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+

Jackie Brown

1997 • Director: Quentin Tarantino
Drama  • Rated R • 154 minutes
Color • Language: English
Starring Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson

The film is nicely paced, and the story breathes naturally despite the length. Pam Grier is brilliant as a money smuggling stewardess who's been put in a tight squeeze by the Feds. There's trademark Tarantino violence, but it's barely noticed because we're too busy hoping Grier's character gets her big break. Rating: A–

Blow

2001 • Director: Ted Demme
Drama • 123 minutes • Rated R
New Line Cinema
Starring Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz

Think Scorcese, specifically Goodfellas, in terms of direction and tone. But without the vision. Or the artistry. Or the acting. Or the epic grandeur. Maybe Blow was planned as homage, but even so it falls flat with a familiar story and a familiar ending.  
Rating: C

Veronika Voss

1982 • Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Foreign • 104 minutes • Rated R
Laura-Film/Tango Film Production
Starring Rosel Zech, Hilmar Thate

Another of Fassbinder's excursions into post-war Germany, Veronika Voss digs deeply into the obscenity of the Third Reich and German attempts to cut connections to their past. While it's film noir in expressive black and white, complete with breathtaking contrasts, it borders on gothic horror in trappings and spirit. 
Rating: A–

The Land of Plenty

2004 • Director: Wim Wenders
Drama • 124 minutes • Unrated
IFC Films and Reverse Angle
Starring John Diehl, Michelle Williams

Teetering on melodrama for the duration of the film without quite crossing over, The Land of Plenty presents two opposing views of the world in the aftermath of 9/11. Speaking the best lines of the film, Williams pulls her character inside out, offering poignancy and highlighting the complications of the truth. Rating: B+

The Girl on the Train

2009 • Director: André Téchiné
Foreign • Unrated • 101 minutes
UGC / Strand Releasing
Color • Language: French (with subtitles)
Starring Émile Dequenne, Catherine Deneuve

A Parisienne claims to have been assaulted by a group of minorities. The film progresses slowly, but that's not its fatal flaw. Rather, it overreaches in wanting to discuss the media, prejudice, lies and anti-Semitism, but only hints at the issues without fully exploring any of them.  Rating: B

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum

1975 • Directors: Schlöndorff and von Trotta 

Foreign • 106 minutes • Rated R 

Bioskop Film 

Starring Angela Winkler and Mario Adorf 

Few films capture the potential tyranny of the press in this manner. A young woman's life is destroyed by Die Zeitung ("The Paper") in its quest to sensationalize her connection to a wanted man. It's moody and drama-filled, and Winkler is expressive as Blum. Based on the Heinrich Böll novel. Rating: B+

Wings of Desire

1987 • Director: Wim Wenders
Foreign • 130 minutes • Rated PG-13
Road Movies Filmproduktion, Argos Films
Starring Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin 
More Than Fifty

Wings of Desire is a beautiful but airy film. If you're interested in something plot driven, this one will drive you to madness. Two angels in Cold War Berlin watch mortals fuss and struggle. It's pretty and vivid, filled with the oblique observations and dreams of the disturbed. Rating: A–

The Station Agent

2003 • Director: Thomas McCarthy
Comedy-Drama • 88 minutes • Rated R
Miramax Films
Starring Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson

This is a smart lo-budget film about a dwarf who inherits a train station in rural New Jersey. There's little weepy-eyed sentimentality. Instead it's a tightly woven story about how his sudden appearance sparks changes for several people with whom he comes in contact. Michelle Williams is excellent as small-town librarian. Rating: B+

Pan's Labyrinth

2006 • Director: Guillermo Del Toro
Foreign • 119 minutes • Rated R
New Line Cinema
Starring Ivana Baquero, Sergi López

I don't care for CGI or fairy tales, especially those pitched to adults. However, buried in the glop, there's a human interest story set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War that recalls the labyrinthian tales of Borges and the magical reality of Garcia Márquez. Rating: B

Winter Light

1963 • Director: Ingmar Bergman
Foreign • 80 minutes • unrated
Janus Films
Starring Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand

A country pastor finds that each time he demands answers from God he is met with unrelenting silence. Illusions, lies and dreams are obstacles to the pastor's conclusion that there is no God. This as he evaluates his relationship with a woman who loves him with a desperate fervor. Rating: A–

The Man Who Wasn't There

2001 • Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen
Drama • 118 minutes • Rated R
Working Title Films
Billy Bob Thornton, Frances McDormand

It's an insidiously captivating film that stays a step ahead of even the most astute viewers. It involves a violent chain-reaction set off by a poorly planned blackmail in the late Forties in Smalltown, USA. It's not one of the most beloved Coen Brothers films, but a good one nonetheless. Rating: B+

Daredevil

2003 • Director: Mark Stephen Johnson
Action • 103 minutes • Rated PG-13
20th Century Fox
Starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner

As a teenager I read Frank Miller's gritty interpretation of Daredevil and watched other superheros follow that success. This film attempts to be faithful to that vision, and mostly succeeds, despite the banality of Affleck and despite the presence of one of the leading lesser lights of Hollywood, Jennifer Garner. Rating: B

Heaven's Gate

1980 • Director: Michael Cimino
Drama • 219 minutes • Rated R
United Artists
Starring Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken

Synonymous with excess and failure, Heaven's Gate is an epic western that cost United Artists near $120 million in today's dollars, without recouping a fraction. However, lost in the mythology is the fact that it's neither the worst film of all time nor an unjustly maligned masterpiece: it's simply quite good.
Rating: B+

La Vie Promise

2002 • Director: Olivier Dahan

Foreign • 93 minutes • Unrated
Empire Pictures
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Pascal Greggory

Is it an art film? The visuals and seductive music make it a lively sensory experience. However, the subject matter is dark and discomfiting: an aging prostitute is on the run with her estranged daughter where they meet a man with his own secrets. Verdict: road movie with a weak script.
Rating: B

Dakota Skye

2008 • Director: John Humber
Indie • 89 minutes • Rated R
Desert Skye Entertainment
Starring Eileen April Boylan, Ian Nelson

Dakota has the uncanny ability to detect any lie. The film crawls along as she tries to determine whether a boy she's met is always truthful or if she is simply unable to detect his fibs. Nonetheless, the pace matches the languid days of adolescence adding a layer of believability. Rating: B

The Browning Version

1994 • Director: Mike Figgis
Paramount Pictures
Starring Albert Finney, Greta Scacchi

I thought that this remake lacking the chilly postwar austerity of the original film would be a snooze. I was surprised, however, by the fantastic performances of Finney and Scacchi as the married couple Andrew and Laura Crocker-Harris. Their portrayal of a mutually venomous relationship is captivating and taut.
Rating: A–

The Browning Version

1951 • Director: Anthony Asquith
Javelin Films
Starring Michael Redgrave, Jean Kent

Michael Redgrave is masterful as a retiring classics professor bound up in his fears and the wreckage of his own distant and severe behavior toward his students. He's tortured by the promiscuities and hatred of his younger wife played with an intelligent coldness by Jean Kent. Psychologically powerful. Rating: A–

Eyes Wide Shut

1999 • Director: Stanley Kubrick

Warner Brothers
Starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman

Is this psycho-sexual drama a stronger film because the lead roles are occupied by a married couple, or is it weaker because it's hampered by the limitations of Cruise and Kidman? Ultimately, both propositions are true. But Eyes Wide Shut transcends expectations, provoking thought and disturbing the emotions.
Rating: A

All the Pretty Horses

2000 • Director: Billy Bob Thornton

Columbia Pictures

Starring Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz

A masterpiece such as the McCarthy novel on which this film is based was always going to be difficult to adapt. When the promised director's cut is released, I will re-review. Skip this leaden distillation; instead, while waiting, read one of the best novels of the last twenty years.
Rating: B–

Layer Cake

2004 • Director: Matthew Vaughan
Sony New Line Pictures
Starring: Daniel Craig, Colm Meaney

A mid-level coke distributor, Mr. XXXX, decides he's going to go legit. His supplier has different ideas, though, and the viewer is swept along as one duplicity after another is revealed. It works well as a crime thriller, but watch and listen closely or you'll lose the thread. Rating: B+

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

2008 • Directors: Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg
New Line Cinema
Starring: John Cho, Kal Penn

While viewing, sleepiness sets in. The culprits? Purposely offensive humor and forced gags. And then Neil Patrick Harris appears in a demented role, shocking and hilarious with strident vulgarity. The squeaky-clean doc shines as an über-hetero, psychedelic mushroom munching maniac. I doubt any of this made it to his journal. Rating: B–

I Heart Huckabees

2004 • Director: David O. Russell
Fox Searchlight Pictures
With Jason Schwartzman, Mark Wahlberg

I am sure the doctoral candidate in philosophy who wrote this laughed uncontrollably to himself while penning the script. I didn't laugh. Nor was I prompted to ponder the theories of Sartre or Heidegger––I instead wondered how so many famous people agreed to participate in this overdrawn mess.  
Rating: C

Black Book

2005 • Director: Paul Verhoeven
Drama • Rated R • 145 minutes
Fu Works / Sony Pictures Classics
Color • Language: Dutch / German (English subtitles)
Starring: Carice Van Houten, Sebastian Koch

An epic about the Resistance, it's been called one of the best modern Dutch films by some critics. My opinion, however, is one of muted enthusiasm. There's intrigue, romance, mystery, deception, and the unraveling of an insider's plot. But ultimately it's merely a good (although overly ambitious) thriller. Rating: B

The Marriage of Maria Braun

1979 • Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Albatros Filmproduktion
Starring Hannah Schuygulla, Karl Löwitsch
 
Maria assumes her husband is lost during World War 2 and does whatever is needed to survive in the aftermath. Artfully shot, Fassbinder's story isn't just Maria's story: it's also a clever metaphor for the German "Economic Miracle" of the Fifties and Germany's regained place as a powerful nation. Rating: A–

Enter the Dragon

1973 • Director: Robert Clouse
Warner Brothers
Starring Bruce Lee, John Saxon

When Bruce Lee says, "You have offended my family and you have offended the Shoalin temple," some serious ass-kicking is about to take place, you just know it. It's campy in parts; gripping in others. Fun and serious at the same time, it's also a classic representative of the genre. Rating: B+