What sets the Coen Brothers apart from not only other indie-scene mainstays but most other modern American filmmakers is – apart from the astonishing surplus and consistency of talent – that their BEING American filmmakers is unmistakable… In an age of pan-globalization where the whole notion of a “national cinema” is fading away from country after country, where Toronto, Manhattan and Prauge routinely stand-in for one another on the basis of “eh, one downtown looks enough like another; Joel and Ethan Coen stand out from the pack by focusing a great deal of their attention and affection on the unique vibe and atmosphere of their own native soil.

It’s this “homespun” grounding, I’d posit, that’s responsible for so much of their frequent mainstream-crossover appeal: Offbeat, unconventional, strange or even just plain DARK works aren’t often going to have great “legs” outside of the arthouse scene… but when it’s playing out in familiar settings realized with unparalelled authenticity, suddenly it’s not quite so impenetrable. “No Country For Old Men,” taken from a novel by Cormac McCarthy, has a lot of the same pitch-black story beats and catharsis-denying ambiguity that many audiences would find alienatingly, well… alien in the heady Euro/arthouse sources they more often occur in; but offer the relatability of a genuine-feeling Southwestern backdrop as a recognizable point of entry.

Here’s a movie that starts out looking like a modern-day western, then begins to look like a caper flick before eventually revealing itself to be a kind of Monster Movie… though one where the rampaging, nigh-superhuman creature is technically human: Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is a psychopath killer-for-hire who does his duty with a nasty slaughterhouse air-gun, suppressed-shotgun and a Sir Lancelot haircut that seems more like a dare than a stylistic decision on his part. He’s been hired to run-down Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) a resourceful Southwestern everyman who’s 2 Million dollars wealthier after stumbling onto the remnants of a drug-deal-gone-bad shootout involving the asassin’s employers. Chigurh’s methodology, such as it is, is to go everywhere that Moss has been or might be going and do massive amounts of damage to people and property just to let his quarry know what’s waiting for him. Some tangential storylines involving a world-weary sherrif (Tommy Lee Jones) and a criminal middle-man (Woody Harrelson) fill-out some of the more specific plot points, but this mainly boils to a two-man chase flick.

This being a Coen Brothers movie and, on top of that, something of a thriller, there’s not much more that can be said without venturing into spoiler territory. Suffice it to say, it’s a fine piece of work with a great mood and a killer cast; with Jones especially doing the same kind of great work he did in “In The Valley of Elah” but now in-service of a superior film. And Bardem, as you’ve heard, is one of the all-time 2007 bad guys as Chigurh. Go see it before people spoil the surprise parts for you.

FINAL RATING: 8/10

Hear me, professors of English Literature and other assorted Classicists who (for some reason) may be part of my readership: The liberties taken and themes revised by this new reworking of the Olde English epic of record have a high probability of making some of you bang your heads against the wall. However, you should get that done with quickly and cheer up – not just because, revisionism and all, it’s a DAMN good little picture; but for the added bonus that you will never, ever have to spend an entire class period JUST on how to properly pronounce these characters’ names.

Robert Zemeckis’ “Beowulf” is a collision of two absolute extremes: A story so literally older-than-dirt it was probably already old when it was written down in the Olde English manuscripts it was first rediscovered in centuries ago… rendered for the screen using a technology so NEW it practically arrives onscreen still moist with it’s own afterbirth. Most major advancements in the art and technology of filmmaking are first glimpsed AFTER the rougher, experimental spots of it’s evolution have already occured, but not so “Beowulf;” we meet it at the water’s edge as it drags itself up from the Primordial Sea and watch as it struggles – and finally succeeds – with breathing oxygen.

Zemeckis has been evangelizing both the return of 3D movies and the use of actor-assisted “motion capture” computer animation for years now, and fired the first salvo with his well-intentioned but colossally misfired “Polar Express.” The techology – a CGI cousin to the ancient technique of “rotoscoping” which involves hooking live actors up to computers to translate their body and facial movements to their photo-realistic ‘cartoon’ counterparts – has gotten yards better, certainly, but the more vital component is that this time he’s working from a script worth filmming regardless of the style: A complex, brawny, bawdy, action-heavy and darkly-humorous retelling of the familiar Epic Poem from Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman.

