THE AMERICAN (2010)

* * * *
R for violence, sexual content and nudity, 105m, USA

D: Anton Corbijn (George Clooney, Irina Björklund, Johan Leysen, Paolo Bonacelli, Thekla Reuten)

This is a fantastic thriller in the spirit of Hitchcock and suspense films of the 1970's. George Clooney is Jack (notably without a surname), a lonely hitman hiding in Italy, waiting to carry out one last assignment before retirement. And everyone knows what a great retirement package the Mafia offers. This isn't the Mafia, but might as well be. In the beginning, Jack makes a casual, yet shocking decision that demonstrates his coldly pragmatic nature. And he's prepared to do it again, if with some regret. But there are no tears or railing against fate - he accepts the risks and deals with them. At one time, he had been at the top of his game, but time and weariness are taking their toll. He knows it's time to quit. After a disastrous incident in Sweden, Jack seeks out his boss/mentor, who advises him to stay low in a small Italian village and not to make any "new friends".

But this particular loner can't help himself. Despite his brusque manner, people sometimes seek him out, like the almost aggressively friendly Father Benedetto, who offers a companionship that's both comforting and unnerving. He appoints himself as Jack's conscience, even without knowing the details of his past. He also has a secret of his own, so he is not completely unsympathetic to a fellow human in conflict.

"You have done much sinning," he observes at one point.

"All men are sinners," Jack tells him, "Everything I've done I've had good cause to do."

"A man can be reached if he has God in his heart."

"I don't think God's very interested in me, Father," Jack replies.

"You cannot deny the existence of hell. You live in it. It is a place without love."

The two men respectfully disagree with one another, but there is a fragile bond between them as they share a meal and take walks together. Jack needs this connection, as well as the one he finds with Clara (Irina Björklund), a local woman he meets in a brothel, the only place he feels safe in meeting women. No demands, no questions.

This is not an action film so much as a character study with a sense of dread. But the tension is almost unbearable, with any sudden sound a "BOO!" moment. The stealthy, menacing way the camera follows our protagonist, it's like the viewer is an assassin as well, giving them a most uncomfortable point of view. What if he turns his head? Notice that I don't call Jack a hero - he's definitely too amoral to be heroic, but isn't evil in the sense that you'd expect. He doesn't seek out trouble or kill for pleasure. It's simply a job to him. One might suspect that he wouldn't be good at anything else, except tinkering in a garage. Not that he would spend all that time building cars. Maybe he'd build cool gadgets, like Q in the James Bond films.

For me, it was a very interesting look at a questionable profession. It's largely due to Clooney's no-frills performance that we see Jack for what he is. We do not need to see the path of bodies in his wake, or constant gore to know that he's very dangerous. We get a private tour of a hitman's existence and what it's like to constantly be on edge, trusting no one, let alone love. A gun in a woman's handbag - is it for protection or something more sinister?

Imagine even the most banal conversation -- it could be in code - or not. I thoroughly enjoyed the shorthand rat-a-tat rhythm of the dialogue between Jack and a beautiful female assassin (Thekla Reuten) as they negotiate terms for a customized weapon that is needed for a special job. They don't waste words. James Bond would have been all over this woman like blanket. How predictable. Jack treats her as a colleague -- polite, professional, and someone to respect as a potential enemy.

We get the feeling of Jack as an outsider - a not-completely detached observer - watching the human parade pass him by and know with some regret that he can never join them, or even visit for a while. Is redemption possible for him? Yes, but not quite in the way he expects.

NANNY McPHEE (2005)

* * *

D: Kirk Jones: (Emma Thomson, Colin Firth, Kellie McDonald, Imelda Staunton, Derek Jacoby, and Angela Lansbury)

PG for mild thematic elements, some rude humor and brief language.
97 m. US/UK/France

Tagline: You'll learn to love her. Warts and all.

Very charming fairy tale fantasy about a widower with seven rambunctuous children and a mysterious, magical nanny who comes into their lives. Strong elements of Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, and Edward Scissorhands, yet completely original. A whimsical, gentle comedy and veddy, veddy British.

