Grief is a process. Psychology books and personal experience will tell you that. Perhaps not all of us experience someone being ripped from our lives in an instant, but the process is always the same. Why then, is it so challenging to watch 9-year-old Oskar (Thomas Horn), whose father (Tom Hanks) dies in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, endure this all-too-familiar pain? It should be moving to see a young albeit peculiar child come to terms with this in his own way.

“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” attempts to play powerful cinematic music with extremely sensitive strings. The story is steeped in trauma and mourning, so the obvious danger would likely be creating a film that’s too heavy or suffocating, but this story has moments of quirk, sincerity and even adventure. The trouble is that not until the end does the film ever let go of what Oskar calls “the Worst Day”—his code for 9/11. It haunts the entire movie, and while that can certainly be justified, it throws us out of sync with the characters, who all seem to experience the fiercest of emotions when we aren’t ready for them.

The biggest problem is Oskar. It has nothing to do with the young Horn’s performance, but everything to do with how Oscar winner Eric Roth was forced to adapt him for the screen. I have not read Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, but my guess is given the abundant use of narration in the movie, Oskar tells the story in the first person. Considering we are forced to follow and identify with a 9-year-old with Asperger’s and probably some form of autism, understanding and relating to this character is crucial, yet maddeningly difficult.

Understandably through no fault of his own, Oskar treats his mother (Sandra Bullock) poorly, swears at his apartment building doorman (John Goodman), throws temper tantrums, lies and despite his curiosity and adventurous spirit, uses deduction in place of logic. He’s a nightmare of a main character, and his constant relapses as the film flashes back to 9/11 butt in every time you start to warm up to him.

Director Stephen Daldry has experience working with troubled boys (“Billy Elliot”), but he doesn’t appear to do enough to help us sympathize, which could be the result of roadblocks in the script. Given that Oskar holds secrets even from the audience until close to the end, most of which deal with revisiting 9/11, it’s hard to feel bad for him. He’s just a strange kid afraid to move on, which isn’t exactly revelatory.

Oskar’s pursuit of finding what a mysterious key found in his father’s closet belongs to is supposed to be the start of an adventure, but one that never really blossoms. The closest it ever gets is the 30 minutes in which Oskar befriends The Renter (Max von Sydow), an old man choosing to be mute that lives with Oskar’s grandmother in a nearby building. He accompanies Oskar on his journey and challenges him to overcome his fears, and makes for an interesting compliment to the ever-gabbing child. If you had to nominate “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” for an Academy Award, it would be for von Sydow, so in that sense perhaps he deserves recognition.

All the colorful characters you would expect Oskar to meet as he tries to find every single person with the last name Black living in New York City exist in voice-over snippets. From a quick outside glance, the story would likely be about a child going on an adventure expecting to find a meaningful answer and learning that the journey was the entire point, but it somehow ends up way more convoluted.

“Extremely Loud’s” Best Picture nomination is extremely unwarranted. Despite the talent on and behind the camera, the product as a whole is messy and most importantly, unable to connect emotionally with its audience. Certainly some people will connect with a moment or two and really appreciate the film’s emotional fearlessness, but anyone versed in Oscar-caliber drama knows this doesn’t fit the bill despite all the venerated talent that put this movie on Oscar radars everywhere when it first came together.

Maybe it’s that abundant talent that makes the film’s shortcomings all the more difficult to bear, but the more you think about it, the more you realize this kind of a perspective on September 11 — from the eyes of such a challenging protagonist — probably doomed it from the start. The craftsmanship, the acting and some of the raw moments in the story make the film nothing to scoff at, but the impact of it all, which is the heart of this kind of drama, doesn’t come across as it should.

2.5/5 Stars

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Directed by Stephen Daldry
Written by Eric Roth, Jonathan Safran Foer (novel)
Starring: Thomas Horn, Sandra Bullock, Tom Hanks, Max von Sydow

Few of us can truly grasp the economic fundamentals of the 2008 stock market crash—how it happened, why it happened. Most of what we understand are the after effects, the human consequences. Rookie filmmaker J.C. Chandor’s “Margin Call” attempts to merge those two understandings: the economics and the executive-level decision-making with the real-life impact and gravity of the situation on those with the power to make big choices.  

“Margin Call” is not as sophisticated as you might think. For one, on at least three occasions a character requests that someone explain something to them in laymen’s terms. Normally, such convenient and patronizing dialog would be disastrous, but as the film progresses and we continue to observe how the decisions of few affect the lives of many, the choice begins to make sense: you don’t need to be a math and science wiz to call the shots.

The film opens with layoffs at an investment firm in 2008. Stanley Tucci’s character is among the victims of a rather succinct and soulless dismissal, but on his way out of the building, he hands a young analyst named Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) a disc drive with the verbal addendum “be careful.” Sullivan tinkers with the information late that night when he discovers a pattern suggesting disastrous losses for the firm in the coming days.

Chandor’s script follows the journey of this piece of information as it climbs the ranks of the company and more and more decision-makers enter the process of determining what to do with it. It goes from Sullivan and his co-worker (Penn Badgley) to a trader on Sullivan’s floor (Paul Bettany), then to the trading head on the floor (Kevin Spacey) and then to a pair of senior-level executives (Simon Baker and Demi Moore) before reaching the CEO (Jeremy Irons). Each assesses and reassesses the situation before making a decision with ripple effects down the chain of command and then passing it to the next highest official.

