Long time, no post

I've been busy, busy, busy but I'll try to keep updating on occasion (I try to keep the sidebars fresh, if nothing else, but I need to update with some summer music including White Stripes, Queens of the Stone Age, Mandy Moore and Rihanna).

A Top Ten TV list is a strong possibility sometime soon, hopefully before Emmy nominations.

But the most important thing right now is that there are a lot of good movies out there.

Starting with one of the best in some time: Ratatouille.

This week also brings one of Michael Moore's best efforts, Sicko, and a surprisingly satisfying sequel, Live Free or Die Hard.

Knocked Up is the only big movie so far this summer to display real box office staying power, and understandably so (although I suspect Ratatouille will change that).

A Mighty Heart, may be a mighty tough sell, especially in summer, but it's still worth seeing.

I still haven't caught up with Once, but Waitress, Away From Her and Paris je t'aime continue their deservedly charmed box office runs and Lady Chatterley is just starting out.

Even Transformers isn't horrible. A major success by Michael Bay standards.

I've been less impressed the past two months by (in descending order):
Ocean's Thirteen
La Vie en Rose
Broken English
Shrek the Third
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
1408
Nancy Drew
Bug
Evan Almighty

Halle, just say "no"

I kind of wish I had thought of this to say about Perfect Stranger, the new Halle Berry trainwrec...er, thriller opening today:

Life is full of choices, and Halle Berry has made another bad one with Perfect Stranger, a perfectly off-putting thriller.

But that's from Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern, via Metacritic.

I also wish I had been gutsy enough to just call it what it is, a "crappy thriller," like Lisa Schwarzbaum in EW (unfortunately I saw that quote from her before I could even think of it).

Anyway, here's my review.

And no my mind wasn't made up just because of what I wrote about this movie close to two years ago. I'm just prescient like that. (Incredibly bizarre coincidence further tying this crap to Rich Man's Wife: character actress Clea Lewis is in both, and this is her first significant live action movie since that one.)

Also, I reviewed a not quite as bad Guy Pearce thriller, First Snow, last week. That one's just boring.

Lots of reviews

Just a bunch of links to what I've been writing the past few weeks:

Two very good foreign films, The Lives of Others (one of my favorite films of last year) and The Host, and one much less interesting, Avenue Montaigne.

Two of today's wide releases: Pride and TMNT.

Finally, last week I wrote reviews of Chris Rock's latest, I Think I Love My Wife, and a Sundance prize winning documentary that hasn't done much business, God Grew Tired of Us.

Four good movies and one overhyped surefire hit

Several good films have hit theaters over the past few weeks, but they're all getting trounced at the box office by garbage-y looking bigger product like Norbit, Ghost Rider and Wild Hogs.

The Astronaut Farmer is a quirky inspirational drama that deserved a wider audience, while Zodiac and Breach—two adult dramas based on true events—have performed a little better but are still posting only modest grosses.

Black Snake Moan faced the double dishonor of undeservedly harsh reviews and a poor opening weekend. I think audiences would be pleasantly surprised if only they'd give the woman-in-chains drama a chance. Samuel L. Jackson's performance is worthy of an Oscar nomination (not that it will ever come).

But this weekend's #1 movie will obviously be 300, which is at least a step up in quality from the rest of the year's box office chart toppers. The graphic novel adaptation has generated a lot of buzz, especially online, for the heavily CGI visuals used to tell the story of the Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartan warriors held off considerably more Persian adversaries.

I originally saw 300 before any of the films mentioned above and at the time I was really hoping for the year's first good film. Director Zack Snyder previously did an unexpectedly great job with the Dawn of the Dead remake and advance footage looked promising.

But 300 is too flawed to even be called good, let alone great. Pitiful dialogue, underscored by obnoxious voiceover, and a horribly misguided politically driven subplot are just two of the problems. Even more troubling is how seriously this campy action spectacle ultimately takes itself. It aspires to the faux-heroic inspirational vibe of Gladiator and Braveheart, which adds an unwelcome pretentiousness that defeats the movie's guiltier pleasures.

There's definitely fun to be had in many of the battle scenes with their over-the-top visuals and Snyder clearly enjoys bringing some of comic book legend Frank Miller's more outlandish images to the screen—I still have no idea how that's actually Rodrigo Santoro (the new guy on Lost/Laura Linney's Love Actually love interest) as ten foot tall Persian king, and self made god, Xerxes.

