Movie review by Greg Carlson

Considering the ever-growing number of Jane Austen fans populating several generations, it is somewhat surprising to note that Joe Walsh’s 2005 adaptation of “Pride & Prejudice” marks only the second full-fledged big screen telling of the classic tale, following sixty-five years after the Greer Garson/Laurence Olivier version produced by MGM. Obviously, this discounts “loose” incarnations like the utterly awful “Bride & Prejudice” and the modern Mormon spin called “Pride and Prejudice: A Latter-Day Comedy.” Many Austen-philes adore the various small screen miniseries, particularly the 1995 BBC version starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. That said, the new theatrical release is a solid contender for the best of the best, a sprightly and completely entertaining movie that should please newcomers as well as those familiar with the variety of earlier entries.

Initially, one might think that Keira Knightley would be unable to capture the liveliness and self-possession of Elizabeth Bennett, but the 20-year-old actress delivers a beautifully detailed performance that marks the finest of her short career. It is certainly a star-making turn, and Knightley negotiates the range of Elizabeth’s emotions with clarity and depth. Opposite seasoned vets like Judi Dench, Donald Sutherland and Brenda Blethyn, Knightley glows, and her scenes with Matthew Macfayden (as Darcy) often threaten to burst into flame.

Screenwriter Deborah Moggach streamlines the action of the novel to focus almost exclusively on Elizabeth, but virtually all of the essential moments appear intact. Despite tweaks made to clergyman Collins (Tom Hollander) and bachelor Bingley (Simon Woods), both of whom are purposed for comic effect, the central narrative thread chugs along while several subplots are appropriately juggled. As eldest Bennett daughter Jane, Rosamund Pike delivers a stirring and tender performance. Blethyn occasionally threatens to go over the top as Mrs. Bennett, but Sutherland’s calm patriarch balances her character’s transparent single-mindedness.

No “Pride & Prejudice” is going to work without proper chemistry between Elizabeth and Darcy, and Macfayden hits just the right note of standoffish guardedness. Some will argue that his Darcy remains too stiff for this take, which thrives on its modern airs, but many more will swoon during key scenes, especially Darcy’s initial proposal to Elizabeth. The hot and cold relationship of Darcy and Elizabeth presents a significant challenge to actors (not to mention screenwriters and directors), and Knightley and Macfayden, closer in age to the characters they are playing than many of the performers in other versions, make a fresh pair.

Director Walsh, a youngster himself, handles the picture with panache. Several set-pieces, including a lavish ball held at the Bingley residence, boast elaborate cinematic choreography, and Walsh spins us through the various rooms and into the social machinery of the furious matchmaking with ease. The film’s pacing and rhythm are rarely off, even with the sizable number of misunderstandings and miscommunications that form the heart of the tale’s two titular nouns. As Lady Catherine, Judi Dench’s brief but sharp scenes drive home some of the emotions that attend Elizabeth’s understanding of the often cruel class system that favors the very wealthy. Additionally, the costumes and production design are a treat for the eye, and the opulence of the locations ideally suits the terrific dialogue. As a result, this “Pride & Prejudice” has much to admire, and much to recommend it.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A well-crafted reexamination of “In Cold Blood,” Bennett Miller’s film “Capote” offers viewers a behind-the-scenes tour of the famous writer’s more than half-decade obsession with chronicling a quadruple murder. Already familiar to millions of readers, Truman Capote’s chilling account of the November, 1959 slayings of Herbert, Bonnie, Nancy, and Kenyon Clutter remains one of the most celebrated examples of the “non-fiction novel.” “Capote” manages to do a number of things, but its focus remains on the chronology of events leading from Capote’s initial interest in the story to the execution of convicted murderers Dick Hickock and Perry Smith.

Playing the title character in a tour-de-force performance, Philip Seymour Hoffman ably proves yet again his status as one of cinema’s most interesting actors. Capote’s otherworldly voice, carefully cultivated mannerisms, and bottomless narcissism would be more than enough to trip up many seasoned veterans, but Hoffman is utterly convincing in the role. Accompanied by childhood friend Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), Capote travels to Kansas and manages to gain unprecedented access to local law enforcement officials as well as to the killers themselves. Dan Futterman’s screenplay mostly sidesteps any resentment Capote faced from Holcomb residents, preferring instead to lob a few jokes about the well-appointed scribe’s natty attire.