The message is clear: the few in power outweigh the many. The bigger the problem gets, the harsher the decisions. Spacey’s character appears to be the stubborn bad guy toward the beginning, but he transforms into someone we pity by the end because of the way the higher-ups handle the situation. These changes in our character perception come swiftly and without making much of a peep, and in the control of some stellar actors, it’s more than a new filmmaker could ask for.

The trouble with “Margin Call” comes from an inability to connect with a wide, everyman audience. By and large, the problems and dire situations of the film are white-collar dilemmas: rich people trying to figure out how to stay rich. Without some other kind of connection to the material, which could be as simple as an interest in markets and investments, it becomes hard to care about the characters or the problems they’re dealing with. In spite of all the dialogue for dummies, much of what exactly is happening remains esoteric.

The human connection comes too little too late for “Margin Call,” though not in every sense. We do not see the impact of the film’s events on the everyman until late in the game, when the realization hits that the traders of the firm must respond to orders from the top that will have a very trivial impact on their careers, and at the same time even more folks are at risk of losing their jobs. However, the conflict on screen is person-to-person, and the characters wrestle with all kinds of issues regarding their livelihood, the greater good and the welfare of the company. The film doesn’t lack for humanity, it just lacks for gravity.

Quinto, Bettany, Spacey, Tucci, Baker, Moore and Irons assure a certain standard for “Margin Call.” They help put strong faces on talking heads arguing about issues far beyond the common person’s understanding. It’s not indecipherable gibberish or anything, but we can’t learn and understand the logic at the rate at which it’s explained, which means we can’t process the emotions that come with it. Regardless, the actors crucially help us to realize the impact of the circumstances and consequently the language we struggle to understand.

“Margin Call” offers a rare experience, a peek into the cold truth of the financial world that forgoes the imposition of your usual characterizations for businesspeople: cutthroat execs, poor obedient peons, etc. The short time frame of the film’s events helps give it a documentary feel minus a handheld camera or any found footage labels. The portrait is genuine, but debatably accessible.

3.5/5 Stars

Margin Call
Written and Directed by J.C. Chandor
Starring: Zachary Quinto, Paul Bettany, Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons

During parts of “Network,” you have to wonder if it’s a joke. The exploitation of a lunatic news anchor/prophet for financial gain with society just buying right in? Nuts. “Network” can definitely be viewed as an extreme and an unlikelihood, but that’s not to negate its powerful message and frightening ideas about media, consumerism and society in general.

Howard Beale, played by Peter Finch, the first posthumous Best Actor winner in Oscar history, (which adds an all-too-freaky layer to the film’s effectiveness), is about to retire from reading the news after ratings have bombed and he’s become disenchanted with the industry. On air, he promptly announces he will, in a week’s time, blow his brains out on the 7 o’clock news. What first becomes a PR nightmare for Beale’s station, UBS, evolves into a godsend when Beale goes on the air to apologize but delivers an impassioned speech rousing Americans out of their funk with his war cry: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

The dominoes begin to fall for various minds behind the network as a result of Beale’s sudden fame. The first is Diana (Faye Dunaway), a tough-as-nails producer from the programming side who crosses over into news with ideas of sensationalizing it. She creates “The Howard Beale Show” to capitalize on the media spotlight on Beale and seizes success on his coattails. Dunaway creates in many ways a terrifying portrait of a woman who seems part robot in that she’s only emotional when it comes to her singular purpose of making high-rating television. Her love affair with William Holden’s middle-aged Max Schumacher, a casualty of the network’s new direction, serves as allegory for old and new generations of media. Not exactly a believable relationship, but a fitting metaphor. A famous actor from Hollywood’s golden years, Holden fits in his role perfectly. He paints Max as a pitiable lost soul.

Other personalities include Robert Duvall as Frank, the in-between for UBS and the media company that owns them and Ned Beatty as Jensen, the man upstairs. Interestingly, “Network” has nothing to do with the journalism side of a newsroom but the business side. Paddy Chayefsky’s powerful script at its most fundamental level shows the dark side of the media, the business side, the side with a flagrant disregard for the ideals of journalism.

With a lot of dialogue, “Network” could not have been in better hands than those of Sidney Lumet. Lumet gets the most from his actors and adds an extra power to the many speeches throughout the film. Beatrice Straight barely appears in the film yet steals a scene in the middle. She plays Max’s wife, who goes off on him when he says he loves Diana. It’s a riveting scene with brilliant writing, but does Straight win Best Supporting Actress without the help of Lumet? “Network” contains a great deal of screaming and shouting yet little of it comes across as “noise” because he handles it so delicately.

The ensemble really carries “Network” on its bizarre ride. The likelihood of a news anchor going on TV and successfully convincing Americans to open their windows and shout that they’re “mad as hell” seems implausible, but the media has changed so much since 1976, more so than the changes the film depicts from the “good old years” of broadcast news up until that point. News anchors were the final word back then, but with the Internet, news and information can be found by the consumer. A sequel or maybe more like a follow-up to this film could be even more harrowing.

