When I was in college, our sociology professor, a man of some years, told us we learn how to kiss from the movies.

I realized I was woefully undereducated.

The movies of my childhood were chaste, of course: Peter Pan, Perri the squirrel, Disney cartoon favorites. OK, there was that spaghetti kiss in "Lady and the Tramp," but how was I ever going to manage that?

And the movies of my adolescence: lots of chariots and sand dunes, West Side rumbles and space odysseys, but few lip locks. Oh, I loved that impetuous scene on the balcony in Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet," but I wouldn't say it was technique.

No, I couldn't depend on movies for kissing. Instead, I had to choose another sociological standby: field testing.

Then videos appeared, and I discovered the films of the late '30s and the '40s, most likely the movies my professor saw as a young man.

Movies that had us in the arms of Garbo , Bergman, Bacall, Grace Kelly and Rita Hayworth. Or Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Bogart and Mitchum.

Movies with such kisses: languid, yielding, desperate, passionate, kisses with sway, the woman with her tresses thrown back, the man touching her face, her throat, the nape of her neck.

(Whoo. Have to get my pulse down. There. )

I was reminded last week how I miss those movie kisses when I saw "Match Point," Woody Allen's revival of adultery with a younger cast and a new setting: London and environs.

Chris (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and Nola (Scarlett Johansson) finally yield to their lust, in the rain, in a field of hay. But the kiss is just a smash of lips, and they quickly fall to the spiky ground (ouch), close their eyes and think of England.

Granted, it wasn't Mellors and Lady Chatterley, and certainly Allen didn't mean the liaison to be anything but physical (at least at first). But these are two of the brightest young hotties on the screen today, and I was unmoved.

Am I hopelessly romantic? Maybe, although I don't mind a good sex scene qua sex. But the kiss is our imagination at play. To make it so incidental, so kissed-off -- what a loss of higher education.

By the way: There's a nifty Web site that chronicles the best screen smooches from "The Kiss" (1896) to "Cold Mountain" (2003). It recounts, for example, the marathon kiss (almost three minutes) between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in "Notorious" (1946) and that wind-smacking one with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in "The Quiet Man" (1952). Definitely a site worth visiting. Check it out here.

Your turn: Do you miss the kiss, too? What's your favorite movie kiss, past or present?

Posted by Barbara Page at 09:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Jury selection began Monday in Houston for the fraud trial of former Enron execs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. The trial promises to be full of financial data, accounting strategies and stock filings -- all but guaranteed to glaze over the eyes of jurors and nation alike.

How much better it would be if prosecutors just closed the blinds and showed "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" (2005).

The documentary unravels the rise and fall of the energy giant as not so much numbers gone awry but greed gone amok. And not just at the top. In fact, the most telling sequence is an audiotape of young brokers on the floor who gloat as rolling blackouts sweep through California.

This is a straightforward doc -- no Michael Moore antics -- and one that's easy to digest. What's hard to swallow is the complicity and callousness that infected Enron The film's out on video store shelves. A must-see.

Update: "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" was among the Oscar nominees named today (Jan. 31) for best feature documentary.

Posted by Barbara Page at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week we saw "Match Point," Woody Allen's latest take on adultery.

Hear our comments .

Blog us back and let us know what you thought of the movie.

Posted by Barbara Page at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Steven Soderbergh's new viewing challenge, "Bubble," is getting one of those annoying partial-week runs at the Guild Cinema next week, Monday through Thursday. I'll be drawn to it by the soundtrack music by Robert Pollard, the pride of Dayton, Ohio.

This Rolling Stone review is one of those raves seeded with unseen land mines. It's as if Peter Travers were delivering his review on Al-Jazeera, his words praising the film, his eyes imploring you not to go see it.

I've never figured out whether Soderbergh all these years has been underappreciated or overindulged. "Full Frontal" could possibly be the worst movie I've ever seen (or that I've ever mostly fast-forwarded through). And "Bubble" is written by the same woman who "wrote" "Full Frontal." She tells RS: "Everyone speaks in code." Yes, but the refreshment stand doesn't carry the translation book.

More intriguing, what both movies also have in common is the music of Pollard, the guiding voice of the late-great band Guided by Voices. If you ever are exposed to "Full Frontal," first of all, fast forward through most of it. But don't miss the end credits. There you'll get "Do Something Real," a standout track from one of the all-time great albums, "Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department" (1999) by Pollard and guitarist Doug Gillard. The "Bubble" soundtrack EP came out in the fall. Like all early and prime-era Guided by Voices, the "Bubble" music seems like it was beamed up to a satellite from Joe Meek's London flat in the '60s and only now is making its way back to Earth.

Pollard, by the way, this week released his first post-GBV solo album, "From a Compound Eye," and I can't stop spinning "I'm a Widow," with the wonderful throwaway line: "The worst time ever I saw your face."

Let's see whether Soderbergh and his collection of amateur actors toiling in a doll factory can get that line out of my head.

Posted by J.A. Montalbano at 04:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Chris Penn, the brother of Sean, was a memorable actor in his own right. He was found dead Tuesday in his California condo at age 40.

Most folks probably remember him as Nice Guy Eddie from "Reservoir Dogs" or maybe as Nicky Dimes in "True Romance," but my favorite performance by him came a few years later, in the dark drama "The Funeral."

"The Funeral" is probably the most accessible movie made by Abel Ferrara (his best is "Bad Lieutenant"). Some folks would rent this one just for the cast alone. Check out these first six bats in the lineup: Christopher Walken, Chris Penn, Annabella Sciorra, Isabella Rossellini, Vincent Gallo and Benicio Del Toro.

Even amid that firepower, Penn stands out as man whose life is quickly coming unglued in the wake of the death of his kid brother (Gallo). It's a gloomy, slow-moving period piece from the 1930s, involving labor rabble-rousers and mobsters.

In some of his movies, Ferrara's in-your-face street-tough style can be difficult to digest. Early films like "Ms. .45" and "Fear City" hit you with violence and jangle your nerves. "Bad Lieutenant," with Harvey Keitel at his peak, is a vulgar masterpiece. Some Ferrara offerings, like "The Addiction," a bizarre vampire tale starring Lily Taylor, can be obtuse. And others are downright baffling -- if anyone can explain "The Blackout" (and the whole point to it) to me, shoot me an e-mail.

While Ferrara can be hit-and-miss, he consistently hires some of the finest actors around, and he can draw out career performances. One memorable one is that of Chris Penn in "The Funeral."

Posted by J.A. Montalbano at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just so you know: We can thank the "Indiana Jones" series for the PG-13 movie rating.
When the second, dark film, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," was released in 1984, it received a PG rating. (An R rating would have seriously dented its box office take.)
But parents squawked, saying it was too mature for younger kids. And so Steven Spielberg got the Motion Picture Association of America to create the PG-13 rating for films more appropriate for older teens.
Want to figure out what your life would be rated as a movie?Check out the Caffeine Nebula site here. Click on quizzes, and it's in the second column at the top.

