Gideon58's Reviews

Loved it...a very pleasant surprise, of course, I'm a Judy Davis nut so that helped.

Disney Pixar created another classic heroine to add to their recent gallery in an unsung 2010 sleeper called Tangled, Disney's animated re-visioning of of Rapunzel.

In this story we learn that Rapunzel (voiced by Mandy Moore) was a princess who was given magical powers through her hair via a flower that also allowed an old woman named Gothel (voiced by Donna Murphy, who is brilliant) to remain young and attractive, so in order to maintain her beauty, Gothel kidnaps Rapunzel, takes her to a tower, and raises her as her own, never allowing her to leave the tower and never cutting her magical hair, which grows 70 feet long. Enter a charming vagabond thief named Flynn Ryder (voiced by Zachary Levi) and we have another Disney fairy tale bathed in a contemporary sensibility that makes the story viable for children of 2010.

Dan Fogelman's screenplay is overly cute at times, but it provides charming and flawed characters who we feel all the appropriate emotions for...we route for Rapunzel and Flynn from the moment they meet and we want to see Mother Gothel get what's coming to her. The screenplay, as with most Disney animation, provides us with the expected smarter-than-human animal sidekicks, especially an awesome horse named Maximus.

Moore and Levi work well together and their characters onscreen actually resemble them, but it's Donna Murphy who steals the show as Mother Gothel, a classic Disney villainness in the tradition of Cruella DeVille, a perfect combination of evil and arrogance.

It's not exactly Snow White, but the story is lovingly told with some realistic looking dangers for our heroine and an ending that has us on the edge for a moment but ultimately satisfies.

One of Woody Allen's most ambitious projects was 1997's Deconstructing Harry. a film almost Robert Altman-like in its size and scope, but presenting the accustomed nutso characters we expect from the Woodmeister, brought to life by an impressive all-star cast at the top of their game.

Woody plays Harry Block, a writer who is being honored by the college that once expelled him, who decides to drive upstate to the ceremony, accompanied by his best friend (Bob Balaban), a hooker (Hazelle Goodman), and his son (Eric Lloyd). This journey is framed with stories from various parts of Harry's life, which are presented in the form of characters from some of Harry's work.

Woody has crafted one of his most complex screenplays that requires and assumes complete attention from the viewer. On the other hand, Harry is not a terribly sympathetic character, a womanizing egomaniac not worthy of viewer affection. On the other hand, as accustomed with Woody's characters, it is hard to understand what all these women see in Harry in the first place. Allen has always overestimated his power over the opposite sex, justifying it by claiming they are attracted to his work, but the stories never play out that way. As always in Woody's films, I always find myself distracted from the story being told because I just can't buy the fact that these women are attracted to Woody in the first place.

Suspending disbelief regarding the sexual power of Allen, we have a wonderfully entertaining story with an amazing all-star cast, with standout work from Judy Davis, Demi Moore, Richard Benjamin, Kirstie Alley, Julia Louis Dreyfuss, Billy Crystal, Tobey Maguire, and Stanley Tucci. I think a lot of actors involved here took smaller roles than they usually do just for the opportunity to work with Allen, but every actor onscreen here is committed to the sanctity of Woody's word processor, which seems to have priority over everything else here, including a somewhat bizarre denoument that is explained while it is occurring, which was a little unsettling, but with Allen, we tend to forgive.

Daddy's out of focus! Daddy's out of focus!

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100 Favourites From The Future: REWIRED

From the demented mind of Seth MacFarlane comes a 2012 comic fantasy called Ted, a forced and over the top comic romp whose basic premise is suitable but MacFarlane ends up telling the wrong story.

The film opens with 8 year old John Bennett receiving a Teddy Bear for Xmas and making a wish that the bear could talk so that he and the bear can be BFF's. John's wish does come true, and he and Ted become inseparable and the Xmas miracle makes Ted a minor celebrity culminating in an interview with Johnny Carson. The film then flashes forward to 35 year old John (Mark Wahlberg) working as a car rental agent but still best friends with Ted, a talking Teddy bear who smokes pot, drives John to work, and loves the Sam Jones movie Flash Gordon and we see how John's friendship with Ted is causing major tension with his girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis).