As the appeal process winds its way through the court system, Capote bonds with Smith (an excellent Clifton Collins Jr.), knowing full well that the success of “In Cold Blood” essentially depends on the young man’s execution. Some audience members are sure to recoil at Capote’s calculating relationship with the assailants, but one of the film’s strengths is the haunting – even chilling – manner in which Capote’s vanity and arrogance trumps any shred of compassion until it is too late. “Capote” tries out the idea that “In Cold Blood” ruined its author (certainly not the first account to do so), and it is easy to see the tug of war between Capote’s desire to be a serious writer and his addiction to the spotlight.

Despite the movie’s reasonably short running time, Miller’s pace occasionally slackens, and a hunger for engagement sets in. This is not to say that “Capote” is ever dull, but given its preoccupation with Capote’s self-devotion, one wishes the movie might have made a little more room for some of the other supporting players. Chris Cooper fades to virtual cameo status as lawman Alvin Dewey, and Bruce Greenwood’s turn as Capote’s longtime companion Jack Dunphy is left undeveloped – a shame on both counts given the skills of these two actors.

The movie’s central relationship (barring the one that Capote has with himself) exists between the author and the slayer. Even at the time of “In Cold Blood’s” publication, Capote’s detractors suggested that he loved Smith, and the movie version carefully compares and contrasts the two men. In one nicely delivered line, Capote even suggests that he and Smith might have grown up in the same house. It’s a wistful thought, but in the end, Capote’s aspiration to have a hit book outweighs any personal connection between the toast of New York’s literary scene and a convicted killer awaiting the gallows.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

In adapting Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2001 novel – which deals with more history and more characters than the film version – actor-turned-filmmaker Liev Schreiber pares down the story to a rattling skeleton. The mostly disappointing result is a straight-ahead WWII memory piece, in which an American nebbish visits Odessa and the surrounding countryside in search of the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis in 1942. The quest for the long-vanished Ukrainian shtetl where these events took place impacts the young man’s two guides as much as himself, and the division of our attention among the trio somewhat diminishes the film’s potential.

Elijah Wood plays Foer as a blank introvert, content to hide in his somber black suit and blink at the world through the thick lenses of his oversized glasses. A meticulous collector of seemingly insignificant, personal ephemera, Foer enshrines all sorts of odds and ends in plastic bags that end up pinned to his wall. Along with his grandmother’s dentures, Foer acquires a faded photograph of his grandfather with a woman known as Augustine. Deeply curious, he decides to make the trek to the former Soviet territory in search of answers about this mysterious savior.

In sharp contrast to Foer is his oddball translator and tour guide Alex (Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene Hutz), a hip-hop obsessed Michael Jackson fan whose fractured English provides the lion’s share of the movie’s humor (he refers to his grandfather’s dog as his “seeing-eye bitch”). Alex’s grandfather (Boris Leskin) runs a modest business playing chauffer to American Jews who take family history-tracing vacations, and he masks his contempt for the tourists by pretending to be blind. Leskin presents the most fully formed character in the movie, and his quiet presence is a welcome contrast to the humorless Foer and the vulgar Alex.

Schreiber divides the film into five chapters, a tactic which reinforces the book-like experience but inadvertently douses any feelings of wonder and surprise – two traits in short supply and sorely needed. That Alex dubs the adventure “a very rigid search” is a painfully accurate description of the proceedings. Even more disconcerting is Schreiber’s heavy-handed and indelicate integration of comedy. With the exception of Alex’s often hilarious mangling of expressions and phrases, the movie relies too heavily on the dog. Veering from broad comedy to teary-eyed revelations about the past, “Everything Is Illuminated” is too diluted to pack much of a punch.

