Every now and then you see a film so visually beautiful and creative that it makes you wonder why there aren't more like it. Terrence Malick's "Days of Heaven" is certainly one of them; Orson Welles' "The Trial" and Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" also come to mind; and now we can add Bertolucci's recently re-released "Il Conformista" to the list. In fact, the latter is probably the most aesthetically satisfying film I have seen. The story, about the connection between fascism and psychological disorder, is interesting too. And of course it helps that the film makes a provocative use of Plato's cave analogy. I highly recommend seeing this.

9/10

When I think of the great spy movies (e.g. "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold," "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," or "Smiley's People"), what they all have in common is that their foremost concern is with the craft of spying itself. This is what attracted me to The Good Shepherd; even though it was slow, the critics said, it at least captured what spying was all about.

Instead, however, De Niro's movie is about everything except spycraft: family, friendship, country, marriage, class relations, international affairs, to name just a few. And what's worse, because it tries to tackle so many other issues at once, it never gives us any insight into even one of them. Instead, it is the usual heavyhanded stuff, e.g. bland dilemmas like "Now you will have to choose: your country--or your son" (this is actually a line in the movie, no kidding). The movie actually starts out very strongly, and Matt Damon gives his finest performance to date. But instead of being a decent movie about spies it turns into a mediocre movie about everything else.

4/10

One small mistake in the beginning, the great philosophers have told us, will lead to numerous large ones in the long run. But while this ultimately entails ruin for a philosophical system, for a crime movie it means a fascinating plot that gains more and more complexity as each layer unfolds.

In Elevator to the Gallows, a businessman has planned and carried out the perfect murder of his boss, who also happens to be his lover's husband. On fleeing the crime scene, however, he notices that he has left a disastrous clue behind. So he goes back to correct it. But his return sets in motion a chain of events that leads to ruin for many people, including some who just happened to be nearby. Thus what we have, as one of the police inspectors describes it, is a tragedy that unfolds from beginning to end within the space of a single day.

One interesting lesson is that for every small immoral decision you freely make, you unwittingly become implicated in more largescale crimes. And then when you try to absolve yourself from guilt for the latter, you realize it is already too late.

8/10

There's something unconvincing about a movie bent on showing how a photograph doesn't capture the full truth. In any case, the best part of Flags of Our Fathers wasn't the overwrought and terribly muddled plot: a WWII veteran has a flashback about he and his fellow soldiers from the famous Iwo Jima image travelling around the country in the months thereafter to raise money for the war, in the midst of which his fellow soldiers themselves are having flashbacks about the long and bloody fight for the island. Nor was it the hyperrealistic reconstructions of the battle scenes--scenes, incidentally, which were shot somewhere in Iceland. In fact, it was the various photos of the original island and soldiers fighting for it that were shown with the credits.

5/10

Very enjoyable standard old-school Hollywood fare. Won an award for Best Use of Dog (or should have). The most hilarious scene had Joyce Compton performing a garish version of "My Dreams are Gone with the Wind," intercut with suitably horrified audience reactions.

7/10