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.

Four Lions  ***1/2

Needing neither big budget production values, art direction or set pieces, nor requiring expensive gear to produce, the mockumentary has seen explosive proliferation recently as the gateway to entry for beginning filmmakers. Fortunately, as long as one has good writing and onscreen talent, it's very hard not to make a mockumentary that's will be seen as at least passably good by those who enjoy the genre.

One of the more amusing ones in recent years was Four Lions. The film depicts the misadventures of four incompetent Islamic jihadists. Imagine This is Spinal Tap except the story follows terrorists rather than a heavy metal band, and you have a pretty good idea of what the movie is like. While the film is never quite as funny as This is Spinal Tap (really, what is?), when it hits the mark, it really hits the mark. Minor spoiler: the terrorists plan to bomb a marathon prefigured the actual Boston Marathon bombing by a few years! It is a tad dated (it was made at a time when Osama Bin Laden was still at large), but worth a look if you can appreciate good dead-pan black humor.

Lone Survivor ****

Look, there are no surprises here. Even if you have no knowledge of the events experienced by the members of SEAL Team 6 in Afghanistan, you can pretty much guess what happens to them from the title what happens, and given that there is only one marquis 'name' star, you pretty much know who's going to be the last one standing at the end of the film. But what an intense journey it is! The film chronicles the true story of a group of Navy SEALs and their ill-fated mission. The tension never stops, and if you can deal with it (it's quite graphic), it's worth seeing.

The Amityville Horror ****

Beginning with William Castle's Rosemary's Baby in 1968, the B-movie studios discovered they could compete with Hollywood's big studios by supplying relatively low cost horror films in the Satanic/demonic possession vein as suspense is cheaper than special effects, and audiences were hungry for horror. By 1979 that had led to American International releasing The Amityville Horror.

For my money, the original Amityville Horror is better than the oft-cited 'best horror movie of all time', The Exorcist. While it shamelessly rips-off The Exorcist, it doesn't rely as heavily on shock value for instead building suspense in a day-by-day narrative that feels like it's leading to impending doom.

To be sure, there are a number of things that just don't work. Like a lot of haunted house type horror stories, it utterly fails when the entities so closely associated with a physical structure seem to be able to do things like affect cars on the road miles away, or attack people through phone lines (yes, it really happens in the movie).

And The Amityville Horror not only rips off The Exorcist, it also rips off The Shining, as male lead James Brolin slowly undergoes a mental and physical transformation similar to what Jack Nicholson's character experiences in The Shining.

But if you're going to steal, steal from the best, and what The Amityville Horror takes from other films it spits back with enough scares of its own to make it one of the most memorable horror films from a decade known for them.

Bottle Rocket ***1/2

A lot of people dismissed Bottle Rocket when it came out back in 1996, and to be fair, it was pretty easy to dismiss a cast of then-unkowns, and a young director making a quirky crime comedy-drama. In the years following the success of Pulp Fiction's release in 1994 there were literally scores of quirky crime comedy-dramas, and by 1996 when Bottle Rocket came out, audiences had become pretty jaded on that formula.

But writer/director Wes Anderson went on to excel at the quirky comedy-drama, producing a string of critically and commercially successful films about oddballs. Given such a distinguished track record, I felt it was time to go back and take a look at his first film, which I remember think was O.K., if a little contrived upon initial viewing.

I must say this is one film that has actually aged pretty well. After roughly two decades, it still maintains a sort of innocent charm. Owen Wilson (who co-wrote), and his brother Luke, and Robert Musgrave, play 3 would-be heist men, planning to make it big with a pre-planned 40 year criminal career. Trouble is they have no idea what crime actually entails, and are pretty incompetent at it.

So, after revisiting it 18 years later I have to say I still find it kind of contrived, but I feel it's entertaining and holds up well. A charming and witty little indie, worth checking out.