Briefly: Vanishing Point (1971)

I'm not a big fan of the moment early in the film where Barry Newman's Kowalski drives past himself in a different car and disappears into thin air ("Holy crap! He just vanished! THAT MUST BE THE VANISHING POINT!") and in 2010 it's hard to consider Cleavon Little's telepathic disc jockey as anything other than a magical negro character. But otherwise, Vanishing Point is damn near perfect, an ideal blend of badass car chases and existential angst. Driving from Denver to San Francisco to deliver a 1970 Dodge Challenger under a self-imposed and completely impossible deadline, a bleary-eyed, reckless man known only as Kowalski pesters police, meets a girl who rides a motorcycle totally naked (ouch), receives advice through his radio from DJ Super Soul (Little), and flashes back to painful memories from a lifetime of disappointment. Like the film, which begins mere moments before the chronological end of the story and spends the rest of its runtime in flashback, Kowalski lives in the past. Time has only enhanced the film's elegiac tone. The film itself was already about mourning the end of the mythic American West and the death of idealism. Now it also seems to mark the passing of an era when car chase movies were allowed to be poetic as well as visceral and featured real cars doing real maneuvers instead of relying solely on computer-generated imagery. As exciting as Vanishing Point is, to watch the movie today is to become Kowalski, to look into the past, and grow sad about what you find there.

Briefly: An Education (2009)

Television is ruining the movies. In a world where cable has tapped into the potential of smart, thoughtful long-form dramatic television, movies can look awfully small. A cop movie would need to be awfully good to compare with The Wire. Cinematic gangsters will never be the same after The Sopranos. And a coming-of-age drama about a woman's place in the changing society of the 1960s like An Education, handsomely made and uniformly well-acted as it is, can't really rate with a show like Mad Men, which is about the very same topic during very same time period. There's only so much you can do with one story and 95 minutes; Mad Men's already produced thirty-plus hours on the subject. Nearly any film's going to look slight in comparison, though An Education does itself no favors by confining most of its running time to the rather predictable relationship between 16-year-old Jenny (Carey Mulligan) and thirtysomething David (Peter Saarsgard) and epiloguing most of its messy (and, thus, far more interesting) aftershocks. The film's cinematography is as rich as mahogany and the jazzy soundtrack evokes the time and place of London just prior to its swingin' days. But unfair as it may be, as I was watching it, I couldn't stop comparing An Education to Mad Men. One is like the British Cliffs Notes version of the other. Mulligan's gotten a ton of buzz for her performance, and she is convincing (if a bit too old looking) as Jenny, but I was even more enamored with Alfred Molina as her well-meaning but out-of-touch father. His nuanced performance is full of genuine humor and pathos; despite his limited screentime, he creates a complete character. It's like someone you'd see on television.

Briefly: Whatever Works (2009)

The message of Woody Allen's Whatever Works couldn't be clearer. The film's main character, Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David), comes right out and says it directly to camera at the film's conclusion:

"Whatever love you can get and give, whatever happiness you can filch or provide, every temporary measure of grace, whatever works. And don't kid yourself. Because it's by no means up to your own human ingenuity. A bigger part of your existence is luck, than you'd like to admit.

Boris' philosophy might be a sublime approach to life but it is a dreadful one for filmmaking. As human beings, we should all live and let live, do unto others, and count our blessings. But film directors need to do more than shrug their shoulders, be polite, and leave the ultimate quality of their work to luck. Supposedly based on a screenplay Allen originally wrote back in the 1970s for Zero Mostel, Whatever Works tells the story of how the curmudgeonly Boris learns to live and love again after a bad divorce and a suicide attempt, in large part because of his relationship with a young runaway from the South named Melodie (Evan Rachel Wood). Thematically, Allen's back in Annie Hall territory, with another story of a naive country girl and her instructive relationship with a "sophisticated" Manhattanite. But Annie Hall had a real affection for Annie; Boris, and by extension the movie, treats Melodie with open contempt, calling her, and really anyone who isn't from New York City (including her stereotypical rube parents, Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley Jr.), cretins, imbeciles, and morons. David plays himself on Curb Your Enthusiasm with a similar air of superiority, but there he's the butt of the jokes at least as often as the rest of humanity is. In other words, Curb often sides with the viewer; Whatever Works always sides with Boris. Maybe Boris' theory is correct. Maybe Whatever Works doesn't work because of simple bad luck. Or maybe Woody Allen just took an old screenplay out of a drawer, one that wasn't good enough to make back when he wrote it, and hoped some very fine actors would elevate the material.

