August Rush
Enjoying music seems to be hardwired into our brains. The wild success of the iPod is strong testimony that everyone loves music. I have yet to meet someone who does not like to listen to melodic sounds. August Rush is a 10-year old boy stuck in an orphanage somewhere just outside of New York City. He deciphers music in the many regular sounds of everyday life. He also believes that he can hear musical messages from his parents. His fellow orphans think that August is just a freak. One day August decides to hitchhike to Manhattan to look for his parents. Within 24 hours August morphs into a child prodigy who would have given young Mozart a run for his money. For once I can give away how the story ends: happily. Repeatedly deus ex musica comes to aid the plot. All the stars align perfectly at every single juncture to bring the story to the one conclusion that was possible in a universe ruled by a micro-managing, all-powerful, music-loving God: August is reunited with his parents on the lawn of Central Park. While story in the film is ridiculous, the film’s music, mixing rock, folk and classical sounds, is wonderful.
Charlie Wilson’s War
Hollywood gives you an entertaining history lesson on how the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan. Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) is a likable congressman who is more interested in alcohol and good-looking women than passing any law. While he lacks diligence and determination on the congressional floor, he recruits what he regards a dream-team staff: all staffers are female and one is looking better than the next. Wilson has no legislative record whatsoever until he becomes aware of the plight of the Afghani people who are fighting the Soviet Army at enormous costs to their own population. After sleeping with a rich Texas Redneck (Julia Roberts), Charlie becomes serious and maneuvers Congress into providing the Afghani people with all the money they need to win the war. The most enjoyable character in the film is Philip Seymour Hofmann who plays iconoclastic CIA officer in charge of helping the Afghani effort against the evil empire.
Juno
It is difficult for me to write these lines about such a charming film. The plot has a number of unfortunate flaws. Juno, the character and the actress playing the role, are magnificent. But the story feels constructed by a writer rather than based on real lived experience. Juno is barely sixteen and seduces a nerdy classmate into having sex. She is not using any contraceptives and falls pregnant. The entire film is devoted to her struggle with figuring how to deal with her situation. What she does do in the end does not make sense to me. Her stepmother and her father were an option that she did not consider at all. It is great fun to watch Juno and her family compete with one another hurling out comic lines. You don’t hear regular family dinner conversations the way they occur at Juno’s house.
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
The first 45 minutes of this sequel about the life of Queen Elizabeth are the most gratifying film opening I have experienced in months. It is not the plot that glues your eyes to the screen but the way the director shoots the scenes and moves quickly from one location to another. The camera is always in motion, filming from unexpected perspectives. You feel like being introduced to a whole new way of film-making. Unfortunately the director is not able to sustain this wonderful approach and the film settles into more familiar grooves. Since we know how the story will end (Elizabeth will not have children and she will triumph to make it her Golden Age), the second half of the film is merely good. Clive Owen as Mr. Releigh shows that he can also play a charming happy fellow. The historical setting is beautifully rendered, except for two computer generated scenes of a large forest and a battle on sea which seem—well—computer-generated rather than real.
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Road to Perdition
This dark, prohibition era, film is a bit hard to swallow. By design it is unlike The Untouchables where good triumphs over evil. Human life does not count for much in a Mafia-ruled Midwestern town. The film has a number of technical flaws that disturb the attentive viewer. The most intriguing feature of the film is how the narrative begins and ends. The opening words run: There are many stories about Michael Sullivan. Some say he was a decent man. Some say there was no good in him at all. But I once spent 6 weeks on the road with him, in the winter of 1931. This is our story. The final words bring the narrative to a wonderful closure: I saw then that my father’s only fear was that his son would follow the same road. And that was the last time I ever held a gun. People always thought I grew up on a farm. And I guess, in a way, I did. But I lived a lifetime before that, in those six weeks on the road in the winter of 1931.
Ocean’s 13
Ocean’s 11 struck me as sterile. The third episode of the George Clooney’s star vehicle has considerable charm. An old friend of Ocean (Clooney) gets screwed by a ruthless Vegas casino owner (Al Pacino). Ocean rounds up his gang of thieves to rectify this injustice. I loved the final sentence when George Clooney and Matt Damon say “good-bye” to each other on the Vegas airport. Damon: “I see you when I see you.”
Fracture
Anthony Hopkins plays a sociopath similar to the one he portrayed in Silence of the Lambs. Hopkins’ character shoots his wife when he discovers she is cheating on him with a police officer. Without any remorse, he tries to get off the hook for the murder by outsmarting the good-looking district attorney. The film is not terrible, but it also contains one basic flow: we don’t know the husband well enough to understand why he would kill his wife. What propelled him remains an utter mystery, lending the whole movie an artificial character.
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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Isn’t it interesting that people have such a soft spot for bank robbers? Forcing a grandmother to hand over all her savings and shooting her right in the head would not make a good story. But robbing a bank does not stir peoples’ indignation. The impersonal bank is not perceived to be a real victim. And if clients are scared to death during the robbery, does this upset the public? Well, if no one gets hurt during the action that’s just the cost of an exciting robbery. It requires some brinkmanship and the clients should be grateful for being part of such a coup! Buch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) make a living robbing trains and banks in the waning days of Wild West. The tolerance for such a line of work is clearly on the decline out West. Butch and the Kid find it harder and harder to make ends meet. The movie starts slow but it turns out to be a very special Western.
The Bourne Ultimatum
How would you feel if you suddenly found out that you were a totally different person until a few years ago and if you did not remember anything about your previous life? (My fear is that I might discover out that I was George Bush. 
) For two installments Jason Bourne has been trying to recover his personal history. So far his enemies have prevented him for finding out who is really was before he lost his memory. In this third episode Bourne pulls out all the stops to discover his identity. This is the best action movie of the summer. Paul Greengrass directs the film with a sure hand, changing the pace frequently enough for the viewer to breath before the next action sequence glues you back into your seat.
Premonition
Sandra Bullocks plays a good-looking mother who is visited by the most awful kind of deja vu experiences you can imagine. She no longer knows what is real and what is simply a hallucination. I was moved by the film because it artfully highlights how we can quickly fall apart when our brains are no longer able to provide one coherent take on reality in which earlier events happen earlier and later event happen later—where we can remember things in the right order. Speaking of deja vu moments. The other day I sat next to a lady at dinner and I thought I had seen her many times. My brain is now scanning memories for her Doppelgaenger. She agreed to meet her if I can find the twin. I am curious to see their reactions when they first meet because they look eerily alike. Twins separated at birth without them knowing it? Uhhh.
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