Movie review by Greg Carlson

“Robots” is the follow-up to Blue Sky’s “Ice Age,” and it certainly trumps its predecessor in the visuals department. Story is another matter, however, and in that regard, the crew at rival Pixar can breathe a sigh of relief. 3D animation doesn’t necessarily need to be a contest, but the uniqueness of the emerging art form, along with the ever-growing collection of titles, virtually guarantees that wags and fans alike will compare notes with each new movie release. Directors Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha certainly must be commended for their eye-popping attention to detail and design, but when the end credits roll, one wishes the overall experience of the movie had resembled kindly protagonist Rodney more than heartless bad guy Ratchet.

Bashing audiences over the head with a handful of simple moral recipes about the need to accept yourself for who you are, “Robots” follows the adventures of Rodney Copperbottom (Ewan McGregor), a would-be inventor eager to peddle his clever creation (a spinning, flying, hyperkinetic coffeepot) to a huge corporation in the bustling metropolis of Robot City. Hooking up with a fast-talking sidekick named Fender (Robin Williams, “turning it on” for the umpteenth time), Rodney discovers that his famous hero Bigweld (Mel Brooks) might be in danger. In “Robots” everything and everyone is a machine, which makes it a trifle odd that Rodney is essentially a robot who builds another robot, but logic is not a priority in a Rube Goldberg-esque place where inhabitants think in terms of mileage as opposed to age.

Drawing much of its inspired look from the sleek vibe of 1950s, “Atomic Age” American industrial style, “Robots” clears another hurdle in the evolution of computer-generated imagery; the texture of metal – which comprises basically every object in the film – is truly wondrous to behold. The character animation (which still owes a debt to incomparable pioneers like Walt Disney and Max Fleischer) is outstanding as well, and adults will enjoy themselves spotting all kinds of familiar objects that have been incorporated into the robots’ world. The primary cast is voiced by all sorts of recognizable talent, including Halle Berry, Greg Kinnear, Amanda Bynes, Jennifer Coolidge, and Drew Carey. Many other thesps (including Paul Giamatti in a giddy, bang-up role that is one of several of the film’s “Wizard of Oz” references) pop up in cameo spots and smaller parts.

Too much of “Robots” stoops to Britney Spears references and bodily function jokes instead of reaching for more sophistication and subtlety. Kids in the audience go nuts for the scatological humor, but the movie depends far too much on the easy and familiar. Particularly vexing are the depictions of Kinnear’s Ratchet and Jim Broadbent’s Madame Gasket. Stock villains, they are too boring to ignite the imagination. Ironically, “Robots” builds itself into the smooth corporate machinery it professes to deny. Gorgeous animation aside, the film would have better served its audience had the dark vision of obsolescence at its core been handled with a lighter touch. For many of the grown-ups, “Robots” works as a parable of Boomer angst (wouldn’t it be nice to keep rebuilding ourselves with replacement parts and shiny upgrades?), but its sentimentality will be recognizable to even the youngest viewers.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

“Be Cool” took plenty of time making it to the theatres (co-star Robert Pastorelli died just a few days short of one year prior to the movie’s eventual release) and the wait was decidedly not worth it. Sure to be one of the worst movies of 2005, “Be Cool” is empty-headed and dull – the exact opposite qualities one might expect from Elmore Leonard. The sequel to “Get Shorty,” which appeared as a reasonably entertaining Barry Sonnenfeld movie in 1995, “Be Cool” sees John Travolta return as unflappable “shylock” Chili Palmer, an ambitious thug whose clever street smarts translate easily into Hollywood success.

Director F. Gary Gray (who scored with his remake of “The Italian Job”) blows it this time, failing repeatedly to find any sense of Leonard’s original material. Equal blame goes to screenwriter Peter Steinfeld, whose totally unsavory adaptation cranks up the unfunny stereotypes to a strident pitch in scene after interminable scene. Even Travolta, who generally coasts by on his self-aware charm, perpetually looks like he is only thinking about how much money he earned for signing on to this mess. “Be Cool” also breaks a sweat trying to cram in too many characters, and familiar faces who might otherwise shine in supporting roles end up looking embarrassed and/or confused.

