1.  Black Swan.  An elegant and surreal masterwork from Darren Aronofsky about a ballerina who will stop at nothing to reach the top of the New York ballet scene.  This film about madness, artistic rigor, and Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake is haunting and voluptuous in equal measure.  The prologue encompasses the film's essence:  the seduction of the Swan Queen by the evil Rothbart deftly balances grace with terror.

     2.  A Prophet.  A fascinating work from Jacques Audiard about a convict who must kill or be killed.  The level of fascination and artistry in this film reminded me of the foreign-language films back in 2001.  The convict foresees a deer crossing right as the unsavory characters who have enlisted him in their scheme run over the deer in slow motion.  This earns him the name "a prophet."

     3.  Never Let Me Go.  Mark Romanek's elegiac adaptation of the Kazuo Ishiguro novel about a totalitarian society where some children are raised to have their organs harvested in a series of "donations."  The somber color palette is derived in homage to Lindsay Anderson's boarding school drama if....  The film becomes more bleak, stark, and monochromatic toward the end.  The earthtones of the boarding school and a nearby windswept beach give way to a final act composed of silvery blues and greys.  A narrow hospital corridor is glimpsed with a frail Keira Knightley struggling to walk past.  The film is an emotional tour de force.

     4.  The Social Network is David Fincher's look at a new generation and the phenomenon of social networking sites.  The movie is composed of skilled, exhibitionist stretches of film that examine -- as if under a microscope -- college life, parties, elite final-exam study clubs, web businesses, entrepreneurship, and double-crossing.  The music by Trent Reznor is thrillingly subtle.  The main character, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, winds up being the youngest billionaire in the world.  By the time this information crawls on the screen, this character study has charmed the wits out of you.  The first scene is a master class in writing.

     5.  Inception.  This is an intricate film about dreams that is in love with paradoxes.  One shot to look for is Ellen Page's character falling from a high-rise building and awakening.  Every time a character dies in a dream, they wake up in real life.  Things get more complex as circumstances build and interweave.  A van falls into a river for what seems like forever.  Sets at the beginning are inspired by a Japanese aesthetic.  A city folds in on itself in a puzzling display of cinematic adroitness from filmmaker Christopher Nolan.  The memory of a loved one haunts the Leonardo DiCaprio character and this bittersweet nostalgia gives the film its motif.

     6.  Another Year.  Mike Leigh's portrait of kindred spirits has deep themes and an eye for nuances of character.  A jolly couple (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen) is happy that their young son is settling down with a nice, chirpy young lady.  Sheen's co-worker (Lesley Manville) is a fixture at family functions.  The overzealous co-worker has a drinking problem and copes better with her friends around her.  A funeral leads the film into bleaker emotional waters and Leigh is an accomplished storyteller who captures the gloom surrounding such an event.  "The work by Ruth Sheen, with her lovable overbite, is worthy of Oscar consideration" (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times). 

     7.  127 Hours is an energetic and triumphant film by Danny Boyle about the struggle of Aron Ralston to survive after being pinned to a Utah canyon wall by a rock.  In this true story, Ralston had to amputate his left arm after much duress.  The film is filled to the brim with joy and sorrow.  James Franco's performance as Ralston is infused with the agony and the ecstasy of the situation.  Dream sequences illustrate what the character would do if he could defeat this dilemma of being caught between a rock and a hard place.

     8.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  The bleak story about a lost girl and the computer hacker and detective who join forces to solve this decades-old mystery.  Stylistically and visually the film resembles The Princess and the Warrior or Run Lola Run, though with a more deliberate pace.  The film's psychological tension reminds one of Bruno Dumont's L'Humanite.

     9.  The Illusionist.  Sylvain Chomet's pungent and whimsical animated homage to Jacques Tati.

     10.  Shutter Island.  Incendiary and passionate work from Martin Scorsese.  A scathing indictment of the way psychiatric institutions were run in the '50s.