MacFarlane is the whole show here...directing, co-writing, and providing the voice for the title character and I don't think wearing too many hats was the cause of the problem here...multiple hats has never been an issue for MacFarland, I just think he and co-writer Alec Sulkin have chosen to tell the wrong story. The story of John growing up with Ted, John becoming a celebrity because of his childhood wish, how Ted affected John's teen years, and how everything Ted did led to his appearance with Johnny Carson, that's what this film should have been about. Instead, what we have is a world that accepts a Ted with no questions asked and the audience is asked to swallow a whole lot as well and I went with it...until John and Ted actually had a knock down drag out fight in a hotel room and that's when they lost me for good.

The film also suffers because the character of John Bennett is kind of an idiot and I can't believe I'm typing this, but Mark Wahlberg is too intelligent a screen presence for this character. Mila Kunis is wasted but Joel McHale has a couple of funny moments as Lori's boss. The expected Sam Jones cameo does also occur, as well as ones by Norah Jones (who we're supposed to believe as a notch on Ted's bedpost), Ryan Reynolds, and Tom Skerritt.

There's a whole lot of dumb stuff going on here and there is an occasional laugh during the journey, but the gaps between those laughs are a little too big. I did like the "Thunder Buddy" Song though.

A screenplay so razor sharp you can cut yourself on it and a powerhouse cast working at the top of their game are the primary selling points of 1995's Get Shorty, a wickedly entertaining black comedy that blends two supposedly different worlds into one story and populates said stories with characters who are intelligent and believable.

Based on a novel by Elmore Leonard, this is the story of Chili Palmer (John Travolta), a Florida-based wiseguy who is sent to Hollywood to collect a debt from a third rate movie producer named Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman) and finds his work compromised by the lure of Hollywood wealth and glamour and his desire to get into the movie business himself.

Scott Frank's intricate screenplay takes the world of Florida wiseguys and the world of Hollywood movers and shakers and effectively showcases how similar they really are and how someone with a basic knowledge of both, like our lead character, can keep things working to their advantage.

Frank has also created a wonderfully entertaining lead character in Chili Palmer. Chili is not a typical movie thumb-breaker...he is smarter than most of the people he works for and effortlessly took work-related events and manipulated them into a workable screenplay that parties like Zimm and an established Hollywood star named Martin Weir (Danny De Vito) have expressed interest in. I also love the fact that Chili's love of film is no accident...he is a buff who knows full chunks of dialogue from Orson Welles' A Touch of Evil and the John Wayne classic Rio Bravo. Watching Chili sitting in a near empty theater watching the Orson Welles classic was the moment i became completely invested in the character and wanted him to have everything he wanted.

Director Barry Sonnenfeld mounts the script with the respect it deserves and pulls first rate performances from his hand-picked cast. John Travolta is the personification of cool as Chili Palmer and Hackman is completely believable as a Hollywood loser who desperately wants to get back in the game and thinks Chili will be his ticket back to the top. Rene Russo is attractive as Harry's actress/girlfriend who really wants to be a producer. Danny De Vito is suprisingly effective as the obnoxiously arrogant movie star and Delroy Lindo, Dennis Farina, and James Gandolfini also make an impression as obstacles in Chili's journey to Hollywood acceptance.

It's hard to explain a lot of what goes on this film without giving it away, but the screenplay, though a little complex at times, is not so complex that you lose interest, but complex enough that you might want to stop the tape every now and then to replay a scene that might have gotten by you. Travolta fans will have a head start because he has rarely been better. Followed by a sequel called Be Cool.

