<dl dt_class="field"> The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009/se) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1132620/">8/10</a> This is the original Swedish filming of the book by Stieg Larsson with Noomi Rapace in the eponymous role (she went on to star in <i>Prometheus</i>) opposite Michael Nyqvist, who's got this utterly believable early-Gerard Depardieu vibe to him. Just as in Prometheus, Ms. Rapace is in phenomenal shape; seriously, she's ripped and way more buff than in the book, where The Girl is described as a stick. She looks good doing it though, and it's completely convincing when (spoiler alert) she goes ape-shit on Martin's head with a golf club. Otherwise, the film stays <i>mostly</i> true to the book, doing a good job of skipping some of the slower parts, skipping on the sojourn in the house on the lake while he writes his book, which would have made the film utterly interminable. In fact, most of the sub-plot with his book about the Vanger family and the details of his own convoluted case against Wennerström are left off until the very end, when he goes to jail for 90 days. That part was a bit confusing because the Swedish prison is barely recognizable as such for my (still) American sensibilities. Despite the heavy pruning, the pacing is still quite slow, but it's a well-made and interesting film. I haven't read the second book or the third one, but the Swedish movies all came out in the same year. Saw it in Swedish with English subtitles. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1568346/">6/10</a> <div>The British/American remake starts off with intense production values, with a James-Bond--like credit sequence of black-liquid--covered people and other things driven along by a kick-ass cover of <i>The Immigrant Song</i> by Trent Reznor. It's a strong cast: Daniel Craig and Christopher Plummer and even Stellan Skarsgård are always fun and it's nice to see Goran Visnjic getting a bit of work. Apparently one of the main conclusions drawn by the makers of the remake is that Lisbeth Salander was obviously too sexy and not crazy-looking or antisocial enough---not hacker/sub-culture enough---in the original. Whereas Mara's Salander probably looks more like the one in the book, Rapace's Salander was more believable in her role as potential love interest/ass-kicker. This version includes many more of the details about Blomqvist: the cat made it into this one and Blomqvist drinks and smokes as much as in the book; and his daughter's back from the oblivion to which the Swedes sent her. It still stuck to many of the same scenes and shots of the original---just juiced with CGI in some cases. For example, the overhead shot of the train heading north looks like it's heading to Niffelheim whereas the original was much more down-to-Earth. Some of the moments and interactions seemed like they were invented to massage the story a bit, sometimes in unnecessary ways. For instance, in the Swedish version, Lisbeth finds the link to the Bible and contacts him, but in the English version, <i>he</i> finds the link, then seeks her out when he needs an assistant. I can't remember which one was in the book, but I prefer the first one. It's the same with the discovery of the woman who took pictures at the parade: in the English version, she discovers her; in the Swedish one, he does. Whereas both films are necessarily dark---the book takes place in late fall/early winter in Sweden---the remake is much darker in coloring, almost murky. On to the weather. Spoiler alerts follow. Seriously, it's -18ºC; I understand that Daniel Craig doesn't wear a hat---because the director wanted to properly display his handsome face---but why the f&@k can't he wear gloves? And why is he taking notes outside? On paper? Doesn't he have a recorder? Or a f$%king smart-phone? He's a reporter, right? Is it because it's too cold for electronic devices? Well, then, <i>why isn't he wearing gloves?</i> And how the hell is that dock still in pristine condition when the house near it has been abandoned for 40 years? That's over 40 harsh northern Swedish winters and it looks brand new. And when he's investigating around Martin's house---at night, no less---all of a sudden it's warm enough that he's just fine in a blazer as if he's out to dinner in LA? And we can't even see his breath? At night in Sweden in the late fall? Wasn't the whole area covered in snow a week ago? And the famous rape-scene? Rooney Mara chews the hell out of the scenery, narrating the whole bloody scene as if cameras don't exist. The Swedish version wins hands-down here; it portrayed this scene much better. Rooney Mara play Salander less as a cool iconoclast and more as a freakish social outcast; her mouth moves strangely when she speaks, her accent is utterly unplaceable, she acts like a robot and treats people and things interchangeably. Even her