More of what's out there right now

7/28/07

Once
Written and directed by John Carney

This is a really lovely film that you should go see. It’s short, it’s sweet, it’s got great music, good performances, and appealing characters. What more could you want? The basic story is that two musicians meet on the streets of Dublin and make music together. The musicians are played by the real thing, Glen Hansard (of the Frames) and Marketa Irglova. See it.

Sicko
Written and directed by Michael Moore

Sicko is a Michael Moore film so you will see a lot of him, and it’s one-sided, and it’s very funny, and that’s just the way it is. The good news is that you see less of him than usual, and it’s still very funny. And it is one-sided, of course, but who is going to go onscreen and make the case that the health care system in the United States is working really well?

Michael goes to Canada, the U.K., France, and Cuba to make his point. The visits to the first three countries are more successful than the Cuba portion, where the shenanigan level rises abruptly. See it, unless you really like how health care works in the United States.

A Mighty Heart
Directed by Michael Winterbottom

A new Michael Winterbottom film is always worth checking out. He’s made all sorts of films, from pure entertainment like 24-Hour Party People and Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, to docudramas (The Road to Guantanamo), to a weird combination of porn-meets-music in 9 Songs. This is Winterbottom’s first venture into mega movie-star land, though, as Brad Pitt produced the film and Angelina Jolie stars in it. A Mighty Heart is a drama based on a real event, the kidnapping and murder of the journalist Daniel Pearl, and Ms. Jolie plays Pearl’s wife Mariane, also a journalist. She does a good job with the role, and the supporting cast is good as well. Daniel Pearl is played by Dan Futterman, and Irfan Khan (who appeared earlier this year in The Namesake) plays a Pakistani official working on the case.

The film is at its best when it tells the story of the journalists and police who are trying to find Mr. Pearl, and the U.S. and Pakistani governmental officials who are sometimes helpful and sometimes not. The film is less successful when it tries to show the love between the Pearls. I think we are supposed to think that their love was somehow special. I’m not buying. The film is worth seeing, though. The story of the search is very well told, and even though we know the tragic end, we’re still kept interested as it plays out.

You Kill Me
Directed by John Dahl

In this black comedy, Ben Kingsley plays a hit man Frank Falenczyk whose alcoholism is interfering with his job. After he muffs a hit, his family (who are family in both the DNA and the mob sense) bundle him off to San Francisco to dry out. Why San Francisco? Don’t ask. It’s not good to dwell on some of the plot details. Just accept them. A friend of the family sets Frank up with an apartment and a job in a funeral parlor, directs him towards an AA meeting, and he’s on his way. Tea Leoni plays a potential love interest. The performances by the leads and supporting cast are all very good, and the films is sweet in sort of a murderous way.

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Check out some other films by Michael Winterbottom and John Dahl. Steve Coogan is great in the leads of both 24-Hour Party People and Tristram Shandy. Linda Fiorentino is a femme fatale that Peter Berg is no match for in Dahl’s The Last Seduction.

And if you think that Ben Kingsley is un-Ghandi-like in You Kill Me, you should see him in Sexy Beast. He plays a gangster who refuses to let another criminal, played by Ray Winstone, retire. He’d probably convince you to come back to work, too.

And do take a look at Capote, written by A Mighty Heart’s Dan Futterman. The script, the Oscar-winning performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman, the supporting cast—just about the whole thing is excellent.