Having established himself as a major movie producer, Palmer decides to try out the music business following the murder of record producer Tommy Athens (James Woods in a mercifully brief cameo appearance). Immediately stepping on the toes of several tough, rival factions, Palmer essentially hijacks the contract of R&B cutie Linda Moon (Christina Milian, nowhere near as believable an actress as she is in her music videos), which garners the negative attention of a ruthless hip-hop producer (Cedric the Entertainer, not terribly entertaining) and Moon’s current boss (a totally blank Harvey Keitel).

Palmer hooks up with Tommy’s widow Edie (Uma Thurman), and they set out to promote Linda while steering clear of the cartoonish baddies looking for a piece of the action. “Be Cool” has so many scenes in which houses are broken and entered in the middle of the night, you would almost think that security systems had never been invented. When guns are not being pointed (which is unfortunately rare), Palmer and Edie squeeze in a Black Eyed Peas show (!) and lamely attempt to remind the audience of “Pulp Fiction,” which turns out to be a really bad idea. An even worse idea is the inclusion of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, who belts out a terrible duet on “Cryin’” with Milian in a scene that violates the film’s title beyond the point of repair.

Not even the exuberance of OutKast’s Andre 3000, as a member of Cedric’s posse, and the Rock, as a gay, slightly dim bodyguard, can reclaim any of Leonard’s magic. Vince Vaughn is a drag as a wannabe pimp, and the air goes out of the movie every time he shows up on screen. Vaughn is usually able to make underwritten roles like this one work to his advantage, but the script leaves him high and dry. The rest of “Be Cool” limps along with no sense of pacing and wretched comic timing. It’s a painful muddle, and should be avoided.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

While director Pedro Almodovar chooses immediately to musically invoke Hitchcock’s “Psycho” during his opening credit sequence (a Saul Bass-esque cut-and-paste doozy of reds, blacks, and whites), the movie that ends up being re-imagined more thoroughly throughout the great Spanish director’s “Bad Education” is “Vertigo.” Continuing his evolution into one of cinema’s most consistently valuable filmmakers, Almodovar also nods in the direction of other key touchstones (one sequence in a movie theatre cleverly utilizes a scene of the gorgeous Sara Montiel in “Esa Mujer”). While not as profound as “Talk to Her,” “Bad Education” offers Almodovar fans a fix of cross-dressers, blackmailers, and pedophile priests, brewing it up into a heady concoction that deftly exploits the film-within-a-film device.

Tripping through several periods between the mid 60s and early 80s, “Bad Education” sweetens the film noir pot with an Almodovarian spin on the femme fatale: Ignacio, a pre-operative transsexual at the heart of the movie’s mischief, does the honors. Played (ala Bunuel) at various times and guises in the movie by Gael Garcia Bernal, Ignacio Perez, and Francisco Boira, Igancio is as chameleon-like as Barbara Stanwyck in “Double Indemnity,” another film noir Almodovar directly references. To make matters even trickier, Almodovar not only shows us several phases and faces of Igancio, he also presents Garcia Bernal with the additional challenge of assuming multiple roles.

Keeping everything sorted out is purposefully difficult at times, but Almodovar expertly juggles the interlocking storylines, leading up to a surprising conclusion that challenges our notions of what has come before. Like a ghost from the past, Ignacio first appears at the offices of Enrique (Fele Martinez), a successful filmmaker who was once Igancio’s closest boyhood schoolmate. The two have not seen each other for more than a decade, but Enrique agrees to read Igancio’s screenplay (titled “The Visit”). Diving into the script, Enrique’s imagination brings Igancio’s characters to life, and Almodovar delights in confusing the audience by allowing certain actors to appear in both the imagined version and in the “real” movie that Enrique ends up directing.

Almodovar chooses to withhold his judgments about various characters, which makes Igancio’s childhood abuser Father Manolo difficult to pin down. The Catholic school flashbacks are memorable both for young Ignacio’s beautiful soprano singing and for Almodovar’s masterful handling of innocence lost, but Manolo never becomes a full-fledged presence until we discover what part he plays in Igancio’s life years later. Almodovar’s reluctance to moralize, however, arguably lets people off the hook who should be held responsible for their actions.