They’ve kept the important parts: With the Dark Ages in full swing, the Dane subjects of King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) are under seige by Grendel (Crispin Glover) a marauding, man-eating troll who is driven to fits of rage by the Danes’ penchant for nighttime merriment. From across the sea comes a platoon of Geats (Swedes, basically) under the command of Beowulf, (Ray Winstone,) a boastful warrior of legendary strength and bravery who vows to slay the monster and soon finds himself also contending with the creature’s much more-powerful mother (Angelina Jolie.) In this telling, that’s just the beginning of the proud hero’s problems…

The tone of all this is roughly equivalent to “300,” another deliberate re-dressing of The Heroic Ideal into modern-day WWE machismo, but this time around the screenplay adds a healthy degree of introspection, cynicism and depth that becomes a unifying theme: Beowulf may be a walking legend, but he’s a braggart and bullshit artist of the highest order who never misses an opportunity to exaggerate his own feats and abilities – a mighty task in and of itself, since he’s already strong enough to beat a monster twice his size to death with his bare hands naked in reality. He does his strutting not among a stoic lineup of good and Godly medieval lords but rather two nations of hard-drinking, hard-partying, harder-fighting dark age pagans who at their best moments resemble nothing so much as a fraternity of old-school Hells Angels. The Spartans may have known how to die, but clearly the Geats have the market cornered on how to live.

Avary and Gaiman’s script is so good, giving these ancient characters a much more cinematic level of depth and relatability and finally solving the issue of how to tell the whole story (yes, the Third Monster is in here) in a way that’s both dramatically-connected and workable within a traditional three-act structure, that it’s kind of unfortunate that it’s admirable qualities are destined to be overlooked (at least for now) in favor of the startlingly odd but effective manner in which the film is rendered visually: A starkly realistic medieval world is here created, and populated by characters who’s physical appearance exists in some neutral space between cartoon characters and photo-real human beings.

Adding to the slight eeriness of this effect is the decision to have some characters resemble their actor dopplegangers with alarming familiarity: Hrothgar really does look like a frightfully out of shape Hopkins, while John Malkovich’s syconphantic (and yet sympathetic) Unferth looks like… well, John Malkovich with a weirdly enlarged head. And while Grendel’s Mother is in this version a shape-shifting demon sorceress, she spends most of the film looking exactly like an all-but stark-naked Angelina Jolie because, well… what the hell are you going to “improve” there? Give credit where it’s due: Rebuilding a digital replica of Angelina Jolie to prove your prowess at animating the human form is a bit like trying to prove your ability as a painter by creating an exact duplicate of the Mona Lisa; and they basically succeed – dubious distinction or not, this is the most deliberately sexy (nominally) animated character to grace a mainstream movie screen since Jessica Rabbit.

The smart script and entrancing visuals make this a great movie, but if you can see it in 3D you’ll get the added fun of a rollicking “ride” as well: The process is best for creating depth of field and giving a greater sense of scope and movement to the kinetic, brawling fight scenes; but Zemeckis knows his book of tricks and keeps a steady stream of classically lowbrow 3D touchstones flying (literally) in our faces: Yeah, arrows whiz by our heads and spearheads come right up to our eyes, but also be prepared to be “splashed” by torrents of spilled demon blood, feiry explosions and even an extended moment of heaving 3D cleavage. Clothes drop, eyeballs explode, skin shreds, bosoms bounce, muscles ripple and blood gushes… it’s probably the most violent, ribald PG-13 movie ever made, and every drop of it is coming right at you.

A great looking movie with a smart script and unique vibe all it’s own. Mature-themed animation has struggled to find an audience in America, and “Beowulf” is so good it could very well be the project that finally turns it into a viable genre. This is one of those moments when filmmaking as an industry and as an art form takes a step toward the future, folks, and you really ought to see it.

FINAL RATING: 9/10

“P2,” an above-average and wholly watchable stalker thriller, comes to us as the debut directing effort of Franck Khalfoun. And while Mr. Khalfoun arrives as a worthy wringer-of-suspense from a cleverly-minimalist setup the name that’s put the film on the “horror” radar (and it is, finally, a horror movie even as it’s also a traditional thriller) is that of his writing and producing collaborator Alexandre Aja – the Mad Frenchman who’s “Haute (High) Tension” and “The Hills Have Eyes” have already made him a one-of-a-kind creature of cinema: The premier French creator of American-style horror. “P2” isn’t the most interesting thing he’s ever been attached to (that’d be “Tension”) or the most entertaining (“Hills”) but it IS the most consistent and solid as an overall film. Funny how that works out.