Gerard Butler also makes for a great leading man as Spartan King Leonidas, bringing the right amounts of humor and charisma to the role. Unfortunately, he's alone in that.

I'm still cautiously optimistic about Zack Snyder's future, but hopefully next time he'll direct a better screenplay and only take the story as seriously as it deserves.

Good girl, bad girl

Two new reviews this week, both limited releases from 2006 expanding a bit: The Dead Girl, a runner-up to my top ten, and the execrable Factory Girl.

The weekend's #1 movie

is The Messengers, which I saw and reviewed on opening day. There's nothing notable about it.

Friday movies

The good news is that a lot of Oscar nominees are expanding this weekend: Pan's Labyrinth, The Queen, Volver and Letters From Iwo Jima are all adding screens, Dreamgirls is still in wide release and The Departed is getting a full on re-release.

The bad news is there are new movies opening as well. I've reviewed Catch and Release and Blood and Chocolate. Smokin' Aces isn't supposed to be much better and Epic Movie, which surely is what it is, didn't screen for critics.

Two of last year's best reviewed

Reviews are up for:

Pan's Labyrinth
and
Volver

It's hard to find the words to do justice to the masterful Pan's Labyrinth, especially in a brief review. If I had a second pass, after some edits, I might have tried to stress the importance of the military storyline (the "real" sections of the film). But it's best to simply see and experience the film for yourself.

I'm also responsible for the Viva Pedro survey/photo gallery attached to the Volver review.

And the latest lame 2007 release: The Hitcher. It's January, whatever.

Movies I probably wouldn't have seen...

if I didn't have my current job:

Arthur and the Invisibles
Stomp the Yard

And also newly posted this week: Notes on a Scandal

Reviews: Two good, one not so much

It's been a long wait for Little Children to expand beyond a handful of markets but it finally seems to be happening.

Also reviewed: the nutty Perfume and the unforgivably, if not unexpectedly, lame Happily N'Ever After.

And just a note, Knights of Prosperity "encores" tonight at 9 on ABC and is also available to view on the network's website. Catch it fast, before they cancel it. Which probably won't be too long from now.

Top Ten lists coming soon...

Latest reviews

I'll have end of the year stuff coming soon but for now my latest reviews...

Dreamgirls
The History Boys
We Are Marshall
Charlotte's Web

Sometimes editing hurts.

Catching up

Well if I'm not going to do real updates the least I can do is link to some of my outside reviews.

The latest, just in time to celebrate 5 well deserved Grammy nominations for the Dixie Chicks, is Shut Up and Sing. It's an entertaining and compelling documentary, especially enjoyable if you're a Dixie Chicks fan like myself. But you don't need to be to appreciate their story. It's a wild ride and really underlines how much the political winds have shifted in just a couple of years. (The review probably contains less analysis than any other I've written but I feel the point is really to celebrate and enjoy their story. However, it is definitely a high quality doc, entirely deserving of theatrical release.)

Last week brought The Nativity Story and Fur. Neither of them particularly good. Fur is slightly interesting in a quirky way but it's also one of the year's biggest disappointments, considering how good director Steven Shainberg's previous film, Secretary, was.

But there are a lot of good movies out. My recommended films sidebar hasn't been so large in quite some time, and there are several good movies still awaiting release. This year started off horribly and suffered through an unbearable summer, but things started rolling in late July/early August and 2006 is finishing with an exceptional fall season.

Happy Feet and Casino Royale have ruled the box office charts for the last three weeks and deservedly so. There's a wide mix in the marketplace right now of highly worthwhile mainstream and art films.

Stranger Than Fiction is a film that falls somewhere inbetween and is unfortunately getting a little lost in a crowded environment. Audiences are sure to find it in time (and appreciate what is easily Will Ferrell's best performance ever and work from Emma Thompson that equals her career-best) but I recommend seeing it sooner rather than later.

And finally, this weekend's The Holiday is one of the strongest romantic comedies in some time, with an excellent cast and intelligent quality storytelling from writer/director Nancy Meyers. It's unabashedly entertaining and perfect for the season. Hopefully it will join Happy Feet, Casino Royale and Borat as one of fall's big hits that also just happen to be good films.

Two weeks of reviews

There should be some good movies coming out soon but they're not here yet...

