Huh? Beautifully executed with DiCaprio’s intensity but what does it mean?

Okay, to even begin to decipher INCEPTION we need to dig deep into the knotty well of the subject of writer/director’s Christopher Nolan’s film. Why do we dream?

Ancient civilizations saw dreams as portals for receiving wisdom from the gods. In modern psychology, Sigmund Freud famously theorized that dreams were the “royal road to the unconscious”. From the psychoanalytic perspective, Freud’s theory of dreams suggested that dreams were a representation of unconscious desires, thoughts and motivations.

According to Freud, people are driven by aggressive and sexual instincts that are repressed from conscious awareness. While these thoughts are not consciously expressed, Freud suggested that they find their way into our awareness via dreams.

But Freud has been dismissed. It’s not about sexual rage, aggression and unresolved fetishes, it’s all about New Age poppycock love. You don’t get a Ph.D., M.D. in psychiatry, or grant money in dream research by saying Freud doped out the whole thing long ago. You look to develop another working theory. Let’s admit it: Freud didn’t have google. He had to think up everything himself!

Now theorists say we may dream to de-clutter our brains. Every day we are bombarded with new information, both consciously (through learning) and unconsciously (through online porn sites).

This modern dream theory suggests dreaming is a way to file away key information and discard meaningless data. It helps keep our brains organized and optimizes our learning.

Then there is the Contemporary Theory of Dreaming which holds that the process is not random and that it is instead guided by the emotions of the dreamer.

Dreams are a way of assembling and dumping daily gunk. So I have been asking scientists I know:

Do prisoners held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day dream? Do cloistered nuns and monks living in a vow of silence dream? Do mystic cave-dwellers dream?

What about people in comas? Do they dream?

When I trekked through Tibet, my dreams were very, very different – and unusually and strangely menacing. I now understand why Tibet’s deities are so awesomely terrifying. It’s the effects of the high altitude.

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is not your run-of-the-mill corporate spy. He and his team go into the dreams of businessmen and steal their top-secret ideas. That is where I keep my deep, dark secrets and important corporate raiding schemes – in my “dream vault”.

Cobb’s team is made up of Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Eames (Tom Hardy), Yusuf (Dileep Rao), and new recruit Ariadne (Ellen Page – out of her league here).

Problem is, Cobb’s subconscious is haunted by his ever-present, nagging, dead wife Mal (Marion Cotillard), who has a nasty habit of showing up in his subconscious and wreaking havoc on his intrusive job of going into other people’s dreams.
His workplace is other people’s dreams – who invited her along? She just won’t go into The Light!

Mal has an agenda. She’s mad she is dead and wants Cobb to join her. That is how much she loves him.

Cobb is an international fugitive. He is accused of killing his wife. He didn’t do it, but he’s carrying around a lot of guilt. He constantly moans and bitches: “I want my life back!”

Businessman Mr Saito (Ken Watanabe) hires Cobb and his team to create a dream whereby his future rival, Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy), will believe it is his idea – and a good one, to boot – to sell his father’s business empire when he inherits it.

Instead of stealing ideas locked in the dreamer’s vault, Mr Saito wants Cobb to interject an idea into a dream. In return, he promises to purge Cobb’s fugitive record allowing him to return to his two children and go home.

Why doesn’t Mr Saito just hire a Russian hooker or buy up all the company stock? Hasn’t Saito ever heard of greenmail?

After Yusuf drugs the client, in this case Fischer, the team gets drugged. They all go to sleep and plunge into Fischer’s dream and mess around in there. Ariadne is an architect and has designed the entire dream landscape.

There are a few glitches – it’s her first job. And there are some pitfalls Cobb neglected to tell her about. Mainly, you can get stuck inside someone’s dream and never get back. You can spend years sitting in an empty room without cable.

Cobb fell into this dreaded 5th level rabbit hole once. This is why he is so unhinged and unstable.

Mild-mannered, impeccably dressed, pillow-lipped Fischer has his own unconscious dream landscape and Cobb & Company must battle a rogue team of dream-saboteurs and Fischer’s love of travel.

DiCaprio is sensational. Having followed in Robert De Niro’s footsteps by being mentored by Martin Scorsese, DiCaprio is fully invested in every film project he is in. He does not walk through any movie. Let’s hope there is never a THE ADVENTURES OF ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE or a lucrative franchise like MEET THE PARENTS down the road for DiCaprio.

After 25-30 years in the business, it’s all about the money, not the work.

DiCaprio’s supporting cast of Gordon-Levitt, Hardy, and Rao is strong. Page and Cotillard – not so much.