Disney Studios had a major triumph in 1994 with an instant classic called The Lion King a visually arresting animated feature with an almost Shakespearean sensibility that tells a layered and interesting story in a way that appeals to audiences of all ages.

This is the story of Simba (voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Matthew Broderick) a lion cub being groomed to take over the kingdom of Pride Rock by his father, King Mufasa (James Earl Jones), but finds his life derailed by his Uncle Scar (Jeremy Irons), who wants the kingdom for himself.

The screenplay by Irene Mecchi and Jonathan Roberts provides believable human emotions and agendas to animated animal characters that are believable but not beyond the scope of understanding for the intended demographic. We love the rough play between Simba and childhood gal pal Nala where they are unsure of how to express their feelings about each other. We even understand Uncle Scar, who may feel he's being cheated and probably has been living under Mufasa's shadow all his life and is tired of it. Yet, he is clearly the villain of the piece and we want to see him get what he deserves.

The voice work is perfection with standout work from Jeremy Irons as Scar, who easily walks away with this and any actor who can steal a film from The Voice, James Earl Jones, deserves credit for such. There are a handful of fun songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, one of them, "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" won an Oscar. A delightful cinematic journey with something for the young and the young at heart.

We're the Millers is an overlong but somewhat amusing sitcom episode stretched out to feature length film size, but doesn't really have enough material to stretch that far.

The film stars Jason Sudeikis as a small time drug dealer who, in order to clear a debt, agrees to retrieve a large shipment of marijuana from Mexico and in order to appear less conspicuous, persuades a stripper (Jennifer Aniston), a neglected kid in his building (Will Poulter), and an overly sensitive homeless girl (Emma Roberts) to pose as his family on a family holiday south of the border.

Though the film boasts an attractive cast and does provides some laughs, it goes on way too long, evidenced in the fact that the actual event of crossing the border with the drugs occurs about 20 minutes into the film and there's actually another 98 minutes of screentime that is pretty much just padding about the off and on bonding process that eventually melds these four strangers into a somewhat believable family unit, but it takes WAY longer than necessary and it's not all that interesting.

Screenwriters Bob Fisher and Steve Faber have constructed a somewhat overly cute and sometimes overly edgy screenplay that intends to shock but more than often condescends and Rawson Thurber's direction is kind of pedestrian considering the many twists and turns the story takes.

Sudeikis does show some leading man potential but doesn't have a lot of chemistry with Aniston, who gets ample opportunities to show off her comic timing as well as her physical assets. The film seems to be built around her character, which doesn't necessarily increase its appeal. Will Poulter actually has the lion's share of the film's funniest moments as the fake son including a kissing lesson with Aniston and Roberts that appeared to be a lot of fun.

The film seems to be sort of a contemporary updating of National Lampoon's Vacation but nowhere near as funny and way too long.

Stephen Frears' stylish direction and three charismatic lead performances make the 1990 drama The Grifters worth your attention.

Based on a novel by Jim Thompson, this almost noir-ish drama takes an insightful and detailed look at the art of the con and at three people whose lives have always been part of it, even if their levels of involvement differ. We are introduced to Lilly (Anjelica Huston), a veteran grifter who currently works for a bookie (Pat Hingle) making bets at racetracks that actually alter the odds. Lilly's son, Roy (John Cusack) is a novice grifter, even though he is in denial about it and has it thrown in his face with his new girlfriend, Myra (Annette Bening), who initially comes off as a rathy ditzy call girl, but turns out to be a veteran con as well.

Donald E. Westlake's screenplay provides an intimate canvas populated with extremely complicated characters with equally complex relationships and history. There is quite a lot left unsaid regarding the relationship between Lilly and Roy and I believe that's on purpose...there's a whole lot going on between these two that I think the viewer is supposed to determine for themselves. Roy's resentment at Lilly's obvious neglect of him as a child has morphed into his own desire to be a bigger and better grifter than his mother ever was. There seems to be guilt on Lilly's side too, but this is a mother who is tired of apologizing and has decided to do what she knows best...she clearly loves her son to an almost incestuous level that piques her radar when Myra enters his life. Eventually, the competition for Roy's love that develops between these two strong women becomes the linchpin upon which this film works.