Posted by Barbara Page at 03:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

If ever there were a day to flip your wig, it's today: the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birthday.
The Austrian composer died at only 35, but his operatic, choral and instrumental works remain vibrantly alive.
So, too, "Amadeus" (1984), the sumptuous, brilliant tale of the lethal rivalry between the impish Mozart (Tom Hulce) and the austere composer Salieri (F. Murray Abraham).
The film won the Oscar for best picture. Abraham won for best actor, and Hulce was easily his equal. But the real star is the music. Glorious.

Posted by Barbara Page at 01:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mr. George Lucas
Skywalker Ranch

Dear Mr. Lucas:

I hear you've got a fourth "Indiana Jones" movie in the works for 2007 with Steven Spielberg (directing), Harrison Ford, Sean Connery and possibly Kevin Costner in a new role as Indy's younger brother. (Dakota Jones? Jersey? Saskatchewan?)

I also hear you're in script trouble. Four writers already, is it? More?
Look no further, Mr. Lucas: Do I have a story for you!

First, though:
I'm no ageist, but let's be frank. It has been 17 years since the last "Indiana Jones," and Harrison Ford is 63.
He can no longer leap from (or to) a horse, tank, raft, motorboat, plane, vine, cliff or suspension bridge. Nor sling a Nazi babe over his shoulder and hotfoot it through a watery catacomb of rats.
Not without a lot of glucosamine.

No wonder, then, you've had script problems. But instead of ignoring age, let's use it to find a new whippersnapper!

Here goes:

It's early 1944, the thick of the war. The Army told Indy he was too old to join up, and he has been taking it hard, too much hooch, too many inappropriate office hours with coeds. He takes a semester off to rehab at Dad's. Also there is Indy's younger brother, Sask. ("After the cat. I loved that cat.") He trained as an engineer but chucked it all to pitch minor league ball. Only he wrenched his arm, and the pros don't want him and neither does the Army.

It has gotten so bad the pet guinea pig uses Indy's fedora for her next litter. Dad, though, is excited about his new pocket atlas of South America, the one he won as a door prize at a war bond rally. In the margins is the story of Welsh miners who ended up in Patagonia in the 1860s and brought with them -- Excalibur! Yes, King Arthur's fabled sword in the snow-dusted steppes above the Pampas, left years later with a miner's ex-girlfriend.

Ex marks the spot!

When they get to Patagonia, they notice Germanic-looking men in traditional gaucho garb and suspect (rightly) they're Nazis. "I hate those guises," Indy mutters. Then suddenly they're surrounded by several of the evil cowboys, who wrap the Joneses with their lassos. "You're on the ropes," they taunt the out-of-shape men.

A crack, and a bullwhip rips through the lassos and sends the cowboys flying. No, it's not Indy's whip. It belongs to a young man, all of 16, but weathered below his bright eyes.

"Thank ye, laddie," Dad says with a burr and rummages through his bag for a token gift. It's a red tam. The boy solemnly dons it and.tells them he's Ernesto Guevara on his gap year.

Well, George, you can see where this is going. Ernesto joins the Joneses and does all the leaping from horses, trains, etc. Of course, Excalibur is no longer with the ex, who's weathered herself but still saucy enough for a PG-13 scene. Before they can go, she tells them the Nazis are brainwashing village children to be saboteurs under the cover of a traveling tango troupe. (Think "Boys of Brazil" meets "Mad Hot Ballroom.") Through the Joneses' smarts and Ernesto's barechested bravado, the children repel the Nazis with their boot taps and sad accordions.

But now the foursome must find Excalibur, because whoever has Excalibur can lead armies in righteousness or nefariousness (yadda, yadda). And the sword is in --Antarctica!

OK, George, I'm getting a little fuzzy here, but somehow Sask builds a submersible with Bolivian tin, and they go with the floes. Dad and Indy find Excalibur in the penguins' breeding ground, but the Nazis show up, and Ernesto has to dispatch them, losing his whip in the skirmish. (Think "Das Boot" meets "March of the Penguins" meets "Ice Station Zebra.")

In the climactic scene, Excalibur falls through a crack to the icy deep as the seals sing and the penguins murmur, but they all agree it's for the best. Indy gives Ernesto his own bullwhip -- because, really, he's way too old for this kind of thing -- and reveals that his nickname for the bullwhip is "Che" because he could never get "Flay" out without lisping. Ernesto solemnly nods his thanks, and we know he'll be Che from now on. Then they all embrace as the midnight sun doesn't set.

Whew! Great, huh? Of course, you'll have to add in killer bees somewhere. (You already used up snakes, bugs and rats in the trilogy.) And you'll need a hottie for Ernesto. Is there an Antonio Banderas Jr. out there?

But there you go. Have your BlackBerry call my BlackBerry!

B.K. Page

P.S. I know you like some historically accurate nuggets in your movies. So here are a couple:
1. Welsh miners did migrate to Patagonia in the 1860s.
2. Ernesto "Che" Guevara was born and raised in Argentina, and in 1944 he was 16.
3. Indiana was, as you know, the name of your dog. I don't know if anyone has a cat named Saskatchewan.

Posted by Barbara Page at 09:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've read "Pride & Prejudice" and seen almost every movie version of it
that I can find and have come to the conclusion that Keira Knightley is
the perfect Elizabeth Bennet.

She's lovely, graceful and intelligent. Her skin must have dermatologists
doing cartwheels. And her British accent only had me doing an internal
"huh?" every once in a while.

You completely understand why the foot-permanently-stuck-in-his-mouth
Mr. Darcy (Matthew McFayden) made the googly eyes at her.

McFayden is not my favorite Mr. Darcy, as that honor of honors belongs
to classic hottie Colin Firth, but he's a close second.

The rest of the cast was equally entertaining , particularly Brenda
Blethyn as Mrs. Bennet (totally reminded me of my Nana) and Tom
Hollander as their odious troll of a cousin, Mr. Collins.

Another plus was that the screen time for the two most annoying Bennet
sisters, Kitty and Lydia or Kitty Litter, as my high school English
teacher liked to call them, was significantly reduced from other versions.

I don't think I could have handled any more of their desperate need to
party and land themselves a man/big shiny rock.

I felt sorry for the poor loser who ended up marrying Lydia. May the Lord
have mercy on his soul.

Posted by Mary-Ann McBride at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We listed the nominees earlier this month.
Today there's a winner.

The Internet Movie Poster Awards, a gallery Web site, has chosen "Lord of War" as its best poster of 2005. The other nominees were "Crash," "House of Wax," "Munich" and "Walk the Line."

The Web site called the "Lord of War" poster, which rendered Nicolas Cage's face in bullets and shell cases, "beautifully creepy." You can see the poster, the runner-ups and winners in other poster categories here.

Two asides:
(1) The bullet montage is not the image on the DVD, which was just released to stores with a conventional pose. (Philistines!)
(2) The winning poster was created by Art Machine Digital of Culver City, Calif., which ran into trouble last year with its poster for the slasher film "Saw II" that featured two clearly severed fingers. It pulled the poster after complaints and came up with a modified image that showed two fingers but not their stumps. The original poster was a nominee in the Web site's best teaser category, losing out to "Walk the Line." Well, at least "Lord of War" was two thumbs up.

