Borat

(2006, 82 min) So much American satire falls under the category of "preaching to the converted"... especially in the political arena, where Bush or Hilary jabs are rarely seen outside of the insular left/right wing cultures. Amazingly, Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, one of the most vicious sneak-attacks on American culture to ever hit cinemas, managed to cross over into the mainstream and even be embraced by the middle of the road. It played in Peoria, but we're not sure if they got it.

A faux documentary so immersive that only Cohen, a few actors and the camera operators were in on the joke, Borat's shock value comes as much from its raunchiness as the blatant intolerance of the Americans who (willingly!) appear in it. Cohen (a Brit who rarely makes public appearances as himself) plays a Kazach TV personality on a tour of the U.S. to learn about our culture, and boy does he ever. He uncovers homophobia, racism, anti-semitism and sexism in horrifying amounts, enough to make the laughter quite painful. Ever the expert comedian, Cohen is smart enough to balance this with raunchy jokes about Pamela Anderson, public nudity and the lengths people will go to be polite in the face of Borat's unbelievable density. And yes, the nude wrestling scene is an all-time slapstick classic.

– David Gorgos

© TLA Entertainment Group

Pan's Labyrinth

(2006, 112 min) Young Ofelia sits next to her pregnant mother Carmen in a car bouncing and rattling over a pitted country road. It's 1944, and a pall hangs over the seeming pastoral peace outside the vehicle's windows. Mother and daughter travel as though in a funeral cortege to a rural military outpost operated with the dismal repression which inundates postwar Spain. Her new stepfather commandeers this compound in the spirit promulgated by his hero Franco. Capitán Vidal is the polar opposite of Ofelia's beloved father, whose death profoundly altered Ofelia and Carmen’s lives. Carmen tries to adjust to her new realities, but has placed her trust in a man who wants only the son in Carmen's womb, not the family who accompanies it. Ofelia clings to her beloved collection of books, fairy tales which provide solace and an eerie reflection of her new, harsh environment. Upon their arrival at the converted mill now functioning as a military headquarters, Ofelia's only real welcome comes from the housekeeper Mercedes...unless you count the dragonfly which accompanied the car along the final leg of its journey.

Mercedes shows Ofelia the unkempt labyrinth which sits a bit removed from the buildings. It's frightening and daunting and comes to house the fantastic characters through which Ofelia grapples with the real horrors surrounding her. The mindless cruelty of the government enforcers is met by a small but growing resistance. As she defends against the merciless viciousness encircling her, Ofelia finds a faun in the center of the labyrinth, ogres behind her bedroom walls, and fairies everywhere. Savagery and heroism, treachery and bravery inhabit both of Ofelia's worlds; and these worlds merge in a final act of sacrifice.

This is the second entry in director Guillermo Del Toro's projected Spanish Civil War trilogy. The Devil's Backbone was the first title in the series, and the third entry 3993 has an announced release date of 2009. Del Toro masterfully combines stark realism with extravagant grotesques, exposing the thin veil that separates the material from the imaginary. The ensemble is uniformly excellent with special mention to Ivana Baquero, who portrays Ofelia with remarkable sensitivity and nuance. The first film to fully realize Del Toro’s seemingly boundless potential as an auteur, Pan's Labyrinth is an instant classic.

– Ann Yarabinee

© TLA Entertainment Group

The Painted Veil

(2006, 125 min) The Painted Veil opens with a multilayered veil of painterly images, a kaleidoscopic presentation of alien, ethereal pictures seen through shadows and smoke, more dreamlike than material: images at a distance of a lush Chinese countryside evoking indulgent delectation, to be counterbalanced by up-close harsh realities.

We shift back to 1923 London. Kitty (Naomi Watts) is upper-class chattel, rudely and constantly prodded by her odious mother to find someone other than her father to support her. Walter (Edward Norton) is a bacteriologist, a quiet, focused researcher. As a middle-class civil servant, he’s not viewed as the best possible marriage option for Kitty. But she leaps at his proposal, eager for escape from a life she has come to find boring and constricted.