relationship with her hacker friend---portrayed in the Swedish film as friendly, as in the book---is purely business and borderline hostile. She's utterly unsympathetic. And she's an über-hacker working on a murder case and <i>doesn't</i> lock her workstation when she leaves the room? Even at the end, there is a stark difference: in the Swedish version, Martin's death was an accident rued by Mikael and not by Lisbeth, but in the English version, she's eager to kill Martin and he approves; she seems professional with the gun rather than a hacker turned vigilante. And then, in the end, the Swedish version shows us that she <i>could</i> have saved him, but chose not to; in the English version, she wants to kill him, but his car blows up first. And, again with the weather: no helmet, no gloves, open jacket, motorcycling through the blowing snow of evening. It ends as the book does, by painting a picture of Harriet that leaves you thinking of her as a horrible egotist: she escaped Martin's clutches and lived a fine life abroad, but she never turned him in or thought to stop his rampages in Sweden. And what the hell was up with the ending in this one? Non sequitur, anyone?</div> Paprika (2006) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0851578/">9/10</a> <div>A Japanese Anime film based on a 1993 novel about a device---the "Mini DC"---that lets therapists enter their patients' dreams. Because it's Japanese Anime---with all of the attendant tropes, like creepy frogs, cowled men, happy cats and little ghosts---and it's half-set in a dream world, all bets are off. It's surreal and you have very little idea where dreams end and the real world begins. It's a good bet that Chris Nolan's <i>Inception</i> was, let us say, <i>inspired</i> by this film and its literary progenitor. The eponymous Paprika is the dream-state alter-ego of one of the researchers involved on the project. Another of the researchers becomes trapped in a nightmare and starts to suck the others into it; the tumultuous, shambling parade of kitchen appliances, dolls, stuffed animals and, of course, mini-robots, is amazingly detailed and disturbing. Unlike in Inception, where the emphasis was more scientific, there is, as usual in Japanese Anime, something otherworldly and sinister about the dream world. There are shades of the <i>Matrix</i> here as well, as the researchers freely move between the real world, where they are bound by physical laws, and the dream world, where anything can be made to happen. Paprika even flies like Neo at one point and runs up walls like Trinity. The Chairman becomes a whale that rears out of the sea like a sandworm---with Leo Atreides's face---breaching the sands of Arrakis. The characters are well-drawn, but it's the static backgrounds that really shine: they look to be hand-painted (not rendered). The theme is the common one---the struggle between nature and technology. The scene where Onasai <i>tears</i> Chiba from the dream-chrysalis that is Paprika? And then the chairman grows Kuato-like---or perhaps more Voldemort-from-Quirrell-like?---from Osanai and the Alien-facehugger-like mouth-rapes Chiba with tentacles that grow from his arm? Awesome. The deeper into the movie you get, the more dream levels there are, the more surreal things get...until the dream world seems to break into reality. To top it all off? Skyscraper-sized titans bestride the city and fight to the death. Now <i>that's</i> what I call Japanese anime.</div> Your Highness (2011) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1240982/">2/10</a> Danny McBride, Natalie Portman and James Franco star in this forgettable swords-and-sorcery film. A tremendous waste of a potentially good cast. A pity. Into Eternity: A Film for the Future (2010) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1194612/">7/10</a> A Finnish documentary (mostly in English) about long-term nuclear storage and focusing on a storage facility that they're building in Finland called <i>Onkalo</i> (this word looks awesome and <i>sounds</i> awesome too). It's absolutely gigantic and is meant to last 100,000 years. Construction was started in the 20th century and will continue until the early 22nd century, when it will have been completely filled and will be sealed. The ideas are very interesting: geologic stability is important, but so is societal stability. How can we predict what happens in 100,000 years? How do we communicate with those people? How do we warn them of the danger? Nothing we have ever built has lasted for more than a tenth that long. Although accompanied by lots of slow-motion sequences of heavy-industry machinery with a melancholy soundtrack, the information and interviews are quite interesting. The central issue is the elephant in the room, especially for those new-found nuclear advocates who see anything as a preferable alternative to carbon-based fuels. Waiting