LOOSE ENDS & RANDOM MUSINGS - Before we delve into the top ten list (published below), I wanted to tie up a few loose ends... and then proceed to go off on about 12 different tangents. First, my consternation over nobody answering my trivia question about what movie takes place in Star City, Arkansas, apparently paid off. Congrats to Slate film critic David Edelstein who correctly answered Carl Franklin's 'One False Move.' He just beat CS regulars Matty Robinson (aka JoeyCotton), Island Girl and Rico. Speaking of Edelstein, check out his review of Spike Lee's '25th Hour', which he argues is more about a fear of anal rape than it is post-911 New York or the movie's themes of loyalty, friendship and misguided choices. As a devotee of the HBO show 'Oz', I don't have a problem buying Edelstein's assessment. I'm pretty sure it would be my biggest fear if I, like Ed Norton's character Monty Brogan, was heading to the slammer. If you haven't seen 'One False Move,' it's really worth checking out -- a pre-'Sling Blade' Billy Bob Thornton (as screenwriter and actor), Michael Beach (a true 'that guy') in a truly terrifying role as the calm sociopath Pluto and Bill Paxton doing his hayseed routine to perfection. I always remember Star City as a town name because it's so naturally ironic and fits so nicely in the movie since the female character at the core of the story is on the run from Los Angeles back home. I watched the movie on DVD one weekend a few years back and at work Monday -- this is Cedar Rapids, Iowa, just so you know -- I heard the woman with a slight Southern drawl in the office next to me explain to someone that she was born in Star City, Arkansas! The timing floored me. I didn't even know Star City was a real place. * During our 'Solaris' movie club back on 12/4, Sam sang the praises of Netflix, the rent-by-mail DVD company. Our mutual friend Kevin Rich was the first person I knew who was really into Netflix. He tried to sell me on its virtues back in June or July. As Sam wrote, and as you've surely heard by now, for $19.95 a month you get unlimited DVD rentals and Netflix provides you with the packaging materials to send the discs back. You keep a rental list online and Netflix just keeps going through your list sending you the ones you've requested. Keep them as long as you want, no late fees. If you typically rent just 4 our 5 DVDs a month from Blockbuster, Netflix ends up being cheaper and a hell of a lot more convenient. The problem, for me, was that I don't typically rent any DVDs much less 4 or 5 a month, and $19.95 just seemed like too much of financial commitment. What changed my mind was two things. First, I moved to Chicago, where there are more movies to see, but they're also much harder to see -- whether it's the cost and hassle of parking, public transporation, or simply making the drive from the 'burbs into the city. Furthermore, with a job that involves working long hours and most weekends, I just don't have the time to go to the theatre as frequently as I did back in Iowa City. Second, I discovered Number Slate, a Netflix rival that provides the same service, but for $13.95 per month. Call me cheap, but something about that $6 just makes it seem worthwhile. So i signed up. My first two selections, based on my rankings and which movies were immediately available, were 'Scotland, PA' and 'Planet of the Apes.' Yes, it's true; I've never seen the original 'Planet' from start to finish, which is the beauty of services like Number Slate. Sam's right, at Blockbuster you always feel compelled to spend your $4 on a new release, not some old movie that you've seen parts of but just never watched all the way through. I still haven't popped in 'Planet' yet, but I did scope out 'Scotland, PA,' an indie film written and directed by Billy Morrissette that came out on a few screens back in February. It's a moderately entertaining movie, but one that ultimately left me wondering why it deserved my time. I had zero expectations for this film; in fact, I couldn't remember anything about the movie at all when I added it to my rental list online. Set in the early 70s, the film is a comedic retelling of Shakespeare's 'MacBeth' with James LeGros and Maura Tierney starring as Joe and Pat McBeth, a couple of simple but ambitious blue collar folks working in a diner in small-town Pennsylvania. 'Scotland' joins Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo & Juliet', the Ethan Hawke version of 'Hamlet', Gus Van Sant's 'My Own Private Idaho' (a film that probably should have made our top ten list), 'O' with Josh Hartnett, and a handful of others in what arguably has become its own genre. Maybe it's the fact that 'Henry IV', which was Van Sant's inspiration for 'Idaho,' is my favorite Shakespeare play, or maybe it's because Van Sant used Shakespeare merely as inspiration rather than as a text to update and revise, but not one movie from this "genre" since 'Idaho' has really worked for me. I think Ebert probably summed it up best in this quote taken from Rotten Tomatoes: "I enjoyed the movie in a superficial way, while never sure what its purpose was." I really can't sum up my feelings any better. It's very funny at times, especially some of the scenes involving Christopher Walken as Ernie McDuff, a detective investigating the murder that propels the McBeth's to fast-food fame. I guess if you're a big 'MacBeth' fan who takes some kind of intellectual delight in seeing all of the movie's clever references to the original, then great. If not, then so what? That's a pretty brusque review, I know, but I've got to cut this short and hopefully get to the discussion of our top ten list.

E-mail CinemaScoped@attbi.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum

CS' TOP TEN FILMS OF THE PAST 25 YEARS/THIS WEEKEND - Well, it's finally here. Sam, Eric and I have made our individual lists and tallied the votes of our top ten films since 1978. The idea was to see how similar it was to the recent poll in the British film magazine Sight & Sound. As you'll see, the two lists are very similar... which either means the three of us are just as snobby as a bunch of limey film critics, or we're simply not very original. (And the answer is -- both.)

1. Glengarry Glen Ross (James Foley, 1989)
2. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
3. GoodFellas (Scorsese, 1991)
4. Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen, 1986)
5. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
6. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
7. Rushmore (Wes Anderson, 1998)
8. Do The Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
9. The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978)
10. Henry V (Kenneth Branagh, 1989)

We'll provide some commentary about our selections Friday (or Monday). * Wow, how nice would it be to not have any commitments this weekend? It's like the movie gods are rewarding us for the past several weeks of releases like 'Maid in Manhattan.' The list of movies opening between now and Christmas that I am eager to see includes: Adaptation, About Schmidt, Antwone Fisher, Catch Me If You Can, Gangs of New York, and The Hot Chick (just kidding!). If at least three of those movies don't make my best of the year list, I will be extremely disappointed.