It's also the Oscar-nominated performances by Huston and Bening that really make this film sizzle, though Cusack does hold his own against these two acting powerhouses. Pat Hingle was surprisingly creepy as Lilly's boss and if you don't blink, you'll catch a brief appearance by future Entourage star Jeremy Piven as a young sailor.

Elmer Bernstein's inventive music score and stark cinematography are the icing on the cake in one of the forgotten gems of 1990.

Beginners is a lovely and moving comedy-drama from 2010 that tries to encompass quite a bit and actually succeeds for the most part. The film is part character study, part family drama, part documdrama, and part romantic comedy.

Ewan MacGregor plays Oliver Fields, a sad and internally damaged young man who has been severely affected by his relationship with his parents, a dysfunctional couple who had no clue what they did to their child. Oliver's mother, Georgia, was a self-hating Jew, who treated her son like an adult and his father, Hal, was a closeted homosexual who came out of the closet at age 75 and became lovers with a much younger man for three years before contracting an inoperable cancer. It is these relationships that are revealed simultaneously while Oliver is tentatively pursuing a relationship with a French actress.

Writer-director Mike Mills really scored a bullseye here, constructing a screenplay that is intricate but never difficult to follow. The story quietly opens with Oliver bringing home his dad's dog, an adorable Jack Terrier named Arthur and we watch the rest of his relationship with his parents unfold in flashback, we see him as a child with his mother and as an adult with his dad at the end of his life, providing layered documentation as to why Oliver is the way he is.

MacGregor is charming and intense as Oliver, creating a character we immediately care about and sympathize with and Melanie Laurent is an eye opener as Anna, the French actress. Mary Page Keller, an actress who has been off the radar for quite awhile, is very effective as Georgia as is Goran Visnjic as Hal's young lover, but shining above them all, in a performance that won him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, is Christopher Plummer as Hal, the man who finally found the courage to come out of the closet 10 years after his wife's death and lived his final years with a joy that his son Oliver sometimes couldn't understand. Plummer really shines in one scene where Hal explains to Oliver why he married Georgia, even though he knew he was gay.

Despite some less-than-stellar production values, Mills' sensitive direction and a striking piano score are frosting on the cake, though Plummer's effervescent winning performance is reason enough to check out this indie sleeper alone.

I'm always amazed when a film lives up to its reputation, whether good or bad, and the humorless 1984 comedy Rhinestone effortlessly lives up to its reputation as a lame comedy and a low point in the career of its stars.

Allegedly based on the classic Glen Campbell song "Rhinestone Cowboy", the film stars Dolly Parton, in her third film, as Jake, a singer in a 2nd rate country and western bar run by a wealthy sleazeball (Ron Leibman), who makes a bet with the sleazeball that she can teach an obnoxious Italian cab driver named Nick Martinelli (Sylvester Stallone) one country song and can perform it on the stage of the club without being booed off the stage and is given two weeks to do it.

The premise is plausible enough, but instead of just taking Nick to a rehearsal studio and teaching him how to sing, Jake decides she has to fly Nick to Tennessee and completely immerse him in country culture and that's where the story strays off course into a lot of offensive stereotypes about being southern and Italian that grow tiring LONG before the closing credits.

Bob Clark, who directed Porky's, has constructed a comedy that depends on culture stereotypes and sleazy sexual double entendres that actually makes Porky's seem like Shakespeare. The screenplay, actually co-written by Stallone and Phil Alden Robinson, who would be nominated for an Oscar five years later for writing Field of Dreams provides a really annoying character in Nick, whose lack of intelligence doesn't mesh with the overly clever dialogue.