Like the great noir pictures of the classic period, “Bad Education” regularly presents things that are not what they seem to be, and one’s enjoyment of the movie will depend upon the acceptance of Almodovar’s winks and nudges. Garcia Bernal is magnetic in and out of drag, though, and many fans of his work will happily overlook the director’s games in order to catch a glimpse of him in various states of undress. With its bold colors and impeccable design, Almodovar’s universe is almost always a vivid, hyperactive place to visit no matter where the story leads. “Bad Education” might not rank with Almodovar’s finest work, but for anyone fond of twists and turns, it is not a bad way to spend an evening.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

“Being Julia,” director Istvan Szabo’s film version of W. Somerset Maugham’s novel “Theatre,” makes the argument that everything is artifice and that people, with varying degrees of success, are always acting. Despite a splendid supporting cast and a delightful central turn by Annette Bening, “Being Julia” is as trifling and farcical as its subject matter: soapy backstage romances and turnabouts in late 1930s England. As Julia Lambert, a stage diva with Margot Channing-esque skill, Bening has a ball playing a woman who spends so much time acting that the line between herself and her characters has been blurry for years. Facing down the reality that one cannot play young forever, Julia careens between joy and despair – often in the same scene.

Julia seems to have a firmer grasp on her impending decline than does her husband/manager/director (and one-time co-star) Michael Gosselyn (Jeremy Irons), who seems content to keep filling the seats with one production after another. Together, Michael and Julia share a nearly grown-up son Roger (Thomas Sturridge), who knows more than he sometimes lets on. Several other key figures weave in and out of the story. Of these, the strangest but most arresting is Jimmy Langton, the ghost of Julia’s mentor, played with verve and gusto by Michael Gambon. Appearing to Julia at key moments to coach her through sticky interactions, Langton seems to materialize from a better-written, more interesting script.

Julia throws herself into a sexual fling with Tom Fennel (Shaun Evans, a bit out of his depth) a young American immediately recognizable as more calculating and deceptive than his moon-eyed persona suggests. As soon as Julia becomes aware of Tom’s manipulations, she brews up a sweet revenge that plays out – where else? – on the stage. Given the nature of Julia’s unconventional approach to relationships (humorously, she often repeats bits of dialogue in her everyday interactions) the viewer can never be entirely certain to what extent her emotions ring true, but Bening’s effervescence usually manages to smooth over the rough edges.

Ronald Harwood’s screenplay is the film’s largest liability, and its herky-jerky pacing inhibits any sense that events are building upon one another toward a particularly satisfying resolution. Bruce Greenwood, as Lord Charles, one of Julia’s admirers, disappears for so long that by the time he shows up for a pivotal moment, viewers might have altogether forgotten him. It is also impossible to believe that a West End veteran like Julia would fail to detect his sexual orientation, but that is another matter entirely.

“Being Julia” never manages to take flight in the manner of great backstage films like “All About Eve” or “The Dresser.” Perhaps its leisurely pace, in which some scenes are drawn out beyond the endurance of acceptable patience levels, is to blame. It could also be that several key characters – especially Julia’s husband Michael – remain out of focus when they should be razor sharp. Certainly Szabo should have been able to shore up the emotional void that exists at the heart of the movie. Bening and the rest of the cast enjoy themselves immensely, but the merriment is not always transferred to the adoring public.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Mike Leigh is a tremendous talent as a filmmaker, and his latest feature “Vera Drake” can be every bit as gripping and moving as the best moments from “Naked,” “Secrets & Lies,” or “Topsy-Turvy.” Set in London in 1950, Leigh’s film at first seems calculatingly and rigorously structured, but eventually the director’s humanism overtakes the politically charged material to find in favor of the strong title character, a middle-aged, working-class housewife who secretly performs underground abortions. While the subject matter is guaranteed to arouse passionate feelings in audience members, Leigh has as much to say about some of his pet themes (like class, the peculiar nature of family, and the keeping of secrets) as he does about one of the most divisive issues in society.

