WORTH YOUR WHILE***

 L’Art d’aimer *** (French)   Juxtaposed stories of love and amusing relationships in their many forms, delightfully French.

The Mill and the Cross (Bruegel – le moulin et la croix) ***   A magnificent analysis and literal coming-to-life of Pieter Bruegels’s famous painting, The Way to Calvary, intermingled with the politics of the era and the agony of Christ’s crucifixion. A master work.

The Woman in the Fifth (La Femme du Vème) *** (English, French)  Kristine Scott-Thomas and Ethan Hawke are entwined in a hypnotic, surrealistic tale of loneliness and longing in a Paris where elegance and low-life mingles.

Juan *** (German)   From Denmark comes this powerful modern-day version of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, starring a rugged Christopher Maltman as Juan. Mesmerizing.

Contagion ***  This disaster film about a world-wide pandemic is top-notch due to a realistic, gripping script and pacing, fine acting by an amazing cast of stars and its director, Steven Soderbergh. You won’t want to shake hands with anyone afterwards.

Happy Feet 2  ***  Even better than the original, there are adorable fuzzy kiddy penguins, snappy music, Robin Williams back as the love-crazy Latino penguin, and a lovable pair of philosophical shrimps (yes, shrimps!). For the child in all of us.

Puss in Boots ***  He’s been a bad kitty and he now has his own film! Voiced once more by Antonio Banderas, Puss is everything from lover to Zorro-like meow trying to redeem himself, between dances and swashbuckling heroics. Great fun for all kids from 5 to 95.

Monsieur Lazhar ***  This Canadian film which won the Audience Prize at Locarno is the gentle story of a refugee who becomes a fine school teacher but gets into trouble when it’s discovered he is not legal…..universal.

Carnage **1/2  Yasmina Reza’s play about two couples spilling their guts has been brought to the screen by Roman Polanski with great actors such as Jody Foster, Christoph Waltz, Kate Winslet and John C. Reilly. Unnerving and at times over-done.

Dangerous Method **1/2  Michael Fassbender portrays Carl Jung; Keira Knightly is his famous patient and lover, Sabina Spielrein, who went on to become a psychiatrist herself; and Freud (a too handsome Viggo Mortensen) is a consultant to Jung’s therapy and his intimate affair. Fascinating, but the Freud part does not feel convincing.

J. Edgar  **1/2  As always, Leonardo DeCaprio is brilliant, here as the FBI’s infamous Hoover, becoming him from the inside-out, as the physical resemblance is disputable. As is the badly-done makeup work. Clint Eastwood knows how to make artsy crowd-pleasers, but treats Hoover with kid gloves and leaves us hungry for more info than he’s willing to convey.

La Délicatesse **1/2  (French)   A sweet, gentle film about a great love lost and how the lonely girl (Audrey Tautou) can fall for a seemingly mediocre guy because of his goodness and simplicity. Endearing.

La Vérité si je mens 3  **1/2  (French)  This is the third in the amusing, wonderfully clichéd and politically-incorrect adventures of a close-knit band of young Jewish business guys (dealing mainly in the garment trade), one more wild and woolly than the next, always rooting for their families, trying to top each other and get the best of their adversaries. With colorful French character actors such as Richard Anconina, José Garcia, Gilbert Melki and Vincent Elbaz, you can’t lose. This is comedy from the heart, without vulgarity.

Neptune Ravar Ingwersen

Bonnie Au Cinema Cantagion, Carnage, Christopher Maltman, Clint Eastwood, Dangerous Method, Don Giovanni, Ethan Hawke, Happy Feet 2, J. Edgar, Jody Foster, Juan, Kristine Scott-Tbomas, L'Art d'aimer, La Délicatesse, La Vérité si je mens 3, Leonardo DeCaprio, Monsieur Lazhar, Neptune Ravar Ingwersen, Pieter Bruegel, Puss in Boots, Robin Williams, Roman Polanski, Steven Soderbergh, The Mill and the Cross, The Way to Calvary, The Woman in the Fifth

Movies – Films

Superb  ****    Very Good   ***     Good **       Mediocre  *      Forget it   -

Worth your While

Alice in Wonderland ***  The fantabulous team of Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter is back to enchant us once again, after such delights as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Sweeney Todd. It’s of course the classic tale of Alice, who is somewhat older this time, with a wonderfully dazed and touching Mad Hatter, as only Johnny Depp could portray.