But enough about him, at least until “Pirhana” (yay!) comes out. This is Khalfoun’s show, and it’s a come-out-of-nowhere mini-gem. That means we’ve got us a New Face on the horror scene, kids: so get attentive. Here he’s got two lead actors for 90% of the movie, a not-on-it’s-face terrifying location and a play-on-basic-fears hook for a premise to work with… and that’s it. From this, he delivers a finished film which (while probably not a classic) has more than enough right with it and nothing especially wrong with it. David Slade had the same kinds of tools and the same kinds of results with last year’s “Hard Candy” and went on to helm THIS year’s most-excellent “30 Days of Night,” for comparison. Bottom line: This is what first-time mid-scale genre entries are supposed to be like, at their best. No small feat.

The premise: A young businesswoman is trapped in an otherwise-deserted underground parking garage by her stalker – a psychotic security guard who by virtue of his job controls all the utilities, cameras, exits and keys. It’s Christmas Eve, meaning the office above them and the Manhattan streets around them are equally empty; and there’s no telling exactly what this creep ultimately plans to do or when he ultimately plans to do it. That’s it.

Wes Bentley, aka “Guy From American Beauty,” aka Jake Gyllenhaal version 1.0, is the stalker. Bentley has by now perfected an effortless-seeming air of unassuming menace – we never quite find out exactly what’s “really” wrong with this guy; but he creates a definitive persona that while enigmatic always seems to be acting “in-character”… whatever it is. It’s pretty clear, for example, that he suffers no delusion that his “all-powerful” stature in the situation is a momentary illusion of circumstance and posession of a few key items, but whether this makes him less or more dangerous is less readily discerned.

The female lead is Rachel Nichols, a model/actress whom you may remember from smaller roles in “Shopgirl” and “Alias” as “The One With The Astonishing Breasts.” Yeah, roll your eyes. Look, I don’t want to sound crude – but you gotta report on what you saw: Nichols is a fine young actress who demonstrates a real range here, (a scene involving a coerced phonecall is a real above-and-beyond moment,) with big expressive eyes and sweet-natured ‘good girl’ demeanor perfect for the genre; yes, absolutely. BUT go see the movie and then tell me what kept her on your mind immediately afterwards. She’s a stunner, is the thing, and has a natural ability for stalking through cavernous shadows in nothing but a nightie and a generous splatter of stage-blood that indicates a potential Scream Queen in the making.

Factor in the genuinely eerie vibe the film elicits from the garage locale, a well-staged and inventive elevator sequence and a pair of well-played “money shot” kills and you’re looking at a real winner of a genre pic: Creepy, scary and overall a good bit of fun. Reccomended.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

Minor Spoilers, the movie however IS based on real events.

Hey, look! An R-rated hit? What the hell happened? Well, turns out you CAN talk an audience into an intelligent, worthwhile film after all… providing, of course, that you’ve got huge stars, a huge director, a reliable genre and most-importantly NOTHING to do whatsoever with anything current: Mr. & Mrs. America are, demonstrably, ignoring Iraq, terrorism etc. for free at home, so why expect that they PAY to ignore it in theatres?

Sorry, sorry. Rant. And unfair to “American Gangster,” which really is an excellent film that you should see right away. Just already profoundly sick of the current meme that the welcome and incredibly pleasing success of “Gangster” is some kind of concrete confirmation of the idea that Da Folks’ ignoring of the fall Adult Dramas so far was based on some noteworthy political reaction to “the liberal media” as opposed to the usual Ostrich Impersonation. Give me a break. Yes, good, an Oscar-worthy crime epic from Ridley Scott throttled a Dreamworks Animation celebrity-voiced family-movie cash-in, fantastic news – but, sorry, this hardly absolves The American Filmgoer for “Transformers.” Broken clocks and all that. Good first step, though. No question. But y’wanna really impress me? Let’s see this kind of turnout for “No Country For Old Men” this weekend (OVER “Fred Claus”) or “Beowulf” the week after that. THEN we might have something here.

Deep breath.

Okay, so then, to “American Gangster.” Let’s be brutally honest, people: Ridley Scott directing Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe in an epic biopic about the rise and fall of a 1970s Harlem drug kingpin (Washington) and the no-nonsense cop out to catch him (Crowe.) Was there ever really a question of whether or not this would be any good… or was it merely a question of HOW good? Would it be “Goodfellas” perfection or “The Departed” great? High expectations can be a killer, but this time you can rest easy: It’s very, very good.