She is whisked away to Shanghai, where the newlyweds encounter the rigid English class hierarchy replicated in the small British colony. Walter re-submerges into his work while Kitty adjusts to her new environment — at once exotic and familiar. She succumbs to the oily charms of English Vice Consul Charles Townsend (Liev Schreiber), enticing and worldly to Walter’s reticence and introspection.

Walter discovers his wife’s infidelity, and reacts with the absolutism that so often accompanies naiveté. He accepts a post in the middle of a virulent cholera epidemic, and offers her two choices: come with him, or suffer an ignoble divorce (in which he would sue her...an unheard-of disgrace at that time).

They travel to the remote village of Mei-tan-fu. Walter chooses a severely uncomfortable and punishingly protracted overland route rather than travel by river; their bare shack and general lack of amenities seem calculated penance for Kitty’s sin. The effects of their mutual estrangement and the cruel threat of the disease are exacerbated by the rising tide of nationalistic fervor inundating the countryside. They are each challenged by their conditions. Walter confronts the enormous transition from pure research to living (and dying) patients; and Kitty finds delighted fulfillment in actually being useful.

They grow as individuals and find reconciliation as a couple, maturating in the face of adversity. Walter and Kitty come to appreciate each other through a better understanding of themselves and by an active involvement in the lives of those around them. Based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham, the film is artfully constructed and beautifully acted, with special mention to Norton as a master of nuance.

– Ann Yarabinee

© TLA Entertainment Group

Curse of the Golden Flower

(2006, 114 min) While the former masters of the martial arts epic continue to churn out disappointing retreads (Tsui Hark's Zu Warriors, Ronny Yu's Jet Li’s Fearless), modern cinematic genius Zhang Yimou delivers the ultimate martial Art Film with Curse of the Golden Flower. Looking back a few years, it was doubtful that the visuals in Yimou’s breathtaking Hero would ever be trumped by anyone, let alone the director himself. Then came House of Flying Daggers, which abandoned a gimmicky story structure in favor of a strong emotional narrative. Golden Flower is the next logical step in not only Yimou’s evolution as a filmmaker, but the evolution of the martial arts film itself.

In 928 A.D., Emperor Ping (Chow Yun-Fat) has a dysfunctional home life. His wife, Empress Phoenix (Gong Li), is having an affair with his son, Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye). He has two other sons: one headstrong, the other a weakling. The secrets that these family members hold leads to a two hour series of schemes, betrayals and even more incest along with some of the greatest action scenes of modern times (in concept at least, digital effects do get daunting). The annual chrysanthemum festival provides the setting for the film’s climax in which loyalties are violently tested and ninja-looking assassins swing around like an army of Spider-Men.

The luxurious feel of the period is accentuated by Yimou’s use of color, more vivid and varied than ever before. The costumes complement the visuals perfectly and the cast that wear them do the same. Though he barely throws a punch, Yun-Fat looks as cool as he ever has, especially during a brilliant bit of slow motion posing. The action that does take place is sparse and sporadic, but memorable in both premise and preciseness. Some viewers may complain about the digital quality of certain scenes, but the ingenuity on Yimou’s behalf easily assuages this complaint. Golden Flower may be the masterpiece of this filmmaker’s career, but he’s proved that statement wrong before.

– Eric Bresler

© TLA Entertainment Group

Dreamgirls

(2006, 130 min) A star is born and her name is Jennifer Hudson! This "American Idol" reject blows the roof off the house in a film we want to see again and again. Writer/director Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters, Chicago) has crafted a musical masterpiece that will join the classics and hopefully collect Oscars® in February. With an all-black cast, the film tells the story of a singing group not unlike the Supremes and their success on Berry Gordy's new record label, Motown Records. Packed with songs you'll be singing along with and high drama, Dreamgirls is a ton of fun!

Effie White (Hudson), Deena Jones (Beyoncé Knowles) and Lorrell Robinson (Anika Noni Rose) form a singing trio called the Dreamettes. With Effie's songwriting brother C.C. (Keith Robinson) they travel to the Apollo in Harlem for an amateur night. Although they lose they end up attracting the attention of manager Curtis Taylor, Jr. (Jamie Foxx) and his star James "Thunder" Early (Eddie Murphy) who hire the women as backup singers. Curtis reshapes the group casting the thin and plain-voiced Deena as the lead and pushing chubby Effie to the rear, regardless of her superior talents. When Effie is dropped from the trio she sings the classic belter "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going". It's from moments like these that legends are born. One cannot convey in words just how powerfully Ms. Hudson sings this song – it's a career-defining moment for this amazing young woman. Taylor is successful in grooming the group and their success, without Effie is huge. While the Dreams rise, Early's star falls which Eddie Murphy captures with deep levels of pathos.

