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Shoe of Threat
When a POV shot shows a victim crawling toward the camera on the floor, chances are he will eventually come upon a shoe. As he looks up, the camera will tilt to show a menacing figure towering above him.
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Disney's A Christmas Carol (PG)
"Disney's A Christmas Carol" by Robert Zemeckis (and Charles Dickens, of course) is an exhilarating visual experience and proves for the third time he's one of the few directors who knows what he's doing with 3-D. The story that Dickens wrote in 1838 remains timeless, and if it's supercharged here with Scrooge swooping the London streets as freely as Superman, well, once you let ghosts into a movie, there's room for anything.

Precious (R)
Precious has shut down. She avoids looking at people, she hardly ever speaks, she's nearly illiterate. Inside her lives a great hurt, and also her child, conceived in a rape. She is fat. Her clothes are too tight. School is an ordeal of mocking cruelty. Home is worse. Her mother, defeated by life, takes it out on her daughter. After Precious is raped by her father, her mother, is angry not at the man, but at the child for "stealing" him.

The Men Who Stare at Goats (R)
Bear with me here. Imagine "Ghostbusters" is based on a true story. Imagine the Dude from "The Big Lebowski" as a real-life U.S. Army general. All factual, right? That's what "The Men Who Stare at Goats" sort of wants us to believe. I think I sort of do -- to a small degree, sort of. "More of this is true than you would believe," the movie announces in an opening title. I'm waiting for the review of this one in Skeptic magazine.

The Box (PG-13)
I know, I know, "The Box" triumphantly qualifies for one of my favorite adjectives, "preposterous." But if you make a preposterous movie that isn't boring, I count that as some kind of a triumph. This one begins as traditional science fiction and branches out into radio signals from Mars, nosebleeds, Sartre's theories about free will, amputated toes, NASA, the National Security Agency, wind tunnels, murders, black Town Cars, obnoxious waiters, and a mysterious stranger.

(Untitled) (R)
"(Untitled)" picks a fight with its very title, which summarizes the f-you attitude of its hero, a composer of music that sounds like something you'd hear going on in the alley late at night. One of his compositions consists of a chain dropped into a can, a pennywhistle, loudly ripping paper, a bucket being kicked, the screams of a vocalist and squawks on a clarinet. He plays the piano with his elbows. Under the circumstances, it seems ungracious for him to complain about an audience member's cell phone.

The Fourth Kind (PG-13)
Boy, is the Nome, Alaska, Chamber of Commerce going to be pissed off when it sees "The Fourth Kind." You don't wanna go there. You can't drive there, that's for sure. The only ways in are by sea, air, dogsled or birth canal. Why the aliens chose this community of 9,261 to abduct so many people is a mystery. Also why owls stare into bedroom windows.

The Horse Boy (No MPAA rating)
"The Horse Boy" tells a remarkable story. A 4-year-old Texas boy with autism has angry seizures, isn't toilet-trained, is often distant and hostile. His parents fly with him to Mongolia, drive nine hours into the steppes and then journey by horseback, with the boy sharing their saddles, to a sacred mountain in reindeer country. There he undergoes a miraculous cure at the hands of shamans.

This Is It (PG)
"This Is it," Michael Jackson told his fans in London, announcing his forthcoming concert tour. "This is the final curtain call." The curtain fell sooner than expected. What is left is this extraordinary documentary, nothing at all like what I was expecting to see. Here is not a sick and drugged man forcing himself through grueling rehearsals, but a spirit embodied by music. Michael Jackson was something else.

Bronson
Michael Peterson tells us he was born into a normal middle-class family. He does not blame his childhood or anything else for the way he turned out, and neither does this film. It regards him as a natural history exhibit. No more would we blame him on his childhood than we would blame a venomous snake for its behavior. It is their nature to behave as they do.

The Yes Men Fix the World (No MPAA rating)
The Yes Men are a New York political action cooperative specializing in hoaxes that embarrass corporations by dramatizing their evils and excesses. They put up phony Web sites, print fake business cards and pose as representatives from the companies that are their targets. It's amazing what they get away with. Maybe not so amazing, if you study the faces in some of their audiences. These are people so accustomed to sitting through corporate twaddle that they fail to question the most preposterous presentations.

Harmony and Me
Austin, Texas, has never looked more unlovely, and its residents more clueless, than in "Harmony and Me," a funny, wry mumblecore comedy by Bob Byington. Remember Richard Linklater's "Waking Life," about a curious soul who explored Austin encountering one fascinating and original person after another? Harmony, the hero of this film, doesn't know a single fascinating person and never visits a part of town that doesn't look like an anonymous suburb.

21 and a Wakeup (R)
I learn that Chris McIntyre served in Vietnam and that "21 and a Wakeup," set in an Army hospital in the waning days of the war, is based on events that he experienced and heard about. I'm sure his motivations were heartfelt, but his film is awkward and disjointed, and outstays its welcome.

