THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON — Having studiously avoided watching previews or reading articles about this movie, I approached it with a clean slate—and fell in love with it. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button swept me up and took me on an emotional journey through one man’s extraordinary life. I was never aware of the time passing—which is rare for a movie that runs two hours and forty minutes.

By now you probably know the premise of the film, loosely based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald story about a man who is born old and grows younger with each passing year. Still, the less you know about the way it plays out the better off you’ll be. Director David Fincher manages to cast a spell as he spins this modern-day tall tale, weaving together elements that are tangible, mystical, and surreal. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are perfect choices for the leading roles because they, too, represent a kind of heightened reality—more beautiful and charismatic than anyone you’re likely to find living next door. Even Taraji P. Henson, who’s perfect as Pitt’s adoptive mother, is an idealized character we all wish we had in our lives. (The entire cast is first-rate, including Tilda Swinton, Julia Ormond, and Jared Harris.)

It’s difficult to be completely unaware of the mechanics of the film, but all of the many masterful effects are used in service of the story. After the fact you may want to read about how an army of movie magicians aged and then youthified its stars, or how they created its various colorful settings. Suffice it to say that while director Fincher and screenwriter Eric Roth (who developed the story with Robin Swicord) deserve all possible praise, credit must be shared with cinematographer Claudio Miranda, production designer Donald Graham Burt, and a corps of makeup artists and visual-effects specialists. I also want to single out Alexandre Desplat’s beautiful score, which perfectly supports the film and avoids syrupy sentimentality.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a marvel of cinematic storytelling that will probably yield even more rewards on multiple viewings. It’s a rare contemporary example of “the stuff that dreams are made of.”

LAST CHANCE HARVEY — Last Chance Harvey may not make it to many critics’ Top Ten lists. It isn’t an especially ambitious or important movie, but it is a thoroughly enjoyable vehicle for its leading actors, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. What a pleasure to watch these two stars at work in such compatible roles. Hoffman plays a Los Angeles-based composer of commercial jingles whose career is in jeopardy. He flies to London to attend his daughter’s wedding and finds he’s just as superfluous there as he seems to be at work back home. His wife has remarried and her new husband is functioning as father of the bride; the bride herself seems to regard her hard-luck dad as something of an interloper. Meanwhile, he chances to meet a cheery airport worker, played by Thompson, whose private life is smothered by her elderly mum. How these two strangers with seemingly nothing in common come to spend time together is the crux of the movie.

With equal doses of charm and intelligence, Last Chance Harvey sets up a situation that’s not so far-fetched we can’t go along for the ride. Writer-director Joel Hopkins maintains a light touch and shoots London with an eye toward appealing, even romantic, locations we don’t often see on film. Hoffman has said that he and his costar made substantial contributions to the script, reflecting their own sensibilities. If so, bully for them. Last Chance Harvey tells a love story about two mature people without becoming overly coy or cute. It’s a winning formula called entertainment.

THE WRESTLER — It’s already become a cliché to say that Mickey Rourke gives the comeback performance of the year, but once you see The Wrestler you’ll know that it isn’t publicist’s hype—it’s true.

To put Robert Siegel’s story on the screen, director Darren Aronofsky has jettisoned his usual stylistic m.o. and adopted a documentary technique instead, using hand-held cameras on actual New Jersey locations, with real people from the wrestling world populating every scene. As a result, the movie seems utterly genuine, even as it covers some familiar storytelling turf. Rourke plays a wrestler whose glory days are behind him but who just keeps going, working anywhere he can make a few bucks and barely managing to pay his rent. He’s attracted to a stripper played (quite well) by Marisa Tomei who, like Rourke, adopts a prescribed role when she’s on stage, but unlike him, tries to compartmentalize her private life and not let the two intersect.

Some audiences find the movie too brutal, especially in key scenes where we learn just how much punishment Rourke and his fellow performers must endure for the sake of entertainment. But it’s all means to an end, baring the psyche of a man who’s never known any other way of life. Rourke has certainly had more than his share of ups and downs in his own career, but he was smart enough to recognize a great role in Randy “The Ram” Robinson and play it for all it’s worth. It’s a physical and emotional endurance test for the actor and he comes through with flying colors.

GRAN TORINO — Imagine Dirty Harry aging into a variation of Archie Bunker and you’ve got a pretty fair picture of Walt Kowalski, the irascible character played to a fare-thee-well by Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino. The first time we encounter him on the porch of his suburban Detroit home he snarls, then audibly growls. I don’t know of any other actor who could pull that off, but Clint definitely does. In fact, that’s when he had me. (How a young viewer would respond to this I can’t say; I’m sure my reaction has to do with the fact that I’ve been watching Eastwood onscreen for more than forty years.)

Gran Torino should be taken as a fable; audiences who approach it literally might laugh it off the screen. Like most fables this one draws its power from recognizable archetypes. Walt is a retired auto worker who’s just lost his sainted wife, probably the only person who could tolerate his crankiness and nonstop spouting of racial epithets. Even his own children feel distant from him...and the feeling is mutual. Then a chance encounter with one of Walt’s Asian neighbors evolves into a kind of friendship. I won’t reveal more than that.

Suffice it to say that Walt’s attitudes bespeak those of many Americans. Some people may be shocked by his casual and continual use of racial slurs...but many of us know people like Walt and realize that this trait doesn’t necessarily define them. That’s largely what this film is about. Nick Schenck’s screenplay (from a story he wrote with Dave Johansson) touches on a Midwestern ethos that’s as genuine as the Michigan locations where it was filmed.

