In the final film from Stanley Kubrick, a socialite couple (Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman) get in over their heads when they decide to follow their adulterous impulses. This movie gets a bad rep, but I think it’s primarily because the casting of two superstars led to more commercial audience expectations. It’s a more intimate portrait than that, and beautifully made. I really love the weed-smoking scene, especially for the sinister undertone in Kidman’s performance. She outshines Cruise in this movie. Thematically, I enjoyed the exploration of infidelity — men’s, women’s, real, imagined. I find it interesting that the female character needs her husband to acknowledge her desires, while he seems uncomfortable acknowledging his own. (Ironic casting of Cruise? I think so.) And of course, it’s also fun to see the posh, clandestine orgy scene of Kubrick’s dreams (with the full-frontal shots restored to the most recent DVD and blu-ray releases).
Jim Carrey stars as a man who discovers a book that he believes is about him, sinking him further and further into a murder mystery that proposes the killer is, quite literally, the number 23. Carrey is good and director Joel Schumacher’s (A Time to Kill, Flatliners) direction is taut, if a little too hyper-stylized for the material. I don’t put stock in numerology, so the first half of the film strains my suspension of disbelief. Fortunately, Fernley Phillips’ script makes a one-eighty after the mid-point and I found the last half much more engaging than the first. (I won’t give any direct spoilers, but it’s a lot like A Beautiful Mind in its narrative structure.) Cinematographer Matthew Libatique (Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan) serves up high-contrast lighting and a palette of deep colors to reinforce Schumacher’s melancholy tone, while Harry Gregson-Williams’ score plays counterpoint, adding a sense of wonder and urgency.
In The Other, To Kill a Mockingbird director Robert Mulligan does a great job engendering sympathy for a schizophrenic child who is channeling the spirit of his deceased twin. Chris and Martin Udvarnoky do a commendable job playing the boy and his ‘other,’ and famed acting teacher Uta Hagen is good as the Russian aunt who begins to put two and two together after a series of tragic ‘accidents’ happen on the family farm.
Three girls and a teacher mysteriously disappear during a 1900 school picnic at a strange rock formation in this Australian film from director Peter Weir (Witness, Master and Commander). Weir uses his trademark poetic license to suggest a supernatural cause, but don’t look for a firm answers — the film is based on a true story that was never solved.