In a terrific, Academy Award-nominated performance, Imelda Staunton plays Vera as the epitome of self-sacrifice and hard work. Toiling as a domestic in the opulent homes of the wealthy, Vera never fails to make dinner for her family or tend to her aged mother. Cheerful and kindhearted, Vera shares a loving relationship with husband Stan (Phil Davis), who works side by side with his brother as an auto mechanic. Vera and Stan are the parents of grown children Sid (Daniel Mays), a happy-go-lucky tailor and Ethel (Alex Kelly), a painfully timid wallflower who has managed to catch the eye of pathetic Reg (Eddie Marsan), a young man Vera has invited to dinner.

Leigh presents Vera’s hidden occupation with the same kind of no-nonsense, matter of fact care and attention to detail that Vera brings to her paying jobs. It is immediately clear that Vera performs abortions because she truly believes that she is helping the women who seek out her services, and Leigh does not flinch from this view. The director chooses to maintain a certain distance from any internal deliberation that Vera experiences, and the result is complex: we must speculate as to why Vera has chosen her particular path. That ambiguity will certainly please some viewers and frustrate others.

“Vera Drake” is at its best when it is ruminating on the tiniest details of the lives of its characters. Leigh is discreet but not shy about depicting Vera in the act of providing abortions (the several instances have a fascinating, montage-like effect as they show myriad circumstances, each set unique), but just as much time is spent exploring the Drake household. In accordance with the mechanics of the plot, the gears make a grinding shift halfway through, and the film only slightly falters in drawing out the fate of Vera once she has entered the confusing labyrinth of the legal system.

Leigh sets up one interesting counterpoint to Vera’s illegal operations. The daughter of one of Vera’s employers is raped by a suitor, and Leigh weaves a parallel story thread that is surprising in the way it handles the seemingly convergent plotlines. Rather than resort to a more obvious kind of resolution, Leigh takes the opportunity to explore the alternative to Vera’s method or pregnancy termination. While this diversion could have used one more scene to strengthen its argument, Leigh underlines his point about class and power. Leigh concludes his film with a dedication to his parents, a doctor and a midwife, and by the time the credits roll, another of the filmmaker’s powerful tales has delivered much food for thought.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Clint Eastwood – perhaps energized by the success of “Mystic River” – returns just in time for award season with another film of surprising power and grace. “Million Dollar Baby” is a boxing movie, and boxing movies are not routinely recognized for their originality. Eastwood understands this concept going in, and the result is a reassuring blend of cinematic storytelling that embraces expected cliché in order to allow the viewer to focus on the rich characterizations and emotional details of the director’s carefully crafted world. A spunky underdog from the wrong side of the tracks convinces a grizzled trainer to take her all the way to a championship bout. If this sounds like a stock plot from a bygone era, don’t be misled: Eastwood is mostly on his “A” game, and the result hits as hard as the title character.

Like his memorable restructuring/reiteration of cowboy myth in “Unforgiven,” Eastwood again retools audience expectations thanks to both an unhurried pace and an effortless sense of style. Playing faded trainer/gym owner Frank Dunn, Eastwood slips easily into the trappings of his iconic screen presence. Tired, tough, and temperate, Dunn has exercised perhaps too much caution since a long ago fight took the eye of his best friend Eddie Dupris (Morgan Freeman, providing another voiceover that flat out would not work if anybody else tried to deliver the lines). The two men pass most of their days looking over young fighters both talented and hopeless.

Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), a poor waitress with drive and discipline that could outpace nearly any U.S. Marine, shows up one day and refuses to leave Dunn alone until he agrees to train her. Maggie recognizes something special in Frank, and it is merely a matter of time before the old salt is caught up in the thrill of teaching a gifted pupil. Against all odds, Maggie begins a meteoric ascent in the ring that offers Dunn a delectable taste of glory. As they spend more and more time together, a close relationship develops between Dunn and Maggie, and Eastwood underscores the bittersweet connection with a minor subplot that quietly reveals a broken bond between Dunn and his grown-up daughter, who refuses every letter he tries to send to her.

