Guru

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 4): *** ½

Sunday Bloody Sunday may sound like a war movie but the battles depicted here are of the pyschological kind, one of the few films of the period to honestly and matter of factly portray homosexual relationships without pretense. Forever underrated director John Schlesinger, basing the film in part on his own personal life, crafted a contemporary drama that remains as modern as it was in 1972 and most importantly, as a showcase for terrific acting: Peter Finch and Glenda Jackson are masterful here.

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): ***

My Family and Other Animals is a delightful made-for-British telly movie based on Gerald Durrell's memoirs that can only be faulted for being too short. Starring the always resplendent Imelda Staunton as the matriarch of an eccentric brood, the youngest of which (Gerald, played by Eugene Simon) has a passion bordering on obsession for critters - setting up his future as a famed biologist. Set mostly in Corfu during WWII, where the family holes up in various ramshackle mansions, the film is charming and full of unexpected pleasures, as well as a fine cast both human and animal.

Reviewer: Tamara Lees
Rating (out of 5): ***½

Stanley Donen's Two for the Road was fashioned stylistically in a way after the French New Wave films of the 50s. It's an elegant, openhearted and heartbreaking a portrait of a marriage from many angles and moods, with Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney both lovely as a couple wondering "When did it all go wrong?" (and where did it also go right). The stars have great chemistry together and Donen manages to keep things breezing along even with the purposely fractured narrative and chronology. The director provides an insightful commentary on the DVD, too.

While it is oft-repeated that the introduction of the microphone resulted in a severe reduction in camera movement during the late-1920s/early-1930s, the German ex-pats Lang and Lubitsch were seemingly unaffected by these challenges. Their earliest experiments with sound show immediate mastery, unlike their American counterparts. Trouble in Paradise, in particular, is a highwater mark for Lubitsch and his infamous "touch." Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins were never better. The skillfully constructed plot, the fully realized secondary characters, the deft humor, the surprisingly risqué sexual politics and carefully crafted class struggle make this one of the finest of all films, pre-code or otherwise. A few short years later, a film such as this, namely, one that fails to follow the "crime doesn't pay" maxim, couldn't have been made.

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): ***

Robert Connolly's The Bank is a well-made, tense little thriller from Down Under which manages to make the world of finance and math interesting, even to those of us who don't religiously follow NASDAQ. The opening credits, reminiscent of Vertigo, pull you in, the Philip Glass-like music hypnotizes you, the Wall Street-like morality debate will fascinate. While some of its elements don't feel all that fresh (and listening to the director's fairly pretentious audio commentary won't change your mind), The Bank is presented in a fresh way, the acting is quite good, and the ethical dilemmas debated (huge corporate banks that care not one iota about the common man) are extremely timely. It's a bit funny to see Australian actor Anthony LaPaglia, more often seen these days on American TV shows and American movies, being in a film from his home country and yet playing an American - but he does so quite well. The characters aren't as deep as you might hope for, but deep enough as thrillers go, and the farm family in particular is poignantly captured. There are some genuinely surprising (if occasionally farfetched) little twists as the plot unfolds, and the moody and tense atmosphere of this cool, unfeeling world is heightened by Tristan Milani's cinematography. All in all, well worth a rental for anyone looking for a thriller that doesn't pander to the audience. -- Craig Phillips

Reviewer: GC Staff
Rating (out of 5): *** bones

This is one of those discs you feel guilty for laughing to the point of convulsions - sketches starring a derisive canine puppet speaking in a French accent? - but Best of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, spun off from SNL and Conan O'Brien, and spawned by Robert Smigel, will have you doing just that. From his uproariously bawdy appearance crashing the Westminster Dog Show to his irreverent cameo on Hollywood Squares, Triumph leaves no rear hindquarters unsniffed. Unless you don't like pooches insulting pop culture icons like Jon Bon Jovi (who took it in good humor) and the Pets.com sock puppet. Then this will be a great disc... for you to poop on!

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): ****

Rian Johnson's Brick is a super debut, a bravura film that pulls off the pretentious set-up: a Raymond Chandler-esque mystery, updated, and set in an adolescent world. While it stumbles here and there (comes close to going on too long somewhere in Act III), and it is occasionally hard to catch all the hyper-teen-noir slang (a glossary is provided on the official web site), the film is nonetheless a treat.

It's also, dare I say it, the best film set and shot in California's Orange County that I can recall. It certainly captures that overdeveloped, under-souled landscape perfect. Why did no one think of an OC-noir before?

Joseph Gordon Levitt - getting farther and farther away from 3rd Rock from the Sun with each time out - follows up on his fine work in Mysterious Skin with another sharp, if occasionally mumbled, performance, as the nosy teen gumshoe mixed up in some very bad stuff. His character takes a licking and keeps on ticking. And Lukas Haas, in a bit of spot-on casting, is terrific as the young drug kingpin (who does business in his cheerful mom's basement), hobbling on a cane like a Sydney Greenstreet character, while Noah Fleiss is memorably creepy as hell as his disturbed right-hand man. In fact, like any good pulp detective story, the whole film is full of indellible characters who are remembered long after the lights go back up - while also helping to keep your eyes on the screen even as the plot itself sometimes loses momentum.

Reviewer: Tamara Lees
Rating (out of 5): ***½

Like Night Moves and Cutter's Way, Cisco Pike is a low-key Seventies character study once derided as a failure but now in crying need of a new audience. It also boasts a superb film debut from Kris Kristofferson (who'd been glimpsed in the previous year's The Last Movie, if you want to pick nits), at the time better known as a musician. Here he plays the titular character, also a musician and former idol who has hit the skids. He ends up dealing drugs to make money, and is blackmailed by a crooked cop (played by Gene Hackman - in perfect form, both natural and poignant) to unload pounds of weed in less than three days or he's screwed. Harry Dean Stanton plays a long lost pal and bandmate of Pike's who is now, unfortunately, a total junkie; Stanton is mesmerizingly good here, although he wouldn't be fully appreciated until years later.

Kristofferson also contributes several terrific songs to the soundtrack, while director Bill Norton (also making his debut) does a nice job creating an appropriately boozy atmosphere. Like those other films mentioned above, Cisco Pike captures the aimlessness and disillusionment after the promise the spirt of the 60s once held for many. But while some aspects of the film may appear ready for a time capsule, it still holds up surprisingly well - and cynicism never goes out of style.