It's unlikely that you'll ever see a more expertly assembled film than TTH. The acting is top-notch, the cinematography is memorably beautiful, the script is economical without being dry, and the pacing of the music and the silences is peerless.

Despite the spectacular wrapping, however, with TTH, there's just no getting around the plot.

There's only two ways to go here. Either

1) Talk To Her succeeds in showing that poetic, empathetic, and deeply human qualities can be found even within the morally repugnant, and merits comparison with a number of very good films featuring lush treatment of lurid subjects, including Kieslowski's White and Red, Tom Tykwer's Heaven, The English Patient, and even Seven.

or

2)Talk To Her IS morally repugnant, an unfortunate result of a director who had no one by his side with the guts to point out the self-absorbtion and gratuitous fantasy of the premise. Kind of like the ridiculous Eyes Wide Shut, or all of Woody Allen's "romantic comedies," now that we know just how creepy Woody Allen is.

Sorry, but I pick 2 on this one.

For a better film, see Y Tu Mama Tambien--that film finds real compassion within base desire, and it wipes the floor with this beautiful mess from Almodovar.

As a cinematic reverie, Jackass is undeniably an homage to its chief inspirations--Don DeLillo's Underworld, Alain Resnais' Hiroshima Mon Amour, and the early work of Tone Loc. But this film is far more than a facile solipsistic pastiche of postmodernalia--somehow Knoxville and Margera have captured the plangent, inchoate, self-medicated vicissitudes of the contemporary weltanschauung, vaulting Jackass into the same heady realm as Rob Schneider's The Hot Chick and the films from Adam Sandler's blue period. Cherish this DVD.

From the allusive, Odyssean majesty of the central conceit to the sublimation of the all-important distinctions separating technology, biology, and, ultimately, identity, it's all here in Dude Where's My Car. The references to Battleship Potempkin, the Bay City Rollers, The Third Man, Wim Wenders, Flip Wilson, Death of a Salesman, and the dark power of the early Banana Splits Club episodes are all here as well, seamlessly interwoven in a tight, smart script. And in the unforgettably tragicomic interplay of Jesse and Chester, who can miss the rich allegorical references to the German hyperinflation of 1923 and the ensuing collapse of the Weimar Republic?

Dude Where's My Car isn't a question, it's a hugely hopeful answer to the nihilistic challenges of Deuce Bigalow (Male Gigolo), Corky Romano (The Director's Cut), and Earnest Scared Stupid. Cherish this DVD.

The giant joke of Trainspotting is hidden in plain sight, obscured by the loaded topic of heroin. Certainly heroin culture is everywhere in the movie, but the heart of the film is what the narrator, Ewan MacGregor's character, sees as the obvious link between heroin addiction and working. The central passage of the film is the scene where MacGregor and his mates sprint through the streets, with MacGregor doing the voice over:

"Our only response was to keep on going and [*] everything, pile misery upon misery, heap it up in a spoon and dissolve it with a drop of bile, then squirt it into a stinking purulent vein and do it all over again-keep on going getting up going out robbing stealing and [*] people over, propelling ourselves with longing towards the day that it would all go wrong, because no matter how much you stash, or how much you steal, you never have enough, no matter how often you go out and rob and [*] people over, you always need to get up and do it all over again."

It's a passage that sums up the twin futilities of heroin addiction and working class life, and it's no accident that this scene begins with a sprint from a store and ends in a courtroom, marking the twin pillars of a free-market economy. Or that the motive for the sprint--an habit-inspired shoplifting attempt--turns the chase itself into a kind of rat race. It's also no accident that the unrepentant Sick Boy escapes, the cleverly insincere MacGregor gets off easy, while unwitting Spud is nailed to the wall in court. Or that when MacGregor gets clean, his debauched heroin-culture skills of lying, stealing and hustling make him well-suited to a job as a rental agent. Or that the only sincere character in the film is the one undone by deceit, heartbreak, and drugs.

In MacGregor's heroin world, the successful cheat as a rule, and they do it overtly; in his exposure to the working world, the same rules apply, everyone knows it, but no one admits it. In this conceit, Trainspotting emerges as a cynically perfect epitaph for American free-market culture spreading across Europe, with its heady mix of genuine aspiration, barely concealed greed, and deep denial--all neatly paralleled by heroin pleasure, heroin addiction, and the brain-addled values of the heroin culture.

