OKAY NEW MOVIE: BEING THE RICARDOS

On the set of I Love Lucy

BEING THE RICARDOS (2021 Amazon streaming video). Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin. 

While preparing an episode of their show I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman of To Die For) and her husband Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem of Skyfall) learn that powerful columnist Walter Winchell is calling Lucy a communist. In addition to that upsetment, Lucille is convinced that Desi is having affairs with other women, even if a photo published in Confidential proves to be several months old. Lucy, a perfectionist, clashes with her director, writers, husband and fellow cast members as to how certain sequences should be handled, while Vivian Vance (Nina Arianda) suffers angst over how Ethel is continually seen as unattractive when she is married to her "grandfather," Fred, played by William Frawley (J. K. Simmons of Whiplash). The sole female scriptwriter doesn't want Lucy to be depicted as being stupid, but Ball counters that "Lucy" is clever and almost always gets her way -- true! 

Essentially all of this material, none of which is new to the I Love Lucy fanatic (among which I count myself) has already been covered in the 1991 telefilm Lucy and Desi: Before the Laughter. However, Being the Ricardos is still an entertaining, if unnecessary, picture, although if it has people pulling out or buying their complete sets of I love Lucy I'm all for it. Nicole Kidman is better as Lucy than I would have imagined, and while Bardem is not as handsome as Desi was, he is also effective in his portrayal. I wouldn't have necessarily chosen Simmons or Arianda to play Fred and Ethel, but they are also good, especially grumpy Simmons, and the people who play the writers and director are also well-chosen. (Linda Lavin and others play the older versions of these people in mock interviews.) Lucy's children, Lucie and Desi Jr., served as producers. 

Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball

Just as happened with Judy, the recent film about Judy Garland, some viewers won't be satisfied with any actor portrayal of a beloved figure unless the person themselves gets up out of the grave and, impossibly, plays the part. Nicole Kidman has gotten some serious hatred, and she certainly isn't a brilliant comedienne like Lucy, but she doesn't try to be -- she is rarely shown attempting the physical comedy Ball was famous for. But nevertheless she does a very good job approximating Ball. As for the film itself, there is some attempt to flesh out the characters, although the ultimate result is a tad superficial. Apparently Aaron Sorkin is not a fan of I Love Lucy -- while not every episode was a winner, quite a few were classics that are as funny today as when they first aired. 

Verdict: Whether you like this movie or not, get out your box of I Love Lucy and enjoy Ball and the others dealing with operettas, candy factories, William Holden in the Brown Derby, Lucy stomping grapes to soak up local color, selling salad dressing, attending a country club dance, going to charm school, and dozens of other episodes that will bring a great big smile to your face. And these days we sure need one! ***. 

FILMS I JUST COULDN'T FINISH ROUND 4

FILMS I JUST COULDN'T FINISH ROUND FOUR. 

As noted previously, these are not reviews, per se, but notes on films that I watched or suffered through until I just gave up on them for one reason or another. Sometimes I skipped to different sections just to get a sense of what was going on or to see if the film became more entertaining. Not all of these pictures are necessarily bad, they just didn't hold my attention. If you see one on the list that you think deserves another look, let me know.

Meet Mr. Callaghan (1954) is a British private eye movie about the murder of a wealthy man with four nephews and other suspects. The main character and lead actor are both rather irritating in their way, and the movie is full of cliches. I couldn't care less who the murderer was.

Sodom and Gomorrah (1962), which was directed by Robert Aldrich,  actually did not necessarily seem like a bad biblical spectacle of sorts, but I didn't care for the cast, which included Stewart Granger and a lot of actors whom I didn't find that interesting. This is an international co-production, not a Hollywood film, the reason why the cast is not exactly stellar. It all seemed a little tacky as well, just not something I wanted to spend another hour and a half on.

