Nixon" recounts the series of interviews between English journalist David Frost (Michael Sheen) and the disgraced Nixon in 1977. Frost, struggling to boost his professional reputation, offers the former president $600,000 for the interviews, which Nixon sees as his own opportunity to explain himself following three years of exile from politics. He and his advisers feel Frost's probing will present little challenge, but Frost readies a potent offensive by hiring a team of journalists familiar with Nixon's transgressions to aid his research.

The meat of the movie is the dialogue between the titled adversaries. The subtlety with which Sheen and Langella abrade each other in their scenes together betrays the hundreds of stage performances the actors shared. As financial pressure builds and the interviews prove less and less fruitful with each session, Sheen excels at only briefly flashing the desperation mounting under Frost's slick demeanor.

But even his skillful performance feels secondary to that of Langella's Nixon, which attracts revulsion when he schemes to raise his price tag and callously tries to unnerve Frost with shocking comments seconds prior to filming. Langella softens those emotions toward Nixon with pity by unmasking, on a few occasions, the towering inferiority complex that motivates the former president. The contemporary echoes of Bush in Langella's pitifully shamed Nixon led me to wonder: Who, if anyone, will be W.'s Frost in a few year's time?

And for all Langella's talents, his Nixon wasn't even the best lead male performance of 2008. But that's a topic for later this week.

-David "

" No major surprises out of the Oscar nominations this year. Though I'll have to wait to see "The Reader" before commenting whether it deserved the uncertain fifth Best Picture spot over "The Wrestler," "WALL*E" or "The Visitor."

I was slightly caught off-guard by Robert Downey Jr.'s Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role as Kirk Lazarus, the method actor who surgically darkens his skin and talks jive to portray a black man.

The most depressing omissions were Sally Hawkins ("Happy-Go-Lucky") from the Best Actress race, and Bruce Springsteen's "The Wrestler" receiving no nomination for Best Original Song.

Now that the nominations are offical, the real Best Picture contest appears to pit "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" - the nominee tally winner, at 13 - against "Slumdog Millionaire."

I've talked at length about the former, and I'd reluctantly side with the latter were I voting. "Millionaire" is at best heavy-handed and at worst outright bludgeoning in typical Danny Boyle fashion. But the film's tale of a poor Mumbai boy fated to rise from his slums to find true love - and a fortune along the way - nonetheless manages a few winning moments. For better or worse, Oscar night may be yet another.

-David "

" What I found funniest about "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," which I watched today on Blu-ray, was my reaction to it.

On its own, the film was comedically tepid. There was potential in the premise, which finds the depressed Peter (Jason Segel) sharing the same Hawaiian hotel as his TV starlet ex-girlfriend Sarah (Kristen Bell) just days after their breakup.

A few funny moments - many of which were provided by the oblivious surf instructor Koonoo (Paul Rudd) and Sarah's new lascivious rock star beau, Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) - mixed with painfully awkward and forced gags that produced little more than bemused exhalations. The sex jokes surrounding Mormon newlyweds Darald (Jack McBrayer) and Wyoma (Maria Thayer) fell mostly flat due to the actors' desperate approach to the material, and the abrupt gross-out shots of Peter's penis were entirely humorless.

My inability to agree with audience members of my age group about the film's humor was a source of personal amusement. In other words, it seems I'm getting old.

Particularly funny to me was my reaction to those full-frontal shots of Jason Segal. They certainly were shocking, as full male nudity simply isn't common in mainstream comedy. But the outrage with which some men react to those shots in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" underscores a key tenet of feminist film theory. The male gaze that dominates Western cinema sweepingly favors the female form over that of males. Young men who see a beautiful woman onscreen - such as Kristen Bell or Mila Kunis (who was exceptional in this film) - are unconsciously conditioned to expect the camera to pay ample attention to her contours. When it does, men don't question what they see - no matter how gratuitous it is.

But the inverse of those images - depiction of male anatomy, clothed or not - elicits so much grief from some men, you'd think they were being subjected to a filmed beheading. Yet females typically only roll their eyes at the bountiful breasts and behinds they must sit through in Western cinema. Rarely do they project the victimized tone males do when exposed to own-sex nudity in mainstream cinema. And the inherent sexism in that dynamic of film viewership isn't quite so funny.

-David "

" Last night I watched "Man on Wire," the documentary detailing Frenchman Philippe Petit's 1974 plot to bridge the top of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers with a high-wire and walk it.

This may be the finest documentary I've seen since "Hoop Dreams." The combination of interviews with Petit and his collaborators, surrealist dramatic reenactments and file footage paints an irresistibly moving portrait of human triumph.