MY NAME IS BRUCE (2007)

* 1/2

D: Bruce Campbell (Bruce Campbell, Ted Campbell, Taylor Sharpe, Grace Thorsen

PG13, 86m, USA

Tagline: Fearless! Unstoppable! Ready For His Close-Up!

Silly but fun little goofball of a film starring/directed by Bruce Campbell, king of the B movies. Campbell plays himself as a jerky has-been actor who finds himself in a crummy small town called Goldlick. The locals mistake him for Ash (the hero of the Evil Dead movies) and expect him to save their town from a monster who's eliminating them one by one. Starts out strong and kind of peters out. Special effects are okay, not great, and the monster is not scary at all - the costume could have come straight out of K-Mart. For die-hard Campbell fans only - lots of in-jokes and a few cameos from the old Evil Dead movies.

PATTERNS (1956)

1/2 star

PG-13, bw-83m, USA D. Fielder Cook. Van Heflin, Everett Sloane, Ed Begley, Beatrice Straight.

Tagline: Ruthless Men And Ambitious Women... Clawing For Control Of A Billion Dollar Empire!!!

That overwrought tagline should have been a warning.

I bought this because my mother requested it. Normally I love nostalgic films and have a good collection of all genres and seen and enjoyed movies from silents to contemporary. I love the old Twilight Zone episodes in the series created by Rod Serling, who also wrote the screenplay. There have been no negative reviews of this film anywhere - so I thought, sure, why not?

There are fierce defenders of this film, as I soon found out after posting my review on Amazon. Boy, did I hit a nerve (unintentionally). This film sure has its defenders. You'd have thought I suggested that newborn puppies would be a nice snack. Nevertheless, I found it incredibly boring and strident. Not only was I bored to the eyeballs, but I felt like I was being screamed at by my own boss. I have a problem with confrontations - absolutely hate 'em, even in fiction - though they are necessary to liven up the plot.

The characters were either All-Good or All-Bad - no nuances or shades of grey. The dialogue struck me as propaganda, not real conversation. The characters didn't talk, they either lectured or screamed at each other. The ending was ridiculous - I wanted to throw my popcorn and scream, "No WAY!"

The film quality was grainy and ugly to look at -- granted, it's an old movie, but it didn't age well at all. If it was such a great film, it should have been re-mastered and released to the public properly. It looked like a grainy old home movie. If you want to see an insightful, perfectly acted and realistic movie about business and office politics in the 50s and 60s (though Patterns was set in the mid-50s), see Mad Men on AMC. It hits the historical and emotional points perfectly, and just about anyone who went to work in the early 60s will attest to the authenticity of the show. Mom recognized several scenerios in Mad Men that she experienced as a young working woman in the 60s. Even The Best of Everything (a flawed film about an office in the 60s) was better than this dirge. I admire Rod Serling, but this was NOT his best work at all. Save your money and your time. I wanted both back afterward.

Romance is not dead - ongoing list of love!

Here are some romantic movies (or else they have a strong romance in the story) - perfect for a rainy day. This is a mixed bag for various tastes. I don't love everything on this list, except for the ones rated 4 stars. I prefer old movies where the lovers are have terrible odds to overcome, like death (The Ghost and Mrs. Muir), ugliness (Beauty and the Beast, Marty), or Amishness (Witness).

For example, I was bored by Pretty Woman and absolutely hated Twilight, but realize that a lot of girls love it. They both did phenomenally well at the box office, but I didn't find them romantic. Pretty Woman was about a ruthless business man (Richard Gere) who rents "lovable" hooker Julia Roberts for a week and they fall for each other, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. He had too much power over her, and that bothered me. As for Twilight, but I just don't get the appeal of a vampire who keeps repeating the twelfth grade a million times and is basically a narcissistic stalker. He has no sense of humour and acts like he's doing Bella a favour by simply deigning to notice her. And he sparkles in the sunlight. Give me Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) or Bill (True Blood) any day. At least they had some depth to their characters and actually graduated.