Schreiber handles most of the technical aspects of the film with confidence, and Matthew Libatique’s cinematography attractively showcases the outdoor locations. Many viewers, however, might take issue with the way in which the climactic discoveries unfold; the timing and emphasis of a number of shots confuse rather than shine light on the events of the past. The film version withholds anything that might come across as too grim or distressing – an earnest choice, but a decision that mutes the emotional force. Patient viewers who stay for the end credits are treated to Gogol Bordello’s “Start Wearing Purple” – a delightful song from a soundtrack of well-chosen tunes.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A handsomely mounted production adapting Anthony Swofford’s 2003 war memoir, “Jarhead” arrives in theatres clearly hoping for the kind of attention from audience members and critics that will win it both box office success and Academy Award nominations. Director Sam Mendes, whose first feature effort “American Beauty” netted a shelf of golden statuettes, handles the material with sure-handed ease, but the tone of the film dials down any trace of political opinion, which mitigates a great deal of the movie’s potential power. “Jarhead” works best as the slightly off-center observational account of its central character’s tour of duty in the first Gulf War, and like Mendes’ previous two features, boasts some outstanding acting.

The best trick pulled off by “Jarhead” is the film’s ability to make waiting for combat nearly as compelling as cinematic depictions of the real thing. Mendes tips his hat to a number of signature war films – a scene at the beginning of the movie recalls “Full Metal Jacket” right down to the apoplectic drill instructor – as if to acknowledge a debt and aspire to great company. One of the most memorable moments in “Jarhead” takes place during an adrenaline-fueled screening of “Apocalypse Now” which cuts between Coppola’s indelible Wagner-scored helicopter attack and the faces of young men thrilled at the prospect of participating in their very own mayhem.

The reality of Operation Desert Shield, however, turns out to be nothing like Vietnam, and the bored Marines spend interminable stretches ridiculing one another, masturbating, venting frustrations about strained and faithless marriages, and drinking lots and lots of water. Jake Gyllenhaal, in his most confident and assured performance to date, plays Swofford with a canny combination of enthusiasm and skepticism. Surrounding Gyllenhaal are Jamie Foxx, getting significant mileage from several terrific scenes (especially a monologue in which he bluntly explains his career choice), and a scene-stealing Peter Sarsgaard, who plays Swoff’s troubled friend Troy.

Swoff and Troy are trained as a sniper team, but it doesn’t take them long to realize that given the nature of the conflict, their skills are not likely to be put to the test. The speed and power of American air superiority dashes Swoff’s hopes that he will ever get close enough to a target to squeeze his trigger. The symbolic impotence of Swofford’s situation affords Mendes an opportunity to wring plenty of irony out of several scenes, including an eerie nighttime celebration in which the warriors pour dozens of rounds into a sky lit up by burning oil fields.

“Jarhead” doesn’t include any major battle set-pieces, a distinction which contributes to the strangeness of Swofford’s Gulf War experience. This point might also try the patience of some viewers expecting a more conventional war movie. Mendes’ intelligent detachment, aided by veteran cinematographer Roger Deakins’ sand-and-windswept palette, will strike some as too aloof. Short of the occasional sermonizing that stumbles out of Swofford’s voiceover narration, “Jarhead” keeps its subject matter at a safe distance, even when it should be grabbing it by the throat and shaking it hard.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Cold, blustery, and with occasional gusts of unwelcome wind, “The Weather Man” doesn’t forecast an enjoyable time at the cinema. A strange cocktail of gloomy, woe-is-me navel-gazing and droll, observant comedy, Gore Verbinski’s latest film is more likely than not to keep the director trained on helming the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, and away from introspective character studies. “The Weather Man” is not awful by any means, but the strain of delivering a convincingly sympathetic story with a privileged, successful, white male at its center turns out to be more than Verbinski, screenwriter Steve Conrad, and star Nicolas Cage can handle.

With its nervous Hans Zimmer score and the austere photography of Phedon Papamichael, “The Weather Man” aspires to an “American Beauty” level of artfulness. The movie’s narrative, however, seems to have much less at stake than “Beauty,” and unlike that film, only a single character is explored in depth. Cage’s performance as Dave Spritz, a Chicago TV personality whose personal life is in shambles, is solid as ever, but Spritz is so irritable as to become irritating, and the result often alienates him from the viewer. The filmmakers also miscalculate the effect of the voiceover narration, in this case a completely unnecessary addition at turns mawkish and grating.