for Armageddon (2009) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1372746/">8/10</a> <div>A documentary about end-timers, people waiting for Judgment Day. The initial interview is with two supposedly technical people who have a pretty low-level command of the English language (for engineers) and a rock-solid belief in the bible---although both work on subsystems for the Apache attack helicopter for a weapons company. The next set of interviews is with families, with teenagers, who have such an utterly egocentric view of the Rapture---they want to take part, but <iq>after seeing the world</iq> and <iq>only when I'm 85</iq>. Or how about this throwaway comment from one of the interviewees: <iq>In 1947, for the first time in 2000 years, the Israeli flag flew over Jerusalem.</iq> In the next segment, a bus-load of these fools head to Israel. They're singing along on the bus and then they all visit the sights in white togas and sandals. I am convinced that they're not kidding...because then they were all baptized by their tour guide. And then singing the Star-spangled Banner while boating on the Sea of Galilee? Check. Having just read <i>Innocents Abroad</i>, it's hard to believe that Twain's pilgrims were even a tenth this crazy. Then they're buying postcards, which are like 10 for a dollar and the guide exhorts his crew to <iq>dicker with 'em [the vendors]</iq>. And the Dome of the Rock? <iq>That mosque has to be removed.</iq> At another point, the American guide is positively <i>yelling</i> that all this shit just has to go, at which point another guide, a local, has to tell him to pipe the fuck down because he's going to start a riot. I'm just going to include some of the comments to give you a sense of the people in this movie. <ul> From one of the pilgrims: <iq>let's be frank, Islam's goal isn't the Middle East; it's the whole world</iq> and <iq>Islam is a world-dominating religion.</iq> The guide again: <iq>Years ago, I used to be a police officer, for about four years [...] I went on many raids, you know, we'd have some fun, breaking into places.</iq> The couple from the beginning again: <iq>Christ will come back, with a sword by his side [...] and we're going to be behind him [...] with swords in our hands and we're going to be his army.</iq> They go on to describe---in their paucity of vocabulary---the most horrible possible war ever (another guy later describes it as <iq>Christ is just gonna trash the planet</iq>)---led by Christ himself, by the way, after which, <iq>God will set up his kingdom on Earth, you know, free of evil.</iq> Well, yeah, because God will have <i>used up all the evil</i> in the war he just started and finished. </ul> At the end, the tour guide is at home again, giving a presentation on his trip, getting a huge laugh---from pretty much everyone---when he shows a picture of Jerusalem with the Dome of the Rock having been elided with Photoshop. 'Nuff said. Despite the derision, I recommend this documentary. Know thy enemy.</div> C.S.A. -- The Confederate States of America (2004) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389828/">8/10</a> <div>A mockumentary, depicting a historical documentary from Britain about an America where the South won. Lincoln was disgraced and forced to use the Underground Railroad to flee the country and escape into Canada. There is a silent movie depicting his capture and humiliation by the Confederate forces. Harriet Tubman was also captured, convicted of war crimes and executed. The story continues to tell of the trials of the Jefferson Davis presidency and how the only way to heal the nation was to retract the Emancipation Proclamation---which was still in effect despite the North's loss---and officially codify the slavery of the black man into law. Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau, Harriet Beecher-Stowe and Susan B. Anthony and others fled across the border to Canada in response. In between history lessons, the documentary shows modern-day American commercials, where the show <i>Runaway</i> has replaced <i>Cops</i> (although it looks almost the same) and there are commercials for institutes that cure <i>freedom</i>-related diseases. The next stage in American history was the demand for reparations from Canada for having stolen so much property---in the form of slaves to whom they provided asylum. Another commercial is in the form of "if you see something, say something" but is about <iq>people of questionable racial origin</iq> posing as citizens or <iq>Darkie Toothpaste: for a shine that's Jigaboo Bright!</iq> The next history lesson? Why the takeover of Mexico and South America, to properly subjugate the darkies in those nether lands. After such an incursion, Hitler was the natural partner of the U.S.---the U.S. would convince Hitler to enslave the Jews rather than to kill them, that <iq>it was immoral to waste valuable human livestock.