It's very exciting that the Criterion Collection has released this wonderful film. It has been previously unavailable on DVD in the U.S., so I didn't watch it in my recent Billy Wilder phase. Now that I've seen it, I'm happy to say that it is one of his best films. Like some directors today who make one for the studio and then one for themselves, Wilder felt that he could push the boundary after the huge success of Sunset Boulevard. While Sunset was hardly "one for the studio" in its content, it was a gigantic box office success, allowing Wilder to self produce Ace. Starring Kirk Douglas, this film is a hard hitting, dark drama about a bloodthirsty reporter on the lookout for a big story that will get him back in good graces in New York. He finds his ace in the hole and ensures that the whole situation works to his advantage, morality and humanity be damned. There are plenty of beautiful Wilder touches, such as Douglas' crack that he's lied to plenty of men wearing a belt and plenty of men wearing suspenders, but he'd never think of lying to his boss who is wearing both a belt and suspenders. Later in the film, you can tell plenty about Douglas' current state of mind at any given point the film simply by watching his own method of keeping his pants up. Thanks to Criterion for giving this great film the release it deserves.

I really, really have to stop letting my friends talk me into watching Kevin Smith's movies. Sure, I know it's supposed to be juvenile, stupid humor. It's not that I don't get it. I just don't think it's funny. The movie did at least have a couple of hilarious cameos, namely Will Farrell, Chris Rock, Mark Hamill and the uncredited orangutan. If you actually liked Clerks, I'm sure you'll love this one. But it's going to take some serious convincing for me to watch another Smith film. Hopefully this time I've learned my lesson.

Carnage. Glory. Death. Violence. Sex. Barrage. Unrelenting. Generated.

A few words come to mind when I think about 300. It's not terribly easy to associate a complete thought with a film like this. A single word is about all you can focus on before something else bashes you upside the head. That said, I actually enjoyed the experience. There is visual beauty here, hidden in the gore. There is no plot to speak of in the original comic book, and unfortunately what little plot director and screenwriter Zack Snyder attempted to add merely detracted from the impact of the film. I will say that I was excited to have a character with my namesake in the film, even if he only existed to further Snyder's contrived plot additions. The character, Theron, is played by Dominic West, who did the best acting in the film (no surprise there, since he's so brilliant as the drunk, workaholic Jimmy McNulty in the brilliant HBO TV show, The Wire).

Even though I enjoyed this adaptation of a comic, I'm scared to death to see that Snyder is slated to direct Watchmen. 300 was a one note throwaway comic by Frank Miller. Watchmen is the best comic book ever made. I am not exaggerating. It will be nearly impossible to translate to film, and while 300 was fun, Watchment will either be great or it will be a disaster (ala The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen). Time will tell, I suppose.

Maybe it's a tad incorrect to say that there's no plot. The historical story of Thermopylae is quite interesting and the film stays true to the main points. That definitely added a level of interest to the film for me.

This year for the Interruptus, Roger Ebert could not make it due to health reasons. Jim Emerson filled in for him very admirably. It was my 11th year. I've been coming since I was an undergraduate at CU in 1996 for Pulp Fiction and the first year I missed was 2005 when I was living in Boston.

This year Jim chose to show Chinatown, a film I'd never seen before. Jim called it a perfect film in his introduction, and I have to say I agree with him. The first night, I loved it and recognized that it is a brilliant film. It was only over the course of the week, as we dissected it in fine detail that I grew to realize the depth of its brilliance. It really is a film that is meant to be seen many times over and something rich will come from each viewing.

One of the coolest things that I learned during the week was only tangentially in the film. There is a scene that takes place in the fictional Albacore Club. The real location for this scene is Avalon, on Santa Catalina Island off the coast of L.A. It turns out that Robert Towne wrote the screenplay in Two Harbors on Catalina, and this shot was an homage. I spent a week camping in Two Harbors this New Years and you can see some pictures of the trip on my set in Flickr. It's a beautiful place & I'd wish I'd known that little bit of film history while I was there.

I don't really have any thoughts on the film that I feel like sharing. If you actually read this site, you've probably noticed that I have not been updating lately, so there's nothing new in my mood. But my friend Ted encouraged me to not make a post a project. So, since this isn't a project I won't worry about perfection. I'll leave that to Polanski.

• Cat and Mouse
• High Anxiety - Mel Brooks - 1977
• Corvette Summer Matthew Robbins- 1978-
• Small Change - François Truffaut - 1976
• Fraternity Row - Thomas J. Tobin - 1977
• Every Little Crook and Nanny - Cy Howard - 1972
• Lovers and Other Strangers - Cy Howard - 1970
• Making It - John Erman - 1971
• Escape from the Planet of the Apes - Don Taylor - 1971
• B.S. I Love You - Steven Hilliard Stern- 1971
• Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. - Byron Paul- 1966
• The Purple Rose of Cairo - Woody Allen - 1985
• The Rescuers - John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, Art Stevens - 1977
• Watership Down - Martin Rosen - 1978
• Christian the Lion - Bill Travers - 1971
• Fantastic Planet - René Laloux - 1973
• 101 Dalmations - Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, Wolfgang Reitherman - 1961
• Murder on the Orient Express - Sidney Lumet - 1974
• The Hot Rock - Peter Yates - 1972
• Walkabout - Nicolas Roeg - 1971
• When the Legends Die - Stuart Millar - 1972
• Junior Bonner - Sam Peckinpah - 1972
• Capain Nemo and the Underwater City - James Hill - 1969
• The Five Man Army - Don Taylor Italo Zingarelli - 1969
• No Blade of Grass - Cornel Wilde - 1970
• Get Carter - Mike Hodges - 1971
• Hell in the Pacific - John Boorman - 1968
• The Sicilian Clan - Henri Verneuil - 1969
• Murphy's War - Peter Yates - 1971
• The Great White Hope - Martin Ritt - 1970
• Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon - Otto Preminger - 1970
• The Touch - Ingmar Bergman - 1971
• True Grit - Henry Hathaway - 1969
• The Godfather: Part II - Francis Ford Coppola - 1974
• W.W. and the Dixie DancekingsJohn G. Avildsen - 1975 -
• Marathon Man - John Schlesinger - 1976
• Mahogany - Berry Gordy, Tony Richardson - 1975
• Magic - Richard Attenborough - 1978
• Shanks - William Castle - 1974
• To Kill a Clown - George Bloomfield - 1972
• The Night Digger - Alastair Reid - 1971
• The Other - Robert Mulligan - 1972
• Let's Scare Jessica to Death - John D. Hancock - 1971
• House of Dark Shadows - Dan Curtis - 1970
• Race with the Devil - Jack Starrett - 1975
• My Bloody Valentine - George Mihalka - 1981
• Humanoids from the Deep - Barbara Peters, Jimmy T. Murakami - 1980
• Rabid - David Cronenberg - 1977
• Steppenwolf - Fred Haines - 1974
• Arousers
• Darktown Strutters - William Witney - 1975
• Mandingo - Richard Fleischer - 1975
• Cool Breeze - Barry Pollack - 1972
• Pretty Maids All in a Row - Roger Vadim - 1971
• Zachariah - George Englund - 1971
• Melinda - Hugh A. Robertson - 1972
• Death Race 2000 - Paul Bartel - 1975
• Hollywood Boulevard - Allan Arkush, Joe Dante - 1976
• Lipstick - Lamont Johnson - 1976
• Skyriders - Sergio Garrone - 1971
• All This and World War II - Susan Winslow - 1976
• Elvis on Tour - Robert Abel Pierre Adidge - 1972

The second documentary for me today is Deliver Us From Evil, a heart-wrenching, unflinching and fascinating look at Fr. Oliver O'Grady, a priest in the Catholic Church who abused and molested children in the Los Angeles Archdiocese in the '70s and '80s. Amy Berg, the director, was somehow able to gain the trust of this man and get completely honest interviews from him. Like driving past a gruesome car accident, it is impossible to avert your eyes.

O'Grady begins the film by comparing the interview to a Catholic confession and expresses his hope that his victims come to the understanding that he believes that "it shouldn't have happened." Only through the course of the film do we begin to understand the lack of compassion and remorse that this man has. He may claim that he is apologetic, but in his eyes we see there is only selfishness and excuses for his actions. It is a truly scary depiction of an evil man.

Berg also spent many hours with O'Grady's victims. One has to wonder if they knew that she was interviewing their molester, or as they more accurately call him, their rapist. Would they have understood his right to tell his own story, I wonder? If I were in their situation, I'm not certain that I could have been so charitable. Their presence in the film is crucial, however. Without their stories, and the stories of their parents, it would be all too easy to forget how cataclysmic child molestation is to an entire family. The emotional heart of the film comes when two parents share how they discovered that their daughter was abused. It was not until she was an adult and Fr. O'Grady was finally arrested that the parents considered that abuse was a possibility. In fact, these particular parents posted bail for Fr. O'Grady believing that the accusations were completely false and unfounded.

The film also does a magnificent job at highlighting the particularly horrific nature of abuse by a priest of the Catholic Church. This is a man who is considered the earthly representative of God Himself. He not only holds the power of adult authority over children, but the authority of God. It is a literally a breach of a sacred trust.

The film does not stop here, either. In the end, it is a condemnation of an entire system of patriarchal and monarchical politics that can not only allow a pedophiliac priest to survive in the organization, but to thrive in it. The film makes a very good case against Fr. O'Grady's Bishop, now a Cardinal, that he personally covered up the "scandal" for political gain. It even goes so far as to blame the current Pope Benedict XVI, who presided over a group of bishops who had a responsibility to put a stop to this well known and widespread problem.

I have a couple of complaints about the film, but I need to get moving to the next documentary. The complaints are minor, really. Occasionally the film drags. There was a scene where some of the victims attempt to personally take a letter to the Pope in Vatican City. Of course, they are not even let through the door, further victimizing them and alienating them from the Church. I don't see how Berg could have left this out, but it didn't really add much to the story except to further demonize the Church as a large corporation. Also, no one speaking on behalf of the Church was interviewed (they declined). Though not the fault of Berg, it would have been interesting to hear their side of the story.

So far, I believe this is my favorite documentary up for the Oscar, even over the frontrunner, An Inconvenient Truth. Gotta run! I've got a schedule to keep!

This week, the Starz Film Center in Denver is showing all five Oscar nominees for best documentary feature. It's a real treat, because typically one of the five, at most, is available for viewing in theaters in a given year. So, to take advantage of this, I'm pulling an all dayer and seeing the four films that I've missed back to back to back to back.

First on the list is Iraq In Fragments. Unfortunately the filmmakers decided to take the title to heart a little too aggressively. The film is in three parts: first is a story of a young boy in Baghdad, followed by the story of Sadr's supporters in the south, and finally a story of a Kurdish family. These stories show that there are many different people in the country with many different viewpoints on the war and occupation of the U.S. troops. But if director James Longley was aiming at a coherent whole for his film, the three stories just don't add up to that.

The film is maddeningly fragmented in its storytelling and visual style. There are moments where I was amazed at the intimate details Longley showed about his subjects. For instance, we see first hand the verbal and psychological abuse the boy in Baghdad endured from his boss, whom he considered like a father. But just when the film was about to reach a profound level, it jumped to another topic. There is another scene where the followers of Sadr accost and kidnap group of men who they believe to be selling alcohol, which is against their religious beliefs. Longley was able not only to film the beating of the men at the market, but also to join them in the car ride and show footage of the final destination of the kidnapping. The beating is brutal and horrible to watch, but Longley insists on fast jump cuts, constantly moving backwards and forwards in time by a few seconds. This fragmentation is simply annoying and draws attention to the film style and away from the brutality of the beating. Finally, we never know what happens to the kidnapped men, whether they are innocent as they claim, not even whether they are killed or released. Longley was obviously close to Sadr's men to be able to ride with them in their van during the kidnapping. Why did he choose not to show the final fate of the merchants?

While the film shows an intimate portrayal of life in Iraq during the U.S. invasion from a few different viewpoints, and this has value in and of itself, it does not come together as a successful film. I left the theater confused about the statement Longley was trying to make, or even if there was one. Now, off to the next doc.

In a somewhat unprecedented move, I've decided to post about a movie I haven't seen yet. Foreign Policy has posted a thoughtful and interesting interview with Ed Zwick, director of Blood Diamond. To be perfectly honest, the previews left me underwhelmed and I wasn't a fan of The Last Samurai, Zwick's last film. But this interview reveals a director who has researched his subject in depth and the film may find a way to include an important message with its Hollywood sheen. Here's a particularly interesting quote:

There’s a temptation to think of [Africa] as a monolith as opposed to all these different countries with different problems. By telling the story of a small place, and suggesting that there are all these problems in it, you realize that all these places have their issues.

In full disclosure, the interview was conducted by a good friend of mine and Senior Editor at FP, Christine Chen.

Link to the interview.

There is one thing about young children that will never change; they will never hesitate to tell you the truth as they see it. Seven Up! was originally intended to be a view into the state of England in 1964 through the eyes of a group of diverse seven-year-olds. The filmmakers had an agenda and they made no attempt to hide it. The film was meant to be a diatribe against the class system in England, which was extremely prevalent at the time. The children in the lower class could be found fighting, misbehaving in class, and scrounging money to go to the movies on the weekends. The upper class children were singing in Latin and practicing ballet in their classrooms, traveling to the Alps for ski vacations and even enforcing their own rules upon each other. We also hear the children's thoughts on their hopes, dreams, boyfriends and girlfriends, expectations for school, and what they think about children in other tiers of the class system. This is where the brutal honesty comes into play. The children in the lower classes simply don't have the ambition of the children in the upper classes. They don't have anyone expecting great things from them. They don't have the educational system to allow them to achieve good jobs or careers. One child, Paul, when asked if he's going to university, honestly answers "What does university mean?" On the other hand, the children in the most elite schools can name the exact prep school track they will take to university.

What none of the filmmakers knew at the time, though, was that we would actually get a chance to see what happens to these children over time. This was Michael Apted's first job out of film school. He was only a researcher on this project, tasked to find the children to include in the film. While this film was meant to be a stand alone project, Apted had the inspired notion to continue with the children every seven years, creating the mammoth and still ongoing work of The Up Series. In preparation for the release of the latest installment, 49 Up, I decided to watch all of the films in sequence, and I'll be reviewing each of them individually. This first film was one of the best, because the children have nothing to hide. We are able to see their earliest environments and personalities very clearly, with none of the walls that are inevitably built up with life experience. Even if you are tempted to skip the first films and head straight to 49 Up, I would highly recommend starting here to see the kids at their most open and honest time in life and to see first hand the children that will grow into the adults in 49 Up.

What can I say about this film, except that Helen Mirren steals the show? She embodies Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II with such perfection that it becomes hard to believe we are watching an actress at work. The film shows the Queen and Tony Blair as human beings like anyone else: unsure of themselves, politicking and wrangling to do the right thing both personally and for the country. In comes in stark contrast to Marie Antoinette, another film about royalty in a crucial political crisis, on the edge of losing their crowns, if not their heads. The difference is that this film drops any pretension and tells the story simply and straightforwardly. It serves the subject matter well.

It is almost tragic that Mirren is so good because she overshadows a superb supporting cast with her royal presence. Michael Sheen is a new face playing the young, inexperienced and constantly grinning Prime Minister Tony Blair. James Cromwell is a joyously vitriolic and hateful Prince Philip, Elizabeth's husband. Alex Jennings has a small, but important role as the grieving and sympathetic Prince Charles.

The story itself is almost secondary to the brilliantly subtle acting. In some ways it merely serves to set up a series of conflicts and stresses on the Royal Family and their relationship with Blair. The film starts just before the death of Princess Diana in 1996 and the majority of the film concerns the arrangements of her funeral. As dull as that may sound on the surface, it turns out to be a serious crisis of tradition, culture, politics and ego. This would turn out to be the first difficulty faced by the Blair administration, but watching the film today we need no reminder that it would not be his last. There is a certain thrill in being a fly on the wall during the official meetings between Blair and the Queen, but I preferred to see the Queen in her quiet moments, such as the scene where her Land Rover breaks down in the wilderness. She is forced to sit quietly and wait, pondering the state of her country and her family until a regal stag disturbs her reverie. This is the very stag that she is on her way to hunt, but she simply sits in awe of his beauty even as we sit in awe of the beauty of the scene and Mirren's performance.

The Queen is a simple and lovely film. Stephen Frears does not clutter the story with cinematic flourishes or confusing subplots. The actors give the emotion necessary but nothing more. The only tears shed on Diana's behalf in this film are those of her people, not of her family. The Queen is always dignified, thoughtful and composed, but like David Strathairn's portrayal of Edward R. Murrow from last year's Good Night, and Good Luck, we occasionally see the merest hint of a crack in her armor, proving that she is more than royalty. She is human.

Sophia Coppola has created a visually beautiful but otherwise empty film in Marie Antoinette. It falls into the same category of tongue in cheek, ironic and self-aware films that I am quickly learning to despise, such as About Schmidt, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Royal Tenenbaums. These films are purposely unfunny, but they think their lack of humor will itself be seen as humorous. They replace emotion with a cardboard formality, and we are expected to see it as a hip representation of the disaffection that comes with living in the modern world. For a perfect antidote to this style, you can simply turn to Coppola's last film, the masterful Lost In Translation, which is full of feeling and emotion.

It never gives me pleasure to beat up on actors in a review, but it's impossible not to mention Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman. Dunst was passable and actually pulled off a few moments of serious acting. During the early months of her marriage, she gave the impression of being sincerely distraught about the lack of consummation. She wasn't able to carry the film on her own shoulders, but at least it wasn't an embarrassment. Schwartzman, on the other hand, gave the worst performance I've seen in years. I hesitate to lay the blame entirely on him, though. I could almost hear Coppola saying "That's perfect!" after every wooden take. Other critics have praised his performance as one of deadpan hilarity. In my book, boring and lifeless just isn't that funny.

The film does have one saving grace - it's look. Coppola filmed on location in Versailles and brought in Milena Canonero to design the costumes. No doubt her Oscar for Barry Lyndon helped make Canonero an obvious choice. She deserves another Oscar this year for her work. In a film where there is practically no other saving grace, at least there is something beautiful to watch.

This is the original Hong Kong film that Scorsese used as the basis for The Departed. I saw this film after the Scorsese film, and I'm sure that colored my opinion to a large degree. It also colored my view of The Departed to a certain extent as well. But I think I have a higher respect for both films in many ways, instead of bringing down my opinion of one or the other.

I was actually astounded at how very close this film is to the Scorsese film in so many of the details. The overall plot is nearly identical, as are many of the exact scenes. If you're familiar with either film, you will recognize the fateful theater scene where the mob boss gives a marked envelope to his rat while the police's rat watches from the darkness. The brilliant silent phone call sequence was also swiped by Scorsese with little change. The climaxes of both films are also nearly identical. One question that must come to mind is whether Scorsese's film has any value to it at all, if it takes from this film so liberally. There is the immediate value in that it may open peoples' eyes to the original film and other foreign films similar to it. But I think the value goes way beyond that. The value lies not in the similarities, but in the many ways that Scorsese makes the film his own.

The most striking difference was the pacing of the two films. Infernal Affairs is nearly an hour shorter than The Departed, but tells the exact same story. When watching this film, I couldn't help but think that it would benefit by a little more space to breathe. Scorsese's film never drags, but he allows the story to unfold more slowly. For instance, I felt like the scenes that were supposed to give a sense of the discomfort felt by the undercover cop in Infernal Affairs were very rushed. In Scorsese's film, this disquiet was rarely addressed directly. Instead, we get to see DiCaprio's character slowly come unravelled throughout the course of the film. Scorsese also adds crucial character details that this film lacks. We get to see the crooked cop as a child in The Departed, for instance. This brief scene gives the character some sympathetic qualities that are lacking in Infernal Affairs.

Despite the fact that I believe The Departed is a vastly superior film than Internal Affairs, I enjoyed this film immensely. It is difficult to say how much I would have enjoyed it had I not seen Scorsese's film. It would have held more suspense for me, I'm sure. (Although there was a certain level of suspense because I never really knew where the two films would differ.) In some ways, I have a greater respect for this film after having seen The Departed, because of what Scorsese was able to craft out of the raw material of this story. Had I been a filmmaker looking to remake this film, I would not have been able to create the moral and literary complexity present in The Departed. There is more under the surface of this film than I would have seen.

Spoiler Warning: Another huge difference between this film and The Departed is the tenor of the ending. In this film, the crooked cop gets away scott free. His only punishment is the guilt that he must carry for the rest of his life. In Scorsese's version, the punishment is a swift execution. A difference between these two versions of the same character is that Scorsese's villain seemed to feel no guilt for his actions. Life would have been sweet for him and Scorsese prefers to let his punishment be final and complete. Interestingly enough, there is an alternate ending on the Infernal Affairs DVD that gives us a third unique look at what could have been, but it turns out to be extremely unsatisfying. The crooked cop is simply carted off as a criminal by his own police force. This has neither the psychological interest of the original ending nor the finality and retribution of Scorsese's ending. My friend Ted is adamant that the original ending of this film is the perfect ending. He was very unhappy with the resolution in The Departed. I'm not so sure I agree. In many ways, the ending of Infernal Affairs is more challenging than Scorsese's. There is a certain poetic justice in this film. But Scorsese's ending has something very compelling about it that this film lacks. Maybe it is the knowledge that in Scorsese's Catholic and spiritual world, death is not the end. Maybe it is the sense of symmetry that comes into play with the death of his counterpart in the mob. Scorsese's ending was shocking and unexpected in a way that left me perfectly satisfied.

Unfortunately, I'll never be able to separate this film from its American counterpart. Such is the way with remakes and adaptations. Each work can stand on its own, but must inevitably be compared to the other. Infernal Affairs is a very good film in its own right, but Scorsese elevates the story to greatness.

Cop or criminal - when you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?

— Francis Costello

• Taxi Driver - 1976
• Raging Bull - 1980
• Goodfellas - 1990
• The Departed - 2006

In every decade since Scorsese started making films, he has created a masterpiece. I am including The Departed in this short list. It's a brutal and unflinching look at two men who are so alike that they could be brothers. Yet, for the vast majority of the film these two men don't appear onscreen together, nor do they speak to each other. It takes a long time for either of them to even know the other man exists. But their lives are inextricably linked in a way that they cannot escape.

Simply put, Matt Damon is a mobster working undercover as a cop while Leonardo DiCaprio is a cop working undercover as a mobster. It's a brilliant setup and Scorsese executes perfectly. He assembled a superb cast who delivered brilliant performances. The legendary Thelma Schoonmaker cut the film with razor sharp precision. The pace of the film is astoundingly tight; two and a half hours goes by as though it were nothing. More important than any of this, the screenplay by William Monahan is so nuanced, intense and uncompromising that it takes the film to a level of greatness rarely achieved in cinema. There are no tricks here, just good honest storytelling.

Included in the brilliant cast are Jack Nicholson as the mob boss Frank Costello; Mark Wahlberg as the cop Dignam; Martin Sheen as Dignum's boss, Queenan; and Vera Farmiga as Madolyn, the shrink who acts as a bridge between the two worlds of the film. I expect all of these top caliber actors to shine, but the real surprise was Ray Winstone as Mr. French. I have seen a few of his other films, including Cold Mountain and Sexy Beast but don't remember him from any of them. Here he plays a killer with such ferocity that I won't make the mistake of forgetting him again.

My favorite aspect of the screenplay is its nearly perfect symmetry. Some of the mirrors in the film are obvious, specifically Colin Sullivan (Damon) and Billy Costigan (DiCaprio). These are two kids who came from the same neighborhood but never met. They end up graduating from the Massachusetts State Police Academy in the same class, but still never cross paths. Then, finally, their paths begin to diverge and we get to see how they each deal with the pressures of being a rat, albeit on different sides of the law. But there is symmetry on deeper levels in the film. For instance, consider the tactics and brutality used by the cops. We expect the mob to disregard human life, but in many ways the police force is just as cold and calculating. Scorsese and Schoonmaker cut between these two worlds as though they were one, and in many ways they are.

I'm being deliberately vague about the details of the story. The film is best seen with as little knowledge of the plot as possible. It is intense and unpredictable. I don't want to spoil that in any way.

On a personal note, it was wonderful to see the beautiful city of Boston again, even if it was only on film. Although most of the film was shot in New York, it had enough specific Bostonian details to make it look and feel authentic. Scorsese must have been having a little fun, though, because the building used as the Massachusetts Department of Police is actually the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. Personally, I always loved the building but thought its mind bending, Escheresque stairs must have been a cruel joke on its clientele.

It is a joy to see Scorsese back in his best form. It's not as though he's been making bad films lately, but when something this wonderful comes out of him, it's a revelation. If it takes another ten years until his next masterpiece, that's OK by me. It will be worth the wait.

To give credit where credit is due, the film is actually a remake of the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, which will be reviewed here shortly. I saw Scorsese's version twice before I even heard of the original. In the review for the Hong Kong film, I'll speak to the difficulty of separating the two films from one another. Scorsese's film is far superior, despite an astounding number of shared details.

I love a number of things about this film. It is beautifully shot, wonderfully acted and fantastically mind bending. These characteristics would have made the film good, but there is one other aspect that pushed it into greatness. In no direct way but every indirect way, the magic of the film is that it is about the magic of film.

First, this is a beautiful film to look upon. It takes place in Vienna around the early 1900s. The city in the film is oppressive and dark. People of ill repute seem to constantly lurk around every corner. This is the time period when cinema itself was just starting to be born, and Burger utilizes this in his visual style. The film is shot in color, but he uses other new technologies to make the film look old. I don't mean that it looks old in the sense that it is scratched and worn, but old like it was actually shot in the early 1900s. He uses an iris-in to transition between two scenes, for instance. This is rarely seen today, but was common in silent films. He also digitally altered the footage to make the center of the frame seem slightly brighter, while dimming the edges into shadow. This gives the film a nostalgic and slightly spooky quality. Burger's spare use of color as accent is also brilliantly done.

The acting is universally excellent. The film was probably released too early in the season to garner Oscar buzz, but I wouldn't mind seeing a best supporting actor nod for Paul Giamatti as the corrupt Chief Inspector Uhl. Uhl happens to be the character with the most emotional depth in the film and Giamatti makes the most of it. We get a glimpse at the internal conflict as he struggles between his lust for power and that nagging conscience he can't quite shake. Edward Norton was also excellent as Eisenheim the Illusionist. He played the role exactly as needed to make the film successful, but there is not quite enough range for Oscar to take notice. Eisenheim mostly holds his emotions back as part of his public persona. While I expected great things from Giamatti and Nortin, this happens to be the first film in which I've seen Jessica Biel. It turns out that she can easily hold her own with actors of the caliber found in this film. In some respects, her role was well mapped out for her; she plays a woman in love with one man but engaged to be married to another. To finish the cliché', her fiancée is the Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) and her lover is the lowly entertainer, Eisenheim. But somehow during the film, Biel makes us forget that we've seen this character many times before. Likewise, Sewell plays the powerful, yet scorned Prince with fire and passion.