How to Train your Dragon ***  Dreamworks is inching in on the brilliance of Pixar animation with exuberant tales like this one about a Viking village that is constantly attacked by dragons. But the son of the village chief just doesn’t feel like killing them, to his father’s shame. In fact he ends up befriending one of them …This is an invigorating and humorous tale of understanding those whom we have mistakenly come to fear and hate. Wonderful!

Men Who Stare at Goats (Les chèvres du Pentagone) ***  Don’t take this film seriously and just enjoy a super team of actors including George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor and Kevin Spacey. You’ll laugh yourself silly at the antics of an “anti-war” unit in the U.S. Army. Weird, goofy and a hoot!

Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang ***  Set in the English countryside, this is a magical, feel-good film for the whole family, with a disguised Emma Thompson (who also wrote the screenplay) as an amazing nanny who is transformed with each good deed she teaches her young brood. The kids are great, as is the versatile Maggie Gyllenhaal as their mother, along with a woozy Maggie Smith. It’s a moving, funny and adventurous story of a family waiting for Dad to come home from war.

Les Invités de mon Père (vo French)   ***  With a super cast that includes Fabrice Luchini and Karin Viard as his sister, this is a film    about a close-knit family that wonders what’s up with their father when he takes in a dubious mother/daughter duo from an Eastern-bloc country. Anne Le Ny’s refreshing French comedy manages both to amuse and dissect a multitude of family quirks and prejudices.

Shutter Island ***  If this is not an homage to Hitchcock, I don’t know what is. There’s the twisted plot, the heightened colors and fake backdrops (especially at sea), the winding staircase in a lighthouse (Vertigo) and even a cliff-hanging scene (North by North West). Scorsese and DiCaprio give us the shivers until the brilliant ending, better than any of Hitchcock’s. I didn’t want to see the film, as it seemed so creepy, but it was finally well worth the chills.

The Ghostwriter **1/2  Here is Roman Polanski’s take on a Tony Blair-like British leader’s memoirs and intrigues – an interesting, austere political thriller with Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan.

Tetro **1/2  A young sailor from Europe arrives in Argentina to find his long-lost older brother. Francis Ford Coppola has turned to dramatic black & white to tell this tale of a family torn apart by an overbearing, illustrious father with some deep secrets. Intense and esthetically sumptuous, it’s a grand old melodrama set in Buenos Aires.

Precious **1/2  Highly acclaimed and Oscarized, this downer of a film is about a terribly abused black girl who gradually comes out of her shell through a caring teacher. Fine acting all around, especially by the abusive mother, but the whole tragic process leaves you feeling queasy.  Can any of this relentless scrutiny help somehow, somewhere?

Chloe **1/2  There are films that grab you from the outset and don’t let go. This is one of them, though it leaves you with a disturbing sense of guilt for having watched it. This slick psychodrama, about a wife who hires a call girl to get at the truth about her husband, is an intense observation of the twists of life by the renowned Canadian/Armenian director Atom Egoyan (Exotica). Julianne Moore is especially effective in this remake of the original French film, Nathalie, which starred Fanny Ardant and Emmanuelle Béart.

Les Aventures extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec (vo French)  **1/2  Luc Besson (Le Grand Bleu,Subway, Angel) knows how to make films, even if critics regularly drub him – jealousy? This one is pure action/fun entertainment (in the genre of Indiana Jones or Romancing the Stone) based on a well-known comic-book series set in the Paris of the early 1900s. A feisty journalist, Adèle, goes off to Egypt and its pyramids to find a way to cure her comatose sister. It has great characters, exotic locations and cinematography, but it could have been shortened for better effect.

Neptune Ingwersen

Bonnie Au Cinema, Entertainment & Fun Anne Le Ny, cinema, films, George Clooney, Helena Bonham Carter, Hitchcock, Jeff Bridges, Johnny Depp, Luc Besson, movies, Neptune Ingwersen, Roman Polanski, Tim Burton