The Weekend Murders (1970) is actually a dubbed Italian film originally entitled Concerto per pistola solista. It is a take-off on an Agatha Christie-type British manor mystery with a reading of a will and (off-screen) murders occurring afterward. Comedy is provided by a Scotland Yard Inspector and a country sergeant who proves smarter than his superior. I actually watched most of this but it's rather slow and silly and eventually I just skipped to the end to find out who the killer was. The film's "composer," Franceso de Masi, has the temerity to rip off Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto # 1 for the theme music, which one hopes was deliberate. The picture has no style and is not memorable.

Innocent Bystanders (1972) is a late-entry spy saga starring Stanley Baker as an aging operative who is sent on assignment by Donald Pleasence, but isn't apprised of all of the facts. I found the "mod"-like style of the film to be off-putting, and couldn't quite get through a quarter of it.

Screamers (1979) is a dubbed Italian film with Richard Johnson and Barbara Bach hoping to get treasure that is guarded by some mutated Atlanteans who have become half man and half fish. The prologue in a cave with Cameron Mitchell and Mel Ferrer has some gory moments and appears to be added afterward. In the main story Joseph Cotten plays a scientist who wants to study the fish-men. This is slow and unrewarding and isn't really a horror film at all.

Frances (1982) stars Jessica Lange in a very heavily fictionalized version of the life of actress Frances Farmer based on a biography that was later largely discredited. I didn't just turn this off after a time because I knew I wasn't going to get the real story -- Sam Shepard saunters through the movie and narrates even though his character never actually existed -- but the dramatic license at times becomes ludicrous, illogical and even outlandish. For the record Farmer was never lobotomized as this film depicts!

The Human Stain (2003) didn't hold my attention even though it actually has some interesting aspects in this study of an academic (Anthony Hopkins and Wentworth Miller in different time periods) who has hid the fact that he's African-American for virtually all of his adult life. (Ironically, he quits his job when he's accused of racism.) Based on a novel by Philip Roth (The Humbling) we have yet another old man in an improbable relationship with a much younger woman (Nicole Kidman). Both Hopkins and Kidman are miscast, and the film meanders a little too much, although Miller (bi-racial in real life) gives a very good performance.

Masks (2011) is a German-language version of an Italian giallo film, or at least that's what its proponents say it is. About a young lady who comes to study at a strange acting school, the movie is slow and dull despite the occasional bloody sword attack. Comparing it to the (best) work of Dario Argento is ridiculous. This had trouble holding my attention for more than a third.

Camp Dread (2014) is a pretty terrible film about a down-on-his-luck horror film maker (the down-on-his-luck Eric Roberts) who concocts a scheme to use troubled youths on a reality show that will ultimately turn into something like one of his horror movies. Then the youths begin getting killed. The film hasn't a dollop of atmosphere and some of the actors are amateurish to boot. Not compelling nor well-made enough to keep watching.

Suspiria (2018) is a remake of a much better film by Dario Argento centering on a coven of witches in a dance studio. The remake takes place in post WW2 Berlin, and in an attempt to add some depth and pathos to the story, drags in the events of the holocaust. The movie is long but the real problem is that it just didn't grip me or pull me into the story the way that Argento did. If they had stuck to making a simple and effective horror film this might have amounted to something. Tilda Swinton is quite good -- amazing, in fact -- in a dual role. I got about halfway through this and then peeked at subsequent sequences, some of which seemed so silly as to be laughable. Jessica Harper, the lead in the original Suspiria, has a cameo role.

Book Club (2018) has four friends -- Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen -- reading "Fifty Shades of Gray" for their book club and having assorted misadventures with men. Okay, for awhile this was cute, but it seemed too much like an extended ad for "Fifty Shades" (I wouldn't be surprised if the book's publisher is a division of the production company.) Too much like a sitcom, the humor is of the variety of friends getting together and making jokes about sex, the same stuff you can hear in any bar. This wasn't terrible, it just didn't hold my interest for more than half an hour. I was surprised that for a film supposedly against age discrimination, it portrays the very elderly in the same disdainful light as everything else.