Posted by Barbara Page at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...and the buying frenzy that makes it both fascinating and nauseating has commenced. Below is a snip from a Variety piece on the first sale of the weekend...

Sundance is fun to watch, especially the lag between when a film hits it big there and when it makes it to the Guild, for example, when they showed last year's two Sundance hotties: the winner "Primer" (made for $7,500 and now available at the Main Library downtown, oddly enough) and "Tarnation" (now at Alphaville) on a double bill. Or "Super Size Me," or last December's "Christmas in the Clouds," which screened at the Century 24...all Sundance graduates.

For background, Sundance is what's known as an "acquisitions festival," which also includes Toronto, Venice, Berlin and Cannes of course...and even Telluride (more on Telluride in a second), but I may be forgetting one or two. Regardless, it's not that many.

This is different from an exhibitions festival, of which there are thousands, such as Santa Fe or the old Taos Talking Pictures Festival (sniffle) where films are submitted to win those coveted "leaf" awards...even if it's only an "Official Selection" and not a win per se. It all means something.You snag enough wins over the course of a year or two and distributors start paying attention. Plus you'll have been flown, wined and fed all over the globe for a while. If you've ever partied with filmmakers, then you know what I'm saying. Coal mining it ain't.

One interesting hybrid of a sorts is South by Southwest in Austin every March. It's smack in between Sundance and Venice and because of that has become more and more of an acquisitions festival. Lots of films who couldn't get into Sundance submit to SXSW, hoping to come out of there with a debut win/buzz and launch into Venice with some 'mo.

Needless to say, there's a very different vibe to acquisitions festivals. It's all business with studios sending teams of staff for the specific purpose to make deals. The importance of Sundance has been, in its purest sense, a font of new talent that have gone on to do amazing work as directors. Tarantino launched from Sundance, as did P.T. Anderson and a bunch more.

Sundance is especially about amazing small films that find buyers and then do good things in the marketplace. As the piece points out, "Napolean Dynamite," and "Garden State" were bought at Sundance two years back. Docs are included, with "March of the Penguins" selling last year...sort of. The small boutique distributor that snagged worldwide rights for a relative pittence cleaned up after it wasn't a knockout at Sundance last year. Talk about a jaded crowd...

Never having been to Sundance I can't speak to it with any deeply felt authority, but I have been to Telluride four times and it kills. It's become an important acquisitions festival because of 1) September is the traditional starting month of festival season, 2) its relative travel ease from LA and, 3) because it's just so damned cool as a festival. I'm amazed there aren't more ABQ people there because of the short drive. It's actually a fairly cheap weekend considering the location. But I ramble.

Here's the Variety piece, shortened (hopefully enough...unlike my ramblings) that'll give a good sense of the juice going on:

Fox specialty arm Fox Searchlight made the first buy of the Sundance Film Festival over the weekend, picking up worldwide rights to "Little Miss Sunshine" in a heated bidding war that hit the $10 million mark. Pic comes from husband-and-wife commercials and music-vid directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.

"Sunshine" -- which follows a motley, six-member family trekking to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant to fulfill the wish of a big-dreaming 7-year-old -- was penned by Michael Arndt and produced through the Big Beach and Bona Fide Prods. banners by Marc Turtletaub, David T. Friendly, Peter Saraf, Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa. Searchlight has pegged a summer rollout for the pic.

...me again. Keep in mind last year the frenzy was for "Hustle and Flow," which went for $9 million. If you're interested in tracking the doings at Sundance, Varity.com is a good bet. Some of the stuff is paid access, but most of the Sundance stuff is free.

Gene

Posted by Gene Grant at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi, this is Nancy and Barbara, and this Thursday we saw "Munich." Through the wonders of digital, we've gone audio! Listen to our take on the film here. Our apologies for the ahs, ums and, well, babbling. This is new turf for us. We promise to be briefer down the line. Mr. Spielberg, can you make that same promise?

Posted by Barbara Page at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I can still remember the '70s and how brilliant I thought Woody Allen and Albert Brooks were, and I can vividly remember laughing out loud on the el train while reading "Getting Even" and "Without Feathers" and recognizing the genius of Brooks during the very first year of "Saturday Night Live" and his great film "Real Life," so I don't feel bad that I've long moved on and won't go see Brooks' new movie or Allen's, both of which open this week in Albuquerque, and instead will go see these:

The Guild is bringing "The World" to town, all the way from China. One of my favorite egghead film critics, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Reader, Chicago's alt-weekly, calls it a masterpiece. Good enough to get me in a $7 seat. We'll read his analysis afterward.

The Southwest Film Center, nestled in the basement of the Student Union Building at UNM, has found a good balance this academic year between its mainstream midweek movie series and its weekend explorations of interesting cinema. The kids are back this week. Kicking off the spring semester is the 1972 Luis Bunuel satire "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie." (I don't know whether it's infuriating or quaint that the student film center can't get its act together enough to update its Web site more than once every August or so. The droll phone message (277-5608) can be an oddly entertaining alternative, though.) And next weekend's offering is the charming "Thumbsucker."

For laughs, maybe I'll rent "Lost in America." There should still be money left in my movie budget nest egg.

Posted by J.A. Montalbano at 05:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Remakes, remakes, remakes. Burdensome backstories. Pieties. Movie critic Anthony Lane laments the leaden approach of U.S. movies in a recent essay for The New Yorker. Worth a read. Reach the magazine's Film File here, then type "Chill" in the search bar.

Your turn: If a Hollywood studio hired you as a consultant, what one thing would you advise to win back moviegoers?

Posted by Barbara Page at 01:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The Film Center in Santa Fe this weekend is screening one of the true highlights of last month's film festival. "Cowboy del Amor" is an endlessly entertaining documentary about a New Mexico good ol' boy who stumbled on the idea years ago of helping procure Mexican wives for lonely American men -- bachelors who might consider the women on our side of the border to be a bit high maintenance.

With a lot of deft small touches, Michele Ohayon gives Ivan Thompson wide berth to pontificate as well as ply his trade. He trudges down to small Mexico towns, 40-something men in tow, to find them mates for life, with mixed results.

What could easily be exploitative or condescending turns out to be smart and charming in Ohayon's hands. (She was nominated for an Oscar in 1997 for her documentary "Colors Straight Up.")

The true star of the movie, of course, is Thompson, a straight-talking old-fashioned cowboy who got fed up with American women, found a wife in Mexico (the marriage didn't last, go figure) and decided he'd hit on a lucrative business idea. Thompson, who has more than a little Ross Perot in him, embodies the right mix of cynicism about the past and hope for the future, and the verbal gems he drops are priceless.

We'll try not to overuse the word "hoot" in this space, but "Cowboy del Amor" is as much fun as a movie gets and is truly a hoot and a half.

[The film plays twice each evening this weekend and at 7:45 Wednesday at the Film Center in Santa Fe. It is scheduled to open next month in New York and Los Angeles and will play at Austin's South by Southwest festival in March.]

Posted by J.A. Montalbano at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I saw my first Michael Bay blockbuster the other night. Nope, not "Armageddon." Or "The Rock" or "Pearl Harbor" or "Bad Boys" (1 or 2).
I saw "The Island."
Which sank like a stone when it opened in July and washed up five months later on a rental shelf.
Flotsam.
Flopsam.
And it's not hard to see why.