E-mail CinemaScoped@attbi.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum

MOVIE CLUB: THE TWO TOWERS
From: Eric Baker
To: Adam Kempenaar, Sam Hallgren, and the multitude of readers
Subject: The Ring: My Precious

I hate it when Adam is right, but at least it will take him a while to chime in if he doesn't plan on seeing the new LOTR for awhile. I'll be stealing my thunder for my Friday review of 'The Two Towers,' but I have a lot to say about this flick. I think I'm more disappointed because I liked Part I last year so much, and I thought the possibilities were endless with where Peter Jackson could take this film (within the context of the script, of course). Instead what I got was 'Army of Darkness' without the humor, 'Braveheart' without the superior battle choreography, 'Rocky' without the deep emotional underpinning of a tough Italian kid just trying to . . . cough, ahem. Sorry about that. But we know what Jackson is trying to do here, beyond the prerequisite 'entertain the audience.' He was handed the keys to the castle on this, an opportunity to do 3 movies at once, but a situation where if he made the first one excellent, people would buy tickets to the next two just to see what else he could accomplish. He was given a modern-day 'Star Wars,' and while it's certainly better than the last two installments of that dead horse franchise, it's not great, which was what I was expecting. As viewers will see, there are some similarities to 'The Empire Strikes Back,' but Jackson didn't have the stones to veer from a happy ending. There's no sense of dramatic conflict throughout the film, especially with Frodo Baggins. And I'm anxious to read and hear what people have to say about all the face time Gollum got in this installment, specifically if people think he's the next Jar Jar Binks (I didn't mind him too much). After watching the Bravo presentation of 'Page to Screen' on 'The Fellowship of the Ring,' I remember the three screenwriters emphasizing certain themes in the film so as not to get too caught up in unnecessary plot machinations. I guess I can't say there's a ton of clunky storylines in this one, but the pacing sure seems off. This installment is the same length as the first one --roughly three hours -- but you sure do notice it this time around. I thought the first LOTR was wise to give as much screen time and story development to Ian McKellan's (Gandalf the Grey) and Ian Holm's (Bilbo Baggins) characters as possible, but here everything is a constant trudge to a battle with a pre-ordained outcome that even top-notch special effects can't enliven. Don't get me wrong, the special effects are the best part of the movie, so good in some places that I literally couldn't tell if they were real or computer-generated, which is something in this day and age. A perfect example of what I wish Jackson would have done more of is the subplot with Pippin and Merry and the Tree People. My favorite part of the movie that gets short shrift in the editing room: it's an appropriate use of special effects within the context of the story. I realize the entire film can't be similar to that, but the magic of Tolkien is each escapade is described with such detail you could create a whole movie just on that event. Adam frets below that "is it going to surprise me at all? Is it really any different than seeing a James Bond movie to some extent, except with better acting, etc." Well, if it met the criteria in the laundry list, then yes, it would be quite different from Bond. But I think it's fair to say Adam won't be surprised, and he hasn't even read the books.

E-mail CinemaScoped@attbi.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum

VERY DISAPPOINTED - Real quick I wanted to point out that I have received no responses to my little trivia question from Friday in the post "Speaking of movies nobody will see..." I wrote: "And if you can name what movie is set in Star City, Arkansas, you get...well, I'm not sure what you'll get other than my respect and admiration." Either my respect and admiration isn't enough of an incentive, or nobody knows the answer...or maybe nobody read the post. Who knows? The challenge still stands. Hint: It was on Roger Ebert's list of the best films of 1992.

E-mail CinemaScoped@attbi.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum

NEWS FLASH - 'Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' opens today. So now you know. Our own Eric Baker is seeing it this afternoon and plans on having some comments tonight, I believe...which is good because I have to admit that I don't intend to see it any time soon. I liked 'Fellowship' quite a bit and expect 'Towers' to be even better. I just can't get excited about it. Sorry. Now if 'Adaptation' or 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind' was playing nearby, I'd be waiting in line. I never read the books growing up and I seem to have an aversion to spectacle/event movies like this. Let me reiterate, I expect the movie to be great. But is it going to surprise me at all? Is it really any different than seeing a James Bond movie to some extent, except with better acting, directing, writing, production design and cinematography? Out of 78 reviews on "Rotten Tomatoes," only one critic expressed a negative reaction -- someone named Victoria Alexander from FilmsInReview.com. I appreciate Ms. Alexander's nerve -- "I'll be the reckless, foolish messenger and endure the wrath of LOTR devotees: Compared to The Fellowship, The Two Towers is a big, sprawling disappointment," she writes -- but her review is sort of like reading the phone book. Lots of information, mainly about the plot, with absolutely zero insight. I know Sam is anxious to see it and Eric will chime in with his thoughts soon. It's worth noting that Nate "The Yapp" from the Feedback Forum isn't the only person to include 'Fellowship' on his list of the best films of the past 25 years. Eric's a big dork as well. (Just kidding)

E-mail CinemaScoped@attbi.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum

OUT TO LUNCH - Some good lists of the top ten movies of the last 25 years in the Feedback Forum so far. Let's see some more. Sam, Eric and I have almost finished our list and should have it up Wed. or Thurs. I'll also have a post about a Netflix rival and the movie 'Scotland, PA.'

E-mail CinemaScoped@attbi.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum

WE WANT YOUR VOTE AND ARE THEY SERIOUS? - Sam, Eric and I are in the midst of whittling down our list of the top ten films of the past 25 years (see my post from last Tuesday, Dec. 3rd below). We would like your help in constructing this list. Use whatever criteria you would like. Send your picks to: CinemaScoped@attbi.com.

I have to admit I was a bit shocked (and disappointed) to see Ebert's three-star review of the new J. Lo-Cinderella tale, 'Maid In Manhattan'. But not half as shocked as I was to read Jonathan Rosenbaum's take in the Chicago Reader. You think you know someone...

E-mail CinemaScoped@attbi.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum

SPEAKING OF MOVIES NOBODY WILL SEE - Has anyone seen this new movie 'Russian Ark', which is shot in one long, unbroken take? Here's the NY Times' blurb about it:

Russian Ark" is a magnificent conjuring act, an eerie historical mirage evoked in a single sweeping wave of the hand by Alexander Sokurov. The 96-minute film, shot in high-definition video in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, consists of one continuous, uninterrupted take. Thanks to recent technological innovation, it is the longest unbroken shot in the history of film. As the Steadicam operated by Tilman Büttner (the German cinematographer of "Run Lola Run") floats through the museum's galleries, a cast of 2,000 actors and extras act out random, whimsical moments of Russian imperial history that dissolve into one other like chapters of a dream.