Other films that failed to grip me: Hootenanny a-Go-Go; A Swingin; Summer; Gidget Goes to Rome; Every Day's a Holiday with Freddie and the Dreamers; Tough Kid; Racing Blood with Frankie Darro; Juvenile Court with Rita Hayworth; Wild Racers with Fabian; Promises, Promises with Jayne Mansfield, Maid for Murder; Hollywood Dreams; This Man is Dangerous; Adventures of a Private Eye; A Yank in Ermine; Badge of Honor with Buster Crabbe; Girl Loves Boy with Eric Linden; the eurospy flick 13 Days to Die; Doorway to Suspicion; Tale of Five Cities/Women starring Bonar Colleano; The Final Countdown with Kirk Douglas in bangs; and Master Stroke, a caper movie. 

TO DIE FOR

Nicole Kidman

TO DIE FOR (1995). Director: Gus Van Sant.

"You're not anybody in America unless you're on TV." -- Suzanne Stone.

Suzanne Stone (Nicole Kidman of Eyes Wide Shut) is determined to have a career in broadcasting, and using her perch as weather girl for a local channel, works with some young people on a documentary that she hopes will get attention. Suzanne is beginning to believe that her loving husband, Larry (Matt Dillon), will only hold her back from her ambitions. Beginning an affair with the boy Jimmy Emmett (Joaquin Phoenix of The Village), Suzanne tells Jimmy that the only way they can be together permanently is if Larry is out of the picture ...

Joaquin Phoenix

To Die For was inspired by the real-life Pamela Smart case as seen in the earlier telefilm Murder in New Hampshire. It may seem in bad taste that this story -- although the names have been changed along with certain incidents, and Suzanne is much more over-the-top than the real Smart -- is played as a very dark comedy, but the film has a serious undertone throughout, and "Larry's" death is in no way made fun of. The one person who comes in for drubbing is Pamela/Suzanne, who is depicted as a self-absorbed and narcissistic monster. The audience laughs at her and her outrageousness, not with her. Based on Joyce Maynard's novel, Buck Henry's screenplay delves into celebrity, sociopathology and other trenchant topics in very entertaining fashion. 

David Cronenberg

Nicole Kidman is perfect as Suzanne, and there is also good work from Phoenix as her young lover; Dan Hedaya as Larry's father; Holland Taylor as Suzanne's mother; Illeana Douglas as Larry's sister; Casey Affleck as one of Jimmy's murdering buddies; Alison Folland as Lydia, a friend of Jimmy's; and an uncredited George Segal as a slimy newsman who gives Suzanne some sexist tips. David Cronenberg, who directed many of his own movies, shows up at the end as a hit man pretending to be a Hollywood producer. Suzanne's final fate in this movie is perhaps more satisfying than what happened to Pamela Smart, who is still in the penitentiary as of this writing!

Verdict: Absorbing, very darkly amusing film with a strong lead performance. ***. 

EYES WIDE SHUT

Tom Cruise

EYES WIDE SHUT (1999). Produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Alice (Nicole Kidman of Birth) and Dr. William Harford (Tom Cruise of Jack Reacher) are a moderately wealthy couple living in Manhattan (or what barely passes for same). After an argument, a high-on-grass Alice confesses to Bill that she saw a military man while they were on vacation and had such intense sexual fantasies about him  that she felt she could have walked away from Bill, their young daughter, and her whole life to be with this man. Bill can't get this out of his mind, and the next night he has a series of misadventures: Marion (Marie Richardson), the daughter of a dead elderly patient, tells him she's in love with him despite barely knowing him; some morons who think he's gay taunt him with homophobic slurs in Greenwich Village; he nearly sleeps with a hooker named Domino (Vinessa [sic] Shaw); and he re-encounters an old college friend who has become a musician. This friend, Nick (Todd Field), tells him of a mysterious series of parties he goes to where he plays the piano but isn't allowed to take off his mask. Intrigued, Bill rents a costume and goes off by taxi to an isolated estate where he discovers an elegant orgy where (generally) the women are naked, the men are clothed, and everyone wears a mask. Paranoia sets in when his deception is discovered and he is warned that powerful people will enact vengeance if he dares utter a word about what he's seen ...