     Stay tuned for more reviews to come --  Patrick Kelly

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     Wonder Boys is Curtis Hanson's delicate and playful film adaptation of the novel by Michael Chabon.  All the elements are in place for a Sherlock Holmes mystery or maybe a game of Clue.  Novelist and professor Grady Tripp has a curious case of writer's block.  Tripp is portrayed by the lively Michael Douglas in his best performance.  Robert Downey, Jr. is splendid as Tripp's editor, Crabtree.  Katie Holmes "acts with fire" (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone). 

     Frances McDormand achieves something special with her portrayal of the university chancellor who is torn between her lukewarm marriage to an academic and her passionate affair with the troubled Professor Tripp.  Rip Torn is exquisite as a much successful and productive author named Q.  Tobey Maguire "must come to be known as the perfect twenty-something actor" (Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times).  Maguire plays the prodigal son James Leer, who makes everything up as he goes along.  Sprinkling white lies all over the place like confetti, James definitely needs an editor.

     "That is a big trunk.  It holds a tuba, a suitcase, a dead dog, and a garment bag almost perfectly."  --  James Leer

     "That's just what they used to say in the ads."  --  Professor Grady Tripp

     "When the family pet has been assassinated, the owner does not want to hear that one of her students was the triggerman."  --  Professor Tripp

     "Does she want to hear it was one of her professors?"  --  Leer

     "I've got tenure."  --  Tripp

     Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is quite a delirious thrill ride.  The late River Phoenix and the great Sean Connery make the time pass pleasantly.  We know we are in the presence of greatness when they're on the screen.  The dependable Harrison Ford as our hero "Indy" chases goons from across the globe in boat chases, car chases, you name it.

     The Holy Grail offers eternal life and good health forever to those who drink from it.  To drink from the wrong golden bowl is to suffer a most awful death. 

     The bad guy drinks from the wrong cup and grows old before our very eyes.  His hair grows out long and gangly.  Then he falls and shatters to dust.  Not before grabbing onto Indy's girl, who is much like the Bond girl in James Bond pictures.

     "He chose...  poorly..." the Grail Knight says.

     Unfortunately (spoiler warning), Indy's girl falls into a bottomless pit.  I, for one, have been haunted by that vision ever since I saw this film as a young boy.

     Now I'm a young man and I respect the Holy Grail as a MacGuffin that represents a time when health was bountiful and things like smoke and ash didn't exist.

     Boogie Nights has a masterful denouement (pronounced Day-no-maw) toward the end where all the characters are dispatched to their final destinies.  This deus-ex-machina with bells tolling is tour-de-force storytelling from Paul Thomas Anderson. 

     Anderson "has surpassed himself with Magnolia" (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times).  That is an observation I agree with.  The story about intertwining lives, in various disarray, is a bombastic masterpiece.  "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us," quiz kid Donnie Smith (William H. Macy) says in the film.  The tagline of the picture was "When it rains, it pours."

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     *Note:  Please see my father's in memoriam piece below; my grandfather was a great man who we lost to pneumonia after seven years of Alzheimer's.  "Papa" quit smoking for the last eight years of his life.

     Hamlet is Kenneth Branah's voluptuous, penultimate film adaptation of William Shakespeare's classic tragedy.  The art direction and production design are ornate and uniquely beautiful, placing the characters in the much-lored Danish hall.  My favorite scene is with the prince Hamlet and Claudius.  The prince has the murderer of his father within knife-point at a confessional.  This is a masterstroke from Branagh who has directed many great films in the past such as Dead Again and Henry V.

     Delirious sets its story amongst the paparazzi and celebrity nightlife of New York.  The main narrative thread concerns the red-carpet premiere of a new film.  Obsessive paparazzi get a thorough cinematic treatment at the hands of filmmaker Tom DiCillo (the glorious, underrated The Real Blonde and the whimsical, lovable Box of Moonlight).

     Sally Potter's Yes is exquisitely existential.  This film from the feminist filmmaker Potter is the story of an unhappily married microbiologist (Joan Allen) who strikes up an affair with a Lebanese cook (Simon Abkarian).  Not since Allen verbally sparred with Gary Oldman's pro-life senator in The Contender has there been such a juicy role for this gifted actress. 