Chayefsky’s knock-out script suffers a tad from pacing, but few films are so packed with ideas worthy of day-long discussions on end. There’s so much to think about between the various relationships between the characters and what’s at stake for each of them and how blown out of proportion everything is. One of the many scenes that puts it all in perspective is during contract negotiations for a show Diana has put together that would follow a Communist liberation group on its terrorist escapades. There’s a huge argument between members of the group amidst the network employees and so the leader fires his gun to get them back on task to talk about subsidiary rights. It shows how ridiculous the whole show has become as everyone wants a piece.

“Network” serves as a cautionary tale on numerous levels. It starts as simple as news programming and grows as large as big business’ control on the world and its governments. Lying beneath the surface for all of it, however, lurks what can happen when personal interests guide important decision-making as it effects what the general public will see. Major media does not have as much control on what the public sees and hears as it used to because there are more outlets for obtaining the news, but the economic troubles of news media in our time has not made it any less dependent on selfish corporate interest.

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4.5/5 Stars

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Network
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Written by Paddy Chayefsky
Starring: Peter Finch, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall

“Brothers” boasts great dramatic prowess and a trio of talented actors in their prime. The only thing missing is originality. The family drama caused by a father leaving his wife and kids as he’s deployed to Afghanistan coupled with the terrors of post-traumatic stress disorder are – - as insensitive as it feels to say — nothing new, at least to the world of film.

Jim Sheridan’s intimate film based on the 2004 Danish film from Susanne Bier, creates moments of great drama. Cpt. Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) is a devoted marine who on his most recent tour to Afghanistan gets in a helicopter accident and is presumed dead, widowing his wife, Grace (Natalie Portman) and leaving two little girls in the care of with his alcoholic Vietnam vet father (Sam Shepard) and prison parolee brother, Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal).

The trailer makes this out to seem like a more serious version of the film “Pearl Harbor” with romantic feelings coming between Grace and Tommy before they know Sam’s still alive, but luckily, as much as there might not be surprises, there are no clichés in “Brothers.”

Impressing the most is by far Maguire, who shakes his boyish looks and “Spider-Man” related typecasting to portray a young father obsessed with and completely ripped apart by war. At first it’s hard to believe Sheridan expects us to see Maguire as the elder brother of Gyllenhaal, but the end of the film Maguire not only has you shaken, but also totally convinced of his character.

Portman has a far more typical role in playing Grace and being asked to tackle a pair of scenes where she finds out her husband is dead and then again when her husband is alive. She’s excellent as the fragile but not outwardly so “widow,” but her talents could be better utilized in a more complex character. Regardless, she’s spot on.

If there were a Best Performance by a Child Oscar, I think hands down 10-year-old Bailee Madison as the older sister Isabelle would’ve won it. For someone her age, the complexity of her portrayal and ability to show exactly what she’s feeling without overdoing it is amazing. Her character is incredibly mature and she is equally so. Isabelle is the child that knows what’s going on and has some issues with wanting attention.

The only reason “Brothers” was passed on at the Academy Awards was simply that it was straightforward. Maguire was probably inches from a nomination, but the film on the whole doesn’t offer a formative experience. For intense family drama, however, not many will beat it.

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4/5 Stars

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Brothers
Directed by Jim Sheridan
Written by David Benioff, Susanne Bier and Anders Thomas Jensen (2004 film)
Starring: Tobey Maguire, Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal

Not often does an Oscar winner for leading actor or actress dominate the entire picture through and through. Everything in “Gandhi” gravitates around Ben Kingsley in the role of a lifetime, or quite simply: the role he was born to play. Mahatma Gandhi’s story is about the power of one influencing the power of millions. Richard Attenborough’s film aspires to spread that message in this fascinating three-hour biopic about the strength and willpower of the human spirit.

“Gandhi” is in fact responsible in part for the modern day biopic, a genre that has become a huge part of awards season almost every year. Humbly, the film begins with a message that no film could fairly capture the life of one person, let alone Mohandas K. Gandhi, the lawyer that virtually became a prophet. They needn’t be so humble: they easily achieve the goal of capturing the essence of Gandhi, the core of his person. The film starts with Gandhi making political waves in South Africa then taking his message of non-violence and non-resistance to India in attempt to force the English out on their own terms.

Attenborough, an actor who had made a couple war films and a Winston Churchill biopic “Young Winston” prior, struck gold with this film. It is not a film that begs a director’s signature touches, rather one that requires patience and the ability to surrender the film’s influential power completely to the main character. With the exception of some key scenes that don’t involve Gandhi, Attenborough is nearly invisible. We’re meant to hear this man’s words and become as magnetized as all South Africa and then of course India does. Attenborough primarily contributes a worldly feel, like that of a true epic, as well as purposeful and quick pacing.

Ultimately, writer John Briley keeps “Gandhi” fascinating by bouncing back and forth between plan and action. Gandhi and his followers or Gandhi and the government meet to discuss how they might make a stand, Gandhi says some instantly-quotable wisdom and then we see the impact on the greater country. It seems formulaic, but it keeps “Gandhi” from lingering too long in one place and losing its impact.