Briefly: The Wages of Fear (1953)

Just how intense is The Wages of Fear? This movie didn't just make my palms sweat; it made the soles of my feet sweat too. Either I've got a glandular problem or this is one suspenseful movie. Four desperate Europeans living in South America agree to a suicide mission hauling containers of highly combustible nitroglycerin along 300 miles of unpaved road. If they survive the perilous journey of roads that resemble corrugated metal, hairpin mountain passes, decaying bridges, and lakes of oil, they'll each receive $2,000. In 2008 money, two grand inflates to a little under sixteen thousand, not exactly exorbitant pay for a job that can quite literally blow up in your face. Director Henri-Georges Clouzot's message couldn't be clearer: life is precious, short, and depressingly cheap. Not that you'll have much time to ponder the emptiness of human existence once the men begin their journey, as Clouzot throws one obstacle after another at the drivers, which means one harrowing sequence after another for the audience. The trek to the deliver the nitro runs the final 90 breathless minutes of the two-and-a-half hour film. It's some of the most exquisitely sweaty time you'll ever spend at the movies. Make sure you bring your extra-absorbent footwear.

Briefly: Angels & Demons (2009)

Catholic groups spoke out against Angels & Demons just as they did in 2006 for director Ron Howard's previous Dan Brown adaptation, The Da Vinci Code, but the film is no more offensive to organized religion in general and the Catholic church in particular than it is to particle physics, logic, or good haircare. This time out, peculiarly coiffed symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is in Rome, searching for some kidnapped Cardinals and a stolen canister of antimatter which, conveniently for the plot and inconveniently for the populace of Vatican City, will explode when its battery powered containment field runs out of juice at exactly (EXACTLY!) midnight. There's something interesting about a Hollywood blockbuster anchored by a character who solves problems with his brain instead of his fists. But this isn't really that film: Angels & Demons is less about true puzzle solving than about a guy who won't shut up about art history caught in the middle of a variety of firefights and foot chases. Hanks is miscast too. He's at his best playing the witty, intrinsically decent everyman; think Forrest Gump, think Saving Private Ryan, think Big, etc. A humorless know-it-all like Langdon takes advantage of exactly none of his gifts as an actor. This isn't the worst movie of the summer — Howard's faithful to Brown's famously breathless pacing, plus the priest who also happens to be an experienced (EXPERIENCED!) helicopter pilot is good for a chuckle — but it's pretty forgettable. Hanks should divorce himself from this franchise (and his hairdresser) as soon as possible.

Briefly: The Soloist (2009)

The Soloist's version of Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) is divorced. The real Steve Lopez is happily married. The film, it would seem, has as tenuous a grip on reality as its schizophrenic subject. That man would be Nathanial Ayers (Jamie Foxx), a Julliard trained cellist who succumbs to mental illness and winds up living on the streets of Los Angeles, where he gets discovered and nurtured by Lopez. Contrary to its title, The Soloist is more duet than solo, with Downey and Foxx equally but uncomfortably sharing the film. It isn't that either gives a bad performances as they strike dissonant rather than consonant notes; Downey works a very stripped-down minimalist angle that clashes with Foxx's more demonstrative, heavy-handed approach. Both could work; they just don't work together. The film is handsome and well-intentioned and quite good at evoking the anxiety-ridden world of the deadline writer. But the characters, who never mesh all that well to begin with, are ultimately drowned out by preachy messages about homelessness, messages that are somewhat hard to swallow given the film's unnecessarily lavish budget, reportedly in the neighborhood of $60 million. The film's final title card informs us that 90,000 people live homeless in Los Angeles. Why not just give the $60 million to them?

