- New York, 6 January: The Online Film Critics Society awarded its Best Film honors to The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The movie also scored Best Director for Peter Jackson, Best Ensemble and technical awards for editing, sound and visual effects. Far from Heaven's Julianne Moore won Best Actress and Daniel Day-Lewis was named Best Actor for Gangs of New York. -- Full story.
- Paris, 8 January:
 From Taiwan, comes Chin-yen Yee's Lanse da men (Blue Gate Crossing). Shown at last fall's Toronto Film Festival, this is a delicate film that evokes the awkwardness and uncertainty of adolescence in its story of an odd teenage love triangle. The characters' crisscrossing attractions, including one case of unrequited lesbian longing, presents the kind of situation that an American filmmaker might have turned into a rollicking teen sex farce, probably too rollicking and too farcical. Director Chin-Yen Lee takes the opposite course. He concentrates on subtle internal movements and treats his characters with utmost respect. His film is intelligent and sensitive but also slow-moving and soporific. It's hard to imagine that adolescence was ever quite this dull. The film stars Lun-Mei Guey as Kerou, a sullen teenager who tries to act as a go-between when her shy friend Yuezhen (Shu-Hui Liang) falls in love with Zhang (Bo-Lin Chen). Kerou approaches Zhang on her friend's behalf, but the boy likes Kerou instead and doesn't want to hear about Yuezhen. As Zhang is the popular kid at school -- a swimmer with an easy way about him -- Kerou thinks she should be happy, but she's not. She is beginning to realize she has lesbian feelings for her friend Yuezhen. Kerou is the focus of the film -- most of the time we follow her and see events through her eyes -- and as she is emotionally shut down, things take a long time to unfold. Shu-Hui Liang lends some sparkle as Yuezhen, but she's not in enough scenes to make a dent in the mood. Lanse da men is 85 minutes of wistful gloom. -- Mike LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
 - Paris, 8 January: With its third and final installment, subtitled Après la vie (After Life), Lucas Belvaux's trilogy closes with a satisfying click. The first two (Cavale -- On the Run and Un couple épatant -- An Amazing Couple, both 2002) were, respectively, thriller and farce; this is a melodrama, effectively conflating the tone of the previous two. The focus is now on Pascal (Gilbert Melki), the tough cop whose wife Agnès (Dominique Blanc) has been a morphine addict for 20 years. Secretly, Pascal gets her drugs from local super-villain and former terrorist Jacquillat (Patrick Deschamps), who now says he will cut off the supply unless Pascal tops his inconvenient former associate Le Roux (Belvaux), whose daring and slightly implausible prison breakout we saw in the first movie. This one centres on the anguished, even tragic love between Pascal and Agnès, which is not diminished by Pascal's infatuation with another woman. It is their relationship and the two excellent performances from Melki and Blanc that finally give some moral and emotional weight to this clever movie-triangle. But I couldn't help wondering if it might not after all have been better to have developed a longer and more deeply felt version of this third part, without those initial detours into pastiche-noir and tongue-in-cheek farce. -- Peter Bradshaw, Guardian Unlimited
- Singapore, 16 January:
 Release here of Ying xiong (Hero), the new film from Yimou Zhang, who brought us Yao a yao yao dao waipo giao (Shanghai Triad) (1995) and Xingfu shiguang (Happy Time) (2001). He packs this visual feast with fierce action and breathtaking beauty. Just don't expect another Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Ang Lee's classic film from 2000 had an emotional core to steady its thrilling spectacle. Ying xiong, based on the King of Qin's attempts to unify the warring states of China in the third century B.C. and become its first emperor, ravishes the eye without quite touching the heart. Jet Li -- in rare form -- stars as Nameless, a sheriff who visits the Qin King (Chen Dao Ming) in his palace to collect his prize. Nameless claims he has killed the three assassins who posed the greatest threat to the ruler. They are Sky (Donnie Yen), Snow (Maggie Cheung) and Broken Sword (Tony Leung). The story of their defeat is told in flashback. Actually there are four stories -- each with its own color scheme -- as audiences are left to decide the truth for themselves, as in Akira Kurosawa's 1950 masterwork Rashomon. The fight scenes are riveting and cinematographer Christopher Doyle shoots everything from soaring arrows to falling leaves with a poet's eye. The actors bring all the heat they can to the love triangle involving Snow, Broken Sword and his servant Moon, played by gorgeous Zhang Ziyi. But the film never musters the intimate feel the gifted director brought to such early films as Da hong deng long gao gao gua (Raise the Red Lantern) and Ju Dou. You cheer his accomplishment in Ying xiong without ever feeling close to it. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
 - Tokyo, 25 January: Release of Takashi Shimizu's Ju-on (The Grudge). Based on a two-part TV movie that aired in Japan in 2000 and already something of a sensation with a sequel and a Sam Raimi remake in the pipeline, Ju-on is perplexing enough to make Ring and Ringu look like models of narrative clarity, but the latest Japanese horror sensation will still freak the bejesus out of you. The action centers on a house where a family was murdered and the victims' ghosts wreak havoc on the lives of anyone who walks in the door. The pale ghost boy who cries like a cat is a particularly sinister figure and another scene will inspire viewers to check under their bedcovers for weeks to come. Though the influence of the Ringu series is easy to see in some of his scare tactics, writer-director Shimizu milks every scene for maximum shock value. -- Jason Anderson, Eye Weekly
- Park Cities, 26 January:
 The jury for dramatic films at this year's Sundance Film Festival was composed of Steve Buscemi, Emanuel Levy, David O. Russell, Tilda Swinton and Forest Whitaker. They awarded their Grand Jury Prize to Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini's American Splendor. Special Jury Prizes went to All the Real Girls (for emotional truth), Die, Mommie, Die (for Charles Busch's outstanding performance), The Station Agent (for Patricia Clarkson's outstanding performance), and What Alice Found (for emotion truth). The Director's Award went to Catherine Hardwicke for Thirteen.
Nanette Burstein, Susan Frömke, Avon Kirkland, Lesli Klainberg and Doug Pray sat on the jury for documentaries. Their Grand Jury Prize went to Andrew Jarecki's Capturing the Friedmans. Special Jury Awards went to A Certain Kind of Death and The Death of Emmett Till. Jonathan Karsh won the documentary Director's Award for his My Flesh and Blood, which also won the Audience Award. Other Audience Awards were presented to Whale Rider (world cinema) and The Station Agent (dramatic), for which Thomas McCarthy also won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. This year's Tribute to Independent Vision Award was presented to Holly Hunter.
- Los Angeles, 27 January: Variety has reported that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is discouraging Oscar's foreign-language entries from running costly campaigns, claiming "For your consideration" ads have no effect on Academy voters.
- Wellington, 30 January:
 Premiere of Whale Rider from New Zealander Niki Caro. Be on the lookout for this one. There's magic in it. Having already earned the Audience Award at Sundance, this is a crowd-pleaser in the best sense of the word: It wins you over without cheating. You look at the remarkable face of Keisha Castle-Hughes, only eleven when the film was shot, and you're hooked. She plays Pai, a Maori girl being raised by her grandparents, Koro (Rawiri Paratene) and Nanny Flowers (Vicky Haughton), in contemporary New Zealand. Her father ran off after his wife died giving birth to Pai and her twin brother, who also died. That will leave the tribe without a leader when Koro dies, since girls are considered unfit to lead. Pai has other ideas. As Koro educates local boys in ancient mysticism and the martial arts, Pai trains in secret, evoking the anger of Koro, whose ancestor, legend has it, arrived in their village on the back of a whale. Director Caro, who adapted Wite Ihimaera's novel, has made a film of female empowerment that resonates deeply. Castle-Hughes is a star in in the making. She and her movie are worth cheering for. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
 - Paris, 19 February: Politics has a habit of dragging skeletons out of the closet, but in Claude Chabrol's La Fleur du mal (The Flower Of Evil), a whole graveyard of bones tumble into the open after rich Bordeaux matriarch Anne Charpin-Vasseur (Nathalie Baye) decides to run for mayor. After Anne receives a copy of a pamphlet accusing her family of collaborating with the Nazis, murder and all manner of despicable crimes against decency and democracy, the family begins to feel the pinch and Chabrol dissects upper middle class mores under stress. Back in the days when Chabrol was a journalist for French New Wave organ Cahiers du Cinéma, he once tackled the theme of guilt in Hitchcock's movies. Judging by La Fleur du mal, it's something he's still fascinated by. This simmering thriller ticks along with the precision (though, deliberately, none of the clarity) of Hitch as it slings mud at its bourgeois protagonists and then waits, hoping to see it stick. The dirty secrets of the Charpin-Vasseur family are revealed at a leisurely pace as Chabrol proves more interested in focusing on the clan's youngest members François (Benoît Magimel), who's just back from three years in America, and his "sister"-turned-sweetheart Michèle (Mélanie Doutey, France's answer to Kate Beckinsale). Fortunately, incest isn't one of the family's sins - these two are more like cousins than siblings - and as the kids fall in love, events go into motion that will have disastrous consequences for the rest of the dynasty. Following his silver-spoon chomping characters as they go about their daily lives, Chabrol does what he does best: charting the rhythms and rituals of upper middle class French life with a detached yet detailed eye. It never works as a thriller, but as a film about guilt, family history, and the sins of the father, it builds to an impressive, brooding story of everyday deception and deceit. -- Jamie Russell, BBC Films
- Seoul, 21 February:
 Korean release of Wu jian dao (I Want To Be You, aka Infernal Affairs). Maybe you've heard that this flat-out fabulous Hong Kong police thriller will soon spawn an American remake starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, to be directed by Martin Scorsese. But do not, by any means, skip the original, which throbs with action, suspense and a seductive rhythm all its own. The plot is hard-line basic: Yan (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) is a cop who has lived undercover in a triad gang for a decade and is near meltdown. Ming (Andy Lau) is a gangster passing as a police officer and nearing his own breaking point. Neither realizes who the other is. But both the internal-affairs cops and the gang boss Sam (comic actor Eric Tsang, in a menacingly effective change of pace) know a mole has infiltrated their midst. Yan turns to the only cop privy to his secret identity, his supervisor (the superb character actor Anthony Wong Chau-Sang brings gravity, grace and sly wit to the role). Then, as action convention demands, all hell breaks loose. It's a tribute to co-directors Wai Keung Lau and Siu Fai Mak that almost nothing about Wu jian dao follows the rules. Asian superstars Leung and Lau give bruising, brilliant performances that transcend genre. The film prowls the night with a lit-by-neon intensity that recalls Michael Mann's Collateral but illuminates a very special circle of hell reserved for those guilty of betrayal. The filmmakers rub our noses in violence yet cut deepest in moments of agonizing quiet, including a climactic rooftop scene between Yan and Ming. This is a movie that gets its hooks into you early, and no chance is it letting go. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
- London, 23 February: Roman Polanski's The Pianist won honors for Best Picture and Best Director at the British Academy Awards this evening. Nicole Kidman won Best Actress for The Hours and Daniel Day-Lewis was named Best Actor for Gangs of New York. Meanwhile, The Pianist and Polanski also claimed top prizes at France's César Awards, the country's top cinema honors.