Deserved recipient of 8 Oscar® nominations, though shockingly snubbed in the writing, directing and best picture categories.

– Scott Cranin

© TLA Entertainment Group

Letters from Iwo Jima

(2006, 141 min) Following Flags of Our Fathers, director Clint Eastwood sticks to the anti-war genre with another adaptation of one of World War II’s most lopsided battles, this time from the Japanese perspective. General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) arrives on Iwo Jima and immediately gets to work formulating his ingenious system of defensive caverns and tunnels. His lively cast of subordinates include a former Olympic champion (Tsuyoshi Ihara), an unruly Lieutenant (Shido Nakamura) and a young, reluctant baker turned soldier named Saigo (pop star Kazunari Ninomiya) who is melodramatically married with a newborn child he has yet to meet (even if it was true, the film character doesn’t feel authentic). Flashbacks from characters like these create the image of a country that feels the suffering of war just as much as any other. About an hour into the film, American warplanes appear and are soon followed by the famous beach raid. The Japanese soldiers hang in there for about an hour and a half until a general assault is decided upon and an American victory is sealed. The "Letters" of the title refer to documents that were unearthed in reality, an occurrence that bookmarks the film and serves as a final ode to the now non-faceless fallen soldiers.

The Japanese code of honor supplies the film's main narrative: dying for one's country is an honor, do not let emotions interfere with one’s duty. The soldiers in the spotlight are those who struggle with this concept, although ancient ideals always prevail in the end (albeit to tragic results). The film takes a neutral stance on these ideals although the battle's outcome will surely make up the minds of most viewers for them.

The film is well-shot, often in the shaky war-cam manner, though there is one large problem with the scope of the conflict itself. The viewer is given a huge, glorious glimpse at the invading forces, but it seems like there are only a few dozen Japanese soldiers on the island rather than the reported 22,000. This may have been intentional, but the action scenes end up feeling odd as the Japanese seem even more ridiculously outnumbered than they were in real life. The concept of American soldiers being weak due to their inherent emotional behavior is quickly proven incorrect.

It's unfortunate that the film's cast has been consistently overlooked throughout this award season. Hollywood's go-to Japanese actor Ken Watanabe hands in another fine performance as does Kazunari Ninomiya in the young lead role. Cult-turned-mainstream actor Shido Nakamura (Neighbor No. 13, Jet Li's Fearless) is truly a standout as the brash lieutenant who decides to take matters into his own suicidal hands....

Eastwood's intentions for making this foreign-language film are commendable, but the end result is just another anti-war film that adheres to the regular Hollywood conventions.

– Eric Bresler

© TLA Entertainment Group

Casino Royale

(2006, 144 min) The 007 franchise has gone through several transmutations over the years: slick mod; hackneyed pop; cartoon paplum; ironic self-reflexive action-adventure; just plain bad. This Casino Royale goes back to its harsher, meaner literary source, with the requisite technological updates and a contemporary dismal world view.

Daniel Craig ratchets up his Layer Cake outlaw persona to a near-psychotic level. His Bond, James Bond, exhibits a cunning, bestial intelligence and a crystalline focus unencumbered by any hindrance of morality or guilt. His assignment is Le Chiffre (aka "The Number"), who runs an equal-opportunity money laundering operation for the world’s terrorists and dictators, and appears to be manipulating international markets for fun and profit. But he’s sustained heavy losses recently and has set up a high-stakes poker game at Casino Royale with the intention of recouping his losses. Bond, the newest Double-0 in the M-16 organization, will be financed for the game, assigned to ensure Le Chiffre’s defeat and the dissolution of his entire organization. M (a vibrant Judi Dench) sees Bond as reckless and entrusts his stake to another agent, the beautiful Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), to hold the purse strings. Then the games begin.