Clint Eastwood inhabits this character completely, even as the layers of his outer shell peel away to reveal the true nature of the man. During the past decade Eastwood has achieved a level of ease in front of the camera that’s a marvel to behold. We have no trouble believing that this 78-year-old could kick anyone’s butt, young or old. As far as mise en scène is concerned, he remains a director who works efficiently, even invisibly, in service of the story at hand. However you view it—as a vehicle for its star or as a contemporary fable about the changing face of America--Gran Torino offers great satisfaction.

NOTHING LIKE THE HOLIDAYS — The preview trailer for this movie makes it seem downright stupid; I’m happy to say that the film itself is not. In fact, it’s a warm-hearted comedy-drama with an exceptionally good ensemble. Yes, it covers familiar territory (a family reunion at Christmastime) but it’s executed with energy and flair. The reward is watching Alfred Molina, Elizabeth Peña, Freddy Rodríguez, John Leguizamo, Debra Messing, Vanessa Ferlito, Jay Hernandez, Luis Guzmán, and Melonie Diaz in such a compatible setting. They are the Rodriguez family and they live in the Humboldt Park section of Chicago, which is largely Puerto Rican. Molina runs the neighborhood bodega which is also a community gathering place; his wife suspects him of seeing another woman and is at the end of her rope. Their three grown children come home for the holidays, each bringing emotional as well as literal baggage along with them. At a time of year when so many movies are weighty and ambitious an unpretentious piece of entertainment like Nothing Like the Holidays is a tonic.

DOUBT — I have some quibbles with John Patrick Shanley’s screen adaptation of Doubt, his acclaimed Broadway play, but they pale alongside the pleasure this movie afforded me by giving juicy parts to two of my favorite actors, Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. To watch them at work is to breathe rarefied air, and Shanley’s script gives them plenty of meat to sink their teeth into.

Hoffman plays a well-liked parish priest in the Bronx, New York in 1964. He delivers thoughtful sermons on Sunday mornings and relates well to the students who attend his church school during the week. But the school principal, played by Streep, has reason to believe that he has crossed a line with at least one of those students, and she trusts her instincts. Amy Adams is well-cast as one of the nuns on the teaching staff who is willing to give Hoffman the benefit of the doubt, and Viola Davis gives a heart-rending performance as the student’s mother.

I was sorry to miss Doubt on stage, all the more so since a friend told me of the small yet significant additions Shanley has made to his screenplay—and how they affect the outcome of the drama. I was also put off by the editing of the crucial, highly-charged scene between Streep and Davis. Yet I retain my enthusiasm for the film because of those great performances. Doubt may not score a bull’s-eye but it’s still well worth seeing.

THE READER — Kate Winslet is a marvel, one of the finest actresses working today. She gives her all to the role of Hanna Schmitz, an enigmatic German woman who takes in an unworldly teenage boy and becomes his lover—only to vanish from his life without explanation. Some time later he encounters her again, from a distance, at a trial for Nazi war criminals!

The Reader was adapted by David Hare from the best-selling novel by Bernhard Schlink about the post-War generation of Germans who had to come to grips with what their parents had done, both as perpetrators and as witnesses. It confronts issues of revenge and reconciliation through its two main characters, at different stages of their lives. Impressive newcomer David Kross plays the unworldly boy who is forever marked by his experience with Hanna. Ralph Fiennes plays the same character grown up—but still living under a cloud.

Winslet plays Hanna young and old, and while some have complained that it’s impossible to get inside her head, I don’t think that was Schlink’s (or Hare’s) intention. She remains an enigma, as unexplainable as the Holocaust itself, but that doesn’t make her uninteresting. Other significant characters are well played by Bruno Ganz and Lena Olin.

The Reader is provocative, adult fare, meticulously directed by Stephen Daldry with outstanding contributions from production designer Brigitte Broch, cinematographers Roger Deakins and Chris Menges, and composer Nico Muhly. It’s not escapist fare for the holidays, but neither is it a dirge: it’s the kind of movie that inspires thought and debate.

WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU — If this were merely another yarn about small-time hoods in Boston it wouldn’t be worth writing about. What Doesn’t Kill You is in fact an autobiographical film by actor, writer and first-time director Brian Goodman that has a fresh point of view and a worthy story to tell. Mark Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke are exceptionally good as lifelong friends who grow up on the streets of South Boston and start running errands for a low-level underworld figure. Before you know it they’ve grown up—but their lives are essentially the same as they were when they were teenage punks. They eke out an existence going from one petty job to another, even though Ruffalo has a wife and two kids.

What separates this story from most others of its kind is that it deals with consequences. Ruffalo and Hawke live dangerously and pay the price for it, more than once, until one of them finally has enough and tries to reorder his life.

This is unfamiliar turf for Hawke and especially Ruffalo, and they turn in bravura performances. Filmmaker Goodman costars as the neighborhood boss, and populates the film with well-chosen actors and bit players who seem right at home on this turf. The local atmosphere is realistically bleak, and you’d almost swear you can feel the cold as you watch the wintry story unfold.

WENDY AND LUCY — Kelly Reichardt’s last feature Old Joy helped solidify her reputation as a singular voice in American film. Where others are landscape painters she is more of a miniaturist, examining mundane details about her characters in order to make them live and breathe on screen. For Wendy and Lucy she has found an ideal collaborator in Michelle Williams as Wendy, a young woman who’s left her home and family in Indiana, heading for Alaska and the promise of work. Her only companion is her golden retriever Lucy.

Wendy’s car breaks down in a sleepy Oregon town where, over the course of two days, we see how fragile an existence she leads. She has a car, a small stash of money, and her beloved dog to keep her sane...but what happens if one or more of those components is taken away?