Ridley Scott is one of those directors, along with Peter Weir, James Cameron and others, who frequently excells at the often difficult task of making genuine artistic achievements out of “guy movies:” Taking subject matter (gladiators, soldiers, sailors, gangsters, cowboys, etc.) that can and usually does get by just on testosterone and blunt-force bravado (looking at YOU, “300”) and infusing it with actual intellect and gravitas. Got a “man’s man” in your life? Chances are Ridley Scott directed one of his favorite movies.

Speaking of which, got a guy in your life who’s DEVOTED to hard-bitten crime movies (i.e. he owns one or more pieces of merchandise related to “Godfather,” “Goodfellas,” “Scarface” etc that’s NOT a copy of the movie itself)? Say hello to his new favorite movie for at least the next year. This is going to be a big, big, sustained hit – and even bigger on DVD. Within two years, rappers will be acting out scenes from it in videos, and probably within one wannabe “gangstas” will be dressing like Washington’s Frank Lucas as THE new “urban trend.” Trust me on that.

The clothes, y’see, are a vitally important part of Lucas’ character and his operation: Formerly the driver and confidant to legendary Harlem crime kingpin Bumpy Johnson (himself the subject of the under-appreciated “Hoodlum” years ago,) Lucas calculates that he can work more successfully and more securely than any other Harlem boss before him by acting more like a businessman than a crook. So he eschews the flashy clothes and jewelry of other black gangsters (“that’s a big sign that says ‘ARREST ME!,'” he tells an underling) and takes a basic capitalist approach to his goal of wresting control of Harlem’s heroin trade from the Italian mob; traveling directly to Vietnam to score pure “Blue Magic” powder from the source and smuggling it back under cover of the U.S. Army. He moves his extended family, mother and all, up from South Carolina to join the team in a sprawling New Jersey manor, marries a Puerto Rican beauty queen and – for awhile there – manages to dominate the entire game (even the mafia!) so unassumingly that it isn’t until he turns up with good seats and a chinchilla coat (the wife’s idea) at a Muhammed Ali fight that the special police task force investigating HIS operation even knows he exists at all.

Leading that task force is Richie Roberts, (Crowe) a cop who’d rather be a lawyer who takes up running the special squad when his unflappable honesty (he found a million dollars unmarked in a suspects car and turned it in) makes him a pariah in the ultra-corrupt department. As it happens, in fact, the dirty cops are more the villians of the piece than Lucas is – in particular a New York alpha male detective (Josh Brolin) determined to make sure Lucas knows his place and rough Roberts up enough so that that place remains unthreatened.

It’s not so much that the film breaks a lot of new ground (it doesn’t) as it is that it works the genre and these new players IN it exceedingly well: We’ve seen Washington’s slick no-nonsense hardcase before, just as we’ve seen class-act gangsters like Frank Lucas before – we’ve just never seen them worked into the same organism, and the result is dynamite. Likewise, Crowe’s honest-to-a-fault Richie Roberts owes a lot to Crowe’s honest-to-a-fault Jim Braddock (the “Cinderella Man”) – and it’s doubly interesting how much sense this style from this actor makes transplanted into a schlubby 1970s street-cop archetype. See also: Just when you think the “montage of criminal process set to iconic period music” bit has been done and redone to oblivion, here’s Ridley Scott and company to prove you wrong with a bravura stunner to the tune of “Across 110th Street.”

It also has to be noted, for whatever it’s worth, that while this isn’t the first film to try and create – for lack of a better word, “the Black Godfather” (this would include the film actually CALLED “The Black Godfather”) it IS probably the first one to genuinely succeed: Frank Lucas emerges instantly as one of the all-time Hollywood gangsters, black or otherwise. For better or worse, he’s an American original – and the film’s repeating theme of his remarkable capitalist instincts are already reverberating into the real world: Still alive, (though confined to a wheelchair,) and not prohibited from profiting from his criminal history since he was convicted before the “Son of Sam Laws” were passed, the real Frank Lucas is to launch – what else? – a “gangster” clothing line. American Gangster, indeed.