Holding those “planning” scenes is the poise of Kingsley. He has that intangible “it” factor as Gandhi. Gandhi was well-spoken, strong-willed and never doubted his position of influence, but he had to have been more humble than any man before him with that kind of political influence. Many Oscar winners have the inner demons of their character to wrestle with in order to add power to their performances; Kingsley does it all gracefully and understated.

The difference one man can make in the cycle of violence has never been clearer. Martin Luther King Jr. would become the “next Gandhi” perhaps, adapting his principles and continuing to prove that a single voice can lead a people as it has as far back as biblical times. Humanity needs a face to help rally it sometimes and Gandhi was able to fast to quiet a nation of 300 million (at the time).

In exploring the power of this one Indian man of short, unimposing stature, “Gandhi” offers discourse on the dynamics of power between oppressor and oppressed and also highlights that despite how easily one single person can start the cycle of violence, say by throwing a rock at a passing group of Muslims as one Hindu does later in the film, one person — contrary to popular belief — can under the right circumstances end it.

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4.5/5 Stars

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Gandhi (1982)
Directed by Richard Attenborough
Written by John Briley
Starring: Ben Kingsley

Often times a film lifts its star to new height, but every so often the film is the thing getting lifted by the star. Jeff Bridges’ Oscar-winning performance as raging alcoholic and chain- smoking 57-year-old country singer Bad Blake places the film “Crazy Heart” on his shoulders and creates something compelling out of another film about a music star fighting inner demons and finding some kind of inspiration to push through to the other side.

“Crazy Heart” at times appears to be no more than a fictional re-imagining of the Johnny Cash biopic “Walk the Line.” There’s nothing original about a washed-up singer with a drug problem who finds a shot at redemption in the form of a beautiful woman (in this case Oscar nominee Maggie Gyllenhaal). In fact, Robert Duvall, who stars in this film, won an Oscar for basically the same performance in the film “Tender Mercies.”

Yet “Crazy Heart” works. It’s easy to follow the simple story and Bridges plays Blake with so much tireless conviction. He wears down the audience with his believability to the point that no matter how badly you might want to see his character as nothing more than one of many aging alcoholic performers in cinema history, you simply can’t help but resonate with his inner torment.

Gyllenhaal complements Bridges earthiness with her own gravitas. Down to earth has always been her calling card, but in a basic story it is her ability to complicate the emotions in these run-of-the-mill scenes for a female lead in a music drama that elevates them beyond stereotypical.

The music of “Crazy Heart” maintains the indie sensibility, which helps keep the film from falling directly in line with its predecessors. There’s not a whole lot of thematic elements at work, so the script remains dependent on the music for its soul. Just about anybody could become a country fan for two hours as they watch this film because the music comes from an organic place. The songwriting for the film is superb.

“Crazy Heart” is the type of drama that makes you wonder about how lightly the term Academy Award-winning can seem at times. There’s nothing wrongful about the two wins and nomination for the film, it just offers proof as to how sincerity and realism can turn even the most typical of films/stories into Oscar gold.

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3.5/5 Stars

Crazy Heart
Directed by Scott Cooper
Written by Scott Cooper, Thomas Cobb (novel)
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell

An indistinctive stew of genres best describes Peter Jackson and Co.’s attempt at adapting the Alice Sebold novel “The Lovely Bones.” Part murder mystery, part family drama and part Salvador Dali painting, the film suffers an epic identity crisis which it hopes to mask by drowning you in evocative symbolism.

Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan of “Atonement”) is a 14-year-old who is murdered by a neighbor and finds herself observing the ensuing events in her family’s life from “The In- Between,” a purgatory she is stuck in until both she and her family can learn to let go and move forward. Susie’s lingering spiritual presence in the real world allows her to give her family some unfounded suspicions toward the man who killed her, Mr. Harvey (Stanley Tucci).

When no legitimate reason exists for a character to behave a certain way other than some sixth sense they have, it’s tough to buy “The Lovely Bones” as the solving of a murder. The first 30 minutes of the film have enough emotional pull that we want Mr. Harvey to get busted pretty badly, but it’s terribly unrealistic.

The fantasy element of Susie existing in the in-between where the climate/environment around her changes constantly is an over-reaching metaphor that you couldn’t care less about. Jackson’s team makes this world a lot more visually impressive than films such as “What Dreams May Come,” but the foundation of the story lies in the real world, the hook and crux of it at least. The symbolism of the gazebo Susie stands on to watch her family and the cornfield present themselves quite obviously, but the script provides little motivation to analyze them. The rest of the Salmon family dealing with the aftermath on the real world plane is far more interesting.

The existence of two worlds permits Jackson to intercut a lot of scenes of one world with that of the other. Some of these scenes impress, such as Susie’s father (Mark Wahlberg) smashing his collection of bottled ships in anger at her death while Susie sees large bottled ships crashing and shattering on the shores of the In-Between. The scene where Susie is eventually killed lasts close to ten minutes as well as it’s intercut with what her family is doing at the time. Like much of this film, sometimes the technique works beautifully, other times it’s executed until tedium.

The surrealism quality and dual nature of the film keep it from achieving its metaphoric and symbolic goals with regards to death and moving on. Despite superb direction and visual effects, the elements are not seamless enough, try as Jackson might to link scenes together constantly. Emotional symbolism can never fully replace logic and the In-Between is presented to us without any clarity of rules. “The Lovely Bones” should have been a moving family story, not a scattered piece of art with family elements.