</iq> America opened the war against Japan, underestimating them because they were <iq>small in stature and non-white</iq> and, as Congress said, <iq>sneaky</iq>. In the C.S.A. women still didn't have the vote well into the 50s, Rock and Roll started in Canada and Elvis was arrested for imitating the northern negros. Another cool commercial is for the drug, Contrari, <iq>for Mammies and Uncles [to] for all-day control</iq>. There are lots of side-effect warnings and its <iq>not meant for servants who are nursing or about to drop a litter.</iq> Before the credits, they mention that many of the products advertised were actually real, like Sambo Axle Grease or Darkie Toothpaste or Niggerhair cigarettes. This isn't too surprising: you can still buy chocolate in Switzerland today with a cartoonish African tribal chief on it called "Mohrekopf" or "Moor-head".</div> Casino Jack (2010) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1194417/">6/10</a> Kevin Spacey stars as Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who held Washington in the palm of his hand during the Bush years. The film focuses on his most notorious campaign, in which he "helped" Native American tribes get access to Congress. Spacey plays him with a weird tic, where he does voices, imitating Hollywood actors. Jon Lovitz plays well, in his standard role as one of his partners and Barry Pepper also plays his usual character (you'd recognize him if you saw him). It's a relatively well-made film about a standard story of corruption and influence. Spoiler alert---in case you never read the papers---they all screw each other over, in the end. Oh, and Abramoff goes to jail. The best part is near the end where he imagines the courtroom rant that he'd like to give---in which he indicts and exposes all the corrupt Senators juding him---instead of taking the fifth. The Expendables 2 (2012) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1764651/">7/10</a> <div>The gang's all here again and they stayed in pretty good shape. They're older---more reading glasses around---but still pretty cut. The old-timer banter is pretty funny. Jet Li's pots-and-pans choreography was very nice. Some stuff is just silly: <iq>Cover up!</iq> screams Stallone as they careen through a firefight. Wait, why didn't they cover up <i>before</i> they charged the city? Did they expect no one to shoot at them? And why do they need all those muscles and guns when the sniper just kills everyone anyway? Gunnar (Dolph Lundgren) is still one of my favorites: fun fact, the back story they provide for him in the movie is pretty close to Lundgren's own <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolph_lundgren">life story</a>. He really is quite well-educated. And then comes the object lesson: the brashness of youth was not willing to fake respect, spat in the face of madness and paid for it with a knife to the heart, leaving the grizzled warriors to fight another day. I'm not sure what they're doing here, but what started off as kind of a joke: "hey, let's pack every action star into one movie!" is actually getting pretty good, with each guy pulling his full weight and not a red-shirt to be seen. Barney even philosophizes, <iq>That's how we deal with death. We can't change what it is, so we keep it light until it's time to get dark. And then we get pitch black.</iq> They all seem to be having fun but, but Statham and Stallone---as Barney and Lee Christmas---are a positively awesome action duo. The action sequences are nicely choreographed: tight and quick. Statham gets the elegance and grace award again (as in the first one). On a side note, it was nice to see almost no product placement (no beer signs in the bar; no labels on the bottles). The standard script, very well-executed.</div> Get Shorty (1995) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113161/">8/10</a> <div>One of John Travolta's best movies. As in <i>Pulp Fiction</i> the year before, he's a gangster---a shylock, to be specific---and he's as cool and clever as can be. A job takes him to Las Vegas and then to Los Angeles, where he realizes that he could finally get into the business he's always loved: movies. An absolutely all-star cast joins Travolta: Rene Russo, Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Dennis Farina, Delroy Lindo, James Gandofini and Bette Midler. Russo is awesome as usual (shades of her cool-customer/hot-lady roles in <i>Lethal Weapon 3</i> or <i>The Thomas Crown Affair</i>) and props to Delroy Lindo for his portrayal of Ray Barboni, the mobster with Tourette Syndrome and a serious violent streak. The film is based on Elmore Leonard's book of the same name and has some really good dialogue. <bq quote-style="none"> <b>Karen Flores (Russo)</b>: Weren't you scared back there? <b>Chili Palmer (Travolta)</b>: You bet. <b>Karen Flores</b>: You don't act like it. <b>Chili Palmer</b>: Well, I was scared then, but I'm not scared now. How long do you want me to be scared? </bq> For comparison, <i>Pulp Fiction</i> springs to mind, but <i>Kiss Kiss Bang Bang</i> has more of the same vibe and that movie was equally funny and well-made. Highly recommended.