Sylvester Stallone easily gives the worst performance of his career in a character with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Parton somehow manages to maintain her dignity here as does the always reliable Richard Farnsworth playing her father, but as for the rest of this film, it's a pretty much a steaming pile of crap that did not motivate a single laugh. So unless you have nightly wet dreams about either Stallone or Parton (who both look amazing here), I would give this one a pass.

Jason Reitman, the creative force behind one of my favorite sleepers, Thank you for Smoking, scored another bullseye with 2009's Up in the Air, a deliciously surprising character study that brings additional layers to a somewhat traditional genre that give the story a veneer of originality that provides a breath of movie fresh air.

This breezy story stars Oscar winner George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a downsizing expert who spends his life living out of a suitcase. He travels all over the country to various large corporations and terminates employees for employers who apparently don't have the guts to do it for themselves. Bingham's cocoon-like existence is threatened when he learns that his company is planning to start terminating people via video-conferencing, making Ryan feel threatened, but is challenged to show the ropes to the young video-conferencing expert (Anna Kendrick) while beginning a relationship with a woman very much like himself named Alex (Vera Farmiga).

Jason Reitman's direction and his screenplay (co-written with Allan Sherman) are evocative and provide an entertaining story that provides several unexpected plot turns along the way, that though not all pleasant, are steeped in realism and make for a story that the viewer remains interested in.

George Clooney has never been better as Bingham and Vera Farmiga proves to have solid leading lady potential as Alex. Anna Kendrick gives a crisp performance as the young would be executive who becomes wonderfully human when we learn that her tight-ass exterior has been broken due to her being dumped by her boyfriend. The relationship between the three characters has a refreshing quality to it, primarily that there is no bitchiness between the two women...they understand each other's roles in Ryan's life and accept them. Their initial bonding at a party the three crash is a lot of fun and the tension between them comes from more unexpected places.

The film received a Best Picture Oscar nomination, as well as dual nominations for Reitman and for the three leads and did win the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. I also enjoyed Jason Bateman as Ryan's boss and Amy Morton as his no-nonsense older sister. Lovely cinematography, striking editing, and a lovely song score also help to make this a truly unique cinematic journey worth embarking upon.

Lily Tomlin once described the 1950's as "ten years of foreplay"...a decade of sexual repression and very specific societal roles for men and women and any attempt to stray from these well-established roles was considered sacrilege or insanity. 2008's Revolutionary Road documents a troubled marriage and how their attempts to buck these traditional roles lead to shock from friends and colleagues and do nothing to help their marriage.

Frank Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio) lives with his wife, April (Kate Winslet) and his two kids in a Connecticut suburb and works in an office doing a job he hates. April has always wanted to be an actress and when that didn't happen, she settled into domesticity but is screaming on the inside. April has come up with an idea to re-energize her marriage and her life...she wants to move to Paris where she is convinced she can get a high-paying secretarial job and Frank can sit home until he decides what he REALLY wants to do, but when this plan doesn't pan out, the Wheeler's marriage goes from bad to worse.

This movie is terribly sad because the Wheelers are immediately likable and we want them to be happy and we know they're not. The Wheelers are also considered role models in their quiet little home on Revolutionary Road and have grown weary of keeping up appearances because that's what the 1950's were about...keeping up appearances. We don't care how unhappy you are, just as long as you don't show it.

Justin Haythe's screenplay, adapted from a novel by Richard Yates is uncompromising though a little on the talky side. It's a picture perfect view of life in 1950's and how the Wheelers don't quite fit and director Sam Mendes, who previously explored life in suburbia in American Beauty and won an Oscar for it, nails the tightly wound gossips watching every move the Wheelers make and pretending to be shocked and angry, but in reality, they are also a bit jealous.

The film is beautifully mounted and perfectly captures the atmosphere and sensibilities of the 1950's and never allows you to forget it...there is a scene where we see Frank board the commuter train in his two-piece suit and fedora, along with two hundred other men wearing the same suit and fedora...just men. And I love all the unabashed drinking and cigarette smoking in this movie. There's an almost surreal moment in the movie where DiCaprio sits down in his cubicle and lights a cigarette...how long ago were you allowed to smoke in your office?