First, I had no idea I was renting a $126 million action epic. ($126 million! By comparison, "Cinderella Man" cost $88 million to make; "Dukes of Hazzard," $53 million; "Walk the Line," $29 million.) I vaguely thought it was a middling movie about two robots escaping an island. (Wrong on two counts.) And I picked it up solely because it starred indie actors Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson.

Which was director Bay's first mistake.

To start, though, some plot points. (Spoiler alert! If you want to stay in the dark, skip to the next paragraph.) McGregor and Johansson live in an underground city where everyone sports a jumpsuit and an emotional age of 15. They're told they're survivors of an apocalyptic disaster. In truth, they're clones, bred for their organs. The two escape just before Johansson is to "go to the island" -- that is, diced up -- and the chase is on. Not a bad story idea. Scarily feasible, in fact.

Bay says in the DVD commentary he wanted actors who could portray the innocence of clones, and he's right: McGregor and Johansson have a kind of appealing, dopey look. (And, remember, I like them.)

But this is an action film. Desperate running. Exploding cars. Guns and gadgets. More desperate running. This movie demands ragged, sweaty actors, wisecracking but not particularly wise, someone like, say, Chris Evans ("Cellular," "Fantastic Four") paired with Lindsay Lohan or, even better, Rachel McAdams (both terrific in "Mean Girls").

McGregor and Johansson are far too languid to get our hearts pumping. So mistake No. 1.

Mistake No. 2: The most interesting character, Steve Buscemi as a bowels-of-the-beast mechanic, drops out about a third of the way through.

Mistake No. 3: The traffic chases in Los Angeles (actually filmed in Detroit) are simply astounding, if excessive. But they come midway in the film, and everything after that is downhill.

Bay contends studio marketing (or the lack of it; I never saw a trailer) dithered and that's why "The Island" bombed. Of course, he doesn't call it a bomb and says it'll make its money back in the foreign market. And it might: It was No. 1 in Australia at some point, but then again so was "Meet the Fockers."

A suggestion for next time: Make 'em sweat, Mr. Bay, and keep the best bang-ups for the end. Then rivet us so we forget to pull our hand out of the popcorn. For $126 million, we don't expect to be left adrift. Unless it's with the Titanic.

Posted by Barbara Page at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As a twice-over "Brokeback" watcher, I couldn't have been happier for Diana Ossana and especially Larry McMurtry...one of my screenwriting GODS...accepting a GG.

Tracking the box office for "Brokeback" has been a drama in itself, and here's the latest poop from Variety...and then a comment on "art" vs. wide release films in the marketplace.

Before "Brokeback" went a bit wider last week it was averaging just more than $17,000/screening...meaning incredibly full houses in the 269 theaters it was showing in. Now that it's in 480, the averages have dropped to around $8,000/screening...which is still pretty solid. In contrast, "Narnia" is in more than 3,800 screens (crazy!!) and averaging just more than $5,400/screening. Similar metrics for "Kong."

The next wave of teeny 200 towns next week for "Brokeback" should be veeeery interesting. It could be that scary rock bottom part of the market where the gag factor is in play, OR it'll just keep rolling because the story is just so damned strong it's gag proof no matter what your POV on the subject. We'll see.

I was very much not into this large to medium to small to micro market "rollout" strategy when Focus announced it for selfish reasons, but it's starting to look brilliant.

Scanning th"e top 25 for last week, it's illustrative of the downside of movies like "Kong" and "Narnia" chewing up the available real estate/screens.

It's crushing to see movies like "Capote" and "Squid/Whale" on only 150 screens each. Insane!! Because of it, "Capote" has only done $12 million and "Squid/Whale" just under $6 million. "Walk the Line" is killing at almost $100 million, but these two films deserve better.

The result? The tired refrain that "art" films underperform, when the simple fact is they never get a chance to build something. This is why Madstone sued the Century chain a few years ago. They gobble up films like "Capote, " which by any reasonable measure should be at a Madstone-type environment instead of the multiplex.

Gene

Posted by Gene Grant at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Philip Seymour Hoffman scored a Golden Globe this week, and I scored a greenback bargain in a red grocery cart at Smith's.
Stick with me. These things are connected.

Hoffman won the Globe -- deservedly so -- for his portrayal of writer Truman Capote in "Capote." The film focuses on the years Capote struggled with "In Cold Blood," his groundbreaking "nonfiction novel" about a Kansas farm family and the two young drifters who turned a botched break-in into slaughter.

Before "In Cold Blood," Capote -- still in his 20s -- was famous for his short fiction and witty social life. In 1953, movie director John Huston brought Capote over to Ravello, Italy, to help him write dialogue on the spot for "Beat the Devil" (1954), starring Humphrey Bogart.

And that's where Smith's comes in.

I was shopping at my neighborhood store Sunday when I noticed a red grocery cart stacked with DVDs. Ten for $10 -- or one for a mere $1. I looked in, and there was "Beat the Devil."

Bogart for a buck. How could I lose?

I couldn't. I didn't.

The film is a droll take on a scam to sail from Italy to Africa and secretly snap up uranium rights. Bogart, his Italian Anglophile wife and a quirky English couple fall in and out of cahoots with a hapless band of four rogues, and twists continue right up to the last scene. The film also stars Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida and Robert Morley, and they and Bogart are delightful. The script, too.

Unfortunately, the Smith's sale ended Tuesday, but they're not infrequent. And other DVD bargains crop up here and there. (Target had one awhile back in its 1 Spot section.)

Now, I'm not talking about those racks of DVDs for $13.99 or $10. If you want "Some Like It Hot" or "It's a Wonderful Life" for the home library or to give as a gift, then those racks are fine. But I'm talking bargains, DVDs for less than $3, DVDs you can afford to take a chance on.

Sure, you'll have to paw through a lot of Westerns and Abbott & Costellos to get to the oldie you might want. (Unless, of course, you want Westerns or Abbott & Costello.) But there it is: A Bogart you haven't seen. Or a Jimmy Stewart. Or a Kirk Douglas. Or a Lee Van Cleef or Hayley Mills. (Hey, I don't know your tastes.)

Granted, you could end up with a dog. Or a washed-out print. The worst is poor sound quality; you have to pitch those discs at the get-go.

But for a buck? Go ahead: Take a gander. You might score a prize.

Posted by Barbara Page at 09:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When it comes to staying the course -- rightly or wrongly -- we could all take lessons from Steve McQueen in "Le Mans" (1971).

As champion driver Michael Delaney, McQueen hunches into his Porsche, laps the miles in rain, dark and danger, and emerges cool, laconic, worthy.

This famed, 24-hour Grand Prix race is nothing short of grueling, and this film is nothing short of fascinating: almost no dialogue and no gratuitous smashups, just headlamps, noise and mettle, bearing down.

Posted by J.A. Montalbano at 03:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night, I watched the Golden Globes instead of the way heavy "24."

As a general rule, I don't do that sort of thing because a lot awards shows
take themselves too seriously. I frown upon this most thoroughly.

