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