Quick takes on some films and videos ...

‘Art School Confidential.’ Tries to be hip, but its hip is displaced. Becomes raunchy, predictable, caricatured, and morally suspect instead.

‘Bobby.’ Ambitious and noble effort falls short. Some great names in the cast, but most of them doing weirdly stiff and uninspired work. Docu clips of Bobby Kennedy are most compelling segments.

‘Casino Royale.’ Everything good you’ve heard is true. Bond is back. Faithful to Fleming. Revives the franchise. Daniel Craig’s perfect for the role. Eva Green is fabulous—can simper like a hurt schoolgirl, dazzle in couture outfits by the gaming tables, and bust chops when it counts. Director Martin Campbell’s grounded visuals and savvy pacing are perfect.

'City of God.' A searing, casually and sadistically violent, frenetically paced tale of gang life in a notorious Rio slum. A remarkable film, but think twice about whether you really want to put yourself through it.

‘Click.’ Funny premise—a harried Adam Sandler, as architect and family man, gets hold of a truly universal remote from Christopher Walken at the Way Beyond department of Bed, Bath & Beyond. But it only lives up to a third of its potential.

'Derailed.' For a thriller that self-consciously calls attention, in the beginning, to plot twists, 'Derailed' is awfully predictable. Still, Clive Owen, Jennifer Anniston, and Vincent Cassel as a major baddie all turn in impressive performances, and Mikael Håfström's direction is stylish and gripping. Not for the squeamish.

'Failure to Launch.' A semi-clever premise for a romantic comedy undone by mixing in ostensibly wacky and gross-out comic elements. The film, like its characters, seems hopelessly self-involved and lives up to its title. The quirky grown-goth-girl performance of Zooey Deschanel, as Sarah Jessica Parker's sidekick, is the most fun, original element.

'Fantastic Four.' A fun franchise starter about the Marvel-ous freaks. They're too busy giving each other a hard time to save the planet much, but surely they'll have their chance.

'Firewall.' A headache-inducing thriller with a smart premise but uninspired execution. And can we please stop using children's fatal allergies as bald plot devices?

'Four Minutes.' 2005 ESPN feature pic on Roger Bannister's breaking the four-minute mile is absorbing. But why the heck did they turn his Austrian coach Franz Stampfl into Christopher Plummer as partially paralyzed British war vet, for goodness sake? That's just weird, especially given how careful they were about other period details.

'Get Carter.' 1971 Michael Caine pic doesn't stand up well to time. His aplomb and the cool score don't make up for the gawky plotting or exploitative violence.

‘Infernal Affairs’ (the Hong Kon 2004 original). I read in some iffy zine called Rokovoko that it was supposed to be superior to the Scorcese remake. I beg to differ.

'Little Children.' An ambitious and well acted, but overwrought and often hamfisted hand-wringer about infidelity, narcissism, childish expectations, and infantile compulsions in the suburbs. Annoying narration and overall approach go for ironic, but hit unappealingly smarmy instead.


'Little Miss Sunshine.' OK, so it's contrived and reeks of screenwriter-scrapbook caricatures. But it also made me literally laugh until I cried for the first time since I don't remember when, and I for one can't ask more of a comedy than that.

‘The Long Goodbye.’ Altman’s death and the fawning obits inspiredme to rent this. It reminded me that with the exception of ‘The Company,’ I don’t like Altman, who I always found to be sort of self-indulgent and half-baked, though I know that makes me a philistine, and yes, I recognize how often his techniques are now used—I just like them used in other people’s films better. So sue me.

'Lord of War.' Nicholas Cage is a Ukranian-American arms dealer in Andrew Niccol's ham-fisted but absorbing tour of the death-merchant trade in Eastern Europe and Liberia. The picture's politics manage to be at once smugly liberal and weirdly uncertain, and motivation and missteps by Cage's character and that of his brother, played by Jared Leto, don't quite ring true.

‘Lucky Number Slevin.’ Stylish neo-Tarantino violence that’s very clever except that it makes no sense whatsoever.