</div> Battleship (2012) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1440129/">4/10</a> <div><pullquote width="200px" align="right">Independence Day with sunlight as the virus and without Pullman's star power.</pullquote>I wonder how much the navy paid for this commercial. We're introduced to the lovable loser with a steadfast brother. The hot admiral's daughter is with the loser, of course. Kick the jingoism into overdrive. Special effects are absolutely top-notch: the satellite crashing into Hong Kong was spectacular and my undiscerning eye and paucity of imagination cannot determine whether it's real. I like Alexander Skarsgård---he was awesome in <i>Generation Kill</i>---but he really chews the scenery with his American good 'ol boy accent: <iq>I tell you what, boys, this is a real head-stumper.</iq> Who talks like that? And then his brother basically paraphrases that old joke about the Canadian lighthouse when he sees this enormous <i>building</i> sticking out of the water and, after a single, initial communication attempt, calmly tells it to <iq>prepare to be boarded</iq> as if it was a yacht. And then he's not even wearing a headset to stay in contact with, well, anybody. It's kind of sad to see the <i>Aliens</i> mindset come to the fore, where a load of dumb grunts handles First Contact. And then, after a show of power far beyond a dinky rocket falling into the sea, another idiot---one in charge of a ship---says <iq>it's the North Koreans, I'm telling ya</iq>. I'm almost certain that this was not intended ironically: this is probably the reaction that these people would have. And now it becomes <i>Under the Dome</i> by Stephen King (at least they're stealing from good sources). And then something the size of a city block emerges from the water and utterly fails to make a wave big enough to do more than gently rock a nearby zodiac. Magic alien wave-killing technology! And what technology it is: it looks wonderful, but you have to wonder why all the huge, energy-wasting mechanical parts? Is it really necessary to have it leap like a giant frog? To keep the CGI folks busy and happy? And then it uses more-or-less conventional weapons, like depth charges and cluster/limpet bombs? Are they classicists? Or just letting the Navy show off its anti-aircraft capabilities? If the aliens want to phone home, and they're going to use a human device to do it, won't it take years for the message to go and come back? Or does the speed-of-light not apply? And it was lucky for mankind that the windshield on the spaceship wasn't bulletproof. Lucky thing that. And since when do Navy guys---wearing gloves, no less---actually use the risers when going down steep steps on a boat? Didn't they used to slide down those things? And then, when they catch an alien, their adherence to quarantine and lab protocol are about as good as those of the Prometheus crew. Not much imagination on the aliens, though. It looks like the Master Chief from Halo---with a suit made on Cybertron---is attacking planet Earth. I will admit that the way they actually worked in the Battleship board game was quite clever and fit well into the story. I like neither the U.S. nor its military enough to get particularly excited about the Missouri going to sea with a bunch of America's "greatest generation" for a crew, despite AC/DCs efforts. At least the battle was mercifully short after they hockey-stopped an ancient battleship with no notable structural damage. And then a hand-to-hand fight with the disabled veteran? Good thing for him that only one of the aliens noticed his truck crashing into a huge piece of equipment.</div> Ted (2012) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637725/">8/10</a> A pretty funny movie about a man and his teddy bear, starring Mark Wahlberg (boy/man), Mila Kunis (girlfriend) and Seth McFarlane (voice of Ted). In a nice twist on the toy-come-to-life genre, the movie barely deals at all with the usual, tired plots of hiding the talking bear from the world or dealing with everyone's surprise. After an initial scare with the parents, the rest of the world seems pretty cool with the idea of a talking teddy bear. Other than the foul-mouthed talking teddy bear, it's a standard Hollywood girl meets boy, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back story. Small parts by Giovanni Ribisi, Norah Jones, Patrick Warburton and Ryan Reynolds as well as narration by Patrick Stewart keep things interesting. Wahlberg and Kunis are good, but Ted has the best lines and personality, hands down. The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0948470/">5/10</a> <div>The