10,000 BC

Steven Strait, Camilla Belle

Perhaps I shouldn't comment, as I couldn't actually find the stamina to sit through this tripe, but I made a valiant effort and suffered through the first act. It seems 10,000 BC was the age of sexual abstinence. There's one babe in the entire village, but nobody tries to compromise her virtue, including the marauding band of kidnappers who take her hostage. Beyond that, I have to wonder, does anybody actually eat elephant (or mammoth) meat? And if a civilization is based on killing, butchering and somehow curing mammoth meat, wouldn't you expect them to hunt the young calves, rather than the giant behemoths that must be eighty years old with muscles tough enough to move their eight-ton bodies?

16 Blocks

Bruce Willis, Mos Def, David Morse

A good film, but short of a great film. The movie offers a lot of entertainment value, including excellent acting by Willis and Morse, good chase scenes and production values. One problem with the film becomes obvious in the "shocking alternate ending not seen in theaters," that should have been left off the DVD as well, as it causes a slight stutter even in the theatrical version on playback. The film wears it's theme on it's sleeve, relentlessly beating the audience over the head with exposition on it's "people can change" theme. Theme should be understated, conveyed in subtext, left up to the audience to interpret, not waved around like the stigmata-suggestive wound in Jack Mosley's (Bruce Willis's) hand. Another problem is in the Eddie Bunker character played by Mos Def. The character is a chameleon, constantly changing to adapt to the immediate needs of the script, rather than in ways a realistic character might respond to the circumstances. At times he seems to suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome, but periodically steps out of character to display courage, intellectual acumen, emotional intelligence or fashion sense. The character needed to be ambiguous in terms of guilt or innocence, not intellectual capacity. A manipulative femme fatale or a street-wise kid would have been a more interesting character to watch. 

Running Scared

Paul Walker, Cameron Bright, Vera Farmiga, Karel Roden

Brilliant script by Wayne Kramer. I hated The Cooler and found Mindhunters an uninspiring, implausible derivative of Ten Little Indians. But Wayne redeemed himself with this script. The film has a manic MTV energy with complex, believable characters who always seem to pursue their own interests, rather than popping up to suit the needs of the story. However, the final scene seems tacked on to give the story a more upbeat ending. It's part of a pair of bookend scenes, the first of which works until the end when it ceases to make sense. One can't help but feel cheated by the ending, but it's a hell of a ride getting there.

Memoirs of a Geisha

Ziyi Zhang, Suzuka Ohgo, Ken Watanabe

Loved the book, loved the film, despite the compromises made in an effort to give it a more universal appeal. But I'm a major Ziyi Zhang fan. Loved her in Shi mian mai fu (House of Flying Daggers) and Kar Wai Wong's 2046. I even bought a copy of Operetta tanuki goten, which is difficult to find, damned expensive and doesn't have English subtitles, but the search is well worth the effort. Another stunning performance, although she doesn't look very Japanese. A few changes to the book worked very well, including Mameha's (Michelle Yeoh's) reaction to Sayuri's (Ziyi Zhang's) humiliation by the Baron (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) and rewriting the pivotal encounter to cast Sayuri opposite an American Colonel played by Ted Levine, who played Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. But one change that shattered my willful suspension of disbelief and took me entirely out of the story momentarily was Sayuri's anachronistic comment to Dr. Crab (Randall Duk Kim) to follow his own advice and seek a second opinion.   

Hostel

Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Eythor Gudjonsson

This film redefines creepy. Rick Hoffman, who played the obnoxious lawyer in Cellular, delivers a stellar performance with a depraved edge. I don't find films about huge monsters running amok particularly frightening, as I never quite accept them as real, particularly when the film targets an adolescent audience, as does Jurassic Park and others. Ghosts can be frightening, if they are manifestations of guilt, as in The Mechanic, rather than supernatural apparitions. But there seems to be no limit to human depravity, so I find gritty films like Hostel and Wolf Creek the most frightening.

