The Iceman

2013 • Director: Ariel Vroman
Drama • Rated R • 105 minutes
Millennium Entertainment • English
Starring Michael Shannon, Winona Ryder

The story of Richard Kuklinski, contract killer, is well executed by director Vroman. He avoids over-dramatization because Kuklinski's story is powerful enough. The real question is how did Kuklinski turn on so much emotion for his wife and daughters and shut it off everywhere else in his life? Rating: B+

Der Fall

1972 • Director: Kurt Früh
Drama • Unrated • 102 minutes
Praesens-Film AG • Black and White  Schweizerdeutsch (with German subtitles)
Starring Walo Lüönd, Annemarie Düringer

It's a Swiss detective story in film noir style with
a tip of the Alpine hat to German Expressionism.
A disgraced former police officer (Lüönd), now a private investigator, tries to find a lost promiscuous
girl (Katrin Buschor) even as his assistant (Düringer)
tries to keep him grounded. Rating: B+

The Bridesmaid

2004 • Director: Claude Chabrol
Drama • Unrated • 111 minutes
Alicéléo / First Run Features
Color • Language: French (English subtitles)
Starring Benoît Magimel, Laura Smet

Chabrol enjoys depicting relationships that appear simple and then suddenly exploding them. In The Bridesmaid, Philippe (Magimel) meets Senta (Smet) and sparks fly. But Senta's sullen intransigence hints at something sinister beneath the surface and Philippe makes the mistake of thinking he has her all figured out. Rating: B+

Europa

1991 • Director: Lars von Trier
Drama • Rated PG • 113 minutes
Canal+ España/Nordisk Film Biografdistribution
Color/B&W • Language: German and English
Starring Jean-Marc Barr, Barbara Sukowa

Von Trier is a master of atmosphere, and his Europa is no exception. An American who avoided the war now arrives to work as a train conductor. He begins to see the seamy side of the occupation and loses his impartiality. It's film noir evocative of an earlier era,  but Europa also carries deliciously subtle humor.   
Rating: B+

Count Five and Die

1958 • Director: Victor Vicas
Drama • Unrated • 92 minutes
Zonic Productions / Twentieth Century Fox
Black and White  • Language: English
Starring Jeffrey Hunter, Annemarie Düringer

In this British spy movie the Allies are trying to get the Germans to believe D-Day will be in Holland.
Will they fall for it? There's espionage and counter-espionage and it builds up a good head of steam,
but it's capped with a stock ending. This one's
dying for a remake. Rating: B

Badlands

1973 • Director: Terrence Malick
Drama • Rated PG • 94 minutes
Badlands Company / Warner Bros. Pictures
Color  • Language: English
Starring Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek

Malick's first is also one of his best. Kit (Sheen) is not so much menacing as he is eerily disconnected from human feeling. Holly (Spacek) tags along and witnesses his killing spree in passive silence while long quiet scenes full of reflection and peace stand in crisp contrast to Kit's rampage.  Rating: A–

The Lacemaker

1977 • Director: Claude Goretta
Drama • Unrated • 107 minutes
Action Films  / Jupiter Communications
Color • Language: French (with English subtitles)
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Yves Beneyton

A hairdresser (Huppert) falls in love with a handsome young student (Beneyton) with whom she has in common nothing but a mutual attraction. While ostensibly a story of young love, The Lacemaker is more concerned with the pains of those who are less than eloquently communicative. It's poignant in its observations, and well worth a look. Rating: B+

Shadow of Angels

1976 • Director: Daniel Schmid
Drama • Unrated • 103 minutes
Albatros / Artco Productions
Color • Language: German (with English subtitles)
Starring Ingrid Caven, Klaus Lowitsch

Shadow of Angels, based on a play by Fassbinder, is spectacularly lurid. A prostitute, too beautiful to be successful (Caven), begins to talk to her clients instead of offering sex and becomes in instant hit even as the process destroys her spirit. It's occasionally funny as melodrama, but many will blanch. Rating: B

Valkyrie

2008 • Director: Bryan Singer
Drama • PG-13 • 120 minutes
United Artists / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.
Color • Language: English
Starring Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh

It's not the first film about the most famous plot on Hitler's life, and it's certainly not the best. Despite a good cast (Branagh and Terence Stamp) this film stumbles forward, and is awkwardly undramatic as Cruise spends most of his screen time answering phones and taking out his fake glass eye.
Rating: C

In the Company of Men

1997 • Director: Neil LaBute
Drama • Rated R • 97 minutes
Alliance Atlantis / Sony Pictures Classics
Color • Language: English
Starring Aaron Eckhart, Matt Malloy

Two misogynistic corporate men decide to date the same unsuspecting woman with the sole purpose of using her and dumping her. I watched with interest wondering what kind of commentary the film would make on such behavior, but there was none. I won't say it glorifies, but it curiously avoids condemning. Rating: B

Man Push Cart

2005 • Director: Ramin Bahrani
Indie • Unrated • 86 minutes
Noruz Films / Koch Lorber Films
Color • Language: English and Urdu
Starring Ahmad Razvi, Leticia Dolera

Ahmad, a quiet young man with a coffee cart in New York (Razvi) works hard to get ahead. He meets another immigrant whom he drifts toward. Ahmad has a hidden past, and when a fellow Pakistani émigré named Mohammed appears things get complicated. Well done, if a bit inert at times.
Rating: B

A Serious Man

2009 • Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Drama • Rated: R • 106 minutes
Focus Features
Color • Language: English
Starring Michael Stulbarg, Richard Kind

Although on the surface it's about the Jewish American experience, A Serious Man speaks just as much to the unpredictable nature of life in general. While a racist neighbor on one side rankles the protagonist Larry, the presence of bored housewife, Mrs. Samsky (Amy Landecker), boosts him. Typical Coen brothers: weighty themes warped with wicked comedy. Rating: A–

The Devil Strikes at Night

1957 • Director: Robert Siodmak
Drama • Unrated • 105 minutes
Divina Film / Zenith International
B&W • Language: German (German subtitles)
Starring Claus Holm, Annemarie Düringer

Based on a true story of a serial killer in wartime Hamburg, this film concerns itself with the attempts of a police inspector (Holm) and his faithful assistant (Düringer) to identify the true killer, not the suspect the SS has in custody. Interesting for its depiction of the treatment of criminal behavior by a regime that itself was criminal. Rating: B+

The Exterminating Angel

1962 • Director: Luis Buñuel
Drama • Unrated • 93 minutes
Producciones Gustavo Alatriste / Altura Films
Black & White • Language: Spanish (English subtitles)
Starring Silvia Pinal, Enrique Rambal

The premise is surreal and fascinating: a group of Spanish socialites have an extravagant party, but at the end of the night everyone is somehow unable to leave. There are critiques of class and the apparatuses of corrupt governments, but it's the growing desperation of the contemptible trapped party goers that keeps the viewers focused.
Rating: A–

Berlin Alexanderplatz

1980 • Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Drama • Unrated • 894 minutes
Bavaria Film / Bavaria Film International
Color • Language: German (with English subtitles)
Starring Günter Lamprecht, Barbara Sukowa

Set during the Twenties, this is a sprawling, complex fifteen hour long film that defies description. Prostitutes, angels, mystical rabbis, glowering criminals, and a parade of fascinating characters dip in and out of the narrative. The epilogue itself is a bizarre vision that seems to include every actor Fassbinder ever employed. Rating: A

The River

1951 • Director: Jean Renoir
Drama • Unrated • 99 minutes
Oriental International Films / United Artists
Color • Language: English
Starring Patricia Walters, Nora Swinburne

The River, taking place near the Ganges, begins as ethnography, then concerns itself with a British family and the arrival of a troubled American vet (Thomas Breen). The drama is light until an untimely death shatters the peace. The scenes before and after are poignant and intelligent; the tone meditative and contemplative.  Rating: A

Lost in Translation

2003 • Director: Sophia Coppola
Drama • Rated R • 104 minutes
Focus Features 
Color • Language: English
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Bill Murray