I thought Marion Cotillard was brilliant in LA VIE EN ROSE, but her Hollywood roles have been terrible (PUBLIC ENEMIES, NINE). Why is she in INCEPTION and why is the song used in the film as the dream ticking clock (it’s INCEPTION’S Rosebud) Edith Piaf’s “Non, “je ne regrette rien”? Does Cotillard deserve this homage at this point in her Hollywood career?

Luca Guadagnino’s I AM LOVE is a showcase for Tilda Swinton. (Swinton is Guadagnino’s muse and he rewards her dedication to him with a role tailored to her physicality and angular strength. Swinton is not a delicate-featured actress – she is a perfect, ball-busting foil for George Clooney in MICHAEL CLAYTON and BURN AFTER READING).

It starts off with a languorous pace that might torture the more action-prone amongst us. But, it stars Swinton (with long hair). That is all I needed to buy a ticket.

The film presents Milan’s Recchi family – wealth so secure that their large staff is an integral, important part of the family.

The family patriarch considers his family the Medici of the textile business. At his last birthday celebration he passes the empire to his son Tancredi (Pippo Delbono) and grandson Edoardo (Flavio Parenti). Tancredi has a perfectly integrated Russian wife, Emma (Swinton). He has created in Emma the prototypical Milan hostess who masterfully runs the household, arranges important parties, and adores her children. Their interior life is nil.

Emma has a very close relationship with Tancredi’s mother, Allegra (Marisa Berenson) and her beautiful children, Edoardo, Elisabette (Alba Rohrwacher) and Gianluca (Mattia Zaccaro).

While Edoardo is co-managing the family’s firm, he is also very, very fond of a peasant chef, Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini). Antonio is humble and short on words. Edoardo and Antonio plan on opening a restaurant a two hour drive from Milan in the magical countryside. Edoardo is marrying well with his parents and grandmother’s approval, but he is very huggy-feely with Antonio. Just saying…

Emma has acquired the cold grace of a socialite with no charity balls or patron-of-the-arts portfolio. She does become orgasmic at a luncheon prepared by Antonio. It is foreplay for the rich and bored.

Guadagnino, who wrote and directed I AM LOVE, has several foot fetish scenes. He also writes a scene allowing Swinton to return to her favored short hair as an essential key element of the drama!

I know from the tabloids that women married to obscenely wealthy men always seem to have affairs with the kid’s baseball coach, the construction worker, or the landscaper, but I never understand why. Are all the men in their social orbit taken by 20 year old starlets with agendas?

Emma and wordless Antonio fall madly and passionately in love. Maybe Emma is getting even with Tancredi for his passionless indifference to her. Maybe she finally realizes she’s bored.

As the film crawls along, the sudden denouement of the staid pace turns electric. It is a stunning turn that is never foreshadowed or expected. It changes the clogged drain drama into an emotional thrill. And I loved the ending. Of course, it is the ending only rich people without concern for the realities of real life would do.

Emma could easily leave her husband. But the invested housekeeper?

Swinton, an actress devoted to representing truth, shows us the face of despair without the slightest regard for her own cinematic presentation. She looks like a real person in pain.

Cage gets paid and kisses Monica Bellucci. I burned off 2 hours in Hell. This movie is not for kids, it’s for toddlers.

Yes, I believe in Hell. A forbidden, initiatory secret of The Eleusinian Mysteries states – in prison jargon – that you can either do “hard time or good time” in Hell. Sitting through THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE earned me “good time” credits toward my eternal damnation sentence.

I’m working towards a weekend pass to Purgatory.

Nicholas Cage has given up acting. THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE confirms it. After decades of being an actor, some movie stars – Marlon Brando, anyone – refuse to act or memorize lines. So they play characters that do not require acting, memorizing, or in the case of animation roles – even turning up.

Since when is voiceover work acting? Who are the geniuses behind this PR ploy we have been forced to accept?

In a muddled, fast-paced opening, the silly back-story is presented in high-kabuki melodrama fashion. It’s about centuries-old wizards and the final death of legendary magician Merlin. Merlin’s arch-enemies are defeated and placed in nesting dolls! His student, Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage), never dies and goes through centuries of fashionable get-ups, finally settling in New York City in a Western-wear couture leather coat. Cage loves that messy hair, crazy hat look.

Cage’s wardrobe does his acting for him. His role in KICK-ASS was not a fluke!

THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE is one big loud noise of poorly executed CGI effects.

Along with Merlin’s mean arch-nemesis Horvath (Alfred Molina) and villainess Morgana (Alice Krige), Balthazar’s lover Veronica (Monica Bellucci) gets trapped in Nesting Dolls Prison.

