The Double Hour

So, there's a suicide (a hotel guest who jumps off her balcony), a lovely hotel maid with a mysterious past who meets a world-weary, widowed former cop at a speed dating event, a tentative romance, some surveillance equipment and ...

To say more would spoil the multiple surprises in this twisting and turning psychological thriller that Hitchcock might have made, had he lived in Turin, Italy during the age of speed dating and high-tech surveillance.

We're never sure who's good and who's bad, what's real and what's a dream (or supernatural), and that's part of the dark fun. Just when you think you may be on the verge of figuring it all out, screenwriter Alessandro Fabbri throws you another curve.

The title refers to the hour when the numbers on the clock are doubled, like 11:11. The cop tells the maid that's allegedly the hour when anything can happen -- when you can make a wish and have it come true. "Does it work?," she asks. "No," he tells her. But, some pretty crazy things happen at the double hour during the movie.

In fact, the concept of time is a major theme at work here. Our protagonists meet during a three-minute speed date. After their meeting, everything seems sped up and slightly off-kilter. We're never even sure where we are in the movie. Some critical events recur, and we're not sure if we're in a dream world, in the past or in some eerie version of the present.

If you can suspend belief and be comfortable with some questions that don't get answered, The Double Hour is bewitching. See it.

The Art of Getting By

I saw this one -- mercifully -- for free, and I took my friend, Pamela, along. She drove us out to the megaplex way out in the 'burbs, and now I feel like I owe her gas money. Here's what I recall of our conversation as we left the theater.

Pamela: Wow, I wonder what made Alicia Silverstone take that small part as an English teacher. It's as if she said to the director, 'I want to be sure my vision for the character matches yours. I don't want to look even remotely attractive in this film. I want to be frumpy and wear an oversized cardigan in every scene. Is that how you see her?'

Chronic Critic: No kidding. I wonder what made anyone take a part in that movie. It was really pretty awful.

Pamela (pointing toward me): I really want to get the opinion of a professional movie critic.

Chronic Critic: I'm sure all the pros -- including moi -- will agree that this one sucks. There was no story there. But, they didn't leave out a single cliche. You have the gruff, elderly art teacher with a vaguely European accent, a shock of white hair and the requisite tiny ponytail.

Pamela: Yes! And, even though George (Freddie Highmore) is a total slacker with no respect for his teachers or his courses, everyone sees some glimmer of greatness and is willing to give him chance after chance ...

Chronic Critic: I know! It's like the principal (Blair Underwood) and all the teachers in the private school have nothing else to do except ensure that this one existential slacker succeeds. Speaking of existential, did you see what George was reading in the scenes where he has a book? The Stranger! Sorry, but that one's been done to death. There wasn't a single original notion or prop in this movie.

Pamela: And, what a ridiculous ending. [SPOILER ALERT] If even one of those overly dramatic things in that perfect storm -- the coupling of George's dream girl, Sally, (Emma Roberts) with the man he had chosen as his art mentor, the uncovering of the failure of George's stepdad's business, the stepdad/stepson brawl that sends one of them to the hospital and ... and ... Emma Roberts's floozy mother up and moving to Texas from New York -- hadn't happened, do you think George would have been able to cram a year's worth of work into three weeks and then graduate on time?

Chronic Critic: Never in real life. Only in a poorly written script could that happen.

Pamela: And what about that dialogue? How could those kids speak those lines with a straight face? Kids don't talk like that.

Chronic Critic: Probably not even wealthy ones living semi-independently in Manhattan. Such a crock. I'm sorry I gave you a free ticket to this.

Pamela: Well, dinner at the Kebab House was good.
Skip it.

Midnight in Paris

I can't think of another filmmaker who delights and disappoints, in equal measure, as consistently as Woody Allen. I love approximately every other movie he makes ... and want to walk out on the rest. You never know if you're going to get the brilliant (Annie Hall, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Match Point) Woody or the dull (Cassandra's Dream, Celebrity) one. You can only hope.

And, I had high hopes for his latest effort, which has gotten stellar reviews. Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams are adorable and always winning, and the film is a cinematic love letter to the Paris of the 1920s. So far, so good. But, it's a great concept (and cast) that falls far short of what it could've been.

And, it's the screenwriter Woody's fault. This is a great notion that's just not well-executed.

Here's the plot: Gil (Wilson) and Inez (McAdams) are engaged and tagging along on her dad's big business trip to Paris. No one is happy to be there, except for Gil, a successful screenwriter and would-be novelist. Gil is in love with the romantic ideal of what Paris must've been like during the days Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Picasso and other artistic and literary greats held court there.

