I saw bits and pieces of The Lady Eve on Turner occasionally and never watched long enough to have an opinion one way or the other. I enjoyed Preston Sturges, Sullivan's Travels and realize he's one of the greats of American film comedy, so I rented The Lady Eve on a friend's recommendation. I enjoyed young handsome Henry Fonda and particularly Barbara Stanwyck. Barbara Stanwyck is not a favorite actress of mine. Maybe it's her brassy delivery and non-leading lady face, but I've changed my mind. Barbara is without a doubt the equal of Claudette Colbert or Carole Lombard in screwball comedy. She might be better. There is a burning intensity, a wistfulness in her delivery of: "Sometimes a good girl can be bad and a bad girl can be good." Fonda has been in the Amazon for a year and on a ship home he runs into a family of card sharks. Barbara traps him, he trips, falls, lands on his ass, and holds her stocking foot. Then they fall in love in some of the most romantic photography of a beautiful couple ever shot. The farce goes on to its final brilliance. There is one pratfall that made me laugh out loud for five minutes. Preston Sturgis is one of the best five directors in all of film.

I rented this one thinking it was the Hitchcock film with Gregory Peck. I was surprised and not delighted that this 2002 Spellbound was actually a documentary about school kids and spelling bee's. Anyhow, I began to watch and saw that out there across the country, terrific children were studying words, spelling words as though their life depended on it. A better title would have been, Driven. As any child prodigy of the violin will tell you, a child's life was not theirs. The final spelling bee in Washington DC was very exciting. Who will win, the Indian genius kid or the Texas chick with the goggle glasses? Adults and kids can watch the fun together.

I may be in the minority, but Minority Report is awful. Tom Cruise shines in actual human dramas like Jerry McGuire or Rainman, but this futuristic garbage, this futurramma cop is just a showcase of movie technology without a heart. Vanilla Sky had the same problem. Why should I care about these characters that are so zippy futuristic? Spielberg cannot get science fiction right unless it's for children. His best movie required no computer gyration, Shindler's List, but then again, that movie had a script. I was asleep by the time they put this morph in the water.

Hitch was truly angry that Grace Kelly backed out of this project, so Tippi Hedren got the call. Then Hitch made Tippi-Marnie suffer. No director ever played out his psyche in film like Hitchcock. The rape fantasy is central to Marnie. The criminal female mind, both sensual and man hating in its ambiguity is portrayed in Freudian terms. Visually, Marnie is startling to see and familiar to Hitch's fans. The backgrounds, for example, Baltimore Harbor and Marnie's childhood street are beautiful, yet unreal in a plastic sense. I noticed this in Vertigo; a place is somehow more beautiful and possibly ominous because of painted device, careful set, or clothing design that we have not seen except for Spielberg in his space visitor films or Spike Lee in his plastic black neighborhoods, so we always feel while we are viewing that the real world is somehow enhanced. Then there's the details, the way the shots are set up. The camera gradually circles the blonde ice goddess. Give us a close up of the keys in the drawer with the combination and pull back to show the cleaning lady in a split shot with the burglar. Marnie is a psychological thriller and because it plays Hollywood-Freudian, it slows and is stilted or amateurish. Couch time is pretty much a personal drama difficult for a general audience to care about. For all the tribulations uttered on the shrinks couch, the story is still the thing on film. Marnie is predictable and slow to unwind. All the advantages of a slowly unraveling story helped Hitch in Vertigo, but Marnie seems to plod along. Still, Marnie is better than 99% of the films ever made.

Hollywood can't resist making rural southern folks, Texans, appear dumb, religious, and oversexed. The Cohn brothers did a better job with Raising Arizona, but I'll give enough praise here to recommend a daft copy. Steve Zahn certainly has mastered the prison-bird-dysfunctional. He barely can express himself in southern drawl so thick, 'how ya doin' sounds like 'hdauon.' Zahn and Jeremy Northam take the identities of two beauty pageant twits and set up shop in Happy, Texas. William H. Macy as the local sheriff is fascinating, brilliant, again. He's a lawman and he's in love with Northam, a 'homoasexual.' Naturally, the in fact straight Northam falls for the blonde clerk of the local bank while Zahn teaches little girls how to win a beauty contest. Zahn finds new sensitivities in dance, song, and Junior Misses. Then the bank robbery goes wrong. Don't worry; they'll be out in 22 months for good behavior. A little slow, but nice try.