Williams’ performance is deceptive in its simplicity; in fact, she doesn’t seem to be acting at all. She is so persuasively real as Wendy that our heart goes out to her at every turn of the story, and when she is treated kindly by some of the locals (like security guard Wally Dalton and auto mechanic Will Patton) we breathe a sigh of relief. Wendy and Lucy reunites Reichardt with her writing collaborator Jonathan Raymond; their film is not so much a story as a slice of life, and a rich one at that.

FROST/NIXON — Frost/Nixon is not only one of the best films of the year but a high-water mark in Ron Howard’s directing career. He and playwright Peter Morgan have taken a piece that worked successfully on stage and reinvented it for the screen, so much so that it never betrays its origins and functions purely as a film. That’s no small achievement.

Moreover, the actors who created the parts on stage invest them with new life here. Frank Langella as Richard Nixon and Michael Sheen as David Frost give us color and nuance, not caricature, and turn these celebrated figures into human beings, even if they remain somewhat larger than life.

The story remains the same: perennially cheery television personality David Frost, no longer at the peak of his career, decides to aim big and tries to land the first interview with disgraced President Richard Nixon, who has lived in seclusion since his resignation from office. Each man feels the other out before and during their week of tapings, while Frost’s team of advisors fret that he won’t be willing to ask the tough questions the whole world wants answers to.

For anyone who lived through the Nixon years and the Watergate scandal this story will have particular resonance, but it also works as a primer—and a personality profile. (I showed the film to my class of 350 20-somethings at USC, none of whom were alive in the 1970s, and they were captivated.) In about ten minutes’ time the movie manages to encapsulate the entire Watergate affair and its aftermath, placing both Nixon and Frost into a contextual time frame so we understand what motivated them at the point they crossed paths and made television history.

The cast is superb from top to bottom, with great contributions from Kevin Bacon, Rebecca Hall, Matthew McFadyen, Oliver Platt, and Sam Rockwell. Toby Jones is absolutely amazing as legendary Hollywood agent Irving “Swifty” Lazar. (Patty McCormack is also well cast as Patricia Nixon but hasn’t got much to do.) The centerpiece of the picture remains the two leading players and they are incomparable; both Langella and Sheen should be in the running for this year’s Oscars. The same can be said for the entire creative team behind this outstanding film.

AUSTRALIA — Baz Luhrmann doesn’t do anything on a small scale. When he decided to create a film that would simultaneously emulate the grand epics of Hollywood’s past and tell the story of his native country, he went all out. The result is a sweeping, romantic adventure that makes for superior entertainment.

But that’s not all. Two events served as the springboard for his screenplay (which was written with three collaborators): the bombing of Darwin, Australia by the Japanese in 1941, and the fate of aboriginal children who were rounded up by the Australian government, and later referred to as “the lost generations.” By integrating these serious events into his filmmaking agenda, he imbued Australia with a solid underpinning that many romantic movies lack.

Does that mean the film is flawless? Hardly. In covering so much ground some of the storytelling was bound to suffer, and there are some all-too-obvious gaps in continuity from time to time. (A major character’s fate is covered in an abbreviated montage that amounts to little more than a footnote.)

But there is so much about Australia that works—and works well —that it seems churlish, if not downright futile, to quibble. For starters, there is the casting. Nicole Kidman is showcased to great effect, starting out as a comic figure of primness and evolving into a woman of strength and passion. It would be hard to think of anyone who could have played the male lead, a rough-and-tumble cattle drover, better than Hugh Jackman. They are an ideal screen couple. Joining them is a remarkable eleven-year-old aboriginal boy, Brandon Walters, whose shining presence illuminates every scene he’s in.

In attempting to make a film that would be emblematic of his country, Luhrmann also drew on iconic figures from Australian cinema to fill out his cast: the great Jack Thompson, the stalwart Bryan Brown, and the unforgettable aboriginal actor David Gulpilil, who made his debut in Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout thirty-seven years ago.

As in all of Luhrmann’s films, from Strictly Ballroom to Moulin Rouge, the depiction of villainy and social intolerance is played as broadly as a Victorian melodrama. I found it more bearable in the context of this film than I often do; perhaps that’s because the filmmaker won me over so completely this time.

MILK — Truth being stranger than fiction, I didn’t think Rob Epstein’s Oscar-winning 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk could be surpassed in terms of real-life drama...but Milk does what a documentary cannot, illustrating intimate and private moments that flesh out its central character. Milk is a powerful film, not only because its central issues are still very much in the public consciousness, but because it offers an intimate look at one man’s journey.

It almost goes without saying that Sean Penn is superb in the title role; he’s one of the greatest actors of our time, and he completely inhabits the role of Harvey Milk, a man who at the age forty felt he had accomplished nothing to be proud of. He and his lover (played by James Franco) move to the Castro district of San Francisco in the early 1970s and almost inadvertently become politicized, to the point where Harvey decides to run for office.

What makes Dustin Lance Black’s screenplay so effective is that he never paints Milk as a hero. He effectively captures the frustrations that dogged his various political campaigns and the ways he altered his approach to progress—from combativeness to cooperation and back again. What we take away from Harvey Milk’s example is that no textbook can dictate how to bring about social change; sometimes one can coolly strategize a plan and stick with it, while at other moments emotions take over.

Director Gus Van Sant artfully blends authentic news footage from the 1970s and 80s with vivid recreations to make the period come to life, and his cast is uniformly fine. But it’s Sean Penn’s striking, unselfconscious portrayal of the title character that anchors this exceptional movie.

TWILIGHT — I am not a teenage girl. I haven’t read Stephanie Meyer’s best-selling novels, nor did I get caught up in the frenzy that greeted this movie’s arrival last week. But I did find it entertaining.