Ru guo · Ai (Perhaps Love)

Takeshi Kaneshiro, Xun Zhou, Jacky Cheung

This is what filmmaking is all about. It's not a perfect film, but outshines most of the drivel from Hollywood. The story floats effortlessly between past and present, reality and fantasy, with a film within a film that serves as a beautiful allegory for the conflicts of the main characters, plenty of heart and unexpected twists, superb production values. 

Firewall

Harrison Ford, Paul Bettany, Virginia Madsen 

A talented cast and good production values are wasted on a weak script with major cosmos of reality problems. I really hate the overused and thoroughly implausible ploy in which one character hacks into a bank to transfer money from various accounts, then somebody comes along and reverses the transfer. It's like sending out a hundred e-mail messages, then trying to recall them without the recipients' knowledge. The film develops numerous false expectations that never pay off. We expect Gary Mitchell (Robert Patrick) to play a major role, but he disappears halfway through the film. Jack and Beth Stanfield (Harrison Ford, Virginia Madsen) plant seeds of discontent among the bad guys that never blossom. Harrison Ford recreates his Air Force One role without the frequent allusions to his war hero past, then his 63-year-old computer geek character defeats a tough guy half his age, not by computer wizardry, but in a knock-down, drag-out brawl. 

The Ice Harvest

John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Connie Nielsen

A film needs a balance of emotional content and well-grounded believability. The Ice Harvest attempts to skate by on emotional content without developing the reality. We need to see and understand the heist to recognize whether the future events represent actual threats or not. The film reminds me of the Steve Martin gag. How to earn a million dollars and pay absolutely no taxes. First, earn a million dollars, then pay no taxes. When the IRS comes knocking at your door, tell them, "I forgot." The premise establishes the expectation we will learn how to earn a million dollars, but we don't. It works in comedy, but not in drama. 

D.E.B.S.

Sara Foster, Jordana Brewster, Meagan Good, Devon Aoki

This film has little to offer, other than Devon Aoki running around in an abbreviated Catholic high school uniform. But what more do you need? I'll buy the special edition director's cut just to check out the deleted scenes. I can enjoy a fluffy film about mini-skirted crime-fighting cuties, but my willful suspension of disbelief was taxed to the limit toward the end of the second act when the SWAT team arrived carrying cheesy plastic rifles that we were supposed to believe were real. No wonder we need to entrust the security of our nation to fashion models turned crime-fighters.

War of the Worlds

Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning

War of the Worlds demonstrates the fallacy in conventional screenwriting wisdom that the main character should occupy the screen for the majority of the film. Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) is in practically every shot. When he's not on screen, the camera cuts back and forth between Ray and Ray's POV. Consequently, there are no real subplots to enrich the story. If the filmmakers had devoted some screen time to the Aliens, they would have been compelled to make them more interesting characters and the story would have been much more compelling. As it is, the film suffers from some major cosmos of reality issues and an unsatisfying deus ex machina resolution.

Tau man ji D (Initial D)

Jay Chou, Anne Suzuki, Edison Chen

The audience wants to go somewhere they've never been, not somewhere the author has never been. I put a lot of research into my screenplays in order to make the fantastic credible. It annoys me when filmmakers don't take the time to make their stories real. I particularly dislike the stock shot showing the driver jerking the gear shift lever from third to fourth. It's particularly annoying in films like The Transporter, where the driver is supposedly top at his craft. It was especially grating in 2 Fast, 2 Furious when Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) slams into fourth gear without double clutching, after Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) criticized him for granny shifting in The Fast and the Furious. (Somebody should have also told the director that thirty large is $30,000, not $3,000.) Tau man ji D (Initial D) is a modest film based on a video game I've never played. But at least the filmmakers took time to learn how high performance drivers shift gears.

Hannibal

Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore

Thomas Harris's novel is absolutely incredible. The movie is excellent, although they toned down the ending for Jodie Foster, then didn't change it back when she declined the role. The substitute ending makes little sense, considering how easily Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) defeated his handcuffs in The Silence of the Lambs.