And here I thought Welles' long take at the beginning of 'Touch of Evil' -- and Altman's spoof at the beginning of 'The Player', and Scorsese's tracking shot into the Copacabana in 'GoodFellas' -- were the most amazing uses of the long take in cinema. Sadly, like 'Adaptation', it's not playing in Chicago. How did the Windy City suddenly become Star City, Arkansas? And if you can name what movie is set in Star City, Arkansas, you get...well, I'm not sure what you'll get other than my respect and admiration.


E-mail CinemaScoped@attbi.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum

RABBIT-PROOF FENCE - I've been promising comments about Philip Noyce's 'Rabbit-Proof Fence' (opened limited, 11/29) for so long that whatever I have to say about it now will probably be a disappointment -- especially considering I saw the movie back in October at the Chicago International Film Festival and have no notes to reflect on. But then this is a movie playing on like five screens in the whole world so this post will be relevant to almost noone. Set in Australia in 1931, the movie is based on the true story of an Aboriginie girl named Molly Craig who was taken from her home along with two friends to a British training facility. According to British policy at the time, "half-caste" children (whose mothers were Aboriginal and whose fathers were white) were required to be removed and trained to work as servants. The end goal was that through marriage the half-caste children would eventually reproduce and somewhere down the genetic line the Aboriginal half would be washed away. It's basically an aristrocratic brand of ethnic cleansing -- the same horror but with tea and crumpets instead of guns and bombs, which is what makes it seem all the more horrific. If your interest isn't sparked yet, I haven't even gotten to the heart of the story, which follows Molly and her friends as they escape from the facility and embark on a 1500-mile journey back home using the titular fence as their guide. That's three kids. 1500 miles. Walking. The movie is a remarkable one, primarily because the story itself is so remarkable. Using non-professional actors and a cinema verite style, Noyce's only misstep is that he marks the line between good (the kind-hearted, happy natives) and evil (the British regulators) a little too neatly, at least in the scenes with Kenneth Branagh who plays A.O. Neville, the man in charge of overseeing the half-castes. The scenes of the Australian landscape are bathed in a warm, yellow glow against a clear-blue sky and shot with simple, fluid camera movements. There are also not as many close-ups, which would cinematically accomplish what the British were doing to the Aboriginies, which is to remove them from their surroundings. In contrast, all of Neville's scenes are a crisp, cold blue with harsh whites and sharp cuts that immediately make you uneasy. It's just a little too obvious for my taste, especially when Branagh is consistently shot at a low angle to signifiy his power. Noyce doesn't want us to think even for a second that their is any kind of nobility in Neville's endeavor -- and there definitely isn't -- but the fact is that evil people very rarely view themselves as being evil. They're just doing what they believe is right, no matter how misguided it might appear to others, or to us 70 years later. Neville is positively sure he is helping the Aboriginies, an irony that Noyce could have toyed with a bit more rather than color-coding who the bad guy is. Switching gears for a second, Sam piqued my interest with something he mentioned in his musings on Wednesday. With regard to 'Monsoon Wedding', he wrote: "Are actors in foreign films inherently more believable than actors (particularly well-known actors) in English-language films." I'll raise you one: Are non-professional actors, especially foreign ones, inherently more believable than professional actors (particularly well-known ones)? I automatically attributed a certain naturality to the behavior of these girls -- actual Aboriginie girls playing Aboriginie girls -- that I'm not sure I would have granted to regular actors. And I find that I always have this reaction with foreign non-actors. Is it because they are speaking in a foreign tongue and our ears are not able to pick up the kind of inflections that sometimes make a performance seem fake? Take Ed Burns' 'The Brothers' McMullen, for example. Burns cast is actual girlfriend at the time, Maxine Bahns, who had never acted before, to play his love interest in the movie. And really all she is doing is playing herself -- a 20-something living in New York, probably a student, which she was at the time. But her performance is textbook bad acting, horrible even by low-budget indie standards. Why couldn't I buy her performance, but every time I see a non-actor in a foreign movie -- any of Rossellini's and Fellini's neorealist efforts, the recent 'Himalaya', and so on -- I am inevitably convinced buy it? I'm not sure, but Noyce's semi-neorealist aesthetic worked for me and I was moved by the story and the performances of the girls, particularly the lead.

E-mail CinemaScoped@attbi.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum

MY RANDOM MUSINGS- You've heard the rumors, and, alas, they appear to be true. A deal is apparently in place that would have Sly Stallone lacing up the gloves one more time to play the Italian Stallion in 'Rocky VI' -- something about running a youth center and being roped back in for one more fight. I think what I'm looking forward to most is the inevitable scene where Talia Shires yells, "You're gonna get killed!" Stallone, who did write the screenplay to the best-picture winning original -- 'Rocky' beat 'All The President's Men', 'Network', and 'Taxi Driver' in 1976; think about that for a sec -- is reportedly developing the script. We can only hope the dialogue is as good as his last effort, 'Driven', which produced this gem: "Faith is like a good disease...it's contagious." As a blogger I know I'm supposed to come up with fountains of snarky remarks here -- and I picked this story to comment on just for that reason -- but I can't bring myself to do it. The story is it's own punchline. * I was flipping channels this past weekend and came across 'As Good As It Gets', a film that was nominated for best picture and earned an Oscar for its star, Jack Nicholson, back in 1997. I've caught parts of this movie on TV a few times since seeing it in the theater and I'm always struck by an awful feeling of self-loathing for having actually enjoyed it the first time I saw it. As some CS readers will recall, I ranted about this same subject on my old Iowa City radio show, "Burn Hollywood Burn," earlier in the year, but I just can't seem to let it go. This time I had the pleasure of tuning in to see Nicholson deliver his "Don't knock on my door ever again you little queer speech" to Greg Kinnear. How did I fall for this? How did I find this amusing? And how did Nicholson win an Oscar for such a tedious, ham-fisted performance? His delivery is so protracted as he basks in his "Jack-ness" that the scene becomes interminable. He just seems to be working sooo hard. "Mugging" is probably the best word to describe it, which is exactly what Slate's David Edelstein does when mentioning the performance in his tepid review of Nicholson's latest, 'About Schmidt', which was written and directed by Alexander Payne of 'Election' fame and opens Friday. (See, this post is topical after all.) Sadly, it only opens in NY and LA, which leaves the rest of us with: 'Maid In Manhattan', 'Star Trek: Nemesis', 'The Hot Chick', and 'Drumline'. Ouch. Guess the DVD player will see some action this weekend. 'Rabbit-Proof Fence' comments coming Friday...no really.