     Shirley Henderson is unforgettable as a maid who comments about all the bed bugs and micro-organisms that make it difficult to get everything real clean.  We can clean with chemicals, organize things, and fold clean laundry but these living organisms will still be there, even if we just move them.

     Canvas is a brilliant film about brain dis-ease and medicines that can calm people down.  Psychiatric medicine is good for the soul and hope does seem to be on the horizon for all the characters in this generous film from Joseph Greco (the assistant director on James Cameron's epic tragedy Titanic).

     Shotgun Stories is mainly about a young man's attempts to cope with his father's death.  The funeral is the main narrative thread in the film.  The movie is unfortunately a huge product placement picture for Miller High-Life.  Anyway, the man's distant mother tells him that the funeral arrangements are in the newspaper.  Over the course of the film, the family will come together over insurmountalbe obstacles.  That is the predictable though uplifting arc of the picture.

     Underworld submerges one in the world of the mafioso circa the late 1920s.  The music that accompanied the film at the Overlooked Film Festival really striked a chord.

     The Real Dirt on Farmer John is a charming documentary that was adored by Al Gore and the Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert upon its release in 2005.  Farmer John is an advocate for organic fruits and vegetables.

     Mishima:  A Life in Four Chapters is an ornate film from Paul Schrader detailing a military man's rise and fall in Japan.  The sets and costumes are lively and atmospheric.

     Hulk is a jubilee of colors with strong greens, desert earth tones, rich reds, and stark blacks.  The story of Dr. Bruce Banner and his exposure to radiation right in front of his fiance's eyes is a tragic and unsettling one.  The arc of the story reaches its zenith when his wily father chews on some electrical cords and mutates himself as well.

     I adored The Band's Visit with its lively, pungent rave music and its keen observation of characters right out of a Jim Jarmusch film.

     Housekeeping is about a lively group of relatives who go a little crazy and cope by collecting newspapers and by visiting an old bridge and an icy river.  Christine Lahti is nuanced as an aunt who comes to visit her nieces.

     The Cell is a phantasmagoric, hallucinatory film that reminds one of The Silence of the Lambs, Santa Sangre and What Dreams May Come.  The gorgeous visuals are a side attraction to the timeless Jennifer Lopez who is really fine in the picture.  The visions in the movie are beautiful, bleak, and radiant.

     Romance & Cigarettes is a touching musical about a man who deems nicotine his princess and has "wolf lungs" according to his mother.  The movie is frivolous at times, but it's a real blast if one can catch it on the big screen.  John Turturro's film was a hit on the festival circuit and will stand the test of time.

Tags: Film Review Memory In Memoriam

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     "I'm perfect"  --  the lead in Swan Lake

     Perfect is a fit word for the sprawling, melodramatic new masterpiece from Darren Aronofsky.  The film is about madness, athletic and artistic rigor, ballet, substance abuse, and all the other obstacles that make it tough to reach the top of the ballet dance scene.

     I must confess my dreams have been haunted by this new film from master filmmaker Aronofsky.  This is a surreal film that, at best, calls to mind Guillermo del Toro's Mimic and Alejandro Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre.  This is a disturbing work about a ballet dancer, Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), who has from a young age been pulled and prodded to be the best dancer possible -- no matter what the cost.

     The cost is physical injury and worrisome sores...  painful hangnails and itchy, crawly skin.  This endurable pain is compounded by substance use, which makes matters worse.  The popular though problematic illegal drug Ecstasy, which has been used in the past for marriage counseling, makes matters more surreal and unsettling. 

     The story concerns Nina's struggle to be chosen as the lead in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.  This is a daunting role that calls for her to be the Swan Queen as well as the evil doppelganger the Black Swan.  There is quite a bit of interest in this role. 