Last week:
The Black Dahlia

This week:
All the King's Men
Confetti

All bad, but even worse, all disappointing in their own ways.

The one exception to this is Half Nelson, which premiered at Sundance in January and opened back in August in New York and Los Angeles. It's making its way around the country now. It's offbeat in some ways, conventional in others, but definitely one of the most interesting films of the year. And Ryan Gosling delivers one of the year's finest performances.

Where I've Been...

It's been quite awhile since I posted here (my longest break ever in fact, I never went more than a month without posting before) but I've been keeping busy.

My new job has meant a lot of writing and a lot of editing and it's been a great experience so far. But I don't want this blog to die out and hopefully I'll be able to keep it up on a more regular basis now that I've settled into the new job somewhat.

First up I'll just share links to what I've been doing over there, with other "normal" posts to follow.

The biggest project I've done so far is this Fall Movie Guide, which I'm pretty happy with. I wrote just about everything you'll see on the pages, selected all the art and built the pages. It was massive but it was fun. (My colleague helped with the related photo gallery, and did a great job.)

I've written film reviews for:
World Trade Center
Quinceañera
Idlewild
The Descent
Crank
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
The King
Crossover

And I've also done this Q&A with Crank star Jason Statham and a review for Spike Lee's HBO documentary When the Levees Broke.

I'll supply links on a regular basis here, since some of this might be the kind of stuff I would've done on the blog anyway (though a little more formal, not as "bloggy"). But I'll try not to let this replace regular blogging, since I have fun with that too.

I'd like to revisit my pre-season picks for the summer movie season that was and do my own picks for fall, which will differ quite a bit from what I did for Metromix. But that will come soon.

Summer heroes

June is almost over and the summer movie season is every bit as uninspiring as I thought it would be. At least Mission: Impossible III delivered the action goods, and I'm still holding out some hope for the I'll-get-to-it-eventually flick Cars (and maybe Over the Hedge will be a decent surprise when I get to it on DVD). But what I want to talk about now is a smaller film now making its way to theaters around the country (before we get to the big movie that everyone already knows about).

Wordplay opened last week to strong limited release box office and solid reviews and I'm confident it will continue to play well throughout the summer.

It's the latest entry in the Lite Documentary subgenre, the kind of crowd-pleasing movies that have helped docs muscle in on precious arthouse screen space in a major way. "Fun" docs reached a quality peak with the spelling bee examination Spellbound, a movie to which Wordplay owes some sort of debt. While Spellbound lovingly scrutinized the quirky personalities of the kids who enter spelling bees before thrusting us into the suspenseful world of the bee itself, Wordplay introduces a range of crossword puzzle fanatics on its way to a climax at the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford, Connecticut.

In both movies it comes as a surprise that such seemingly cerebral challenges can provide such nail-biting tension on screen, but both films deliver exactly that by building interest in the competitors and helping the audience see, through their eyes, what makes these brainy showdowns worth getting worked up over.

Wordplay is, not unexpectedly, a celebration of both words and puzzles. Its subjects' enthusiasm for crosswords is contagious, helped by filmmaker Patrick Creadon's relaxed, entertaining style. And although the movie lacks Spellbound's depth and range, it has a secret weapon of its own: entertaining interviews with celebrity crossword enthusiasts ranging from documentarian Ken Burns to musicians the Indigo Girls to Major League Baseball player Mike Mussina to comedian Jon Stewart (in hilarious form) to former President Bill Clinton (and his former rival Bob Dole, who both help explain one of the cleverest crosswords ever created).

This is the kind of movie that makes moviegoing refreshing, and fun.

Fun is exactly what, I think, Superman Returns is supposed to be. And exactly what, I unfortunately know, it isn't.

Although it doesn't properly arrive in theaters until next week I have to say I'm a bit baffled by the overly kind early reviews. But at least it can be said that Superman is no X-Men-level fiasco. This one actually delivers something. It has the kind of visual dazzle one would hope for from a massively expensive summer movie: the special effects are truly awesome and director Bryan Singer gets strong technical support from his usual ace director of photography Newton Thomas Sigel, who is undeniably gifted when it comes to unusual angles and showy camera moves.