Kristen Stewart is well cast as Bella, the new arrival in the small town of Forks, Washington who finds herself attracted to the strangest boy in high school—a pale-faced but handsome fellow named Edward Cullen, played to perfection by Robert Pattinson. She knows there is something strange, even other-worldly about him, but dares not believe what she begins to suspect—that he is a vampire. Once she knows his dark secret she throws caution to the wind, because she isn’t merely in love with him; she is his soul mate, and he feels the same way.

The reason Twilight works so well is that director Catherine Hardwicke enables us to experience the story through Bella’s eyes and share her experience, step by step. Melissa Rosenberg’s screenplay does a good job of portraying high school life, and the uneasy but loving relationship between Bella and her father.

Oddly enough, the weakest scenes for me are the most fanciful ones where Edward finally allows Bella into his world. I have a feeling that moments like these play better on the printed page, where the reader can imagine them, than they do when visualized on screen.

Still, in the capable hands of this cast and director, the spell of Twilight is cast...and you don’t have to be a teenager to appreciate it.

BOLT — Bolt is a welcome year-end gift to families from the Walt Disney Company. Its canine star is instantly appealing, in the best Disney tradition, but If I had my druthers his sidekick Rhino—an hyperactive hamster who rolls around in a plastic ball—would be a contender for Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards. This hilarious creature steals every scene he’s in...and if his voice is unfamiliar, there’s a good reason. It’s provided by a story man at the studio named Mark Walton who was so funny and energetic when he performed on the preliminary soundtrack that the producers decided to keep him in the finished film! Good call.

I didn’t warm up to the movie right away because the story opens at a Hollywood studio, where we meet such characters as a determined television director, a smarmy agent, and an officious TV network executive. I found all this was too adult and “insidey.” But when the canine TV star is accidentally shipped to New York City and exposed to the real world for the first time in his life, the story takes off. Bolt comes to realize that he must make his way home, across the country, and is joined by newfound companions Mittens, a wisecracking Brooklynese cat, and the aforementioned Rhino, who’s Bolt’s biggest fan.

It was my good fortune to see Bolt with an audience of kids who seemed fully engaged and laughed at all the right moments. I was also curious to see it digitally projected in 3-D; it’s the first in-house Disney studio film created for that medium from scratch. The filmmakers chose not to overemphasize 3-D but the picture is well designed and the dimensionality is pleasing to the eye.

John Travolta, Miley Cyrus and the other voice actors do a fine job along with newcomer Walton. Anyone who follows animation news knows that this project was stopped in its tracks when Pixar’s John Lasseter became Chief Creative Officer at Disney and reworked considerably. I don’t know what it was like when he took over but the end result is very entertaining and bespeaks the kind of tried-and-true storytelling one associates with both Disney and Pixar. Nice going!

A CHRISTMAS TALE — Every year, it seems, Hollywood tries to cook up new variations on the formulaic holiday movie, with widely varying results. French filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin has entered the fray with a movie so distinctive, so European, and so absolutely mesmerizing that it puts most of our home-grown fodder to shame. That is, if you have a taste for storytelling that isn’t corny, clichéd, or just plain dumb. A Christmas Tale is meant for discerning moviegoers and I hope they respond.

A Christmas Tale explores and even celebrates our contradictory nature as human beings, along with the particular eccentricities of the Vuillard clan, headed by Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Rousillon. This is as fractious a family as you’ll ever encounter—yet this is never exploited for the sake of cheap laughs. There is sadness in their past and a vendetta in their present...yet the patriarch and matriarch seem positively serene compared to their nutty offspring. She has just learned that she needs a bone-marrow transplant if she’s going to live, and is obliged to ask her family to see if any one of them is a match. That includes the very black sheep, Henri, played by Mathieu Almaric, whom you’ll recognize from Quantum of Solace and last year’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. He’s a self-destructive alcoholic whose sister had him banned from family gatherings until this year—because he may just be the one who can help his mother survive.

Every family member has his or her own backstory, and it’s the dynamics of their interaction that make the story crackle as it does. There’s something about the way Europeans approach life and love in their films that I find captivating. I’ve never seen a mother quite like the one played here by Catherine Deneuve. She’s not sugar and spice and everything nice; she has a different relationship with each of her grown children and their spouses (including a daughter-in-law who’s never quite pleased her—played, you should know, by Deneuve’s real-life daughter Chiara Mastroianni).

Despleschin and his co-screenwriter Emmanuel Bourdieu make sure we can’t predict anything that’s about to happen in this sprawling saga. It’s like a giant intake of brisk winter air, and I recommend it highly.

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE — If I had access to a Movie Genie who could grant me one wish, it would be to persuade millions of people to see this film. I was lucky enough to catch it at the Telluride Film Festival, where the jam-packed audience cheered for it. I then screened it for my students at USC, who knew nothing about it. I tried to mute my enthusiasm beforehand, to allow them to make up their own minds, and they, too, loved it. In fact, it’s been their favorite movie of the semester so far.

Ever since he hit pay dirt with Trainspotting, director Danny Boyle has followed his own path, refusing to repeat himself and trying his hand at a variety of genres, from a contemporary horror film (28 Days) to a fantasy-musical (A Life Less Ordinary) to a whimsical story told from a child’s innocent point of view (Millions). Working with screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, who made his name with The Full Monty, he has struck gold once again.

Slumdog Millionaire opens as its youthful hero Jamal is about to answer a question worth 20 million rupees on India’s version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? But something is amiss and he is accused of cheating. Only by reviewing his life for a police official can he prove that he knew the answers to those twenty questions because each one reflected an episode in his tumultuous life. Growing up on the streets of Bombay (before it became Mumbai) with his brother, Jamal learns many difficult lessons, but he remains a good-hearted soul and never surrenders his dreams.