Two travelers stumble into each other's lives in a city which for them holds only interminable boredom, blinding lights and unrelenting loneliness. It's a love story that's both innocent and intense, and at its height there's an intimate and crucial conversation that we see but can't hear. And that's because what happens in Tokyo stays in Tokyo. Rating: A–

All That Heaven Allows

1955 • Director: Douglas Sirk
Drama • Unrated • 89 minutes
Universal Pictures
Color • Language: English
Starring Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson

It's a story of forbidden love: a gardener and a wealthy widow fall in love. It seems tame now, but in the insular America of the Fifties it resonated deeply. As interesting as the obvious theme is the subtext concerning the children of Mrs. Scott (Wyman) who would deny their mother happiness even as they pursue their own. Rating: A–

Mulholland Dr.

2001 • Director: David Lynch
Drama • Rated: R • 147 minutes
Studio Canal / Universal
Color • Language: English
Starring Naomi Watts, Justin Theroux

This begins with a narrative that advertises itself as a mystery but halfway through descends into a murky hallucination that cuts any ties to reality. I get its self-referential digs at the industry, but I'll have my Hollywood critiques in the form of Barton Fink on the rocks with a chaser of The Player, thank you.
Rating: B

Iron Man

2008 • Director: Jon Favreau
Action • PG-13 • 126 minutes
Paramount Pictures
Color • Language: English
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow

The fact that wealthy industrialist Tony Stark in the comic books is an alcoholic and is played by Robert Downey Jr. in the movie adds a bit or realism to Downey's portrayal of Stark. Besides this bit of life intersecting with art, Iron Man is no more imaginative than any other superhero movie, and it takes forever to build any momentum. Rating: B–

À Nos Amours

1983 • Director: Maurice Pialat
Foreign • Rated R • 95 minutes
Les Films du Livradois / Gaumont
Color • Language: French (with English subtitles)
Starring Sandrine Bonnaire, Maurice Pialat

À Nos Amours carries the viewer alongside the heroine, fifteen year-old Suzanne (Bonnaire), as she deals with the pain of her dysfunctional home life. She explores her sexuality with promiscuity, and it's uncomfortable to witness. Her father (Pialat) is a credible compatriot for her while he sorts out his own problems. Rating: B+

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman

1958 • Director: Nathan Juran
Science Fiction • Unrated • 65 minutes
Woolner Brothers Pictures / Allied Artists Pictures
Black and White • Language: English
Starring Allison Hayes, William Hudson

The best you can say about this gargantuan bomb is that it has some sassy dialogue and special effects that are…well… most un-special. You can't really blame the times because Them! is frightening and it appeared four years earlier. Still though, for kitsch, there's entertainment value.  Rating: C+

Rebecca

1940 • Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Drama • Unrated • 130 minutes
Selznick International Pictures / United Artists
Black and White • Language: English
Starring Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine

In Rebecca, the story parallels Jane Eyre a bit too closely and the story's pace sags suddenly in the second hour. Still, one can easily see Hitchcock's interest in spookiness beginning to flower as he places Mrs. DeWinter (Fontaine) in rooms that appear to diminish her to frightening degrees. Rating: A–

Belle de Jour

1967 • Director: Luis Buñuel
Foreign / Drama • Rated R • 101 minutes
Robert et Raymond Hakin / Valoria Films
Color • Language: French (with English subtitles)
Starring Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel

In Belle de Jour, the timeline and depictions of reality blur frequently and often violently. Disturbing images and themes emerge as Séverine (Deneuve) makes the decision to be a prostitute by day and a devoted wife to a man of means at night. Absolutely absorbing and dreamily artistic. Rating: A

Der 20. Juli

1955 • Director: Falk Harnack
Drama • Unrated • 97 minutes
CCC / Herzog-Filmverleih
Color • Language: German (German only subtitles)
Starring Wolfgang Preiss, Annemarie Düringer

Also known as The Plot to Assassinate Hitler, this film is among the earliest about the attempt on Hitler's life in 1944. Unfortunately, it suffers from clunky insertions of war footage and some terrible set design. Despite fine acting by Preiss and the delightful Annemarie Düringer, this is mostly of interest for historical reasons.  Rating: B

