While out to dinner with friends, two playwrights (one the author of comedies, the other tragedies) are presented with the scenario of a woman with a troubled past who shows up unexpectedly at her friend’s doorstep and each begins to weave their own version of the story, comically or tragically respectively. Great concept by Woody Allen doesn't exactly come off and perhaps would have worked better told as two separate stories standing alone. Allen has done the tragiocomic thing before at.a masterful level but this is still amiable enough. Radha Mitchell succeeds with a tough charge in playing the lead in both tellings and Will Ferrell, tasked with taking on the Woody persona, gets a mixed bag of hilarious and throwaway one-liners.

*** out of ****

A hopelessly depressed office drone (Jim Carrey) opts for a revolutionary new procedure to have his flighty ex-girlfriend (Kate Winslet) purged from his memory after discovering she had the operation done in reference to him. While put under, he finds his subconscious clinging tight to the memories while intuiting that his own identity is being siphoned by one of the technicians. Impressive Charlie Kaufman screenplay (and amazingly one of his least cerebral) is given an overly fanciful treatment by director Michel Gondry and probably not as deep as it purports itself to be. I found Winslet hard to take, despite the glowing press she received at the time, and Carrey truly owns the movie.

*** out of ****

When a group of young girls in a West African village escape from a circumcision ritual, a woman who had the procedure forced on herself offers them safe haven while rallying the local women against the male dominated tribal council. Moolaade, which Ousmane Sembene made in his eighties, tells a tricky, controversial cinema resistant story intelligently rather that opting for more graphic means which seems would be the natural roadway, and does so by serving up beautiful music, a radiant color palette, and memorable characters.

*** 1/2 out of ****

Based on a book by Geoffrey C. Ward, an account of the life of Jack Johnson, the brazen pugilist who, while always living life on his own terms, became the first black Heavyweight Champion inspiring ire and a slew of great white hope contenders. It has always been true of Ken Burns' films that they are well researched, impeccably presented with great writing, narration, cinematography, and footage although with his later films it has also become a standard for them to incorporate boring drones who compound belabored, obvious points with little wit and style, often to the film's detriment. With Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, all of this applies with Burns presenting a fascinating subject who is so bombastic, impressive, and impossible to peg down.

*** out of ****

Alfred Kinsey has made his name by studying gall wasps during his tenure as professor at Indiana University when, due to a puritanical upbringing and difficulty consummating his marriage to a doting student (Laura Linney), he decides to embark on sex research project, soon publishing his groundbreaking and controversial Sexual Behavior in the Human Male in 1948. Bill Condon's Kinsey is somewhat unpleasant, grounded and features an overacting Neeson who struggles with his Midwestern accent. However, Linney and Peter Saarsgaard, playing one of the researchers, are quite good in support and the film offers several great scenes including the final one between Neeson and John Lithgow, portraying Kinsey's stern minister father.

*** out of ****

A highly skilled special ops agent (Val Kilmer) is charged with the retrieval of the Vice President's daughter following her kidnapping, ordered to function in a stealthy and effective manner before the incident becomes a global news story. Kilmer is potent in this mundane, implausible, and murky thriller which can't be saved by director David Mamet's characteristically hard-nosed dialogue and plotting.

** out of ****

Two strangers, an obituary writer (Jude Law) and a stripper (Natalie Portman), make eye contact on a bustling London street just before she is struck by a cab. A year later, the two are living together and he is preparing for the release of a new book as he falls for the photographer (Julia Roberts) of his jacket photo. The love entanglement takes a fierce turn when a fourth party, a barbarous dermatologist (Clive Owen), is cruelly drawn in and takes pitiless revenge when he is again betrayed. Mike Nichols’ filming of Patrick Marber’s play (which he scripted for the screen himself) is a frank, harsh, and verbally explicit look at love and the ugly lengths that those involved in it go to. The acting is tremendous, especially Law (in an undervalued performance), Portman, and most unforgettably, Owen in a ferocious, darkly comical, and strangely sympathetic portrayal.