E-mail CinemaScoped@attbi.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum

SAM'S RANDOM MUSINGS - In my effort to catch up on this year's best-reviewed films, I saw "Monsoon Wedding" over the weekend. As I watched it, it was impossible for me not to compare it to this year's biggest box office surprise (and recent Oscar-talk bait) "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." A comparison may be unfair, because they are very different films; but watching the two films in fairly close succession has given me some clarity in articulating what I didn't like about "Fat Greek Wedding" (which itself might be redundant and unnecessary). Using a camera that remains in almost constant motion, "Monsoon Wedding" succeeds in submerging you into the frenzy of the few days preceding an upper middle class "dot com" wedding in New Delhi, India. The script, which has characters speaking interchangeably in English and Hindi, offers only scant help in sorting out the various and sundry family members; but what you get is a wonderfully chaotic portrait of a family in transition. Despite reports that the characters that make up Nia Vardalos' Fat Greek Family are based on actual family members, the film is still a canvas painted with a large, cartoonish brush, and the script is little more than a series of hit-and-miss punch lines. “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” still works on the strength of the actors, but no better than an above-average sit-com. The extended family in Mira Nair's "Monsoon Wedding" looks, feels, and sounds like a real family. When the film strays from character into plot, the film loses momentum and occasionally comes off as contrived, but I found these mild distractions. The sheer volume of ideas and characters and sights and sounds that the film introduces is intoxicating. Nair doesn’t condescend to any of her characters; instead, she mines humor out of a community of (very un-cartoonish) individuals who are provoked to sometimes outrageous fits of passion due to extraordinary circumstances. The extraordinary circumstances in this case being a wedding that brings together a bride and groom who have only met days before their wedding (it’s an arranged wedding); family members who have used the springboard of the global economy to leave New Delhi and India; and members of opposing classes and castes who struggle to shed the burden of history, while still embracing tradition. Not everything works in Nair’s film, and end is more cathartic than it is dramatically sound; but there is a contagious spirit of well-earned fun to the film. Definitely one of the better movies I’ve seen this year.

Something on a related topic that my girlfriend raised after we watched “Monsoon Wedding” that Adam and Eric might have an opinion on: Are actors in foreign films inherently more believable than actors (particularly well-known actors) in English-language films? I don’t watch a lot of foreign films, but I don’t go out of my way to avoid them either; and I think there’s some truth to this. I know with “Monsoon Wedding” I shut off the part of my brain that, with American films, is used to identify examples of illogic or inconsistency. I don’t know anything about traditional Indian customs, so I paid more attention to the story and the relationships. Ignorance is bliss. The same could be said for the power of unknown actors. Joaquin Phoenix is great in “To Die For” (for example), but the impact of his performance was all the greater because we had no expectations of him. There are a thousand examples of this; I just can’t think of any. Guy Pearce and (the relatively unknown) Russell Crowe in “LA Confidential;” Matthew McConaughey in “Dazed and Confused” (it’s impossible to watch that film now and not see “Matthew McConaughey;” whereas, when I first saw it, I thought to myself: “where did they find THAT guy?”). There are some films out there that I’m convinced I would have loved if they had been re-cast with unknown actors (“The Thin Red Line” comes immediately to mind; or basically any war movie where you know the guy played by Bruce Willis or whoever probably isn’t going to die). Thoughts on this, guys?

Final thought on the best sports movie of all time. I insist that anyone who claims that “The Natural” is their favorite sports movie should go and watch it again (as I did less than a month ago). It is atrocious. Terribly cast and boringly acted, it has almost nothing to do with baseball. It is moralistic, misogynistic and trite. I can’t believe I sat through it as a child. What a boring movie. A single caveat: the scene at the end still gives me chills. But that’s because it’s a baseball fantasy, and I love baseball. The music, the cinematography. You don’t need the rest of the film to appreciate that. “Hoosiers,” which I also saw again recently, is hands-down the best sports movie of all time. No question. Three things allow it to trump the entertainment value of “Bull Durham”: it’s based on a true story; it makes you feel like shooting hoops; and it’s got Gene Hackman’s laugh (which, in the event of his passing, should be put in the Smithsonian).

SPORTS MOVIES - I'm going to have a review of 'Rabbit-Proof Fence' tomorrow along with some other random musings. But until then, Rico has provoked a bit of a debate in the Feedback Forum on the subject of sports movies...why I'm not entirely sure, but it's worth commenting on nevertheless. Everyone seems to agree that 'Field of Dreams' belongs at the top of the list or at least near it, and as a baseball fan first and foremost, and as someone who (rightly or wrongly) doesn't consider 'Raging Bull' to be a "sports movie", I'm inclined to agree. Sure Ray Liotta plays Shoeless Joe Jackson as a righty -- how did the casting agent/filmmakers overlook this? -- and they mispronounce White Sox pitcher Eddie Cicotte as 'Che-cotty' when it should be 'See-cot', as anyone who has seen Sayles' great 'Eight Men Out' is well aware, but it's truly an American classic. It's a movie that's as much about fathers and sons as it is baseball. 'Bull Durham' is a close second because, as LawDog admits, I can watch it three times a week and not get tired of it. Joeycotton stands out from the group by putting 'Slap Shot' at the top of his list and then slamming 'The Natural' as "the worst sports movie ever." Shamefully, I have never seen 'Slap Shot' despite the fact that I work for a professional hockey team! I come to work each day scared to death that I'll be found out, outed for all of my co-workers to humiliate and ridicule. As for 'The Natural', Joeyc and the Movie Club's own Sam Hallgren are on crack if they hate this movie. Much like 'Field of Dreams' and it's source material -- the book 'Shoeless Joe' -- 'The Natural' is actually a better movie than a book, even if Barry Levinson makes Roy Hobbs into the embodiment of perfection and Hollywood-izes the ending. Manipulative? Maybe, but if you don't get a chill down your spine when the ball hits the lights at the end and the sparks fly onto the field, then I say there's something wrong with you. I am absolutely unashamed about the fact that this moment provokes the same response from me today as it did when I was 12. For what it's worth, ESPN Page 2 produced this list awhile back of their top 20 sports movies of all-time. You can also read Bob Halloran's missive about how 'Bull Durham' is over-rated, self-indulgent crap. He argues his points well even if there is only one criticism that really holds up, which is the fact that Nuke (Tim Robbins) somehow gets called up straight from "A" ball to "The Show," skipping the usual "AA" and "AAA." My college roommates and I, who watched this movie about 100 times senior year, have always had a problem with this bit of fantasy too. And who knows, maybe Halloran is right about 'Durham.' After all, Ron Shelton did direct the dreadful 'Cobb' and the even more dreadful -- I mean despicably bad -- 'Play It To The Bone.' I also dislike Shelton's 'Tin Cup' about as much as Halloran does 'Durham' -- probably for the same primary reason, too, which is that everyone else seems to love it way too much. But don't you ever say an unkind word about 'White Men Can't Jump'. Forget Newman and Redford, Astaire and Rogers, has there ever been a better on-screen duo than Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes?