 - Paris, 26 February: Already snaffled by Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks company for a Hollywood remake, Japanese director Hideo Nakata's belated follow-up to Ringu and Ring 2, released last year in Japan and opening in the capital today, is a thoroughly creepy exercise in psychological terror. Returning to the parental theme of the earlier films, Honogurai mizu no soki kara (Dark Water) starts with single mum Yoshimi (Hitomi Kuroki) and her five-year-old daughter Ikuko (ultra-cute moppet Rio Kanno) moving into a new apartment. But the ramshackle building - a cross between an East European Skoda factory and a prison - comes with its fair share of problems. As soon as they sign the lease, water starts dripping from a malignant-looking damp patch on the ceiling. Yoshimi is convinced that the water has something to do with the abandoned apartment above them. So when Ikuko starts wandering off in the elevator and the ghost-like figure of a little girl begins stalking the corridors, it's apparent that there's more going on here than just a few leaky blocked pipes. While the mystery is decidedly obvious (most viewers will piece it together within the first half hour), there's much to enjoy (and terrify) here, not least the disturbingly claustrophobic atmosphere of humid rainstorms and family tensions. -- Full review.
- Prague, 27 February:
 Release here of So weit die Füße tragen (As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me). This film, directed by Hardy Martins as if possessed by David Lean, has been playing in Germany for several months now, although it was denied entry into the Berlin Film Festival for reasons explained below. The film is based on the true story of Clemens Forell (Bernhard Bettermann), a German soldier in World War II, who is captured by the Russians and sentenced to 25 years in a Siberian labor camp that is supervised by Lt. Col. Kamenev (Anatoli Kotenyov), who admires Forell's spirit even as he consistently tries to break it. Forell has a family back in Germany that he desperately wants to get back to, and when he gets his chance, he escapes, beginning a three year journey across frozen Russia and Asia, trying to get to Persia as he is chased by the Russian colonel. Shot on a $7 million budget, the film looks like it's at least $50 million. But it never shys away from characterization, and the film is gripping in ways that most Hollywood films have forgotten about. It's the most watchable German film since Das Boot.
The problem? Well, look above. Basically, Forell is a Nazi. Although that's not exactly fair to all him that -- he's just a soldier in the German army, just fighting so he can do his time and go home. However, this will probably be misconstrued by simpler audiences. The subject of the Jews is touched upon when Forell takes refuge in a Polish Jew's house. The scene is realistic, neither making excuses for Forell or making him defiant. The film is almost 3 hours long, yet never drags. Forell is a heroic character, he's easy to sympathize with, and Martins' movie doesn't shy away from the truth of the situation. In the end the story becomes about a man trying to surpass incredible odds, just to get home. It transcends the political. -- Nordling, Ain't It Cool News
 - Reykjavik, 28 February: Release of Dagur Kári's Nói albinói (Nói the Albino). The winner of several awards at international film festivals, on paper this film might sound like yet another tale of adolescent alienation. Enduring an unsatisfactory relationship with his heavy-drinking father (Throstur Leo Gunnarsson), and in constant trouble at school, 17-year-old Nói (Tómas Lemarquis) feels bored and constrained by small town life. The arrival of a beautiful new girl, Iris (Elin Hansdóttir), revitalises Nói, and he plans for the pair of them to escape far away. The film's setting, however, is far from familiar -- namely a remote community in winter in the West fjords of Iceland, where the inhabitants are hemmed in by sea and mountains. (The opening shot sees Nói having to clear the head-high snow drift from the front door, immediately establishing his sense of imprisonment.) And Nói himself is an idiosyncratic protagonist. Bald, ultra-pale, and bobble-hatted, he might be some sort of genius, which is the verdict of the visiting school psychiatrist. Or perhaps he's a rebel without a cause who's happier with his own company in an underground cellar or taking pot shots at stalactites in the great outdoors. Everybody here is slightly off-kilter, providing some droll humour: there's Nói's taciturn, shotgun-wielding granny (Anna Fridriksdóttir), glumly performing her aerobic exercises; the priest on the motorised sled giving instructions on the precise depth of a grave via a walkie talkie; and the lugubrious Kierkegaard-quoting bookseller, who muses: "Hang yourself and you'll regret it. Don't hang yourself and you'll regret it." Contrasting the forbidding whiteness of the natural environment with sickly-green interiors, Kári incorporates a mellow score from his own band Slowblow. And despite having left clues along the way, this talented filmmaker still manufactures a powerful surprise with an apocalyptic resolution, which nevertheless manages to offer a glimpse of a better future. -- Tom Dawson, BBC Films
- Rome, 28 February:
 Premiere of Ferzan Ozpetek's La Finestra di fronte (Facing Windows), a lush and melodramatic Italian confection of forbidden desire, buried secrets and pastry cooking. The film blends romance, mystery and fantasy to beguiling, if slightly bewildering, effect. Turkish-born helmer Ozpetek -- best known for gay-themed indies Hamam: The Turkish Bath (1997) and Le Fate ignoranti(2001) -- makes a concerted bid for the mainstream with a sentimental fable that is virtually crying out for a Hollywood remake. Some, however, may still find it an acquired taste, despite a good-looking cast and handsome production values. Giovanna (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) is a young mother of two beaten down by her increasingly fractured marriage to hapless underachiever Filippo (Filippo Nigro) and her soul-sapping job as a poultry inspector. The last thing she needs is an amnesiac pensioner in her house, but that's what she gets when her husband invites Simone (Massimo Girotti) to stay after finding him wandering the streets of Rome. Gradually, though, Giovanna warms to the old man, especially when she discovers he shares her interest in the culinary arts. What's more, a tragic love in Simone's past seems to mirror her infatuation with Lorenzo (Raoul Bova), the dashing bachelor who lives opposite. Slowly, as the neighbours join forces to uncover the confused geriatric's true identity, Giovanna realises her life is at an emotional crossroads. Mixing voyeurism and homoeroticism with flashbacks to WWII Italy, Ozpetek could be accused of cooking too rich a dish from his sundry ingredients. There's also something faintly foolish about Giovanna's passion for pudding and yearning to become a pastry chef. But the widescreen visuals and Andrea Guerra's sweeping score bring a sheen of class to the strained narrative, while Mezzogiorno's scenes with Bova positively crackle with sexual energy. -- Neil Smith, BBC Films
- Las Vegas, 5 March: The National Association of Theater Owners announced at its annual ShoWest convention that last year's 1.6 billion in tickets sales made 2002 the best moviegoing year since 1957. Americans saw an average of 5.7 films each and paid an average of $5.80 per ticket last year.
 - Austin, 12 March: A Mighty Wind is screened at South by Southwest today. The writing and directing team who created Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show turn their satiric eye toward the world of folk music in this sly mockumentary. Irving Steinbloom was one of the great behind-the-scenes figures of the folk music boom of the late '50s and early '60s, and helped to nurture the careers of three of the best known acts of the era. The Folksmen -- Mark Shubb (Harry Shearer), Alan Barrows (Christopher Guest), and Jerry Palter (Michael McKean) -- were an earnest folk trio who sang of America's noble past and the challenges of the future; they split up in the early '70s after a failed attempt to go electric. Mitch & Mickey were a duo in both music and life, comprised of Mitch Cohen (Eugene Levy) and Mickey Devlin (Catherine O'Hara). They sang soulful songs of love until the collapse of their relationship sent Mitch into a deep and incapacitating depression. And The Main Street Singers were a nine-piece vocal group -- a "neuftet," as they prefer it -- who offered energetic good-time music, cranking out nearly 30 albums in the course of a decade; their current incarnation, the New Main Street Singers (played by Jane Lynch, Parker Posey, John Michael Lynch, David Alan Blasucci, Steve Pandis, Christopher Moynihan, Paul Dooley and Patrick Sauber) is still on the road. When it is announced that Irving Steinbloom has died, his son Jonathan (Bob Balaban) decides that the best way to memorialize his father is through music, and with the help of Mike LaFontaine (Fred Willard) of Hi-Class Management, they set out to bring the Folksmen, Mitch & Mickey, and the New Main Street Singers back together for a special concert at New York's Town Hall. Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer -- who previously teamed up for This Is Spinal Tap -- not only perform together as the Folksmen in A Mighty Wind, but composed most of the songs performed onscreen. -- Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Los Angeles, 13 March: Academy Awards producer Gil Cates has confirmed that Eminem won't attend next week's ceremonies, despite his "Lose Yourself" from 8 Mile being nominated for Best Song.
 - Los Angeles, 23 March:
 We interrupt the war to bring you this: Chicago is Oscar®'s Best Picture. As battles raged in Iraq, National Guard and police in riot gear secured the Kodak Theater while antiwar protesters thronged the neighboring streets as the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences partied on, marking Oscar®'s 75th B-day in a ceremony that was by turns reflective and rollicking, and ultimately with few Hollywood-style twists. Predictably, the razzle-dazzle 'em Second City musical was second to none. Chicago, entering the night with a leading 13 nominations, left with six statuettes, including the aforementioned Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress for a very pregnant Catherine Zeta-Jones. Chicago is the first musical since 1968's Oliver! to claim Best Picture. A teary Nicole Kidman won the Best Actress race for her proboscis-enhanced portrayal of Virginia Woolf in The Hours. Pulling off two of the night's biggest shockers were The Pianist's Roman Polanski and Adrien Brody. In the night's biggest jaw-dropper, Polanski, living as a fugitive in France since fleeing Los Angeles in 1978 after pleading guilty to a statutory-rape charge, beat sentimental fave Martin Scorsese and Chicago's rookie helmer Rob Marshall to win Best Director for his semiautobiographical Holocaust story. Earlier, Brody -- not Oscar pool picks Jack Nicholson or Daniel Day-Lewis -- was named Best Actor. The stunned Brody then stunned presenter Halle Berry by planting a big, wet kiss on her before claiming his trophy. Ronald Harwood's script for The Pianist won for Best Adapted Screenplay, giving the film a troika of trophies. Meanwhile, Eminem (yes, that Eminem) won an Oscar® (yes, an Oscar®) for Best Song for 8 Mile's "Lose Yourself," besting the likes of Paul Simon and U2.