     Nina wins the role in the production and replaces a prima ballerina (Winona Ryder) who is the usual choice for the lead role in all of this company's productions.  Much sourness is endured.  Much champagne is sipped at the party welcoming the Portman character into the ranks of the finest ballet company in New York, and arguably, the world.

     The company's director (Vincent Cassel) is a tough one to please.  He is a blunt director who works quite rigorously at keeping the level of craft at its highest.  The Portman character gets her feelings hurt and perhaps her heart broken in a way by this stern director.  Though creating a lasting work of theater is what keeps her coming back for more.  By the end, she exclaims "I'm perfect." 

     The much-discussed scene of lesbianism in the film is brought on due to the introduction of some Ecstasy smuggled to New York from San Francisco.  The Portman character's understudy (Mila Kunis) tempts her with a tablet that she has concealed in a pack of cigarettes.  The Kunis character says "Have you ever rolled before?"  Rolling is slang for being under the influence of MDMA (Ecstasy).  They dance the night away at a nightclub the night before the big day.  Some dudes hit on them and they both think that the guys are hot.  The two go back to the Portman character's apartment and make love in a haunting scene.

     Barbara Hershey is really fine in the picture and figures heavily as the Portman character's mother who is a tad overbearing and was once a dancer herself.  She bakes a cake for her daughter, who is dieting to make weight, and the ballerina takes a taste from off her finger and then throws the cake in the trash.  The Hershey character just wants what is best for her daughter and disapproves of having company on the night before the ballerina's big day.  Nina opted to try Ecstasy instead of getting restful sleep; it's kind of like needing to rest before a big test. 

     Aronofsky laces his film with dream sequences and the logic of the picture is tantalizing.  This film definitely merits another viewing.  At Telluride, Aronofsky said that the first three minutes symbolize the essence of the film.  "The film deftly balances grace with terror" (Annette Insdorf).        

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     "It'll all work out.  You'll see already.  In the end it's all nice."  --  Sarah Goldfarb to the ghost of her late husband

     So says the mother who will soon be hooked on diet pills.  Sarah Goldfarb is a truly unforgettable character.  As played by the great Ellen Burstyn, Goldfarb is blowsy, dryly funny, as serious as can be, pleasant, worrisome, caring about her family, and -- above all -- scared about the future.

     Tyrone C. Love, as played by nod-worthy Marlon Wayans, is a pungent criminal who loves his mother.  He loves his mamma and remembers the days when he used to tell her so.  The last time we see Mr. Love he is in prison going through heroin withdrawal, cuddled up in the fetal position.  The film reaches a certain greatness with the final image of Love cuddling with his mamma superimposed over the harsh reality of Love in jail.

     The story begins in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn and summer is in full swing. The two buddies Love and young Harry Goldfarb (a skeletal Jared Leto) are desperate for a fix and decide to pawn a television that belongs to Mrs. Sarah Goldfarb.  The pawn shop owner says to the two buddy junkies "Whoopi-fuck the table, too."  When Mrs. Goldfarb stops by in the late afternoon to retrieve her coffee table and television the pawn shop owner says "Hello, Mrs. Goldfarb.  Mind if I ask you a question?  How many years we known each other, honest to God.  Why don't you tell the police already, maybe Harry won't be stealing no more the TV."

     "I couldn't do that!  Harry's my only child...  he's all I have.  Thank you, Mr. Rabinowitz," Mrs. Sarah Goldfarb says in response to the pawn shop owner's rhetoric.  Soon Mrs. Goldfarb is at home in her cozy apartment getting cozy with some fine chocolates.  Fine chocolate is her fix, next to her much-prized television set of course.  Fine chocolate is more like an indulgence one could say.  The television is Sarah's real drug of choice.  That and coffee.  Ancient water as well.

     When we first see Marion in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, she is portrayed by the ravishingly voluptuous Jennifer Connelly -- and she is standing on grass so green one has to check the color settings on the television.  Soon she is accompanied by Harry Goldfarb, who has a newspaper in his back pocket to make their paper airplanes that they are going to throw from off the top of an old persons' home.  No joke, seriously...  the two mischievous souls meet on the green and then they harass the retirement complex's concierge.  Then they make their way up the elevator, on lipstick camera no less, to the top floor.  Then they put some chewing gum on the emergency door lock.  And make their way toward the excellent view of Coney Island, New York.

