Brick is a neo-noir about Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a loner amateur detective investigating the death of his girlfriend as enemies and authorities try to pin him for it. Sound familiar? Brendan is a teen, the film is set at a typical California high school, and the authorities are school officials. There are a million ways in which this film could have gone horribly wrong, but first time writer/director Rian Johnson toes the line between earnestness and tongue-in-cheek flawlessly. It’s the rare film that works as a representative of the genre while also letting the audience know that it’s self-aware. How many film noir heroes ever met with the villain in his kitchen as the villain’s mom served them cookies? Yet there’s still a sense of danger amidst the ridiculousness– Johnson and his talented cast play their cards very close to the vest, and keep us completely invested. It’s the best neo-noir since Memento, and unlike Memento, it plays better with each repeat viewing.

All of the great film noir characters are recognizable here in their teenage forms. There’s Emily (Lost’s Emilie de Ravin), the innocent girl who got in over her head too deep; Laura (Nora Zehetner), the rich femme fatale who may be more trouble than she appears; The Pin (Lukas Haas), the drug kingpin of the town, and Tug (Noah Fleiss), his muscle; The Brain (Matt O’Leary), our hero’s source of information and main contact; and Mr. Trueman (Richard Roundtree), the authority figure who wants information from our hero. Like all noir heroes, Brendan doesn’t respond well to being told what to do.

To go into the plot in any further detail would be to give away the fun of the film. Like other noirs, it makes sure to bury the truth deep down from the get-go, so the beginning is disorienting to some degree. Also, these teens all speak in hard-boiled, streetwise noir talk. It would be easy to dismiss the film as “silly,” but when the dialogue comes from Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s lips, it’s believable. He’s just as much a jaded seen-it-all loner as Sam Spade or Mike Hammer.

Sample dialogue with Kara (Meagan Good):
“Still picking your teeth with freshmen?”
“Well, you were a freshman once.”
“Way-once, sister.”

Very few actors could make this dialogue work, but Gordon-Levitt is one of them. He is slowly becoming the best actor of his generation, having displayed a variety of work nearly unparalleled, and all of it of the highest quality. Between the pedophilia indie drama Mysterious Skin, the teen neo-noir Brick, the bank heist thriller The Lookout, and the current romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer, he has built himself quite a reputation as The Indie Lead Actor. All of the other actors handle their parts capably as well, in particular Haas (always a reliable actor himself) and Zehetner, a quirky actress only known to me before this from a role in the first season of TV’s Heroes.

Johnson, who made this summer’s con flick The Brothers Bloom, put together a stunning debut here. He correctly analogizes the cliques in high school with the seedy circles in film noir, and blends the two together seamlessly. Also, teens do engage in drugs and sex, so he keeps it believable: certain characters know more about drugs and sex than others, which is exactly right. It’s hard to imagine that this movie never slips into full-out parody, but it easily avoids that– it’s probably the most engaging detective film of its kind since LA Confidential, which was far more straight-forward. The visuals are appropriately staged, most of them surrounding Brendan with lots of empty space, emphasizing how alone he is. The editing is slightly clunky here and there (mostly when there’s violence and Johnson speeds up the action, which feels like a film student “look what I can do” trick), but the dialogue slapped a smile onto the face of a film noir fan like me. The film Sin City went for hard-boiled and mostly pulled it off, but it was far more focused on the visual style, leaving the dialogue outside of the audience’s focus (also, some actors like Brittany Murphy and Alexis Bledel couldn’t really pull it off). Here, Johnson knows that without the tough-talk dialogue being in the spotlight, your noir will never be completely hard-boiled.

Whether or not you enjoyed Public Enemies, Michael Mann’s latest film, you likely noticed there was something missing. John Dillinger, as played by Johnny Depp, didn’t truly have an equal nemesis in Melvin Purvis, as played by Christian Bale. Not because of the characters themselves, mind you—after all, Purvis had the last laugh historically speaking—but in terms of dialogue, acting, and story structure. Bale didn’t have the charisma, the depth of character, or the amount of time dedicated to him in the film that Depp did. Thus, despite having cast two movie stars in a game of cat-and-mouse, the game seemed… one-sided. Mann’s film Heat, starring Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, is another story entirely—in fact, it might be the quintessential cat-and-mouse film of the past two decades.

