THE GIRL NEXT DOOR - luke greenfield - 6.3 / 10

Better than it has any right to be but not quite good enough to be recommended without reservation, The Girl Next Door is an interesting film nonetheless. The music selection is outstanding and goes a long way to making the film watchable. Emile Hirsch and Elisha Cuthbert are both extremely likeable and entertaining (although Cuthbert is terribly miscast and her fingernails draw my attention in the same way as a train wreck). And the supporting players are just a ton of fun.

That notwithstanding, the film still has some major flaws. Foremost among them is the two or three too many moments of cringe-inducing embarrassment for Hirsch's Joel Goodson--err Matthew Kidman (that name a very strange, sideways reference to Tom Cruise). A seventeen year-old boy dating a worldly and experienced porn star would, obviously, lead to a few sweaty palms moments for the boy. But there's a fine line between entertaining and amusing embarrassment and over the top, makes you want to look away from the screen embarrassment. The former, like when Danielle (Cuthbert) makes Matthew strip in the street as punishment for his having watched her undress, is cute and titillating and does a good job of dramatizing the awkward interactions of people just discovering their sexuality. The latter, like when Matthew, on ecstasy, gives a speech on moral fiber, is one of those only-in-the-movies moments that does nothing but make you think of all the other movies you've seen that have moments that are just like this one.

The end of the film also doesn't complete the action as well as it should. The quest to get $25,000 is like a misguided detour into another, much worse, film. It doesn't have anything in common tonally with the rest of the film and doesn't reveal anything interesting about the people in the film. It seems that this whole subplot is just a way to end the film in a grandiose way, as if just having the characters learn something about themselves wouldn't be big enough to hang the climax of the film on. The problem there is that the character problems, the problems of the mind, are what's interesting about the film in the first place. If I wanted to watch teenagers engaged in some ridiculous hijinx I'd watch American Pie. By making the final third of the film about an external conflict rather than an internal one, the filmmakers invalidate everything interesting that came before. And that's really a shame because the first two thirds of the film are resonant and entertaining.

LOVING - irvin kershner - 7.2 / 10

They don't make 'em like this anymore. That's a common complaint that I've never quite understood. They don't make 'em like they used to because they can't, that era is over. And most of the time, when people say things like that (and it's usually someone like Ebert or Roeper) I think they're just being pointlessly nostalgic. And besides, for the most part, what they're lamenting is crap.

Loving, however, is a different animal. When I say they don't make 'em like this anymore, I don't mean that they don't make films with bastards as the main characters (because they often do in the indie world) and I don't mean that the film has a special realism about it that you don't find in today's films (look at something like Boys Don't Cry, it has the same type of "realism"). What I mean is that you don't see films today with the balls to have not particularly attractive people being the focus of lust and desire. This happens all the time in the real world (people are attracted to money, power, confidence, whatever) but in movies these days it's always the looks (or, if it's the other stuff, the looks are there, too). There's just something I love about the idea of an ugly man having his way with women who, for the most part, are attractive but could stand to lose a few pounds.

So, I guess when I say they don't make movies like Loving anymore, what I'm really referring to is the realism of people that the film has that you never see today. And that realism of people combined with the sort of slapdash realism of DP Gordon Willis's cinematography gives the film a voyeuristic attitude that is just so casually cool. I mean, the guy (who's a downright bastard) might just be walking along on the street but the way that he looks and the way that it's shot completely holds my interest. Yes, the story is somewhat interesting and the dialogue is passable but it's the way that Peter Segal and Eva Marie Saint move and just exist in the frames of this film that is the source of its pleasure for me. I guess that's a pretty boring reason to like a film but there you have it. It won't be enough for everyone but it was enough for me.

THE SOPRANOS: SEASON TWO - 6.0 / 10

I'm beginning to see a pattern in The Sopranos. Apparently each season is ten or so middling episodes with the occasional flash of brilliance followed by two or three excellent episodes in which all the hanging plot threads are tied up in a nice neat bow. That's obviously not the most satisfying way to construct a show but it is a very effective way to keep the audience coming back for more. You watch the first few episodes of a season because the last few of the last season were so good. By the time you get halfway through the new season, you want to give up because it's boring but you sense that great things are around the corner so you stick it out and wait for them. Then, in the last few episodes of the season you get the greatness that you were hoping for. And so the cycle starts all over again.

That being said, the great episodes of the second season are far less entertaining than the great episodes of the first and fifth seasons. Nothing unexpected happens (despite promises to the contrary by the "Next On" voiceover) and the expected things are not done in any spectacular way. Big Pussy's murder and the Scatino bust-up in particular are the types of moments in which this series normally shines, but not so this time. I'm just hoping it gets more interesting in the next season. After all, the fifth season is pretty excellent.

THE BROWN BUNNY - vincent gallo - 1.7 / 10

I think it might have been Hitchcock who first dispensed with showing characters going into and out of houses and rooms, assuming that if they just appeared in the room, the audience could fill in the blanks as to how they got there. The last fifty years of film history have proven him correct. But for The Brown Bunny, Vincent Gallo has apparently decided to see if those little in-between moments could become the central focus of a film.

I don't know if that's really what his intention was but that's sure as hell what most of this film is about. There are plenty of long wistful shots of the road or of Gallo's skull-like visage punctuated by a few random dialogue scenes in which people say nothing of any consequence while looking as ugly as Gallo can make them. What exactly the point of this is, I cannot say. But the better question is why do you need a whole film of the same three things (those mentioned above) when just a few minutes would make the same point? I mean, does it say something different to see one road for five minutes or five roads for five minutes each? I don't think it does and, further, I think the latter is just exceptionally boring.

So Gallo (maybe his character has a name but I doubt it, he's just that sort of asshole) travels across the country having various levels of sexual contact with women named after flowers. And, of course, these sexual encounters are unprovoked and come out of nowhere and are shot with a "realism" that is completely incongruent with the unrealistic nature of what is transpiring. No guy who looks like Skeletor and talks with a nasally whine (and repeats what you say right back at you all the time) would get random women to just start kissing on him everywhere he goes.

And that's all without mentioning the infamous blowjob that ends the film. Throughout the road trip, Gallo has flashbacks to times he's spent with his girlfriend Daisy (they're all sexual of course). Finally he reaches California (where Daisy is waiting) and she gives him head. So basically the whole film is this horny dude traveling across the country thinking about the awesome blowjob he's going to get when he comes home. To help blow off some of his sexual tension along the way, he picks up some other women named after flowers and fools around with them. But they're just appetizers for his lovely Daisy. And then he gets the long awaited blowjob and the film ends. Awesome.