     The film begins with a split-screen showing mother and son in the desperate throes of day-to-day coping. Before this masterful split-screen, Aronofsky introduces an infomercial guru character named Tappy Tibbons.  Tibbons's mantra is "30 days...  No red meat, no refined sugar, no orgasm."

     The first rule, no red meat, is the one that this fitness guru really means as far as dietary choices go.  That includes pink meat or pork.  Processed foods are no good as well.  And as for the no orgasm...  that is just on the DVD...  not the film...  so disregard.

     Toward the beginning of the film lies a beautiful image of the sun and the boardwalk in Coney Island.  The image of the Sun and the two buddy junkies rolling the table over the boardwalk and through the neighborhood is rather gorgeous to regard.  I once played Daft Punk's One More Time over this scene, to astonishing effect.

     Yet another shot of the two buddy junkies strolling underneath all the lights overhead is one more visual to look for.  As well as the two just strolling through the neighborhood in Brooklyn near all the window shoppers.  The image of a water hydrant straight out of Spike Lee's classic Do the Right Thing, along with the unforgettable sight of the now gone Cyclone rollercoaster (which exists only in memories and photographs) are two more gems to look for.  The musical score by Clint Mansell (accompanied by the Kronos Quartet) is nothing short of phenomenal.  The tones conjured by the film's music are bewitching and hypnotic.

     Electro-convulsive (electro-condusive) therapy and diet pills get a thorough treatment as well.  It is rather a graphic horror to regard the scene toward the end where (spoiler alert) Sarah Goldfarb receives ECT while hospitalized for psychiatric reasons.  The doctor said that "We tried several medications.  You don't seem to be responding.  I believe we might be at a point where we might want to try some alternative methods.  We've had excellent results...  with ECT in the past...  so if I can just get your John Hancock we'll get underway."

     One more exquisite tracking shot is set at night right after a massacre occurs amongst some unsavory gang members.  Tyrone C. Love runs through an alleyway with the night sky behind him.  A dog barks.  And soon a corporal on patrol handcuffs Love, who is understandably distraught. 

     The Snorricam technique is used in this scene, as with another when Marion pays a visit to her shrink's apartment.  This is an excellent bit of craftsmanship that involves attaching the camera to the actor.  This, of course, is useful for distancing the character and portraying their state of mind.

     Yet another sublime image is one of young Harry Goldfarb running toward the seductive mirage of a lady in a red dress at the end of a pier.  Then when he reaches his destination, she is gone.  He steps backward and falls behind a black backdrop that represents a pit of loneliness.

     Earlier in the film, Sarah Goldfarb experiences hallucinations while overusing the diet pills prescribed to her.  The mirror image of Sarah on television looking gorgeous shows that Burstyn is "still a beautiful woman and not this wreck of a person who is consumed by herself and consumed by her apartment" (Roger Ebert, Chicago-Sun Times).  It's a towering performance.  When the evil Sarah first enters the apartment in a conga line it is "right out of Fellini" (Matthew Libatique, the film's cinematographer).

     Aronofsky employs more tracking shots that, this time, focus on each of the four characters alone in a room and then...  slowly...  the point-of-view rises to the ceiling.  This is effective for dispatching the characters to their final destinies and shows that while there may be a glimmer of hope, these four people will never be the same.

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     Raiders of the Lost Ark begins just as the Third Reich is forming.  The forces of the fuhrer are searching for a long lost artifact of infinite, immense power called the Ark of the Covenant.  History tells us that the Nazis were global, in Europe very much so, though this film elaborates and imagines the Axis powers establishing archeological digs in places as remote as Mongolia and Egypt.

     Raiders of the Lost Ark is a bewitching masterpiece with bold characters that one grows to care about, voluptuous cinematography, and a climax that puts the Nazis in their place.