Inez is a real harpy, and we have no idea why a romantic dreamer like Gil would've proposed to her. Gil wanders the Parisian streets alone one night and is crazily transported to his favorite era, where he gets to meet the artistic giants of the day. And, guess what? They're boring!

Dali, Scott and Zelda, Man Ray ... such charismatic characters and, yet, so flat in this depiction. They're nothing but caricatures. It's such a waste of Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody, Marion Cotillard and other outstanding actors.

It doesn't feel like Woody knew what to do once he got Gil to the Paris of the 1920s. Gil is happier there than he is in present-day Paris with his complaining wife and her awful parents. Sadly, the audience isn't so happy in either the past or the present. Skip it.

Bill Cunningham New York

You wouldn't think a documentary about a New York Times fashion photographer could leave you feeling upbeat about the state of humanity, but that's just what the lively and remarkable Bill Cunningham New York does.

The bicycle-riding octogenarian has spent his long career chronicling the fashion victories of everyday men and women. He's never shot a "Glamour Don't"-style photo. He's much too nice for that.

He shoots what he thinks looks fabulous. And, he's much less interested in what celebrities wear, since they get their clothes for free and have stylists dressing and accessorizing them. What catches his eye isn't typically straight off the runway. He believes some of New York's "bag ladies" have incredible style, and some of his photos justify that belief.

In a city and an industry known to be temperamentally cold and fickle, Bill is unusually warm and steadfast. A genuinely nice guy who has, improbably, risen to the top of the fashion photography food chain, he even earns plaudits from the notoriously cold Anna Wintour. "We all get dressed for Bill," she says.

This delightful old gent has to hustle to get the photos he wants and get them ready for his two weekly style columns. He still uses film, so the time it takes to get that developed adds to the time it takes for him to ready his column -- and adds to his colleagues' good-natured frustration with the old-fashioned perfectionist.

A documentary that focuses on a single person typically allows us to get to know its subject well, but Bill remains a mystery. Even the high society people who admire him and believe they know him well (Tom Wolfe, Annette de la Renta, in addition to Wintour) admit they don't know if Bill has friends or family or if he ever gets lonely.

We see Bill's spartan Carnegie Hall apartment (a closet-sized room with a mattress on the floor and filing cabinets everywhere else) and his spartan wardrobe (a blue lab coat, often held together with duct tape, and khakis) and wonder how a man so drawn to beauty and whimsy can need so little of both in his own, personal space.

Bill's an enigma -- to those whom he considers friends and to those of us in the audience. But, that's part of his self-effacing charm. He doesn't want to talk about himself. He wants to talk about the personality regular folks reveal when they get dressed each day. See it.

POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, of Super Size Me fame, has set out to make what he calls a "docbuster." He falls far short of An Inconvenient Truth territory, but that's not to say he and his audience don't have fun along the way.

His idea, he tells us, is to demonstrate the massive volume of paid product placements we Americans are being subjected to in the movies and TV shows we watch every day. We're being bombarded without realizing it. It's an interesting, if not critical, topic, and there's plenty more that could have been done with it.

Spurlock wants to point out how insidious product placement is by getting the very corporations guilty of it to fund the movie exposing it. Here's how we know we're not going to be seeing a take-no-prisoners, blow-the-lid-off-some-secret-shenanigans documentary: No legitimate company (and Spurlock signs legit sponsors) is going to put up big bucks to come off looking foolish. Of course, these companies are going to see to it they get publicity -- good publicity -- out of their sponsorship. So, the movie is more entertainment than expose. More an in-joke than an indictment.

Spurlock talks to the big ad honchos who help fund movies and TV shows in exchange for shots and positive mentions of their beverage, car, computer, candy and any number of other consumer goods. He talks to big-time directors (Quentin Tarantino, Brett Ratner, J.J. Abrams), who all more or less say, "Yeah, it happens. What're ya gonna do?" In fact, blockbuster movies do not get made without product placements. Period.

And, corporate sponsors sometimes have the right to make changes to the script to ensure their product is seen in the best possible light.

Spurlock talks to consumer advocates -- Ralph Nader, among them -- who say it's deceptive for movies and TV shows not to let viewers know when they're being advertised to. We know when we're seeing a commercial break. We're not quite as sure when a TV character declares her love for Dr Pepper if it's in the script because the writer put it there -- or because of a product placement contract. (The safe bet is that money has changed hands.)