“Million Dollar Baby” has raised the ire of groups that feel Eastwood’s story devalues life (a devastating turn of events takes place during the course of the movie that completely refocuses all narrative concerns), but this misplaced suggestion fails to account for specific circumstances – driven by the fierce individuality and strength of the characters – and instead depends upon a sweeping generality. Ironically, Eastwood’s own conservative identity criss-crosses with several themes, and if any major element is worthy of criticism, it is the ham-fisted depiction of Maggie’s welfare-dependent family.

The plot point to which many object has appeared in other tales, and Eastwood as director and storyteller clearly respects the central trio (virtually the entire movie keeps them front and center) enough to always see them as unique persons. Not many mainstream moviemakers (Kubrick is one of the few who comes to mind) have been as willing as Eastwood to flirt with introspective self-doubt, personal failure, cruelty and despair. The beauty of “Million Dollar Baby” is that the film never goes too far down that path: it will surely not be mistaken for a feel-good movie, but it also refuses to succumb to total desolation.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A companion piece – but not a sequel – to “Hero,” Zhang Yimou’s “House of Flying Daggers” scales back on sweeping political unification parables in favor of a much more straightforward wuxia pian soap opera. Presenting a typical battle-to-the-death love triangle, complete with hidden identities, double agents, and plenty of breathtaking wire-work, Zhang continues to capitalize on the growing appeal of the genre in the West. Following the gigantic success story of Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” several filmmakers have secured larger budgets to accommodate their imaginative vision, and Zhang is arguably the most gifted stylist in the bunch.

While a certain constituency of his fan base regularly laments the director’s personal and professional split from Gong Li, the gorgeous muse who top-lined practically all of the movies made during Zhang’s most creatively fertile period, others have been happy to see what the master can do within the confines of the action format. Zhang Ziyi, a startling beauty in her own right, has largely picked up where Gong Li left off, and one thing that has not changed is the filmmaker’s unyielding use of adoring close-ups to showcase the practically indescribable loveliness of his central performer.

The plot is merely a pretense to stage the action, and it is the weakest of the movie’s concerns. Even so, Zhang fashions a workable structure in which a regional officer named Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) pretends to protect Mei (Zhang Ziyi), a blind dancer suspected of being a member of the House of Flying Daggers, in order to get close to the leadership of the dangerous clan. With another government soldier (Andy Lau) in pursuit, Jin and Mei take to the woods, narrowly escaping capture or death, and falling in love in the process. Kaneshiro, one of the memorable leading performers in Wong Kar Wai’s amazing “Chungking Express,” has the looks to match Zhang Ziyi, and the blossoming romance heats up at several opportune moments.

Like “Hero,” the success of “House of Flying Daggers” depends upon the staging of its fight sequences, and the awesome production design matches the rainbow-colored hues of the earlier film. In one early scene, Mei competes in a skillful drum duel in an opulent brothel, beating the skins with the billowing sleeves of her elaborate garment. Even with the intrusion of some CG trickery, the overall impact of sound and vision is awesome, and should keep fans happy until the next clever set-piece can be devised.

Only the most die-hard adherents to the martial arts film will find fault in the arrangement of the film’s plot, but flat characters are the rule here and not the exception. On some level, this allows the viewer to bask in the elaborate choreography of the fight scenes, but one longs for fully rounded inhabitants to match the splendor of this magical world. The climactic battle assuages most of those pangs, however, as Zhang stages a heart-stopping clash in an autumnal forest that transforms into a swirling blizzard in the blink of an eye. The images, like the filmmaker’s best, remain fixed in the imagination long after the lights have come up.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s films always burst at the seams with clever visuals and stunning design, even when they fail to deliver detailed, fully dimensional characters. “A Very Long Engagement” is the director’s latest concoction, and it snaps with Jeunet’s familiar cinematic zest, courtesy of a second pairing of the filmmaker with his “Amelie” muse Audrey Tautou. Based on the popular novel by Jean-Baptiste Rossi (writing as Sebastien Japrisot), “A Very Long Engagement” allows Jeunet to return to some of the dark themes he explored with former collaborator Marc Caro in excellent movies like “Delicatessen” and “The City of Lost Children.”