Reunited a decade after setting movie screens on fire in Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio offers one of his strongest and most likable characters in Frank and Winslet is just extraordinary as April. Winslet did win Best Actress the same year for The Reader, but this performance trumps that one effortlessly. She is just amazing here, no one does smiling on the outside screaming on the inside better than Winslet and this ticking time bomb of a character she creates is fascinating from start to finish. Also loved Kathy Bates as the tightly wound real estate agent trying to hide her shame regarding her mentally fragile son (Michael Shannon, in a deliciously unhinged turn that earned him a supporting actor nomination). The film features exquisite cinematography, excellent art/direction set direction and a lush musical score that help to bring a very specific time to life.

1968's The Swimmer is an oddly riveting, but somewhat predictable episodic drama that, though mounted on a pretty original canvas, the journey's end is a little disappointing.

This film is the story of a Connecticut suburbanite named Ned Merrill (Burt Lancaster) who, after returning home for the summer, has decided to "swim" his way home via the private swimming pools of all his friends and neighbors and as he reaches each pool, bits and pieces of his life are revealed and we learn that his life is not the Norman Rockwell painting that Ned would like us to believe.

This movie initially fascinates because Ned is initially presented as likable but it doesn't take long to figure out that Ned's life is not as picture perfect as he would like us to believe. I knew things weren't the way Ned tried to make them seem when anyone would ask him how his wife Lucinda and his daughters were, he would brush off the question and his answer was always a little different. Then we see his reaction to encountering an empty pool or his obsession with swimming through a crowded public pool, we know there is something wrong with this man, and his encounter with a former lover named Shirley (Janice Rule, in a flashy performance) wraps up this theory quite neatly. Eleanor Perry's screenplay has a few gaping holes in it, primarily that the reactions of the people Ned encounters during his journey should have been a little more telling than they were, making the film's climax a little more predictable, but also a little more realistic.

Lancaster completely invests in this bizarre character and manages to infuse him with some likability despite his obvious flaws. The supporting cast of suburbanites is appropriate (including a fun cameo from a very young Joan Rivers) and Frank Perry's compelling direction serves the story well. Despite an overbearing musical score, I found the the film strange and predictable and I couldn't take my eyes off the screen.

Disney Dreamworks came up with a pretty entertaining diversion in 2004 called Shark Tale, a colorful and funny animated tale that, despite a fantastic all-star voice cast that makes the movie seem better than it is, does suffer from a severe lack of originality.

Just about everything that happens in this movie was borrowed from classic live action movies like The Godfather, Goodfellas, Scarfaceand West Side Story but it is mounted on a somewhat original canvas...an underwater canvas to be specific. An entire Metropolis and syndicated organization has been created in the underwater world revealed as well as a class division between the fish and the sharks and what happens when the two classes collide, which is actually an animated film staple: two creatures who by nature should be enemies but become friends.

This is the story of a big dreaming hustling fish named Oscar (voiced by Will Smith) who is mistakenly believed to be the responsible for the death of a shark (voiced by Michael Imperioli), who is the son of a shark mob boss (voiced by Robert De Niro) and has a nerdy brother named Lenny (voiced by Jack Black) who doesn't want to be part of the shark mob and doesn't want to eat fish. We then watch Oscar and Lenny both try to take advantage of the shark's death as the media celebrates Oscar as a shark killer and Lenny learns how to be a better shark through his new buddy the fish.

As mentioned, Michael J.Wilson and Rob Letterman's screenplays borrows from a lot of other movies but a contemporary veneer is applied so that the non-discriminating filmgoer won't really notice how unoriginal it really is.

The voice cast is spectacular though, with standout work from Smith, De Niro, and towering above everybody is Oscar winning director Martin Scorsese, who pretty much steals the film voicing Sykes, a loud-mouthed blowfish whose loyalties keep changing throughout the film.

