Bridge to Terabithia (2007)

Here is a real-life not a make-believe story that will make anyone but the most coldhearted stone-troll cry -- but it's real life from the eyes of two budding adolescents, so it's ideal for that age range yet emotionally overwhelming for younger children and never as focused as an adult would prefer. I had never heard of Terabithia until I saw the Web stats on most-downloaded movie trailers (which will leave you wanting much more from this film, if you see it with the Narnia-like expectations the trailers present). This movie feels like another (but lesser) Eragon: set in rural America and skipping from plot step to plot step faster and more perfunctorily than you can say "just read the script," the storyline feels like it was penned by the audience it's about and for: 13-year-olds. Yet this is also the movie's strength, since it incarnates an authentic sense of what it's like to be a preteen "good kid" in a tough crowd (the average school). The two child stars go through the motions of the script as far as adult moviemaking standards go, but they ably embody the nuanced angst (puppy love, adventurousness, peer pressure, naked fear, etc.) of true-to-form youth. In fact, I wasn't aware of how sympathetically my 9-year-old son and I had connected with them until tragedy struck. It's unfair to spoil a key plot element for those who have yet to see a film, so I can only say we tearfully wept for the rest of the movie and were quite sad and depressed about it for at least another hour. (I would have been very angry with the makers of Shiloh if they had killed off the dog star in the end, so I was incensed with the makers of this movie and my son was heartbroken.) The boy star's do-your-chores farmer father redeemed himself with a sensitive, father/son bonding scene and his youngest sister revealed her gift as she stepped into a brave new world, but the fantasy-forest dimension of this movie will always leave you panting for bigger and better scenes of the denizens. I would give this movie 4 stars for that element and 2 stars for betraying us emotionally, so I give it 3 stars on balance. Still it was authentic emotion and empathy so it was a movie-watching and a human experience unlike few we have yet shared. 3 stars.

Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance (1983)

Documentary. When Koyaanisqatsi came out in 1983, a local reviewer called it one of the 10 best films of the year -- so I began keeping a films-to-watch list and put it in the number-one spot. Well, I've finally gotten around to watching it! (Thanks, Netflix. In my defense, I just learned that it was out of print for 10-12 years across the 1990s.) Koyaanisqatsi is indeed an innovative marriage of artistically directed cinematography and the neo-cum-classical compositions of Phillip Glass -- sort of like a Pink Floyd video with a Yo-Yo Ma soundtrack. After seeing the second and third installments of the Qatsi trilogy, my 9-year-old son is interested in seeing this one too. I would watch it again anytime, though my favorite of the three is Powaqqatsi. By the way, this is clearly one of those movies where half the audience cries "Brilliant!" and the other half cries "Garbage!" My conclusion? When I can watch an artistically inventive movie and find a constant flow of thoughts and insights to draw upon, yet another sees nothing -- I choose perception and inspiration. As for the Hollywood clones, let them eat Cage. 5 stars.

Naqoyqatsi (2002)

Documentary. While I was excited to see the first two parts of the trilogy and I give them 5 stars, this one gets only 3 stars. An aurally thrumming and visually pulsing kaleidoscope of studied and stock video images, this third helping of the Qatsi trilogy borders on tired cliche, especially when the images of nuclear bomb explosions begin painting the screen. (If technology is bad, then pray what is the alternative? The problem is the human choice to do evil, not the tool -- pen or sword -- by which one chooses to wreak evil.) Koyaanisqatsi (1983) and Powaqqatsi (1988) proved to be innovative marriages of artistically directed cinematography and the neo-cum-classical compositions of Phillip Glass, but 19 years later Naqoyqatsi (2002) feels like a pastiche and an also-ran. My 9-year-old son watched it with me and generally found it interesting as I offered possible interpretations of this section and that -- nevertheless it began to feel like a film project that an arts high school student put together, esp. after a series of bald juxtapositions of images began banging the propaganda pan just a bit too stridently for comfort and I grimaced frequently at the unsubtlety of it all. 3 stars.

Powaqqatsi (1988)

Documentary. While I was excited to see the first two parts of the trilogy and I give them 5 stars, this one gets only 3 stars. An aurally thrumming and visually pulsing kaleidoscope of studied and stock video images, this third helping of the Qatsi trilogy borders on tired cliche, especially when the images of nuclear bomb explosions begin painting the screen. (If technology is bad, then pray what is the alternative? The problem is the human choice to do evil, not the tool -- pen or sword -- by which one chooses to wreak evil.) Koyaanisqatsi (1983) and Powaqqatsi (1988) proved to be innovative marriages of artistically directed cinematography and the neo-cum-classical compositions of Phillip Glass, but 19 years later Naqoyqatsi (2002) feels like a pastiche and an also-ran. My 9-year-old son watched it with me and generally found it interesting as I offered possible interpretations of this section and that -- nevertheless it began to feel like a film project that an arts high school student put together, esp. after a series of bald juxtapositions of images began banging the propaganda pan just a bit too stridently for comfort and I grimaced frequently at the unsubtlety of it all. 3 stars.

Futurama: Monster Robot Maniac Fun Collection (1999)

Futurama gets four stars for its close-to-stellar humor and storylines but be advised this disc is a weak repackaging of four (great) episodes with fewer than the usual extras. You will laugh -- but if you're a fan, you'll already have watched the full four seasons, and if you're a newbie, some of the jokes ("He make good snoo-snoo") will go over your head. 4 stars.

Employee of the Month (2004)

Like any movie costarring Steve Zahn or made in the spirit of the Coen brothers, it seems like people either love this film or hate it. I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. First I was surprised to find this movie on the discount table at Blockbuster. Later I was surprised to learn there are two movies with the same name made two years apart and this was the other one. While viewing this movie, I was surprised to find that Matt Dillon is a better actor than his titles which I've previously seen (There's Something About Mary, In & Out, One Night at McCool's) would suggest. (He was superb in Crash.) This movie is full of inventive plot twists and pleasant touches--a true pleasure to watch. Employee of the Month is something of a blend of Matchstick Men, U Turn, Bringing Out the Dead, and Crash. The ensemble cast is great individually and together, the editing is kinetic without going overboard, and the final plot twist will surprise you if you don't look at the fourth scene shot on the back of the DVD case. 4.5 stars.

The Messengers (2007)

I just came back from a preview showing of The Messengers. Here is a jangly-nerved blend suggestive of The Birds, The Grudge, Signs, Dark Water, and more. It has the loud thumps that make you jump and the things that go bump (in the day or in the night). It has the indescript blur of a something that runs past your field of vision (background or foreground but always behind the character in scene). It has ghostly images appearing under or over beds, chittering and chitonlike clattering of creatures that haunt the house, would-be homicidal crows, dangling farm implements, violent poltergeists, and a sweet little aphasic boy who points at and is drawn to the chimeras that only he (usually) can see. John Corbett does a great (Jeff Bridges-like) job as a trusted farmhand who flips out. Kristen Stewart does a yeoman's duty as the teen daughter who is the most-afflicted household member (though almost everyone gets poked with a fork till they're done). Evan and Theodore Turner steal the show as the mucus-encrusted, gently smiling tyke who sees all but can only tell some. See this movie -- it will make you tense, and glad you saw it. Four stars.