Dear film lovers --- As I'll be on vacation over next weekend there's a chance that I won't be able to write full reviews of the Sept. 12th openings onto this website until the 16th.  However, below the following current openings I've written the synopses of the openings of the 12th:

Sept. 5th Openings:

"Bangkok Dangerous"  (Quality rating: 5)
Directors:  Oxide Pang Chun, Danny Pang
Screenplay: Jason Richman, Oxide Pang Chun, based on the 1999 film by  Oxide Pang Chun and Danny Pang
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Shahkrit Yamnarm, Charlie Young
Time: 1 hr., 48 min.
Rating: R (violence, vulgarity, some sexuality)"Bangkok Dangerous" 

       Quality killings. Formula action. Good Bangkok culture and atmosphere. 

       Cold and cruel in almost all parts from the first to the closing seconds, "Bangkok Dangerous" is very illuminating in its bawdy Bangkok street moods, with its teeming populace of con artists, pickpockets, hookers and assorted riffraff within  a world of gaudy neon.
      
        In its content, well . . .
       The events have all the feel of scenes that would love to have had more expansion as part of something bigger. All alone, immersed in guns, shooting and other violence, they become tiresome in no time. The pounding score has only the effect of drumming you into a defensive boredom which has your eyelids going heavy. There is certainly a real fascination in the street turmoil of scheming individuals and innocent tourists whose wallets are under continuing severe threat.  The boxing ring, with fists and feet used with equal proficiency, is a nice touch. 
        But the film is without suspense, Nicolas Cage's "Joe" being so ornery and lethal that it's impossible to like him. The chase through the city's canals is a bit of a picker-upper but is no more than a flash within dreary shootouts.
       Right off, Joe does a hit on a high-profile target in Prague. Then, with chilly indifference, he erases his assistant by lethal injection. Cold as ice and methodical as a shark, professional hitman Joe then takes on an assignment to Bangkok by major crimelord Surat  to make four killings of his enemies. To aid him, he hires Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm), a youth who'd been no more than a street punk and pickpocket. But his skills are seen as useful to Joe for the errands Kong can run. Joe figures that when Kong's utility is over, he can be terminated.
      Joe performs his first three hits with no trouble. But now the irony:  Joe, who's always been a loner in all life's pursuits, is getting involved in imparting his knowledge and skill to Kong. And, of all improbabilities, he is actually falling for a local girl. That's good news and bad.  On the one hand, this romance (with beautiful Hong Kong pop singer and "New Police Story" star Charlie Young) with a deaf girl in a pharmacy, is making a dent in his isolated life, but on the other, he's letting his guard down at a bad time.  Seems that the deadly Surat has decided that it's time to rid himself of all enemies, even the potential ones -- Like Joe. 
       There is something awfully routine about this flick, like nobody really cared. Only a slight bit of real humanity arises with the treatment of Yamnarm's "Kong" whom you can grasp with some vital energy. Yet the hard action is top quality and the chases run with visceral vitality. I'll not be taken in by artificially looking for sincere statements by the filmmaker. It's exploitational stuff. They were nowhere serious.
     The ending is hard to take.  My guess is that most of the audience felt cheated.       

 
"Savage Grace"  (Quality rating: 6)
Director: Tom Kalin
Screenplay: Howard A. Rodman, based on the book by Natalie Robins and Stephen Dillane. 
Not rated.
Time:  1 hr., 37 min. 

       Except for the fact that a son killed his mother at the end of the true story, there's not a whole lot to hook onto except for Julianne Moore's panorama of talents. They're impressive. But after a bit you're gradually aware that there is no suspense here, and surely nothing very different from stories you've seen on these issues. Indeed, Moore's melodrama is so intense at times that, for dramatic impact, she's vitually left stranded as an island of energetic fury.
      This is an unrevealing examination of  ways the rich do what they do. The tale covers the 1940s through early '70s in the lives of the Baekeland family who became the nouveau riche as heirs to the inventor of plastic. The two central figures are Barbara (Moore) and her son Tony (Eddie Redmayne), with the father, Brooks (Stephen Dillane), also of strong significance.   
     
      The film's course is simply descriptive, like from an emotional distance. You're an uninvolved observer.  The characters, except for Barbara, are just things on the screen, not red-blooded identities. Notably unexpansive is the Tony personality.  The dialogue is over-bloated. 