But the rest of the movie falls strangely flat. Especially critical components like writing (including dialogue, storyline, plotting and characterizations) and casting. Even the movie's timeline is weird. The film pays direct tribute to the earlier Superman films and, in puzzling decision #1, is apparently designed to take place after the events of 1980's Superman II. Yet, in puzzling decision #2, the lead actors are ridiculously young. Who decided on a "mature" take on Superman starring two actors who wouldn't be out of place on a WB soap? (Especially since, um, The WB actually has a youthful Superman soap.)

It wouldn't matter much if Brandon Routh and Kate Bosworth delivered inspired performances in their roles (after all, everything about Superman relies on suspension of disbelief) but they don't. Not that they have inspired material to work with, or that they stand out for their failure to elevate it. Everyone in the film either has too little to do (like proven greats Frank Langella as Perry White and Eva Marie Saint as Ma Kent) or is boring doing it (notably Kevin Spacey as a thoroughly unmemorable Lex Luthor and James Marsden in the ill-conceived new role of Lois Lane's fiance). Only Parker Posey adds some spark to her role, as Luthor's lady of the moment (but she might add a bit too much spark, it often seems like she's in a different movie entirely).

Even so Bosworth is asking for a Razzie nom for her entirely unconvincing work as Lois Lane, here a Pulitzer Prize-worthy journalist and young mother (though the actress seems more like a big sister to her onscreen offspring), and Routh leaves little impression at all in the dual roles of Superman and Clark Kent (making it seem doubtful he'll find any more career traction than those who previously portrayed the superhero).

At least the movie delivers the visual goods. And for some that may be enough. There's an epic-ness to the film that is otherwise pretty much absent this summer (with the possible exception of the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel), but at 2 1/2 hours Superman and Singer are really trying the audience's patience, especially when the movie fails to advance these iconic characters in any meaningful way.

And for a movie designed to re-ignite a franchise for its studio it commits an even bigger offense: it doesn't leave you wanting more.

Save the Worst for Last

Yes, it set records in its opening weekend. But there's just no way around it. X-Men: The Last Stand is a bad movie. Or at most, it's not a good one.

Hardcore fans have been screaming bloody murder since fauxteur Brett Ratner was given the director's chair on the final film in a planned trilogy after previous X-Men director Bryan Singer moved on and Layer Cake helmer Matthew Vaughn dropped out. I didn't think one person could do that much damage to an already well established franchise. After all, the Singer films weren't high art, they were just fun and kinda smart. It couldn't possibly be that difficult for someone to just follow their blueprints and reap the artistic rewards, right?

Oh boy was I wrong.

As much as I'd love to, I can't lay all the blame with Ratner. Screenwriters Zak Penn and Simon Kinberg deserve just as much scorn for creating this flavorless dud. It's like no one involved actually saw the first two X-Men films and simply watched the trailers instead. The Last Stand is a collection of empty action scenes interrupted by long stretches of mindless dialogue delivered by characters who have been stripped of the inner lives and extra dimensions carefully cultivated in the previous films. Ratner and his team seem to think there's no reason to further the themes or relationships established in previous films, that all the audience wants are heavy effects and fight scenes (not that they go all out on that front either).

It's not like there wasn't any provocative material to deal with. The movie centers around two big ideas: the discovery of a "cure" for mutants that will turn them into "regular" people and the rebirth of X2 casualty Jean Grey as an out-of-control bad girl dubbed Phoenix. But both plotlines are handled with an absolute minimum of thought or care, they simply exist to move the action along. (The Phoenix storyline is especially botched. Anyone who's seen Goldeneye or the second season of Nip/Tuck knows Famke Janssen can play a great villain, but here she just looks confused most of the time. And you can't blame her.)

The film also kills off several key characters, both literally and metaphorically (by stripping them of their mutant powers), and introduces a slew of new ones. But none of that matters when the approach is so uninspired. Unlike the first two films this X-Men is so inept at juggling its ensemble that everyone begins to feel irrelevant. It helps the movie a little to have good actors like Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry and Hugh Jackman (joined by solid newcomers like Kelsey Grammer and Ellen Page) but it hurts when they have nothing to work with. And the baffling presence of the new character Angel, played by Ben Foster, in a handful of scenes can only be explained as some sort of symbolic metaphor for the rest of the film. And that's a very generous reading.

The Last Stand actually works as a reminder of how good Hollywood has become at the sequel game. A lame toss-off like this simply isn't acceptable when we've seen so many big budget sequels that are as good as, if not better than, their predecessors.