Please realize that this is just my opinion. And that I'm usually right. ;) Enjoy!

Coming-of-Age
Dirty Dancing (1987) * * *
Dogfight (1991) * * * *
Say Anything (1989) * * * *

Quiet Passion
Always (1989) * * 1/2
The Bridges of Madison County (1995) * * * 1/2
The Magic of Ordinary Days (2005) * * * 1/2
The Majestic (2001) * * * 1/2
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008) * * * 1/2
The Remains of the Day (1993) * * * *
A Walk in the Clouds (1995) * * * 1/2
A Walk to Remember (2002) * *
While You Were Sleeping (1995) * * *

Fantasy
Beauty and the Beast (1991) * * * *
Ever After (1998) * * * *
Lady and the Tramp (1955) * * * 1/2
The Princess Bride (1987) * * * *
Shrek (2001) * * * *
Tangled (2010) * * * *
Twilight (2008) 1/2

Classics
Anything with Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn

The Apartment (1960) * * * *
The Big Country (1958) * * * *
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) * * * *
Casablanca (1942) * * * *
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) * * * *
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) * * * 1/2
Hobson's Choice (1954) * * * *
The Importance of Being Ernest (1952) * * * *
In the Good Old Summertime (1949) * * *
It Happened One Night (1934) * * * *
The King and I (1956) * * * *
A Letter to Three Wives (1949) * * *
The Long, Hot Summer (1958) * * * 1/2
Love Story (1970) * *
Marty (1955) * * * *
Now, Voyager (1942) * * * 1/2
A Patch of Blue (1965) * * * 1/2
A Place in the Sun (1951) * * * 1/2
The Quiet Man (1952) * * * 1/2
Roman Holiday (1953) * * * *
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) * * * *
Splendor in the Grass (1961) * * * *
Wuthering Heights (1939) * * * 1/2

Foreign
Amelie (2001, France) * * *
Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) (1992, Mexico) * * * 1/2
Jeux d'enfants (Love Me if You Dare) (2003, France/Belgium) * * *
La vita è bella (Life is Beautiful)) (1997, Italy) * * * *
Le mari de la coiffeuse (The Hairdresser's Husband) (1990, France) * * * 1/2

Musicals
Gigi (1958) * * * 1/2
My Fair Lady (1964) * * * *
The Sound of Music (1965) * * * *
West Side Story (1961) * * * 1/2

Suspense
The Big Easy (1986) * * *
Body Heat (1981) * * * 1/2
Charade (1963) * * * *
Sea of Love (1989) * * *
Witness (1985) * * *1/2

Adventure/Epic/War
Atonement (2007) * * *
Brokeback Mountain (2005) * * *
Forrest Gump (1994, PG-13) * * * 1/2
From Here to Eternity (1953) * * * 1/2
Gone With the Wind (1939) * * * *
The Notebook (2004) * * *
Out of Africa (1985) * * * 1/2
Pride and Prejudice (2005) * * * 1/2
The Robe (1953) * * * 1/2
Rob Roy (1995) * * *
Romancing the Stone (1984) * * *
Slumdog Millionaire (2008) * * * *
Spartacus (1960) * * * *
Superman: The Movie (1978) * * * *
Somewhere in Time (1980) * * *
Titanic (1997) * * * 1/2
Water for Elephants * * * *

Urban/Modern Romance/Comedy
Annie Hall (1977) * * *1/2
As Good as it Gets (1997) * * *
My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) * * *
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) * * 1/2
Definitely, Maybe (2008) * * *
500 Days of Summer (2009) * * * 1/2
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) * * *
Love, Actually (2003) * * *
Moonstruck (1987) * * *
Pretty Woman (1990) * * 1/2
The Wedding Singer (1998) * * *
When Harry Met Sally (1989) * * * *
Working Girl (1988) * * *
You've Got Mail (1998) * *

AU REVOIR, LES ENFANTES (1987)