Dirty Harry

1971 • Director: Don Siegel
Crime / Drama • Rated R • 102 minutes
Malpaso Company / Warner Bros. Pictures
Color • Language: English
Starring Clint Eastwood, Andrew Robinson

The Dirty Harry line of films inspired countless other lone wolf vigilante cop movies. Whether this is good or bad remains to be seen, but Clint Eastwood's Inspector Callahan remains one of the archetypal characters of the genre and certainly one of the most memorable and timeless. 
Rating: A

Barton Fink

1991 • Director: Ethan and Joel Cohen
Drama • Rated R • 116 minutes
Circle Films / 20th Century Fox
Color • Language: English
Starring John Turturo, John Goodman

The constant battle between artists and the need to make their art saleable is parodied to great effect in Barton Fink.  Fink (Turturo) is excellent as a playwright gone west to Hollywood to make money writing wrestling movies. Goodman as a crazed killer and Michael Lerner as Lipkin, the studio boss, are fascinating. Rating: A–

Winter's Bone

2010 • Director: Debra Granik
Drama • Rated R • 100 minutes
Roadside Attractions / Lionsgate
Color • Language: English
Starring Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes

Ree (Lawrence) wanders through a cold rural county in the American South in search of her bail-jumping father. Ree's noble spirit stands tall as she battles the hostile and suspicious by means of words and wit. Her desperation is magnified by a ragged landscape littered with rusting cars and poverty burdened folk. Recommended. Rating: B+

The Men Who Stare at Goats

2009 • Director: Grant Heslov
Comedy / War  • Rated R • 94 minutes
BBC Films / Overture Fims
Color • Language: English
Starring Ewan McGregor, George Clooney

Cassady (Clooney) is a member of a secret Army psy-ops unit with roots in the Hippy movement whose secrets a small town reporter (McGregor) is trying to discover. It sounds silly because it is silly. It's filled with self-conscious slapstick and hack jokes you've seen coming and going a hundred times.
Review: C+

Antichrist

2009 • Director: Lars von Trier
Thriller • Unrated • 108 minutes
Artificial Eye / Nordisk Film Distribution
Color • Language: English
Starring Willem DaFoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg

A grieving couple is on a retreat after the death of their young son. "Chaos reigns," says the preternatural fox to DaFoe's character who is looking for his wife lost in the woods. The visuals are elegant and rich, but gory and pornographic, sometimes in the same shot. Honestly, it's equal parts smut, art and horror.
Rating: B

Amateur

1995 • Director: Hal Hartley
Comedy / Drama • Rated R • 105 minutes
American Playhouse / Sony Pictures Classics
Color • Language: English
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Martin Donovan

The leads turn in admirable performances, respectively, as a pornography-writing nun and a pornographer with amnesia. But it is Elina Löwensohn, who plays a porn star on the run, who steals most of the scenes. It's classic Hartley with absurd themes and snappy dialogue, but the plot and drama never convince. Rating: B

Outsourced

2006 • Director: John Jeffcoat
Indie • Rated PG-13 • 102 minutes
Shadowcatcher Entertainment / Warner Brothers
Color • Language: English
Starring Josh Hamilton, Matt Smith

Outsourced is a sprightly comedy that borrows its tone from the iconic cult classic Office Space. Todd (Hamilton) is told he has to travel to India to train his replacement. There are some funny and sometimes uncomfortable moments as American culture meets Indian culture, but overall it's entertaining, if somewhat predictable. Rating: B

Killer's Kiss

1955 • Director: Stanley Kubrick
Crime • Unrated • 67 minutes
Minotaur Productions / United Artists
Black and White • Language: English
Starring: Frank Silvera, Jamie Smith

A washed up boxer meets a pretty girl who is tied to a sleazy criminal. Boy and girl run, but the miscreant steps in the way. The climax of the film is a funny but scary scene in a dark mannequin shop with the boxer defending himself from the axe wielding villain.
Rating: B+