This one is so far removed from what came before it that you can't help but believe the studio didn't just want the X-Men trilogy to end, they wanted it to die.

S-u-c-c-e-s-s

It's always disappointing to see a good movie flounder at the box office, especially a movie that you just know audiences would really enjoy if they just knew about it. If they only knew they should see it. Akeelah and the Bee finished a disappointing 8th at the weekend box office, just barely cracking $6 million and posting by far the lowest per screen average of the four new wide releases.

A movie this enjoyable is guaranteed to find an audience somewhere, but I recommend seeing it now, don't just wait for DVD. Get in on it early!

Akeelah's simple inspiring story of an 11 year-old inner city girl who sets her sights on competing in the National Spelling Bee isn't the most original tale ever told (although the spelling bee material does give the familiar underdog-sports-story a fresh spin) and the movie does have its share of cheese. But luckily the film can afford the occasional corny moment because it has so much else going for it, most notably the strong central performance of 12 year-old Keke Palmer.

Writer/director Doug Atchison's script may have a few false moments (Akeelah's siblings feel more like stock types—noble military man, gangbanger, single mom—than real people, and the competitive world of spelling bees feels awfully small once the film gets to the national level) but Palmer's performance never wavers. It would be an extraordinary acting achievement for anyone, let alone someone so young and relatively inexperienced.

Palmer is backed up by a very fine cast including Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett in their first screen pairing since their Oscar-nominated turns in What's Love Got To Do With It (and even if Bassett seems a tad too buff for an inner city mother, her work is still a strong reminder that this actress deserves better, more frequent, work than she gets). There are also several other winning performances from younger actors including Sahara Garey as Akeelah's best friend, Sean Michael as her spelling rival and, most of all, J.R. Villarreal as her...love interest. Villarreal is more of a typical child actor than the effortlessly natural Palmer but fortunately that suits the role, and the two young actors create the kind of genuine chemistry that actors three times their age often struggle to achieve.

The writing and direction are solid, the performances elevate it to another level and Akeelah is ultimately the kind of movie I'd recommend to anyone. That doesn't necessarily make it great but it does mean it's too good to miss.

Summer picks

Since we’re a week away from the official start of summer movie season I’ve thrown together a quick top ten list of the movies I’m most looking forward to. I did the same thing last year, and looking back at that now I’m pretty sure I was a lot more excited about last year’s offerings.

The truth is most of this summer’s "biggest" movies leave me shrugging my shoulders. I’ll probably end up seeing expected blockbusters like Superman Returns, The Da Vinci Code, Pirates of the Caribbean 2, Poseidon and The Break-Up but if any of them got stuck in movie limbo and were never released I wouldn’t really care. This year’s slate is also heavy on lackluster looking animated fare (from DreamWorks, Fox, Warner Bros. and even one for film snobs: Richard Linklater’s trippy A Scanner Darkly) and high-concept mainstream comedies (Jack Black as a Mexican wrestler, Owen Wilson as an annoying houseguest, Adam Sandler finding a magical remote control and the aforementioned Vaughaniston extravaganza). Maybe one, or some, of these will surprise me, but I’m not counting on it.

Even two major movies from prestige directors—Robert Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion and Michael Mann’s Miami Vice—aren’t sparking my interest (Altman’s because of mixed early reviews and Mann’s for all sorts of reasons, including the fact he’s one of my least favorite Important directors).

I have, at least, already seen one great movie due for release this summer: a documentary about a crossword puzzle tournament (just screams "grab the popcorn!" doesn’t it?). Wordplay (June 16) is a fun crowd-pleaser in the vein of spelling bee doc Spellbound and should be an arthouse sleeper.

Looking over last year’s list some of my selections turned out to be disappointing (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), bad (Bad News Bears) or excruciating (Wedding Crashers) but there were some surprises (The 40 Year-Old Virgin and Land of the Dead were far better than expected and my favorite summer release, Junebug, was impossible to predict). One movie (Romance & Cigarettes) was never even released and I still haven’t gotten around to another (The Brothers Grimm) which was released, but to terrible reviews.