‘The Matador.’ Pierce Brosnan as an alcoholic, bisexual international assassin on the skids who befriends Greg Kinnear. It’s likeably unlikeable and will make you squirm and think.

'Nine Lives.' Tangentially related slices of nine women's lives in L.A. Well acted by a great cast, but has an austere, indier-than-thou eat-your-vegetables quality to it that's offputting.

'Red Eye.' Smartly plotted nail-biter with an intelligently endearing Rachel McAdams and crisply creepy Cilllian Murphy.

'Stealth.' A sci-fi-tinged actioner wedding 'Top Gun' with HAL from '2001.' Video-game-like movie argues that war shouldn't be fought like a video game. Go figure. Loopy plot but impressive effects.

‘Stranger Than Fiction.’ Great meta-narrative fun.

‘Talladega Nights.’ Ugh. I fell asleep. Don’t bother.

'The Beat That My Heart Skipped.' An intriguing but melodramatic and rarely convincing French picture about a gangster longing to recapture his youthful dream of becoming a concert pianist.

'The Breakup.' Break what up? Nothing ever has or will come together in this dreary comedy with no chemistry and no laughs. I hope Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn simply exhausted their passion off screen, because their on-screen energy seems shorted out before they even go a-courtin'. It's also sad to see Judy Davis and Vincent D'Onofrio wilting misdirectedly in their silly minor roles.

'The Departed.' Scorsese's fast-paced, gripping, but implausible and not totally coherent version of the Japanese film Infernal Affairs, about cop moles in the Boston mob and vice versa.

'The Family Stone.' Sarah Jessica Parker plays a refreshingly un-Carrie-esque uptight fiancee to Dermot Mulroney, who's also grown into a quietly nuanced actor since his 'Best Friend's Wedding' days. Yes, it's manipulatively woven, but with a professional confidence and a great supporting cast that will make you forgive it.

‘The School of Rock.’ Run, don’t walk, away from this fun idea gone horribly wrong. Richard Linklater directed this? When—while he was asleep?

‘The Sentinel.’ A Secret Service thriller with neat death-threat and hate-mail montage effects, but a snoozey plot and phoned in performance from Michael Douglas.

'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.' How it can be corny and dated but also heartbreaking and fresh, I'm not sure. But it is, and yes, I love the absurdly repetitive score, though I couldn't knock it out of my skull for days.

'The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl.' 1993 docu is a skillful appreciation course in her gorgeous work and hideously opportunistic personality, but one place fascism sometimes makes sense is in the editing room, and this pic could have used some cutting. Behind the scenes bits capturing her micromanaging the documentary about her (big suprise there) and chatting with her old cameramen about the good ol' Reich days are very telling. But the coy guise of neutrality belies what we see--an unrepentant Nazi--and we see way too much of her.

'The World's Fastest Indian.' A charming, quirky geriatric extreme-sport film based on the true story of a New Zealander in the '60s intent on getting to Utah to set a speed record for his vintage motorcycle. Anthony Hopkins's most appealing and natural performance in some time.

'Under the Tuscan Sun.' Treacly but scenic story of an American divorcee pulling her life back together in Italy. It tries to play wisely off stereotypes, but often reinforces them instead. Still, one could do worse than staring at Diane Lane's gorgeously smart, vulnerable eyes, Tuscany, and the Amalfi Coast for a couple hours.

'Wondrous Oblivion.' Paul Morrison's moving 2003 film about Jewish and Jamaican immigrant families become neighbors in postwar London took a while to get to the states, but it was worth the wait. The picture's a little schmalzy at times, but the acting's spot on, and the racial and religious tensions echo disturbingly in the post-9/11 era.

‘X-Men 3: The Last Stand.’ A fittingly over-the-top culmination to the franchise (we hope). Proves that Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen were collegial at heart and that when a woman makes you feel like you're walking on air, it could be because she’s messing with gravity and that you’re about to disintegrate. A lesson for us all.

-A.C.K.