Stanley Kubrick's final film, Eyes Wide Shut got a very mixed reception when it was released. I can't argue with all of the criticisms about it -- that it's slow at times, that it seems a bit stodgy for the nineties, that the orgy scenes are almost silly, and that it hardly develops into an intense thriller (which may not have been what Kubrick was after in the first place) -- and there has been pretentious overpraise for a picture that would hardly classify as a masterpiece. It also pretty much pushes aside any moral complexities for a one word quick-joke finale. However, I have seen Eves Wide Shut three or four times by now, and each time I find the nearly three-hour film completely absorbing and suspenseful. Admittedly, the sequence when Bill goes to buy a costume from a creepy man with a nubile daughter goes on too long, and there are others. One critic declared the picture an "old man's movie," probably because the orgies aren't that energetic and have no pounding rock soundtrack -- and Kubrick may have missed a lot of things he could have done with this film --  but this criticism misses the point that these parties are meant to be "classy" and ritualistic. Whether even the rich and famous would be bothered with secret sex societies is besides the point -- no married Senator, for instance, would want it getting out that he belonged to one.

The direction and the performances help a lot, with Cruise being more than adequate, and his then-wife Kidman out-acting him most of the time. Sydney Pollack, who directed Cruise in the mediocre The Firm,  perhaps proves a better actor [Husbands and Wives] than director in his role of Victor Ziegler, a wealthy man who gets help from Bill and provides counsel in return. The other roles are well cast, including Alan Cumming as a helpful hotel clerk who is obviously smitten with Bill. Although this scene got some criticism when the film first came out, Cumming at least makes the character likably goofy. The score consists of classical music along with some really cheap if sinister piano riffs. Filmed on sets, you never get a sense that this is taking place in New York City. The film is based on a novel that took place in Vienna.

Verdict: There are many, many things wrong with this movie, but I still find it visually and dramatically compelling. ***.

BATMAN FOREVER

Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones

BATMAN FOREVER (1995). Director: Joel Schumacher.

"Why can't you just die!" -- Two-Face.

Bruce Wayne (Val Kilmer of Kill Me Again), who is secretly Batman, has his hands full with the combined threat of former employee Edward Nygma (Jim Carrey), who has reinvented himself as the Riddler and marketed a mind-sapping "box" for public consumption, and former D.A. Harvey Dent (Tommy Lee Jones of Eyes of Laura Mars). now the notorious Two-Face. A further complication is the seductive psychiatrist Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman of Birth), who gets excited by first Batman and then his wealthy alter ego. Batman Forever also introduces Dick Grayson (Chris O'Donnell), an acrobat whose family is killed by Two-Face and who becomes Robin. Kilmer is fine as the Gotham Knight, but the picture is pretty much stinked up by the campy approach personified by Jones and especially an over-the-top, epicene, and really irritating Carrey, who not only appears to be channeling Carol Burnett, but who seems determined to turn this in to a Dumb Jim Carrey Project at any cost -- Frank Gorshin was actually better in the role. Kidman is okay as a kind of kewpie doll shrink -- "I'll bring the wine, you bring your scarred psyche," she tells Batman --  and O'Donnell is more than okay as an older "boy" partner; he was actually 25 at the time. Michael Gough, as usual, makes an excellent Alfred. At times the movie is as silly as any episode of the old TV series and aside from some striking scenic design and a brief bit of excitement as the very end, has few redeeming features. The action sequences are not well-handled, Stephen Goldblatt's cinematography is too often murky and cluttered, and Elliot Goldenthal's musical score is effective but highly derivative. Followed by Batman and Robin.

Verdict: Seems like it's six hours long. **.

ROUND UP OF NEW AND RECENT FILMS PART THREE

Blown Away: Nicole Eggert, Corey Haim

Here we are again, with reviews-in-brief of movies that are less than twenty-five years old.