In other words, who knows how any of these will turn out, but on paper [Pickler sez "huh?"] I’m looking forward to:

10. Cars (June 9)
Ok, frankly I’m not really excited about this one either but of all the animated summer offerings it’s the one I’m most likely to see. And considering I had a similar lack of pre-release enthusiasm for Toy Story and Finding Nemo I’ve learned you write off Pixar at your own peril.

9. Snakes on a Plane (August 18)
I’m not expecting greatness from this, I’m expecting, well, snakes on a plane. Although the Internet hysteria over the movie’s concept has already made it dangerously overhyped it still seems like the perfect late summer movie, and, sadly, one of the season’s most "original" concepts.

8. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (July 14)
I would dismiss this as quickly as the rest of the big dumb-looking summer comedies but this dumb-looking NASCAR spoof reunites Anchorman’s director Adam McKay and leading man Will Ferrell. And even though Anchorman is an incredibly dumb movie it’s also a ridiculously funny one. It also helps that McKay and Ferrell have enlisted a cast that includes John C. Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen, Gary Cole, David Koechner, Amy Adams, Leslie Bibb, Greg Germann and Jane Lynch.

7. Idlewild (August 25)
The Outkast guys have made a musical. There’s no shortage of potential pitfalls here but it’s interesting for the curiosity factor alone. It helps that there’s a solid supporting cast and it comes from HBO Films. At the very least we’re guaranteed the summer’s best soundtrack.

6. Lady in the Water (July 21)
The pretentious tagline "A Bedtime Story" and the rapidly declining quality of M. Night Shyamalan’s movies don’t do much to inspire confidence but casting Paul Giamatti and Bryce Dallas Howard in the lead roles (and Jeffrey Wright in key support) makes it instantly intriguing. Plus this is likely to be either Shyamalan’s redemption or his downfall, place your bets now.

5. World Trade Center (August 9)
United 93 is already a critical smash and another 9/11 movie a few months later might be just too much. But this is a different kind of story, Oliver Stone is a master filmmaker (or used to be at least) and Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal make for a great core cast.

4. Little Miss Sunshine (July 28)/Half Nelson (August 11)
Two movies that built their buzz at Sundance. Sunshine became a big deal when it sold for the most money—partly because its cast includes Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette and, most importantly, Steve Carell—while Nelson caused a smaller stir but puts Ryan Gosling back in cinemas, where he belongs (and throws in promising actor Anthony Mackie as a bonus). It’s a good bet these will best most summer offerings, quality-wise.

3. X-Men: The Last Stand (May 26)
After two movies X-Men is the best comicbook franchise going and even though hacky Brett Ratner is at the helm this time I’m still excited to see what goes down in the third installment.

2. The Science of Sleep (August 18)
This might’ve topped the list if it wasn’t for a few troubling observations in some early reviews. There’s a fine line between quirky-enjoyable and quirky- appalling and director Michel Gondry has been on both sides before (the right side with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the wrong side with Human Nature). Now he’s made a movie without screenwriter Charlie Kaufman but with Gael Garcia Bernal, one of the best international leading men in the business. This is sure to be one of summer’s biggest small movies and I hope it’s one of the best.

1. Mission: Impossible III (May 5)
Yeah I know, Tom Cruise is crazy and I’m not supposed to be excited about this but as far as pure summer popcorn movies go this is the big one for me. I really like both previous Mission films (you’re forgiven if you don’t) and I’m excited to see what JJ Abrams does with his first movie (and whether it can match some of his excellent television work on Lost and Alias). There’s also the best cast ever assembled for a Mission outing. It opens next Friday so we’ll find out fast. Then it’s four long months till fall…

Making the arthouse fun again

Last week I was going to make a joke about how I like the thinking behind the David Spade/Rob Schneider/Jon Heder vehicle The Benchwarmers because it allows me to avoid one movie instead of three. But then the appalling-looking thing opened almost $20 million. Ew. Enough on that.

Especially because there are some good movies out there. Even though Hollywood hasn't tempted me with much so far this year (I'll make it to Inside Man soon) the festival circuit has provided some interesting, and unusually entertaining, options.

Friends with Money (which premiered at Sundance) is like the opposite of the aforementioned Big Dumb Hollywood Comedy. You could split this one four ways and I'd be just as happy. That's because we get Jennifer Aniston, Joan Cusack, Catherine Keener and Frances McDormand as the quartet of principal characters for writer/director Nicole Holofcener, who previously made smart, talky, small indies Walking and Talking and Lovely & Amazing. Other than deciding not to title it "Friends and Money" Holofcener hasn't altered her style much: this is smart, talky and very small.