     The story concerns the adventures of a talented archeologist named Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford).  This is a globe-trotting and splendidly suspenseful story that starts in South America as "Indy" is searching for a golden idol.  He is betrayed by his tour guides and much suspense ensues.

     He is double-crossed again my his arch nemesis, a French archeologist named Belloq (Paul Freeman).  This canny Frenchman's wicked laugh carries through the jungle as he orders tribesmen to kill Indy.  Indy makes his getaway by plane and in the passenger seat there's a snake.  Indy hates snakes.

     The next sequence takes place in Indy's classroom where he teaches archeology.  Then this leads to his briefing for what will be the main narrative thread of the film...  the search for the Ark of the Covenant.  Indy is full of book smarts and briefs the people who are briefing him.  Much is made of the staff of Ra and a golden medallion.  Supposedly if you go to a maproom somewhere in Tanis, Egypt and use a staff at the proper height with the gold medallion ontop, the sun will shine through the medallion at a certain time of day.  And give one the location of the Well of Souls.  This is where the Ark, containing the smashed remains of the Ten Commandments tablets, is to be found.

     First, onto Mongolia will Indy go to track down a former partner, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen).  The first scene set in this harshly cold country is set in a bar owned by Marion.  She is in the middle of a drinking game with some locals.  After she wins the game, which one can tell she's a tough one who can hold her liquor, Indy straggles on into her bar.  She breaks two shotglasses in surprise and they make a subtle, cliched noise.

     He is looking for the gold medallion that was passed onto Marion from her father.  She punches him for being a jerk to her in the past, saying that she was young and that he was wrong for pursuing a romance with her all that time ago.  She tells him to come back tomorrow.  He pays her for the medallion anyway and makes his way out of the bar.  Marion sits by a candle and contemplates the money on one hand and her heirloom which has much importance for her on the other.

     The bar door creaks open and some unsavory characters enter the bar.  "Good evening, fraulein...  we are not thirsty," says the Nazi torturer Toht.  The late, great character actor Ronald Lacey gives a wicked, pungently charming performance as this classic villain; he delights in every nuance and every subtlety.  They make small threats and then threaten to burn her with a coal poker.  Indy snatches the poker away from Toht with his whip and says "Let her go."

     Gunfire lets out and a fight for the medallion ensues.  When one of Toht's henchmen has Indy in a bind, Toht simply says "Shoot them... shoot them both."  Indy manages to get loose and Toht burns his hand on the medallion and simply drops what he was looking for to go cool his hand down in the snow.  Indy escapes with Marion after the henchmen have been defeated.  Toht, much like Gollum in Lord of the Rings, will show up later.  After her bar burns down Marion announces "Well, Jones at least you haven't forgotten how to show a lady a good time.  Until I get back my $5,000, you're gonna get more than you bargained for... I'm your goddamn partner!"

     They make their way to Cairo and meet a gentle friend of Indy's who lets them know about the boss German Dietrich and that Belloq is also after the Ark.  Much chases ensue and when the Ark is discovered there is a ritual performed.  "The power of the Ark manifests itself as a column of fire that skewers the Nazis" (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times).

     The spirits that entice and then destroy the Nazis are just about the most stylish and charming special effects I've ever seen in a movie.  The climax is bewitching and unravels with absolute catharsis.  The coward Nazi men get their comeuppance at the hands of a beautiful angel that morphs into an insidious demon.  This leads to a classic line: "It's beautiful!"

Tags: Film Review Raiders Ark Covenant

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     *Note:  I, Patrick the critic, am in a quasi-annual (semi-annual) manic phase that has been going on for 24 days.  Over the past seven years, since April 2003, I have had a psychiatric condition that requires medicine.  This medicine is good for the soul.  Adhering to a strict and sometimes intense medical regimen places one in a category of formal adherence to societal requirements. 