Despite calls for a more "subdued" and "sober" show, the ceremony didn't seem any less ostentatious than usual as Hollywood saluted itself along with the Academy's diamond anniversary. The show included several montages of previous film and acting winners, as well as "Oscar's Family Album" segment, collecting Oscar'd thespians, including Brody, Kidman, Zeta-Jones and Chris Cooper, named Best Supporting Actor for Adaptation. Also joining them was the night's Honorary Award winner, Peter O'Toole. Most winners avoided mentioning the Iraq conflict, but a few used their moment in the kliegs as a soapbox -- most notably, Bowling for Columbine's Michael Moore, who called all the documentary nominees up to the stage. "We are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you!" The speech ended abruptly in a hail of boos and a disappearing microphone. The night's biggest loser was Gangs of New York. Up for 10 awards, Scorsese's sprawling epic about 19th-century thug life was completely shut out. -- Full E! Online story.
- New York, 25 April:
 Columbia releases James Mangold's Identity. There must have been a mainstream Hollywood film thicker and more incoherent than this. None, however, springs immediately to mind. A riff on Agatha Christie's classic novel 10 Little Indians -- filmed best in 1945's And Then There Were None -- it slides from intriguing into untenable and then idiotic. One dark and stormy night, a bunch of ostensible strangers find themselves holed up in a dingy motel. The surrounding roads are blocked by flooding, one of their party is seriously injured, and the arrival of a con-in-transit sparks a series of bloody deaths. Whodunit? James Mangold. The CopLand director assembles another quality ensemble cast, but can't even muster the conditional pleasures of his estrogen-drenched Cuckoo's Nest clone, Girl, Interrupted. This is a serial killer slasher movie with pretensions: a largely scare-free 'chiller' played depressingly straight, as if unaware of its own preposterousness. With nods to The Omen, The Shining, and Psycho, it doesn't feel self-referential so much as unoriginal -- devoid of intelligence or scares. The movie it most resembles is The Three, the moronic blockbuster script of Charlie Kaufman's numbskull twin Donald, in the delirious Adaptation. It's probable that John Cusack -- who cameoed in Spike Jonze's brilliant comedy -- is well aware of the "Identity" problems. But his performance shows no sly spoofiness, merely the tired lines of a doing-it-for-the-money job. Others save the picture from straight-to-video ignominy, with a fine turn from John Hawkes as the weasily motel manager, and a relatively restrained Ray Liotta excelling as a brusque cop. The underused Clea DuVall does what she can with a limp character, but you'll stop caring about her or anyone else long before trudging out of the theatre, insulted by the cheap resolution. This is typical modern Hollywood horror: frightening only because it's so dumb. -- Nev Pierce, BBC Films
- Los Angeles, 25 April:
 Release of James Foley's Confidence, starring Edward Burns and Rachel Weisz, with Andy Garcia, Paul Giamatti, Donal Logue and Luis Guzman. If you like a good caper film, then you will like Confidence. It may occasionally go a bit far; it may not surprise you with every single twist; but the story, witty dialogue, and acting will rivet you. And clearly rising to the top of the acting chart is Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman has chosen many a great film in his day, and he's also picked some big clunkers as well. His role here, pivotal to the plot, is definitely a supporting role, but he steals every scene that he is in. His character is a blending of many different traits: he's smart, sly, manipulative, dangerous, and much more. The King is perfectly portrayed as someone you do not want to cross. On the whole, though not nearly as inspired as Hoffman's work, you'll find everyone else in the cast in top form.
 - Madrid, 30 April: Adrián Caetano's Un oso rojo (Red Bear) opens in the capital today. This Argentine film tells the story of an ex-con named Bear (Julio Chávez) and often abandons its neorealist roots for scenes of rote and occasionally preposterous gunplay. The movie can't seem to decide if it wants to be a social drama or a Western, though Chávez's sadly swaggering performance would be welcome in either genre. After seven years, Bear returns to find his wife and daughter living with another man. But Bear keeps his anger hidden, with the inmate's knack for keeping his head down; he whittles away at his wife's reluctance and his daughter's unfamiliarity. At the same time as Bear is working his way back into the criminal class, he's protecting his wife's boyfriend, an unemployed habitual gambler whose temper has a tendency to flare. The relationship between the two men is the movie's most surprising development, bolstered by the implicit understanding that two men trying to support a family on limited means have more in common than their crossed paths might suggest. At times, Un oso rojo rivals the social complexity of the Dardenne brothers; at others, particularly when Bear is solving his problems with a perfectly aimed handgun, it dissolves into pat cliché. -- City Paper.net
- Paris, 21 May:
 Lars von Trier's new thriller, Dogville, is released in the capital today. Controversial, intelligent and daring, Dogville features a career-best performance from Nicole Kidman. She's a woman on the run in 1930s America, who seeks refuge in the remote Rocky Mountain town of the title. You won't see any stunning Colorado scenery, though. Von Trier's experimental picture is set on a near-bare stage, with buildings drawn in chalk outlines on the floor and actors miming their everyday actions (opening doors, cooking, gardening etc). Unusual, but intriguing. The off-kilter approach ensures the story is central. There are no distractions from the fall of Grace (Kidman), who becomes a virtual slave to the townspeople in a bid to be accepted. But when her past threatens their future, the small-minded citizens soon show their true colours. That these might be red, white and blue has enraged some critics, who have attacked the movie's apparent anti-Americanism. But while von Trier (who made the similarly criticised Dancer in the Dark) delivers a damning indictment of greed, power and moral hypocrisy, it may be more accurate to accuse him of hating humanity, rather than the United States. The country's immigrant population and extremes of poverty and prosperity simply provide an easily-identified-with, universal setting. This may all sound rather serious and heavygoing. At three hours it certainly stretches the patience, and any movie inspired by German playwright Berthold Brecht isn't likely to have mass audience appeal. But for all the ideas being examined, it works as a compelling drama too, and the acting is excellent. Paul Bettany is brilliant as the cod-philosopher attracted to Kidman's sensual saintliness, while she shows a depth and vulnerability previously only hinted at -- lending nuance and likeability to what could easily have appeared a caricature. In this -- as much as its stark scenario and cruel conclusion -- Dogville is a shock to the system. -- Nev Pierce, BBC Films
 - Cannes, 25 May: Patrice Chéreau presided over this year's feature films jury at the Cannes Film Festival [(Aishwarya Rai (India); Meg Ryan (USA); Karin Viard (France); Erri De Luca (Italy); Jean Rochefort (France); Steven Soderbergh (USA); Danis Tanovic (Bosnia); Wen Jiang (China)], and Emir Kusturica was president of the short films jury [Mary Lea Bandy (USA) (MoMA); Zabou (France); Ingeborga Dapkunaite (Lithuania); Michel Ocelot (France)]. The Palmes d'Or went to Gus Van Sant's Elephant (feature) and Glendyn Ivin's Cracker Bag (short films). The Jury Grand Prize was presented to Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Uzak (Distant) from Turkey, which was also honored for Best Actor (Juzaffer Özdemir and Emin Toprak). Winner of the feature Jury Prize was Iranian Samira Makhmalbaf's Panj é asr (At Five in the Afternoon). Best short film Jury Prize was taken by Juan Diego Solanas' L'Homme sans tête (The Headless Man). Les Invasions barbares (The Barbarian Invasions) won two major prizes: Best Actress (Marie-Josée Croze) and Best Screenplay (Denys Arcand). Gus Van Sant won Best Director for Elephant. Veteran French actress Jeanne Moreau was awarded an Honorary Golden Palm.
- Los Angeles, 30 May:
 Let's get one thing straight. Peter Collinson's The Italian Job (1969) is not a great film -- it's an average film with a great finale. Oh, and another thing: F. Gary Gray's remake blows the bloody doors off it. The action kicks off in spectacular style on the Venetian waterways, where John Bridger (Donald Sutherland) heads a motley crew of thieves (Jason Statham, Seth Green, Mos Def) in a bullion heist. Charlie Croker is the brains of the operation -- but with Mark Wahlberg in the Michael Caine role, this requires unreserved suspension of disbelief. The job comes off without a hitch until inside-man Steve (Edward Norton) gets greedy. He blows Bridger away, leaving the others for al fresco fish chow beneath an alpine lake. Only one person is more narked than Croker and that's Bridger's daughter, safecracking specialist Stella (Charlize Theron). Still soggy, Croker and the lads return to LA where they enlist her services to take back the gold, and more importantly, stick it to Steve. This revenge plot adds wallop lacking in the original, albeit occasionally destabilised by Mark Wahlberg's cosmic anti-presence. Theron is left to drive the movie, taking the wheel with quiet confidence and steering it home. But it's Norton who sparkles supreme, engaging with lazy insolence (perhaps a by-product of his being railroaded into the part by studio brass). The Italian Job MkII never stalls. The culminating 'big job', with a trio of Mini Coopers incongruously zipping through LA gridlock, has all the audacious mischief of its progenitor. The difference is you don't have to endure an hour of dull cockney banter to get there. It's fair to say that, in managing to soup up Collinson's old banger, Gray has successfully pulled off the biggest job of all. -- Stella Papamichael, BBC Films
 - Los Angeles, 30 May: Leave it to a G-rated cartoon to give the live-action epics a lesson in action, fun and bracing originality. Pixar lands another winner for Disney with Finding Nemo. Kid stuff? You tell me. Little Nemo no sooner loses his mom than he's kidnapped, leaving his dad to find him before Sonny Boy is sold off or flushed. If the characters weren't fish, and deliciously comic, the damn thing would be traumatic. The voice work is exceptional, from Albert Brooks as Marlin, the neurotic clown-fish dad, to Barry Humphries (a.k.a. Dame Edna) as Bruce the shark and Geoffrey Rush as a nosy pelican. Ellen DeGeneres is howlingly funny as Dory, a scatterbrained blue tang who travels with Marlin through the terrors of Australia's Great Barrier Reef until they find Nemo living in a fish tank owned by a dentist in Sydney. The doc's young niece, Darla, has braces and a nasty streak for fish. She enters to the theme from Psycho. The view from the fish tank to the dentist's chair and the window overlooking the harbor is just one of the visual wonders of a film that rewrites the book on animating water, which experts say is the hardest element to achieve. And I haven't mentioned the other sea predators, such as the pink jellyfish and a razor-toothed anglerfish. Co-writer and director Andrew Stanton, who also provides the surfer-dude voice of a helpful turtle named Crush, makes miracles look easy. The result is a thing of beauty, hugely entertaining and way cool. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
- New York, 1 June: Finding Nemo swam into theaters with a huge $70.6 million, the best ever opening for an animated movie. The Disney-Pixar 'toon's arrival washed last weekend's top box-office attraction Bruce Almighty way back to second place with just $35.6 million. -- Full story.