     Essentially this traces the welling and inexorable embroilments within Tony as he's raised by a mother whose need for love, romantic or parental or social, is beyond desperation. Barbara has become obsessed with trying to be accepted by social circles of the European rish, ostentatiously sporting behavior that is patently transparent. Brooks couldn't care less and is indeed ill at ease with a life of ease.
     Barbara's quest for love leads into unnatural, quite unmotherly behavior with her son Tony. But it's quite obvious that he's gay, especially when Tony's attraction to a gold-digger beach beauty in Spain (Elena Anaya) fades fast in favor of handsome young Simon (Hugh Dancy), this even as the girl gets involved with Tony's father Brooks and mom enters into a three-way relationship with son and lover. 
       
       Although this and that scene may draw your interest, you're quite aware early on that these are nihilistic people who make a game out of depression. A dark movie.

"Henry Poole is Here"  (Quality rating: 5)
Director: Mark Pellington.
Screenplay: Albert Torres
Cast: Luke Wilson, Adriana Barraza, Radha Mitchell, Cheryl Hines
Time: 1 hr., 41 min.
PG (mature thematic elements, some vulgarity)

      Are we talking about film or about faith?       
       
      The film asks you to bring some religious faith with you. Whether by implication or by hammering its point at you, this is a surprisingly immature production off the Hollywood line with everything as obvious as day and the point-of-view pretty blatant. Its characters run from serviceable to downright annoying. Off the top, its apparent insistence that disbelief in God, and, conversely, a belief in science, is a personal flaw of the first order is certainly fine for a faith film but not for one being released to the mainstream audience.
      
      The story is of a single guy, Henry Poole (Luke Wilson), whose doctor has leveled with him that he does not have long to live.  So we join him in the L.A. suburb where he buys a needs-work house on an otherwise reasonable street. As a welcome offering, neighbor Esperanza (Adrianna Barrazza) offers tamales. Henry accepts them politely but has her understand that he really wants solitude.
      There's something else that irritates Henry just a bit, namely, the large paint stain on the exterior stucco wall of the house. But more urgent  matters now come about. That'll be about Millie (Morgan Lily), the daughter of neighbor Dawn (Radha Mitchell). Millie has not uttered a word since the divorce, her dad having left a year ago. She has the disconcerting habit of recording conversations, one of which is by Henry. 
       But a real disturbance comes when Esperanza invites herself into Henry's backyard and offers prayers to that stain on the wall, claiming that it's the image of the face of Christ. She then adds to the intrusion by bringing her priest to see it, plus some church members. When Henry orders them all out, Esperanza asks him if he believes in God
      At this point a blood stain has appeared on the "face" of Christ. Henry feels awkward in telling the church group to get out. And Dawn is feeling a connection to Henry.
     Various incidents suggesting the ineptitude of science now happen, including the checkout clerk at the  local grocery store.
       
      Luke Wilson, generally loved on screen for his natural boyish charm and sweet-guy persona, seems like he's forever struggling to do the required justice to this oddball character who is scripted as a man falling into the fold of faith and turning against science. The supporting roles are well-accomplished, with Radha Mitchell's "Dawn" the most magnetic.
       Hey, I'm all for faith but please don't unload the subject on me when I'm just looking for movie entertainment.

Synopses of openings of Sept. 12th.

"Burn After Reading"  R (violence, continuous vulgarity, some sexual content) -- George Clooney, John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton. A dark spy-comedy from Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen (renowned for "No Country for Old Men," "Fargo," "O Brother, Where Art Thou" "Raising Arizona").  Fired from the CIA and transferred to a lower job at State, agent Osbourne Cox (Malkovich) turns to writing his memoirs.  Meantime, federal marshal Harry Pfarrer (Clooney), a 20-year Secret Service man unsatisfied with his own wife, has been rolling with Cox's icy-beautiful wife Katie (Swinton). 
      Katie soon downloads her husband's memoirs and presents them to her divorce lawyer as evidence to be used against him. But the lawyer's secretary, at a gym she attends, accidentally leaves the disc at her locker. It is discovered by wacky and hyper gym trainer Chad who brings it to the attention of gym assistant manager Linda Litzke (McDormand). Both of them are certain that the information on that disc is worth a whole lot of money to somebody.  Linda's concerns at this point in time, to the point of rage, are that her insurance company won't cover the plastic surgery she feels she needs to fix her sagging middle-aged figure, a problem, as she sees it, which leaves her with a forlorn love life.
       Her boss (Richard Jenkins), meantime, is obsessed with her. On the disc discovery matter, she and Chad decide to sell the disc to the highest bidder.  But first Chad calls Cox in the middle of the night to set off his blackmail moves that hopefully will get the funds that Linda needs for the plastic surgery.