Despite the fact that his job is easy to perform and financially lucrative (he is even in the running for a plum spot on a national morning program hosted by Bryant Gumbel, who turns up in an odd cameo appearance), Dave sees himself as insignificant and his career path as trivial. Constantly trying to measure up to his ailing father Robert (Michael Caine), a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, Dave believes his own failed marriage is a disgrace. His ex-wife Noreen (Hope Davis) has moved on, and he strains to connect with his two kids, both of whom deal with awkwardly contrived, plot-device problems.

“The Weather Man” wants to be taken pretty seriously, so it is somewhat puzzling why one of the movie’s running gags is the sight of Dave being pelted by all manner of fast food: hot apple pies, milkshakes, Big Gulps, and other assorted edibles adorn Dave’s coat far more often than one believes is reasonable – even in a market the size of Chicago. Perhaps the film is trying to say something about the cost of minor celebrity (one piece of narration leads Dave to identify himself with the disposable nature of the disgusting victuals heaved at his person), but the frequency of the bombardments rings false.

Verbinski milks a great many take-them-or-leave-them symbols for all they are worth. Dave’s interest in archery wavers between a calming, Zen-like tonic and a borderline psychotic outlet for misplaced rage. The director also develops another genuinely strange preoccupation with the phenomenon of the “camel-toe,” which factors more prominently than one initially expects. Another subplot concerning a pedophile drug counselor seems dropped in for good measure, but none of this material ultimately satisfies. The result is a film that leaves the viewer as out of sorts as its frustrated, confused protagonist.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

In “Whale Rider,” a wonderful feature, director Niki Caro’s success was built on her fierce devotion to the story’s characters, most of whom seemed alive with the nuances and details we recognize in our friends, family members, and ourselves. Sadly, that significant trait is absent in “North Country,” a disappointing, by-the-numbers drama that never manages to break out of its movie-of-the-week mold. What should have been an inspiring and richly observed tale of an underdog fighting for justice plays like a barely-veiled grab for Academy Award nominations and recognition as an important examination of social action.

Unlike “North Country’s” spiritual predecessor “Norma Rae,” depth is eschewed for virtual two-dimensionality, and the results are typically shrill and painfully transparent. Very loosely based on Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy Gansler’s “Class Action,” “North Country” reduces the landmark sexual harassment saga to a hilariously truncated game of connect the dots in which a final-act courtroom scene throws credibility to the wind (before a catatonic judge, witnesses are flipped, badgered, and literally screamed at). Even worse, the focus of the trial shifts from the iron mine’s complicity in the negative work climate to the plaintiff’s sexual past.

As Josey Aimes, Charlize Theron attempts another unglamorous transformation, but unlike “Monster,” “North Country” is content to glide along the surface of its primary character’s personal struggles. Theron manages to act her way around several unflattering bi-level shag and fe-mullet haircuts, but she falls short of convincing as a Minnesota ironworker. “North Country” also enlists Frances McDormand, Sissy Spacek, Woody Harrelson, Sean Bean, and Richard Jenkins, who turn in decent if forgettable work. Of the principal cast, Jenkins has the opportunity to play the strongest scene, a heartfelt admonishment to his “brothers” at an ugly union meeting.

In the plus column, veteran director of photography Chris Menges expertly captures the bleak austerity of the Iron Range, and Caro depicts the perils of mine work with a sense of queasy anticipation. The various indignities and humiliations visited upon the female employees, which range from disgusting verbal assaults to obscene encounters with excrement and semen, remind us that institutionalized sexism was (and in many cases, is still) an ongoing threat. Some of the harassing behavior turns physical, and one can only imagine how many other kinds of disgraceful encounters were endured.