Boyle immerses us in Jamal’s rough-and-tumble world through a dizzying cascade of sights and sounds. Some of the things he endures are literally painful, but it’s precisely because we experience these moments along with him that we share his sense of elation at the end of the tale. He has earned his happy ending, and so have we. (This is a lesson great storytellers have always known, from Charles Dickens to Frank Capra: without darkness there cannot be light.)

Fox Searchlight’s challenge is to convince American moviegoers to plunk down money at the box-office to see a film with no recognizable stars that takes place in a foreign country. This can only happen with careful nurturing, a great preview trailer, supportive reviews, and most importantly, strong word-of-mouth. Please give it a try; I think you’ll thank me for the tip.

I’VE LOVED YOU SO LONG — I’m crazy about Kristin Scott Thomas, and I realize I’m not alone. She is currently wowing Broadway audiences in The Seagull, and she has generated Oscar buzz for her performance in this French import, which marks the directing debut of popular novelist Philippe Claudel.

Another beautiful actress, Elsa Zylberstein, plays Scott Thomas’ sister, who hasn’t seen her sibling in fifteen years. She insists that Scott Thomas stay with her family, and both her husband and young children are wary of the sullen woman they’ve never met before. Where she has been, and why she is so downcast, is the crux of the film, and the less you know about it going in the better. Suffice it to say that Scott Thomas has been half-dead, in a manner of speaking; this story is about her reawakening to life.

Zylberstein is quite good, but it’s Scott Thomas who anchors the film with her compelling performance. Her face tells much of the story, registering an incredible range of emotions; you simply can’t take your eyes off of her.

She is so good, in fact, that I think the film has been overpraised by some people who are enraptured by her work in it. I think I know the difference between a good film and a great one; this film is good, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. But Kristin Scott Thomas’ performance is great, and that’s what makes it worth seeing.

CHANGELING — Clint Eastwood adds another feather to his cap with the direction of this emotionally powerful, well-crafted film, while Angelina Jolie reminds us that she’s more than must a tabloid darling with a beautifully modulated performance in the leading role. But the real hero of this film is the one who will likely receive the least attention, screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski, best known as the creator and principal writer of the TV series Babylon 5. A former reporter, he followed up on a tip from a friend about a forgotten true-life case that began in 1928. After a year of research in Los Angeles newspaper files, court records, and police files, he was ready to write a dramatization of this extraordinary tale, all of which is true.

Jolie plays a single mother and working woman who comes home from her job one day to discover her nine-year-old son missing. When she tries to report the case the police inform her that they cannot begin a search until a child has been missing for at least twenty-four hours. This is the first in a long line of insults to which the woman is subjected, each one increasingly harsh. Changeling turns out to be as much a story about attitudes toward women as anything else, but it’s to Eastwood’s credit that he never lapses into melodrama, even when the setting is a psychopathic ward. It’s that matter-of-fact approach to potentially sensational material that distinguishes Changeling and makes it so wrenching to watch at times, especially if you’re a parent.

Changeling is long, like most of Eastwood’s movies, but it earns the right to extend past the two-hour mark because no time is wasted on superfluous or irrelevant material. Production Designer James J. Murakami deserves special credit for convincingly recreating the world of Los Angeles in the late 1920s and early ‘30s, and there is a lovely nod to Eastwood’s longtime collaborator, the legendary designer Henry Bumstead. A roadside café in an early scene is called Bummy’s, a reference to Bumstead’s popular nickname

Jolie is surrounded by first-rate actors, not all of them well-known. Jason Butler Harner is especially potent as the insane and manipulative serial killer, and Jeffrey Donovan (the star of cable TV’s Burn Notice) is chillingly effective as a heartless police captain on a corrupt Los Angeles force. I wish I could be as enthusiastic about John Malkovich in the role of a radio preacher (the real-life rabble rouser Rev. Gustav Briegleb) but his demeanor makes it difficult to take the character as seriously as one should. That’s a small quibble about an otherwise superior film.

THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES — I love movies that take me to a particular time and place. Gina Prince-Bythewood’s adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd’s best-selling novel takes place in 1964. President Johnson has just signed the historic Civil Rights Bill into law, but that hasn’t changed attitudes in the South, as 14-year-old Dakota Fanning learns when she runs away from home with her black housekeeper (Jennifer Hudson). Fanning has been raised by her distant, often abusive father (Paul Bettany), who refuses to tell her about her mother, who died when the girl was four. So Fanning journeys to Tennessee, to a town she’s certain her mother must have visited. Here she and Hudson are taken in by a big-hearted woman (Queen Latifah) who lives with her sisters (Alicia Keys and Sophie Okenedo) and provides the two refugees with shelter and love.

The Secret Life of Bees explores the interior world of its young heroine and the sisters who become her surrogate family, along with the harsh world outside the oasis of their home, where angry bigots still rule the roost. Prince-Bythewood never allows her film to descend into cheap melodrama, even though some of its most vivid episodes are as upsetting as they are inevitable. What keeps the film on course, aside from a well-written and evocative screenplay, is the skill of its ensemble. Young Fanning fulfills the promise she showed in her earliest work as a child, while Latifah commands the screen, filling it with warmth as few actors can. Hudson is a natural who never seems to be reciting memorized lines, and another singer-turned-actress, Alicia Keys, acquits herself well as the most independent-minded of Latifah’s sisters. The other sibling, a fragile and sensitive creature, is beautifully played by Okenedo, who avoids theatricality and seems touching and genuine.