Before he died, Merlin gave Balthazar a dragon ring. Whoever the ring likes is to be his apprentice and will defeat the evil wizards – if they ever get out of Nesting Dolls Prison.

In a “there are no coincidences” sloppy meet-cute, 8 year old Dave Stutler (Jake Cherry) runs into Balthazar’s shop of junk. The ring fits him! He’s the one.

Ten years go by and now Stutler (Jay Baruchel) is a geek physics student. Of course, Stutler does not want to be a sorcerer’s apprentice. Balthazar charms him as only high-drama Cage can, and soon Stutler is given a crash course in magic. Someone let the evil wizards out of Nesting Dolls Prison!

But Stutler really wants to direct. No, I mean, he really wants Becky (Teresa Palmer) to be his girlfriend. Eventually, Stutler learns to wave his hands like a Cirque du Soliel Pan dancer and perform feats of silly magic.

While Balthazar has gone the Iggy Pop route, Horvath emerges from Nesting Dolls Prison with his dignity and fashion sense intact. For his apprentice, he chooses rock n’ roll magician Drake Stone (Toby Kebbell) who easily steals the movie.

These innocent trompe l’oeil scene-stealing moments do not happen by chance. In my opinion, this is the way directors get even with high-strung movie stars. They give the only memorable line to a co-star.

Imagine if someone else had said, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!” instead of Rhett Butler.

Seeing THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE makes me ashamed of my girl-crush Monica Bellucci. Bellucci goes from IRREVERSIBLE to THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS to this? How mean is her agent?

This movie puts the lie to the theory that acting is a talent. It all depends on the director! I cringed watching Molina, Krige, Bellucci and Baruchel in this movie.

Baruchel must not have read the script. He appears to be in another movie.

Jon Turteltaub, credited with directing this “movie” must be Bruckheimer’s “Ace-Duce”. How else can one explain THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE?

I think Disney has gone to the archives once too many times. In 1940′s FANTASIA, the cartoon musical’s centerpiece was THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE, with Mickey Mouse borrowing his master’s magical hat and causing havoc with brooms and water pails. The SORCERER’S APPRENTICE filmmaker’s pay homage to this classic. It does not hold up.

I say, keep the Disney vault closed!

Not that it matters but it was horrible. Zsa Zsa Gabor wigs, 99. Store makeup, and overall lousy filmmaking. Pattinson’s fattened, sun-blessed face plays second banana to pig-nosed, shirtless Lautner. Disney vampires without teeth or lust – is this really what pre-teens want?

Okay, I wasn’t expecting a teen SCHINDLER’S LIST – and I know this is reviewer seppuku and there will be, if not blood, then mighty fan wrath – but I hoped that the enormous global success of The Twilight Saga novels and previous films, would mean a heightened level of filmmaking. But, clearly, that does not matter. It is all about Team Edward vs. Team Jacob.

With ECLIPSE, the filmmakers have voted: it is Team Jacob all the way. Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), the archetypal teen vampire-boyfriend has not one speck of thrill, menace, or lust. Edward is, indeed, a soulless vampire in desperate puppy love with Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart). He stands around looking helpless in ill-fitting clothes. Bella is conflicted, she cannot decide between a vampire Edward or a werewolf, Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner).

They are both insanely in love with wig-wearing Bella. There are no other women in the world for either Edward or Jacob.

The entire Cullen clan wears Wigs R Us.

Bella, like every person on the planet – or at least in Hollywood – does not want to get old. She wants Edward to turn her into a vampire so they can live together forever. But Jacob is sulking around demanding that Bella admit she really loves him and wants to stay human and live on the reservation with him. Jacob cannot make Bella a werewolf, so it will be a mixed species marriage.

The script by Melissa Rosenberg is terrible. She doesn’t understand her target audience. They want forbidden love. Director David Slade doesn’t have a clue about how to orchestrate subliminal cinematic sex scenes. Where is the animalistic wolf sex drive? Jacob’s wolf pack is a bunch of college jocks.

Why are vampires so family-oriented? What’s up with that?

We open on Edward and Bella having a love picnic in a field of lavender lilies. Their love is chaste since Edward has morals! He wants to marry Bella, and then have sex – I mean – make love.

With vampires and werewolves outnumbering the good simple folks of Forks, Washington, big bad capital Seattle is awash with disappearances and ugly deaths. The Cullens know that Newborns – freshly made vampires – are to blame. They are hungry. They are strong. Someone is making a vampire army to find and kill Bella. Apparently, over hundreds of years, vampires mellow, settle down and do community service. Newborns want blood. They are dangerous.