An Education (PG-13) (10/21) »

Antichrist (No MPAA rating) (10/21) »

Amelia (PG) (10/21) »

Astro Boy (PG) (10/21) »

Motherhood (PG-13) (10/21) »

Walt and El Grupo (PG) (10/21) »

Q. I need to share this blasphemous rumor with you; it is said Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire will co-star in a remake of "The Third Man." Can't we just all agree that some movies are sacred?
Mon oncle d'Amerique (PG) (1980)
Three children are born in France. One, Rene, is the son of struggling farmers. One, Janine, a daughter of proletarians. The third son, Jean, is born in a manor house to wealthy bourgeois. These children grow up, are educated, find occupations often against the will of their parents, and enter relationships. They don't much think of themselves as laboratory rats, but they might be surprised how consistently their behavior is consistent with the involuntary responses of a rat. This observation is not intend as an insult to them, or to the rat.
by Roger Ebert

"These two newlyweds are driving down to Florida on their honeymoon," Lou Jacobi was telling me. "The guy puts his hand on his wife's leg. 'We're married now,' she tells him. Why don't you go a little farther?' So, he goes to Fort Lauderdale."

This was in a restaurant in Toronto in 1999, where we were having lunch before Lou was scheduled to dedicate his star on Canada's Walk of Fame. Lou died Friday at 96.

by Roger Ebert

In her next film, Gabby Sidibe will play Miss Popularity. This is a fair distance from the abused, fearful victim she plays in the title role of "Precious." People half-convinced the actress must be like the character will need a readjustment.

Pleasantville
In the twilight of the 20th century, here is a comedy to reassure us that there is hope -- that the world we see around us represents progress, not decay. "Pleasantville," which is one of the year's best and most original films, sneaks up on us. It begins by kidding those old black-and-white sitcoms like "Father Knows Best," it continues by pretending to be a sitcom itself, and it ends as a social commentary of surprising power.
Richard Schickel wrote a book review of "Robert Altman: The Oral Biography" by Mitchell Zuckoff. Except that, rather than review the book, he chose to review Robert Altman's capacity for drinking and dope-smoking:

It appears that from the beginning of his career until almost its end (when illness slowed him), Robert Altman never passed an entirely sober day in his life. When he was not drinking heavily, he was smoking dope -- often doing both simultaneously. When he screened dailies on location, he insisted the cast and crew gather to view them in a party atmosphere, with the merriment rolling on into the night.

Shocking, isn't it?

"That's funny...That plane's dustin' crops where there ain't no crops."

Endings

Unbreakable: Speaking of framing...

Ich bin ein Tweeter

If David Lynch directed Michael Jackson's life story

The Real Halloween

Zombies: Time of the Season of the Witch

Wild Things, Take 2

Sex and subtitles: An Open Mind is Advised

Where the Mopey Things Are

Paranormal Activity: Boo!

A Serious Man: Kafka in Minnesota



> > > >

The Opening Shots Project Index

Today, fifteen years after I first saw it, I believe "Hoop Dreams" is the great American documentary. No other documentary has ever touched me more deeply. It was relevant then, and today, as inner city neighborhoods sink deeper into the despair of children murdering children, it is more relevant. It tells the stories of two 14-year-olds, Arthur Agee and William Gates, how they dreamed of stardom in the NBA, and how basketball changed their lives. Basketball, and this film.

One day not long ago in the country I gathered a small pile of dried leaves and started a little fire. Then I closed my eyes and remembered. The aroma was a trigger as intense as the taste of Proust's madeleine, the little cake from childhood that summoned his remembrance of time past. It evoked nostalgia but it also evoked curious excitement and desire.

It has been argued that universal health care is an offense against individual liberty. I've been told by readers that they'll deal with their own health care, thank you very much, and have no interest in government interference. At root this is a libertarian argument; conservatives are more likely to oppose it on the grounds that it undermines the free enterprise system. They warn of a Nanny State.

thumbs
Linked here are reviews in recent months for which I wrote either 4 star or 3.5 star reviews. What does Two Thumbs Up mean in this context? It signifies that I believe these films are worth going out of your way to see, or that you might rent them, add them to your Netflix, Blockbuster or TiVo queues, or if they are telecast record them.

Gathered here in one convenient place are my recent reviews that awarded films Zero Stars, One-half Star, One Star, and One-and-a-half Stars. These are, generally speaking to be avoided. Sometimes I hear from readers who confess they are in the mood to watch a really bad movie on some form of video. If you are sincere, be sure to know what you're getting: A really bad movie.

in theaters
9
on dvd
Up  (11/10)
A Christmas Tale  (12/1)
The Cove  (12/8)
ebert's dvd commentaries








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