Dispensing with most of the quaint romantic fancy that guided “Amelie,” Jeunet takes creative refuge in the grim trenches and bloody battlefields of WW I. In one of his typically dizzying set-pieces, the director introduces a quintet of soldiers condemned for self-mutilation. Each of the five men sports a wounded or mangled hand, and Jeunet takes swift and savage delight in illustrating the circumstances of the gruesome injuries. One of the grunts is Manech (Gaspard Ulliel), a sensitive lighthouse-keeper’s son who interrupted his courtship with childhood sweetie Mathilde (Tautou) in order to serve in the French army.

Rather than execute the five court-martialed prisoners, a field officer instead sends them into no-man’s-land, a hellish stretch of scorched earth between the French and German lines, where it is assumed they will perish. Once the men are outside the barbed wire, Jeunet lets slip the dogs of war, and the ensuing carnage is an evocative homage to several masterful screen depictions of WW I, including Milestone’s “All Quiet On the Western Front” and Kubrick’s “Paths of Glory.” Mathilde, however, refuses to believe that Manech is dead, and pluckily sets out to track down every shred of evidence that will lead her to the truth.

Jeunet quickly adopts a puzzle-box strategy for the narrative, and Mathilde renews her hopefulness with each discovery and clue. Helped occasionally by a Parisian investigator (Jeunet regular Ticky Holgado), Mathilde reconstructs the stories of the five doomed soldiers, and in the process, we learn more and more about the often fascinating peacetime activities of the group. Jodie Foster shows up in one of these storylines, and plays out a tragic, immediately recognizable thread that has been used in other tales. The best of the side trips concerns the mysterious whore Tina Lombardi (Marion Cotillard, in a performance that makes you wish she had more scenes), a twisted killer out for revenge against the men she finds responsible for her lover’s death.

Lombardi’s own arc, which cleverly serves as a much needed counterpoint to Mathilde’s syrupy wholesomeness, ignites several sections of the movie. While many audience members might grow restless with Jeunet’s congested palette, which groans under the weight of too many peripheral characters and wheezy subplots, Cotillard’s Lombardi is wickedly entertaining. Dispatching her enemies with the kinds of elaborate mechanical devices that get Jeunet salivating, Lombardi could have been the central character in a movie of her own. As Mathilde’s vengeful doppelganger, Lombardi emerges as the most memorable element of the film.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Writer-director Paul Weitz’s “In Good Company” travels some of the same thematic territory as his interesting adaptation of Nick Hornby’s “About a Boy,” which he co-directed with his brother Chris. Shoehorning some terrific acting opportunities into a moth-eaten structure, Weitz explores the relationship of two men most in need of each other. Dennis Quaid plays Dan Foreman, a middle-aged advertising salesman at a popular glossy sports rag. When “Sports America” gets gobbled up by the voracious multimedia giant Globecom, Dan is less than pleased to discover that his new boss is wet-behind-the-ears Carter Duryea (Topher Grace), a kid in his mid-twenties with little experience.

Underneath Carter’s gung-ho determination is a fragile, isolated loner longing for some kind of meaningful human contact. Inviting himself over to Dan’s for dinner following an ill-advised Sunday work session, Carter is immediately attracted to Dan’s college-age daughter Alex (Scarlett Johannson) and his subsequent romantic involvement with her provides the movie with added plot complications. Even more improbable is Dan’s discovery that he is to be a father again, which places greater pressure on him to provide for his family. Toss in the grim layoffs affecting several of his longtime associates, and one begins to understand Dan’s contempt for Carter.

Weitz’s movie is notable more for its delicate comic exchanges between Quaid and Grace than it is for its lackluster affirmations about the pluck of the little guy in a mean, harsh world (the low point is surely a syrupy speech delivered by Dan to Malcolm McDowell’s oily CEO extolling the usual feel-good sentiments about individual value in the bottom-line culture of downsizing and job insecurity). Fortunately, the first two thirds of the movie mostly steer clear of the cliché-ridden caricatures that emerge too often in the last reels. Weitz should have studied Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s “The Office,” as his own take on workplace politics lacks the cutting intelligence of the celebrated BBC series.