She’s back and she’s mad! Of course villainess Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard) has red hair. Red hair was thought to be a mark of a beastly sexual desire and moral degeneration.

Montague Summers, in his translation of the medieval masterpiece, ‘The Malleus Maleficarum,’ notes that red hair and green eyes were thought to be the sign of a witch, a werewolf or a vampire during the Middle Ages; those whose hair is red, of a certain peculiar shade, are unmistakably vampires.

So the Cullen Clan and the Wolf Pack must unite to save Bella – she’s so important that they put aside hundreds of years of animosity. Bella has that special je ne sais quoi – something intangible but very, very powerful.

The arch enemies await the Newborns and fully expect the arrival of the howling silly Volturi, led by Jane (Dakota Fanning). It’s a walk-on for Fanning. She doesn’t have the menace stare or voice to be a merciless executioner (thank God her name hasn’t been mentioned for Lisbeth Salander – yet).

I did like the backstories for Jasper (Jackson Rathbone) and Rosalie (Nikki Reed) but what about the rest of the Cullen Clan? All the CGI wolves and the big finale fight scene look fake. The scenery appears to be filmed on a soundstage.

Horrible. I watched it through my fingers. It’s the snuff film of comedy.

Screenwriters Adam Sandler and Fred Wolf and director Dennis Dugan owe me and if you see it, owe you, for stealing 102 minutes from our lives. That’s a big karmic debt Sandler, Wolf and Dugan will have to burn off in hell if this movie does great box office.

Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison produced this appalling, lazy, unfunny “comedy”. With Sandler is his hand-picked cast: Kevin James, David Spade, Chris Rock, and Sandler’s whipping boy, Rob Schneider.

And I do mean whipping-boy*. Sandler slaps Schneider repeatedly. Remember when slap-happy Burt Reynolds used Dom DeLuise as his whipping boy? Schneider’s movie career appears to be solely being in Sandler’s every movie as his “mascot”. And by that, Sandler forces us to accept him. So it is clearly Sandler’s “career tell”. He hates us and this is his way of showing it.

The bond these men have goes way back to their being teammates on a championship middle-school basketball squad. When their beloved coach dies, they meet for his funeral.

Lenny (Sandler) is a fabulously wealthy and powerful Hollywood agent with A-list movie stars as clients. But his vulgar children (one son appears to be black) hate him and bully him. They are like the spoiled children of Louis XIV, the Sun King of France.

Lenny is not married to Angelina Jolie, but the second hottest woman on the planet, Roxanne (Salma Hayek Pinault – who is honoring her billionaire husband François-Henri Pinault by being now known by her married name. He’s the scion of a French family whose fortune exceeds $6 billion and he is the king of a luxury goods empire. Salma married well.)

Roxanne appears to have a daughter who – in my opinion – was the product of a European affair with a male model. And then there is the Asian nanny – Roxanne travels a lot but Lenny doesn’t notice the nanny. Upgrading the servant’s call bell, the kids text the nanny to change channels on their 150-inch Panasonic Plasma flat screen TV.

The “boys” use the death of their coach to hang out during the Fourth of July weekend. The “boys” killed that holiday for me.

Eric (Kevin James) is married to Sally (Maria Bello) who insists on breast-feeding their 4-year old in public. Of course, they have a fat daughter. Eric can do nothing to stop the embarrassing breast-feeding. He thinks it’s cute?

Belittled Kurt (Chris Rock) is a house-husband who is married to ball-busting, pregnant Deanne (Maya Rudolph). We are introduced to Kurt by Deanne calling him an idiot. Kurt is trying to cook dinner but Deanne side-swipes him by bringing home a pizza. Rudolph, who in real life is half Jewish/half Black, has a deep-South black mother, Mama Ronzoni (Ebony Jo-Ann) who blames her farting on Eric’s dog. Mama Ronzoni also hates Kurt for being a no-good free-loader.

Marcus (David Spade) hasn’t left the 80′s, is single and an aging hound-dog.

Then there is Whipping-boy Rob (Schneider) who plays it straight here as a 3-times married man in sexual lust and love with his decades older wife, Gloria (Joyce Van Patten). The cruel jokes amongst the “boys” cumulate in Rob humiliating Gloria. Oh, it was so awful, I moaned aloud in pain through my fingers.

I cannot end this review without revealing the big turning point: Roxanne comes around to loving the weekend when she finds out that she can’t make a rock skip in the lake.