     These requirements are not as painstaking as one would be led to believe.  As with the new medicine aripiprazole, one discovers that it helps the heart.  It feels as if the medicine gives the heart the nudge it needs to pump blood.  Aripiprazole is a new atypical "psychotropic" medicine used to treat schizophrenia.

     As with a high-level manic phase that I'm experiencing now, Seroquel can level off the expected over-stimulation caused by aripiprazole (Abilify).  Seroquel is a strong antipsychotic that has a soporific effect.  Liquor, the edible form of alcohol, absolutely does not mix with Seroquel.  This probably goes double for the stimulating Abilify.  I had experienced some weight gain with mixing Seroquel and alcohol earlier in 2009.  I still have strong, broad shoulders though like most men.  I am down to 217 lbs at Weight Watchers and expect to be thin again someday soon.

     Now onto my review of the adaptation of Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo:

     The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is stylish, grim arthouse entertainment along the likes of Run, Lola, Run.  The film's psychological tension resembles Bruno Dumont's L'Humanite.  The main character Lisbeth Salander is a tough rogue of a computer hacker who possesses a relentless formal rigor.  As played by Noomi Rapace (in a bracing performance),  Salander has a spunky attitude and physique.

     At first glance this character resembles one of the twin sisters of the singing duo Tegan & Sara.  As more study of this exquisitely bleak face shows, she is pierced to the nines.  (Spoiler warning) The film progresses with a deliberate pace.  Character development shows that Salander is fresh out of prison and must report to a chauvinistic parole officer who demands sexual favors in exchange for moneys and financial stasis.  This leads to a stomach-churning scene, but don't worry...  this monster receives quite a comeuppance when the tables are turned.

     The computer hacker Salander meets a private detective through various sources and channels.  The two become a couple of sorts and this gives the audience a chance to regard the elegant and disturbing tattoo of a fire-breathing dragon on Salander's back.  The chain-smoking Salander tries to be reasonable and keep her grit intact while the two navigate through the logic of a missing person's case.  This turns the film into a police procedural with gripping suspense and tension. 

     The preposterous and sublimely labyrinthine plot at times require a cartographer's skill.  The case of the missing young lady, from Sweden in Scandinavia where the story is set, zigzags all over the place.  This leads the two detectives, sleuth and gritty novice Salander, to the mansion of a morally bankrupt sadist.  The detectives gain the upperhand through much turmoil.  (Major spoiler alert)  The plucky duo find the missing girl somewhere in Africa, as I recall.  This leads to a cathartic finale showing the wigged, incognito Salander walking free from the clutches of institutions.  Poetic justice indeed. 

Tags: Film Review Psychiatry Psychology Mental Health Awareness Brain Dis-ease

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     "Are you trying to develop a sense of humor or am I deaf?"  -- Indiana Jones

     "Antidote...  to the poison you just drank...  the poison works fast...  you kill the girl, I'll find another...  -- unsavory character Laoche

     "Game's not over, antidote!"  -- Indy

     "Too much to drink, Dr. Jones? (laughing)"  -- unsavory character

     So begins the second installment in the Indiana Jones franchise, an ornate production incorporating ingenius plot elements with insidious abandon and passionate set pieces.  The film opens with a sublime scene in a nightclub in the Orient.  The opening credit montage is bubbly Busby Berkley-style cabaret dancing. 

     The hero of the story is Indiana Jones, a talented archeologist.  He is trading an artifact from the Manchu dynasty for a priceless diamond with some unsavory characters.  Prior to this epic trade, the unsavory mobsters attempted to acquire the artifact with disastrous results.  Dr. Jones, also referred to as "Indy," injured the hand of one of the members of this crime family.  The artifact that caused such a stir is the remains of Nurhachi, the first emperor of the Manchu dynasty.  The urn is being bartered for the shiny diamond at a round, revolving table.

     A melee occurs in the nightclub when Indiana is poisoned by Laoche, the patriarch of the crime family.  "Indy" throws a shishkabob stake right through the heart of the gunman.  The chase for the diamond, which gets mixed in with a huge bucket of ice cubes spilled on the floor, rivals the search for the antidote which has been thrown across the room.  Willie Scott, the perky love interest (a luminous Kate Capshaw), conceals the antidote in her brazierre while searching for the priceless diamond that she probably wants for a wedding ring.