Briefly: Deliver Us From Evil (2006)

Deliver Us From Evil is a documentary, but it could be filed in the video store under the horror section. Few fictional bogeymen in the history of movies can hold a candle to a real-life monster like Oliver O'Grady, a former Catholic priest and serial child molester. Director Amy Berg finds him living quietly in Ireland, defrocked and deported, but free to roam and interact with more children. O'Grady's aware of his crimes yet eerily oblivious to their impact, and even hopes at one point that his former victims will come visit him, absolve him, and shake his hand (or give him what he really wants, a hug. Um, ew). Still, as shocking as O'Grady's nonchalant recollections might be, they're nothing compared to the revelations contained in the legal depositions of his former church supervisors, who covered up his earliest crimes and facilitated his later ones by moving him from parish to parish rather than addressing the problem. Their squirmy, evasive testimony gives new meaning to the idea of religious confession. The movie's not perfect, particularly during a third act that flails about desperately for some sort of uplifting ending. Then again, these flaws only make Deliver Us From Evil scarier, by reinforcing how, in cases like this, true closure is impossible.

Briefly: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

The character in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen that best exemplifies the movie itself is Devastator: an enormous monster, clumsily assembled from half a dozen disparate parts that's only good at lumbering around and striking badass poses. T:RotF is an action movie, a war movie, an alien invasion movie, a cartoon, a sex comedy, a moving Maxim pictorial, but it's not particularly effective as any of them. Mostly it just sits up there on the screen, looking like a million bucks (or maybe a couple hundred million bucks) but sounding like shit. That's because Michael Bay clearly doesn't care about anything except his low-angle, slo-mo, hyperstylish visuals; if he did, he probably would have addressed how characters walk out of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. into an airplane graveyard somewhere in the Mountain West. Someday, scholars will someday study the film for its representation of America's early 21st century sexual and military power fantasies. For now, it is a lifeless husk of a blockbuster, loud, flashy, and utterly robotic.

(Suggested Transformers 2 drinking game: take a sip anytime one character screams another character's name at the top of his or her lungs.)

Briefly: Not Quite Hollywood (2009)

If, as Quentin Tarantino believes, the real core of exploitation cinema is found in images so crazy you cannot believe your eyes, then the new film about the history of Australian exploitation “Not Quite Hollywood” not only documents its subject, it embodies it as well. For 100 lightning-paced minutes, director Mark Hartley takes you inside the era of “Ozsploitation,” when restrictive censorship laws were lifted and the first true Australian film industry -- and a slew of nudie, horror, and action pictures -- were born. Hartley's approach is in the great exploitation tradition, with lots of flashy editing and plenty of titillation. The result, by design, is light on serious critical or cultural analysis and heavy on batshit insane film clips (like the one where George Lazenby engages in a karate fight while his back is completely covered in flames), cheeky interviews (one is conducted in a working strip club) and hilarious on-set anecdotes (the one about the girl with the machete and the director yelling “Cut!” is worth the price of admission all by itself). It's not the most comprehensive history lesson, but it is a highly entertaining one, and the final product is bawdy, vulgar, and thrilling enough to make its subjects proud. And if you're a fan of genre cinema, you're guaranteed to find plenty of fodder for your Netflix queue.

Briefly: Stripes (1981)

Few movies deserve an "Extended Cut" but I can think of few that deserve one less than Stripes, which was already twenty minutes longer than necessary in its original theatrical edition. Rather than expanding the film to a bloated 126 minutes, Sony should have created the first "Abridged Cut": 80 tightened minutes of the best basic training high jinks and Bill Murray improvisations. Thankfully, the DVD does also provide the theatrical cut, which limits the damage caused by Stripes' regrettable fourth act behind enemy lines in Czechoslovakia. Made with the inexplicable logistical support of the U.S. Army, the film up to that point follows two thirtyish goofballs, Murray and Harold Ramis, who join the Army to get their lives in order. The movie wouldn't work at all without Murray as jocose enlistee John Winger, and all of Stripes’ best moments belong to him: an unorthodox seduction scene (he promises a woman “the Aunt Jemima treatment” then prods her with a spatula), a droll-but-impassioned piece of patriotism ("We're American soldiers! We've been kicking ass for 200 years! We're 10 and 1!") and the famous razzle-dazzle drill routine. But the movie should have ended right there. Don’t give us a show-stopping musical number and then refuse to stop the show.