It is frustrating, then, that “North Country” turns on a revelation from Josey’s past and not on her refusal to be silenced. The “big secret” that is disclosed in the course of the trial raises several issues that should not be ignored. It is only after the immaterial information comes to light that Josey’s co-workers stand with her against the mine. For the sake of cinematic drama, Josey is apparently more acceptable once the stigma of her “indiscretions” has been transformed into something that can be pitied. While it is certainly true that sometimes in life little things matter far more than they should, “North Country” squanders an opportunity to present a fictionalized account of a groundbreaking case without insisting that we make a saint out of a person who should have been recognized for merely asking to be treated with basic dignity and respect.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A colossally stupid movie that fails to entertain on even a basic level, Tony Scott’s “Domino” makes “Man on Fire” look like Chekhov by comparison. A winking fantasy based only tangentially on the life of recently deceased former bounty hunter Domino Harvey, Scott’s tale is dominated by his signature stylistics: jump cuts, action in reverse, saturated and de-saturated imagery, jittery handheld photography, fish-eye lenses, and just about any other flashy trick one can imagine. The whole mess, stitched together in such a way as to make viewers physically sick, is shocking only for its lack of intelligence.

Keira Knightley struggles mightily to do something with the title role, but Richard Kelly’s unimaginative writing leaves no room for any of the film’s actors to develop interesting or memorable characterizations. Instead, the movie is content to focus on gunplay and explosions, which seem to take place in every other scene. With a chopped-up narrative that connects bits and pieces of Domino’s chronology through an interrogation by FBI agent Lucy Liu, “Domino” makes the mistake of putting too many balls in the air at the same time. Plots skitter and scamper without any care taken to see that they really benefit the film.

A perfunctory introduction dragged down by unnecessary voiceover narration lets us know that Domino Harvey was the wealthy but bored daughter of actor Laurence Harvey and model Paulene Stone (Scott cannot resist showing clips of “The Manchurian Candidate” on a background TV). Among other things, Domino must contend with the odd attention of her co-worker Choco (Edgar Ramirez), a fellow bounty hunter whose inability to profess his love results in his insistence on speaking Spanish to Domino, even though she cannot understand one word. Late in the movie, when everything has completely fallen apart, Domino and Choco engage in some mescaline-fueled sex following a road accident. It doesn’t make any sense, but then, little in this movie does.

In other tossed-together storylines, Domino ends up the star of a reality TV show hosted by “Beverly Hills, 90210” thesps Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green, playing themselves. Christopher Walken, normally able to at least rescue his own performance when stuck in bad movies, plays the show’s producer, but disappears after a scene or two. Domino also gets mixed up in the fallout from a head-scratching phony driver’s license scheme involving a close associate of her boss Mickey Rourke (who is nowhere near as interesting as he was in “Sin City”). On top of all that, an armored car heist, a Vegas casino standoff, and a desert shootout serve as opportunities to spend hundreds of rounds of ammo.

“Domino” adds up to exactly zero, and oddly, for a movie that revels in the lurid aspects of its subject’s life, chooses not to address Harvey’s well-documented drug addiction. Harvey herself appears at the end of the movie, and served as a consultant to Scott, to whom she had sold the rights to make a fictional version of her life story. “Domino” ends with a dedication to Harvey, and her death marks a dismal end to her tale. “Domino” is certainly no great tribute, as it does not reveal anything of substance about its heroine, an attractive young woman of privilege who chose to practice a dangerous profession.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Admirers of veteran filmmaker Werner Herzog’s impressive body of work will not want to miss “Grizzly Man,” an engrossing documentary that blends Herzog’s ferocious hunger for knowledge with a hair-raising tale of one man’s fatal relationship with the wild bears in Alaska’s Katmai National Park. Like so many of Herzog’s oddities, outcasts, and misguided iconoclasts, subject Timothy Treadwell embarks on a seemingly mad and certainly reckless journey of self-discovery that requires participation in unthinkably perilous behavior as a measure of one’s mettle. “Grizzly Man” reveals immediately that Treadwell and girlfriend Amie Huguenard were killed and eaten by a bear (or bears) in October of 2003, and Herzog uses the incident as a jumping-off point for a discussion of, among other things, the desire for celebrity and the commodification of nature for personal gain.