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2.5/5 Stars

The Lovely Bones
Directed by Peter Jackson
Written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, Alice Sebold (novel)
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Stanley Tucci, Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz

25 years after directed the greatest courtroom drama ever made in “12 Angry Men,” acclaimed director Sidney Lumet returns with “The Verdict.” Starring Paul Newman in a performance best described as straight from the core, the film flips the idea of justice on its head and reveals the enduring human spirit that lies within the tireless pursuit of it.

Frank Galvin (Newman) is a lawyer and alcoholic resigned to checking the obituaries for possible cases and dropping his card off at wakes. When a colleague hands him a medical malpractice case that’s a shoo-in for a lucrative settlement outside of court, Galvin decides that there’s a good chance to win the case before a jury and decides to take on the hospital’s crack legal team (led by James Mason) without his client’s permission in attempt to seek true justice and resurrect his career.

Lumet’s film is the opposite of melodramatic, something to which a courtroom movie is quite susceptible. There’s barely a single bit of scoring and the characters express intense emotions with a respectable amount of reservation. One might think this undermines the impact of the David Mamet’s thought-provoking script, but in an unexpected way it really grounds the film. It’s not an emotional crusade against injustice or your typical underdog story. Instead, it’s about the harsh realities of the justice system despite our every effort to believe in a higher moral authority by which all men and women are bound, one that will right all wrongs.

Newman’s Oscar-nominated performance owes a lot to Lumet, the master of wide shots, long takes and careful zooms and pans. Without a heightened sense of drama and suspense from the camera-work, Newman would be hung out to dry. So much of his acting is occurring below the skin and inside the mind that only a top-notch director could show the audience inside of it. The single take starting with a wide courtroom shot during Frank’s closing statement and ending with him sitting down as if there was nothing else he could do might be the best example of Lumet and Newman working in incredible harmony.

Lumet gets that caliber of performance out of everyone from co-star Charlotte Rampling to James Mason’s unbreakable defense attorney. It says so much more about a film when it’s as effective without dialogue as it is with it. The quiet opening shot of Frank with a beer and cigarette playing his favorite pub pinball machine sets the tone right away that the audience is to infer mostly from this film. It’s a bit more work than usual, but “The Verdict” is a rare version of the timeless story about going on when the odds are stacked against you.

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4/5 Stars

The Verdict (1982)
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Written by David Mamet, Barry Reed (novel)
Starring: Paul Newman, Charlotte Rampling, Jack Warden, James Mason

Queens are not just characters is period romances. Or fantasy stories. “The Queen” is a fascinating look at a monarch of not only historical fact, but also of a modern world. Played with grace and poise by the great Helen Mirren, Queen Elizabeth II becomes a specimen for our the moviegoer’s microscope rather than remaining that elusive royal figure locked up in Buckingham Palace.

In many ways, this is what the film is about: a woman grounded in one of the deepest traditions there is in terms of the British monarchy, who realizes that she too must change, must make herself known again to her people and become a more meaningful part of their lives.

The film begins with Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) being elected to office, but focuses on the week that shook the world when Princess Diana died tragically in a car accident in France. Diana was on poor terms with the former Princess of Wales, but her death struck a chord with her entire country and the world. The people and press demanded something from The Queen, who wanted to keep it quiet. It was a PR strategy that nearly threatened the monarchy’s existence.

The crux of Mirren’s performance is not her ability to create an incredibly royal aura about herself, which she does with ease. Rather, it’s her ability to externalize The Queen’s internal struggle of coming to terms with the need to change without being emotional or even slightly melodramatic. She must deal with this PR nightmare as well as the emotional trauma Di’s death has caused her grandchildren while staying composed as a queen of 50 years would. She simply nails it. Despite staying collected, no one can come close to classifying Mirren’s performance as stoic.

Peter Morgan (“The Last King of Scotland”) has chosen a perfect one-week period in his subject’s life to forge this biopic. Diana’s death is a moment everyone in the audience old enough to remember it will never forget. Even if we know nothing about Queen Elizabeth II, there’s our perfect window into her life and the state of affairs of Britain. His script makes up what it lacks in external up-and-down conflict with conflict based on the stubbornness and internal battles of his characters. It’s not only The Queen who must change, but Prince Philip (James Cromwell), Prince Charles (Alex Jennings) and the Queen Mother. The conflict is a raw tension between the sweeping tidal wave of current events/the press and the Royal Family’s indecision and resistance. Mediating is Sheen as a youthful and idealistic Tony Blair.

“The Queen” is a thought-provoking film about great change and how our best leaders are the ones that learn to embrace it, that ride ahead of its waves, no matter how uncomfortable it might be.

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4/5 Stars

The Queen (2006)
Directed by Stephen Frears
Written by Peter Morgan
Starring: Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell

Squarely on the shoulders of Al Pacino rests “Scent of a Woman,” a film of unlikely friendship and moral education spanning an epic 187 minutes. It is film built on memorable quotes and moments from Oscar-winning “One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest” adapter Bo Goldman as well as one unforgettable performance.