- Paris, 11 June:
 The competition for the year's best animated film just got tougher, thanks to Les Triplets de Belleville (The Triplets of Belleville, aka Belleville Rendez-Vous), a bracing blend of silliness and sophistication from France. Writer-director Sylvain Chomet doesn't need subtitles to tell a story that unfolds in a series of extraordinary images involving a boy, a dog, the Tour de France, the French mafia and jazz-playing triplets. When her grandson is kidnapped during the Tour de France, Madame Souza and her beloved pooch Bruno team up with the Belleville Sisters -- an aged frog-eating song-and-dance team from the days of Fred Astaire -- to rescue him. It's comic, touching and a visual knockout. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
- Los Angeles, 12 June: FBI agents on a drug sting Thursday came across an Oscar® -- it was one of three still missing from infamous Academy Awards heist three years ago. So far, 53 of the 55 statuettes have been recovered and returned to the Motion Picture Academy.
 - Los Angeles, 30 June: Premiere of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. A lean, efficient, amusing action picture, T3 isn't a patch on its predecessors, but delivers polished genre entertainment nonetheless. Rising from his rusty resting place in the box office junkyard, Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers a crowd-pleasing turn as everyone's favourite futuristic killing machine, sent back from the future to rescue man's would-be savior, John Connor (Nick Stahl). In clunky dialogue scenes, the movie tries to explain parts one and two, but we, frankly, can't be bothered. Suffice to say that apocalypse-triggering mecha-corporation Skynet wasn't obliterated in Judgment Day. Why? Well, even the screenwriters are still trying to figure that out. Anyway, sense is surplus in time travel movies, particularly in a series which here happily slips into self-parody. "Your levity's good. It relieves tension. Fear of death," says the Terminator, in one of many amusing moments. But the comment's true for the film itself, with laughter obliterating any fear factor, any real emotional investment in the characters. Forget the hard-edged tech-noir of James Cameron's brutal, brilliant original; this is a lightweight actioner where nothing's at stake except Arnie's pulling power. But the aging icon can still cut it. Asked if he can destroy the lithe, lethal Terminatrix (Kristanna Loken), he replies, "Unlikely, I am an obsolete design." Yet whether smashing her through toilet cisterns, or swinging from a crane, the Austrian Oak remains a convincing action hero. Stepping into Cameron's loafers, director Jonathan Mostow (U-571) delivers a typically tight cut, setting a brisk pace and ably utilising Stan Winston's excellent effects work. Fast, funny and forgettable, this instalment ensures the Terminator will be back for more, whether you like it or not. As Arnie intones, "Desire is irrelevant. I am a machine." -- Nev Pierce, BBC Films
- Los Angeles, 7 July: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has invited a record 87 countries to submit entries for foreign film consideration. Last year, the Academy accepted entries from 54 countries, previously the Oscar® record.
- New York, 9 July:
 Buena Vista rolls out Gore Verbinski's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. "Take what ye can -- give nothing back!" declare some scurvy wags in this convoluted but diverting film -- a good motto for any summer blockbuster built for high-calorie thrills and maximum box office. Spirited thievery is a good metaphor, but perhaps cannibalism is equally apt: Pirates, likely the first film based on a theme-park ride rather than vice versa, has a swashbuckling story (and a high-born missy turned buccaneer) similar to Sinbad's, and a zombie onslaught as ceaseless as that in 28 Days Later. Verbinski (The Ring) overstuffs nearly two and a half hours with more cannonades, clanking cutlery, and swinging from the riggings than a Fairbanks retro, but he also delights in the quirky detail, showing the split-second scatter of a school of fish, or how wine looks as it trickles through the innards of Geoffrey Rush's undead Captain Barbossa. A repetitive plot dilutes some of the fun -- Pirates climaxes too soon, with a Treasure Island showdown, then in a fit of generosity or confusion continues to throw climaxes our way, until it's unclear which one merits attention. But the writing can be lively (as in the explication of the malleable "pirate's code" -- more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules) amid the requisite plot heaving, and the cast is all on the same page. Rush chews the scenery like so much Dentyne, leading the literal skeleton crew of the Black Pearl (with a literal monkey on his shoulder) in their quest to lift the curse of Aztec gold. As the governor's kidnapped daughter, Keira Knightley gets an aerobic workout; playing her upright but humble rescuer haunted by the lawless blood in his veins, Orlando Bloom is efficiently heroic. Stealing the show, and other things besides, is Johnny Depp, putting the "tic" in opportunistic. His braided, eye-shadowed Captain Jack Sparrow is so full of bizarre behavior -- lopsided strut, sotto voce imprecations, scarved preening à la Steven Tyler -- that the shtick dissolves, leaving him the most believably human of the lot. -- Ed Park, The Village Voice
- New York, 25 July:
 From Universal and DreamWorks SKG comes Seabiscuit. Director Gary Ross' adaptation of Laura Hillenbrand's best-selling book tells the true story of a bow-legged racehorse who rides to glory, championing the hopes of a nation mired deep in The Great Depression. That symbolism also translates for The Biscuit's half-blind jockey, Red Pollard (Tobey Maguire), abandoned by his parents as a boy. The same goes for owner Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges), picking up the pieces after the death of his child and broken marriage. And horse trainer/high plains drifter Tom Smith (Chris Cooper), trying to rediscover his sense of purpose. But their faith in Seabiscuit (and each other) is tested when the little colt is pitted against America's top racehorse, War Admiral. Of course, there's no twist in this horse's tale. To compound the banality, Ross lays on too much back story -- giving this film the pace of a pack mule trying to escape a boggy marshland. -- Full review.
 - Los Angeles, 25 July: With the tagline "This film is not based on a true story -- it is based on thousands," Fernando León de Aranoa's Los Lunes al sol (Mondays In The Sun) -- which opens in limited release in the US today -- portrays a story of unemployment, disillusionment, bitterness, poverty and desperation familiar to many in Spain's poorer regions. However, the degree of wit and acerbic humour demonstrated by the characters and their situations ensures that it remains an accessible and entertaining look at a serious social issue. The shipyard has closed down in a northern Spanish costal town despite bitter and violent protests, and the workers laid-off -- among them Santa, José and Lino. Lino (José Ángel Egido) struggles to compete in a job market filled with people much younger and more qualified than he is; José (Luis Tosar) feels emasculated, his wife supporting them working in a fish market; Santa (Javier Bardem) is on his final court appeal against a fine imposed on him for breaking a streetlight during the riots over the shipyards closure. Despite the grimness of the situation, the film's script sparkles with wit and deep, black humour. Each of the characters has a distinct personality, each has a different way of dealing with their circumstances and lack of employment or prospects. Santa imagines Australia to be the ideal place -- one the other side of the world, he imagines the Antipodes must be the exact opposite of everything they lack in Spain. José marvels at the amount of money a television presenter can earn, while Lino tries to change his appearance to look younger at job interviews. They all drink too much at the local bar or at the house of a babysitting job, subcontracted to them by a teenage girl -- the only employment they can achieve. -- Full review.
- New York, 15 August:
 Fine Line Features puts American Splendor into limited release. A Sundance prizewinner (produced by HBO) and the movie of the summer per a conclave of critics convened by Charlie Rose, American Splendor is sweet, funny and off-kilter as it blurs the boundaries between documentary and drama, creating something striking and original. Harvey Pekar is our hero, a comic book writer whose subject is himself, with his work portraying the everyday existence of a sour but sincere honest Everyman. He's portrayed in three dimensions: by an actor (Paul Giamatti); as cartoon/comic book caricatures; and by himself -- looking on at the fictionalised recreation of his life and providing the unusual biopic's voiceover. There's no easy way to explain this curious 'faction', which follows a sadsack hospital clerk grumping his way through an unremarkable Cleveland life. Until, that is, he decides to record his everyday existence in the comic book American Splendor, and finds an audience which identifies with his problems and passions. If you do, too, then chances are you'll enjoy this oddball feature from husband and wife documentary makers Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman. Filmed in the grainy, washed-out hues of a typical 70s American movie, it takes some tuning in to, but is anchored by a brilliant performance from Giamatti. The know-the-face-not-the-name character actor has long deserved a leading role, and manages to capture a unique, unusual character without being patronising or sentimental. In a just world, he would be Oscar® nominated. The man who describes his reflection as a "reliable disappointment" isn't the know-nothing misery he first appears, and his relationship with the equally abrasive but affectionate Joyce (Hope Davis) is touching in its honesty and co-dependence. As a character observes of Harvey's comic, so viewers may remark of the film: "It's pretty truthful, which is rare these days." -- Nev Pierce, BBC Films
- Los Angeles, 20 August:
 Fox Searchlight releases Thirteen into selected theaters today. Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood) is just a simple Valley girl with a dream of being cool. She lives with her single mom (Holly Hunter), an at-home hairdresser, and wastes her time studying for seventh grade until she meets motherless Evie (Nikki Reed), also thirteen, who defines cool for Tracy. That means hoochie tops, body piercings, shoplifting, drugs, bad boys, oral sex, lap dances and a three-way that Evie tries to negotiate with Tracy and a twentyish hunk (Kip Pardue). Every parent's nightmare about how girls go wrong is packed into this movie and onto Hunter's frazzled face as she watches her daughter deteriorate. The whole thing would stink of phony moralizing if Catherine Hardwicke, who won the directing prize at Sundance 2003, didn't pack it with such raw vitality. Reed is strikingly good as Evie. She should be: She was thirteen when she wrote the semi-autobiographical script with Hardwicke, who used to date Reed's divorced dad. But the revelation is Wood, 15, formerly of TV's "Once and Again," who makes Tracy's transformation harrowing and haunting. She's a live wire. Brace yourself for Thirteen -- it'll cause a commotion. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
 - Paris, 27 August: Theatrical release of Jian gui (The Eye), the new film from Hong Kong twin brothers Oxide Pang Chun and Danny Pang, about a blind girl who gets a cornea transplant in order to be able to see again. They hit the jackpot with this supernatural thriller. Remake rights have been picked up by Tom Cruise's company. You'll think of The Ring as well as The Sixth Sense, but the Pangs spin their own unique sense of dread. Lee Sin-je is hauntingly good as Mun, the girl whose sight has been restored. That's when she starts seeing things. Revealing more would be unfair, except to say that the Pangs deliver enough shivery scares to keep you up nights. Eyes wide shut. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
- Los Angeles, 5 September: Several major Hollywood studios, including Paramount, Universal and 20th Century Fox, teaming up to file a copyright infringement suit against the makers of Hollywood's Hottest for distributing a series of videos containing nude scenes from many of their movies.