FINAL RATING: 9/10

As it turns out, not even Jerry Seinfeld is immune to the “Seinfeld Curse,” i.e. the innevitability of an embarassing but non-fatal career stumble following the end of his titular sitcom. It’s just that the other three regulars had their moments right afterwards, while Jerry himself has waited until right now – “Bee Movie” is a dud. Generic-looking, middling and only occasionally funny on purpose, it’s the sort of bland animated fare that would barely be passable debuting as a Sunday Afternoon time-waster on Cartoon Network; so exactly WHAT it think it’s doing as the capper to a year’s worth of elaborate, stunt-driven marketing hype is anybody’s guess.

The overriding flaw, oddly, is something that more-than-often winds up as a benefit for films like these and STILL gives this one it’s only notes of real interest: A total lack of direction or consistent tone. It’s all over the map, an episodic collection of ideas that all seem to come from entirely different variations on the main story: It strains for the absurd anarchy of the Looney Toons or the pop-culture referentiality of “Shrek” in some spots, while in others it reaches for the schmaltzy melodrama of old-school Disney or the philosophical maturity of Pixar – it never finds a singular unifying beat to groove to on it’s own. As such, only the overly-complicated storyline keeps it from drifting off into heights of unhinged insanity like those of “Aqua Teen Hunger Force”… except not funny.

The story, by the way, concerns Seinfeld as Barry B. Benson; a Central Park honey bee who’s feeling apprehensive about starting his culturally-mandated lifetime employment as a honey-maker. He’s sure there are bigger things waiting for him outside the hive, so he hitches a ride-along with the Pollen Jocks (here seen as the bee equivalent of macho Air Force studs) and winds up lost in New York City. It’s there he’s rescued by – and instantly smitten-with – a lovely young florist named Vanessa Bloome, (Renee Zellweger,) who so entrances Barry that he practically falls all over himself in a rush to break Bee Law #1: Don’t let humans know bees can talk. Zellweger, it must be said, rescues what there is to rescue in the film by virtue of being the only well-realized, enjoyable character: The animation and vocal-performance (at the proper tone, Zellweger’s voice is one of the sexiest in the business) work in subtle ways to let us know that, while a sweet and intelligent creature in her own right, Vanessa is just this side of crazy. Crazy enough, at least, that she segues rapidly from accepting that a bee can talk to entering into a (chaste, one assumes) romantic relationship with said bee.

It’s through hanging around with Vanessa that Barry learns what (to him) is a Shocking Truth of “Soylent Green” proportions: That humans harvest bee honey by force and profit from it (A brand of “Select Label” honey’s celebrity endorser provides the film’s single funniest joke.) After a visit to a honey farm which looks uncomfortably (and not in the way they probably intended) like a concentration camp, Barry decides to sue humankind for equal rights on behalf of the bee community. Yes, really. And for a moment there, it looks as though the film is going to take off to the wacky heights of “Aqua Teen” or even vintage “Bullwinkle”… except that it doesn’t get any funnier. In the midst of all this, it still finds time to beat every bee pun in the book into the ground, trot out a smattering of unfunny celebrity cameos and completely waste the great Patrick Warburton.

It’s just not very good, is the problem.

FINAL RATING: 3/10

A little over 4 years ago, some fellow Movie Geeks and I decided to put our money where our mouths were and actually get about the business of filmmaking. We called ourselves “No Hands Films.” Together, we have so far completed two short independent horror films, the second of which – a modern-day “zombie version” of Homer’s “The Odyssey” – I can now shamelessly show off here via the miracle of YouTube and my younger brother, Chris, who got it uploaded in 4 parts (image-quality is somewhat degraded from the original, as it is after all Internet video) and also did the bulk of the editing work on the movie-proper.

Happy Halloween.

Part ONE:

That’s our omni-talented writer/director/star Tim Luz, my best friend, as the lead zombie. (full listed credits are end the end of Part Four and listed on the actual YouTube page) He came up with the stories and scripts that both completed “No Hands” productions have been filmmed from so far. Tim’s brother Nick, Melissa and CJ, friends of the production, are the other three. That’s my little bro, Chris, as the cop. The (really terrific-looking, even at this resolution I think) makeup FX were handled by Kristen Juliano, a lovely and ridiculously talented young woman who just delivered like gangbusters the whole production. This opening was shot on-location at a real old-as-hell cemetary we found just sitting randomly in a semi-developed field. Creepy as hell, honestly.