“Grizzly Man” is composed largely of Treadwell’s own video footage, which he began compiling in 1999. Shot in the style of a Discovery Channel or Animal Planet series in which a “Crocodile Hunter” host lays it on thick while presumably teaching viewers something about the wild, Treadwell’s clips tell us a great deal more about Treadwell than the animals he claims he is there to protect. Several times, Treadwell loses his thread and launches into profanity-laced, paranoid rants in which he casts himself as a lone champion of the bears. Herzog occasionally comments in voiceover, but Treadwell does not need any help in terms of making himself sound like a raving, delusional, and terribly naive fool.

With his sandy, Prince Valiant locks and his surfer dude attitude, Treadwell seems much younger than his real age (he was born in 1957), and his playful, child-like demeanor contributes to a sense of arrested development. He calls the bears by pet names like Mr. Chocolate and Sergeant Brown, and tells the animals over and over how much he loves them. Several times, Treadwell breaks down in tears on camera as he struggles to explain just how closely he identifies with these creatures (in one absolutely hilarious moment, Treadwell chokes up over what he thinks is a dead bee). While Herzog manipulates the chronology of some of the footage, Treadwell emerges as a deeply troubled person whose inability to connect with human society fascinates the director.

Treadwell’s close encounters with the 800-pound behemoths are often breathtaking, and Herzog clearly admires his subject’s devotion to single-minded documentation. Several times, Treadwell finds himself nose to nose with a bear, and his determined tactics to interact peacefully with the animals are chilling to see. Treadwell became so accustomed to turning on his video camera whenever a bear wandered by, an audio recording of his own death was captured on tape (the lens cap was not removed). Herzog uses this harrowing piece of information to stage the film’s most compelling moment – rather than share the gruesome sounds with the audience, Herzog chooses to withhold them, and unheard attack ripples through the viewer’s imagination.

Herzog’s voice, clear and unflinching in its directness, provides the ideal counterpoint to Treadwell’s spacey “secret world of the bear.” The director often disagrees with Treadwell, and several of Herzog’s comments – such as the idea that when he looks at the world he sees only “chaos, hostility, and murder” or that nature itself is totally “indifferent” – resonate with a bleak sense of humor. While Treadwell practically foams at the mouth trying to attribute individual personalities to the many bears he encounters, Herzog cuts to the quick, suggesting that the bear merely regards Treadwell with a “half-bored interest in food.” Herzog himself is anything but bored by Treadwell, however, and viewers of “Grizzly Man” are beneficiaries of the great filmmaker’s curiosity.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

On the surface, David Cronenberg’s “A History of Violence” plays out like a conventional thriller steeped in the tradition of the American Western. Cronenberg – despite the charges that his filmmaking is often cold, detached, and clinical – has always been fascinated by the significant measure of awful things people do to each other and to themselves, so it will come as no surprise to fans of the director that “A History of Violence” offers more than initially meets the eye. Far less weird than many of the director’s signature films, “A History of Violence” still packs quite a punch, particularly with its often dizzying treatment of the title subject.

Set largely in the small town utopia of Millbrook, Indiana, “A History of Violence” introduces the Stall family: patriarch Tom (Viggo Mortenson), his beautiful wife Edie (Maria Bello), and their children Jack (Ashton Holmes) and Sarah (Heidi Hayes). Cronenberg wastes no time in psychologically linking the Stalls to something wicked in the air – Sarah’s nightmare-induced scream follows a prologue in which two cold-blooded killers hit the road following grisly multiple murders. Cronenberg’s careful, deliberate pacing of the film’s early scenes establishes the queasy realization that the bad men are destined to cross paths with Tom.

Once the roaming assassins appear at the diner Tom manages, Cronenberg stages the tense confrontation with an almost otherworldly combination of action, fear, adrenaline, and humor. The director has indicated in press for the film that one might indeed interpret the movie’s flashes of violence as absurdly funny, and part of this realization stems from the filmmaker’s decision to portray the violent moments without much of the ornamented, slow-motion stylization that accompanies so much of the mayhem audiences are accustomed to seeing on the screen. This is not to suggest that Cronenberg fails to fetishize the violence (the film has far too many gruesome aftermath close-ups to support that idea), but rather that care has been taken to involve the viewer in the consequences of the lethal outbursts that pepper the film.