- New York, 12 September:
 Ridley Scott's Matchstick Men opens nationwide today. Why would Scott, who usually works in the epic mode of Gladiator and Black Hawk Down, direct an intimate character piece about two L.A. con men? Maybe because the script, by Nicholas and Ted Griffin, springs so many juicy comic and dramatic surprises. Nicolas Cage is at the top of his game as Roy, a scam artist with more tics than a picnic blanket. He counts to three before entering a room. His worried partner, Frank (Sam Rockwell), sends him to a shrink (Bruce Altman), who thinks Roy needs to get in touch with Angela (Alison Lohman), 14, the daughter he's never seen. It's not as warm and fuzzy as it sounds. There are dangerous curves ahead. Credible? Not really. But Cage and Rockwell play off each other with devilish finesse. And Lohman is on fire -- she's a comer. No fair spilling secrets. But Scott, as he proved in Thelma & Louise, knows how to build suspense you can also take to heart. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
 - Los Angeles, 12 September: Having already won awards at the Telluride, Venice and Toronto film festivals, Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation opens here today. There's not a word or a wistful glance out of place in this offbeat comedy drama. The tale of two Americans in Tokyo who come together in culture shock is all at once laugh-out-loud funny and lovingly tender. No doubt fans of Bill Murray will relish the definitive -- and most subtle -- performance of his career. His hangdog charisma serves him to perfection as jaded movie actor Bob Harris, alone in Tokyo to shoot a whiskey commercial and thoroughly bewildered by the in-your-face enthusiasm of the Japanese. He's also severely jetlagged, but a late night drink at the hotel bar affords him the chance to meet fellow American Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson). A whimsical twentysomething, Charlotte is tagging along on a business trip with her photographer hubbie (Giovanni Ribisi) -- only he's never around. Their shared displacement reflects the crossroads at which they both find themselves: Bob faces a midlife crisis while Charlotte is struggling to find her place in the world. Like two negatives they are magnetically drawn to one another and inevitably wind up making beautiful music -- in a karaoke booth.
Writer/director Coppola keeps a respectful distance as the relationship unfolds, and while this means you won't be reaching for the tissues, Lost In Translation offers much more. There is honesty and a purity that's worth a dozen Hollywood tearjerkers, and which puts to shame the clumsy manipulation of romantic comedies like Love Actually. There is an ethereal, dreamlike quality that isn't about soft-focus close-ups and a rousing orchestral score. The twinkling neon lights of Tokyo become the fairytale setting, its peculiarities giving rise to brilliantly surreal comic twists. Marvel at Japanese television's answer to Graham Norton, or the overzealous hooker who tackles Bob in what looks like an ungodly game of Twister. The laughs sometimes come in broad strokes, but more often Coppola demonstrates a delicate touch, never losing sight of the heartbreak that looms from day one. Like the most memorable love of all, it is bittersweet, beautiful, and immaculate. -- Stella Papamichael, BBC Films
- Stockholm, 19 September:
 Salmer fra kjøkkenet (Psalms from the Kitchen, aka Kitchen Stories) opens in the Swedish capital today after festival showings in Tromsø, Cannes, Karlovy, Copenhagen and Toronto, and an Oslo opening last January. Slight but sardonic, Norwegian director Bent Hamer's deadpan film makes a taciturn comedy of nothingness out of color-coordinated '50s coziness and Scandinavian social planning. In the film, the Swedish Home Research Institute decides to study and quantify the way that rural Norwegian bachelors move around their kitchen, dispatching a group of observers to take notes. The premise is more Keaton than Chaplinesque. The profoundly uncomfortable Folke (Tomas Norström) perches like a tennis umpire on a high chair observing Isak (Joachim Calmeyer), an eccentric old farmer who keeps a room full of pepper and plays the saw. Strangely, Isak declines to cook in the kitchen; he enigmatically shuffles, then crawls around upstairs to spy on lonely Folke (who, by night, retreats to his cold little standard-issue trailer). There's not much drama here, although the study is jeopardized by fraternization, as when Folke and Isak bond over the old man's birthday. The supervisor walks in on the morning-after mess to find the boundaries now totally blurred -- not to mention strange doodles on Folke's forms. Hamer is a restrained, visually oriented comic director -- he makes the most out of a procession of egg-shaped trailers. Salmer fra kjøkkenet is too dry to be cute but unavoidably twee in playing with the idea of the burgeoning affection and symbiotic surveillance between observer and observee. Social satire is implicit: The Home Research Institute is engaged in a grand, vaguely socialist, perhaps Taylorist exercise in domestic efficiency. The relationship between godlike researcher and humble subject allows for a certain amount of neighborhood payback, like when Isak notes that "you [Swedes] were only neutral observers during the war, right?" -- J. Hoberman, The Village Voice
- Paris, 24 September:
 Release here of the Franco-Romanian co-production, Niki et Flo, directed by Lucian Pintilie. Niki (Victor Rebengiuc) is a retired colonel whose son has just died in an accident. His daughter and her husband, Flo's son, want to leave Romania for the United States. Flo (Razvan Vasilescu), a vestige of the Bohemian 70's and amateur video freak, is a jack-of-all-trades whose hidden tyrannical nature finds an easy victim in Niki. Flo robs Niki of his few material possessions, his moral values, and finally, the sense of his own dignity. In this engrossing film about the confrontation between the new and the old in Romania, the slow alienation of Niki is the slow madness we all sink into when we see our world turned upside down. The "brave new world" of post-Communist Romania is seen as nothing but a shallow image without any values or guidelines. Flo is the perfect representative of this pseudo-intelectual society.
 - New York, 3 October: Miramax releases The Station Agent into selected theaters today. What do you call a movie about a reclusive dwarf named Fin (an extraordinary performance from Peter Dinklage) who inherits an abandoned train depot in New Jersey? You could call it precious, which it sometimes is. But writer-director Tom McCarthy has a gift for funny and touching nuances as Fin reluctantly opens up to Joe (Bobby Cannavale), a hot-dog vendor, and Olivia (Patricia Clarkson), an artist. The three actors could not be better. Huge feelings are packed into this small, fragile movie. It's something special. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
- Paris, 8 October:
 Michael Haneke's Le Temps du loup (Time of the Wolf) takes place in the wake of an unspecified catastrophe -- we never know the nature or scale of the event, only that something has happened. From there, Haneke does something that no other filmmaker has ever attempted -- he shows us, in precise detail, a possible future in which everything but the logic of survival is beside the point. How do people who've been thrown together by circumstance live under the same roof? How do you keep a light source going in pitch darkness when all you have are a lighter and a stack of hay? How do you behave when you meet the man who killed your husband? The overwhelming dominance of the material world in Haneke's film is forceful in and of itself -- there are scenes that take place in the darkest, blackest night you've ever seen in movies -- but a brilliant cast, led by Isabelle Huppert and including Patrice Chéreau and Olivier Gourmet, gives the film a powerfully human dimension. Le Temps du loup is a movie of uncommon, hard-working intelligence. An Official Selection of the 2003 Cannes Film Festival and the 2003 Toronto Film Festival, Masters. -- Rendez-Vous with French Cinema
 - New York, 15 October: Clint Eastwood's latest film, Mystic River, is released nationally today. Eastwood returns to retribution and a semblance of form with this moody, involving thriller, even if the stone-faced star/director is saddled with prosaic plotting and a portentous script. Staying behind the camera, he again proves himself an excellent actors' director. Sean Penn gives his best performance since Carlito's Way as Jimmy, a storekeeper with a shady past who is gutted by grief when his teenage daughter is murdered. City detective Sean (Kevin Bacon) investigates and suspicion lingers over their mutual childhood friend, Dave (Tim Robbins), whose youth was scarred by kidnapping and sexual abuse. He's now a married family man, but nonetheless locked in the past. Adapted from Dennis Lehane's bestselling novel, the script asks whodunit and what should be done in return, as Jimmy plays neighborhood God -- given the chance to be judge, jury and executioner. Just as Eastwood examined his iconic Man With No Name creation in Unforgiven, so he explores the vigilantism of Dirty Harry in Mystic River, albeit in a low-key, leisurely way. There is no Magnum-toting hero here, just desperate, haggard humans coming to terms with death and the desire for vengeance. It's all a little self-important, and doesn't quite grip as a character-driven suspenser. It slides by at a pace so stately it borders on sluggish. It's also interesting to note that, yet again, women get a rough deal in an Eastwood picture. As Jimmy's Mrs., Laura Linney has little more than a cameo, and while Marcia Gay Harden is impressive as Dave's anguished other half, her character is the only figure this ambiguous movie totally damns. But the performances pull you through, or rather performance, for despite everyone's excellent work, it's Penn's heavy-lidded, dead-behind-the-eyes turn that overshadows all, carrying the weight, pain and misery of the world -- and the picture. -- Nev Pierce, BBC Films
- Paris, 15 October:
 Release of Cette femme-là (That Woman, aka Hanging Offense), which covers nine days in the life of cop Michèle Varin (Josiane Balasko) leading up to February 29, the leap year date on which her 8-year old son died. The experience continues to cover her like a shroud even as she begins investigating the apparent suicide of a late middle-aged woman. The corpse is found hanging from a noose in the woods one night, but the death is complicated by the fact that one of her shoes is missing, her back sports severe lashings, and "pardon" is etched into her arm. Michèle spends her evenings working on jigsaw puzzles, an apt metaphor for her work, and taking care of her late son's sick pet rabbit. She and her partner Sylvain Bazinsky (Eric Caravaca) look for leads in the veterinarian jogger who found the body and in Ms. Kopmans (Eva Ionesco) and her young son Léo (Ange Rodot) who live in a trailer near where the body was found. How does a missing raincoat, a nipple chain, an injured bounty hunter (Thierry Lhermitte), an abandoned daughter (Valérie Donzelli), and a man who breaks into Michèle's home fit into the mystery?