*** 1/2 out of ****

After butchering her wedding party and leaving her inexplicably clinging to life, The Bride (Uma Thurman) seeks revenge on the colorful and treacherous members (Vivica A. Fox, Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, and Michael Madsen) of her former hit squad led by the wily and enigmatic title sage (David Carradine). Quentin Tarantino's passion project, written with his leading lady then severed and distributed in two parts after the initial insane notion of showing it as a five hour roadshow, retains a lot of the fun it provided when first viewed, for me during a less discriminating time. Although much of this is egregiously over-the-top (the infamous Crazy 88 massacre all but takes you out of the film) and some scenes worked as self-contained bits but not within the context of the movie (the animated origin story of Liu's character for one), the movie soars when you let go and let it take over. So many scenes are remarkable (Liu's exit and the trailer park brouhaha are both knockouts), Carradine is unforgettable, and I liked how the picture slowed down a bit for its concluding halve. Thurman, while occasionally irksome, is most impressive while alternating between kicking ass and generating sympathy for her character.

70s TV anchor Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) rules San Diego's nightly ratings with his trusty news team (Paul Rudd, David Koehner, and Steve Carrell) and seems destined for primetime until an ambitious reporter (Christina Applegate) seeks to break the sex barrier and become the nation's first female coanchor. Director Adam McKay along with Ferrell, who collaborated on the screenplay, go after an easy satirical target and stretch their scant idea about as far as it will go and pad their film with several throwaway sequences and a number of lackluster cameos (exception Jack Black, who's a highlight). That being said, this remains one of the most quotable movies in recent memory with Ferrell in rare form, particularly in his crash and burn scenes. Although not feeling compelled to check out the sequel, as was initially planned, Anchorman has at least enough laughs to match its lame gags.

A young kid on the verge of Christmas disbelief and with a strong inclination to see Santa hops aboard a magical locomotive which appears out of thin air right in front of his door step. Along with a cadre of his wide eyed peers, a punctual conductor, and a duplicitous hobo (the latter two plus three other characters are voiced by and resemble Tom Hanks) on the North Pole bound express, he undergoes a series of adventures that restore his faith in the season. Robert Zemeckis' The Polar Express is an adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg's classic Christmas children's story  and an early experimentation with motion capture technology. The result is occasionally exciting (this probably would have been a fun one to see in 3D) and contains some good voice work by Hanks, but it is also a creepy, bloated interpretation which adds a bunch of schmaltzy Christmassy crap to a 1,000 word picture book (and a pretty unremarkable one at that, in my own humble opinion).

In this remake of John Frankenheimer's exemplary 1962 original, not much has changed: Denzel takes over for Sinatra, the commies are now terrorists funded by a shadowy global economic group, and Raymond Shaw still has mommie issues in the worst way. Jonathan Demme's The Manchurian Candidate calls to mind an obvious question and one he should have answered the first time he did a disservice to a class with The Truth About Charlie which is why remake a classic, especially one like Franenheimer's which may have been as perfect as any movie has been? Watching this film (which is well made to its credit) I couldn't help measuring it up to the original: Liev Shreiber is no Laurence Harvey, Kimblerly Elise is a horrid replacement for Janet Leigh, and even Meryl Streep can't match Angela Lansbury's icy malevolence. I did find Denzel's work to be solid. I am not sure if Demme drew from the original screenplay, from Richard Condon's novel, or went off on his own tangent, but more is explained but even less is gained. Demme is a an excellent filmmaker who has made some great works in several genres (Silence of the Lambs, Stop Making Sense, Rachel Getting Married) when he has not spent his time trying to fix pristine classics.

An overly thoughtful environmentalist (Jason Schwartzman) seeks the services of an Existential Dectective Agency and its top private investigators/couple (Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman) to delve deeply into the mysteries of his own life. Teaming up with an enviro-conscious firefighter (Mark Wahlberg), he embarks on a dubious professional relationship with a sleek business rival (Jude Law), who is married to a picture perfect model (Naomi Watts) who also begins to reexamine her own life. David O. Russell's I ♥ Huckabees is a jumbled mess that seeks to both capitalize on the success of Three Kings and replicate the madcap zaniness of Flirting with Disaster, with the only problem being the lack of anything resembling a cohesive script or inspired idea in the first place. A sparse saving grace is Wahlberg who is amusing in a self-deprecating role.