E-mail CinemaScoped@attbi.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum

SOLARIS, OSCAR TALK IS ALL GREEK AND MORE - To close out our 'Solaris' discussion... I do think a case could be made that Soderbergh did mislead Sam, and the rest of us, a little bit in making the central struggle of 'Solaris' appear to be that of Kelvin vs. Solaris -- man of reason and intellect, a psychiatrist, forced to confront something that defies all reason. I was going the same route and, like Sam, felt that Soderbergh perhaps forsakes this struggle too abruptly. The first time the fake Rheya comes, Kelvin keeps his sanity and sends her away, literally, out into space. The next time she shows up, however, he seems to succumb almost immediately to Rheya/Solaris' will. The next thing you know, he's shouting at the crew members telling them that he isn't going back to Earth without her. With all of this said, I had no problem following this "new" narrative thread, as it were. It's odd because every critic who complains about the movie says that Soderbergh reduced Tarkovsky's more poetic, philosophical film to a simple story of lost love; but as my initial post illustrates -- as misguided and confounding as it may be -- it's the larger statements the movie makes about freewill and the very nature of human existence that struck me as so fascinating, not the love story. I'm glad I could enjoy Soderbergh's vision without comparing it to Tarkovsky's, though now I am eager to pick up the new Criterion disc and scope it out. I also thought that Clooney's performance was one of his better ones, free of his usual ticks and mannerisms. I almost started to think Clooney was a good actor after 'Out of Sight' but after watching it a few more times I started to notice that he's not good so much as Soderbergh and writer Scott Frank make him seem good. Watch any scene that he's in with Don Cheadle and Steve Zahn and it's amazing how stiff and un-charismatic Clooney appears. But while Clooney may not be a great actor, he has, since the 'Batman' debacle, shown near impeccable taste, and I applaud him for that. And if Natasha McElhone doesn't get a Supp. Actress nod for her performance it's a shame. She's asked to convey the emotions of a being that isn't quite human and is filled with all sorts of memories, but none of them are her own. She's a creature, ultimately, with no freewill, no mind of her own, and somehow she finds a way to reflect this confusing state while also being incredibly sensual.

Reader Joe Horaney wrote in again with a complaint about the Oscar buzz 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' seems to be generating. "If 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' continues to get Oscar buzz just because it grossed over $200 million, I'll be sick," is how he put it. It's an interesting dilemma. I don't think most movie snobs like myself would say 'Greek Wedding' is one of the top 5 movies of the year, but it's also a fairly entertaining movie made outside the big studio system so it's hard not to root for it, or at least cheer it's amazing success. The Academy does love to throw in a light-hearted little comedy every year it seems, so I guess we should prepare to hear it's name mentioned when they announce the nominees.

The Movie Club next week will likely be a potpourri of whatever Sam, Eric and myself see this weekend. The only new movies opening wide are 'Empire', which I know nothing about, and 'Analyze That', and not one of us intends to see either one. I have to admit that the trailers for 'Analyze That' do seem semi-amusing, but I really did not enjoy the original and as long as Harold Ramis is directing, and he is, the movie will surely suck. The futuristic 'Equilibrium' with 'American Psycho's Christian Bale opens limited and is playing in Chicago, but the critics are really hating it -- only 20% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Of course, the movie we all want to see is 'Adaptation', but for some reason it isn't playing in Chicago. Rotten Tomatoes lists it as opening wide so now I'm really confused. The critics, as expected, are eating it up -- 91% positive.

E-mail CinemaScoped@attbi.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum

RANDOM MUSINGS - Tying up some loose ends before closing out the Movie Club on 'Solaris'... * First, reader Lisa Hannon wrote in to ask, "While you're doing lists [referring to our discussion about filmmakers whose movies we will always go see], who are your favorite female directors, if any?" So I thought about it...and I thought...and I thought...and I'll be damned if I could come up with a single one. There are a number of great female editors out there, the most notable of all being Scorsese's longtime collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker, but men still dominate the directorial landscape. In fact, as this Salon article from April tells us, 96 percent of films are directed by men. In Hollywood who do we have -- Amy Heckerling? Nora 'You've Got Mail' Ephron? Penny Marshall? Thanks, but no thanks. There are quite a few Kathryn Bigelow fans out there ('Point Break', 'Strange Days'), despite the disastrous 'K-19: The Widowmaker', but I'm not really one of them and I can safely say her name alone wouldn't entice me to see a movie. On the foreign/arthouse/independent front there's Agnes Varda, Mary Harron ('American Psycho'), Jane Campion, and younger filmmakers like the Sprecher sisters, whose recent 'Thirteen Conversations About One Thing' I enjoyed while Sam and joeycotton in the Feedback Forum found it mostly annoying. But I'm either not familiar enough with the work of these filmmakers or they haven't made enough movies to warrant instant credibility. Who am I forgetting? Sam, Eric...do you have any favorite female directors? If a reader out there would like to enlighten me on the merits of a particular female director, please send me an email at: cinemascoped@attbi.com. * On Greg's Previews over at Yahoo, his poll question is: "Which of these December releases do you think has the best chance of being this year's big Oscar winner?" I point this out not because I care to even hazard a guess at the answer, but because seeing all of the choices in a row made me realize just how great December is going to be for movies. Spike Lee's '25th Hour', Alexander Payne's 'About Schmidt', Spike Jonze's 'Adaptation', Denzel Washington's directing debut 'Antwone Fisher', Spielberg's 'Catch Me If You Can', 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind', Scorsese's long-awaited 'Gangs Of New York', 'The Hours' with an unrecognizable Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf, and a little movie called 'The Two Towers.' The only movie on the list I'm not excited to see is 'Chicago', the movie version of the famous Bob Fosse musical starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellwegger. I can't really explain why; I just know I probably won't see it until it's been out for many weeks, if at all. * Speaking of the '25th Hour', CS reader and former 'Burn Hollywood Burn' co-host Joe Horaney sent in this link to the trailer for Spike Lee's latest about the last twenty four hours a guy (Edward Norton) spends before he goes to prison for seven years for pushing heroin. David Benioff wrote the screenplay based on his own novel of the same name...well, almost. Lee dropped the "The" to make it just '25th Hour'. Joe read the book and had this reaction to the trailer: "Looks great. Definitely captured the tone of the novel and the cast is awesome. Edward Norton wouldn't have been my choice for the main character because of how he is described in the book, but he can pull it off. Will be one of Spike's better movies I'm betting." Joe went on to say that there character in the books is supposed to be "'black Irish,' dark and really good looking, the kind of guy that walks into a room and everyone notices. Ed Norton played a good sleaze in 'Rounders' for a reason; you could buy him as that. The guy described in the book sounded more like a Billy Crudup."

E-mail CinemaScoped@attbi.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum

MOVIE CLUB: SOLARIS
From: Eric Baker
To: Adam Kempenaar; Sam Hallgren
Subject: I Think Psych 101 Would Have Shed More Light

I agree somewhat with Adam and "Island girl's" distillation of the film, but probably more with Sam's gut reaction upon leaving the theater. I usually don't enjoy reading a number of reviews about the same movie, but this one generated such visceral reactions from everyone who wrote about it that the critical response suggested there was HOTS going on (that's Higher Order Thinking Skills for the uninitiated, and yes I got that from my 5th grade teacher). I didn't read the story either, and in this instance I'm quite glad I didn't, mainly because I like to get my entertainment by staring at something for a few hours with my mouth open. I was flipping through the channels the past week and came upon one of those "Making of the Movie: 'Solaris'"-type shows. They made a grand to-do about how, though James Cameron owned the rights to the story, Soderbergh wanted to do it so badly he came up with an entirely original treatment that blew Cameron's production company out of the water. Two items caught my attention as the over-earnest documentary continued: 1) Cameron felt his role as producer required him to stay away from the set but become hands-on once the editing work began, and 2) the studio panicked when the movie tanked in front of test audiences. I'm not suggesting we have another "Touch of Evil" here, but I wonder if this really is the picture Soderbergh envisioned. Unlike a lot of critics, I stayed with this sci-fi, and it started to work a little for me in the second half, but I thought the plot manipulations hamstrung the film. Not the Macguffins in the beginning, but the meetings with everyone at the end, and the posturing as Viola Davis' character tries to escape seemed to stray from what Soderbergh was building as an allegory to love lost. (Do you guys keep typing "Soberbergh?") I felt it was pretty clear that Kelvin's dreams were a manifestation of his guilt over his wife's death, even if it was Solaris, which is the biggest Macguffin of all, responsible for creating them. It's likely Soderbergh, or more accurately Lem, though it was ironic to cast Kelvin as a psychiatrist as he struggles with his feelings about her, but I felt it just made it that much harder to swallow. Maybe I've been reading the psychiatrist's club dissect too many of the "Sopranos" episodes on Slate. I didn't feel like the "dilemma," as Adam has couched it, was really a dilemma at all. So ultimately, in my mind, the blame has to fall to Soderbergh for creating such surface-level characters and denying the narrative access to Kelvin's point of view. Soderbergh's trademark flashbacks provided context but lacked emotional heft in a story deliberately unraveled at a snail's pace so as not to let on too much. Of course the camerawork is impeccable, and who would expect anything else from a Soderbergh film? But where did all the money go in this supposed big budget feature: Clooney's salary? Apparently there are no natural fibers in the future and everything looks like Battlestar Galactica, which really is enough to make me want to kill myself. I have to assume Soderbergh, like the aforementioned Michael Moore, makes films primarily to entertain people, meaning he has to get people to go to them first. The box office numbers are crap -- Soderbergh better be careful, lest he become more irrelevant than Woody Allen. To paraphrase Crash Davis: "You can afford to be artistic when you're making $50 million a movie."

As to directors whose work I'd see despite exhortations otherwise, Adam knocked most of mine off with Scorsese, Lynch, Sayles, Wong Kar-Wai, and the Coen Bros., though he left out Atom Egoyan and probably Garry Marshall. Adam also forgot to mention that any show produced by Dick Wolf he will dutifully watch no matter the critical washout. Of course it wouldn't be a film snob list without perennial snooze maestro Abbas Kiarostami on the list.

It sounds like we're going to be placing an increased reliance on lists during the next month, so I thought I'd just reiterate my thoughts on how I rank movies for both club writers and readers. I liken my method to Justice Potter Stewart's explanation of obscenity: "I can't tell you what it is but I know it when I see it." I make some kind of judgment after I watch a film about whether I liked it, then I try to fit it in some haphazard framework at the end of the year. Given how messy that sounds, I guess I can't blame Hollywood for withholding their Oscar contenders until December.