And finally, there is a dreadful cameo by Steve Buscemi, who will be starring in HBO’s 1920′s drama BOARDWALK EMPIRE as gangster kingpin Nucky. His cameo was disgraceful and he has ruined his starring role in BOARDWALK EMPIRE for me. (Steve – if you needed a $1,000 paycheck to pay some bills – I would have paid you to drive me around for a week.)

Now if Sandler had given roles to mean actors Sacha Baron Cohen and Russell Brand we might have had a movie – even without a “script”.

*A whipping boy, in the 1600s and 1700s, was a young boy who was assigned to a young prince and was punished when the prince misbehaved or fell behind in his schooling. Whipping boys were established in the English court during the monarchies of the fifteenth century and sixteenth centuries.

Whipping boys were generally of high birth, and were educated with the prince since birth. Due to the fact that the prince and whipping boy grew up together since birth, they usually formed an emotional bond. The life of a whipping boy was usually one of sorrow and pain. Whipping boys were some of the earliest “fall guys”. The other parallel is the scapegoat, a practice in the early Middle East, and one referred to in the Old Testament, where one goat was sacrificed, but another was sent out to bear the burden of sins.

Awesome fun! Cruise is back and sexier than he’s ever been! And if you once loved him, you will again. Whatever your gender, you will want to be kissed by Tom Cruise.

Warning: This is a love letter to Tom Cruise.

KNIGHT AND DAY is a vehicle that puts movie star charisma on high octane display. This is how it is done. And Tom Cruise makes it look easy. This is Cruise surpassing his iconic Jerry Maguire character – he’s damn sexy (and all the women at the press screening agreed – the guys, not so much).

Directed by James Mangold, Cruise plays Roy Miller, a rogue super spy slipping past airport security by using innocent June Havens (Cameron Diaz) as a mule to carry a super something energy device that he slipped into her carry-on luggage.

Did you see the video on how airport baggage handlers open locked, checked luggage (openingabaggage.wmu)? All you need is a ballpoint pen! There is absolutely no evidence that your bag has been rifled through! It’s so easy that we will all have to buy new luggage or, what I will do, wrap duct tape around my checked bag!

Hey, wait a minute! Maybe the companies that manufacture those thermal shrink wrapping machines at airports are behind this exposé! It’s not cheap!

Ray knows his every move is being watched and filmed so when June goes to the bathroom on the plane, Ray kills the entire crew, the pilots and the killer passengers.

The CGI, stunts, and fight scenes are brilliantly executed. This is a movie to see again – especially since I missed (and you will too) 25% of the dialog.

James Mangold, who directed 3:10 TO YUMA (2007) with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, knows how to direct movie stars. It is because, in my opinion, he loves his actors. As in 3:10 TO YUMA, his male stars exude virility and sex appeal. Who can forget how Mangold instilled homoeroticism into 3:10 TO YUMA with Ben Foster’s Charlie Prince obsession with Ben Wade?

In his scenes with Diaz, Cruise is – hot. That wild personality is on charming mature display and Diaz is as seduced by his craziness as we are. Who knew they could be such a terrific pairing? They must like each other personally, since their co-starring in VANILLA SKY, directed by awful Cameron Crowe, was a mistake.
Cruise is fearless here and is not playing it safe. Diaz abandons the need to look absolutely gorgeous – she’s a real person getting entangled by a high-functioning CIA-trained psychopath.

The supporting cast is perfect, especially Viola Davis and the perfectly humorless Peter Sarsgaard. Paul Dano as Simon Feck is a functionary character here but I still think of his brilliant work as Paul and Eli Sunday in THER WILL BE BLOOD.

And let us not forget the writer Patrick O’Neill who has given Cruise a new “Help me help you” tag line: “With me. Without me. With me. Without me.” And you will like the gag “How did I get into this bikini?”

Watch the sensational car chases through the beautiful capitals of the world and give high praise and acknowledgement to the technical crew.

And, when you see KNIGHT AND DAY, you will want to be kissed by Tom Cruise.

Natali has created a menacing landscape and a fresh approach to the monster-maker genre.

Last week it was announced, with great fanfare, that science took a giant leap towards its main objective – becoming God – by making a new living organism. The team of Daniel Gibson, Hamilton Smith, and Craig Venter have created the first cell controlled by a purely synthetic genome. Dr Venter described the converted cell as “the first self-replicating species we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer.” In 2003 Dr Venter synthesized the genome of virus, Phi-x174, which has a mere 11 genes. (See The Economist cover story, And Man Made Life)

The Human Genome Project was completed in April 2003 and the exact number of genes encoded by the genome is still unknown. The International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium confirmed the existence of 19,599 protein-coding genes in the human genome and identified another 2,188 DNA segments that are predicted to be protein-coding genes.

Scientists Clive Nicoli (Adrien Brody) and Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley) are lovers and genetic researchers on the righteous path of recombining DNA from different animals to create life-saving proteins. There is always a highly-touted life-affirming reason – it’s always about saving diseased people – for tinkering with DNA.

Clive and Elsa succeed producing two masses of living organisms and their funders are satisfied. Elsa wants to go further and continue manipulating life. Nicoli holds the moral high ground.

Before their lab is disbanded, Elsa goes forward, creating a human-animal embryo with an incredibly fast aging process. She has created a new life form. Within weeks they have a toddler running around the lab. The half-human, half-animal female creature has a stinger tail, a weird face, chicken-like legs and cannot speak. But she is smart. The creature, kept hidden in the lab, horrifies Clive who wants to kill it, but Elsa gets a motherly attachment. They call their creature-baby Dren.

Dren is more animal than human and clearly prefers Elsa, though there is little mother-child bonding. Elsa becomes Dren’s care-giver, teacher, and disciplinarian.

Through egg nuclear transfer the genetic material from two sperm cells could create a biological child from two men. The technique, when perfected, would introduce sperm DNA into an enucleated egg, fertilize this “male egg” with another sperm and gestate the resulting embryo in a surrogate mother.

Scientists have already produced monkeys who have three biological parents.

Male-male babies and human-animal hybrids are inevitable.

So, it is clear that the premise of SPLICE is more than unlikely science fiction aided by CGI. It’s the future of mankind.

Soon Dren (Delphine Chaneac) starts puberty and Elsa doesn’t recognize that Clive may be repelled but attracted to the sexy creature. I assume Dren is house-broken, or if you prefer, potty-trained.

When Dren transforms into a winged avenging angel-like creature, her true nature emerges. She’s angry she is cooped up. Instead of seeing Dren as a marvel of their scientific brilliance, Clive and Elsa selfishly take her to an abandoned farmhouse. They give her stuffed animals and Barbie dolls to play with.

In this twist, Elsa is the Dr. Frankenstein and Clive the hapless waif, de-masculinized by his castrating partner.

How does he respond? Of course and why not?

While SPLICE careens towards the standard ending, the entire storyline is intriguing. I understand the sexualizing of Dren – its cinematic foreshadowing – but it would have been more creepy and kinky if Dren was a horrific monster.

Brody’s Clive is a slacker-scientist while Polley’s Elsa is domineering and sexually comes alive by creating a bizarre creature. Polley is a terrific actress but also a very accomplished writer-director (AWAY FROM HER).

Written by Vincenzo Natali (who also directed), Antoinette Terry Bryant and Douglas Taylor, the real star is, of course, Dren. Natali has created a menacing landscape and a fresh approach to the monster-maker genre.

In a coma, on life-support. Not sexy, no story, ugly clothes, the women look horribly aged, but Max Ryan is sex in the desert. Insults a Muslim culture.

Carrie Bradshaw Preston (Sarah Jessica Parker) has been married to Big (Chris Noth – looking terrific!) for two years. He adores her and has given up his player lifestyle. He likes to stay home and watch old movies. He hates going out. Big likes being a castrated married man. Carrie and Big cannot have any children and she seems really upset about it – it is all she talks about. For Carrie, being married to Big is so dull!

Writer, producer, director Michael Patrick King has killed The Golden Goose.

I hated everything about it. Where do I begin?

If you wonder why I have not reviewed the movie’s story or the main characters “arc”, the reason is, to quote Gertrude Stein (in reference to Oakland, California) there is no there there.

Carrie’s new book on marriage is coming out and she is bored, Miranda’s (Cynthia Nixon) high-powered job is stressful since her boss hates her, Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is a Suzanne Somers anti-menopause diet fanatic, and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) hates being a mother to two adopted children, one being a constantly crying toddler. She does have a full-time, big-breasted young Danish nanny who goes bra-less! How they all suffer!

King must be a Suzanne Somers devotee. Her book is trotted out through SEX AND THE CITY 2. Samantha holds it up as if doing commercials for it.

Carrie decides to take two days away from Big when he buys her a flat screen TV for their bedroom for her birthday. What? No jewelry? So why is Carrie upset when Big thinks two days apart every week is a good idea? She initiated it!
With Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte speeding towards decrepitude, they join Samantha on a week-long, all expenses paid vacation to opulent, extravagant Abu Dhabi.

The Muslim country of Abu Dhabi is liberate-minded, but the women, especially Samantha, insist on insulting the culture and mocking the decency of the women behind veils.