Like a good novel, The Secret Life of Bees takes us on an emotional journey. It’s a trip well worth taking.

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY — For twenty years Mike Leigh has celebrated the trials, tribulations and simple pleasures of working-class Brits in a series of raw, funny, often heart-rending films. Not every one scores a bull’s-eye, but when he is on top of his game, he conjures up a kind of magic all his own. His latest effort features bravura performances from Sally Hawkins and Eddie Marsan, both of whom had supporting roles in his last film, Vera Drake. Here Hawkins is front and center as Poppy, an ebullient schoolteacher who greets every moment of every day with a smile and a laugh. Her overbearing personality puts some people off but we come to learn that she is neither simpleminded nor blind to the ways of the world: this is simply her outlook. She meets her polar opposite when she signs up for lessons with a driving instructor (Marsan) who is angry at the world. Their scenes together are particularly memorable.

As with most of Leigh’s movies, character takes precedence over plot, but while the story may seem to meander, it’s all part of the filmmaker’s scheme, to show us how Poppy functions with family, friends, coworkers, and even strangers. She is one-of-a-kind—much like Mike Leigh’s movies.

ROCKNROLLA — Those of us who reveled in the audacity of Guy Ritchie’s early, explosive British gangster films (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch) will welcome his return to form with Rocknrolla, a heady mix of colorful characters, ricocheting plot points, and in-your-face action.

Gerard Butler and Idris Elba play One-Two and Mumbles, a couple of ready-for-anything guys whose nicknames are never explained. They’re hired by slick money-mover Thandie Newton to pull off a daring robbery that sets many wheels in motion, and threatens to blow up in all of their faces. Meanwhile, old-school crime boss Tom Wilkinson tries to show the new guy in town—a Russian with oodles of money—that he still pulls the strings.

This densely-plotted movie requires narration to identify all of its characters and their relation to one another; the expanse of this ensemble is almost worthy of Dickens, ranging from a mind-blown rock star to a civil servant on the take. The picture might have been improved by some tightening, but the patient viewer will be rewarded with the kind of gut-level satisfaction Ritchie’s characters themselves enjoy. Ritchie withholds the graphic use of violence until the climax, when it hits us right between the eyes. The end title promises a reunion of the main characters in a sequel which hasn’t yet been scheduled (Ritchie is going mainstream—so it seems—with a new film about Sherlock Holmes) but if and when it comes to pass, I’ll be among the first in line to see it.

HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE — Simon Pegg has made a smooth transition from cult figure on British TV to star and writer of cult movies (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) and then to leading man (Run, Fat Boy, Run). He continues on that path with a highly entertaining film based on Toby Young's memoir of his hilarious experiences while working for Vanity Fair magazine. Peter Straughan’s screenplay uses the book as a springboard for a series of comedic and romantic misadventures that also takes us inside the world of celebrity culture. The charm of the film derives from the fact that it’s rooted in reality but isn’t afraid to incorporate slapstick and silliness into the proceedings.

Pegg’s character is something of a boor, and it takes time to understand what makes him such a bull in a china shop. If he didn’t also have endearing qualities the film would have nowhere to go. As it happens, he strikes up an initially combative relationship with his magazine colleague Kirsten Dunst (in the best part she’s had in years) and lusts for movie starlet Megan Fox (who’s surprisingly good—and appropriately sexy). Jeff Bridges is fun to watch as the Graydon Carter prototype, Danny Huston is well cast as a magazine editor and celebrity sycophant, and Gillian Anderson is perfect as a publicist who wields her power like a royal scepter. There are also fine contributions from such expert character actors as Miriam Margolyes and Bill Paterson. Everyone seems to be on top of his or her game, which says a lot about the contribution of director Robert Weide, who’s making his feature-film debut after an Emmy-winning career crafting documentaries on comedy icons from W.C. Fields to Lenny Bruce and piloting Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm from its inception through its first five seasons. (Full disclosure: Bob is an old friend of mine. I really hoped I would like this movie and I’m happy to say I like it a lot.)

Any movie that makes repeated reference to La Dolce Vita is setting its sights above the rabble. But How to Lose Friends and Alienate People has something for everyone—enough lowbrow humor and sexy women to please the crowd and plenty of smarts to satisfy discerning moviegoers as well. It’s a very appealing recipe for success.

VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA — My favorite superhero this summer is Woody Allen, who has given us a light, engaging movie that has everything one could ask for: an attractive cast, a sexy and unpredictable story, all set against a beautiful Spanish backdrop. It’s as refreshing as a cool drink on an August day.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is an exercise in storytelling for storytelling’s sake. Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall play best friends who stay with fellow Americans at their beautiful home in Barcelona for the summer. An artist (Javier Bardem) propositions them to join him for a weekend of pleasure, and while one of the young women is insulted, the other is ready for action. That’s where the plot thickens. Kevin Dunn and the marvelous Patricia Clarkson play the Americans, and Penelope Cruz has her second great showcase of the season as Bardem’s emotionally volatile ex-wife.

I’m deliberately not saying more about this film because I think it will be enjoyed most by viewers who know little or nothing about it ahead of time. Suffice it to say that Woody Allen is in fine form here, and for that I am extremely grateful.

FROZEN RIVER — From the first moment of this film—a close up of Melissa Leo’s haggard face as she drags on a cigarette—I knew it was going to be good. Sometimes an expressive actor’s face can convey more than pages of dialogue.