"Righteous Kill"  Cast: Al Pacino. Robert De Niro, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Brian Dennehy, John Leguizamo. Director: Jon Avnet. Screenplay: Russell Gewirtz.  R (violence, continuous vulgarity, some sexuality, brief drug use).
       The high octane police action thriller has veteran New York City police detectives tracking a vigilante serial killer. The theme of a vigilante justice-seeker who kills bad people who have escaped the criminal prosecution system raises the question of who's the hero and who's the villain. 
       In this, 30-year NYPD partner detectives David Fisk  and Thomas Cowan, about ready for retirement from their super-tension lives,  are unexpectedly called back into action to investigate the murder of a notorious pimp, this because this guy had probable links to a case they had solved years ago. The victim, actually, was a suspected criminal to whose body was attached  a four line poem which explained why the killing was justified. New crimes start happening with a similar m.o. and it appears that this serial killer looks for criminals that have, in his mind, been unfairly released by the judicial system. His mission: the police can't do it so I can.

"The Family that Preys" PG-13 (mature thematic material, sexual references, brief violence) -- Kathy Bates, Alfre Woodard, Sanaa Lathan, Cole Hauser, Taraji Henson,Tyler Perry. 
       Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard star as the matriarchs of two very different families in the throes of greed and scandal.  On the one hand is  wealthy socialite Charlotte Cartwright (Kathy Bates), on the other a working class woman of high ideals. Theirs  has been an enriched friendship of many years. 
      Until now. Seems that Alice's self-centered newlywed daughter Andrea (Sanaa Lathan) is cheating on her trusting husband by engaging in with a seething hot affair with her boss, who happens to be Charlotte's son William (Hauser). In this, William, of course, is at the same time cheating on his own wife Jillian.  William, quite the greedy schemer, has even bigger fish to fry, however, as he's angling to replace the CEO of his mother's lucrative construction corporation. In the midst of all of this,  a dark paternity secret is about to surface that may just undermine family fortunes and destroy  the lives of everybody.
     Meanwhile, Alice's other daughter Pam (Taraji Henson), a principled woman married to a hard working construction worker (Tyler Perry), attempts to take charge and put the family on a more wholesome and rewarding course. Charlotte and Alice, crushed by the sheer weight of their problems, decide to take time out and make a cross-country road trip to find their heads again. They'd better, because their families will face ruin without them.

"The Women"  PG-13 (sex-references, vulgarity, some drug use) -- Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Jada Pinkett, Candice Bergen, Bette Midler, Cloris Leachman, Carrie Fisher. Adaptation of Clare Boothe Luce's 1936 play, first made famous by director George Cukor's 1939 film which starred Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard and Joan Fontaine.
      The updated setting is in New York City's modern dazzle of fashion and publishing. Mary Haines (Ryan), a clothing designer living a life of paradise, has a beautiful country home, a rich financier husband and an adorable charming 11-year-old daughter. Her part-time career has her creating designs for her father's famous clothing company.
      Mary's best friend is Sylvie Fowler (Bening) who also leads a fabulous life as a happily single editor of a high-end fashion magazine. She has a vast closet of designer clothes and is a revered one-woman supreme court of taste and style commanding New York's cutting edge.
       Intrigue develops when Mary's starts an affair with Crystal Allen (Mendes), a sensuous 'spritzer girl' who works at the Saks Fifth Avenue perfume counter, this releasing a firestorm of wrath. The marital relationship will be tested to the breaking point even as their close circle of friends starts to examine their own friendships and romantic relationships.

For condensed reviews of currently playing films: 

Click "Mini-Reviews -- Recent Openings" at top of this page.