Though its length deflates a lot of its punch, there’s a great humor driving “Scent of a Woman.” Pacino’s portrayal is magnetizing and reckless — the master of on-camera shouting perfecting his craft. You laugh because he makes you uncomfortable, he’s blind and his dialogue is, well, frank. He speaks his mind because he’s not afraid of the consequences. He enjoys the pleasures of life, particularly women, he drinks without abandon and yet there’s an uncanny wisdom in everything he says or does. Sometimes an exceptional character study can make a movie and Pacino’s Col. Slade certainly does.

The film is about how a young man at a prestigious east-coast boarding school (Chris O’Donnell) ends up taking a random babysitting job to earn some cash during Thanksgiving break as opposed to forking out for the plane ticket back to Oregon. His assignment is of course Uncle Frank, who flips the weekend upside down when he swoops off with him to New York City where Frank has some plans to live it up — and teach the young Charlie a thing or two.

Unlikely friendships are the stuff of many great films and although “Scent of a Woman” really pushes these two clashing personalities together, it’s not without the best of intent. Charlie’s subplot is that he’s leaving a big scandal behind at school during the break in which he has was interrogated by the headmaster as to who pulled a big prank. (The other witness is his friend George, played by a young Phillip Seymour Hoffman.) The headmaster has hung the threat of rescinding Charlie’s recommendation to Harvard over Charlie’s head and it his decision of whether to snitch becomes the moral dilemma that Frank will eventually assist him with.

There are great scenes in “Scent of a Woman” from the ruckus at Thanksgiving dinner when Frank takes Charlie, both uninvited, to his brother’s house where the relatives don’t think much of him to Frank teaching a young woman to tango or at one point driving a Ferrari despite being blind. Memorable moments they are, but all relevant and all worthy of every second being drawn out? No. Director Martin Brest (“Beverly Hills Cop”) could’ve cut at least a half hour from this film. Each scene concludes after the audience has already figured out what will happen.

The things that Frank teaches Charlie (and of course vice-versa) are lessons of great moral significance. There’s no denying you could quote this film over and over again whether it’s Frank shouting “Hoo-ah!” or his “there are two kinds of people in this world” speech. At the same time, scripted wisdom is not what makes a film great and that’s why greatness eludes “Scent of a Woman.” What we learn from the film we do not learn through empathy or in an organic or home-grown manner. It doesn’t make the pearls any less valuable or interesting, they’re just deprived of a blossoming epiphany.

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3.5/5 Stars

Scent of a Woman (1992)
Directed by Martin Brest
Written by Bo Goldman (screenplay), Giovanni Arpino (novel “Il Buio E Il Miele”)
Starring: Al Pacino, Chris O’Donnell

It doesn’t seem like a stretch to suggest that America might now be ready to embrace films in the style of India’s Bollywood films. While “Slumdog Millionaire” is far from a Bollywood tragic love story filled with singing and dancing, the way director Danny Boyle will rivet audiences with his film that is authentic to Indian culture while using a distinctly Western style of filmmaking might be enough proof that there is a profit to be made here.

“Slumdog Millionaire” is a drama exposing the tragic effects of poverty in gigantic Indian cities like Mumbai that is also fused with a modern day Indian fairytale. Jamal Malik is a young man on India’s “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire” and is a question away from one million dollars when he’s arrested on suspicion of cheating. Because Jamal is from the slums of India and has no educational background, it seems entirely improbable if not impossible that Jamal could make it this far, but each question is connected with distinct and sometimes painful memories for Jamal. It’s as if he is destined to win, even though he only went on the show to impress a girl he has loved his whole life, Latika.

Danny Boyle (“28 Days Later,” “Sunshine”) takes us from memory to memory as Jamal advances question by question toward the million dollars. These memories offer vivid insight into poverty in India as well as the lives of Jamal, Latika and Jamal’s older brother Salim. As children they are left parentless and taught how to swindle tourists, leading to lives of little fulfillment or even corruption. Despite being separated, Jamal and Latika are reunited several times and in fact Jamal’s only motivation in life is his love for her.

While the young, unknown, Indian actors are absolutely amazing in this film, the biggest kudos go to director Boyle, who creates an astonishing film. For Boyle to go from science fiction and zombie thrillers to taking on a project as daring and unusual as “Slumdog Millionaire” proves that he’s not only a brave director, but a versatile one. His great success with making this film intense, eye-opening and full of heart all at the same time prove that he’s also an incredible one. “Slumdog” is just the beginning for Boyle who might be one of the most progressive and talented directors working today.

It’s hard to be completely blown away by a film whose core message is about destiny and leans on the fact that Jamal is simply fated to do this well in explaining what has unfolded, but like any good film ought to, Boyle makes you a fan of the characters and not care as much about the logistics as you might normally do. The fact that this film starts out so dramatic and real makes it hard to embrace the fairytale it blossoms into, but it’s the great visual storytelling along the way that makes it so enjoyable.

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4.5/5 Stars

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Directed by: Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan (India co-director)
Written by: Simon Beaufoy, Vikas Swarup (novel)
Starring: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto

Boxing, despite the sport’s decline in popularity since the ’80s, has managed to make for some of the best films. Starting with “Rocky” and then films such as “Raging Bull,” boxing has is one of those things that seems to best represent life’s journey and its struggles. There might not be a stronger visual metaphor than the glory and physical danger of someone with a goal laying it all on the line in the ring. “Million Dollar Baby” is the latest film to exploit this genre, and armed with great talents it manages to do so with a fresh point of view.