Weitz does, however, leave enough room for his lead actors to fill in the details of their characters, and both Grace and Quaid are tremendously winning. Grace has already proven adept at the transition from small screen to large, making the most of a number of interesting supporting roles. “In Good Company” will surely bring the actor a larger stack of attractive scripts. Grace nails Carter’s hidden vulnerabilities, walking a tightrope between the giddy thrill of landing bigger and better job titles and the outright panic of realizing that you have no idea how to assume all that new responsibility. By all descriptions, Carter should be a colossal jerk, and Grace finds a perfect middle ground between sensitivity and affectation.

Quaid is just as good as Grace, though his role is the less flashy of the two. With well-timed, withering glares at his youthful superior, Quaid earns tremendous sympathy from the audience. The strongest subtextual element of “In Good Company” is its preoccupation with the expectations of American masculinity, and Quaid expertly navigates each of Dan’s humiliating challenges. The actor ably sidesteps several of Weitz’s weakest plot contrivances in order to find the wounded soul in his fading breadwinner. The movie’s resolution might lack some measure of credibility, but Mr. Weitz’s actors most certainly do not.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The central irony of sex researcher Alfred Kinsey’s legacy is the argument that even today persists in the so-called “culture wars.” Did the scientist’s work merely illuminate sexual practices that were common but not discussed, or did he encourage a sense of permissiveness that has evolved into a pop culture landscape littered with provocative imagery and barely-concealed libidinous desire? Bill Condon’s excellent movie explores both sides of the issue, and in the process argues for tolerance without stooping to smugness or sermonizing. Condon, whose earlier “Gods and Monsters” imagined the inner life of classic Hollywood director James Whale, does justice to another historical figure, and “Kinsey” is certain to earn many warm accolades.

With his nerdy bow tie and goober crew cut, Kinsey personified the techie-scholar archetype. Fortunately for the movie version, Liam Neeson is on hand (which suddenly makes the neckwear and hairdo a whole lot sexier). Neeson’s performance is simply terrific, and the actor deftly manages the difficult task of playing an academic by infusing his Kinsey with moving nobility, a deep-seated sense of conviction in the value of his work, and stirring charisma. Neeson clearly relishes the role, and Condon provides him with ample opportunities to showcase his formidable talents.

Condon does his best at alleviating the shortcomings of the biopic genre, but like most movies about important people, “Kinsey” focuses on the central points of conflict in the man’s life. We retrace Kinsey’s complex relationship with his father (nicely portrayed by John Lithgow) as well as his early research in zoology. It is the arrival of Clara McMillen (a superb Laura Linney) that allows for Kinsey’s shift in interest away from the gall wasp and toward sexual behavior in humans. When he realizes that he is woefully ill-prepared to interact sexually with his new wife, Kinsey has a career-changing epiphany once a doctor suggests some utilitarian advice to the newlyweds.

The film really takes off once Kinsey decides to collect the narrative sexual histories of anyone willing to speak with him. Enlisting the aid of several research assistants, Kinsey relies primarily on a trio of intriguing young men (Peter Sarsgaard, Chris O’Donnell, and Timothy Hutton) who are trained to collect the data crucial to Kinsey’s understanding of the way people really behave in the bedroom. Sarsgaard’s Clyde Martin emerges as the most intriguing member of the group in part because of the rather unique relationship he develops with Mr. and Mrs. Kinsey. Condon anticipates the comic potential contained within Kinsey’s coterie, and the movie exploits it with adroitness.

Condon presents both Kinsey’s project and its subsequent consequences in such a way as to highlight the intellectual elements of the work as much as the sensational public reaction that followed. The director juggles the intimate drama of Kinsey’s personal life with the broader politics of an era where most sex education courses on college campuses avoided details in favor of prudish obfuscation. Of course, Kinsey’s reports would change many things. In one giddy montage, Condon trots out a “Time” magazine cover, Kinsey’s name-check in “Too Darn Hot,” and the famous cartoon that asks “Is there a Mrs. Kinsey?” That Kinsey was for a time one of the most well-known people in the entire world testifies to the ground-breaking nature of his obsession, and with his movie version, Condon has provided moviegoers with a unique opportunity to study a remarkable person.