E-mail CinemaScoped@attbi.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum

MOVIE CLUB: SOLARIS
From: Sam Hallgren
To: Adam Kempenaar; Eric Baker
Subject: Solaris Reconsidered

I think I may have finally figured out what bothered me about "Solaris." It was Adam's identification of, as he calls it, the movie's "central dilemma." According to Adam, that dilemma is Kelvin's choice between returning to Earth to resume a "normal" (but loveless) life, or staying on board the ship, alone in deep space, with what, by all appearances, is his wife, recalled from the grave. I think Adam's "central dilemma" is correct, but it's not the one I recognized when I watched the film. If I were to identify the movie's "central dilemma"--as I took it to be when I watched the film--it would be something like this: when forced to choose between reason and desire in a situation that tests all of this emotional and professional faculties, how does a man use logic to defeat temptation? An entirely un-metaphysical construction on my part, I realize. Without realizing it, I had set myself up with expectations that the film had no intention of satisfying. In my mind, Kelvin was the protagonist and the planet Solaris was the antagonist. My thoughts during the whole movie: How will Kelvin defeat Solaris? And it's not that Kelvin doesn't defeat Solaris at the end that bothered me; it's that he stops trying to defeat Solaris halfway through the film. From the moment that Kelvin sends the first Rheya to her "death" in an escape pod, I was rooting for Kelvin to outmaneuver whatever it was that had incapacitated the rest of the crew. Now why did I think that? Have I been watching too many conventional sci-fi action movies? Because I became increasingly irritated as Kelvin further submits to the power of Solaris. Now that I think about it, the film is, in many ways, like a more typical (if slow-moving) protagonist/antagonist struggle -- but -- absent a third act. In a traditional format we see the following formula: in the first act, we witness our hero's physical/mental prowess when faced with various obstacles; in the second act our hero's nemesis, the antagonist, gets the better of him by exploiting our hero's weakness(es); in the third act our hero uses his superhuman strength/will to defeat the antagonist. In "Solaris" we get the first two acts, and no third act. But this formula is disappointing only if that's the formula that Soderbergh is employing. Which, according to Adam, he isn't. And I agree with him. So how did I get so off-track? I'm glad that I finally understand what kept me from enjoying the film, but I don't want to take all the blame. Eric and Adam: Did Soderbergh mislead me at all, or am I just too conventional a filmgoer to have figured out what he was up to?

On another subject, Eric asked me to explain my current obsession with Netflix, the online DVD rental service. I'm not sure how many Cinemascoped readers use the service, or have replaced their VCRs with DVD players, but, for even the casual renter of DVDs, Netflix beats Blockbuster ten times out of ten. For one thing, Netflix completely changed my renting psychology. Before Netflix, I'd go to Blockbuster, peruse the new releases, and eighty-five percent of the time I would rent something from the new release section. I might stroll through the "Blockbuster Favorites" aisles, but even if I saw something that caught my eye--an overlooked classic or an intriguing indie film--I'd probably hold onto my $4.00+ new release. I wish you could all take a look at the list of films I have rented through Netflix in the past six months. Just last week, the following films arrived in my mailbox: Fellini's "8 12," the Christian Bale/Matt McConaughey dragon epic "Reign of Fire," Ingmar Bergman's "Wild Strawberries," and the Tim Robbins Vietnam Vet warped suspense film "Jacob's Ladder" (not to be confused with "Jakob the Liar"). I've also rented "The Last Starfighter" (lots of unintentional hilarity) the original "Get Carter" with Michael Caine (a great movie), and "Godfather III" (just as bad as you remember it being). I'm not sure I would have rented any of these movies at Blockbuster, assuming they even had them. Also, depending on the volume of films you watch per week, or per month, Netflix can be an incredible bargain. Granted, I wouldn't be watching nearly as many movies if I had to rent them, but as it stands, my roommate and I spend on average about $1 per rental--based on a cost-per-month rental/cost analysis conducted by my roommate in his prodigious spare time. Compare that with Blockbuster's ever-increasing prices, and it's a no-brainer. Plus, with Netflix, there are no late fees. I know that this sounds like an advertisement; but I reap no rewards for this kind of commentary. Consider this a public service message. And why'll you're at it, rent "Klute" or "The Right Stuff" or "The Last Detail" or "The Bridge Over The River Kwai" or Michael Mann's "Thief" with James Caan. All great films that I rented through Netflix that I would never have rented from Blockbuster. A single warning: not all of the chances you end up taking on films pay off. For every diamond in the rough, there are two or three stinkers: turns out “The Stunt Man” is only a cult classic for people who love terrible movies.

MOVIE CLUB: SOLARIS
From: Adam Kempenaar
To: Sam Hallgren; Eric Baker
Subject: Should have paid more attention in Existential Philosophy

Before commenting specifically on Steven Soderbergh's 'Solaris', I want to mention right off the top that I have not seen Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 version, nor have I read Stanislaw Lem's book (1961). I've gathered from reading various sources that Soderbergh's rendition is closer to the book than Tarkovsky's while also being a lot less confusing. If this is true, I can't imagine how negatively Sam would react to the original. (A 2-disc Criterion Collection DVD comes out today.) Sam faults the current 'Solaris' for lacking specifics and for raising questions that it can't or won't answer -- “What is Solaris?”; “How should we get rid of the "visitors?" “How dangerous are the "visitors?" -- but one of the reasons I enjoyed the movie so much is precisely because these questions were left open for interpretation. These are the kind of questions that a standard, plot-driven sci-fi movie would try to answer, but for Soderbergh (and I'm guessing Lem and Tarkovsky) these issues are merely MacGuffins, plot means to a much larger end. The movie isn't concerned with trying to explain why this strange planet is somehow able to interpret one's dreams and actually produce a flesh and blood version of someone close to the dreamer. It is, as Sam says, "a story of relationships, loss, and the psychology of mourning and forgiveness," but it's also much more than that. Depending on how you interpret the ending -- which I will admit to having some confusion about -- 'Solaris' is either the ultimate exitentialist manifesto or the ultimate affirmation of God's supreme power. The movie's central dilemma is fascinating enough -- Clooney's character, Chris Kelvin, has to decide whether he would prefer to go back to Earth and resume his normal life, or exist essentially in isolation in space with someone -- something, really -- who is an exact replica of his dead wife, Rheya. Fortunately, I have yet to experience the loss of someone that close to me. But if I had, I could see this actually being a difficult decision if I was placed in a similar situation. Life on Earth without the person I love most in the world, or life with that person in a place without any typical human concerns -- no job, no mortgage payment, etc... The conundrum is that the allure of an existence without those daily concerns is also what makes it seem so frightening because our ambition and material items are what define us. Even more intriguing, however, is the way the film frames the age-old philosophical debate on freewill, an issue that we see being discussed specifically in at least one flashback during the film. The planet Solaris enables Kelvin, in a sense, to become God. As islandgirllizzie says in the Feedback Forum, Rheya is defined by Kelvin's memories of her and while Solaris may be responsible for "making" her, it is Kelvin who is responsible for "creating" her in his dreams. One could posit that what is ultimately so disarming about Rheya and the other "visitors" to the ship is that it forces Kelvin and the scientists to accept a position they are not equipped to take. Man aspires to be God, and in His absence (thanks to freewill) has not choice but to do so. Perhaps Lem's message is that Man is not quite ready.