Writer-director Guillaume Nicloux keeps things murky until the very end, but don't expect every loose end to be neatly tied. Nicloux shows a mastery of ominous moods and atmosphere and is helped substantially by Éric Demarsan's spooky score and Pierre William Glenn's lensing. Michèle is haunted by nightmares of spectral presences, and Nicloux keeps guilefully slipping them into the movie which makes the viewing experience enormously unnerving. Ultimately, this is as much horror film as detective mystery. Few movies create such a sense of dread as the climax of Cette femme-là. Balasko wears Michèle's pain like a comfortable old suit she refuses to give away. -- George Wu, Culture Vulture
- Los Angeles, 17 October:
 Pieces of April, a playful comedy laced with heartbreak that wowed them at Sundance, goes into limited release today. Katie Holmes has her best screen role to date as April, a screw-up to her suburban family. April lives in a dumpy Manhattan walk-up; her boyfriend (Derek Luke) is black -- you get the picture. To mend wounds, April invites her mom (Patricia Clarkson), dad (Oliver Platt), sister (Alison Pill), brother (John Gallagher Jr.) and granny (Alice Drummond) to drive down for Thanksgiving dinner. She can't cook, but, damn it, she will. It sounds like sitcom pap. But writer Peter Hedges, making an encouragingly non-pushy debut as a director, is too good for that. Even mom's terminal cancer doesn't turn the film maudlin, thanks to Clarkson, who is scrappy perfection in the role. But it's Holmes who holds Pieces together. Whether she's begging for cooking tips from her black neighbors (Lillias White and Isiah Whitlock) or fighting with a bitchy tenant (Sean Hayes), Holmes nails every laugh without missing the dramatic nuances. She makes April and her movie well worth knowing. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
 - New York, 24 October: Fine Line Features releases Gus Van Sant's award-winning new film Elephant in selected theaters. It's a film that details a high school shooting spree modeled on Columbine, is scarier than anything in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Bowling for Columbine or splatter. The title, borrowed from Alan Clarke's 1989 BBC film about violence in Northern Ireland, refers to something metaphorically huge that we all see and we all choose to ignore. What Van Sant sees with piercing clarity are the bruises that come with being young in America. His movie, set on a fall day at an unnamed high school in Portland, Oregon, uses real high school students who improvise their dialogue. Van Sant busts out of the narrative box of his Hollywood hit Good Will Hunting. Elephant, brilliantly shot by Harris Sevides, has the experimental feel that the pair brought to Gerry, which merely followed two lost hikers. In Elephant, the camera pokes around, catching snippets of talk, observing the beauty of one young face and the desolation of another. Then two students, Alex (Alex Frost) and Eric (Eric Deulen), enter school in camouflage gear and carrying assault weapons, and the mood switches to skin-crawling dread. This isn't a film about what turns kids into killing machines. It is a film that gets at the small things that can drain a heart of feeling. "Most importantly, have fun," says Alex to Eric as they drive to school. The line is a twisted parody of the brushoff they've heard too often from their parents. To those who see no purpose to this film, the purpose is learning not to turn a blind eye. The unique and unforgettable Elephant keeps its eyes wide open. -- Full review.
- London, 31 October:
 Release in UK cinemas of Jim Sheridan's film festival favorite, In America, a wistful drama that marks a change of tone and pace for writer-director Sheridan, the man behind heavyweight hitters My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father. This unexpected crowd-pleaser follows Irishman Johnny (Paddy Considine) as he crosses the Canadian border into America on a tourist visa. With wife Sarah (Samantha Morton) and daughters Christy and Ariel (Sarah and Emma Bolger) in tow, he heads for New York City where he plans to set up home and make it as an actor. Hanging over the family is the unspoken tragedy that prompted them to up sticks and move to the land of the free: the death of their youngest son, Frankie. While Johnny drives a New York taxicab and Sarah tends house in the dilapidated apartment block (where they live among junkies and transvestites), the kids deal with the changes in their life by befriending the imposing African artist Mateo (Djimon Hounsou) who lives downstairs. Part life-affirming comedy, part grief-stricken tale of bereavement, In America impresses mainly because of the combined talent of Morton and Considine. They are surely two of the finest, and most underrated, actors of their generation. Where the film struggles, though, is in its mystical, magical realist moments. Narrated by Christy, who claims to have been given three wishes by her dead brother, and focusing on a rather trite relationship between the family and Mateo, the film slowly leans towards the wrong side of sugary. The racial dynamic is facile -- offering yet another noble savage chest-bearing role for the excellent Hounsou -- and the closing mysticism is risible. But somehow that's not quite enough to stop you being swept into the film's warm afterglow. It's flawed but still wonderful. -- Jamie Russell, BBC Films
- Paris, 12 November:
 Release of Marceline Loridan Ivens' La Petite prairie aux bouleaux (The Birch-Tree Meadow) which is about an Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor who returns to the camp sixty-years later. (In English, "Birkenau" translates to "Birch-Tree Meadow".) The story follows her visit, her reactions, her mood swings. Documentary or fiction? Loridan-Ivens -- herself a survivor of the camps -- directs a harrowing autobiographical story in which the fictional blends with the environment, and memories of the past are still very vivid, not through flashbacks, but through the viewer's own imagination. Filmed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the film is a touching performance by Anouk Aimée. Her reactions (she had not prepared the part but let herself react to the situations) are disturbing, but in a positive way. As Myriam confronts the ghosts of her past, she is caught between her will to remember, and her will to forget, navigating to and fro from reason to near-insanity. The variations of her mood are contrasted to the stability of Oskar (remarkably well played by August Diehl), a young German photographer, grandson of a member of the SS. Disturbing, harrowing, and painful at times, La Petite prairie aux bouleaux is a touching film. Through its simplicity, it manages to deal with a delicate subject with concern and honesty. Jeanne Moreau contributed to the film's screenplay. -- phmw, IMDb
 - Los Angeles, 14 November: Russell Crowe, playing sea-dog Captain Jack Aubrey, climbs the rigging of his fighting ship, his eyes gleaming like an astronaut in deep space. He's pumped, alive to the moment. That exhilaration courses through Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, a rousing high-seas adventure that sweeps you into another world. That world has been rendered in vivid historical detail by director Peter Weir. In adapting two of the twenty novels that Patrick O'Brian wrote about Captain Jack, Weir and co-screenwriter John Collee are faithful down to the splinters in the ship's wood. Time and place are quickly established: It's 1805, the Napoleonic Wars are raging, and Lucky Jack, as Aubrey is known in the British Navy, commands the HMS Surprise, with orders to "intercept the French privateer Acheron. You will sink, burn or take her as a prize." Weir thrusts us right into the action. The Surprise, carrying 197 souls and twenty-eight guns, is sailing off the coast of Brazil when it spots the larger Acheron and attacks in a dense fog. Superbly shot by Russell Boyd and edited by Lee Smith, the scene makes you feel the rumble of cannon fire ripping through the decks. The Surprise retreats to repair at sea, then heads back out to pursue the enemy. It's in the aftermath of battle that Weir introduces the officers, the crew, the lads -- some as young as ten, but there's no hint of man-boy love -- who serve as midshipmen. The claustrophobia below decks, where the men must duck their heads to stand, is palpable. We meet the ship's surgeon, Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany), a naturalist who sketches bugs during a stopover in the Galapagos Islands. He also plays the cello, duetting with his friend Lucky Jack on violin during a calm in the storm. Yes, calm. This isn't a theme park; it's a movie with the confidence to let a story build. Bettany (he played played Crowe's imaginary roommate in A Beautiful Mind) brings a keen gaze and sly humor to the doc. He is a formidable match for Crowe, who continues to astonish as an actor. Aubrey is fair-minded and well liked, and could be as dull as the ship's bilge water. But Crowe -- fierce, funny and every inch the hero -- gives a blazing star performance. Weir stages a storm at sea -- filmed in the same tank in Mexico where Titanic (1997) sailed to Oscar® glory. Master and Commander sails that same course. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
- Mexico City, 18 November:
 A festival favorite at Venice, Montréal, Toronto, New York and London, Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams premieres here today. Just when you thought Sean Penn had the Best Actor Oscar® locked up for his career high in Mystic River, along comes tough competition: himself. In this scorcher of a drama from Mexican director Iñárritu -- it's only his second film, after the brilliant Amores perros, and his first in English -- Penn burns with ferocity and feeling as Paul, a math professor faced with the possibility of death after a heart transplant. His wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) wants to have a baby, something of him left behind. Paul sees spirituality in terms of numbers, the twenty-one grams (the weight of a hummingbird, a chocolate bar or a stack of five nickels) that leave our bodies at death. Is it the weight of the soul? Clearly, Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga aren't afraid of tackling big issues or splintering a plot -- as they did in Amores perros -- to make audiences work at putting the pieces together. They intensify the puzzle by adding two equally damaged characters. Cristina (Naomi Watts), an ex-junkie, is the widow of the man whose heart Paul carries. Jack (Benicio Del Toro), the cause of the heart donor's death, is an ex-con Jesus freak and alcoholic who loves and menaces his two kids and his wife (Melissa Leo, in a staggering portrayal of conflicted devotion). How these characters -- all kicked hard by fate -- unite in a brutal, erotic and achingly tender dance of death is for the film to tell you, not a review. But know this: You won't see more explosive acting this year. Penn's continuing mastery of his craft amazes. Del Toro gets so far inside this ruined hulk that you flinch; he's astonishing. And Watts is miraculous in an all-stops-out performance that bleeds with anger, guilt, sexual hunger and incalculable loss. That Iñárritu shapes something redemptive out of blasted lives is proof that he is a filmmaker of rare and startling grace. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
- New York, 21 November:
