A small-time crook (Jamel Debbouze of Days of Glory), about to be rubbed out in Paris for an unpaid debt, decides to jump into the Seine, but when a leggy blond (Rie Rasmussen of Femme Fatale) jumps first, he promptly saves her. She turns out to be the title angel and accompanies him around the city, showing him how to clean up his act. Given my antipathy toward Luc Besson’s glib and nihilistic early features, I didn’t expect to like this 2005 mix of romantic fantasy and screwball comedy. But his attractive black-and-white ‘Scope compositions, strong Paris locations, and effective handling of the actors makes this captivating throughout, and wholly undeserving of the drubbing it’s received from many critics. In French with subtitles. R, 91 min. (JR) Read more
The title hero (Kevin Costner), a successful and beloved executive, husband, and father, is secretly addicted to committing gratuitous murders and voices his inner doubts to an alter ego (William Hurt) while being tracked by a similarly compulsive millionaire cop (Demi Moore). When he forgets to close the blinds before killing a couple, a voyeur (Dane Cook) spots him and blackmails him, demanding to be brought along on the next caper. This is one of those slick, violent, ridiculous Hollywood jobs that make little sense as a story, a comment on life, or a depiction of characters, but are moderately enjoyable in their spinning of movie conventions. There’s even a good De Palma-style fake shock ending. Bruce A. Evans directed a script he wrote with Raynold Gideon. R, 120 min. (JR) Read more
Hilary Brougher follows up her highly original debut feature The Sticky Fingers of Time (1997) with this grim, intensely realized psychological thriller (2006) about an alienated 16-year-old (Amber Tamblyn) in denial about both her secret pregnancy and having murdered the baby after delivering it alone in a public restroom. That’s a pretty loaded premise, but the pregnant forensic psychologist (Tilda Swinton) hired to question the teenager has issues as well, her first pregnancy having ended with a stillbirth. Apart from Swinton’s fine performance, what largely distinguishes this is Brougher’s sharp narrative focus. With Timothy Hutton, Denis O’Hare, and Melissa Leo. R, 92 min. (JR) Read more
Sergei Bondarchuk’s epic 1967 adaptation of the Tolstoy novel, screening in four parts, is the most expensive movie ever made, and though it can be bombastic and mind-numbing, it’s often lively and eye filling. The balls and battle scenes are monumental, and Bondarchuk (who plays the bumbling Pierre, as Orson Welles would have in the 40s if he’d realized his own version with Alexander Korda) moves his camera a lot, incorporating some expressive 60s-style flourishes. Even at 415 minutes (over an hour shorter than the Soviet release) this rarely suggests the vision behind Tolstoy’s set pieces or populist polemics; his feeling for incidental detail is more evident in (non-Tolstoyan) films like The Leopard and The Magnificent Ambersons. This is a landmark in the history of commerce and post-Stalinist Russia, but not cinema. If you’d like to merely sample it, try parts one and three. With Lyudmila Savelyeva (graceful as Natasha), Vyacheslav Tikhonov (suitably morose as Andrei), and more than 100,000 extras. In Russian and French with subtitles. Part one: 147 min. Part two: 86 min. Part three: 83 min. Part four: 98 min. a Part one: Fri 6/1, 6 PM, Sat 6/2, 2:30 PM, and Mon 6/4, 6:30 PM; part two: Fri 6/1, 8:45 PM, Sat 6/2, 5:15 PM, and Tue 6/5, 6:15 PM; part three: Sun 6/3, 2:30 PM, Tue 6/5, 8 PM, and Wed 6/6, 6:15 PM; part four: Sun 6/3, 4:15 PM, Wed 6/6, 8 PM, and Thu 6/7, 6:15 PM; $9 per part or $30 for all four; Gene Siskel Film Center. Read more