At the premiere of his latest nature documentary, sea explorer Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) vows to take revenge on the shark that took his best friend's life. In addition to members of his regular crew, he is joined by his back/ex-wife (Angelica Huston), a journalist (Cate Blanchett) whom he falls for, and a young man claiming to be his son (Owen Wilson), who take part in a tumultuous expedition. Written with Noah Baumbach, Wes Anderson's "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" is a formless, self-indulgent, overly artsy, and occasionally amusing film. Murray is too impassive and among the rest of a largely disappointing star cast, Huston, Michael Gambon, and Bud Court come off best. Having recently rewatched all of Anderson's film, "Life Aquatic" is, to my mind, the only project unworthy of his talents and the film that probably gives him a bad reputation with more than a small segment of moviegoers.

Born into a vaudevillian family as Frances Gumm, Judy Garland became a beloved, tragic, and highly polarizing entertainment icon. "By Myself" chronicles her life, beginning with her time as an MGM child star, her unsurpassed success with "The Wizard of Oz" and "Meet Me in St. Louis", and some of the behind-the-scenes horrors imposed by the studio. It goes on to cover time spent with her husband and often director Vincente Minnelli, their daughter Liza, and latter successes like "A Star is Born" and her offstage singing tours, while documenting the depression and insecurity which plagued her personal life and contributed to her ultimate demise. Like most of the films in the American Masters series, this installment features a wealth of engaging interviews and footage, here telling the story of a talented and often misunderstood persona.

Early in the 1960s, art house master Ingmar Bergman discovered the island of Faro off the Swedish coast where he would film several of his classics ("Through a Glass Darkly", "Persona", "Scenes from a Marriage") and live in relative seclusion until his death in 2007. In 2004 he granted a series of exclusive interviews to filmmaker Marie Nyrerod at his home which were made into three separate films, which were whittled down into this feature length version I viewed. Bergman details his childhood, personal life, distinguished career, and day to day living habits, often in brutal detail and clarity, which is par for the course with his most cherished films.

Earl Tupper's line of plastic, sealable units not only revolutionized food storage but provided a source of revenue for women who hosted Tupperware parties. The long running American Experience documentary series on PBS is a remarkable series that showcases many facets of our culture, and there are times of course when I personally must take one of their entries and realize that it is not geared towards me. "Tupperware!" is one of these entries. I did not find the story of Tupperware to be at all interesting but again I am not the demographic this film is aiming at.

An insecure young milliner is placed under a spell and transformed into an elderly old lady. Taking refuge in a vain young wizard's bizarre mobile castle and mingling with its strange inhabitants in the midst of brutal war, the girl finds her raison d'etre and a love for the equally struggling wizard. "Howl's Moving Castle" is another cherished entry from hallowed Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, and is an imaginative and wildly inventive film. While the movie's artistry has no bounds, it lacks a certain cohesion and, as a result, moves in fits and starts. Animation is always praised as a genre of unlimited invention, but I still want something in a film like this that follows some sort of logical basis. With "Howl's Moving Castle" my head started hurting trying to make odds and ends of what I was seeing, which actually resembles some sort of "Wizard of Oz mashup" and I was unable to fully appreciate the majesty of Miyazaki's creation (the castle looks phenomenal). Maybe I'm too Americanized and not adjusted to Japanese film. I watched the original version in subtitles, then sampled the dubbed American version which seemed more contiguous. "Howl's Moving Castle" is beloved by many and I think, with a little restraint and realism, would be the masterpiece it is widely considered.

After a year of pursuing the Stanfield crew to no avail, the Major Crimes unit is severely limited as the Mayor focuses his funding on education. A frustrated McNulty decides to take matters into his own hands, and soon the Baltimore Sun is involved on a citywide manhunt to track down a vicious serial killer of homeless men. The fifth season of "The Wire" is an exemplary and fitting swan song to one of the finest series in television history. Instead of taking us to the places we've grown accustomed to American entertainments to take us, creator David Simon leads us down a mostly dark, and disturbing path that always follows a logical thread. Among the standouts in this final season are Dominic West, Clarke Peters, Wendell Pierce, Michael Kenneth Williams, and newcomers Clark Johnson and Thomas McCarthy who play a Sun editor, and his unscrupulous reporter, respectively. Season 5 is an incredible and realistically sad sendoff to one of the finest series to ever be conceived.