Director Martin Campbell, who helmed Pierce Brosnan’s quite successful debut as the enigmatic agent, propels the story with relentless celerity and unadulterated, hardcore brutality: Casino Royale sets new standards for the genre. The supporting cast is superb, the locales are used to maximum effect, and the atmosphere sustains an electric crackle. Definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, but a state-of-the-art delight for aficionados.

– Ann Yarabinee

© TLA Entertainment Group

The Academy Award Nominations for 2006

For those of us still reeling from last year’s inexplicable snub of Brokeback Mountain as Best Picture winner, this year’s announcement of nominations brings a whole new batch of questions to glaring omissions, and, to be fair, proclamations of “well done” in a few nominations that aren’t the usual Academy suspects.

The biggest shock comes from the absence of Dreamgirls as a Best Picture nominee, and to a lesser extent Best Director (Bill Condon), even though it led the pack with 8 nominations. Having just last week won the Golden Globe as Best Picture Comedy or Musical, usually a harbinger of things to come, it not being nominated can only make one wonder if the voters saw the same film that had audiences standing and cheering. I really hope that, like homophobia denying Brokeback its Best Picture win last year, racism didn’t play a part in Dreamgirls not getting its deserved nomination this year.

The second biggest shock comes from the absence of Jack Nicholson as a Best Supporting Actor nominee for his superlative performance in The Departed. Yes, he’s been nominated more than any other actor in the Academy’s history, but it was one of the best performances of the year, and should have been recognized.

It was as much of a surprise to see Mark Wahlberg nominated for the same film, and a delightful one at that. Frankly, as terrific as he was, I didn’t think he stood much of a chance against other possible nominees in what was the strongest of the four acting categories. Wahlberg was definitely not one of the usual suspects. Nor was Jackie Earle Haley for Little Children, and this is the best nomination to come from the Academy. It was a difficult role, handled with authority and restraint, and these types of dark performances just aren’t recognized by the voting block (remember Dennis Hopper’s classic turn in Blue Velvet, and last year Clifton Collins, Jr. was snubbed for Capote). Other strong contenders in this field not nominated included Brad Pitt in Babel, Michael Sheen in The Queen, Steve Carell for Little Miss Sunshine and Ben Affleck in Hollywoodland.

The lead acting categories were as expected. The only real suspense was whether they’d overlook Ryan Gosling’s extraordinary work in Half Nelson in favor of box-office golden boy Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat. Thankfully, and this is by no means disrespect to Baron Cohen’s hilarious performance, they chose correctly. However, Will Smith’s presence for The Pursuit of Happyness is more a nod to the lack of great performances this year by lead actors rather than identifying a particularly great portrayal. Sure he was good, and the film was a heart-tugger, but in any other year, Smith wouldn’t be in the running.

It’s ironic that usually the Best Actor category is the strong one, and Best Actress is usually the limp one. Fortunes are reversed this year, which means that there just wasn’t a spot for the great Maggie Gyllenhaal for the sleeper Sherrybaby.

The Best Picture race, besides ignoring Dreamgirls, offered another surprise in the inclusion of Letters from Iwo Jima. Not that it doesn’t belong there – it does. But many thought that Letters and its counterpart Flags of Our Fathers would basically cancel each other out. Both films are strong, though if you had to pick one, Letters is the stronger of the two – and this is why Clint Eastwood received his Best Director nod for Letters.

Looking out of place in the Best Film category is Little Miss Sunshine. A wonderfully off-beat comedy with great performances, the film doesn’t quite measure up to the other nominees. But the Academy always likes to reserve a spot for the little film that could (Finding Neverland, The Full Monty, Seabiscuit, Chocolat, etc.), so its presence among the top five shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.

Kudos go to Academy voters for the six nominations for the Mexican film Pan’s Labyrinth. The favorite to win Best Foreign-Language Film, this dark, atmospheric, spellbinding fairy tale is an astonishing piece of filmmaking. It’s what the best movies can be: original, creative, smart, captivating, gut-wrenching and ultimately and totally satisfying. This is the best showing for a foreign film since 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which received 10 nominations.

Also, good for the Academy in recognizing Children of Men with three nominations, including the important Screenplay nod. It’s a remarkable sci-fi tale every bit as rewarding as Pan’s Labyrinth. Now maybe more people will get to see it.