Do I care who got best screenplay for some obscure smarty film that I'll
never see?

Not so much.

Here is a list of the awards that really matter in my world.

Most inane/inappropriate pre-award show questions:

"What did you eat today?"

"Are you wearing underwear?"

The most surprising part is that people actually answered this last
question.

Just in case you were wondering -- with Teri Hatcher you will not see London,
France or her underpants.

Speeches that didn't force me to channel surf:

Hugh Laurie of "House" drew three random names to thank instead of the usual
booklike list. And I got to hear his British accent. Score!

Ang Lee for "Brokeback Mountain" -- so sweet and sincere that I just wanted
to give him a hug afterward.

George Clooney won best supporting actor for "Syriana," thanking Jack
Abramoff and then crudely referencing Abramoff's first name and three
letters of his last name.

That George is just incorrigible. You can't take him anywhere.

Winner who made the table setup seem like an elaborate maze designed to
keep her away from the stage:

Sandra Oh of "Grey's Anatomy"

Dear Lord, I think Harry Potter had an easier time getting through that
"Goblet of Fire" maze.

She hopped and bopped and scurried in her beautiful white dress, making it a
minor miracle that she didn't take a header into a plate of some escargot.

Too much information moment:

Hey, guess what? S. Epatha Merkerson had a hot flash while accepting her
best actress in a miniseries or movie award. That's kind of "Don't ask,
don't tell and sure as heck don't pursue."

Winner who made me wonder if he had any teeth:

Wow, that Joaquin Phoenix sure is a downer.

Reese Witherspoon compliments him in her acceptance speech.

No smile.

He wins as best actor in a musical or comedy.

No smile.

Maybe a few more glasses of fine wine would have kept him from looking like
they asked him to toss cute babies down a well instead of accept an award.

Lighten up, dude. It's the Golden Globes, not the Oscars.

My stylist deserves a big, fat raise:

Evangeline Lilly of "Lost" in a shiny emerald green Ellie Saab dress that
probably costs more than I make in two months.

Honorable mention:

Charlize Theron cleaned up real well from her role in that movie no one saw.
She wore some sort of knee-length lacy see-through black dress that hugged all
the right curves.

My stylist needs a good kick in the shins:

Geena Davis had bows on her butt. Not e to everyone: This has never been a
good idea. It increases the size of the rear exponentially.

And what is that ? Repeat with me now -- never a good idea.

Honorable mention:

Rachel Weisz in some supposedly gold (but it looked
green onscreen) dress that looked like she was channeling an ancient sea
monster.

Star who made me fashion sad:

Sarah Jessica Parker wore some blah floor-length black dress and had her
hair in a painful-looking bun.

I don't know if she's taking fashion tips from her straight-laced character
on "Family Stone" but if so, she must stop immediately, if not sooner. I
miss her crazy get-ups with feathers and foofiness.

Come back to high fashion. It misses you so very, very much.

Hair envy:

"Match Point" star Scarlett Johansson did so well this time with long flowy
curls lightly kept away from her face.

Such an improvement over that mullet she sported a few years ago.

The hair gods have blessed her.

Honorable mention:

Cynthia Nixon of "Warm Springs" looked so soft and pretty
with her curls and partial up-do. Love it!

Get thee to the Supercuts soon:

As always, "King Kong" director Peter Jackson managed to look as if he just
rolled out bed, sweated profusely and then ran his hand through it, just to
give it a nice finish.

Posted by Mary-Ann McBride at 09:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm getting my hair cut this week, and I wanted to take in to my stylist a few photos of haircuts I'd like to try out.
So this weekend I went online and downloaded photos of Claire Danes, who has the best hair in Hollywood, especially when it's in that cute layered-bob stage.

Anyway, later that same day (Sunday, for those keeping track) I went to Betty's Bath and Day Spa on Candelaria Road Northwest for a facial and massage. I'm sitting on the couch in my kimono when guess who walks in? Miss Best Hair in Hollywood herself! Thinking I was imagining the whole thing, I went to the front desk -- of course, not until after she walked in, asked in her sultry alto voice if there were any massage appointments available, was politely turned down and quickly left, driving away in a sapphire blue sedan -- and asked if that was Claire Danes. "Oh yeah," the guy behind the counter said. "She's here all the time. She does yoga next door. She's filming a movie here with Richard Gere."
Once I picked my jaw up off the floor, I thanked God I resisted the urge to run after her and tell her how bizarre it was to run into her on this particular day, when just two hours before I was printing her photo off the Internet because I love her hair and I want to look just like her and what did she think I should do with my hair color, and did she believe we were fated to be best friends.
I learned recently, you see, to keep my thoughts to myself when running into movie stars. It was last summer, and Marc Anthony was at The Tribune visiting J.Lo, who was shooting a movie here. I believe my brilliant one-liner, after practically jumping into his lap, was "Welcome to here."
Although, I like to think I redeemed myself later on when I had a five-minute, very intelligent conversation with Martin Sheen -- also in the J.Lo movie -- over cashews at the Kraft table.

Anyway, after my latest celebrity sighting, I got to thinking how surreal it is that I have celebrity sightings at all. I've lived in Albuquerque almost my whole life and, until recently, the closest thing to coming face-to-face with fame was when Kim Basinger stopped by the Duke City in '97 to mourn an elephant.

Now I'm sharing nuts with President Bartlet.

This is My So-Called Life.

P.S. Claire looked incredible. A bit thin, but she totally pulled it off. And her hair? Perfect.

Posted by jbarol at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Even if you don't know much about Texas Western or college basketball or the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, it's not hard to know how "Glory Road" is going to end. It's Jerry Bruckheimer. It's Disney. C'mon.
And while the movie is no worse than a solid C, it's no better, either. That's a shame.
For the glory in "Glory Road," stay through the credits. After the movie, producers splice in snippets from interviews done for the movie with the people who made Texas Western's improbable run to the 1966 NCAA title happen. They talk to coach Don Haskins and many of his players, and even Kentucky's Pat Riley, he of the slick hair and NBA championship rings.
It's there where reality really takes hold, and as the players talk about the way it really was, you get a sense of how great a moment it really was. Those 10 minutes make everything else stand up.

Posted by pcasaus at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Golden Globes are tonight, and the Oscars are around the corner. All these lauded, hyped, must-see movies to get to in a rush,
I hate it. And I'm stalling.

Goes back to my childhood, no doubt. Make your bed. Empty the trash. Write your aunt and thank her for those fleecy PJs. (No. No. No.) OK. OK. OK. Soon. Soon. Soon.

No one likes to be told to do something, no matter how worthy. So, no, I haven't seen "Brokeback Mountain" or "Munich," despite all the praise. And I haven't gotten around to some lesser award nominees either: "Memoirs of a Geisha" or "The Producers."

("Transamerica," "The Matador," "Mrs. Henderson Presents" and "Match Point" -- all with Globe nominations -- haven't gotten to town yet, but I'd probably stall on seeing them, too. Except "Match Point," Woody Allen's tennis entanglement. I understand some steamy scenes put a new spin on Grand Slam.)