Nothing terribly original here, but it will keep the kids amused for 90 minutes.

I think that the fact that Scorsese was in it makes it an homage to Goodfellas, not a rip off, and I do think that distinction matters when talking about originality. I agree that this is an above average film, but ultimately it suffers from the Dreamworks problem of relying too much on puns for their jokes. I also think that it struggled in not knowing its audience. 99% of the target demographic has never seen Goodfellas, and as a 7 or 8 year old when this came out I recall being more confused than anything by the mafia stuff. Once you can appreciate it, most of the jokes are too childish to be funny. Great voice cast all around. It could have been Kung Fu Panda, but the writers needed to tidy up the script a little more.

I love the hit and miss career of Adam Sandler, but he really had a miss with a 2011 comedy called Jack and Jill.

Sandler plays Jack, an advertising executive who is dreading a Thanksgiving visit from his twin sister, Jill (also Sandler) a loving, well-intentioned, but obnoxious and needy woman who has been a constant embarrassment for Jack his whole life. Jill arrives and refuses to leave until a series of weird circumstances lead to Jack needing his twin to close a big business deal.

I guess this story, written by Sandler and Steve Koren, was written to display Sandler's versatility as an actor, but it goes to such ridiculous extremes to do so that the movie has some long gaps between laughs, making for a very long movie (and it's only 90 minutes long!). Not to mention the fact that the story incredibly involves Oscar winner Al Pacino, in a silly role in this story, playing himself and actually falling in love with Jill, who looks exactly like John Travolta in Hairspray.

Sandler works very hard at making his two lead characters likable, but he's bitten off more than he can chew with Jill. I have to wonder how Sandler talked Pacino into this mess and the film features cameos from people like Regis Philbin, Johnny Depp, and David Spade (also playing a woman). Sandler put a lot of work into this movie, but we're just asked to invest in a really ridiculous story that takes us on a journey that's just not that funny.

Emily Gale is a seven year old girl who died in 1988, the victim of a drunk driver and it is this little girl's death that is the launching off point for 1995's The Crossing Guard, an uncompromising and moving drama that shows how guilt and the need for vengeance can destroy lives.

We meet Freddy Gale (Jack Nicholson), Emily's father, a jewelry store owner who has a penchant for strip bars and was destroyed by Emily's death, though he has never visited his daughter's grave sight, has vowed to kill the man who has killed his daughter. That man, John Booth (David Morse) has just been released from prison after six years, still wracked with guilt about what he did and trying to start a new life. The difference here is that the eventual showdown between the characters happens early in the film, at which time Freddy gives John three days to get his affairs in order before he kills him.

Sean Penn's screenplay is thoughtful and edgy, though there are a couple of small quibbles. I couldn't figure out how Freddy found out where John was living and John's relationship with a girl he met at a party (Robin Wright) seems to come from nowhere and happens a little too fast, but Freddy and ex-wife Mary (Anjelica Huston) fight like a couple married for 100 years and I love the ironic naming of Morse's character.

Penn fares much better as a director and reveals a true cinematic eye with some sweeping camera shots and visual images and has crafted vivid characters who are brilliantly realized by his hand-picked cast. Nicholson's explosive performance in the lead is consistently fascinating and Morse is wonderful as the guilt-ridden drunk driver...no one plays tortured better than Morse and he is given a grand opportunity to do it here. Anjelica Huston has rarely been better as Freddy's ex-wife and there's an eye-opening turn from ex-Three's Company star Priscilla Barnes as an aging stripper who has a thing for Freddy.

I loved this movie because it gives a more balanced account of an oft-told tale. We usually see how the victim's family try to move on or how the offender tries to move on, but this time we see both and we get to see how guilt can stunt growth and how the need for revenge can bring someone to the verge of insanity. And despite a contrived ending, the film never fails to sustain interest.