Speaking of foreign films, how on earth did Pedro Almodóvar’s brilliant Volver get overlooked? This category operates under different rules; it’s not voted on by the academy, but by committee. They are supposed to see every film in order to vote, which only makes its omission more suspect.

All eyes are now focused on Sunday, February 25, the big night. Will Martin Scorsese finally get his due from the Academy with a Best Director win for the brilliant The Departed? Or will Clint sneak in once again as Clint did for Million Dollar Baby over Scorsese’s The Aviator?

Will the Academy honor one of cinema’s most treasured and deserving actors, Peter O’Toole, with a “lifetime” Oscar for Venus (John Wayne for True Grit, Don Ameche for Cocoon are just two examples, and O’Toole’s performance is clearly more substantive), or will they reward Forest Whitaker’s amazing incarnation of Idi Amin in Last King of Scotland?

Will anything stop Helen Mirren? Well, that answer we know. And will Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson continue their winning streaks for Dreamgirls?

Hopefully, there won’t be any reactions this year like Jack Nicholson’s "Wow!" at Crash winning last year’s Best Picture. All the winners will be deserving, no second guessing, a consensus that makes one and all happy. And if this happens, I can finally stop bitching about Brokeback Mountain losing to the inferior Crash, and once again enjoy the pomp, absurdity, pretension and fun that are the Academy Awards.

– David Bleiler

© TLA Entertainment Group

Turistas

(2006, 94 min) John Stockwell (Crazy/Beautiful, Blue Crush) goes to Brazil to film this somewhat formulaic torture/slasher entry, exposing a young, international cast to an assured future as victims of a cruel fate. Locales lend an exotic sheen to the proceedings as a tour bus crashes on a narrow mountain pass, spilling the free spirits who start trekking through the verdant undergrowth. The guys and gals find a beautiful beach and soon are joined by happy locals, partying hard all night long. Sunrise finds them hung-over and stripped of all their possessions. Thus begins a familiar descent to one of the levels of hell, reserved especially for unwary travelers in a foreign land. A Brazilian lad, Kiko, is empathetic to their plight and volunteers to lead them to what he calls a "safe house". The most interesting sequence, swimming to underwater caves and then through the jungle, is underscored by the ambient sound design. Although lengthy, it adds a surreal air to the grittiness of the subject. Arriving at the house, oft-used clichés abound: creaking floorboards, deep shadows and mocking jungle birds build tension toward the pivotal scene – the arrival of a helicopter. The narrative takes a turn to political and societal statements at this point, and the actual central theme is revealed.

The ensuing escape for the survivors is effective in its editing and pacing intervals, recapitulating the desperation of both hunter and hunted in echoes of despair and upheaval. Themes of panic, claustrophobia and the mad rush to freedom are illustrated in the over-the-top finale. An effort to seriously dramatize the need to survive saves Turistas from being merely a grade-B thriller.

– Max Brinck

© TLA Entertainment Group

For Your Consideration

(2006, 86 min) Christopher Guest and company's fourth, and hopefully final, "mockumentary" outing is a harmless satire of Hollywood egos during awards season. Guest portrays the director of the fictional melodrama Home for Purim, which, as the title alludes, leads to an onslaught of lazy jabs at Hollywood’s resident Jews in a "wink wink, we're laughing with you" manner. The egos of Purim's cast members inflate after an on-set mention of internet Oscar buzz surrounding this movie-within-a-movie. Shooting continues, agents make calls and entertainment programs are skewered as Hollywood's most important beauty pageant approaches. The envelopes are opened at the film's climax where the characters and viewers anxiously await the results of what will surely be a train wreck.

Viewers can expect to see all of the usually reliable Guest stars. The good include Harry Shearer and Catherine O'Hara as Oscar hopefuls whose egos go to their heads and, in O'Hara's case, her face. A Botox gag can only elicit a certain number of laughs before it gets tired, especially during an age that has come to accept the toxic cosmetic’s existence. The film's most disappointing performances include the two highlights of Guest's Best In Show: Eugene Levy as a clueless, slimy agent and Fred Willard as the brash host of an Entertainment Tonight-type show. Both actors seem less energetic than they have in the past, their performances feel scripted, and no matter how long the viewer waits for the expected laughs, they simply never arrive. Parker Posey and the rest of the gang do their usual shtick. Notable cameos include Ricky Gervais (the British "Office") and John Krasinksi (the American "Office") whose brief roles in the film serve as unintentional reminders of how funny comedy can actually be.

