Pay It Forward

Grade: D

Kevin Spacey gives a sweet performance here as a teacher both physically and emotionally scared, surprisingly tender and vulnerable – one of his best. Too bad it’s in one of the poorest, most contrived and drippy screenplays of the year. Right from the start, the characters strike one several steps away from real people. The students feel phony, the situations feel phony, the sentiment feels, well, phony. Doesn’t everyone walk across a bridge and stumble on someone preparing to jump? Doesn’t every drunk rip apart their house only to finally find the last hidden bottle in a light fixture? Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osmont are fine if not in Spacey’s league, but the material is simply so unbelievably sappy and manipulative that I found myself cringing and sinking deeper and deeper into my seat – one of those movies where you just want to deck the women sitting behind you sniveling like an idiot. And the ending – dear lord – is truly embarrassingly awful.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0223897/

The Contender

Grade: A-

"Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" meets "The Insider" in this powerhouse Washington expose. Dynamite performances from Joan Allen and Jeff Bridges highlight this movie about political machinations, the corruption and misuse of power, and the meaning of true integrity. Nicely written, with just enough "Gee gosh, don't we wish it could really be this way" sentiment towipe a tear away and make the harsh realities of Washington politics palpable. Well-developed characterizations, especially in Mr. Bridges President, who has a foul mouth, loves ordering meals from the White House kitchen at all hours, smells his shoes before putting them on his feet, can be domineering and unpleasant as all hell, yet still strikes one a compassionate and strong-willed leader. Joan Allen is looking at yet another Oscar nomination as a US Senator thrown into a world of character assassination in the name of party politics. She brings a quiet strength and dignity to the role, and is the moral center of the film, even though one may not always agree with her politics. A Republican who switched parties -- what a masterstroke of writing, designed to throw a curveball to all political partisans. One of the year's best films.

More Movie Info: http://chevy.imdb.com/title/tt0208874/

Billy Elliot

Grade: A-

Completely predictable, nary a surprise anywhere, but so thoroughly charming, sweet, and beautifully acted that you just plain don’t care. Julie Walters deserves an Oscar nom as a snippy, chain-smoking ballet teacher, as does Jamie Bell in the main role of a young boy who just wants to dance. His performance doesn’t hit a single wrong note – charming, affable, pained, witty – one of the best young acting performances in a very long time. We never doubt for a moment he’s going to make it, but we still applaud when he does. Nicely written against a backdrop of striking miners in Northern England, with many, many tender moments, including Billy’s relationship with his grandmother, a brief moment with his deceased mother, his friendship with a gay chum, a brother who finally admits his affection, and a father who admits he’s never been to London before, after all, “There are no mines in London.” A couple of “Footloose”esque dance explosions seem to come from nowhere, but who cares when the film strikes so many genuine chords. A special one.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0249462/

Requiem for a Dream

Grade: A

If there’s one great film about drug addiction this year, “Traffic” isn’t it. “Requiem” is both stunning and truly terrifying, a decent into a frightening world that’s difficult to shake once the lights come up and one leaves the theater. Frenetically paced, “Requiem” isn’t engrossing – rather it’s a roller coaster ride that won’t release you from its grip until the ride has ended. Two of the best and most harrowing performances of the year by Ellen Burstyn and Jarod Leto, (especially from Burstyn, who proves why she is one of the best actors of this or any generation) a knockout screenplay that never rings a false note, and camerawork that brings one directly into the eye of the storm. A moment toward the end of the film, where Burstein’s elderly women friends cradle each other in tears at a bus stop, after seeing her dramatic decent in a hospital visiting room, is heartbreaking in its simplicity. The uncompromising ending to the film, where all inhabitants are destroyed – whether from drugs bought on the street or through a doctor’s prescription pad – is one of the most devastating endings to a film in recent memory. This is one of the best of this or any year. I hope I never have to see it again.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0180093/