The film opens with Neil McCauley (Robert DeNiro) leading his usual crew in an armored truck robbery. Everything is timed to the T, and the execution is flawless. One problem—there’s a new guy in the crew who decides to shoot one of the truck guards. They can’t let the others live and provide information on them, so they have to kill the other two. This puts Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) on the case. He is enormously thorough… so thorough, in fact, that despite McCauley’s inscrutable planning, he is able to get on their track. McCauley discovers that the heat is on, but they continue to plan their next move. Hanna then realizes that McCauley is watching him back. The two dance back and forth in this way, leading to the final showdown.

In the meantime, Mann devotes a lengthy amount of the film to the love interests of the main characters. We see the usually unattached DeNiro take to a girl (Amy Brenneman) who wants to be a graphic designer. We see the strained family relations of Pacino, his wife (Diane Venora), and his stepdaughter (a young Natalie Portman). We even see Chris (Val Kilmer), McCauley’s best friend and closest partner, and his failing marriage with his wife (Ashley Judd, in what is certainly her finest performance). This robs us of our ability to judge the characters—surely McCauley is an obvious anti-hero, and his dedication to this new woman is very sweet and charming to watch, but he’s a cold-blooded murderer who has said time and again that if the heat gets too hot, he’ll run and ditch everyone in a moment’s notice. Meanwhile, the obvious “villain” is a sensational policeman who loves his stepdaughter and has understandable problems with his wife that I’m sure many detectives have. When he walks in on her with another man, if he was a typical villainous cop, we’d cheer. Instead, we feel disgust.

Unlike Public Enemies, where two very different actors result in an oil-and-water combination, DeNiro and Pacino’s styles are perfect for their character. DeNiro’s subtle, intense acting is perfect for the cool pensive burglar, always plotting and always checking for the heat. Vincent Hanna has to ruffle feathers and make a scene to push his case forward—he’s damn close to a bully at times—so Pacino’s more flamboyant and showy style fits it to a T. The scene with Hank Azaria where he talks about Ashley Judd’s butt is now considered a Pacino scream classic, and can be found with ease on the Internet (along with his other scream classics, such as the monologue to Kevin Spacey in Glengarry Glen Ross, and his speech during Charlie’s trial in Scent of a Woman). DeNiro and Pacino only truly share one scene together, and for once, the meeting of two huge actors on screen isn’t disappointing. Their characters understand each other’s methods and respect them for it—you feel the scene could stand for a lunch between the two actors as well.

Despite its sizeable length at two hours and forty minutes, Mann keeps the intrigue high. There’s so much tension surrounding the proceedings and so many characters to care about that there isn’t a wasted minute. Mann isn’t known for delivering a short film, but to say he lacks ability in the editing room is simply false. If anything, he provides an underrated service—the character driven epic. His films don’t lack action (both the shootouts in Heat and Public Enemies are enormously entertaining, packed with mayhem and excellent sound), but he knows the real action is when two characters the audience cares about are sitting in a room discussing important life-changing occurrences, either past or to come. While most burglar plots are light, breezy fare nowadays (the Ocean’s 11 trilogy comes to mind), here is a film that captures the risk and reward—the life one can lead if successful, the preparations it takes to achieve that success, and the infinite number of ways in which any simple thing can bring your success to an end. Two men, equal foes, trapped in combat against one another: it’s the recurring Michael Mann theme. While Heat isn’t life-changing cinema, it’s a reminder that two movie stars having a coffee can be just as exciting as a gunfight if you give them both equal ground to stand on.

It’s clear that Ice Age and its sequel, Ice Age: The Meltdown, are not on the level of the Pixar films. The storytelling is a stone’s throw from original, the characters don’t rise too far past sitcom-level development, and the animation doesn’t have an ounce of the detail that even the most pedestrian Pixar film has– it’s even beneath most Dreamworks Animation releases. Why then do these films elicit a smile? The cartoony character design allows for the type of broad witty visual gags usually reserved for Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and characters of that ilk, and allows for the animation to impress us without the detail. The writers keep the dialogue minimal and let the visuals do most of the talking. Finally, there’s Scrat, one of the best animated characters created in the last decade or so, a direct descendant of the Chuck Jones School of Looney Tunes. Even when the story might be dragging, or the characters might be failing to thrill, there’s constantly the promise of another Scrat scene lurking on the other side of the iceberg.