Good Dick

2008 • Director: Marianna Palka
Indie • Rated R • 86 minutes
Good Dick / Present Pictures
Color • Language: English
Starring Marianna Palka, Jason Ritter

A mysterious girl (Palka) rents soft-core porn from a local DVD store and one of the clerks (Ritter) is intrigued. He worms his way into her life, but is rejected emotionally. The first 75 minutes are uneven, but a powerful final scene with Tom Arnold ends the film with a beautiful dramatic flourish. Rating: B+

Goodfellas

1990 • Director: Martin Scorcese
Drama • Rated R • 146 minutes
Warner Brothers Pictures
Color • Language: English
Starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta

I've had my fill of mob movies and the glorification of violence. But Goodfellas is one that I've gone back to repeatedly, because it leavens the serious themes and chronic violence with humor (although even then it's of a grisly sort). And because it's a great story with suitably dramatic direction. Rating: A

The School of Flesh

1998 • Director: Benoît Jacquot
Drama • Rated R • 101 minutes
Artémis Productions / Sony Pictures
Color • Language: French (English subtitles)
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Vincent Martinez

Successful in the fashion business, Dominique (Huppert) propositions a young hustler named Quentin (Martinez), intending to have fun for a while. She falls in love with him, however, and becomes both a motherly figure and nemesis to him. It's a complicated film of emotional and sexual entanglements that sweeps the viewer into the turmoil. Rating: B+

The Night Porter

1974 • Director: Liliana Cavani
Drama  • Rated R • 118 minutes
Ital-Noleggio Cinematografico / Criterion
Color • Language: English version
Starring Dirk Bogarde, Charlotte Rampling

In Vienna in the mid-Fifties, a former concentration camp prisoner sees her tormentor working in a hotel. Their relationship, which involves S&M, begins anew. The sadism doesn't shock me, but I find the idea that these two could have had anything resembling a relationship under those circumstances to be simply repulsive. Rating: C+

The Killing

1956 • Director: Stanley Kubrick
Crime • Unrated • 85 minutes
Harris-Kubrick Productions / United Artists
Black and White • Language: English
Starring Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray

To paraphrase a famous quote, I never saw a Kubrick film I didn't like. Even early in his career Kubrick would have confidence in choosing the best lighting and angles to tell his story. And this story, about the unraveling of a big-time heist, would be inspiration for many other directors for years to come. Rating: A–

The Piano Teacher

2001 • Director: Michael Haneke
Drama  • Rated R • 125 minutes
Arte / Kino International
Color • Language: French (English subtitles)
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Benoit Magimel

A handsome young man (Magimel) chases an emotionally unavailable older woman (Huppert) with naive hopes of cracking her icy exterior. She conditionally agrees to allow him into her warped world, only to find his savage impulses overwhelming her own concerns. The role of a lifetime for the veteran Huppert. Rating: A–

Crazy Heart

2009 • Director: Scott Cooper
Drama  • Rated R • 112 minutes
Butcher's Run Films / Fox Searchlight
Color • Language: English
Starring Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhall

Jeff Bridges plays Bad Blake, a semi-famous but influential country star near the end of his career. His lifeline to financial security is Tommy, (Colin Farrell) with whom he shares an ambivalent relationship. Jean (Gyllenhaal) offers love, but Bad struggles to resist his own self-destructive habits. Rating: B+

What's Eating Gilbert Grape

1993 • Director: Lasse Halström
Drama  • Rated PG-13 • 118 minutes
J&M Entertainment / Paramount Pictures
Color • Language: English
Starring Johnny Depp, Leonardo Di Caprio

Gilbert (Depp) is a passive young man with too many serious responsibilities and not enough resources to deal with them. His mentally challenged younger brother (DiCaprio) complicates Gilbert's work and romantic life. It's a small-town tragedy that never begs for sympathy, but instead quietly offers hope for the hopeless. Rating: B+

Blackhawk Down

2001 • Director: Ridley Scott
Action  • Rated R • 144 minutes

Revolution Studios / Columbia Pictures
Color • Language: English
Starring Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor

Blackhawk Down, based on the famous ill-fated attempt by US Army Rangers to capture a warlord in Mogadishu, is a stylish action driven film with characters who seem completely superfluous. Ridley Scott opts for a semi-documentary feel and captures well the claustrophobic horror of close quarters combat in a squalid urban setting. Rating: B+

Henry Fool

1997 • Director: Hal Hartley
Drama • Rated R • 137 minutes
Shooting Gallery / Sony Pictures Classic
Color • Language: English
Starring Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak

Henry Fool (Ryan) sweeps into town and casts a spell on Simon Grim (Urbaniak), a quiet sanitation worker, becoming Grim's svengali and literary mentor. Fool disturbs the lives of the dysfunctional Grim family, including the mom and Simon's sister (Parker Posey). Audaciously dark, Henry Fool leaves a disquieting impression. Rating: B+

The Thin Red Line

1998 • Director: Terrence Malick
Drama • Rated R • 170 minutes
Fox 2000 Pictures / 20th Century Fox
Color • Language: English
Starring Sean Penn, Adrien Brody

I'd call it one of the best war movies ever made, but it brilliantly transcends genre. Outwardly it's about Guadalcanal, but it's more concerned with the brutish nature of man and the transitory nature of life itself. Astonishing in its juxtaposition of the monstrous and mundane and the beautiful and bestial. Rating: A

Hounddog

2007 • Director: Deborah Kampmeier
Indie  • Rated R • 105 minutes
Color • Language: English
Deerjen Films / Empire Film Group
Starring Dakota Fanning, Dave Morse

Hounddog is filled with the usual tropes and stereotypes about the South, blacks, and poor people. The always annoying Dakota Fanning gets to stomp and parade and do her best showboat singing as though the film were written just for her precious grandstanding. If you like insipid, you'll love this. Rating: C

Broken Flowers

2005 • Director: Jim Jarmusch
Indie  • Rated R • 105 minutes
Color • Language: English
Five Roses / Focus Features
Starring Bill Murray, Julie Delpy

Bill Murray plays an aging businessman who receives an anonymous letter telling him of a nineteen-year old child he never knew he had. As he calls on his ex-girlfriends in order to solve the mystery, the film goes from sunny comedy to a contemplative and darkening drama.
Rating: A–

Barry Lyndon

1975 • Director: Stanley Kubrick
Drama  • Rated PG • 184 minutes
Color • Language: English
Hawk Films / Warner Brothers
Starring Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson

Barry Lyndon is one of Kubrick's epics. At over three hours, it's worth the time and attention he paid to this, his adaption of a Thackeray novel. Ryan O'Neal is convincing as an Irish ruffian who goes from rags to riches and back to rags in 18th century Europe. Just short of a masterpiece. Rating: A–

Broken English

2007 • Director: Zoe R. Cassavetes
Indie  • Rated PG-13 • 97 minutes
Color • Language: English
HDNet Films / Magnolia Pictures
Starring Parker Posey, Melvil Poupaud

There's nothing offensive per se about this film. It's directed well enough, but it doesn't have an interesting story. It's about a thirty-something (Posey) who finally finds the man of her dreams. She chases him from New York to Paris and miraculously finds him in a most contrived manner.   Rating: C+

Cashback

2006 • Director: Sean Ellis
Indie  • Rated R • 101 minutes
Left Turn Films / Gaumont
Color • Language: English
Starring Shaun Evans, Emilia Fox

Ben, (Biggerstaff) jilted by his girl, loses his bearings and finds himself adrift on the night shift at a supermarket. There it takes a turn into fantasy (he can slow time), romance, and a bit of comedy. It fails to deliver in any category but radiates a bit of charm nonetheless. Rating: B–

Lola

1981 • Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Foreign  • Rated R • 115 minutes
Color • Language: German (with subtitles)
Laura-Film/Tango Film Production
Starring Barbara Sukowa, Armin Mueller-Stahl

Lola isn't as strong as the other films in Fassbinder's trilogy. It's less bewitching than Veronika Voss and weaker in story and symbolism than Maria Braun. However, with its hallucinatory colors that range between neon and pastel, this film is certainly the most beautiful to behold. Rating: B+