I know "Brokeback" is stellar. My favorite critic, Anthony Lane of The New Yorker, says so. My bright, hip co-worker Marisa says so. Aaron Brown, manager of the Century 14 Downtown, says Brokeback" drew sold-out audiences on its first two weekends. So a lot of you say so, too. But I read Annie Proulx's short story, the basis of the film, some years back, and I remember it as grim and bruising. I'm just not eager to see an ever-so-serious film about two men who wished they didn't love each other. And "Munich"? An eye for an eye? Must I?

Further, some of the must-see films I rushed to in past years, films like "Mystic River," "The Hours" and "Million Dollar Baby," never lived up to their hupe. I don't want to hurry to be disappointed in ""Brokeback."

So I'll wait. At least a couple of days. (After all, my matinee companion wants to see something this week.) Maybe I can catch up on other things. Hmmm. "Dear Aunt Ruth: Thank you for the PJs. They're..."

Your turn: Have you been avoiding any must-see movies? Are there any "masterpieces" from the past you still haven't gotten to? Confess!

Posted by Barbara Page at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Was "King Kong" too long? Did "Munich" meander? Did you find "Brokeback Mountain" backbreaking to sit through?

As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, some movies do go on a bit. In a feature story yesterday, the New York Times called for some restraint. Read it here.

Posted by J.A. Montalbano at 08:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Century 14 Downtown. Early Thursday evening. Crowded corridor. A queue for an advance screening of Queen Latifah's latest comedy, "Last Holiday." Young women at the door with survey forms. And a fella with an electronic security wand, running it up and down moviegoers' jackets.

What gives? The next step after airport security? Fears that someone's packing heat for Latif?

No, no, says a bemused Aaron Brown, manager at the Century 14.

Well, yes, it's a security man and a security wand. But, first, no, it wasn't the theater's doing. It was a promotional screening by the film's studio, Paramount, and the studio hired its own security people for the event, Brown says. (We talked this afternoon by phone.)

And, no, they weren't looking for zip guns and shivs.

Recording devices, Brown says. They were making sure no one made a bootleg copy of the film. Routine stuff for studios. Routine.

Well, it made me hurry by (after seeing "Breakfast on Pluto.") I didn't want to be there when Latifah smoked the room with a credit card.

Your turn:Trib columnist Gene Grant has taken exception to "Last Holiday," saying it denigrates black people by portraying them as greedy for white materialism. White pornography, he calls it. Have you see the film? Do you agree or disagree?

Posted by Barbara Page at 04:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Before Felicity Huffman -- up for a Golden Globe on Monday -- played a man turned woman ("Transamerica"), before Hilary Swank played a woman turned man ("Boys Don't Cry"), Suzy Amis played a woman turned out in chaps.

Amis' society outcast in "The Ballad of Little Jo" (1993) finds the only way to survive in a crude Montana boomtown of the 1860s is to pretend she's a man.

Amis, a former model, more than holds her own in this quirky tale based on a true story. She's a taciturn, heart-hungry figure in a frontier that's harsh, beautiful and transforming.

Posted by Barbara Page at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi, we're Nancy and Barbara, and we have been movie buddies for four years. We go almost every week, almost always on a Thursday.

This Thursday we saw "Breakfast on Pluto," Neil Jordan's picaresque tale of young Patrick "Kitten" Brady (Golden Globes nominee Cillian Murphy). Kitten has a spray of dark curls, like a slipped halo, and a fondness for platform heels and feather boas. But the Irish lad's real passion is his search for the mother who abandoned him. From the days of Mitzi Gaynor to the years of Margaret Thatcher, Kitten journeys amid music, mayhem and magic.

Barbara: I don't know about you, Nancy, but if a movie can make me tear up at Bobby Goldsboro's schlocky "Honey"...

Nancy: That terrific soundtrack does take you back to a sweeter time. That's the beauty of the movie. Jordan shines at showing us the underbelly of society. And here he send the soft, vulnerable Kitten into the arms of Ireland's and England's baddest and oddest. Our unlikely hero navigates with an eerie calm. I loved Kitten, and Jordan's intertwining of the sentimental and the shocking. And though the movie was long, you truly care about Kitten's fate.

Don't you love Cillian Murphy? And the supporting case was great: the always sexy Liam Neeson; Stephen Rea of "The Crying Game," in a neat twist on that role; and Gavin Friday as Billy Hatchet, the last person you'd imagine would be smitten with Kitten.

Barbara: I loved, too, Jordan's eye: Kitten emerging from the Thames in a sea of umbrellas to a dark London, Kitten wide-eyed at the city that never sleeps, although it might wink. And the gaudy, although moving, "confession" between priest and boy at a peep show.

Too long, yes, indeed. Too many plot elements, probably. But "Pluto" sings.

Posted by Barbara Page at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Three of us entered the elevator in the lobby of a London hotel. On my right was a 20ish, clean-shaven man in a light-colored suit. On my left, a small, attractive woman well into her 70s, if not older, her white hair in a wispy bun. We each pushed a button for our floors, and the door closed. And nothing happened. The man and I pushed the buttons again. Nothing. Again. Nothing.Then the older woman spoke up in a bemused British lilt: "As my mother used to say: It wants a man with a mustache."

Ah, virile, dashing, capable and mustachioed. But will we ever see their likes again, particularly in Hollywood?

Not likely, if we take our cue from the recent special edition of People magazine's "20 Years of Sexiest Man Alive." (Yes, we bloggers must spend our cold, hard cash on such research.) Granted, three of the annual "Sexiest" covers featured men with a mustache/beard: Sean Connery, Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp. (That scruff on 2005's honoree, Matthew McConnaughey, doesn't count.) But only Connery routinely sports a mustache, and he's best known for the clean-shaven James Bond. Page after page of guy candy: no elevator heroes.

(By the way, back to London, we pushed those buttons one more time. And rose.)

Not that sexiness equals ruggedness. But look at our action heroes. Vin Diesel? The Rock? The Governator? They're all but hairless. One suspects if Jack and Naomi went to Skull Island these days, they'd find Kong in a buzz cut and with a retinue of waxing maidens.

Still, two reasons to hope:
(1) The Web site HairBoutique.com reports that Pierce Brosnan, Robert Downey Jr., Jim Carrey, Jack Black and others are showing up at Hollywood events with facial hair. It might, the site suggests, be a trend to "fuller" styles "that play up a man's natural texture."
(2) I had to use the restroom at my friendly neighborhood Hollywood Video store, and there, in optimum view, was a large cutout of Eric Bana from "Troy." In armor, in steely gaze, in mustache and beard. Now there's a man to push the up button.

Posted by Barbara Page at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I saw "Hostel" on its opening weekend for two reasons:
1) It looked scary.
2) The fresh tomato at Rottentomatoes.com.