* * * *

French ("Goodbye, Children") PG-13 for mature themes

C-104m. France, West Germany

D: Louis Malle. Gaspard Manesse, Raphael Fejtö, Philippe Morier-Genoud

Twelve-year-old Julien Quentin, a pampered mama's boy who has bed-wetting issues, meets and wonders about the new student - Jean Bonnet, a thoughtful, quiet young man with a deadly secret. A friendship develops between two boys that is remembered vividly from long ago by just one of them. It is 1944, and Jean (Raphael Fejtö) is just one of the three new students who are given sanctuary by Père Jean (Philippe Morier-Genoud), the headmaster of friar-run Catholic boarding school for boys. Julien (Gaspard Manesse) eventually discovers Jean's true identity and he means to keep it to protect his friend. Not even their academic rivalry, nor a shared crush on the school piano teacher (Irène Jacob) could make Julien betray his friend. What happens is much worse because there is no guilty party. Just a conscience that is walled in and crushed by an innocent impulse.

Julien and his sullen older brother François (Stanislas Carré de Malberg) are sent back to boarding school after Christmas break. Neither is eager to return, and no wonder. The rooms are dreary and crowded, especially the one-room dormitory that houses about thirty beds in plot-like rows. Everyday is freezing, and their uniforms consist of thin shirts and short pants. There is barely enough room for these rowdy young boys to run around - just a small cement enclosure - no grass to roll around in. It resembles a prison yard. All of the boys naturally find ways to cope by calling the monks "monkeys", playing pranks on each other, and knocking each other to the cement while balanced on stilts. Yet despite the discomforts of living in overcrowded conditions, there are moments of pure joy, such as an impromptu jam session between Julien and Jean on the piano.

Because good food is rare, these young boys endure hunger, and their jam, one of the few treats they do receive from home, is promptly confiscated because they are expected to share it. The lesson that the friars were teaching is understandable given the conditions, but is charity truly an act of generosity if someone in authority gives away your food without permission? It encourages sneakiness -- hide your booty from adult eyes -- instead of adapting the pride of sharing with your hungry peers. The frequently enforced fasting, one of the drawbacks of Catholicism, doesn't help - it simply makes them more determined to protect their food, let alone share it. No wonder the enterprising few are tempted to sell their goods to the black market, thanks to a school employee. However, it is this greed that proves to be their downfall.

We discover with Julien that Jean's last name is really Kippelstein and he does his best to blend in with the other boys. Problems arise when a trip to the public bath house has a sign that reads, No Jews Allowed. This is Nazi-occupied France, after all. For Jean, ordinary acts such as eating, bathing, and praying become small acts of rebellion to remember and honour his true identity. As the shadow of the Third Reich looms overhead, there is disquiet in the air, but life goes on as usual. Germans aren't necessarily the villains here. They are just working men assigned to do terrible deeds. Although there are no ominous trains headed to Auschwitz or frightened crowds of people being pushed onboard, the menace is ever-present, even on an uneventful school day. With groups of patrollers marching everywhere, coming and going and arresting as they please, it is a hair-raising prospect if Jean were ever to get into their line of vision.

Louis Malle wrote, produced and directed this film, loosely based on an actual incident in his childhood in a boarding school when he was eleven. It is no wonder that the story of Julien and Jean propels so naturally and inevitably to its inescapable conclusion. The film is as haunting as the memory of one morning in January 1944 must have been for Malle for all these years. You never know who is listening, let alone who can be trusted. It was a life of quiet desperation. One mistake could doom many.

Au Revoir, Les Enfantes is one of those stories that stayed with me. The best and worst of human nature, bravery in the face of certain doom, and hope is exercised, even in those so young. This attitude was expressed by Anne Frank, who died at Bergen-Belsen at sixteen: "Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart." Like Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), Au Revoir, Les Enfants is shown to high school students so the masses can comprehend how good people cope with such inhuman and unanswerable crimes. If Julien and Jean had been in such a lofty position today, they no doubt would have wept and walked each other home afterwards.

Also recommended: Spielzeugland (Toyland) (2007), which won the Academy Award for Best Live Short Film in 2009.