movie starts with a young Peter Parker---an excuse to hire some producer's little-shit kid, I bet---and the camera pans across a living room with one of his toys on the coffee table: a godzilla toy---a lizard. That's what those in the know call <i>foreshadowing</i>. Subtle, right? So, this is the Spider-man origin story re-imagined with Parker as an outsider but in a cooler, hipster use-a-film-camera-in-the-age-of-Instamatic, ride-a-skateboard and stand-up-to-the-bully kind of way. And he wears half-gloves---he's so dreamy. Gwen Stacy and Flash Thomson make early appearances; Emma Stone's pretty good actually. So Peter, showing much more moxie in this parallel universe sneaks in to Oscorp see what his father was up to, lo these many years ago. Good thing for him that Oscorp is still working on the exact same stuff his father was working on 15 years ago. That's how smart Dad was, I guess; they can't get anywhere without him. And Jesus, isn't Peter smart? He shows up at Connors's house and in typically arrogant teenager fashion solves the problem that Connors has been unable to solve for over a decade. So he's immediately taken up as a biologist by Oscorp and he succeeds at growing back limbs on his first day at work. And then he humiliates Flash with his newfound powers and he's totally the BMOC. Instead of a nice guy, Peter is an egocentric douche. Not untypically so, but a douche nonetheless. It's a nice touch in his transformation story that he has to become accustomed to his new strength and sensitivity---something that wouldn't happen immediately. And his training session in the old warehouse is actually a more believable way of discovering---and honing---his powers. And it's cool to see him use technology to build his web-shooters, as in the original story from the comic books. His slower facility with webs is also more believable than in the other movies. The web in the sewer trick was kinda neat, too. Eventually, as he becomes Spider-man, his sense of humor is also more in keeping with the original story. He's still much too arrogant and disrespectful of the police<fn>---he's supposed to be a smart-ass, not a douche. Sweet Jesus, that scene with the kid in the car? You could have left that whole thing out, really. What's the use of that? To show us that, despite the hour's worth of evidence previously presented to the contrary, that Peter's not a douche? Are you deliberately wasting my time? And again---I'm looking at you, <i>Homeland</i>---what's up with the magic cell-phone reception? Perfect clarity---five bars--in the sewer for Peter Parker. And at the end, it's clear that Spidey has no webs but why can't he stick to the building? He stuck to everything else by accident up until that point and now he suddenly can't stick to anything? Why? The movie kind of evened out in the end and the second half was definitely better than the first.</div> Superbad (2007) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0829482/">8/10</a> <div>The first half of the movie is pretty forgettable actually, serving mostly as a jumping-off point for actors and actresses who would be much better in other films: Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, Emma Stone, Seth Rogen and Bill Hader (as the two cops). There are some good lines, like when Seth and Jules are going out the back door of a house: <bq><b>Seth:</b> Watch your step; I fell earlier today <b>Jules:</b> Are you serious? <b>Seth:</b> Well, I was hit by a car. It's a long story.</bq> Or, when Becca mauls Evan at a party: <bq><b>Becca:</b> I'm so wet right now. <b>Evan:</b> Yeah...they said that would happen, in health class.</bq> The best parts are with Rogen and Hader as the cops. Their escapades with McLovin (aka Fogell) are pretty epic. Hill and Cera have their moments as well, but Hill is a rageaholic ass for a lot of the movie. Their relationship is more like two girls than two guys: they talk about their feelings, go clothes-shopping together and so on. In fairness, the second half is much better and the ending is very good ... and the sketches accompanying the credits are great---really authentic. </div> I Heart Huckabees (2004) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356721/">9/10</a> <div>A stellar cast rounds out this quirky film about ... well, about human existence, about struggle, about pain, about joy and about everything and nothing. Jason Schwartzman plays Albert Markovski, a poetry-writing defender of the "open spaces". He hires a husband-and-wife existentialist detective team, played by Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin---I am not kidding; they are awesome together---to investigate a coincidence. Mark Wahlberg is also a client, with his own issues (mostly about petroleum). Jude Law is Schwartzman's rival, and works for the Huckabees chain---the "everything store"---and Naomi Watts