"Point of No Return" JOHN P. MARQUAND: AUTHOR 1893-1960 This fellow is almost forgotten. His satires of WASP life in the mid-century were read by millions. "The Late George Apley" won a Pultizer when a Pultzer was actually given for excellence, not political affiliation. Charles Gray is a solid middle-aged banker with a mortgage, wife and two kids. He could use a raise and there's competition from a smooth-talking Harvard man. "The rich aren't like you and me," said Fitzgerald. Marquand seconds that idea and then he shows how utterly trapped in social convention the various social strata are. Run to the bookstore and read this American treasure. I'll say no more.

Saw this the other day. Didn't know it was Godard classic. The Dance Scene, I didn't want it to end. It was so flakey, kind of a line dance to French Pop sound of 1964, hard to describe. Anna Karina is sutle knock out, frumby in most scenes, but she Ann Margaret's in dance. The rest of the movie is a playful romp, a nonsensical take off on American heist movies of the 40's. Not totally successful, but worth it for sophisticated.

A special mention here about "Lost In
Translation," the Sofia Coppola film that
wowed critic Terry Teachout and others.
There are films that translate well on
television screens, but I fear this
masterpiece by the daughter of Francis
Ford Coppola of "Godfather" fame must
be seen on the big screen.

Few films show a semi-familiar place,
modern Tokyo, in the splash of dazzling
excitement and color this film
immortalizes. The visuals would be
enough to hold you for an hour and forty-
five minutes. Also, the sound track is so
ultra-modern amazing; the theatre
sound system changes from fantastical
to whimsical scene by scene.

Scarlett Johansson, a pretty young
blonde plays the thoughtful and lonely
wife of an inattentive photographer on
an assignment in Japan. Bill Murray of
comedic movies like "Ground Hog Day"
or "Caddie Shack" plays a semi-serious
role, a washed up TV star doing whiskey
commercials for Japanese television.

Unfortunately, Murray is going through a
mid-life crisis and is lonely like
Johansson. Sure, they connect, but this
is not the love story you might expect.
We want them to be lovers, but even for
the audience there are ethical
considerations. How many movies
involve the viewers with such subtlety? I
highly recommend.

"The Rules of the Game" directed by Jean Renoir is now ranked #1 on many film critic lists. Renior built a comedy of manners around old stories. When this film was viewed in Paris in 1939 there was a near riot. The critics hated it for political reasons, but also because characters were walking about the Chateau at amazing speed and angles. If you don't understand the history of the beginnings of WW2, then all will be lost on your Philistine soul. Somehow in an upstairs-downstairs comedy, Renior has described the failed French society. I'll describe the plot concept using English names. Randy, the aviator loves the rich lady, Christine. She's not French; she's Viennese (the only outsider). He's a romantic fool, she's an innocent compared to the Parisian women like Clair, the sophisticated lover of Christine's husband, the Count. Renior plays Alph, a court jester character and friend of Christine from the old days. He's a failed musician. He's also Randy's best friend. The French Count is played by a Jewish actor (which was a scandal in itself considering the anti-Semitism in Europe) So they all leave Paris and go to the country estate of the Count where we meet the servants of the Chateau. Christine's maid, Crystal is playing around with Alph and the newly hired rabbit poacher Jimmy. The gamekeeper, the cuckold Paul chases the amorous Jimmy around the Chateau with a gun for the next forty minutes. All the lovers and friends switch partners amidst declarations of love, slaughter of animals, and fist fights. In the end, noone is in love with anyone and all of society is concerned with the game, which is where he or she were in the first place. Truth is not a concern and the masterpiece is complete.

In Sea Biscuit,the big horses are great to look at, and the photography of racing is exciting, but this tale of second chance Depression Populism falls short. It's the mean Republicans against the noble Democrats during the Great Depression. Poor people look saintly while they're starving, and we know that uncaring rich people that don't want to pay their fair share of taxes cause bad times. There's the mandatory shot of the great Franklin Roosevelt offering a helping hand, so we have a tale that blends My Horse Flicka with 1930's hard times, and we come up with a wishful fantasy history. If only Roosevelt ended the Depression with social programs and government jobs. Let's see. The Depression started approximately in 1930 and Roosevelt and the new Deal were still going strong by Pearl Harbor. Hmmm, if it had not been for a war economy, with Roosevelt's help we would still be in Depression today, but don't let reality get in the way of a feel good movie.