Talent number one is Morgan Freeman. He could narrate what I did yesterday and it would be considered Oscar-worthy. There is no one better to impart wisdom to an audience and half of why “Million Dollar Baby” communicates its ideas and themes so clearly is because of him.

Talent number two is Paul Haggis, producer and screenwriter. Haggis takes stories by F.X Toole and crafts something that boxing-movie lovers haven’t seen before. It doesn’t lean entirely on the exhausted underdog cliché (“Rocky”) or the ‘rise and fall of a star’ one either (“Raging Bull”).

This underdog, Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), is more complex and more troubled. Knowing full well she’s Southern white trash, she still spends whatever money she has to join the club owned by old-time boxing trainer Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood, who also directs) and tells the stubborn old grouch that she won’t leave until he trains her. After taking a few tips from the club’s assistant manager, a retired and half-blind former boxer named Scrap (Morgan Freeman), she captures his attention and he agrees to help her toward her dream of being a boxer.

“Million Dollar Baby” is about ambition, about establishing yourself as something and achieving in even the smallest way. Of all the boxing movies, its themes are the most universal. We all want to leave this life knowing we didn’t waste it and “Million Dollar Baby” wrestles with this on levels both obvious and subtle through its central characters.

The final talent is Mr. Oscar — Eastwood. His film is very quiet, shadow-enveloped and contemplative. He lets the characters tell this story and our interest in them keeps our attention. The actors also fit their roles perfectly. Swank has proved she can do Southern American gender ambiguous in “Boys Don’t Cry,” Freeman has shown wise supporting role prowess in “Shawshank Redemption,” and Clint Eastwood redefined tough for the silver screen in his career, making him perfect for the troubled role of Frankie.

Everything comes together in this film effortlessly. That’s what veteran filmmakers do. Though Haggis at this point was relatively unestablished, his storytelling is elegant and the veterans behind him make the script succeed in its every purpose. “Million Dollar Baby” is a sports drama, but not like you might think. Boxing is the vehicle for delivering a knock out punch of a greater sort, one that brings us unique characters and a terrific story.

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4.5/5 Stars

Million Dollar Baby
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Written by: Paul Haggis, F.X. Toole (stories)
Starring: Hillary Swank, Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman

The way “Ordinary People” depicts the family is tough to swallow. Is the Jarrett family really ordinary? They suffered a horrible loss when their eldest son died in a boating accident and their youngest has recently come home after four months in the hospital because he tried to kill himself. These are not “ordinary” circumstances per say, but these are how once-ordinary people would handle such tragedy — how any of us who can identify with feeling ordinary would handle such tragedy. That’s the beauty of Alvin Sargent’s script, Robert Redford’s sensitive yet powerful direction and humbling performances from a terrific cast.

I personally took to “Ordinary People” more quickly because it takes place and was filmed where I grew up in north-suburban Chicago. Although that personally brought it home more easily, there’s something that everyone can connect with in this film. If nothing else, it addresses family intimacy, which every family has varying degrees of, and it will guaranteed make you think about that from a different perspective or maybe even awaken a greater need for that in your own life.

The Jarretts, Calvin (Sutherland), Beth (Moore) and Conrad (Hutton) appear to be a very pleasant and agreeable family in the beginning, but look closer and you can see the tension. Family discussion is like a formality and Conrad and Beth in particular have a completely shattered relationship. All three actors master the script’s subtext and create believable and complex characters and relationships. Their profiles are so comprehensive in fact that they can’t easily be summarized.

The focus is namely on the Oscar-winning debut of Hutton as Conrad. Hutton inherits one of the most psychologically complex film characters ever and he bottles it all in and somehow it manifests itself into this touching and fragile performance. Conrad has nightmares, he feels out of control, he’s lost touch with his high school buddies and the swim team, he has romantic needs that he wants to explore, family troubles and he’s harboring an incredible guilt. The sympathy he generates is immense, which is part of what makes the film so compelling.

It might in fact be Judd Hirsch playing the psychiatrist, but the tension in Hutton’s performance will turn every viewer into someone desperately wanting to help Conrad. In fact, Hirsch is a bit non-traditional as well, playing a more provoking and edgy shrink as opposed to a warm and sympathetic one, which makes us feel even more like the one person who wants to really listen and help Conrad and help him.

There isn’t really a dramatic plot arch to “Ordinary People.” The basic idea is that Conrad starts seeing a psychiatrist and he comes closer and closer to confronting what he has to in order to truly overcome his troubles. The drama builds through increased conflict as more and more small events occur that push the characters, thus breaking the family’s shaky but operational status-quo a bit at a time.

Sargent’s brilliant script is built around this natural rise in relationship tension. You can feel where the film is going to go from one scene to the next because the conflict causes obvious cracks that create logical next steps for the action to take. Part of this is also Redford’s near- flawless transitioning. We’re so clearly in the heads of these characters that each scene is so clearly the cause of the next and an effect of the last. He picks great moments to move from one to another and it keeps momentum going in a script without many dramatic events. There’s only slight over-dramatic compensation in Redford’s directing at times for this lack, but most of the time he’s spot-on.