I saw "Hostel" on its opening weekend for two reasons:
1) It looked scary.
With each passing year, I'm becoming more and more convinced that there will never be such a thing as a genuinely scary movie for adults. "House of 1000 Corpses" came the closest of any flick I've seen since high school, and that evoked more of a... i'm not sure what to call it... let's say "perverted curiosity." I sort of dreaded what was coming next as each scene passed, but was excited at the same time. I had no problem walking to my room in the dark that night (test number one for any scary movie) and wasn't afraid to fall asleep. Therefore: not scary.
"Hostel" isn't scary either. There are cringe-worthy scenes (good god, are there cringe-worthy scenes) but nothing that will leave your eyes wide and darting in all directions once the camera's stopped rolling.
I liked the poster, liked the preview, liked seeing the name "Quentin Tarantino" in all the advertisements (yes, this lame-wad advertising scheme worked on me. I really would like to know what he did to merit the "Quentin Tarantino presents" credit, because the hunch here is that it wasn't much).
The never-ending pursuit of fright continues, sadly, but while "Hostel" isn't scary, it's close. And it's definitely worth a viewing for a few reasons.

2) The fresh tomato at Rottentomatoes.
I'm a sucker for that fresh tomato. It's a plain fact that most movies coming out nowadays stink, so when a poster and a trailer both look good, plus more than 60 percent of the nation's critics offer positive reviews, that seals it for a matinee trip to the theater.

Anyways... "Hostel" is sick in a good way. Apparently it turns people off that the story revolves around graphic, brutal scenes of torture. "Why would I want to see that?" some of my testicularly impared buddies asked when an invitation to join me was extended.
How about because it's a movie, and a good one, and if the only reason we go to see a movie is so we can be entertained by unoffending offerings for two hours, then there's no hope for the medium as an art form.
The effect isn't in what you see so much as what you feel. I didn't know how I'd respond to scenes almost guaranteed to be more violent and disgusting than in any other movie I've ever seen, but I was curious. Go see "The Chronic" (What!?) "cals of Narnia" and if a friend asks you a week later what movie you went to, it's entirely possible you won't recall (at least not for several minutes, and not without the help of "Lazy Sunday").
Go see "Hostel" and you'll positively never forget it.
It sticks like Gorilla Glue: the sound of achilles tendons being slashed; the sight of a hunched-over old man in sunglasses walking slowly from the hostel, then pointing back and telling the main character in a soft and scary voice, "Be careful, you could spend all your money in there."
Even the film's (seemingly) formulaic ending lends the entire picture to all sorts of interpretations. There's experimentation and subtext going on here (and those notions more than likely have a lot to do with Tarantino's producer credit).
This is a movie that's exciting and entertaining, with the caveat being its second half is insanely gory and disturbing. That might not be good news for everyone, but if you've got the stomach to handle these torture scenes, it'd be a wise move to see this flick and gauge your own response to it.

Posted by Phil Parker at 08:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm determined fill in the blanks from the past year and sample from others' suggestions in this forum. Through the magic of DVD, I'll find out whether I missed any great films that should have been on my own list.

"March of the Penguins"
I must be hell-bent on not loving this film.

I held out for a long time. And I didn't even rent it; I cadged a friend's rental. I watched it in two installments. But we can analyze me later; let's discuss the movie.

I'm sure there's a significant loss of quality moving to the small screen. Still, it's beautiful, and the efforts of the director and crew are admirable. The story is moving, the subject riveting. It's heart-warming and heartbreaking. Inspirational. It's all that. But it never really rises above the level of a standard PBS nature documentary. Nothing elevates it to extraordinary.

In fact, you can make the case that the writing and narration drag "March of the Penguins" down a notch or two. It's overwrought. Do we really need to speculate about the thoughts and feelings of the penguins? I don't need to hear Morgan Freeman intone, at the sight of a penguin wailing over a frozen chick egg: "The pain is unbearable." Save the therapy for us humans. Some of us might need it.

"Wedding Crashers"
This is such an assured comedy. Owen Wilson is always a hoot. Vince Vaughn, here, is a revelation. I laughed a lot -- uncontrollably at one point, at a sight gag involving balloon art.

The dialogue is sharp and surprisingly insightful. There's a charming improv quality to a few of the scenes, and when that works it proves that you've got confident pros on the job. The cliched plot turns (and a few formulaic characters) are to be expected, and they are handled deftly enough to get by. (Though the classic Neidermeyer-like boorish boyfriend needs to be retired.)

I watched it twice, on consecutive nights. And the second time, the acute moral ambiguity of Wilson's character grew fascinating. Everything, it seems, falls into a gray area for him. When he's propositioned by a married woman -- which is clearly, undoubtedly improper -- he says, "This is borderline inappropriate." And then, of course, he gives in.

Now there's some fodder for therapy. In a future thread, we hope to arrange a philosophical and psychological discussion of "Wedding Crashers." Stay tuned.

Posted by J.A. Montalbano at 05:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I took a chance on "Beyond the Sea" the other day, and all I can figure is:
1. The best stuff got edited out.
2. Kevin Spacey was trying way too hard to win an Academy Award.
3. Bobby Darin wasn't all that interesting.
Actually, I learned a lot about Darin's life, and his musical catalogue was a lot more extensive than "Mack the Knife," which is about all I knew. But the movie spent so much time trying to be great that it forgot that it was a movie. Too bad.

Posted by pcasaus at 04:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

By Barbara Kerr Page

The Internet Movie Poster Awards, a gallery Web site, today announced its five nominees for best poster of 2005: "Crash," "House of Wax (Is Paris Dripping?)," "Munich," "Walk the Line" and, in my opinion, the bang-up best of the lot, "Lord of War."

You know, the one with Nicolas Cage's penetrating face rendered from bullets and shell cases.

Brilliant.

Not that everyone agrees.

Michael Atkinson, a writer for the Village Voice, takes mighty exception to the "Lord of War" poster in the recent issue of The Believer. (No, it's not a religious tract. It's a hip lit crit magazine. A little too lit crit, if you ask me. It's not enough to navel-gaze for these folks; they have to unwind the umbilical cord and deconstruct it.)

Anyway, Atkinson says fiddling with faces disturbs us. He points out that a whole region of the brain, the fusiform gyrus, is dedicated to figuring out mugs. Throw in a bunch of bullets, and we're unnerved. End result, he says: The cleverness backfires, and we stay away.

True, the $42 million film drew an anemic $9 million on its first weekend, But this is a true-life drama about international gunrunning: gritty, edgy, intelligent, darkly satiric. Those qualities don't always translate into popcorn buckets.

Which is too bad, because this is an excellent film -- richer than "Syriana," in my opinion -- with a great performance by Cage. If you missed it the first time around, it will be out on video at the end of the month. With a bland, standard poster of Cage standing against the sky.
Gun-shy, I guess.

Your turn: What's your favorite movie poster of 2005?

Posted by Barbara Page at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Not every movie shows up at the multiplex or gets its own wall at Hollywood Video. Here's a quick look at a few films that we stumbled across recently.

The Guild last week dug deep into the archives for a bunch of treats to mark the venue's anniversary. One of the most brutal films you'll see is "Made In England," which introduced Tim Roth to the world.

It's a brutal tale of skinhead punk Trevor in early-'80s London. He spews his venom in a continuous stream as those around him try to rehabilitate him, an act that is beyond futile. We don't get very far from beginning to end, and every step could hit a mine. The lingering shots and scenes crafted by Alan Clarke give Roth a chance to riff as if he's possessed. At times startling.