Spurlock asks the question to media types, brand specialists and men and women on the street: "Is there truth in advertising?" Interesting question, and there's no clear consensus by the end of this movie.

If you like your documentaries hard-hitting and enjoy seeing a corporate honcho squirm while cameras are rolling, this ain't your movie. It is fun, however, to watch Spurlock collect sponsors. (I commend the companies willing to go along with this stunt, particularly the POM Wonderful folks, who know, love and want to protect their band.)

By contrast, I was startled to see Spurlock ask the ban deodorant marketing teams how they'd describe their brand. Utter silence. One of them said, "That's a really good question," while the others looked down nervously. If the brand managers can't articulate what the brand stands for -- and it's been caught on camera -- that's a problem senior managers should be looking into. I doubt Spurlock wanted that moment to be the biggest gasp! of his movie, but it was mine.

Spurlock wants to bring transparency to the secretive world of product placements. A noble goal, but  it was never going to be achieved after asking the "villains" to out themselves. The movie could've been a serious look at how invasive advertising is now that we can fast forward through commercials. Instead, it's a not-so-serious look at the lengths companies will go to to reach us where we least expect it. In spite of its flaws, I still say: See it.

                                                                

Of Gods and Men

The award-winning, critically praised Of Gods and Men is the kind of movie you appreciate more after you've left the theater than while sitting in it. Long on visuals and short on action, the based-on-a-true-story film depicts the quiet, reverent lives of eight Christian monks living in war-torn Algeria in the 1990s.

The monks minister to the people in their mountain village -- dispensing love advice as well as medicine, which is usually in short supply. They study together, pray together, sing hymns together; they are a true brotherhood. If I lived next door to a monastery, I'd want the monks to be just like the gentle, wise ones depicted here.

Their peaceful existence is threatened by violent Islamic groups terrorizing their village. The brothers toy with the idea of leaving en masse or one by one, but ultimately decide -- in an unforgettable scene showing their joy in their unified decision -- they're called to remain in the village. They quietly refuse to be bullied or to abandon the desperately poor villagers who rely on them for physical and emotional care.

They don't reach the decision easily -- or quickly, I might add. The film takes its time to show us the slow pace of life that helps bring about the calm quiet inside their cloistered world. Even as war rages outside their doors.

As violence gets closer and closer, the monks' resolve grows stronger. They're aware they're in danger, yet we see them, one by one, grow to be at peace with their decision to stay.

I shall not divulge more of what happens to the eight dear men who peacefully resist the war going on around them. The film can be a tedious journey for the filmgoer, yet it resonates powerfully long after the closing scene. The subtitled movie is not for the impatient, but for those willing to sit it out, I say: See it.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Werner Herzog's new documentary details the incredible 1994 discovery of the oldest drawings made by humans. They were made inside a cave in France, and -- thanks to a landslide thousands of years ago -- the cave has been hermetically sealed until the recent discovery. So, the drawings are so pristine, they look like they were made weeks ago. In fact, they were made 30,000 years ago.

You'd think the drawings of animals would be primitive. Yet, they are surprisingly sophisticated. One horse, for instance, is depicted with eight legs -- as if to show it in motion.

It is something of a miracle to think of ancient homo sapiens wanting to communicate something to each other and to posterity and of striving to create something beautiful and, perhaps, lasting.

Herzog narrates with almost breathless excitement. He and a tiny film crew are among only a handful of people (the others are archaeologists, art historians, geologists and paleontologists) allowed access to the cave. Herzog marvels at the drawings and what they reveal about our forebears and never lets the audience forget what a find we're watching. It should all make for riveting viewing.

It couldn't be duller.

Herzog movies are always a crap shoot. He either soars (Grizzly Man) or sucks (My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?) It's my fault for ignoring my instincts and instead listening to the 96 percent of critics who gave this glorified school film strip rave reviews.

The truth is: cave drawings are boring. I wanted to sustain my initial intrigue, but it was impossible. It proved to be impossible for a handful of my fellow moviegoers who left and nearly so for the fidgety ones who remained. Woolly mammoths, bison and horses drawn on cave walls are fascinating for four, five minutes, tops. Herzog thinks they merit 90 minutes. The same horses and bison are shown over and over and over again. And, they're set to prehistoric-sounding music. If you like the sound of a handmade recorder, this is the film for you. If not, well, you know what to do. Skip it.