plays the spokesmodel/girlfriend/fellow angst-ridden soul. Isabelle Huppert is a rival therapist/investigator of the ineffable. There are other cameos---I saw Kevin Dunn, Jonah Hill and Jean Smart---but those are the main characters. The dialogue was good and the actors were used quite well, each getting their chance in the spotlight. What happens? That's hard to explain; there is definitely a story arc and a conclusion, but to tell it would be to focus on the incidental. It's about the journey, man. Sure, some of it is probably old news and rehashed philosophy to some, but it was a hell of a lot more interesting than many other movies. And the various lines of inquiry ended up dovetailing quite nicely. As for the dialogue, here are some bits I transcribed. The first is from Vivian's (Tomlin) initial interview with Albert: <bq quote-style="none"> <b>Vivian Jaffe:</b> Have you ever transcended space and time? <b>Albert Markovski:</b> Yes. No. Uh, time, not space... No. ... I don't know what you're talking about.</bq> This next, longer one is our introduction to Tommy, the petroleum-obsessed firefighter (Wahlberg), who's talking to his wife Molly and daughter Caitlin: <bq quote-style="none"><b>Tommy:</b> You don't want to ask these questions? <b>Molly:</b> No. I wanna live my life. <b>Tommy:</b> What is that life, baby? What are we part of? Who are we? Look at this, look at this [shows her one of her shoes]. Do you know where these come from? <b>Molly:</b> Yeah. My closet. The store. <b>Tommy:</b> Indonesia. [turns to young daughter] Baby... this is the truth, ok? Little girls like you, they have to work in dark factories where they go blind, for a dollar sixty a month just to make Mommy her pretty shoes. Can you even imagine that, Caitlin? <b>Caitlin:</b> [shouting] I don't want the children to work in factories! Stop it from happening! <b>Molly:</b> Your Daddy's crazy, honey. <b>Tommy:</b> Daddy's not crazy, baby. The world is crazy. It's important to ask these questions. <b>Molly:</b> Shut up! <b>Tommy:</b> Mommy doesn't ask because Mommy doesn't care. Don't stop asking questions, baby!</bq> In this next quote, Tommy in a way foreshadows what he and Albert would later learn from Caterine Vauban (Huppert) when they discover "pure being"---a state in which you are free from the burden of thinking and free from the humdrum concerns of daily life. But then you forget what you've learned and you're dragged back in, filling the empty crevices of your life with those concerns---just to fill the time. At best, life is a sine curve bouncing you between the epiphany, the reset and cleansing, of pure being and the humdrum knot of concerns that is modern life. People usually experience such an epiphany when they come back from a great, seemingly life-altering vacation; a few weeks later, though, they're back to their old selves. <bq><b>Tommy:</b> Why do people only ask themselves deep, philosophical questions when something bad happens? And then they forget all about it afterwards?</bq> These are the final lines of the movie; out of context, they may seem trite, but in context? Not bad at all. <bq><b>Tommy Corn:</b> What are you doing tomorrow? <b>Albert Markovski:</b> I was thinking about chaining myself to a bulldozer. Do you want to come? <b>Tommy Corn:</b> What time? <b>Albert Markovski:</b> Mmm, 1, 1:30. <b>Tommy Corn:</b> Sounds good. Should I bring my own chains? <b>Albert Markovski:</b> We always do.</bq> </div> The Untold History of the United States s01e02 (2012) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1494191/">10/10</a> This episode was eye-opening in its depiction of the sheer corruption and party manipulation involved in the deposing of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_A._Wallace" source="Wikipedia">Henry Wallace</a> as the Presidential nominee at the 1944 Democratic convention. Wallace was far too liberal but the people loved him. Their will was flouted by the party bosses and Truman was selected instead. Truman ended up dropping the bomb; nothing about Wallace suggests that he would have even considered doing so. This episode covers up to Roosevelt's death, Truman's reluctant assumption of the presidency and his all-too-eager and prejudicially small-minded betrayal of the Soviets, despite their having essentially won the European war. Hell Ride (2008) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0411475/">3/10</a> Though it's got Michael Madsen, Dennis Hopper and David Carradine and was produced by Quentin Tarantino, it was <i>clearly</i> neither directed nor written by him. And Larry Bishop is most definitely not Quentin Tarantino. The flick's about motorcycle gangs in the desert, settling an old vendetta and having a lot of sex in various bars. Not recommended. </dl> <hr> <ft>Does Denis Leary have to play the police chief whenever there's a call for one in New York City?</ft>