Blown Away (1997). Director: Brenton Spencer. Predictable thriller about a young man (Corey Haim) caught in the spell of a young woman (Nicole Eggert) who wants to kill her father. Corey Feldman makes more of an impression as the man's older brother. There's a fairly good final twist. The Canadian film almost approaches porn at times. **.

Red Eye (2005). Director: Wes Craven. A young Miami hotel manager (Rachel McAdams) meets a seemingly nice guy (Cillian Murphy) at the airport only he turns out to be a creep involved in a terrorist plot, and threatens her father's life during the flight unless she does as he demands. The two leads give notably effective performances and the film is suspenseful and exciting. Oddly, the last third of the movie and the climax itself take place on the ground. ***.

Scoop (2006). Writer/director: Woody Allen. In this whimsical black comedy a magician (Allen) and an aspiring reporter (Scarlett Johansson) are contacted by a dead journalist (Ian McShane) and team up to find out if a prominent Britisher (Hugh Jackman), son of a lord, is the notorious Tarot card serial killer. Cute and suspenseful, with some very funny dialogue and good performances, the movie is basically just an entertaining throwaway for Allen. ***.

State of Play (2009). Director: Kevin Macdonald. Based on a BBC mini-series, this follows a reporter (Russell Crowe, looking like something the cockroaches dragged in) who teams up with a blogger (Rachel McAdams) to investigate the death of a congressional aide who was also the mistress of his friend (Ben Affleck), and butts heads with his editor (Helen Mirren) as more murders occur. The leads all give very good performances, as do Robin Wright, Jeff Daniels, and Jason Bateman in smaller roles. Suspenseful, but somewhat predictable. ***.

The Social Network (2010). Director: David Fincher. The movie tells the more-or-less true story of the founding of Facebook and the behind-the-scenes legal battles that went on when the social media site promised to turn into a real money-maker. The movie is well-acted by a mostly youthful cast, and it certainly gets points for making an entertaining film out of something that (in certain instances) can be as dull as Facebook. ***.

Thin Ice (aka The Convincer/2011). Director; Jill Sprecher. An insurance salesman (Greg Kinnear) and a psychotic locksmith (Billy Crudup) wind up in a deadly situation together when the former decides to cheat an elderly client (Alan Arkin) out of a valuable violin. This black comedy is quite entertaining and unpredictable, although it turns out to be quite far-fetched as well. Bob Balaban scores as a violin dealer. ***.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012). Director: Brad Peyton. This sequel to the less effective Journey to the Center of the Earth  (2008) suggests that Jules Verne's books are actually non-fiction, so a young man and his stepfather manage to journey to the island of Verne's Mysterious Island. This in no way compares to the 1961 version, but it has its own charms, including good performances (especially from Michael Caine), excellent special effects featuring an assortment of colorful creatures, and superb scenic design. If only it didn't have that "cutesy" tone throughout. This has even less to do with Verne's book than the 1961 film. ***.

Jersey Boys (2014). Director: Clint Eastwood. Based on the Broadway show, this traces the rise and fall of the singing group The Four Seasons. Initially the sound these young actors reproduce sounds much like the originals, but then you realize (especially when you hear the real group over the closing credits) that the Four Seasons can't really be duplicated. The acting in this is okay; producer- lyricist Bob Crewe is played as a gay stereotype, and there are tiresome Italian-American cliches as well. The best scene in this long movie happens just as the closing credits begin: a terrific production number with great dancing set to "Oh, what a night!" Not a great movie, but entertaining enough. ***.

Before I Go to Sleep (2014). Director: Rowan Joffe. As in Memento, a young woman (Nicole Kidman) has a condition in which her memories disappear overnight and she has to be reminded of her own life every morning. She has a loving husband (Colin Firth) and a caring doctor (Mark Strong), but is frightened to learn that she was nearly beaten to death some years earlier and that she had a son who died. Things get more sinister and twisty after that. Well-acted by all, this is a rarity: a poignant thriller. ***.

