I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG(directed by Mervyn Leroy) is still powerful.

This 1932 movie packs quite a punch as social drama. Its classic status owes to the dynamism of the performances, pacing, and details that was usually found in gangster movies and crime thrillers. A man wronged by the world can be just as riveting as a man who wrongs the world.

Rating: 5/5

STELLA DAVIS(directed by King Vidor) shows how motherhood can redeem even a no-good worthless tramp.

Barbara Stanwyck delivers a sterling performance as a woman of spunk and ambition(and shamelessness). Born poor and grown up vulgar, her idea of success and respectability is marrying up, partying, and wearing one too many jewelry, real or fake. Estranged from her well-heeled husband who can't satisfy her needs, she ends up raising her daughter alone. The girl, taking after her father, is a kinder and gentler creature. And Stella, with her maternal instincts kicking in, must make sacrifices for her beloved daughter. It's melodrama wonderfully done.

Rating 4/5

Silence(directed by Martin Scorsese) is a Masterpiece

This is a thoughtful film on many levels, a tale told without hammering the message home(or to the cross). While Scorsese's heart is clearly with the Catholic priests and the persecuted faithful, he allows the story to unfold at its own pace and manner, disclosing both the folly and nobility of the doomed mission. The final part probes into the paradox of Christianity, how one is nearest to God in failure than in success.

Rating: 5/5

STAYING VERTICAL(directed by Alain Guiraudie) Is Worse than Horizontal Collaboration

One of the ugliest films ever, surely one of the most demented since Pier Paolo Pasolini's TEOREMA in which some godlike visitor blesses the alienated characters by 'teo-reaming' them up the ass.
This degenerate film by Guiraudie has a hipster-as-bisexual-nomad, a post-modernist who stumbles into the role of accidental prophet and messiah. Though a creature of the city, he drives around the countryside where things are nearly as barren as in the ancient world of Hebrews. But if the ancients came up with strict sexual morality to keep things in order, the new revelation, according to Guiraudie's vision, is that everyone should just drop their pants and stick their thingies into anything that moves and wants it up the pooter or the poop-chute. After all, unlike the old days, there's plenty of food and social safety nets that make traditional morality moot, at least to decadents and degenerates of the film. Not exactly boring but only because it has stuff like the 'hero' sticking his dong up a flabby old man breathing his last. How the world has gone from shotgun marriage to shotgun 'fuc* me in the ass'.

Rating: 2/5.

KNIGHT OF CUPS(directed by Terrence Malick) Isn't My Cup of Tea.

Here's some advice for Terrence Malick. Lose the actors(who stand around clueless), voice-over narration(that sounds constipated), and script(if that's what it is). Lose the classical music, which is overly solemn and formal for Malick's joyrides. Just do travelogue and show us pretty pictures. KNIGHT OF CUPS works on that level. The main characters, such as they exist, are little more than bored tour-guides for Malick's attention-deficit-disorder visual skate-boarding. Everyone else is either eye-candy, exotica, or distraction, though always posturing as if on the verge of epiphany.
Stylistically, this latest monstrosity is an improvement over horrors such as THE NEW WORLD and TREE OF LIFE. The camera-work is nimbler, finer-tuned to shifts of moods and action. TREE OF LIFE, the most expensive home movie(or youtube video)ever made, couldn't reconcile the monumental with the momentary, no more than Einstein could unify stars with sub-atoms.

Rating: 2/5

POINT BREAK(directed by Ericson Core and written by Kurt Wimmer) Is Retarded

This could have been a captivating adventure movie about the extremes of masculinity and megalomania. The themes are all there. Pushing mortality to the limit for a glimpse of immortality. And there are spectacular moments on waves and along cliffs. But shallow characterization deflates the tragic dimension, the only thing that can sustain and redeem a story such as this. Some of the action scenes are beyond ludicrous; they 'jump the shark', making the feats seem more fantastic than feverish. And the damn tattoos. Maybe getting more than one tattoo should be a capital crime. Enough already.

Rating: 1/5

PIRATES OF SILICON VALLEY Is Silly Fun

A cheapie TV production, it lacks the finesse of a top-notch production feature like SOCIAL NETWORK. The acting is uneven, and the plot isn't always convincing. But the low-budget amateurism has charm and captures the nervy and nerdy spirit of ne'er-do-well but high-IQ garage geeks chasing after their dreams by fits and starts of ingenuity, cunning, and luck. It works on the level of romp. While Fincher's movie and Danny Boyle's STEVE JOBS are technically more impressive, they are overloaded with seriousness and relevance, whereas PIRATES OF SILICON VALLEY grooves to the vibes of geek egotism. If John Hughes made a movie about high-tech world, it might have been something like this.

Rating: 2/5