In the first Ice Age, Sid (John Leguizamo), an abandoned sloth, is rescued by a reluctant mammoth named Manny (Ray Romano). Together, they encounter a prehistoric woman dying in a river, who hands Sid and Manny her baby. Sid and Manny set off to find the humans, with the help of Diego (Denis Leary), a sabretooth tiger who secretly wants to kidnap the baby to take back to the leader of his sabretooth pack as food. In Ice Age: The Meltdown, our heroes discover their valley home is at great risk, since the ice age is ending and their valley will be flooded. On their way out, Diego battles his fear of water, Sid meets a tribe of mini-sloths who worship him, and Manny meets Ellie (Queen Latifah), the only other mammoth he has encountered since being separated from his tribe– only she thinks she’s a possum, who accompanies them with her “brothers,” Crash and Eddie (Seann William Scott and Josh Peck) as the walls of ice keeping the flood from arriving wear thinner and thinner. Through all of this, there’s also Scrat, trying to capture that evasive acorn.

The first Ice Age is a pleasing diversion, full of simple characters but plenty of heart. The baby subplot wears thin– it devolves into Three Prehistoric Creatures And A Baby at times– but its presence gives Diego serious inner conflict and the film some palpable tension. Sid and Manny have some amusing banter, and Scrat absolutely steals every scene he is in. It never elevates to something special, although it does get quite close in an animated cavedrawing sequence where we discover why Manny is such a cynic and in a sequence where the dodos go extinct (a slow-motion Sid plowing through dodos provides the biggest laugh of the film). The sequel, despite being inferior in terms of story and heart, is superior in terms of action sequences and laughs. Diego is basically wasted– the fear of water doesn’t make up for his complete lack of character– and the Manny/Ellie romance is flimsy at best, although there is a great moment where Manny attempts to use the pick-up line, “For the future of our species, it’s our responsibility.” However, the Scrat bits are even funnier than before, Sid isn’t reduced to babysitting duties, and all of the interesting prehistoric creatures on the side are given good cameo moments. Among the highlights: Sid’s worshippers and a “Food Glorious Food” musical number where vultures hope the flood creates opportunity for a prime feast.

Can Ice Age 3 eclipse both its predecessors? Possibly– Scrat in 3D seems to provide limitless comic possibilities, and the broad cartoony character design lends itself to really popping off the screen without losing much of the detail. Still, the progression of the first two in terms of action and comedy leaves one hopeful that they can finally break that barrier and challenge Pixar, while not in originality or animation, in terms of fun.

Both films:

Some folks hate Michael Bay. Some folks think he’s everything that is wrong with Hollywood. Some folks are upset that racism, sexism, and incoherent editing seem to be among his trademarks as a filmmaker. Some folks feel that he has never made a movie of quality, preferring to bask in the glory and profits of plotless effects bonanzas. I believe some folks haven’t seen The Island. The Island is not only a quintessential Michael Bay movie, full of frantic chase scenes, eye-popping effects, and beautiful tanned bodies running slow motion in front of a picturesque sunset. It also is a fantastic sci-fi portrait of a dystopian future, which deserves to be listed among The Matrix, Minority Report, and Wall-E as exemplary examples of the genre, proving that sci-fi can still provide edge-of-your-seat thrills with terrific creative storytelling.

In a future world, Lincoln (Ewan MacGregor, typically earnest and charming) and Jordan (Scarlett Johansson, typically breathy and gorgeous) are living inside the only safe haven in an uninhabitable world. It’s an indoor facility where everyone is assigned a job and takes part in a lottery system, where a few lucky individuals are granted a pass to leave the facility forever and go to the Island, the sole outdoor location safe for people to live. Anyone familiar with the sci-fi genre knows that no one actually goes to an island, but instead they are killed and our heroes are bound to find out. Michael Bay takes more time to set up this scenario and these characters than he normally does, and he manages to get the audience invested when this inevitable twist occurs. It’s after they inevitably make their escape and discover the truth about their very existence when the film really takes off, and Bay and the writers start to have fun with every possible turn their setup can take.