Writer-director Courtney Hunt’s expansion of her 2004 short subject is a first-rate film that’s part character study and part thriller. The tension builds almost unbearably as two disparate characters in a dreary part of upstate New York embark on a dangerous and foolhardy endeavor, smuggling people across the Canadian border in the trunk of a car, driving on a frozen riverbed. Leo plays an embittered woman who’s just scraping by, trying to raise two sons after her husband has deserted her, while Misty Upham is a seemingly emotionless Mohawk woman who’ll do anything for a buck.

Hunt tells her story in a spare, matter-of-fact fashion, but it all has the unmistakable ring of truth. That’s why we vicariously share the trepidation that comes with each new risk the women take. Frozen River won the Grand Jury prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and deserves to be a word-of-mouth sleeper in its theatrical release.

TELL NO ONE — While embracing high-concept action movies, comedies, and comic-book yarns, Hollywood has apparently turned its back on bread-and-butter mysteries and thrillers, figuring that those genres are now the territory of hour-long TV dramas. French filmmakers don’t share that prejudice, as evidenced by several recent imports, including this crackerjack mystery adapted by writer-director Guillaume Canet from American writer Harlan Coben’s best-selling novel. (Philippe Lefebvre shares screenplay credit.)

François Cluzet stars as a dedicated pediatrician who, eight years after the fact, still lives under the cloud of his wife’s murder. The police have never stopped thinking of him as a suspect, in spite of a serial killer’s confession, and now that two new bodies have been exhumed near the scene of his wife’s murder they’re on his case again. That’s the starting point for a compelling, densely-plotted yarn that actor-turned-filmmaker Canet brings to life with style and energy to burn. (He and co-writer Lefebvre also turn up in supporting roles.)

With a first-rate cast (Marie-Josée Croze, André Dusollier, Kristin Scott Thomas, François Berléand, Nathalie Baye, Marina Hands, and the late Jean Rochefort), an unpredictable storyline, and some nail-biting action scenes, Tell No One has all the ingredients for satisfying adult entertainment. It was a great success in France, and won four César Awards including Best Actor and Best Director. It’s the kind of movie Hollywood used to make, but chooses not to any more.

THE LAST LAUGH (Kino Video) — Once again, film buffs and students are indebted to Kino for releasing a newly-restored edition of a classic German silent film. F.W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh (1924) is one of the towering achievements of the silent era. Emil Jannings’ performance as a proud hotel doorman who is stripped of his dignity―indeed, his very identity―is one of the milestones of silent film acting, still powerful after all these years.

Yet we in America have been watching a slightly different version of the film than the one German viewers first experienced. In 2003, Luciano Berriatúa and the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung prepared a definitive edition of the film painstakingly pieced together from several sources around the world, and rerecorded the original score composed in 1924 by Giuseppe Becce.

What makes the DVD exceptional, however, is a 40-minute documentary that chronicles this process. This fascinating featurette should be mandatory viewing for any silent film aficionado, as it shows us scenes from variant prints side-by-side to reveal the subtle differences in the domestic, European, and American versions of the picture. What’s more, microscopic examination of the film itself allows us to appreciate some of the illusions that Murnau, his production designers, and the great cameraman Karl Freund accomplished in the camera. This is film scholarship at its finest, and will offer revelations to even the most sophisticated film buff.

For the sake of thoroughness, Kino has included the unrestored export version of The Last Laugh on a second disc, with a score composed and conducted by the estimable Timothy Brock.

AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (Warner Home Video) — This dazzling new release of the Oscar-winning musical is a must for any collection, for a number of reasons. First, the picture and sound are superb; that razor-sharp image preserves all the beauty and nuance of John Alton’s legendary cinematography. A new making-of featurette by Steven Smith offers interesting comments and recollections from Leslie Caron, Nina Foch, Gene Kelly’s widow Patricia, several articulate film historians, and in archival interviews Gene Kelly, director Vincente Minnelli, and musical director Saul Chaplin, among others. There’s a deleted musical number—a fairly simple rendition of “Love Walked In” by Georges Guetary—and a number of audio rarities, including prefabricated radio interviews issued by MGM at the time of the film’s release. And there’s the magnificent American Masters special Gene Kelly: Anatomy of a Dancer, which is not to be missed.

Best of all, a full-length commentary track hosted by Patricia Ward Kelly strings together interviews with almost all of the key personnel who collaborated on this exceptional, high-minded endeavor. (Many years ago, a now-deceased film historian named Donald Knox interviewed all of the principals for an AFI oral history project, then published the results as Magic Factory: How MGM Made An American in Paris. It’s a great, almost forgotten book, but someone was smart enough to locate all of Knox’s original taped interviews, with producer Arthur Freed, director Minnelli, screenwriter Alan Jay Lerner, art director Preston Ames, costume designer Irene Sharaff, and others. These have been integrated with contemporary interviews to create a fascinating, fact-filled chronicle of this movie’s production.) You’ll learn how the specific Gershwin songs were chosen, why Gene Kelly put so much effort into crafting his outfits and dance shoes, and much, much more.

As icing on the cake, Warner Home Video has added two vintage shorts, a Fitzpatrick TravelTalk called Paris on Parade, and the Tex Avery cartoon, Symphony in Slang, which moviegoers may have seen on the same bill as An American in Paris back in 1951.

STRANGER ON HORSEBACK (VCI Entertainment/Kit Parker Films) — Here’s a worthwhile 1955 western, directed by Jacques Tourneur and adapted from a Louis L’Amour story, that’s never been released on home video before. Filmed in and around Sedona, Arizona, it stars Joel McCrea as a circuit judge who comes to a small town and quickly realizes that the community is in the grip of the local land baron (John McIntire)...and that includes the law. McIntire’s wastrel son (a young Kevin McCarthy) has committed murder, but marshal Emile Meyer knows he can’t do anything about it. McCrea intends to set things right. Also featured in the cast are John Carradine, Nancy Gates, Robert Cornthwaite (as the wimpiest man in the west), Emmett Lynn (in a welcome taste of comedy relief), and sexy Miroslava as a member of McIntire’s clan who falls in love with McCrea. (The Czech-born, Mexican-raised actress made just one more film in 1955, for Luis Bunuel, before committing suicide, sorry to say.)