Part TWO:

The little zombie girl who gets taken out here is my kid sister, Catie. Of the Zombie Hunters, my brother’s pals Jason and Jared are the “cowboy” and the “soldier” respectively, “No Hands” charter-member Casey Malone as “yuppie” and that’s your’s truly as the one-eyed axe-wielder. “Roger,” the leader in the long black coat, was played by Jeremy Soltys, a founding member of “No Hands” who is, quite simply, a fantastic actor with real screen presence. He’s great in this, seriously. There’s a “splatter on the lens” gag here that works great, but was actually an on-set mishap we opted to keep. Kristen handled the majority of the gore-FX here, while Chris and I provided the opticals for the gunfire. Jeremy provided the awesomely-realistic prop guns, which really helped sell this.

Part THREE:

That’s Michelle Tentindo as “Penny,” another good friend of the production who did a great job. Believe it or not, about the entirety of this in-house sequence was shot (on-set makeups and all) in about a day, which is pretty amazing. The score, BTW, was provided by an ultra-talented fella named Mike Beaudoin; while the hard-rock song comes courtesy a local band called “On The 3.”

Part FOUR:

So there you have it. We actually had our first theatrical showing of this over Halloween Weekend here in Salem, and it went over pretty damn well. We’re all really proud of this, and I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing it as much as we did making it 😉

A (mostly) satirical response to “Moral Combat.”

NOTE: This review does not contain specific plot-spoilers. It does, however, contain AFTER it’s first two paragraphs discussions of theme which MAY make certain mysteries of the film more solvable than they are meant to be. Therefore, if you have not yet seen the film, I recommend that you do not read after that point (a secondary disclaimer will be in place.) I also recommend that you DO go see the film as soon as you possibly can. DO NOT wait for DVD. Thank you.

With one fell directorial swoop, Ben Affleck erases every single negative or dismissive thing that has been said, thought or written about him – justifiably or not – in the intervening years between “Good Will Hunting” and right this moment. Critics, audiences and late-night comedians have had a long run of fun mocking the former Mr. Jennifer Lopez, and I’ve indulged in perhaps more than my fair share myself; but that is and deserves to be the past. I won’t say that he is owed his detractors’ apology, but he is more than owed their respect. A corner has been turned, a bridge has been crossed, and whatever awful movies and tabloid nonsense still lingered is henceforth banished by one singular stunning event: Ben Affleck has directed what may be the best American movie of the year.

“Gone Baby Gone,” directed/co-scripted by Mr. Affleck from the book by “Mystic River” author Dennis Lehane and starring his younger brother Casey in a starmaking turn, is an essentially flawless Boston Noir that feels from start to finish like the finely-polished effort of a seasoned professional rather than the first major effort of an actor-turned-director. Gutsy, grim, wrenching, heartfelt, real, raw, visceral, emotionally-challenging, viscerally-wrenching and immensely intellectually-satisfying. This is a crime story for the ages, a detective picture to stand with the all-time best. You owe it to yourself to see this film.

FINAL NOTE: If you have not yet seen the movie, you should not be reading after this point. You have been warned.

“The line between good and evil is murky. Nothing is as simple as black and white. There are no easy answers.” Those three simple points have been the essential, all-encompassing theme, moral and message of nearly every true Film Noir since before the genre was even called that. In most “modern” Noir, these three almost always are presumed to lead to an innevitable fourth and final entry: “Therefore, nothing really matters, there’s no reason to do the right thing and nihilism is the only escape.” Here, in “Gone Baby Gone,” we have the first real attempt to obliterate that Fourth Point and take the genre back to it’s classical, pre-defeatist roots. To do so, it places at it’s forefront a hero of realistic but none the less rock-solid moral and ethical conviction who’s direct and confrontation with the foundation-rocking Three Simple Points serves to strengthen those convictions. Here is a hero who comes to learn, finally, that “there are no easy answers,” and – rather than giving up on answers altogether, opts instead to dig in his heels and steel his resolve for the hard ones.

This would be Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck), a young-looking private detective working in his blighted South Boston neighborhood alongside his childhood friend and current partner/girlfriend Angela Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) running down the missing persons who “started in the cracks and then fell through” – a two-fisted Nick & Nora of the Southie dive scene. At present, (“Baby” is the fourth book in the series,) the scene is dominated by the headline-grabbing kidnapping of a 4 year-old blonde moppet named Amanda McCready. It’s not the sort of case they normally take, and Angela is profoundly uneasy about the prospect of having to find a “baby in a dumpster,” but Good Catholic Boy Patrick can’t say no when the girl’s frantic aunt and world-weary uncle come asking for their help in their field of speciality: Gleaning info from elements of the neighborhood less-than-enthusiastic about talking to the police.