Meadowland (2015). Director: Reed Morano. A couple's little boy completely disappears at a gas station. The movie isn't concerned with an investigation into the crime or even what happened to the child, but rather reveals the emotional unraveling of the two parents as they try to deal with their grief. By trying too hard not to be a "mere" thriller or suspense film, Meadowland -- another of these "minimalist" pictures -- doesn't become much of anything, and while well-acted, is never as moving nor as riveting as it should have been. **1/2.

Self/Less (2015). Director: Tarsem Singh. In a variation of the vastly superior Seconds, a billionaire (Ben Kingsley) buys himself what he thinks is a new young body that was grown in a lab. But complications ensue when it turns out said body actually belongs to a soldier (Ryan Reynolds) with a wife and child, and whose memories are slowly returning. Nice conclusion, and some interesting developments, but the movie tries too hard to be an action movie with a high body count and isn't all that it could have been. **1/2.

Hello, My Name is Doris (2015). Director: Michael Showalter. Doris (Sally Field), a woman of a certain age (Field was about 70), falls for a much, much younger colleague (Max Greenfield) and hopes for a real relationship with him, to the consternation of her best friend (Tyne Daly) and the delight of said friend's grand-daughter. Frankly, you have to take this likable comedy-drama with a grain of salt, as a lot of it doesn't ring true, but Field gives an outstanding performance and the others are all terrific. The film does explore the fact that seniors can fall hard for much younger people and still hope to find that certain someone. ***.

The Program (2015). Director: Stephen Frears. The rise and fall of Lance Armstrong, cancer survivor, seven time winner of the Tour de France, and a complete phony and cheat who used drugs (and pressured his teammates into same) to help him win. This operates on the level of a TV movie, with little depth or psychological probing, but Ben Foster is quite effective in the lead. ***.

Confirmation (2016). Director: Rick Famuyiwa. Fictionalized film about the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for conservative Judge Clarence Thomas (Wendell Pierce) and the charges of harassment made by former co-worker Anita Hill (Kerry Washington). This whole she said/he said scenario remains fascinating and controversial after all of these years. The movie suggests objectivity, but seems slanted in favor of Hill. 50% of the American public thought that both Thomas and Hill weren't telling the whole truth, and that's the impression I got as well. In any case, the film is well-acted and completely absorbing. ***.

Sacrifice (2016). Director: Peter A. Dowling. Tora, an American doctor (Radha Mitchell), moves back to her husband's childhood home, an isolated island, where she discovers a corpse on their property and new ties to an ancient sect with murderous capabilities. This nominal horror film/thriller is well-produced and acted, even if it's plot is fairly obvious and TV-movie like. However, it does have a suspenseful and exciting climax. **1/2.

Inferno (2016). Director: Ron Howard. This second sequel to Da Vince Code has Tom Hanks rather wasted in a thriller that has him hopping around Europe to some admittedly interesting and colorful locations in order to stop a deadly plague from being unleashed by a psychotic billionaire (Ben Foster). The picture has some exciting sequences, but it just misses being a really excellent suspense film. **1/2.

The Girl on the Train (2016). Director: Tate Taylor. Rachel, an alcoholic (an excellent Emily Blunt) who can't deal with her ex-husband dumping her for a new wife, begins to bond with another woman she sees from a train window. When this woman -- who resembles the ex's new wife -- disappears, Rachel wonders if she herself may have been somehow responsible. The bouncing around in time may have worked in the source novel, but it doesn't work that well in the movie, which eventually becomes tedious. The only halfway likable character is a lady detective played by Allison Janney. The "sisterhood is powerful" sub-text doesn't quite work considering how unsympathetic most of the characters are. **.

NINE

Daniel Day-Lewis as Fellini-Contini

NINE (2009). Director: Rob Marshall.

"My body's nearing fifty and my mind is nearing ten."

