# Cinema

Writer-director John Herzfeld's ensemble crime comedy is somewhat akin to Altman's "Short Cuts" by way of Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction." The paths of an elaborate cast of low-lifes and has-beens intersect over a brief period in the San Fernando Valley. These range from Paul Mazursky's sadsack filmmaker to Danny Aiello's gruff but kind-hearted hitman to the cold, calculating duo of James Spader and Charlize Theron as a couple of blonde sociopaths. Violent, disturbing, funny and well-done.

James Mangold's adaptation of Elmore Leonard's short story, a remake of a 1950's Western by the same name, stars Russell Crowe as a cold, not unfeeling bank robber/murderer in the Old West, and Christian Bale as the rancher who takes up with the posse out to bring him to justice. A gloriously well-made if hard-boiled Western from crime novelist Leonard, with a brilliant supporting performance from Ben Foster as Crowe's demented sidekick.

Adrian Lyne's soft-core "art-porn" thriller is trying SO HARD to be Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris" (1972), a masterpiece in this genre (though I could've done without Jean-Pierre Leaud's channeling of his mentor Francois Truffaut in his portrayal of a young aspiring filmmaker).

So when it comes to this film, a controversy at its time, we feel a bit of retread syndrome kicking in. Mickey Rourke is a mysterious stranger who meets a sexy, divorced young woman (Kim Basinger) in a market one afternoon. Soon, they're making appointments to meet and have sex, stretching the boundaries for what either of them feel is erotic. Understand, this film is NOT erotic, but the events are to the characters within it.

Oddly enough, this film is something of a cold fish, shot in an irritatingly 80s (almost "Flashdance" like) style that implies, rather than shows (most of the time). John, the aptly named "hero" (Rourke), is interestingly only shown in explicit detail having sex with Basinger's sad, lonely art dealer, when the sex is violent, angry, sometimes bordering on rape (though she plays along for a long time!).

When things turn disturbing toward the end (inevitably so, as "Last Tango" did similar things with the relationship between Brando and Maria Schneider), the difference is a lack of tragic poignancy and something of a cliffhanger (though it will work for the 80s Hollywood ending aesthetic).

This is a well-acted and intriguing film that touches on concepts rather than grabbing them full force, and if it doesn't totally live up to the controversy in today's cinematic world, it's still well worth checking out on DVD!

Mikael Hafstrom's adaptation of Stephen King's chilling short story makes for a VERY chilling horror film (of the PG-13 variety). John Cusack is pitch-perfect as a cynical, jaded paranormal investigator/writer whose speciality is supposedly haunted hot-spots. He finds a challenge in the title room at the Dolphin Hotel, a classic hotel in downtown New York where the proprietor (Samuel L. Jackson) tries to warn and warn him away from staying - nobody lasts more than an hour...literally. With terrific effects, when simplicity itself washes over the screen, this film really scares the bejesus out of you!