I have traveled to many Muslim countries in Africa and the Middle East. I love the culture and the call to prayer. I’ve been to Morocco (where the movie was filmed) and the women have taken the headscarf and made it a masterpiece of fashion.

The headscarf has become an architectural feat. Every woman wears the headscarf as a fashion statement of superiority and individuality. The women cloaked all in black are fascinating. I brought several niqabs and veils in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Didn’t famed costume designer Patricia Field notice anything while in Morocco? Field could have brought the sensational headscarf to America! Instead, Field puts Carrie in a garbage can hat. The clothes may be expensive couture, but they are ugly. It looks like Field rummaged through hospital thrift stores (where people donate their recently deceased grandmother’s clothes).

(I’m not knocking it – I once found a great vintage top and a sweater covered with antique beads.)

The women of SEX AND THE CITY 2 are boorish snobs. It can finally be revealed – Michael Patrick King hates women and this movie proves it.

King also hates the gays. But Liza Minnelli is fabulous singing “Single Ladies”.

In a souk, Carrie runs right into Aiden (John Corbett) who is happily married with three small boys. At the end of a dinner, they kiss! Oh, the horror! Remember the good old days when it would have been a blazing, taboo affair right under Big’s prominent nose?

The women sing karaoke to “I Am Woman”. Is there anything else I can complain about? Oh, yes indeed!

Parker is the undisputed star and also an Executive Producer. So why does she allow the cinematographer, John Thomas, to cruelly film her as an aged anorexic? Did the makeup people intentionally shade her nose so it looks twice the size? Thomas photographed Parker, Nixon, and Cattrall under Third Degree interrogation lighting.

I must mention casting director Bernard Telsey who found, with Cattrall’s approval, Max Ryan. He is the sexiest thing in the movie and gives SEX AND THE CITY 2 a much-needed jolt of – in Carrie-speak – erotic “sparkle”.

You haven’t seen women like this before. Cruel, distant, unfriendly, and selfish. Provocative and daring in its unsentimental approach to real life problems.

There are three independent stories that eventually merge. A 14-year-old has a baby girl and is forced by her mother to give the child up for adoption. Thirty-seven years later Karen (Annette Bening) is caring for her invalid, sick mother Nora (Eileen Ryan). Karen has been her mother’s keeper and her life is bitter and unfulfilled. Never married, Karen is anti-social, awkward and frankly, someone you would instinctively shy away from.

Elizabeth (Naomi Watts) is the daughter Karen gave up. She is a brilliant lawyer, but is hard, cold and cruel. She mocks her young neighbors but will, on a vicious whim, destroy their marriage and the happiness of the birth of their first child. Just because she can.

Then there is Lucy (Kerry Washington) who cannot have children. She bullies her husband Joseph (David Ramsey) into going through the adoption process. She screams at him and calls him names. He doesn’t want to adopt but Lucy is pushing him into it. They are set up by a Catholic agency and meet a young 20-year-old expectant mother who is tough and knows she has power – a lot of people want her baby. She has conditions. She has terms. She keeps turning down couples. Just because she can.

She thinks she is carrying The Christ Child.

All these women are miserable. When Karen sees that her mother has given gifts to the housekeeper’s young daughter, she is rightfully angry. She blames her miserable, empty life on her mother. When a fellow co-worker, Paco (Jimmy Smits), shows an interest in her, she repels him with insults. What does Paco see in her? Her abject love of misery?

Elizabeth has led a selfish life. At 17 years old, got her tubes tied in Mexico. She refuses to get close to anyone, even her kind, old, gentle boss, Paul (Samuel L. Jackson). In bed, she calls him “old man”. She’s on top – in the relationship and in bed.

You feel sorry for Karen because her mother made her give up her baby and made her a servant. It’s her penance for getting pregnant. She is a physical therapist for old people – to boot! Every day Karen writes to her daughter. When, miraculously, she and Paco marry, Karen decides to go looking for her daughter.

That is never a good idea. There is always resentment, anger, and punishment to mete out. Whatever the circumstances, adoptees always feel that they were given away because they were not wanted. That is a hard thing to live with.

Elizabeth is on her own ugly path. Pregnant with Paul’s child, she never tells him and leaves town. She knows he would want the baby and desperately wants her. His large family is terrific. But she is cruel. Lucy gets her baby but hates being a mother! Lucy has left her husband and has forgotten how much she wanted a baby. Any baby.

Writer-director Rodrigo Garcia has written tough women, and it is fearless Bening who understands Karen and does not attempt to soften her in any way. She looks aged and raw. Karen is seething with anger. Thank goodness Watts has never gone the romantic comedy route. She is terrific here.