Bay is always smart and fills his films with appealing leads, fascinating character actors, and gorgeous sun-baked women. What I think even his sharpest critics cannot deny is that the man manages a special-effects laden action sequence better than nearly anyone else working today. The Island is no exception, with a highway chase scene involving bouncing metal train wheels that had me holding my head in shock at what I was watching. Some say his films are too loud, but usually I find that he finds the appropriate balance of sound for the mayhem being executed on the screen, and the sound in The Island again is extraordinary– a sequence with a falling neon sign has especially vivid sounds, placing you right in the madness (and the noise the aforementioned train wheels make will linger in your head long after the film is over).

What separates this from the rest of the Bay films is the time he takes for the characters and the story. There’s no simple voice-over narration trying to catch the audience up so we can hurry forward into the action sequences. He lets us watch these people live in the facility and go through their day-to-day before we get to the suspense. This actually is an exhilarating way to begin the film– we get to experience Bay’s future world, reveling in the creativity and getting to know the characters, and there is an element of suspense as we squint our eyes looking for the seams, attempting desperately to determine where the twists are going to come from. Bay holds his cards close enough to his chest that we stay on the edge of our seats before anything dramatic occurs. Then, when the chases begin and the bullets start flying, we’re not following the usual Bay archetypes through a world we recognize. We’re in a completely new world with characters we care about in a sympathetic and tragic situation. It’s Bay’s most original film– his most story-oriented narrative, his smartest uniquely created universe, and his most well-earned happy ending.

Food for thought: the film bombed at the box office. It had no big name stars, was not a remake or a sequel, and was far too smart for the usual Michael Bay movie audience member. Transformers was his next film, which was home to his biggest opening, largest box office total, and was a recession back to relying on archetypes instead of characters and phenomenal action instead of story. It’s silly, fun, and chaotic– and the sequel, according to all overseas reports, multiplies that madness exponentially. It will also almost certainly make more money than any other film Bay has made, and if it does indeed pass the first Transformers, it will make ten times more box office than The Island did. Michael Bay recently decried the critical backlash he receives for his action extravaganzas, saying that they take far more skill and knowhow than the critics give him credit for. While critics have valid points about his films where plot takes the backseat, The Island certainly shows that he has the capacity to balance top-drawer action sequences with creative, original storytelling, and one can only hope that regardless of the success of Transformers 2, he continues to make fun big-budget bonanzas. If he doesn’t, we may not see a film as enjoyable, as smart, and as indulgent in its genre pleasures as The Island was for a long, long time.

Groundhog Day is the best comedy of the past twenty-five years, maybe more. It is the rarest of films– it takes a high-concept idea and literally explores every facet that the concept could conceivably provide. How many times can you think of a movie starring a big-name comedian where its wacky premise is merely used as an excuse for scatological humor and broad sight gags? I can think of thousands. Groundhog Day takes its wacky premise and twists it with a neverending source of creativity. Instead of a deficiency of clever idea, this film is overflowing with them. Anchoring it all is Bill Murray, whose trademark delivery keeps the film from tiptoeing into gooey Frank Capra earnestness. The end result is exhilarating, a truly smart high-concept comedy which actually earns its happy ending. It’s an absolute joy to behold.

We begin with Phil Connors (Bill Murray), a Pittsburgh weatherman who gives a dry but goofy delivery of the forecast for Groundhog Day weekend. When the cameras are off, he reveals his egomaniacal side- he can’t hide his disdain for everything and everyone around him, and he absolutely loves himself. No one plays this type of role better than Murray, and certainly writer/director Harold Ramis was used to working with Murray at this point in their careers and knew exactly how to tailor this story to this star. Phil travels with his new producer Rita (Andie MacDowell) and his cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott) to Punxsutawney, PA for the emergence of the groundhog and whether he’ll see his shadow. He flippantly reports on the ceremony, after a morning of dealing with well-meaning yet annoyingly chipper locals, including former classmate Ned Ryerson (Stephen Tobolowsky). A sudden blizzard snows the crew in after the proceedings, so Phil is forced to (the horror!) spend the night in this small town.

When he awakes (to the sounds of Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe,” which grows funnier every time it plays), he finds it is Groundhog Day– again. There is no mystical character who forces this, no natural event which jolts him into this alternate reality, no voodoo curse from a vengeful party he scorned. It occurs without any explanation, and despite Phil’s best attempts, when he wakes up the next day, it will be in the same hotel room with I Got You Babe signaling the same morning has dawned. The rest of the film deals with the various stages Phil goes through in attempting to cope with this reality. He tries to commit suicide. He tries to bag girls. He learns all of the infinitessimal intricacies of the town, first to exploit them, then to use them to help himself, and finally to use them to help others.