The childhood concept of a monster in the closet is turned completely inside out and given a fresh and futuristic veneer in Disney Pixar's Monsters Inc., an overly intricate story that provides an ecological message blended with a fish out of water story but it also touches on classic cinematic messages like labor vs management, and, of course, good vs evil.

In the futuristic city of Monstropolis is the large corporation known as Monsters, Inc., a plant where nuclear power for the city is gathered by monsters and supplied by the screams of human children. A pair of monsters named Sully (voiced by John Goodman) and Mike (Billy Crystal) lead the corporation is children's scares but find their positions in the firm threatened when a child escapes from her room and develops an attachment to Sully while the child is also being pursued by Sully's nemesis named Randall (voiced by Steve Buscemi) and their boss (voiced by James Coburn).

As with most Disney Pixar creations, the screenplay by Pete Docter and Silverman is overly intricate, full of illogical plotting that distracts the viewer of the primary story at hand. I couldn't figure out if the child (named "Boo" by Sully) was aware of the power she possesses and I was bothered by the fact that Randall was the only monster with the power of invisibility. I also didn't understand what Randall and the boss wanted to do with the child, who initially is labeled as toxic, but by the third act of the story, the child is like the Holy Grail and everyone wants her though it isn't really made clear why...maybe a re-watch would help, but if the truth be told, it really didn't matter and did not deter from my enjoyment of the fun story and entertaining characters that I met here. This movie is a lot of fun if you don't think about it too much.

As with all Disney Pixar films, the voice work is first rate with standout work from Goodman and Crystal and I have to give a shout out to sound editing here, which received an Oscar nomination. A lushly mounted children's tale that remains entertaining as long as you don't try to figure out everything you see and just let it flow over you.

Rob Marshall, who directed the Oscar winning Best Picture of 2002, Chicago, scored another direct bullseye with Into the Woods, the dazzling and lushly entertaining film version of the Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical where different characters from fairy tales collide and what can happen when fairy tale characters walk into other fairy tales...sometimes you don't always get the requisite happy ending.

A baker and his wife learn from a witch that a curse was placed on them, rendering them childless. The witch says she can reverse the curse if the couple bring her Jack and the Beanstalk's cow, Cinderella's slipper, Little Red Riding Hood's Cape, and a lock of Rapunzel's hair, embarking the couple on a journey of danger and magic like nothing you've seen before.

Marshall's clear mission in preserving the integrity of the Broadway piece in its translation to the screen is evidenced in every frame. He was wise enough to get James Lapine to fashion the screenplay, who wrote the original Broadway libretto, a sometimes hard to follow story that requires the viewer's complete attention but that is classic Sondheim...Sondheim's work has always been a little troubling for some BECAUSE it requires complete attention. I also loved Marshall's recurring images of woods and the leaves throughout...I loved when the Witch disappears in a whirlpool of leaves instead of smoke.

Marshall has assembled a first rate cast to bring these vivid and imaginative characters to life, led by the extraordinary Meryl Streep, chewing up the scenery as the Witch, a role originated on Broadway by Bernadette Peters. Streep conveys not only the witch's evil agendas, but brings an underlying level of pathos and loneliness to the character that just don't allow you to hate her. Streep stops the show with her renditions of "Stay with Me", "Children will Listen", and especially "Last Midnight". Streep's performance earned her Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress, but one could debate as to whether the role is lead or supporting. Emily Blunt is lovely as the Baker's wife (her "Moments in the Woods" is delightful) and James Corden is sweet as the Baker. Anna Kendrick makes a nice Cinderella and I loved Tracy Ullmann as Jack's mother. Chris Pine is a little much as Cinderella's Prince, but Johnny Depp's stylish, pedophile like cameo as the Wolf, was fabulous.

First rate art direction/set direction, lush cinematography, and Oscar-worthy costumes and makeup (check out the wolf's hands) are the final touches on this musical winner that has me convinced that when it's time to transfer a musical to the big screen, no one but Rob Marshall should direct.