The follow-up film was "The Steel Helmet," a Korean War film from Sam Fuller, best known for the epic war movie "The Big Red One." Fuller brings us a gruff hero (played by Gene Evans) leading his men in defending a Buddhist temple. Macho cliches abound, but it's rescued by an underlying realism that draws you in each time you want to roll your eyes and bail out. Not available on video. Sometimes you have to hunt down the gems.

Finally, spent the lunch hour on Thursday with a friend in Santa Fe poring over the listings, trying to find a matinee worth seeing. We took a chance at the Cinematheque (which is one of the safest bets around) and were pleasantly surprised by "Christmas in the Clouds," billed as a sweet romantic comedy with a mostly American Indian cast. Much of the story (about the staff of a native-run resort anxiously expecting a visit from a guidebook critic) is sort of sappy, and the plot gets awfully far-fetched at times, but in the end it's funny, charming and touching. The pace of the film and the appeal of the cast combine to convince you to forgive what normally would be deal-breakers in a mainstream movie: the too-cute couple; the huge, convenient misunderstandings; the wise old coot; the kooky side characters; the regretful absentee parent; the broad double-takes; the tidy plot resolutions. The acting all around is top-notch (including supporting turns by Graham Greene, Wes Study as himself and a frighteningly haggard M. Emmet Walsh). And Montgomery's touch is so assured that it's hard not to fall for this one. Ah, love in the afternoon.

Posted by J.A. Montalbano at 08:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me "My Favorite Year" (1982).

OK, maybe you'll have to find it yourself, but this genial, at times rollicking, comedy is worth it.

It's 1954, New York City. TV is live, and the king of comedy shows has booked a soused, Errol Flynn-like has-been (Peter O'Toole). He's a swordsman in more ways than one, and it's up to the show's rookie writer (Mark Linn-Baker, based on early Mel Brooks) to make sure his hero turns up with his swash still buckled.

O'Toole does his own fencing, pratfalls and leaps, all with rapier wit. His is truly a favorite performance.

Posted by J.A. Montalbano at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Have you ever walked out of a theater before the movie's over? Some of our staffers have vivid memories of bad movies they couldn't make it through. Click comments below and share yours. Here are some of ours:

Madelon: A few years ago, I walked out on "Magnolia," which got rave reviews. The movie began with a loud, monotone female voice hollering "One is the loneliest number" over the action. It was effective for a short time but then really started to get on my nerves. It was so distracting that I couldn't make sense of what was happening on the screen. She still hadn't shut up when I escaped. (I also walked out on "Suspect Zero," but who didn't.) [Cont'd ...]

Carrie: I'm too cheap to walk out of movies normally (have to get my money's worth), but I did walk out of "The Shining" before the end, because I'm chicken and it scared me to death. I was also tempted to walk out of "Last Tango in Paris," not because I didn't like the film but because I was sitting next to a first-time date and it was ... a little uncomfortable at that stage of my life.

Megan: "Urban Legends II." When the "twin" brother of the guy who just got hacked showed up, my boyrfriend and I immediately got up. I gave him his $7 back, because I was the one who suggested the movie in the first place.

Phil: "Eyes Wide Shut." Darn this movie to heck. My buddy Jake and I went to see it based on all the "masterpiece" reviews (I haven't trusted Time magazine since) and the promise of a Nicole Kidman nude scene (wow... her butt). What it amounted to was five hours (wait, it was only two and a half?) of nothing -- just a whole lot of Tom Cruise walking around city streets with a ticked-off look on his face and some weird, ugly scenes of old people in masks and little girls in next to nothing. I don't care how much subtext or "brilliant" art direction was involved -- this flick was painfully boring. After squirming and tugging on our faces for four (really two) hours, Jake and I bailed.

Iliana: The only movie I ever walked out of was the 1998 adaptation of "Great Expectations," starring Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow. I read the book in a middle school English class. The teacher had recently died, and I looked forward to seeing the film as a sort of bittersweet memorial. The modern version grated on my nerves, so my boyfriend and I left the theater a little more than halfway through the movie.

Barbara: I've never walked out of a movie, although I wish I had. "Vanity Fair," for one. Or "Schultze Gets the Blues." (For those mercifully spared, it's about an older, inarticulate German accordion player who discovers zydeco music -- although he can play only one phrase. Over and over. I endorse the brotherly advice given to a friend of mine, when he was a boy and trying to learn the accordion: "Why don't you put that away until you can play it better.")
I wasn't too crazy about that Sarah Silverman film, but worse were those three turgid hours of "King Kong." Get to the island, already! Stop toying with the reptiles! And those ice pond antics -- what is this, a Coca-Coca commercial? Cue the polar bears! (Sorry, I just can't get over how much time was ill-spent. And my bladder seconds that observation.)
Ultimately, though, I'll stick with a movie. Not because I've plunked down my $6-plus. Because I was raised on redemption. Everything gets a chance -- until the lights come up.

And Jan wraps it up with two cautionary tales of old from the Deep South:

It was 1979 in Huntsville, Ala. Movie was "The Sting" with Redford and Newman. I had a few-months-old baby who starting crying about 20 minutes before the end. I took him to the lobby and never did see the end of the movie. Haven't to this day. I hear I missed the punch line and the best part. Ah, well.

The one I should have walked out on was several months before that. "Deliverance" at the same theater, night showing. We drove 60 miles back home through Alabama, then Tennessee woods, dark roads, no lights or marking of roads or anything. We were stopped at a Tennessee highway patrol checkpoint in a valley about 30 miles from home. No one around except us and the Smokies. They wanted to take us in because we had Tennessee plates on the car. My husband had a New Mexico drivers license; I had one from Colorado. They'd never seen a military ID before and thought it was all too peculiar. I cried; I was pregnant, so they didn't pat me down. I think that helped. My husband smiled when they patted him down. They let us go. Still have nightmares over the movie and the checkpoint.

Posted by J.A. Montalbano at 04:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Caught the return engagement of "The Aristocrats" (running all week in Albuquerque at the Guild Cinema) and laughed as hard the second time around. I even cracked up at the self-loathing ventriloquist.

It's all in the pacing and timing. And the nod to history. If this were a big-budget thriller, the key plot point early on would be the appearance of Larry Storch. The filmmakers even made Howie Mandel funny. The DVD should be out in a few weeks.

In other comedy news, a friend writes with concern about another of my top picks for the year:

What on earth makes you think that Sarah Silverman is "fundamentally funny"? My God, man. I am one of the easiest people to crack up on this planet, and I am no prude. But Silverman's movie didn't make me even so much as grin once. In fact, when she launched into a song about her anus, I walked out, about 40 minutes into it. I figured it wasn't going to get any better. ... Silverman just flat-out isn't funny, in my view. If you're a comedian, and you can't make me smile in 40 minutes, something is horribly wrong.

Well, I'm sorry you missed out on her heartfelt rendition of "Amazing Grace."

This leads us to another topic: What movies have you walked out on? We'll assemble a bunch of real-life examples from our esteemed panel and report back.

Posted by J.A. Montalbano at 05:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)