Once Tom has been anointed a local celebrity for his curiously skillful actions at the diner, “A History of Violence” moves into high gear. Media attention on Tom’s heroics presumably brings about a visit from a trio of big city tough guys, led by disfigured Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris). Fogarty insists that he knows Tom, and Cronenberg relishes the blurring of past and present, as well as the real and the imagined. Tom’s very identity is called into question, and “A History of Violence” engages directly with the question of how Tom’s ability to commit ferocious acts of brutality and aggression test the loyalty and imagination of his wife and son.

In other words, Cronenberg is arguably more interested in what roles the Stall family will begin to assume following the suggestion that Tom is not who he says he is. In this context, “A History of Violence” earns high praise – particularly for the performance of Bello, whose own reaction to Tom’s identity crisis walks a tightrope fraught with anxiety, revulsion, and – surprisingly to herself – deep attraction. By the time Cronenberg arrives at the iconic illustration of domesticity that provides the film’s coda, as many questions have been raised as have been answered. One thing is known, however: “A History of Violence” is a forceful and sharp piece of filmmaking.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A charming and good-natured comedy suitable for nearly all ages, “Roll Bounce” employs the familiar competition/contest formula as the framework for a nostalgic look back at the late 1970s and the popular pastime of indoor roller-skating. Anyone old enough to remember having a blast on quad-wheeled, lace-up skates will smile at the impeccable production design of “Roll Bounce’s” glitzy Sweetwater rink, a bustling bazaar of coin-op video and pinball games, spinning disco balls, smooth-talking disc jockeys, and ridiculously talented skaters. Jam-packed with well-chosen period tunes, “Roll Bounce” never quite catches fire, but it is an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon.

Starring Bow Wow as Xavier “X” Smith, a Chicago teenager mourning the death of his mother, “Roll Bounce” introduces a number of memorable characters in support of the lead performer. Chi McBride plays X’s dad Curtis, a stern but loving patriarch struggling to hide his own fear and sorrow from his two children. X’s close-knit group of friends contribute to the film’s ever-present spirit of camaraderie, but it is new neighbor Tori (Jurnee Smollett), a novice skater saddled with a set of unwelcome braces, who forges a warm bond with the moody X. Despite the boys’ relentless ridiculing of her orthodontic accoutrement, Tori gives as good as she gets, and her scrappy personality makes her right at home among her new pals.

Screenwriter Norman Vance Jr. and director Malcolm D. Lee focus the majority of their attention on the family drama of X and Curtis coming to terms with their loss, but the movie never completely neglects the skating, which is always photographed and edited with pulse-quickening verve. Much of the action on the rink is dominated by X’s rival Sweetness (Wesley Jonathan), a self-confident amalgam of Prince and James Brown, whose liquid moves have dominated the annual skating contest for several years in a row. Despite his glaring two-dimensionality, Sweetness is something to see on roller skates.

“Roll Bounce” also squeezes in a tentative love interest for X, an old acquaintance named Naomi (the tremendously charismatic Meagan Good), who initially seems more than willing to give X a chance, but grows increasingly impatient with his awkward inability to manage even a couples’ skate. “Roll Bounce” falters with this storyline, never taking the time to develop Naomi’s character – which is a shame, given the welcome presence of Good. Interestingly, Tori encourages X to pursue Naomi, and the filmmakers must be commended for eschewing the predictability of a rivalry for X’s affections.

At times, “Roll Bounce” might remind viewers of episodic television, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The movie often resembles the pilot of a series, with its multiple storylines and parade of eccentric bit-players (including comical turns by Mike Epps and Charlie Murphy as sanitation workers, and Nick Cannon and Wayne Brady as roller rink employees). Additionally, the period vibe of childhood – from the sights and sounds of the Atari 2600 to the neighborhood water balloon fights – blends perfectly with the exciting skating sequences, several of which are breathtaking highlights of the movie.