     A tommy gun is introduced and an ornate, oversized gong obscures Indy from the encroaching bullets.  Indy and Willie make their valiant escape out a window and land in the backseat of a vintage car driven by a slim kid, Short Round.  Director Steven Spielberg turns action cliches on their ear by having the couple of newly introduced characters fall through a few stories of business curtains before they land in the getaway vehicle.  Indy gropes at Willie because he is looking for the antidote to the poison that is taking effect.

     The always dependable Dan Aykroyd plays a helper of Indy's who shows the good doctor to his getaway cargo airplane.  The plane is full of chickens.  Indy (Harrison Ford) closes the door to the plane as he bids farewell to the mobsters who just arrived at the airport runway.  Unfortunately as the door closes it reads in bold letters, "LAOCHE."  The mobster owns the plane and his henchmen are the pilots.

     The couple and the kid have to ditch the unmanned plane on an airfloat and this leads to an exhilirating water rapids scene.  This sequence is as exhilarating as the coal mine railroad set piece toward the end of the film.  The heroes of the story arrive in India and are greeted by a Hindu villager who has troubles of his own in his peaceful village.

     Children are being used as workers in the coal mines of a nearby Kali-worshipping hideout.  Kali is the goddess of destruction.  The almost pagan ritual practitioners have stolen a magic stone from the nearby village of the kind elder who offers Indy, Willie, and Short Round food which is in short supply.

     When our heroes venture on elephant toward the worshippers' palace they notice bats, which frighten the gullible Willie.  An ornate feast is offered and much of the food is not that appetizing.  Monkey brains... yummy!

     The Kali ritual is a viscerally exciting and potently scored sequence. Amrish Puri plays the insidious villain of the story with much strength and glee.  Crocodiles also make their way into the story and deliver a punch of poetic justice -- when a rickety rope bridge has broken over the rivers of the Ganges.   

Tags: Film Review

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     Beloved is a pungent excursion into the heart of the psychological terrain of the horror known as slavery.  The genius literary critic Harold Bloom writes of the work that it is a "thinly veiled" exploration of slavery.  The work is rich in character development and is an utter masterpiece.  Definitely the best long book I've ever tried to read.

     The Stranger is a voluptuous exercise detailing the pathos of a criminal who likes to smoke more than he likes to live.  The character's mother passes away toward the beginning of the story, though his memories of her play a big role in the story's effervescent arc.  Luchino Visconti directed the 1967 film adaptation of the novel by Albert Camus.  The cinematographer Tak Fujimoto is the best equipped to commit this story to film once again, maybe with director Jonathan Demme at the helm.

     Number the Stars, a Newberry award winning novel, is one of my favorites.  The plot concerns a young Jewish girl who is hiding from the Gestapo.  I would say the director best suited to handle this work would be a Steven Spielberg or more precisely Janusz Kaminski.  The little girl has cocaine in her bag and that makes the Gestapo dogs that are sniffing for contraband loose their scent of smell.

     Bigger is my favorite novel aimed at the children demographic.  It is also a Newberry Award winner.  It is a period piece that concerns a child and his travels with his dog.  (Spoiler warning) I literally cried when I read the final passage revealing that an agitated, homeless stranger kills the dog.

     Other attempted-to-read novels:  Crime and Punishment, Heart of Darkness, Things Fall Apart.

     Footnote:  Toni Morrison has definitely written the best novel of the past 25 years and once told Oprah Winfrey the reason why it's difficult to read is because "that's reading my dear."  One has to do a double take to fully understand a work's potential.  One falls in love with the characters in Beloved.  The scars on the back of the main character from lashings are symbolic of the torment that white people have committed against the African-Americans.  The scars are described as a work of art that resemble the branches of a tree.

Tags: Book Review Literature Literature Lit English Lit

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