 Miramax releases Denys Arcand's award-winning Les Invasions barbares (The Barbarian Invasions) in selected US theaters. Sex, drugs, history and family artfully stirred by a master this gem from Canadian writer and director Arcand move you to laughter and tears without cheating to do it. The film stays emotionally focused and politically astute even as Arcand shifts from a dying man's erotic fantasies to the aftermath of 9/11. Rémy Girard gives a hilariously scrappy performance as Rémy, a skirt-chasing history professor who is handed a death sentence by his doctors. Rémy and his son, Sébastien (Stéphane Rousseau), a London financier, are estranged. "He's a puritanical capitalist, I'm a sensual socialist," says Rémy. But it's Sébastien who gives his father a rollicking send-off. Setting dad up on his own hospital floor and later at a house by a lake, Sébastien prepares his father for several invasions: not just a killer cancer but visits from his ex-wife, two mistresses, fellow academics and a young junkie, Nathalie (Marie-Josée Croze, who won the Best Actress prize at Cannes for her powerhouse performance). It's Nathalie who supplies Rémy with heroin, paid for by Sébastien, to ease his pain. Rousseau does quiet wonders in his first dramatic role. And the kiss he shares with Nathalie is one of the screen's hottest. Arcand, using many of the actors from his 1986 film The Decline of the American Empire, takes uproarious aim at targets from health care and Catholicism to the terrors of history as Remy and his friends enjoy one last rowdy, raunchy party. It's a feast of smart, sexy, glorious talk. The Oscar® for best foreign film belongs right here. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
- Los Angeles, 26 November:
 From Lions Gate comes the limited release of Wayne Kramer's indie, The Cooler. William H. Macy gives one of his best performances as Bernie Lootz, a Vegas gambler with a knack for losing. His casino-manager pal Shelly (Alec Baldwin) hires him as a cooler, a "piece of walking Kryptonite" who can jinx a high roller just by sitting next to him. Then Bernie's luck changes. He meets Natalie (Maria Bello), a cocktail waitress who beds him with grab-ass vigor. Bello breaks through as an actress of dazzle and depth. And Macy makes Bernie's sexual awakening a joy to behold. In an unrated version of the film shown at Sundance, the actors showed -- yikes! -- pubic hair. To earn an R rating, all things pubic had to go. No matter. Hollywood hypocrisy can't kill the killer rapport between Macy and Bello, who turn The Cooler into an indelibly funny and heartfelt love story. Kramer, who co-wrote the scrappy script with Frank Hannah, makes a potent directing debut and strikes gold with the cast, including Paul Sorvino as a junkie lounge singer and Ron Livingston as the corporate voice of the new Las Vegas, a theme-park nightmare. Top of the line is Baldwin, whose revelatory portrayal of an old Vegas hard-liner in thrall to the town's faded allure is the stuff Oscars® are made of. From James Whitaker's seductive camerawork to Mark Isham's lush score, The Cooler places all the smart bets and hits the jackpot. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
- Wellington, 1 December:
 Majestic, moving and immense, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is about as awesome as cinema gets, and Peter Jackson gives his fellow Kiwis first viewing of the conclusion of his seven-year effort. Sure, there are some problems, but it's hard to imagine a more assured adaptation of the final volume of JRR Tolkien's fantasy masterwork. Combining the 'ooh' factor of Fellowship with the zippy action of Towers, Jackson's monster epic sees Frodo (Elijah Wood) and friends continue their quest to destroy the all-powerful One Ring, and free Middle-earth of evil. It's an astonishing piece of storytelling, sacrificing little of the novel, as it nimbly switches between several story strands without becoming confusing or dull (despite being a bum-numbing 201 minutes).
The first film's Fellowship is still split. Pint-sized Ring-bearers Frodo and Sam (Sean Astin) are being led by the grisly Gollum (Andy Serkis) into the dark heart of Mordor; Gandalf (Ian McKellen) needs to deal with the off-his-chump Steward of Gondor (John Noble); while the kingdom's rightful king, Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), must walk the Paths Of The Dead (oooh!) and muster an unearthly army. And there's fighting. Lots of fighting. Even after Towers' spectacular scrap at Helms Deep, the battle for Minas Tirith is astonishing. Dragon-like nasties join with thousands of foul-faced orcs and troll-powered catapults to attack the city. The arrival of Mûmakil (huge, multi-tusked, elephant-type beasties), meanwhile, gives lithe elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom) an audience-pleasing spot of shooting'n'surfing. Gimli the dwarf (John Rhys-Davies) provides comic relief ("Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?") and Astin is excellent again. Serkis is Oscar® worthy.
Inevitably, some elements are less effective. While showing impressive steel as the Ring inflicts its power upon him, Wood is all moist, soft-focus simpering elsewhere. The super-eeevil Eye Of Sauron resembles an angry lighthouse. And there are about 674 endings, as Jackson tries to include everything from the book's rather leisurely conclusion. But these issues evaporate given that his achievement is so stunning elsewhere. As the tagline proclaims, "the journey ends". But you'll want to take it again and again. And if your eyes leak along the way... well, as Gandalf says, "Not all tears are an evil." -- Nev Pierce, BBC Films
- Paris, 3 December:
 One of cinema's most creative directors, Alain Resnais has focused much of his work over the past twenty years (since Mélo) on exploring the relationship between film and theater; with Pas sur la bouche (Not on the Lips), Resnais continues his research with an absolutely delightful adaptation to the screen of a 1925 French operetta by André Barde and Maurice Yvain. Gilberte (Sabine Azéma) lives a comfortable, contented life in her plush Parisian apartment at the side of her industrialist husband, Georges (Pierre Arditi). Unknown to Georges, Gilberte had in fact been married once before: while traveling in the U.S., she had a whirlwind romance and marriage to an American, Eric Thompson, but they split up within days and the marriage was never recognized by the French consul. Only Gilberte's unmarried sister, Arlette (Isabelle Nanty), knows the truth. Then one day, Georges comes home and announces he's about to strike a deal with a fabulously wealthy American named Eric Thompson (Lambert Wilson), who's on his way to Paris. Resnais and his remarkable cast (which also includes Audrey Tautou and Jalil Lespert) perfectly capture with razor-sharp accuracy the rhythms, gestures, takes and double-takes of the piece; the songs blend brilliantly with the action, and even during the wildest moments the film never loses sight of the emotional issues at stake. -- Rendez-Vous with French Cinema
- Sacramento, 5 December: A new California law will take effect January 1 that allows moviegoers to make citizen arrests if they see someone in a theater with a recording device illegally copying movies.
 - Los Angeles, 10 December: With Big Fish -- which is being released in selected theaters today -- director Tim Burton finally hooks the one that got away: a script that challenges and deepens his visionary talent. The film, skillfully adapted by John August from the 1998 novel by Daniel Wallace, brims with storytelling sorcery, and Burton makes it glitter. This marvel of a movie lives up to its buzz as an Oscar® contender by finding a provocative subtext for Burton's flair for fables. Who better than the whiz behind Ed Wood and Edward Scissorhands, not to mention Batman and Beetlejuice, to spin the tale of a man who makes up his life as he goes along, a man who finds a deeper truth in fantasy. That man is Edward Bloom, a salesman played with comic bravado by Albert Finney in a touching, towering performance made all the more extraordinary because almost all of his scenes are in bed. Edward is dying. His wife, Sandra (Jessica Lange), has called their son, Will (a sharply implosive Billy Crudup), home to Ashton, Alabama, to reconcile with the father he hasn't spoken to for years. Will, a journalist who has made his career by serving facts straight, hates his father for constructing myths to hide behind. It's the myths, of course, that most reveal the real Edward. And Burton wisely builds his movie around them. Ewan McGregor, freed from his Star Wars straitjacket, steps in to play the young Edward, and the tall tales begin. McGregor, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Finney in his Tom Jones days, is wonderfully engaging. Finding Ashton too small a pond for the big fish he longs to be, Edward sets out for a wider world, where he meets a witch, a giant, a naked babe who saves him from drowning and the freaks in a circus run by a ringmaster (Danny DeVito) who's part werewolf. A stop in Spectre, a shadow version of Ashton populated by happy, barefoot failures such as poet Norther Winslow (the great Steve Buscemi), almost traps Edward in complacency. But soon he's off, courting Sandra (lovely Alison Lohman) in college; parachuting into Korea, where he discovers a conjoined-sister singing act; saving a bankrupt town; and meeting a stranger (a striking Helena Bonham Carter) who may not be a stranger at all. All the actors are exceptional, searching their characters for the hurt that needs healing. Lange pierces the heart as Sandra climbs in the tub with Edward to offer comfort and forgiveness.
In less capable hands, Big Fish could play like a tribute to a liar's pathology. Or, worse, Edward could be a holy fool, like Forrest Gump. He isn't. In trying to reshape the world around his fantasy, Edward wants to right the world's wrongs, and his own. That he can't is his tragedy. The tension inherent in this fable of a father with his head in the clouds and a son with his feet on the ground brings out a bracing maturity in Burton and gives the film its haunting gravity. As the son learns to talk to his father on the father's terms and still see him clearly, Big Fish takes on the transformative power of art. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
- Los Angeles, 12 December:
 Having made the rounds of the film festival circuit (Telluride, Toronto, Dinard, Austin, Hollywood, London and Hawaii) to considerable acclaim, Peter Webber's Girl with a Pearl Earring, a superior British costume drama that expertly mixes art history with romantic fiction, opens here and in New York today. Webber's directorial debut subtly portrays the relationship between Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth) and his enigmatic subject (Scarlett Johansson). Adapted from the bestselling novel by Tracy Chevalier and inspired by the painting of the same name, this film doesn't just appeal to budding Vermeers but anyone who likes serious, intelligent drama and gentle erotic tension. In mid-17th century Delft, Holland, 17-year-old Griet (Johansson) is forced into servanthood when her father suffers an accident and is unable to work. She's taken on in Vermeer's household and gives everyone the hump -- particularly the artist's permanently pregnant wife (Essie Davis) and eldest daughter (Alakina Mann) -- when she starts forging an understanding with her mysterious master. Firth battles bravely to stop his Iron Maiden-style wig from expressing more than he does, while Johansson has been taking pouting lessons from Posh herself. That said, both leads are excellent, doing a grand job of expressing feelings and emotions without the use of much dialogue, and the picture is the better for it. The film is occasionally clumsy on the erotic overtones (a sledgehammer would have been as subtle as the twitching hands scene), but ultimately the story's power stems from its restraint. It's a shame that Tom Wilkinson -- as Vermeer's sleazy patron Van Ruijven -- is underused, peering occasionally around corners to leer at maids like a salivating wolf. But the film is beautifully shot, each scene resembling a mini-portrait in itself. Not a masterpiece, then, but well worth a viewing. -- Susan Hodgetts, BBC Films
- New York, 15 December: Lions Gate Entertainment announced today it had officially completed its $200 million-plus merger with Artisan Entertainment. Lion's Gate will now own the Artisan film library, which includes more than 6,000 films, including The Blair Witch Project and Buena Vista Social Club.
