8/10

Occasionally inspired comedy about a family of misfits on the road to a beauty pageant. At its best when it is just plain having fun; unfortunately each of the misfits also has to have his or her moment of catharsis along the way. Not as good as everyone says, but still gets my vote for best movie with "Sunshine" in the title.

6/10

Very enjoyable film about the overturning of Claus von Bulow's conviction for killing his wife. From the opening lines we are aware that the point is not to get to the bottom of the matter, for the story is narrated by the deceased (or rather, irreversibly comatose) wife. Instead, we are treated to a wonderfully told tale about the epistemology of murder.

Great performances here by Jeremy Irons as the weird von Bulow and Glenn Close as the depressive wife (watch her in this and then in Season 4 of "The Shield" and you won't believe it's the same person). The subplots are a little weak: the Johnson brothers case seems thrown in pro forma, and the relationship between Alan Dershowitz and his assistant is annoying. But on the whole this is good stuff.

7/10

This is worth seeing alongside "The Wages of Fear" (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953). Both films begin almost identically, with hard up drifters in south of the border towns who are looking to improve their lot in life. In TSM, the drifters' chance comes when they meet an old prospector and go off in search of gold. In WF, they are hired to drive highly sensitive explosives several day's journey across the wilderness to an oil well fire, in exchange for enormous compensation.

TSM is highly allegorical, and you can see lots of things about a Hobbesian or Rousseauian state of nature in it if you try. One thing I liked about it was its rigorous logic. At one point a man stumbles upon the drifters' gold claim and decides he wants a piece of the action himself. He tells them they have the following three choices: (1) They can kill him. But then they will have to do it all at once so they are all equally implicated; and this will also commit them to killing anyone else who comes along and discovers them. (2) They can turn him away. But then he'll probably go to the authorities and report their undeclared claim. Or (3) they can cut him in on the action from this point on, in which case they'll only have to split their profits four ways instead of three. Which way should they decide?

All in all, though, I have to say that I thought WF was ultimately the better film. TSM is great, but its message--"greed is bad"--is nothing you haven't heard before (it reminded me a lot of reading Steinbeck's "The Pearl" in fifth grade). WF is just as riveting and ultimately has more interesting things to say.

8/10

Everybody loves this movie, but personally I found its sense of humor to be a little annoying. While I enjoy a silly old comedy as much as anyone, this is one that I couldn't really get into.

5/10