After the fall of Stringer Bell and the Barksdale and the regulation of the Major Crimes Unit, the ruthless Marlo Stanfield crew has taken hold of the Baltimore drug scene and found an inventive way for disappearing bodies. Meanwhile an unlikely councilman makes a serious go at the mayoral seat, while four young street kids go their divergent paths. Season 4 of "The Wire" is a heartrending gut shot and further evidence of excellence in television programming. All characters new and old and drawn so sharply and so credibly that we are drawn into their lives and celebrate their minor victories but mostly share their pain and losses. I particularly liked the work of the four young actors who played the street kids, all of whom contribute wonderfully in a way seldom seen by young performers. Among the other standouts include Wendell Pierce, Michael Kenneth Williams, and Robert Wisdom. Woven into another complex and engrossing web by creator David Simon and staff, season four continues to etch "The Wire's" name in television's wall of greatness.

After wrapping up the detail focusing on the stevedores, the unit is back on the streets investigating street level drug dealers in West Baltimore, while Detective McNulty still has the larger target of Stringer Bell in his sights. In other storylines, an old friend of Avon who has just been released may no longer have the stomach for the streets and seeks other avenues of success, a commander about to retire employs a radical maneuver to lower numbers in his district, and an ambitious white councilman begins to make a run for mayor, using some of these events as a springboard. After a second season that slightly sagged, "The Wire" is back in full swing doing what they do best. Dominic West, John Doman, Idris Elba, Wendell Pierce (who has a wonderful turn),  Michael Kenneth Williams, and the rest of the returning cast are all great including some newcomers, especially Robert Wisdom as the renegade commander and Chad Coleman as the parolee whose storyline is both touching and surprising. Show creator David Simon and his staff continue to wow me with their complex, realistic characters and storylines.

****

After the unspectacular results from the Barksdale case, a new detail is formed when stevedore union head Frank Sobotka takes the last spot on the church wall for a stain glass window that Sgt. Valchek wanted for his own donation. In order to settle the score, Valchek sets up a unit to go after Sobotka, and the old crew from the Barksdale case is rounded up again. Soon the case is blown open and includes drugs, international smuggling, and the murder of 14 eastern European women being brought over for prostitution. The second season of "The Wire" is a continuation of excellence with is engaging, intense, and demanding style. Shifting from street crime to the docks, this season has a different feel and it becomes clear that each season will focus on a different aspect of Baltimore crime. This dynamic created David Simon is an extraordinary and should make for a distinguishable feeling for each season. I did though find this season to be slightly less compelling and the casting of bad actors to play key roles as dock workers hurts as well. While I love the addition of Amy Ryan to the cast, I was disappointed by Dominic West's reduced role. Still, "The Wire" is one of television's most excellent programs and one of the few where I can actually feel my brain working when I'm watching it.

*** 1/2

A drug dealer beats a murder rap and the detective on the case visits his judge friend to complain and drops the name of a local kingpin the dealer is related to. Soon the judge is in the ear of the police deputy and a small detail is made for the sole purposes of appeasing the judge. A ragtag team is assembled and thanks to determination a case begins to build against the local Baltimore drug scene, which has implications that run up the ladder and repercussions for the entire department. David Simon's "The Wire" is an intricate and intelligent series that offers a realistic portrayal of cops and criminals. With sharp writing and nonstop pacing it is a series that helped set the bar for quality in television programming. The work of the large cast is phenomenal all around but to single out my favorites: Dominic West in a brilliant and intense portrayal of the lead detective on the case. Idris Elba as the business savvy right hand to the kingpin. Lance Reddick as the police lieutenant who finds red tape in his way at every turn. Clark Peters as a veteran detective who finds a new beginning in the case. Sonja Sohn as a dedicated narcotics officer. Michael Kenneth Williams as a scarfaced streetwise stickup boy. Where most shows are content to be mindless entertainment, The Wire is a demanding, probably the most demanding I've seen, show that challenges and stimulates the viewer for the entirety of its duration.