This is usually the part where the cops turn up and we’re into “gumshoes vs. pros” turf-fighting… but no, not this time. The Captain (Morgan Freeman) is a seen-it-all old pro who lost his own child to abduction and fronts an elite squad dedicated to these cases, recognizes the potential help the P.I.s can be and makes his resources available in the form of two hard-bitten detectives (Ed Harris and John Ashton.) The case is grimy and nasty right from the start: The kid’s mother is a frightfully unlikable alcoholic who barely seems to register awareness of the event. She’s a liar, which complicates the matter, and a drug mule for a local Hatian kingpin, which really complicates the matter. As you might expect, this isn’t “only” about a missing girl… or maybe it is.

And that’s really all that should be said about the plot, as this quickly turns into the type of detective story that’s less about solving a crime and more about unraveling the puzzle-box that the case has become. What you should know going in is that it’s a revelation to watch, as pieces fall into place and an already stellar cast dives deep into the moral complexity (but NOT, importantly, moral ambiguity) that pulse alongside the dialogue and visuals with the realism of life-observed. The plot swells with colorful, grimy locales and grandly-motivated characters but always feels authentic and immediate. “The streets” and the crime that lives on them hasn’t been this well captured in a very long time.

This is the one you need to see. This is the one you’ll be sorry you missed. Get to the theatre, see this movie, thank me later.

FINAL RATING: 10/10

One of the nice things about the Horror genre is that reworking it is remarkably similar to playing around with DNA: Move one or two digits around and suddenly it’s a whole new creature. In this case, relocate “Night of The Living Dead” from the rural midwest to northern Alaska, swap the zombies for vampires and – BANG! – you’ve got a whole new movie in “30 Days of Night.”

Based largely on a graphic novel by Steve Niles, the setting is a frostbitten blue-collar Alaskan town of Barrow that’s just entered the regions’ titular month-long sunless winter period – aka paradise for sun-allergic bloodsuckers… even the vampires are surprised that they haven’t thought of this until now. Led by their nominal leader (Danny Huston in a deviously unexpected bit of casting) the pack (flock?) of vamps arrive in the wake their cut-rate Renfield (Ben Foster) of a herald essentially content to un-live out the month gorging themselves on the geographically-captive townsfolk, while the film mainly follows a small and diverse band of survivors trying to endure the seige under the leadership of the local sherriff (Josh Hartnett.)

The tone, story and overall production value suggest nothing so much as an above-average episode of “Tales From The Crypt,” expanded to feature length by a handful of character-fleshing moments and several virtuoso widescreen sequences of vampiric massacre. Given the sorry state of the genre as of late, that’s more than ample reason to peg the piece as a genuinely worthwhile bit of viewing. That it’s not out to rework the entire genre is part of it’s strength: It accepts that it’s a “genre picture” and treats it as a license to cut to the chase. It’s as aware as you are that “she shouldn’t go in there!!!” or that the first-act introduction of various lethal-looking work machines automatically means that one or more humans and/or vampires will be getting chewed up by them in act 3.

I will say that I greatly appreciate the way it dismisses almost-entirely with tiresome postmodernism, getting the “vampires don’t exist!” “so what are they!?” junk out of the way quickly and keeping the characters all on the same “everybody knows how vampires work” page; and that it’s interesting that the film gets more “gore-mileage” out of Hartnett’s prefered method of vampire-killing – fireaxe to the head – than vampire attacks themselves.

Bottom line, best vampire movie in awhile. Give it a look.

FINAL RATING: 8/10

It’s a period piece with a level of visual oppulence that occasionally dangles at the precipice of outright fantasy, re-imagines a politically/morally complex moment in Western Civ 101 into a starkly-drawn clash between righteous – if grimly pragmatic – Anglo Good Guys and just-this-side-of-demonic Swarthy-Foriegner Bad Guys and charges forward on a feiry lead performance given by a Cranked-Up-To-Eleven British thespian as a legendary monarch with a flair for declarative sentences and the verbal bruising of their enemy’s messengers. In other words, it’s a little bit like a “chick version” of “300.”