So while being terrifically stylish and funny on a number of levels, Trainspotting's foundation is what makes it a great film--a disaffected, disillusioned narrator, trading one socially rejected role (junkie) for a socially acceptable one (hardworking young man) and failing to see the difference between the two. It's a fabulously clever movie with an unnerving argument rifling through every scene, and you should get this DVD.

From trucks to sharks to aliens to dinosaurs to Tom Cruise, no one has ever been better at drawing compelling drama out of nonhuman objects than Steven Spielberg. He is an absolute genius at wordlessly capturing the excitement of bodies in motion.

The problem with Spielberg has always been when humans open their mouths in his movies. For someone so adept at capturing the life and nuance of motions, Spielberg mysteriously has missed almost every time when it comes to dialogue. Every movie he's made that's relied on dialogue to carry the ideas, metaphors and overarching themes has been dead on arrival--witness A.I. and Empire of the Sun. Even in Saving Private Ryan, the truly stirring moments were wordless, masking a blockheaded plot and adolescent writing. Look again at Schindler's list and the problem is there again--great wordless scenes but poor dialogue, rescued only by the undeniable weight of the subject matter and outstanding performances from Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsley. Sad to say, but it's no accident that the most famous line in all of Spielbergdom--"E.T phone home" -- was fewer than five words, gramatically incorrect, and uttered by a muppet.

That's why Catch Me If You Can is such a surprise and a pleasure--for the first time ever, the writing holds its own in a Spielberg project. There are clever interplays between trust and deceit, pathology and innocence, morality and amorality, value and the illusion of value, sincerity and suckerdom, etc., all wrapped in a tightly conceived, well-balanced plot featuring understated, spot-on dialogue. For the first time ever, Spielberg is working with characters instead of action figures, and wow, what a difference. Even actors with small parts shine here, most notably DiCaprio's parents, Christopher Walken and Nathalie Baye.

Catch Me If You Can didn't hit it big because it was mismarketed as a bouncy comedy--it is not--and I'll bet it caught thrill-seeking Spielberg fans more than a little off guard. It's a shame, because Catch Me If You Can is a gem, something you can watch more than once and see something new each time. After a lot of great, fun, stirring movies, Spielberg's made himself a pretty good film. Buy this DVD.

Eight years since its release, S&F is looking like a true rock classic. You can hate Art Alexakis if you need to, and rue the day Everclear started slouching towards VH1, but you can't deny the power of this album. The lyrics pierce, half the songs are perfect, and other half swing for the fences.

Very few albums pack the punch of S&F--the words capture real pain, desire, loss, rage, resolve and alienation, and the songs sound like the feeling behind the words. Other bands might play faster and louder, but most of them have nothing to say, so they can't rock like Everclear does here. Get this record.

If you know what you're watching, Sexy Beast holds up through multiple viewings. It's doesn't live or die on the surface plot, unlike most Hollywood heist pictures.

So what are you watching?

Well, for one thing, it's not a heist picture, a whodunit or a howdunit. It's a myth, a love story, a drama about class, power, money, and it's a comedy.

It's what Guy Ritchie was thrashing around for but couldn't find in Snatch.

It's what David Chase is going for in the Sopranos and sometimes finds, except he takes WAAAAAAY longer to do it.

Sexy Beast has savvy casting, pitch-perfect performances, and a tight, get-to-the-point script. If David Mamet watched this and picked up anything, he might learn to shut up and stop showing off. The mythic, the dramatic, and the comic blend seamlessly in this film, no small thanks to the fact that the central joke--that ferocious Ray Winstone quivers in the presence of tiny Ben Kingsley and the normally toothlessly debonair Ian McShane--works each time these actors hit the screen.

Great stuff. Now go watch it again.

This is a very well-made, fun little film. It's shooting for only one thing--to entertain--and it works.

I have to say though, if the Julia Roberts character was going for cool and aloof, she shot way past it into downright frightening.

