Vegas Vacation (1997)

Chevy Chase offers another tribute to family with this slap stick, ridiculous comedy. Just a few laughs really, usually when Randy Quaid is onscreen.

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The Sting (1973)

This classic has inspired a slew of caper films and still holds its own against them. Paul Newman and Robert Redford demonstrate class and wit as they swindle an even more evil swindler.

Two cons team up and recruit a huge team to defraud a big time city gangster who had one of the their friends executed. The film tracks their big scheme.

The charm really comes from the two main actors and the elaborate sting operation. Really fun movie to watch with plenty of tension to keep it moving.

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Rounders (1998)

Edward Norton and Matt Damon team up in this film about friendship and money.

Mike and Lester work as a team when playing poker - soaking their opponents every time. When Lester gets out of prison, Mike who is now pursuing an honest career feels indebted to him and bows to Lester's invitation to gamble. His grace towards Lester is taken advantage of and the two find themselves deep in debt to a powerful gang.

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Frozen River (2008)

This indy film takes a look at poverty in the United States and the inevitable desperation that many people reach. Contributing factors of addiction, high costs and low wages, the high demand for unlawful work make the country a breeding place for crime and broken families.

When a white woman is abandoned by her husband, she resorts to trafficking people from Canada to the U.S. with a young local Mohawk woman.

The acting is quite good and the actions of the characters truly reflect what people would do in those circumstances, but it also depicts the depravity of our society.

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The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (2009)

The latest of Werner Herzog's magnificent films is a dramatic and dark look at an unlikable officer of the New Orleans police force.

Terence McDonagh is awarded some stripes after a heroic deed during the Katrina disaster, but it leaves him fighting a painful injury that he self-prescribes cocaine for. His policing pursuits take a back seat to his pursuit of drugs and a so begins a quick and dangerous spiral downward into criminal chaos.

The film is full of turns and not the mystery kind, we try hard to like Terence, but it gets more difficult as the story plays out. The acting and direction is superb in drawing you into some very dark places of the heart and the intensity that lives there.

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The Hangover (2009)

"Dude, Where's my Tooth" does a brilliant job of not over sentimentalizing what is meant to be pure comedy.

Two friends drag their friend and his future brother-in-law to Vegas for a final bachelor hoorah. Three of them wake up the next morning to find they have lost their friend, a tiger is lurks in their bathroom and a baby is crying in their trashed hotel room. The rest of the film, they piece together the night before as they backtrack to find their friend.

The film definitely has its moments, but it also goes too far from my perspective in its goal to shock.

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Ocean's Thirteen (2007)

Soderbergh continues his Ocean's franchise with another witty, star-studded, crime flick.

Danny Ocean reassembles a team of expert criminals to exact revenge on a casino owner (a typical loud Al Pacino). With perfected skills in deception, acrobats, and technology the group can't fail.

The film is pure fluff and it celebrates a tradition in Hollywood in which it celebrates the craft and its stars.  

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Die Fälscher (2007)

The Counterfeiters is another holocaust film. It won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film and thoroughly deserved it. 

A master counterfeiter is imprisoned in Nazi Germany and put into a concentration camp during the war. Along with other Jewish prisoners who have expertise in printing and bank notes, he is conscripted by the German army to produce foreign currency to fund the war and as a weapon against other countries by generating inflation. The dynamics within this small team of counterfeiters is the focus of the film as they work for their tormentors for an end they despise while at the same time doing so in order to survive.

The lead actor, Karl Markovics, deserves a nod for his stoic performance as one who can not lose as everyone around his loses.

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Factotum (2005)

Based on various writings and also some biographical information of author Charles Bukowski, Factotum gives us an insight into both the genius and tragedy of an author without any connection to real life.

Hank can't hold a job for more than a few days, sometimes just a few hours. As he bounces between different jobs, apartments, and hotel rooms he writes short stories and mails them to magazines hoping that one will get published. His life is coloured with odd characters and fueled by alcohol.

The film captures the essence of Hank's aimless life by being quite aimless itself. There is little redemption and little hope in the film, though a spark of life, driven mainly by the writing and an attitude of disconnect with earthly possessions and relationships, is maintained throughout.

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MASH (1970)

Robert Altman barely holds this largely incoherent film together with a couple fool doctors. 

A Mobile Army Surgical Hospital is stationed in Korea in the 1950s. Sex, alcohol, and stunts keep the staff occupied when they are out of the operating room. 

In its day, MASH was an innovative film with ongoing dialogue in the background and plenty of ad lib from the actors. Today, it's difficult to stay awake with much of the lines being washed over by background noise and incoherent speech. The actors often mumble their lines on top of that. The movie is episodic and doesn't have much continuity to hold the story together.

In large part, besides producing some comedy, this film is a rebellion to the Vietnam war at the time and to the military establishment. 

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The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

Woody Allen presents us with a very original work to help us grapple with our relationship with the movies. A depression era New Jersey woman spends all her spare time watching Hollywood flicks in the theatre to avoid spending time with her bully of a husband. She gets swept away by more than just the story, but by one of the characters himself who steps out of the film and swoons her. The distance between fiction and reality is bridged and everything gets blurry.

The acting in the film is really fun and so is the story itself. It doesn't drag on longer than it should and proves an important point: movies are powerful, so don't become too seduced by them - a lesson for some of us.