Petit's will to walk the wire is charismatic and inspirational. When he recalls the journalists who asked him why he did so, we can't help joining him in scoffing at the silliness of their probe. The conquest speaks for itself.

Petit's retelling of his plot to infiltrate the towers mirrors a bank heist in its scale of deception, which includes construction worker costumes and the all-important inside man. When Petit and friends make it to the top floor, their elaborate efforts to rig the wire are re-enacted with the dense shadows and elusive forms of German expressionist silent films. It's a mesmerizing feat that somehow presents a remarkable memoriam to the Towers while frisking the contours of the human spirit.

-David "

" "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Gran Torino" have each earned high praise in year-end film talk. I feel both suffer from a wearying heavy-handedness ("Slumdog" much less so, but it is a Danny Boyle film, after all). In the case of "Slumdog," it's the bombastic flourishes - loud dance music, blitzing cuts and sun-bleached hues - accompanying the scenes that often saps them of subtlety. And in "Torino," it's an almost insulting bluntness in Clint Eastwood's storytelling that betrays the film's agenda like an after-school special.

I did enjoy "Millionaire," for the record, and feel it was one of the better films of 2008. And "Gran Torino" was OK as an Archie Bunker-packing-heat sitcom before the preaching really dominated. But where both films failed to win me over with subtlety, "The Visitor" largely succeeded.

Thomas McCarthy's film casts Richard Jenkins as Walter Vale, a Connecticut college professor sleepwalking through life until he discovers an immigrant couple living in his long-vacant New York City apartment. The strain of compassion that leads Vale to let the couple continue living in the apartment strengthens as he befriends the male lodger, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), and learns to play the djembe drum under the Syrian's instruction.

Vale's awakening becomes more apparent after Tarek is apprehended by the NYPD for jumping a subway turnstile. Though innocent of his charge - a pure fluke of an arrest - Tarek is imprisoned alongside other illegal immigrants and prepared for deportation. As the only U.S. citizen among Tarek's friends, Vale visits him frequently and tries to coordinate his release with Tarek's mother and girlfriend.

Jenkins leashes Vale through his metamorphosis, only signaling it through muted smiles and stealthy taps of his fingers - like any nearby surface is his djembe. Only briefly does Vale verbalize the flood of emotion he feels from his new friendships, and only once does that emotion truly erupt - toward Tarek's captors.

"The Visitor's" message about the malice underlying the United States' immigration policy never overwhelms the core story of Vale's serendipitous, life-saving connection. Only once does that message feel a bit too palpable: when Tarek's mother, Mouna (Hiam Abbass), remarks that the U.S. immigration machinery is just like that of Syria. Otherwise, the film's social urgency is secondary, but still tough to ignore. Had Danny Boyle or Clint Eastwood directed the film, I'd probably have felt less trusted to grasp this ulterior motive.

-David "

" "Burn After Reading" is as perfect a follow-up to "No Country for Old Men" as I can imagine.

Joel and Ethan Coen's spy farce, which I watched last week on Blu-Ray, is an empty-headed complement to the ultra-heady "No Country." Whereas the Coens' Best Picture-winning 2007 film calculatedly mused on themes of fate and chance, "Burn" bears no such aspirations. Its characters are not vessels of profundity - they're insecure, paranoid buffoons.

"Burn" centers around ousted CIA agent Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), who decides to punctuate his disgracefully ended career with a memoir. His wife, Katie, meanwhile swipes Osbourne's top-secret files as leverage for a pending divorce case. After Katie's lawyer's receptionist misplaces the disc containing the files at a gym, a scatterbrained clerk named Chad (Brad Pitt) picks it up and plots to blackmail Osbourne. As he sets up his first scheme of this sort, Chad's fellow gym worker Linda (Frances McDormand) pushes him to pour some of Cox's hush money into several plastic surgeries she needlessly seeks.

Add in George Clooney as a philandering U.S. Treasury agent with as many facial tics as female companions, and you've got a deliciously blackened comedy. Pitt stands out most, not for his hideously frosted hair, but for the surfer-dude zeal with which he quests after Cox's money. When his oblivious goofballing finally meets Cox's CIA graveness, the result is the most hilarious scene in the film.

The story takes some sharp, alarmingly unfunny turns at times. And the absence of grandeur or theme in a film boasting so many big-name stars may lead viewers to think they're missing something. If they squint hard enough, they may decrypt a message that the spy game is a whimsical and inscrutable affair even to its players, who share the same superficial concerns as the rest of us. But as long as audiences sit back and delight in the black absurdity of "Burn," they'll get the Coens' picture.

-David "