For Your Consideration just doesn't feel like a Christopher Guest film. Perhaps moviegoers are too familiar with the film's environment, the success of his past films relied on their unique settings which included small-town musical theater and dog shows. The failed attempts at humor on the parts of some of Hollywood's funniest performers are inexplicable. Attempts at humorous lines are consistently followed by pauses allowing room for laughter that isn’t deserved. Maybe the script was tighter than in the past, allowing less room for improvisation. The ultimate source for the film's failure most likely lies in the tired "mockumentary" format itself, a style that Guest pushed to its limits two films ago.

– Eric Bresler

© TLA Entertainment Group

MPAA Revamps Ratings

One of our biggest obsessions, and one of the biggest thorns in our side, has been the seemingly arbitrary (and discriminatory) MPAA rating system. As noted in the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, the system often results in artistic self-censorship while encouraging pushing the limits of crudity in the interest of selling tickets. A passionate sex scene without nudity can easily grab an R-rating for a foreign film, for example, while a non-stop barrage of sex jokes will earn garbage like Epic Movie a PG-13.

Variety reports that ,while stopping short of addressing many of these issues, the MPAA has been influenced to some degree by This Film Is Not Yet Rated and can only be seen as a step in the right direction. They will now warn parents that certain R-rated films are absolutely not for younger children, an acknowledgement that not all R-rated movies are equal and, in our opinion, basically making an R-rated category that's the equivalent of the "Adults Only" rating advocated by Roger Ebert. It remains to be seen whether mainstream cineplexes and newspapers will refuse to exhibit and advertise these R-rated films, as they currently do with the unworkable NC-17.

The MPAA also will allow filmmakers to use examples from other movies when appealing ratings, a key argument that This Film Is Not Yet Rated was unable to make when it was slapped with the NC-17. Our sister company TLA Releasing had similar issues with the MPAA, earning an NC-17 for Ma Mère due to "aberrant sexual content" that frankly wasn't any worse than what we saw in Basic Instinct 2.

The question that remains is, is this good for parents? Will this improve the system that's currently in place, leveling the playing field for indies and majors alike, or will Hollywood begin to pursue the harder R rating and create cinema that's even more exploitative than what's currently out there?

© TLA Entertainment Group

Running with Scissors

(2006, 116 min) If you've read the book, you've been eagerly awaiting this big screen adaptation for some time. Like the book, the film is both hysterical and scary. Set in the late '70s, the film perfectly captures the era with picture-perfect sets, costumes and music. The autobiographical story by Augusten Burroughs tells of a childhood marred by family addiction, abandonment, just plain eccentricity and a love affair between Augusten, its 15-year-old protagonist (Joseph Cross) and Neil Bookman (a barely recognizable Joseph Fiennes), a 35-year-old schizophrenic man. A simple plot summary can hardly encapsulate the craziness of this story as written and directed by Ryan Murphy (creator of "Nip/Tuck").

Augusten's mother Deirdre is played with aplomb and high style by Annette Bening in another in a long series of amazing roles. She's an unpublished, deluded poetess who's married to Norman, an alcoholic played with great subtlety by Alec Baldwin (who seems to be everywhere these days!) After severe dysfunction gets this wacky unit ground to a halt, Dierdre is sent to a new shrink Dr. Finch (Brian Cox). Dr. Finch recommends that Deirdre end her marriage to Norman and park her son with his family. This will give Deirdre "room to breathe." So Norman is packed off to a home that makes the Addams Family look like the Cleavers. The Finches, as played to a tee by Evan Rachel Wood, Jill Clayburgh and Gwyneth Paltrow, are truly insane. Augusten quickly adapts to his new surroundings. He and his adopted sister decided one day to cut a hole in the kitchen ceiling to let the light in. When Dr. Finch sees it, he remarks "I like it, the hole gives the kitchen some much needed humor." When Augusten comes out to his sister Natalie, she introduces him to their 35-year-old banished gay brother Neil, who hears voices. They fall quickly in lust, and no one seems to disapprove of this relationship, which many parents might consider innapropriate – it's actually encouraged. Meanwhile Deirdre is busy re-inventing herself as a lesbian. One of her two girlfriends is the amazing and under-utilized Kristin Chenoweth (Broadway's Wicked). There's too much plot here to tell more – you'll have to see the film and get more nuggets to tell at parties.

