Neo, this is loco

The Matrix

(1999)

Yeah, OK, I get this now, it's all perfectly clear, so as spectacular as the effects are, I don't need to see it again. Who wants my copy?

First, do no harm

Hævnen (In a better world)

Crit

The eternal question: what's a pacifist to do when faced with a world where some sonsabitches just need to be pounded to death or blown up? The answer seems to be that it's OK to countenance counterviolence violence as long as it's by children or Third Worlders. This is a film that wants to be courageous but ultimately wimps out, and everyone good lives happily ever after.

Trailer

• Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold--Ah, good old wacky Morgan Spurlock is back, chomping into advertising as if it were a Big Mac w/ supersized fries and a shake. Hell, yeah, I'm in.

Bright side

Life of Brian

(1979)

You know the scene where the crowd under Brian's balcony demands to see him, and his mother finally relents and agrees to let him come out for a minute, but no more, and he comes out and talks a bit, and then his mother pulls him back inside, and the crowd says, in unison, "That was never a minute," and she says yes, it was? Well, it's really about a minute, seven seconds.

Next year we'll talk about the unusual pattern of exposure and concealment of naughty bits in that sequence.

Inferno

Taxi Driver

(1976)

I was busy having a baby when this came out, so I never saw it until some years after, at which point I thought I probably didn't ever need to see it again. Fortunately, I've toughened up since. But what the hell is there to say about it that hasn't been said?

Got milk?

Léon: The Professional

(1994)

No, really, I didn't plan this as Pubescent Girl Assassins Weekend; not consciously, at least.

Had I seen this in '94, would have made a similar prediction for Natalie Portman to the one I made yesterday for Saoirse Ronan--say, that someday she'd be squaring off against Michelle Williams for an Oscar™? I don't think so--she's good here, but it would have taken someone more perceptive than I to see how good she'd become.

Mainly, if I'd seen it 17 years ago, I think I'd have said "good cast, silly film." Gary Oldman's sociopathic corrupt cop is essentially Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet, only with less restraint.

Over the rainbow

Danny Deckchair

(2003)

Huh! Certainly didn't realize when I chose this that I'd be seeing Rhys Ifans and Miranda Otto together again, as in Human Nature a couple of weeks ago. Both are delightful in this feelgood Oz movie with as much heft as a helium balloon and a plot as substantial as that balloon's skin.

As the twig is bent . . .

Hanna

Crit

I confess I had my doubts, strong reviews notwithstanding (and now I see that its Rotten Tomatoes Top Critics number is just 57%, which I'm very glad not to have known before going, 'cause I might not have), but zowie! This is a ballsy young chick who makes Buffy the Vampire Slayer look like Buffy from Family Affair. I liked the film so much that I'm going to start with my quibbles: first, the deep dark secret that's kept from us until near the end is a serious anticlimax. And as is so often the case with movies about the person we care about running away from the evildoers, the final reel is a little too much of the same thing.

But apart from that, it has the same sort of adrenaline-drip effect of Lola rennt, and looks and sounds even better (e.g., there's no flamenco segment in Lola; more movies should have Romany music in them, dammit!). And if Franka Potente looks spectacular, Saoirse Ronan (remember the little liar in Atonement?) has the face of a blue-eyed Aryan angel (of death), and can act, as well. I predict that there will be more than one year when she and Dakota Fanning will be vying for the same Oscar™.

Moreover, even the clichés here are shot so as to make them almost fresh. And the good-people-who-should-never-have-crossed-paths-with-our-hero--specifically a family on holiday from . . . Australia? Hammersmith? actually, I don't think they all have the same accent . . . anyway, they're exactly what the film needs when they show up, and teen daughter Sophie (Jessica Barden, last seen and loved in Tamara Drewe) is just what Hanna needs, having led, you might say, a bit of a sheltered life.

Trailers

• The Debt--Three young Mossad agents in search of a war criminal in 1965; Helen Mirren leads an excellent cast, and John Madden directs. Looks good.
• Captain America: The First Avenger--I'd love to be able to say this looks good, but it looks pretty run-of-the-comic-book-mill. Still, I'll hope.
• Warrior--Oh, I don't think so.
• Anonymous--About time we got a classy-looking Shakespeare-authorship-denial flick--hells yeah!