I find this film is strangely religious in a way. The lack of explanation for the repeated day can easily lead to the conclusion that a higher power looked down upon one of his creations, saw he needed fixing, and took measures to allow the man to fix himself. Phil concludes it is due to divine power as well, although, in one of the funniest scenes in the film, he believes he is a god– “not THE god, A god,” he corrects Rita who understandably thinks his ego has truly gone off the deep end. There’s no one manipulating Phil’s behavior, and there’s no guardian to help him along his path. He has to experience life in every way imaginable before determining its value on its own, and he finds that loving others and acting selflessly is the most fulfilling path to take. For a high-concept comedy to be so intelligent that it inspires discussion of religion and philosophy? It takes a stroke of genius.

That genius is Harold Ramis. Let’s examine a selection of some of the films he’s written, shall we? National Lampoon’s Animal House, Meatballs, Caddyshack, Stripes, Ghostbusters, Back to School, and this film– without question, he is one of the most successful comedy film writers of his generation, if not the best. Usually, the brilliance of his writing is in finding order amidst a sea of comedic chaos (from his direction of Caddyshack and National Lampoon’s Vacation, we can see it’s the brilliance of his direction as well). It’s his history that I believe led him to nail this film so squarely on the head. There certainly is a fair deal of chaos in this film, but unlike the sheer anarchy that ends the majority of his films, he’s smart enough to realize this movie is leading towards redemption. Thus, every bit of chaos Ramis drops into a scene leads into the next. Nowhere is this more clear than when he is trying to seduce Rita by creating the perfect date. If he accidentally orders the wrong drink, quotes the wrong poet, says he likes something he dislikes, the film quickly jumps forward to his attempt the next day, where he corrects his error until he creates a new one. The characters in Ramis’s previous films all knew beautifully how to take advantage of a situation, but here is a character who keeps trying to take advantage of his situation, and all of the self-serving leads to nothing.

Every actor in this film is completely on the mark. The writing is bravely smart, and the direction is crafty and full of heart. Though Ramis’s works this past decade have been hit-or-miss (though he’s directed several episodes of The Office, and I found his film noir The Ice Harvest to be underappreciated by both critics and audiences), he has no need to prove himself any further. Regardless of whether or not you’re interested in seeing his newest film Year One, I urge you to rewatch Groundhog Day or see it for the first time. Just like Phil Connors, you’ll find that you discover new things every time you relive it, and strangely enough, you may find it warms your heart in new ways each time as well.

After spending six paragraphs letting everyone know how distracting I think Tony Scott’s visual style is from the stories he is attempting to tell, here is a film where his style perfectly fits the story being told and actually helps create the sense of paranoia which is essential for the story’s success. While the end is a pretty simple cop-out, Scott effectively manages his reliable leads with a number of charming character actors– some of whom provide consistent comic relief– and keeps the tension high for over two hours. If the current action movies in the multiplex aren’t running on all cylinders (and aside from Star Trek, they’re not), Enemy of the State delivers all the thrills and laughs that you would possibly want from a summer flick.

Congressman Thomas Reynolds (Jon Voight) murders a fellow Congressman who is going to fight him regarding a bill that Reynolds wants to push through, expanding the surveillance abilities of the government. Unfortunately for Reynolds, a wildlife researcher (Jason Lee) was doing some surveillance of his own and got the murder on video. When the existence of this video is discovered, Reynolds sends a crew of NSA agents (played by Barry Pepper, Seth Green, Jack Black, Scott Caan, and Ian Hart) to find the video and kill the man who has it. Unfortunately again for Reynolds, before they catch up with him, he runs into Robert Dean (Will Smith) and passes the video off to him. That’s where the action starts– the NSA frames Dean for murder in an attempt to bring him to them. With the help of an underground fugitive named Brill (Gene Hackman), he sets off trying to expose Reynolds as a murderer while proving his innocence and avoiding joining the increasing list of murdered people.

Will Smith is his usual charming earnest self, a terrific lead actor for a Hitchcockian thriller like this. Gene Hackman oozes cool every second he’s on the screen– few 70-year-old actors could pull off the badass underground technologically-savvy Brill. I feel particular fondness for Reynolds’ toadies, the NSA agents, who provide the most original twist in the film: funny, nerdy, likable villains who make you laugh while also emitting a certain sense of menace. The script by David Marconi (who also wrote the terrific government-surveillance thriller Live Free or Die Hard) is tightly knit, but Tony Scott keeps it all moving forward at a fast if not frantic pace. His usual quick edits, fast forwards, spinning cameras, etc., work here, as the camera bounces up to a satellite and back to Robert Dean’s location. It enables us to keep an eye on all of the characters the same way that the satellites are constantly keeping an eye on everyone as well. The end is too tidy– it’s the usual Tony Scott shootout where certain characters conveniently die in order to wrap everything up neatly. However, it’s easily better than every film he’s made since and it’s more satisfying than most thrillers of the past eleven years. In a post-9/11 world, this film plays even more realistically and holds even more tension than it did at the time.

“Feelings can creep up just like that.”- Chow Mo-Wan

This movie has been in my head since over a week ago, when I saw it for the first time. I’m not even certain if I’m able to give it an objective review based on technical aspects, although I’ll give it my best shot. The mere fact that this film has grabbed hold of my emotions and has had me thinking over my previous relationships speaks to the subtle power of this film. It doesn’t demand it—the pace is slow, the acting understated, the dialogue sparse. Still, it has boatloads to say in those silences. It’s a beautiful, affecting film.

Chow (Tony Leung) and So (Maggie Cheung) rent rooms in an apartment next door to one another on the same day (Coincidence or fate?), and they slowly become friendly with one another. Their spouses work long hours, and often leave town, so they’re barely around—indeed, we never see their faces in the film. Eventually, after we get to know these characters more, they voice their suspicions to one another that their spouses are having affairs with each other. At first, they mostly talk about their spouses and what they think they are doing… but then they get to know one another. While they start to grow close, they vow that they will never stoop below their own moral convictions and have an affair like their unfaithful partners. But hen the line between acting as if they are in love and being in love begins to blur…

What this film states most eloquently is that while one can control one’s morals, one cannot control one’s feelings. The quote mentioned at the top moved me tremendously where it comes in the movie. I have found love in strange places in my life, and certainly not where I have looked for it or expected it. I realized I was in love with my current girlfriend when I had cut my foot on a piece of broken glass, and she was putting a Band-Aid on it. Before then, I was not sure how long our relationship would practically last., since I was moving away in a few months, and I was attempting to keep my long-term feelings in check. Just like that.

Personal relations to the emotional ideas portrayed in the film aside, it’s simply an expertly crafted piece of cinema. For a film to be slowly paced with subtle acting and not too much dialogue… without being boring? That’s the accomplishment of a master, and while I am not yet familiar with Wong Kar-Wai’s body of work, his reputation precedes him, and I eagerly anticipate the rest. The cinematography and music fill the screen with flavor, and the silences really propel the story along, unlike in most films where transitions are made as quickly as possible, with little elegance at all. Several scenes are began without yet revealing who is standing in the room. Kar-Wai introduces us to where we are, gives us a feel for the room, and then we overhear voices. We listen before we see. Then, we watch our characters speak. Every move is deliberate. Some may be bothered by how Kar-Wai never reveals the spouses., but when you think about it, they are not important. The only importance they have in this film is how they affect our main characters. A film that attempts to be ambitious in scope shows us how these characters feel—Kar-Wai instead wishes to create a film ambitious in depth.

And the ending… what an ending. I don’t toss the word “magical” around too much, but it comes to mind. I didn’t have an immediate visceral reaction after the end of this film. It’s a grower—it BEGS multiple viewings, and I wish I had seen it with one of my friends or my girlfriend so I could talk about it with someone. How well-acted it is, how well-thought-out the story is, how striking the cinematography is—all of this to me right now is moot (although I think it’s wonderfully acted, thought-out, and shot, if you’d ask). What this film does is capture actual emotion, and inspire it from the audience. So few films are able to get away with this nowadays, when everything is high-concept, everything has complicated storylines, everything needs to be fast-paced to please our ADD-addled minds. I’m guilty of it as anyone—so if a film that is slow-moving does not bore me, it immediately deserves immense accolades. I know that my descriptions of the tempo of the film, and the obvious factor of subtitles, might turn some readers off, but give this one a go. You won’t regret it.