Amazing performances, spectacular sets and costumes, a fun soundtrack and lots of dysfunction make this the perfect family gathering film.

– Scott Cranin

© TLA Entertainment Group

Little Miss Sunshine

(2006, 101 min) Nothing more than Meet the Fockers for elitists (or maybe Flirting with Disaster for dummies), Little Miss Sunshine is the latest overhyped, overpraised letdown to emerge from Sundance – must be the high altitude. Like a first draft of a Screenplays 101 course, there are too many one-note characters, coincidental plot twists and contrived situations to overlook, squandering some splendid performances and at least a few good laughs in the process.

When their cute but pudgy daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) miraculously qualifies at the last minute for the big Little Miss Sunshine beauty contest, her parents (Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette) decide to throw their whole dysfunctional family into a ramshackle VW van for a harried road trip to California. Nevermind that flying the mom & the kid alone would really be cheaper, or that the suicidal gay Proustian scholar (Steve Carell) could easily stay home with the non-speaking vow-of-silence son (Paul Dano), or that heroin-snorting foul-mouthed Grandpa (Alan Arkin) would keep the raunchy nature of the kid's routine a secret, or that none of the ridiculous bunch would have no idea what beauty pageants are really like. No, it's a comedy, so these somewhat pathetic characters are forced together so that each can have their one joke, one punchline, and one moment of half-hearted character growth before the big setpiece at the end. Yawn.

This is filmmaking at its most cynical: Creating smug characters and letting them wallow in their delusions, to the delight of even smugger audiences. It's more winceworthy than funny, despite an energetic turn by Arkin (unfortunately cut off National Lampoon's Vacation-style) and a naturally precocious performance by young Miss Breslin. That this was marketed as an "indie film" is perhaps the biggest shame of all. Prepare to be disappointed.

– David Gorgos

© TLA Entertainment Group

Babel

(2006, 143 min) In Babel, their ambitious third major release, producer/director Alejandro González Iñárritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros, 21 Grams) use a familiar non-linear formula to display one tragic incident – the accidental shooting of an American tourist in Morocco – and the several unknowingly connected families that are either directly involved or affected. Though out of sequence, the butterfly effect takes the audience from Japan to Morocco, the United States and Mexico.

As with his previous efforts, Iñárritu provides a good handful of riveting sequences while intimately and unflinchingly focusing on extraordinarily uncomfortable human emotion. This time, however, sibling rivalry, marital discourse, separation anxiety, racial oppression, sexual discovery and the great fear of personal loss are blended with observations of human miscommunication on a global scale.

While the performances (by Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael García Bernal and a culturally-varied collection of professional and non-professional actors) as well as cinematography by Iñárritu’s regular director of photography Rodrigo Prieto (Amores Perros, Brokeback Mountain) prove exceptional, the highly prevalent editing tends to hinder the effectiveness of Babel as a whole. There is so much going on within this film that the constant and often intentionally disorienting cross-cutting detracts from the emotional investment that the audience is expected to make in the characters of each segment. In addition, the portions of Babel featuring Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi), a deaf teenager recovering from her mother’s suicide and looking for love in all the wrong places, are fascinating as a separate piece of filmmaking but seem to relate much less to the essential plot that is presented. This, along with much eye-pleasing but extraneous establishing footage, bumps the total running time up to an arguably unnecessary 143 minutes.

Babel is a rarity among similarly constructed cinematic puzzles due to the fact that the individual pieces will likely prove more interesting and exciting to the discerning eye than the fully assembled finished product. However, Iñárritu and Arriaga's hearts, minds and intentions appear to be in the right place and the filmmaking aesthetics rarely disappoint.

– Robert O'Neill

© TLA Entertainment Group