The story couldn’t be simpler—or shorter, at 66 minutes. The straightforward approach of Tourneur, in concert with screenwriters Don Martin and Herb Meadow, and McCrea’s underplaying of the self-confident hero, makes this film worth seeing, even if it isn’t a forgotten classic. (McCrea and Tourneur would make two subsequent westerns during the next year, Wichita and Great Day in the Morning.) McIntire and McCarthy turn in first-rate performances, and there’s a climactic shootout, filmed against a dramatic Arizona backdrop, that’s remarkably effective.

While I love short movies, I must admit that Stranger on Horseback undermines itself by resolving its conflict so abruptly at the end. That’s the only criticism I can level at the picture, which provides an hour of solid entertainment for western fans.

The VCI disc includes several audio features: an episode of the radio series Tales of Texas Rangers starring Joel McCrea, as well as a biography of McCrea and an essay on the making of this film. The original negative for Stranger on Horseback no longer exists, so VCI’s release was taken from a 35mm print held by the British Film Institute. It’s not perfect, but it looks surprisingly good, especially for an Anscocolor movie, and there are only a few splices in the print.

THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE... (Criterion Collection) — The folks at Criterion have gone on a Max Ophuls binge, nicely timed with the theatrical reissue of a lovingly-restored Lola Montes. What a wonderful gift for movie-lovers everywhere. I haven’t yet screened the new editions of La Ronde or Le Plaisir but I have savored this magnificent 1953 movie, which I hadn’t seen in years.

Danielle Darrieux stars as the emotionally fragile wife of genteel French general Charles Boyer, who’s well aware of his spouse’s flirtatious ways, and endures it with good humor—until she becomes seriously involved with an Italian diplomat, played by Vittorio De Sica. Ophuls’ famously fluid camerawork doesn’t just follow these characters: it dances and glides along with them, never calling attention to itself but involving us in the whirl of their lives—lighthearted and gay at first, then deadly serious.

The Criterion disc features a beautiful black & white transfer of the film with newly-retranslated subtitles, and includes a verbal introduction by filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, brief but interesting interviews with three of Ophuls’ collaborators (Alain Jessua, Marc Frédérix, and Annette Wademant), an audio commentary by two film scholars, a visual analysis by Tag Gallagher, and an interview with the novelist Louise de Vilmorin, whose work inspired the film. A generous booklet includes a new essay by film critic Molly Haskell, an excerpt from a 1962 book on Ophuls by costume designer Georges Annenkov, and the original Vilmorin novel, Madame de. All of this only enhances one’s admiration for the film itself, a glorious achievement for all concerned.

TRYING TO GET GOOD: THE JAZZ ODYSSEY OF JACK SHELDON — I’ve long been an admirer of the great jazz trumpeter and entertainer Jack Sheldon. He’s never attained the public recognition he deserves, although millions of people watched him for years as featured soloist and sidekick on The Merv Griffin Show and a younger generation was familiar with his vocal work on Schoolhouse Rock (“Conjunction Junction,” “I’m Just a Bill”). I must admit I never knew much about his life, until now. Fellow fans Doug McIntire and Penny Peyser set out to tell Jack’s surprisingly dramatic story, interweaving interviews and vintage material with contemporary performances that show the trumpeter at the peak of his powers.

Sheldon’s clowning often overshadows his extraordinary musicianship, but this intimate portrait addresses all facets of the man’s life and career, drawing on interviews with his daughter, his longtime boss (and biggest booster) Merv Griffin, and a variety of colleagues and admirers, ranging from Billy Crystal to Clint Eastwood. (Full disclosure: I appear briefly on camera brandishing a copy of the comic book tie-in to Jack’s 1960s TV sitcom Run, Buddy, Run. That’s the full extent of my involvement with the film.)

It’s rare to find a music-based documentary that balances personal, often volatile subject matter with performance footage so well. My hat’s off to McIntire and Peyser for their achievement. You can watch a preview of the film and purchase a DVD at their website.

PERILS OF THE NEW LAND: FILMS OF THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE 1910-1916 (Flicker Alley) Here is another in a growing line of historically valuable silent-film DVDs from Flicker Alley’s Jeffery Masino and film archivist David Shepard. The two-disc set includes a pair of early American feature films, The Italian (1915) and Traffic in Souls (1913) along with a handful of vintage short-subjects depicting life in New York City in the 1910s. Their impeccable presentation puts to shame the amateurs who are invading the silent-film-on-DVD turf. The Italian, the story of an immigrant who struggles against prejudice as he tries to make good in “the new country,” was produced by Thomas H. Ince and stars renowned character actor George Beban, is taken from three different sources, including an original 35mm nitrate print. The score is comprised of music from the period, compiled by Rodney Sauer and performed by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. The notorious Traffic in Souls, a purported exposé of the white slave business, also comes from a nitrate print and looks remarkably good. Silent-film pianist extraordinaire Philip Carli provides a first-rate score. The importance of 35mm source material is underscored by the amount of detail that is clearly visible in each frame of film, precisely the kind of detail that is so often lost in even good 16mm copies.

As for the content, these films demand informative commentary tracks, and these too are excellent. Prof. Giorgio Bertellini provides a well-balanced look at The Italian that examines both the social attitudes th