Garcia has two themes he keeps repeating. While the agency that binds the three stories together is Catholic, no one believes in God. And, time spent together is better than blood.

All the performances are strong, even supporting actors Smits, Jackson and Ramsey. The women are so dangerous, all the men can do is stay out of their way.

The cast, production and costumes are terrific. The story is so muddled and lousy it stains GLADIATOR. Crowe was right to fight – as rumored – with Scott. He looks great.

The New York Post’s Page Six revealed last year that Russell Crowe and director Ridley Scott, who were teaming up for the fifth time on ROBIN HOOD, “were not talking to each other, costing the $175 million production millions of dollars.” On June 9, 2009 Page Six said that “Crowe no longer wanted to work with Scott, whom he blamed for their disastrous fourth collaboration, BODY OF LIES.

Then, in January, Page Six reported how the Oscar-winning Crowe “ordered producers to get a new director and demanded script rewrites that devoted more of the plot to him.” Page Six continued: “The delays caused Sienna Miller to drop out, and Crowe had to go on a crash diet to drop 35 pounds because, as one producer noted, “We can’t have Robin Hood looking more like Friar Tuck.”

Crowe looks fabulous and even takes his shirt off! After watching the film, I have to side with Crowe if indeed he refused to talk to Scott and demanded script changes – the movie is just lousy and a big disappointment.

Why did Crowe agree to do another bedroom scene between Robin Hood and old patriarch Sir Walter Loxley (Max von Sydow) so identical to the GLADIATOR scene between Maximus and old patriarch Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris)?

How many times is Ridley Scott going to re-play this scene? What does this scene mean in his life? What problem is 73 year old Scott still working on with his father?* I first saw it in BLADE RUNNER (1982) – the bedroom scene between Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) and his creator Dr. Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel).

The old guy always dies in the opulent bedroom. Creepy, huh?

Even the score by Marc Streitenfeld sounds eerily like GLADIATOR’s. Of course, the gladiators – Thank God – didn’t sing! There is too much singing by Robin’s men. They keep breaking into song!

In this prequel to the legend, Robin Hood (Crowe) has nothing to do with the confused and forgettable Sheriff of Nottingham (Matthew Macfadyen). His band of Merry Men numbers three (Scott Grimes, Kevin Durand and Alan Doyle). Lady Marion (Cate Blanchett) is a warrior and tough as nails. Remember “robbing from the rich and giving to the poor”? Not here. Robin could care less about the poor, starving peasants of England.

Maybe the whole forest of Merry Men led by the outlaw Robin Hood looked too gay.

Robin Longstride isn’t even a thief! He’s an archer in Richard (Danny Huston) the Lionheart’s army. After a bloody defeat, Robin and his buddies steal the clothes of dead knights, assume their identities, and escape the battlefield.

A dying soldier asks Robin to take his sword back to his father in Nottingham. It so happens that the man’s old father is Sir Walter Loxley (Max von Sydow). The man married Marion and then immediately – even that night – went to war for ten years. Lady Marion is almost a 35 year-old virgin! (Hence the name change from “Maid Marian” to Lady Marion?)

Sir Walter has a nutty plan to pretend that Robin is his long-lost son so his 5,000 acres does not go back to the king on his death, which he thinks is imminent. He’s on “death watch”. And, to boot, Sir Walter knows the real story of Robin’s late father. He was a hero!

There is lots of political intrigue and royal flirting as petulant Prince John (Oscar Isaac) becomes king after Richard the Lionheart’s death and tries to gain control over the war with France. Instead of the infamous villain, the Sheriff of Nottingham, Robin’s rival is very mean Sir Godfrey (Mark Strong).

I would have liked more seduction between Robin and Marion. Crowe and Blanchett have chemistry and should do another movie together not directed by Scott. If someone mocked Crowe into losing his BODY OF LIES weight (supposedly Crowe intentionally gained 63 pounds for the part just like De Niro did for RAGING BULL), it worked. He looks powerful and back in peak sexy form.

I loved the entire production, which looked authentic. Castle life never looked like this! And Lady Marion milks cows and cleans horse droppings! She also knows how to kill with a bow.

The battle scenes are where Scott excels but you know that with Crowe sulking in his trailer and screaming at the producers, Scott had time to indulge his passion for cruel deaths and warcraft.

*According to Wikipedia.org, “Ridley Scott was born in South Shields, in Tyne and Wear, England, Ridley Scott grew up in an Army family, meaning that for most of his early life, his father – an officer in the Royal Engineers – was absent.”