Looking back over this I'm not sure any of it makes sense, but oh well. There's still much to discuss about 'Solaris' -- the performances, Soderbergh's signature camerawork and editing, plus Eric still hasn't chimed in yet...

E-mail CinemaScoped@hotmail.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum

MOVIE CLUB: SOLARIS
From: Adam Kempenaar
To: Sam Hallgren; Eric Baker
Subject: Filling space

Hmm...my list of directors "whose films I will see despite any and all criticism suggesting I do otherwise?" Sam is part of my Movie Club because he consistently inspires fun little games like this one. His list is, by his own account, small -- Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmusch, Steven Soderbergh and David O. Russell, if Russell ever makes a follow-up to 'Three Kings'. My list is a bit bigger. Anderson and Soderbergh, definitely. Add Scorsese, David Lynch, John Sayles, Quentin Tarantino, P.T. Anderson, the Coen Bros., David Fincher, Woody Allen (despite the fact that he hasn't made a good film in almost 10 years and a great film in about 15, as I wrote back on 10/29) and Spike Lee. Michael Mann gets my honorable mention...which brings me to this tangent. Since we're on the subject of lists, it's worth mentioning that Sight and Sound magazine's current issue responds to criticism that their decade poll of the best films and directors neglected recent movies by publishing a new poll that focuses exclusively on films since 1978. Mann, somewhat surprisingly to me, made the list of directors at #5. The rest of the list is as follows: 1. Scorsese 2. Krzysztof Kieslowski 3. Wong Kar-Wai 4. Abbas Kiarostami 5. Mann 6. Lynch 7. Pedro Almodóvar 8. Francis Ford Coppola 9. Spike Lee 9. Ingmar Bergman. The films (in order): Apocalpyse Now (Coppola), Raging Bull (Scorsese), Fanny and Alexander (Bergman), GoodFellas (Scorsese), Blue Velvet (Lynch), Do The Right Thing (Lee), Blade Runner (Ridley Scott), Chunking Express (Wong Kar-Wai), Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terence Davies), Once Upon A Time In America (Sergio Leone) and Yi Yi (Edward Yang). I'll save commentary on these two lists for later in the week when Sam, Eric and I provide the "Official" CinemaScoped list of the best directors and films of the past 25 years.

I didn't quite finish my comments on 'Solaris' last night. Check back this afternoon for more Movie Club fun.


E-mail CinemaScoped@hotmail.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum

MOVIE CLUB: SOLARIS
From: Sam Hallgren
To: Adam Kempenaar; Eric Baker
Subject: In space, no one can hear you wonder what the hell is going on

Steven Soderbergh belongs to a small group of directors whose films I will see despite any and all criticism suggesting I do otherwise. Wes Anderson and Jim Jarmusch are the other two; and -- if he ever directs another film -- David O. Russell would be the fourth. I have to admit that my predilection for Soderbergh and his films stems equally from his films themselves and from the commentary he provides on the DVDs of his films. Having listened to his commentary for "Sex, Lies, and Videotape," "The Limey" and "Ocean's 11," Soderberg strikes me as someone in love with the art of making films. And not just the technique of making films, but the art of storytelling that is unique to filmmaking. Soderbergh comes off on these commentaries as humble; self-critical; confident, but not cocky; and always curious -- as much a student as an auteur. Last Wednesday afternoon, on the film’s opening day, I attended a matinee of Soderberg's "Solaris.” I didn't like it. Even worse, I left the movie confused -- unsure of what I was supposed to take from it. I don't mind leaving a film confused if that is the filmmaker's intent (David Lynch may not intend for me to leave his films perplexed, but I invariably do, and that didn't keep me from enjoying "Mulholland Drive"); but "Solaris" was clearly about something -- I'm just not sure what. At its essence, “Solaris” is a story of relationships, loss, and the psychology of mourning and forgiveness. Alone, a cinematic meditation on these ideas might have been interesting; but the film itself feels plot-heavy—and yet, at the same time, lacking in specifics. I honestly think I would have been less confused -- and found the film more moving -- if I had seen “Solaris” without its unnecessarily confusing dialogue. There is something very moving about the basic story as it is told visually: melancholy man (Clooney) is called to join a mission in deep space; man arrives to find evidence of some mischief (blood stains, dead bodies, etc.); man meets eccentric crew member (a bearded, tic-ridden Jeremy Davies) who gives him absolutely no indication of what the hell is going on; man meets another crew member (Viola Davis) who is so freaked out that she won't leave her room; man goes into his room, sleeps, wakes to find a woman in his bed (Natasha McElhone); man freaks out, goes to shocking ends to remove her from the ship; man has more confusing conversations with crew members; man goes back to sleep and the same woman returns; flashbacks to his past indicate that this woman is his girlfriend/wife; etc., etc. If it weren’t for the intrusive exposition that keeps hijacking the film, the music and the visual momentum of the story would make for a seriously creepy and profoundly moving film. “What is Solaris?”; “How should we get rid of the "visitors?" “How dangerous are the "visitors?" The film offered no answers to these questions, and I left the film wishing they hadn’t been asked. I look forward to watching the film again on DVD. I look even more forward to hearing Soderbegh’s DVD commentary, so I can finally understand what the film was about. As I finish this post, I learn that Adam has provocatively names "Solaris" as one of the best films of the year. I am eager to hear his thoughts. I am even more eager to see a film that I really like. I haven't written a good review of a film since this Movie Club began...For the record, of films I saw this year, I really liked "Punch Drunk Love," "Heaven," "Roger Dodger," "The Dancer Upstairs," "The Bourne Identity," "Full Frontal" and "About a Boy." I just wanted to get that out there.

COMING SOON - I won't be able to get my comments on 'Solaris' up until tonight. But I'll leave this morsel to entice my Movie Club partners, Sam and Eric -- I think it might just be the film of the year.

E-mail CinemaScoped@hotmail.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum