"Over the top" is a clever and useful phrase in our language. Strangely enough, however, there seems to be no conventional expression coined solely to capture the vice occupying the other extreme ("opaque" perhaps comes closest, but also has a more general meaning). Is this because being bewilderingly oversubtle is not considered a vice? Or simply because it is much less common?

Spirit of the Beehive raises these questions. It has many virtues as a film, including (1) beautiful Vermeer-like cinematography; (2) great acting by incredibly young children; (3) startling use of the 1931 American version of "Frankenstein". But I have absolutely no clue what any of it was supposed to mean. Apparently it is an allegory about 1940's Spanish politics, though it is baffling to me how so many unconnected elements could be combined into any overarching interpretation at all.

Overall, worth seeing for the above qualities, and for that increasingly rare sensation that a film has completely (and I mean completely) eluded your grasp.

7/10

The Chinese philosopher Mencius has an argument where he says that anyone who sees a little baby lying on the edge of a well has the immediate urge to rescue it from harm. This urge does not come from the desire to be rewarded or to ingratiate oneself with the baby's parents, but simply from the fact that one is human--proof for Mencius that human nature is essentially good.

The Italian movie "I'm Not Scared" is--almost literally--the cinematic equivalent of Mencius' argument. It is a bit slow at times but all in all it adds up to something worth seeing.

7/10

The "Cowboy Bebop" anime series, which chronicles the various adventures of two bounty hunters in the space-age future, has been heralded as a postmodern classic. If "postmodern" here means something like intertwining the most disparate cultural and conceptual elements into a single storyline, then this is definitely an apt description. If you have never seen a fight between two laser-shooting spaceships set to free jazz, a conversation about policing terrorism that takes place during the screening of an old Western movie, or bounty hunters who allude to Charlie Parker and Goethe in the same sentence, then this is the series for you. The movie version is a bit overlong, but still makes for a good introduction.

7/10

I first saw this when it came out in the theaters when I was 18. I liked its style a lot, but even then I had some trouble with its overall lack of substance.

I feel more or less the same 8 years later. Basically the movie poses some challenging philosophical questions--mainly, what makes us human?--but then makes the mistake of trying to answer them. The answers in this case turn out to be as predictable and unprovocative as they come.

Usually the more overtly philosophical a movie is, the less its overall philosophical worth. Think of "The Matrix" (crap) or "Waking Life" (even worse). Dark City is better than both of these, but in the end it should have relied more on its medium and less on its message.

5/10

There's a scene in this movie, about an hour in. The alcoholic would-be writer returns to his apartment, which he trashed earlier looking for a stashed bottle of rye. He has just come from a nightclub where he was caught stealing a woman's purse to pay his bar tab and tossed out. He collapses down on his bed, beaten and humiliated. He looks up and, there in the translucent cover of the ceiling light, sees his missing treasure. A devilish gleam enters his eyes: Another bottle of rye! A new life!

8/10