- New York, 15 December: The New York Film Critics Circle picked The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King as the Best Film of 2003. Sofia Coppola was named Best Director for Lost in Translation which also nabbed star Bill Murray a Best Actor nod.
- Washington, DC, 16 December: The Library of Congress added 25 landmark cinematic works to its National Film Registry. Selected films range from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to a documentary about giraffe hunting in Africa. The 25 new additions bring the number of films registered to 375.
- Rio de Janiero, 17 December:
 Release of Mario Handler's Aparte (On the Margins), a mesmerizing return both to documentary and to his home country Uruguay for Handler, one of the most able Latin American filmmakers, after a 30-year hiatus in Venezuela. Shot in a very light and free style, Handler's camera explores the daily life of the cultural outcasts of the Uruguayan society (a task begun 40 years ago with the excellent Carlos, 1964). Avoiding all possible clichés, Handler focuses on the less obvious cultural, rather than economic, poverty of his characters, approaching them without fear and sharing moments of intimacy, cruelty, self punishment and pathos. A unique and powerful film.
 - Paris, 17 December: Pierre Salvadori's Après vous... (After You) opens in the capital today. Maître d' of a Parisian restaurant, Antoine (Daniel Auteuil) leads a fairly carefree, uneventful life. One evening on his way home, he stops a stranger, Louis (José Garcia), from committing suicide. Louis is furious; he had everything all planned, and now he's still alive. For his part, Antoine feels a bit guilty for having interfered, so he decides to see what he can do to help him. Within a few weeks, Louis has a new job, a new life, and a new friend in Antoine. But he can't forget Blanche, the love of his life and the woman who drove him to suicide. Antoine sets out to find Blanche, and in fact does find her...only, well, she is really rather stunning.... A dream pairing of two of France's top comic actors, Auteuil and Garcia, Après vous... is an often hilarious look at the rituals of male bonding in some of the most extreme kind of circumstances. Sandrine Kiberlain admirably fills out this comic ménage à trois. -- Rendez-Vous with French Cinema
- New York, 19 December:
 Sony Pictures Classics releases Errol Morris' The Fog of War in selected theaters today. An engrossing and illuminating documentary, The Fog Of War provides, as its stodgy subtitle explains, "11 Lessons from The Life of Robert McNamara." Which doesn't sound very thrilling, but the reflections of the former US Secretary of Defense provide a window into the moral reasoning of a brilliantly-minded manager who became a self-declared "war criminal". A man who, at the behest of president Lyndon B. Johnson, mired America in the Vietnam War, contributing to the deaths of 58,000 US soldiers and 3.4 million Vietnamese. "My rule has been to try to learn, try to understand what happened. Learn the lessons and pass them on," he says, talking straight to camera as veteran documentary-maker Morris probes and pokes. There are no great revelations, no conspiracy theories unpicked, but the slick self-justification of this charismatic 80-year-old is quietly devastating, as he claims that "In order to do good you may have to engage in evil" (lesson nine), or "You can't change human nature" (lesson 11).
His first experience of doling out death came in World War II, when he was partly responsible for the firebombing of Japan. Even apart from the use of nuclear weapons of mass destruction on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the devastation was appalling. There's a sequence showing the percentage of each Japanese city destroyed, then naming their American counterparts (Tokyo equates to New York; 51% was obliterated). Statistics have never been so shattering. McNamara cries as he remembers that he learned "Proportionality should be a guideline in war" (lesson five). Post-war he was the first non-family member to preside over Ford Motor Co., but after five weeks President Kennedy appointed him to Defense and they set about withdrawing from 'Nam. Then -- pop -- JFK was dead; LBJ ordered the boys back in and McNamara did as he was told. Taking a lucid, non-sensationalist approach, Morris illuminates an era, without drawing attention to himself or massaging a message out of the material. Still, when LBJ states, "America wins the wars that she undertakes and we have declared war on tyranny and aggression," it sounds terribly familiar. -- Nev Pierce, BBC Films
- Los Angeles, 22 December: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has named a new Hollywood screening room at its Pickford Center in honor of famed optical effects pioneer Linwood G. Dunn, who worked on such classics as Citizen Kane (1941) and King Kong (1933).
- New York, 24 December:
 After being shown at the AFI Film Festival last month, writer-director Patty Jenkins' Monster opens here today. You rub your eyes. This can't be Charlize Theron, a babe incarnate, most recently in The Italian Job. Here, as Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute executed in Florida in 2002 for murdering six men, Theron is transformed. Her flawless face is splotchy, her eyes heavy, her body thick and lumbering. Extra pounds, a dental prosthesis and makeup magic (from Toni G.) add to the illusion. But the miracle Theron performs is more than an Oscar®-begging stunt. She gets under the skin of this woman whom the media called a monster. First-time director Jenkins strives hard -- too hard -- to explain away Wuornos' crimes with a "she's depraved on account of she's deprived" scenario. And Wuornos' graphic lesbo romance with Shelby (Christina Ricci, hamstrung by an underwritten part) comes off like a lesser Boys Don't Cry. But there's Theron, like a force of nature, compelling us to go beyond TV-movie supposition and look Wuornos straight in the eye. Her raw and riveting performance makes Monster an experience you won't forget. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
 - Paris, 24 December: Gillles Marchand's Qui a tué Bambi? (Who Killed Bambi?) opens in the capital today. Co-screenwriter on Human Resources and With a Friend Like Harry, Marchand makes an impressive debut as a director with this haunting thriller. Isabelle (newcomer Sophie Quinton) is a student nurse in the surgical unit of a large, modern hospital. Leaving work one evening, she runs into the handsome Doctor Philipp (Laurent Lucas); suddenly, her feet give way and she finds herself nearly passed out on the floor. An accident, or perhaps a sign of something more serious? Dr. Philipp insists on examining her more thoroughly, and Isabelle (nicknamed "Bambi" because like the Disney creature she also has trouble standing) at first doesn't mind the extra attention. Yet soon she begins to suspect that there's a whole other side to Dr. Philipp's practice. Exquisitely photographed and designed, the film makes effective use of the contrast between the sterile clinical settings and the sense of dark dread that Marchand keeps bubbling below the surface. As she begins her investigation into the hidden corners of this particular hospital world, more and more is also revealed about Isabelle herself, challenging us to alter our own perceptions of her even as some of her suspicions and fears seemingly prove correct. Caméra d'Or winner at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival and a selection of 2003 Toronto Film Festival. -- Rendez-Vous with French Cinema
- New York, 25 December:
 The Harlequin romance novel meets Greek myth in Anthony Minghella's episodic epic, Cold Mountain, which takes excellent actors and dunks them in romance so gloopy they drown. Adapted from Charles Frazier's acclaimed novel (an American Civil War-set riff on Homer's Odyssey), it sees Confederate soldier Inman (Jude Law) trekking from the front lines to the town of Cold Mountain to reunite with his would-be lover, Ada (Nicole Kidman). It's a journey full of incident, but no soul. Attempting to avoid his army's lynch mobs and Yankee patrols, Inman encounters both hardship and humour, in the form of a promiscuous priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman), desperate single mum (Natalie Portman), and lusty ladies, among others. Meanwhile, Ada moons around writing him lengthy letters, until the rough'n'ready Ruby (Renée Zellweger) arrives to help her run the farm -- and fend off the aggressive advances of Ray Winstone's big-bearded villain. It's war and pieces, as we flick back and forth, scenes enlivened by quality character actors (the brilliant Brendan Gleeson, Giovanni Ribisi) and Zellweger's lively, film-stealing turn. If only Kidman could give her (considerably less interesting) character similar zest. Instead, she pouts her way through the part of Southern Belle, like a child playing dress up. Law (so superb in Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley) is more impressive as the war-worn veteran. But his most significant achievement is not laughing when required to shout, "Move away from the baby!", in a scene so straight-faced and silly it could be a Monty Python sketch. Together, they are deadly: devoid of the chemistry necessary to make you care. Their vomit-inducing soft-focus longing contrasts oddly with the effective, intelligent use of harsh, shocking violence; their turgid dialogue is even mocked by another character. Yet that cannot excuse it. Every 'moving' moment is suffocated by the stringy score, but nothing troubles the tear ducts. Cold Mountain is so full of hot air, any emotion is blown away... gone, with the wind. -- Nev Pierce, BBC Films
- Los Angeles, 26 December:
 Vadim Perelman's House of Sand and Fog opens nationwide today. Before it runs off course into excess, this brilliantly acted film version of the 1999 novel by André Dubus III moves with a stabbing urgency. Ben Kingsley gives one of his greatest performances as Behrani, a former colonel in the air force of the Shah of Iran. Now living in Northern California, where he supports his wife, Nadi (Shohreh Aghdashloo), and their teenage son, Esmail (Jonathan Ahdout), by doing menial jobs, Behrani thinks he's hit pay dirt by buying a house at auction. One hitch: The house formerly belonged to Kathy (Jennifer Connelly, wan and wounded), a junkie who lost the place, unfairly, for nonpayment of taxes. Kathy and Behrani engage in a legal battle that speaks to issues of race and class. Perelman, a Ukrainian-born director of commercials, makes a smashing debut in features, showing a keen eye for imploding emotions. On a visit to her former house, Kathy encounters Nadi, who offers her surprising sympathy. Aghdashloo, an Iranian actress, has a face of elegant beauty on which emotions register with startling expressiveness. She is spellbinding, whether serving tea or struggling to stop her world from falling apart. This is acting that cuts quietly to the heart. There is nothing quiet about the rest of the film, as Behrani is threatened by Lester (Ron Eldard), a married cop who takes up with Kathy, and events spiral into tragedy. Prepare for an emotional wipeout. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
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Best Picture: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
4 January, Santa Monica, CA -- 