But the enduring effect of “Ordinary People” on its audience is the portrayal of the family and its relationships. Each character has a psychological file folder that’s overflowing and their interactions with each other are consequently so complex that you feel right away that this is the stuff of real relationships. No character sits permanently in a nut shell and more importantly is the realization that no one person is to be blamed or feel guilt for any one event. “Ordinary People” has such a firm grasp on the essence of family conflict and it shines through in an otherwise ordinary film.

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4.5/5 Stars

Ordinary People
Directed by: Robert Redford
Written by: Judith Guest, Alvin Sargent, Nancy Dowd
Starring: Timothy Hutton, Mary Tyler Moore, Donald Sutherland, Judd Hirsch

“Julie & Julia” is not about food so much as it is about setting goals and creating opportunities for personal achievement. In this way, famous television chef Julia Child (Meryl Streep) and foodie blogger Julie Powell (Amy Adams) have more in common than a passion for cooking. Acclaimed romantic comedy filmmaker Nora Ephron juxtaposes both womens’ stories to illustrate this in her film and though it’s a conclusion that doesn’t require two long hours to cook, the life-like ups and downs and feel good moments of “Julie & Julia” make it an affecting and personable film.

Thriving on the performances of Adams and even more so Streep, Ephron’s vision to interweave two equally interesting story lines works despite the extra minutes consequently tacked on. Objectively, this is Julie Powell’s story as without her the story of Julia Child is irrelevant in this film, but Child is a compelling figure and Streep playing her makes it even more so.

Powell is a recently married woman with a desk job who gets the idea to start a blog about cooking, specifically trying to cook more than 500 of Julia Child’s recipes from her famous book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” all in just one year. Ephron then takes pieces from Child’s aforementioned tome and tells the story of how she came to be a cooking expert and publish what eventually became that book. Ephron tames these equally magnetic stories, splicing them at great commercial break cliffhanger moments to keep our attention.

I personally found the Julie story a bit more dynamic and interesting. There’s some bias there as I’m also a blogger trying to establish myself as a writer, but I think anyone who feels or has ever felt bogged down by a job that they’re not passionate about who needs to own something and find something to succeed at whether as a hobby or something more will find interest and certainly some comfort in Powell’s story.

On the other side of the coin is Streep’s performance and Julia’s relationship with her husband, Paul (Stanley Tucci). It’s certainly not your average on-screen romance, but “Julie & Julia” is all the better for it. Finally a film where love does not factor in as much with the plot. Both these women were inspired or supported by their husbands and their relationships were an integral part of their success in this way. Streep and Tucci have a playful and adorable chemistry. They have fun together — they’re partners — and that’s all too often lost in cinematic romance.

Streep as Julia, however, is the focal point of that whole side to the story. It’s very much Streep being Julia more so than Julia. You notice that same sense of humor we’ve seen more recently from her in films such as “Mamma Mia!” but she takes it to Julia’s level. It feels very natural yet it’s also a complex portrayal. You can feel her fear and her fearlessness alike in Streep’s performance and the way she responds to life in general including its challenges.

“Julie & Julia” is foremost a story of how when passion and dedication meet, wonderful things happen because no adversity lasts for long in the face of that combination. These women found their passion in cooking and stayed dedicated because of their personal relationships and both found lasting fulfillment from it.

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4/5 Stars

Julie & Julia
Directed by: Nora Ephron
Written by: Nora Ephron, Julie Powell (book), Julia Child (Book “My Life in France”)
Starring: Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina

If one were taking a course on how to appropriately adapt a novel for the big screen, “Atonement’ would certainly need to be among the required materials. Though I personally have never read McEwan’s novel, the attention to detail that Joe Wright and his team bring to telling this story visually is superb.

“Atonement” is the story of a young girl named Briony (played well by three actresses at different ages of her life) with a very incurable appetite and curiosity for plot and drama, enough so that she tells a lie that separates her sister Cecilia (Knightley) from her newly discovered love of Robbie (McAvoy), the son of their mansion’s grounds keeper. The rest of the film is the consequences of Briony’s actions and her struggle to forgive herself for what she did.

The acting is top notch, but not as deserving of accolades as the production crew and the minds behind the cinematic telling of this story. The art direction and Wright’s choices are simple and beautiful and most notably is Dario Marianelli’s original score that is both creative and effective, particularly in the beginning and end of the film.

The only thing holding “Atonement” back is the middle of the film, which lacks attention- grabbing substance. The symbolism is all over the place, but the plot lacks a distinct something during the point in which Robbie and Cecilia are separated to really grip the viewer as the film’s wonderful ending reveals itself. I can’t believe that I would be the only one who really needed more convincing of the love and passion between them.

That said, the story is still Briony’s story at heart, hence the film’s title, and her story is told with brilliance. Unfortunately, the aforementioned middle part keeps her out of the story for a significant amount of time. The film, therefore, requires patience and really keen eye for the the subtlety that makes a film more than just a story told with a camera.

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4/5 Stars

Atonement (2007)
Directed by: Joe Wright
Written by: Christopher Hampton, Ian McEwan (novel)
Starring: Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Saoirse Ronan