I mentioned above that the film will twist your mind around a bit. I never discuss details on things like this, and I'm not about to start here. It actually fits in with my favorite aspect of the film. Since it takes place in the early 1900s, there are no direct references to cinema anywhere, but the magic of cinema is a theme that I picked up on throughout the film. The film concerns a magician who is so good that the audience believes he is channeling supernatural powers. As I was watching the tricks on the screen a few things went through my head. First I realized that the audience of the film are like members of Eisenheim's audience, trying to figure out how the tricks are done. Was it really Norton doing the trick or a stand in? Was it done completely with computer generated effects? All of a sudden, it's Burger who is the magician, not Eisenheim. As the film goes on, even I began to question whether Eisenheim was merely a magician in the context of the film or if he had actual supernatural powers. Burger made me stop caring how the tricks were done and start believing in the power of the story. If that's not movie magic, I don't know what is.

This is the story of George Reeves (Ben Affleck), the first man to play Superman on TV. It is also the story of the fictional Louis Simo (Adrien Brody), a private detective investigating Reeves' death. The big question, as with most deaths that need investigation, is who done it. The police wrap it up quickly as a suicide, but Reeves' mother (Lois Smith) refuses to believe that this is even a possibility. The suspect list is long and everyone seems to have an equally plausible motive, including Reeves himself. Most of the enjoyment of the film is letting the details unfold slowly, so I won't go into them here, but the cast of characters includes Reeves' fiancée, Leonore Lemmon (Robin Tunney) who was downstairs throwing a party at the time of his death; Reeves' lover of many years, Toni Mannix (Diane Lane); and Toni's husband and MGM vice-president, Eddie (Bob Hoskins).

Throughout the film, Coulter uses the technique of interleaving the present (June, 1959 - just after Reeve's death) with the past. Coulter uses an interesting technique of stylizing the present with nostalgic color tones as well as a slightly soft focus. It is subtly done and I often wondered during the film if my imagination was getting away from me. But I believe it is there. The past of the film has a harsher lighting with realistic, brighter colors. It is as though Coulter is trying to tell us that Reeves was a real, normal man that moved into the realm of myth after he died.

Much has been made of Ben Affleck's performance as Reeves. He has already won the Volpi Cup this year for best actor at the Venice Film Festival. In my opinion, it was a good performance, but not really worth all the hype. I wonder if it's more of a surprise to the other critics and the press that he has proven to have any talent at all. I'm not surprised. Hollywood has an astoundingly short memory about these things, and I'm sure they've already forgotten his excellent roles in Good Will Hunting (1997) and Shakespeare in Love (1998). I guess that's understandable after his string of clunkers: Pearl Harbor (2001), Daredevil (2003) and Gigli (2003). Thankfully I missed seeing all of those.

Actually, I'm quite lukewarm on the film as a whole. The visual style was interesting, but it couldn't carry the film alone. The acting was passable. Affleck and Lane have some good chemistry. Again, though, something's missing. Maybe it's a proper ending. The film seems to just stop once it reaches the two hour mark, as though Simo had to run out of leads because he knew the film was about to end. Maybe instead, it's a lack of wonder in a film about the man who was Superman to a generation of children. I also can't help comparing the film to Altman's The Long Goodbye. There are many similarities: a private detective investigating a mysterious murder; a nostalgic visual style; Hollywood excess; modern noir. But in every category, this film seems to be a mere shadow, as though Coulter was familiar with Altman's film, but couldn't quite replicate the feel and complexity. This film wasn't a waste of my time, but it was a definite disappointment.