Famous Italian director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis), whose last couple of films have been flops, is trying to come up with a script for his new one -- his ninth -- while juggling a wife, Luisa (Marion Cotillard), a mistress named Carla (Penelope Cruz), who is also married, and other women as well. This is  based on the Broadway show of the same title, which in turn was inspired by Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8 1/2 [which has never been one of my favorite Fellini films]. The trouble with the script, which tries to deal with the conflict artists have with a repressive church and friction between their personal and professional lives among similar matters, is that it has nothing new to say on those subjects. Contini is the stereotypical neurotic ladies man with a big ego and a few moments of sensitivity, and while he's very well played by Day-Lewis, he ultimately isn't very interesting on his own. What we're left with is an entertaining adaptation of something that probably played better on the stage. Maury Yeston's songs are tuneful enough without being spectacular, and there are some well-done and sexy production numbers, such as the hookers singing "Be Italian." Cruz and especially the very lovely Cotillard are excellent, and there is good support from Nicole Kidman as a movie star, Judy Dench as a costumer-assistant to Contini, and Sophia Loren as Contini's mother! Not to put it crudely, but many see this film [and 8 1/2 as well] as less a celebration of womanhood than a paean to the arrogant male ego and his obsession with "pussy."

Verdict: Flawed and minor in most ways, but also colorful and well-produced with a fine lead performance. ***.

THE INVASION (2007)

THE INVASION (2007). Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel.

"My husband is not my husband!"

This is the fourth film version of Jack Finney's novel The Body Snatchers, famously filmed in the fifties as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (which remains the best version of the story). Washington D.C. psychiatrist Carol Bennell (Nicole Kidman) has patients who insist that their loved ones aren't really their loved ones, and there seems to be an epidemic of this sort of thing going on. A friend, Ben Driscoll (Daniel Craig of James Bond fame), learns that spores picked up by a space shuttle that crash landed are infecting people, turning them into emotionless drones that only resemble their former selves and have their memories. Before long Carol is on the run, desperate to save her little boy, Ollie (Jackson Bond), from her ex-husband (Jeremy Northam) and others who have been infected. [The presence of the child, as well as switching the sexes of the two main characters and eliminating the pods from the first two film versions, are the major changes to the story.] Although not a classic like the first film, this version is still disquieting and thought-provoking. An interesting aspect is that the point is made that there are some positive aspects to the invasion, such as a drop in hostility and greed, all caused by human emotions. [But there's also no joy or love.] Unfortunately, director Hirschbiegel seems too interested in providing action scenes and car chases that spoil the film's mood, and some sequences -- such as when a lone woman in a crowd reacts to a double-suicide, proving that she is still human -- aren't handled with the dramatic intensity they require. The entire cast gives good performances, however (Kidman has never looked better), including Veronica Cartwright, who appeared in the 70's remake, as a patient. This was excoriated by many critics but it isn't that bad.

Verdict: In any version this story is still unsettling. ***.

BIRTH

BIRTH (2004). Director: Jonathan Glazer.

"I thought you were my dead husband, but you're just a little boy in my bathtub."

Anna (Nicole Kidman) is about to remarry near the tenth anniversary of the death of her first husband, Sean. Along comes a ten-year-old boy, whose name is also Sean, who tells Anna that she must not remarry because he is her late husband. Is this an actual reincarnation at work, or is there something wrong with the child? It really doesn't matter -- and the characters don't wonder about it as much as they might -- because it becomes clear long before Anna and young Sean sit in a bathtub together in the nude that whatever its "romantic" pretensions this film is merely contrived to create a situation in which there is sexual tension between an adult and a child. [Anna takes an awfully long time to tell Sean that she doesn't want him in the tub.] In other words ---yuck! What we have here is a film like Tadpole, pseudo-intellectual pedophile chic -- or rather shit. You have to wonder why many critics don't see through this stuff, and why actors like Nicole Kidman and Lauren Bacall lend their names to what is really just a more "acceptable" variation of kiddie porn. [Although one wonders how acceptable this would have seemed had the adult been male and the child female, or both male?] The film also suffers from disjointed continuity, and is at times quite laughable. I'll spare the name of the intense boy actor who appears in this, but what on earth were his parents thinking? You don't have to be open-minded to like this, just stupid.

Verdict: If you want to think this is "artistic," be my guest, but I think it's crap. 0 stars.