Mississippi Burning - *****

If you look at any film guide from the period, Mississippi Burning usually rates about 3 out of 5 stars. I'm not sure why this film, which was nominated for a number of Academy Awards (including a win for best cinematography), was generally though of as just a bit above average by most critics.

Whether it was the controversy over liberties with history (as the director often points out, it's a dramatization based on real events with fictitious characters, not a documentary), or it just got lost in the crowd in a year that also gave us Bull Durham, Die Hard, Rain Man, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and the even bigger Willem Dafoe film, The Last Temptation of Christ, but whatever the case, it was clearly an oversight as Mississippi Burning is now, justifiably considered a classic.

There are many strong performances here, including Brad Dourif as a racist deputy, and Frances McDormand as his wife, but the film hangs on the two key leads played by Willem Dafoe and Gene Hackman, two actors who can almost always be counted on to deliver electrifying performances.

The film deftly weaves almost every emotion in the book together in a tale about the FBI's investigation of the murder of Civil Rights activists in 1964 Mississippi. It is a detective story a little reminiscent of the 60s film In the Heat of the Night, with a northern detective paired with a (in this case former) Southern Sheriff, but in this case the tale is rooted in truth. Where it takes liberties with the facts, it does so in the interest of conveying the emotions of the time, and thus remains a relevant and powerful piece of film making.

Madhouse - ***

Madhouse is like every other Vincent Price horror film, which is to say it has a mediocre script buoyed by Price's performance, meaning on a scale of 1-10 it would rank about a five or six.

But, Madhouse has a couple extras going for it that make it just a tiny bit more enjoyable. First, Price's co-star is the one and only Peter Cushing, and the scenes they share are excellent, even when they aren't talking about anything consequential.

Second is the gimmick that Price and Cushing are playing aging horror movie actors, in other words, characters like unto themselves. This not only adds believability, but allows the producers to throw in a bunch of clips from old Vincent Price films as if they were showing clips from his character Paul's past work. For the horror movie buff, that means the chance to pick out actor and movie references throughout.

If you've seen no other Vincent Price horror films, I wouldn't recommend starting with this one - not just because it's not one of his best, but also because the funnest part of this movie are its references to all his other movies. In other words, watch this after you've seen the best of his 50s and 60s work.

The Royal Tenenbaums - *****

Before The Royal Tenenbaums was even made, I knew that Wes Anderson was a unique voice on the cinematic landscape, even if I wasn't quite sold on the cult popularity of Bottle Rocket and Rushmore. To me it seemed that Anderson was mixing a certain amount of populist storytelling with an obvious use of kitschy retro styling in a calculated-to-appeal to Generation Y approach that I found simultaneously entertaining and eye-rolling.

But then came The Royal Tenenbaums, and everything just clicked. Despite all the accolades for later efforts (like the recent Grand Budapest Hotel), The Royal Tenenbaums, to my mind is Anderson's greatest film creation to date.

A lot of the credit goes to the ensemble cast. In Luke Wilson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Angelica Huston, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Danny Glover, Alec Baldwin, and especially lynchpin Gene Hackman (who is always outstanding in every role he plays); Anderson has assembled a cast of some of the most underrated dramatic actors in Hollywood around the turn of the millennium - either because they were still up-and-coming, or in the case of the more seasoned veterans, largely overlooked actors whose greatest successes were from the 70s and 80s. In both cases, the talent was eager to prove themselves, steal scenes and chew the scenery, which works well with Anderson's everybody's-quirky-and-nobody-is-the-straight-man type storytelling.

But The Royal Tenenbaums hits what Bottle Rocket and Rushmore were aiming for. By acknowledging from the start that the titular Tenenbaum family is not normal, the lack of a straight man in a major role as a point of reference does not hinder this film the way it does with those prior films.

Like all Wes Anderson films, The Royal Tenenbaums demands that the audience sit tight, give up control, and observe events as they are spoon fed, the story by a narrator (in this case the affable Alec Baldwin). But if you are prepared to accept that, it can be quite engrossing for all its contrived glory.