The Cider House Rules - ***1/2

The Cider House Rules got a lot of attention, both positive and negative. But in order to fully evaluate the film we have to first eliminate the two most extreme groups who praise or deride the film.

Every artist has a legion of fans who extol the virtues of everything related to said artist, regardless of the actual quality. Such is the case with novelist John Irving, who also wrote the screenplay, and whose fans overwhelmingly embrace the film as a masterpiece.

On the other end of the spectrum lie the radical detractors, mostly pro-life advocates who believe the film endorses a pro-abortion position, though that point is highly debatable.

Once these two groups have been discounted, audiences are still divided, and rightly so. The film is in fact a touching coming-of-age story set in wartime New England. But it is also true that the film is contrived, melodramatic and highly overrated.

Ultimately, The Cider House Rules is a good, though not outstanding film where plot and theme take a backseat to romance and sentimentality. If you think that sounds like something you'd like, you're probably right. If on the other hand you think that sounds too sappy for you, you're also probably right.

The Deep End ***

Let's get one thing straight right off the bat, 'The Deep End' is a thoroughly average thriller of the sort you've seen dozens of times: person A gets killed; person B may or may not have done it; person C blackmails person B. In fact I would have totally skipped this movie entirely if it wasn't for a curious thing I noticed, namely average movie goers generally didn't particularly like the film very much, yet critics were generally pretty positive. That disparity interested me, and so I gave it a watch.

The most obvious reason for the praise is the presence of film critic darling Tilda Swinton, who in fact was nominated for a Golden Globe for this film, and it's easy to see why - she definitely carries the film as the blackmail victim. Any average actress in that role and I probably would dock it at least half a star. But there are also a few small things that distinguish this thriller from the rest of the pack - not by much, they are small things after all, but nevertheless worth noting.

First is the art direction. The whole film is blue. I mean very blue. The lighting is blue. The sets are blue. Everyone dresses in blue, and most of the props are blue. It's a little like a Picasso painting from his blue period. As you might expect, there are some notable exceptions, custom chosen to stand out against all this blue. One is the blackmailer's car, a bright red Chevy Nova, and the other is a bright red coat worn by Swinton. What exactly the filmmakers were trying to communicate through these motifs I'll leave it up to you to decide, however the film at least deserves some credit for it's aesthetic sensibilities.

The other thing that's noteworthy, and probably what makes the film see much more average than it probably did at the time, is that the whole blackmail scheme revolves around exposing Swinton's son not only as a potential murder suspect, but also as being gay. It's pretty clear that in the days of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' that would've packed a greater punch. But it's almost hard to see this movie even being made nowadays - the murder/blackmail scheme may be timeless, but the closeted homosexual twist really isn't much of a twist. And given that most audiences saw this on video (it only did modest box office), chances are this too accounts for some of the disparity in ranking.

I can't complain; predictable though it sometimes is, the dramatic talents of not only Swinton, but the supporting cast as well, make for entertaining viewing.

10 Things; 15 Years Later ***1/2

One of the trends during the 1990s was movie studios making films based on the classics, especially Shakespeare (possibly because they'd run out of reliable new material). Bringing films like Clueless, Emma, Romeo + Juliet and others to a new generation of teens, who may or may not be familiar with the source material. And just to broaden the appeal, most were heavily retro-80s in style - perhaps an attempt to keep the John Hughes teen-machine running after that bankable director's retirement from filmmaking.

One of the most memorable of this crop of hybrid1980s-meets-pre-20th Century Literature was 10 Things I Hate About You, an adaptation of The Bard's The Taming of the Shrew, starring two hot up-and-coming actors, Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger.

It's now 15 years later, Stiles has settled into a comfortable if less stellar than anticipated career as a working actress, Ledger rocketed to stardom and then self-destructed a half dozen years ago, and the 80s are now a solid quarter century behind us. So how does the film hold up? Pretty good actually. Surprising for a fluffy romantic comedy aimed squarely at a teen audience. Thank the material, the filmmakers, the talent, whatever, but what should have been a disposable, trendy, adolescent confection still manages to charm, despite the obvious contrived nature of getting a story based on medieval marriage customs to work in a modern context.

Stiles and Ledger are both playing the stand-offish cool kid here - which is a nice twist from the one heart-on-their-sleeve, one hard-to-get matchmaking these films usually have. The film plays it's humor cards in a light-breezy way, never trying to beat you over the head with the jokes, and the music, mostly by third wave ska and pop bands covering 70s and 80s songs (another 90s trend), is infectiously fun.

10 Things I Hate About You may not be the high art people think of when they think of Shakespeare, but it is greatly entertaining, and remember that really was old Bill's intentions after all.