So small it risks being called slight. And it is. But it's also so well acted and written, with genuinely witty dialogue, that it's silly to dismiss (or miss). All four of the leading ladies are great: Aniston is clearly most comfortable in indie films, Cusack is less wacky than usual (to good effect), Keener is a Holofcener-vet for good reason and McDormand pretty much steals the show. There are some guys in the movie too, providing solid support for the women, most notably: Simon McBurney, Jason Isaacs, Greg Germann, Bob Stephenson and Ty Burrell (and, a little less notably, Scott Caan). But you can tell by the lack of marquee names in that group where the focus is.

Yeah Friends with Money is primarily about four female friends. And relationships. And sex. And money. But, although Holofcener directed some episodes, this isn't really Sex and the City. It's an indie film. If you need to, think of it less as a girly movie and more as a funny movie. That's its strength and that's enough.

Also small, indie and directed by a woman (which is still rare enough to be worth pointing out) is The Notorious Bettie Page from HBO Films and director Mary Harron. Some viewers will be frustrated that this biopic about a 1950s pin-up queen, known for both colorful nude shots and naughty underground light bondage photos, doesn't go further in exploring its subject. But I think it's a refreshing change from standard serious bios.

Bettie Page is simply fun and a big part of that is due to its star, Gretchen Mol. Mol was always easy enough to write off as an actress but she delivers a truly exceptional performance here, she's so endearing it's actually impossible to imagine the movie without her. Utilizing a slight Southern accent and a perfect mix of innocence and self-assurance, Mol is in Reese Witherspoon territory. There's not a false moment. It's the breakthrough performance she's been working towards her whole rocky career. Who knew?

I love it when actors defy preconceived notions, but that's not the only pleasure of Bettie Page. As a filmmaker Harron has a lot of fun with both style and subject matter, creating a love letter to movies of the period. The bulk of the film is in black and white but there are some gorgeous "Technicolor" interludes later on and visual tribute is paid to everything from high school dramas to "instructional" shorts to lush melodramas to film noir.

And even though the film doesn't probe very deeply into the real Bettie Page there's something wonderful about a movie that centers around a lead character who poses nude and is deeply Christian, and she isn't judged for either one.

It's also worth mentioning some of the very entertaining supporting performances, especially from Chris Bauer, Lili Taylor and Jared Harris as a close-knit "family" of pornographers (1950s-style). Above all this movie is a portrait of a bygone era when it was truly possible to be naughty and nice at the same time. In other words, it's the sweetest movie involving light bondage ever made.

Some movies get bumped for a good reason

V for Vendetta opens today and there was some early hype that suggested this could be the year's first great movie. But unless you're desperate for political commentary in any form the movie fails to live up to that buzz.

The reviews are generally positive (although a lot of the "better" critics around didn't care for it much), but I found the movie to be a well intentioned bore. It's interesting to see a film that aims to make a statement but the messages here are muddled and so far removed from reality that I'd seriously question anyone eager to draw parallels between the movie's post-WWIII Totalitarian London and our present day existence. That's partly because the filmmakers do such a poor job of showing what it's actually like to live in Vendetta's fictional world—all we really learn is that it's not wise to go out alone at night, it's still tough to be gay and TV has gotten really really bad.

The hero is a generic comicbook creation who happens to be a political terrorist, but that's not enough to make him interesting. Natalie Portman is actually very good as the female lead (and the movie's "name"—good luck drawing crowds on that) but her character is so limited that it doesn't much matter. There's really no visual style to speak of, which is fairly surprising considering how involved the Wachowski Brothers were with this, and despite the action-heavy trailers the film's explosions and fight scenes are kept to a bare minimum. Marketing this movie to teenage boys is a serious mistake (even if the opening is big the second weekend will be brutal), but I'm not even sure what other audience they could possibly go for.

I'm not very well schooled in Alan Moore's graphic novels (I've only read the excellent The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) but just as with From Hell, also adapted from one of Moore's works, I have little doubt that the film doesn't do the source material justice.

V for Vendetta isn't a terrible movie but it's not really worth your moviegoing time either. Honestly if you want truly provocative, and relevant, political commentary wrapped up in a fancy genre package I've got some DVDs for you to check out.