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Casablanca (1942)

I find this film to be tremendous for two reasons: it's moral stance and it's historical significance.

Declared by many to be the greatest love story of all time, we don't see the lovers succumbing to their carnal desires, but rather to the will to honour each other. This is very admirable - and rare. Bogart and Bergman show cause for true love, though some today would say they are protecting an archaic understanding of marriage.

The fact that this film was made just after the United States had officially entered World War II makes this a war document in and of itself. No one knew how much longer the war would go on nor who would ultimately win. The Germans are clearly depticted as the bad guys, but not nearly as callous as they are in future films. It is more an issue of nationalism during the making of the film - which is superbly depicted in the bar scene where the French overwhelm the Germans in song.

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Bright Young Things (2003)

Rich Young Things could easily have been the title for this film of wanton debauchery and boredom. Before the war, rich Britons had nothing to capture their imagination besides drugs, sex, wild parties and big wastes of money. This is a story of peril.

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Don't Come Knocking (2005)

Don't Come Knocking is a slow, presumptuous film.

An aging, disreputable actor runs away from a set in the desert to find himself. His journey takes him to various characters in his past that give him perspective on how he has screwed up his life.

It is difficult to gauge what the filmmakers expectations for their viewers are. There were several moments when I didn't laugh when obviously there was something meant to be laughed at and other times when I didn't feel sympathy for the characters when clearly there was an effort to evoke such emotion. I just found the film flat mostly.

There is some merit to the film as the message of confession and forgiveness are central. The pacing and character development just brings it down a few notches.

Truth: Atonement should always be sought, despite whatever may stand in the way.

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Casino Royale (2006)

A new Bond, a new attitude towards the ladies. This spy movie gets a little bit more personal and a little less gadgety. I found the introduction to the new Bond quite interesting. It actually implies that the old MI6 007 spy died and this new James Bond took his place with a license to kill.

Mr. Bond tracks terrorist money in this more subdued thriller. First he propels an incredible foot chase in Madagascar. Then he foils an airport bombing in Florida. Finally he goes to the poker tables in Montenegro to win money that would otherwise be won by terrorist investor Le Chiffre.

Without looking too hard for a moral or message, as the film isn't really made to present one, I found that the it was trying to identify more with current audiences - a more sensitive Bond, bound by duty, but still a gentleman - rather than maintain the Bond image. Still, the ladies are voluptuous. The cars are fast and sleek. The lines are loaded with double-entendre. In the end, it's still a Bond movie at heart.

Truth: Even James Bond has a vulnerable layer deep down.

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The Air I Breath (2007)

This is a pared down film in the tradition of Crash and Babel. It seeks to explore how we are interconnected and the possibility of Divine intervention, though not explicitly.

A banker, a doctor, and a criminal strong man weave through each others lives and a pop diva's existence. Without knowing it, they contribute to the life of the woman even as their lives are impacted with happiness, pleasure, and love. It is a modern day parable with some stereotypical characters facing some surreal circumstances.

Forest Whitaker again proves his status as a top actor as the stuttering banker. The film is shot nicely with some stylistic aptitude and the writing is good, but not great. Perhaps I'm jaded, but I'm not moved by far out stories as much as by simple people facing realistic challenges and over coming them or sacrificing themselves for others. We see some of that here, but it tries too hard in many ways - appealing to conscience and action fans at the same time.

I was drawn in for the first 20 minutes and nothing following that was an improvement.

Truth: We are most alive when we pour our lives into others and recognize how others lives have been poured into ours.

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21 (2008)

An entire story is constructed around the fact that some smart kids from Boston made a lot of money 'cheating' at blackjack in Las Vegas. You can guess that I was not blown away by the plot.

There is really very little to say about the film it is so void of thought provoking substance. It desperately tries to get you to empathize with the difficult choices the protagonist makes, but the choices are easy - and ones that very few of us would ever have to make.

Something must be said of the opening shot of the protagonist riding his bike on a bridge in Boston - well done.

We are meant to be enamoured with the glitz of Vegas and the pressure of ivy league universities, but none of it speaks to the core of our existence. Greed, lust, temptation, etc. are some of the great themes and vices in history, but they are both moralized and glossed over in this flick. Everything is sensationalized and forgiven in the end - the character really is unchanged in the end.

Truth: In value, it is the pain of life experience that surpasses the excitement of life experience. (at least that is what the film tries to communicate)

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Croupier (1998)

Clive Owen has made his mark as a superb actor in recent films such as Closer and Children of Men, but I think his ability was just as sure back iin 1998 with this film. I honestly did not sense any of his other characters in this one - a calculating and blank croupier.

We follow a reluctant card dealer back into a casino in London. He wants more than all else to be a writer, but wants his book to have depth and not simply a pay check. He claims that he does not gamble and, in the traditional sense, he does not. He only goes for sure things; things that when received, will not demand any thing of himself in return.

The writing is witty. The actors are not all that glamorous, but they are sharp. There are great turns in the story and we are never sure of results or clashes.

What shook me more than anything in the film is Owen's character's lack of emotion. That alone revealed more than a tone of "taker" but also a truth. When we don't give, we don't feel - and that includes guilt or joy.

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