Ten years ago, director Shekar Kapur’s “Elizabeth” made Cate Blanchett into an instant star thanks to her grand titular turn and itself into an Anglophile cult-classic thanks to it’s sharp script, stellar cast, decidely UN-“Masterpiece Theater” visual scheme and deft mixing of costume-drama, sensuality and political skullduggery. Director and star are here reunited, looking for lightning to strike twice by sending the title character into Act II.

Since it can no longer be expected that this stuff comes up in school anymore: In the previous film, Elizabeth, daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boylen, became Queen of England amid the swirling religious turmoil involving the bitter struggle between the Europe-dominating Catholic Church and the Protestant Church of England – formed by her father after the Catholics refused to allow him to divorce his first wife. Aided by her loyal advisor/spymaster Walshingham (the great Geoffrey Rush) she positioned herself for power against the machinations of the Catholics, who would see her replaced by her devout (and just-this-side-of-nuts) half-sister Mary Stuart.

As the sequel opens, Elizabeth’s reign has set England as the lone “rebel” nation opposite the obsessively-religious King Philip of Spain, who’s Inquisition-happy administration is acting as the tip of a spear in a Catholic-themed Holy War against Protestantism in Europe. Not only is a mighty Spanish Armada being primed for a naval incursion, but England itself is crawling with assassins itching to martyr themselves to bring down the “unholy” Queen. Into this steps Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen,) a professional adventurer who’s hobby – piracy – makes him an invaluable ally in the unconventional war Elizabeth will ultimately have to wage. More importantly, he’s a bit of a charmer (Clive Owen, y’see,) since the overriding arc of this franchise is the dueling duties/desires of the Queen’s public and personal life: Elizabeth is tantilized not just by Raleigh himself, but by the free-spirited life he enjoys, and her ability to set her desire for the “alternatives” this presents in order to properly wage a multi-front defensive war with Spain – and the collateral damage that will be done either way – is the meat of the story.

The original film climaxed with Elizabeth, facing down what was already sure to be a constantly-imperiled reign, transforming her (public) self into that of the Virgin Queen, an ethereal Madonna Figure exuding superhuman power and authority – a potent transformation given how entirely human and vulnerable we knew her to be from the rest of the film. Here, it’s somewhat the opposite: The forceful and furious Virgin Queen is front and center most of the time, and it’s whatever remains of the “human” Elizabeth we only glimpse. As if proof was needed that Blanchett is an actress of boundless ability, here it is: Who else could spend almost an entire film in varying stages of white greasepaint and staggeringly-opulent costumes barking orders and challenges at cowering minions/enemies (attention dudes who ‘get off’ on being verbally berrated by beautiful women: this is your new favorite porno) and NOT have it come off as high camp?

The rest of the movie is kind of the same way: It’s big, soaring and damn-near-garish, but somehow it just WORKS. As history, it’s a bit on the dubious side what with a likely too-clever-to-be-true conspiracy switcheroo twist and a simplifying of the conflict that seems to owe more to an attempt at contemporary paralell (i.e. a Western leader facing down a foriegn army of chanting, cultish religious fanatics) than to the accounts of the times. As romance, it’s pretty soapy, with Elizabeth pining for Raleigh only to see him take up with her Lady in Waiting Bess – a confidant with whom she spends so much time doting on one another (don’t get excited: they didn’t pull that trigger last time, they ain’t gonna pull it here) that it eventually feels less like a love triangle and a bit more like the Queen is carrying on with both of them, by proxy, one through the other. And it builds to a dramatic naval battle that Julie Taymor would call overly-operatic. And check out Samantha Morton’s super-crazy turn as Mary Stuart (which has added the benefit of guest-starring Morton’s mezmerizingly-beautiful face and simply-incredible.. um… “upper torso”)…

…But it all (mostly) fits together and runs along fine, a feverish delusion of Anglophile design-porn. Credit Kapur’s bold embrace of the material’s eccentricities, and a group of well-served actors (with the minor exception of Owen, who’s doing his best in an underwritten role that feels like the writer’s put that part on auto-pilot once they were told they’d landed Clive Owen to play a swashbuckler.) This is a beautiful to look at, enormously fun to watch hybrid – an illicit lovechild of Summer Blockbusters and BBC Costume Drama – anchored by one of the year’s fiercest and most volatile performances. Reccomended.

FINAL RATING: 8/10