Let's review: she dumps her husband, who, for all his faults, obviously loves her. She sends him divorce papers while he's in jail--a nice touch. Then she takes up with Andy Garcia, a cold-blooded creep from the get go, and boring to boot, no doubt because of the mountains of money he controls. Then she throws him over only AFTER she sees him betraying her on tape. And AFTER she knows Clooney's gotten the money, WHAT DO YOU KNOW, her love for him returns.

What a gal.

Why?

One, it's beautifully, imaginatively shot--the best noir work ever done, the best black and white film ever.

Two, it's got the first score to that was ever truly integral, rather than decorative to the plot. There are wordless stretches of this film that really are the first--and still the best--music videos.

Three, no other film has achieved art house aspirations of context and subtext, object and metaphor while sticking to a tight thriller plot, and mixing in a little humor to boot. It mixes real depth of ideas with Hollywood thrills (something the Coen brothers will NEVER EVER achieve).

Four, the film tackles huge themes -- the European nightmare, what America is in 1945 and what it would become, the meaninglessness of words in the modern world, the thin line between black market maneuvering and legitimacy in the world of money--all while seeming to streak by the heavy stuff in a slick whodunit vehicle.

Five, the last few moments are the best convergence of image and music in film history, and they wordlessly encapsulate the message of the plot--the American doesn't get it. (For fun, watch the very last moments of the Year of Living Dangerously -- it's Peter Weir's hugely more hopeful answer to this scene).

Six, Orson Welles is one of the top five villains in film history, a perfect combination of humor, savvy, practicality, and cold-blooded insanity. He's a lot closer to what real evil looks like than, say, Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter, who in comparison comes off as a totally implausible cartoon character.

Seven, countless images in this film have influenced countless films, from the sublime (like Down by Law) to the ridiculous (like The Matrix -- as frightening as this sounds, Keanu, who is forever a beat behind the story, is Joseph Cotten).

Eight, The Third Man isn't just a great film. It's a great movie. The surface level is just as fun as the deeper stuff, so you can watch it any way you like.

Get this DVD.

That's an easy one--we're bringing Western assumptions to an Eastern film.

In interviews, David Lynch has professed a great interest in transcendental meditation. He has some familiarity with Eastern religions and philosophy, and I think it's the key to the film.

I have this sneaking suspicion that the frightening bum that appears early in the film is the Hindu god Kali, who is sort of the embodiment of the apocalypse. Kali's name means Black Time, and whenever Kali appears, all the things that separate us as individuals, such as height, width, depth, and any sense of space and time, are destroyed. Kali is sweet oblivion.

If the bum is Kali, then this character isn't just a plot device--the bum is the WHOLE plot.

Because if the bum is Kali, then suddenly the whole film makes sense. Identities are not permanently affixed to characters. The temporal logic of "this happened, then this happened next" goes out the window. It's irrelevant because linear time no longer exists. The distinction between dream and reality--a pretty important one in any definition of sanity--is also irrelevant. In the presence of Kali, in Black Time, there is no such distinction.

Mind-wobbling stuff, to be sure. And there's a second huge hint that Lynch leaves us: it's no accident that this film is set in Hollywood, and features Naomi Watts, who's an actress in a Lynch film playing an actress auditioning for a film. The playful rehearsal with her girlfriend of a banal scene turns, quite startlingly, into a riveting, intense audition for a third-rate film. On one hand, this is a clever comment on the skill of a good actress, the ephemerality of identity in Hollywood,etc. On the other, it just reinforces the notion of Kali's power--that any body can inhabit any identity at any moment, and that the moment itself, coming from a script, isn't even a real moment in time, but a frozen one, that can be called upon whenever and wherever it serves a purpose.

This is why any attempt at unravelling this film to find a linear plot, with linear logic, and assign identities to characters or even bodies, is an exasperating, futile effort. It's Western thinking in a film where the operative ideas are all Eastern and unfamiliar to the West.

Of course, this also lets Lynch off the hook for plot, logic, character development, any kind of sense whatsoever. So is it a great film? I say yes, because it stays in the mind and evokes feeling--something that Lost Highway, which dabbled with similar themes, failed to do. I think it's his best work since Blue Velvet, which also rejected overt explication, and in doing so, haunted the viewer.

If you can give up the urge to approach this film like a Rubik's cube, and for two hours of your life, just GO with it, you just might become entranced with this film. Good stuff.