Briefly: Suspiria (1977)

It boggles my mind that Dario Argento directed a movie called Deep Red and it is not this picture. How is that possible? How could any movie not set entirely in a darkroom be more about the color red than this one? On one of those classic horror film dark-and-stormy-nights an American girl (Jessica Harper) arrives at a German dance academy. By day, the place seems harmless enough. By night it's transformed into a house of horrors, lit entirely by ominous splashes of blue, green, and especially red. Argento's film is soaked in fluids: it opens in a drenching rain, features a key scene in a pool, finds menace in a glass of syrupy wine, and covers its victims in liters of blood. And there's no denying the amount of imagination behind the inventively grisly slasher scenes; it would not surprise me in the slightest if the barbed wire room made an appearance in my dreams in the near future. Still, points off for the score (which I've heard others praise, but sounded to me like an giddy asthmatic with an old Casio keyboard) and for the crummy transfer on the bargain basement DVD Netflix sent me instead of the remastered Anchor Bay disc.

Briefly: The Proposal (2009)

The title The Proposal has two meanings; it refers to the improvised marriage between shrew boss Margaret (Sandra Bullock) and exasperated assistant Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) devised to stave off her deportation, as well as to their jobs in the world of book publishing. But another possible title, The Sham, works equally well, not only to describe their romantic hoax but also the contrived, counterfeit nature of this entire cinematic enterprise. Set in Alaska (but shot in Massachusetts), The Proposal tries to form an unholy union of its own between Meet the Parents-style homecoming shenanigans and the workplace screwball comedy of previous Bullock vehicle Two Weeks Notice. And while the stars mug and flail with commendably shameless abandon, the movie's about as romantic as a fifth season episode of Jon & Kate Plus 8. That's what happens when you give two people who've hated each other for three years three wacky misadventure-filled days to fall in love. When do you think it hit Margaret that what she really wanted all along was Andrew and his rippling rectus abdominis? I'm guessing the light bulb moment came at some point between when the male stripper shoved his junk in her face and dancing a Native American tribal ritual with Betty White.

Briefly: Salesman (1968)

This picture about traveling Bible salesmen had me thanking God I didn't go into retail. At least not the kind in Salesmen: you're separated from your family, working out of shared hotel rooms, trying to convince poor Catholics they need to own a $50 (or, inflation adjusted, $300) Bible. Filmmakers Albert and David Maysles offer little gloss or commentary on the proceedings while capturing this day-to-day, door-to-door existence. They follow four salesmen, but return most frequently to one of the older members of the brigade, Paul "The Badger" Brennan, who goes about his job humming "If I Were A Rich Man." If only; at this late stage of his career, unable to move his merchandise, Brennan is like a trapeze artist working without the benefit of a net whose hands have started to cramp on him. What Brennan does is undeniably unsavory – and to some degree the fact that the Maysles stood by and watched him do it is too – but his situation is so dire and the odds he faces so long that we can't help but sympathize. There's no joy in this hustle, only the desperation of a dead-ended American dream. For added value, watch back-to-back with an episode of the TV series Mad Men.

Briefly: The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

Tony Scott's remake of The Taking of Pelham 123 opens with a credits sequence set to Jay-Z's "99 Problems." The film itself has nearly that many. John Travolta and Denzel Washington, as a man who hijacks a 6 train and the MTA worker who receives his demands respectively, are no improvement over the earlier combination of Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw. Neither is Brian Helgeland's modern take on the original 1973 novel; switching the hero from cop to MTA dispatcher adds an agreeable fish-out-of-water element but also makes the finale, in which Washington straps on a gun and saves the day, totally out of character. Prepare to be incredibly frustrated as you watch allegedly clever criminals make obviously dumb mistakes: how does Travolta, who's monitoring the hostage situation on the Internet, not notice as the national news grabs a webcamera feed from inside his train? Scott's glossier take on Joseph Sargent's grimy imagery has an undeniable panache, and there's no question he makes a story about two dudes talking on the phone an impressively lively visual experience. But his flashy editing and stutter-shutter effects slow down a movie that is supposed to be about speed, and he winds up obscuring the film's thrills rather than enhancing them.