Movies opening this week

Hear me chat about these movies with Anthony Del Valle of the Las Vegas Review-Journal in this week's Josh Bell Hates Everything podcast. And check out my latest video segment, on Monsters vs. Aliens (this one is a bit wacky; we are still trying different stuff to make these distinctive).

The Haunting in Connecticut (Virginia Madsen, Kyle Gallner, Elias Koteas, dir. Peter Cornwell)
A generic movie to go with its generic title, with absolutely nothing new to add to the haunted-house genre. It does skirt some interesting ideas, including positing that terminal illness can put people closer to the spirit world, but none of the characters are developed enough for their specific traits (the family patriarch has a drinking problem that only shows up when it's convenient for the plot) to have any bearing on the story. Also loses points for featuring another "bad things are happening, I think I will take a shower" moment, which should be banned from horror movies forever. Wide release

Monsters vs. Aliens (Voices of Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Will Arnett, Hugh Laurie, dir. Rob Letterman & Conrad Vernon)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
My podcast guest this week brought up an interesting point this week that we often are more forgiving of unambitious movies that hit their mark than we are of ambitious failures, but I think there's room to praise both. To be clear, this is a movie with modest ambitions that mostly succeeds, and while I wouldn't urge adults to rush out to see it, if you end up having to go with kids, I think you'll be entertained and engaged at least most of the time. That's a big step up from a lot of animated kids' movies (including a number also from DreamWorks). Wide release

Movies opening this week

(Apologies for the general sparseness of posts lately. Things have been pretty busy with various new and old projects, but I hope for some extra time soon.)

Hear me chat about these movies with Las Vegas Weekly Associate Editor T.R. Witcher in this week's Josh Bell Hates Everything podcast. There will be a video segment this week, also, on Duplicity, but it isn't quite done yet.

The Class (Francois Bégaudeau, Esmérelda Ouertani, Rachel Regulier, Franck Keïta, dir. Laurent Cantet)
This seemed like a potential frontrunner for the foreign-language Oscar this year, although it lost out to Japanese movie Departures. I would have been happy to see it win; it's generally a clear-eyed, unsentimental take on schooling, not shying away from the difficulties inherent in teaching kids who don't want to learn, or don't respect their teachers/institutions, or are just across such an enormous cultural gulf that there's no way to reach them. It also doesn't vilify anyone specifically - the teacher is well-meaning but far from perfect, and makes mistakes; some of the students are bright and dedicated, but still moody and disrespectful; the administrators can be overly bureauratic, but they genuinely want to help. I could have gone for a little more of life outside the school grounds, although I understand why Cantet stays away from it; the teacher especially was a bit too much of an enigma especially given some of his emotional outbursts. Still, overall this movie was very effective, and it makes me curious to see Cantet's other films. Opened limited December 19; in Las Vegas this week

Duplicity (Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, Paul Giamatti, dir. Tony Gilroy)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
I was really excited for this film: a sexy throwback caper movie starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, from the guy who made Michael Clayton? Sounds like my favorite thing ever. But while Roberts and Owen have great chemistry, they don't get to show it off nearly enough, and the convoluted plot drags along slowly, and turns out to be sort of beside the point anyway. I still think Gilroy has a lot of talent, and look forward to what he does next, and I was surprised at how happy I was to see Roberts back onscreen (even though I apparently didn't even realize she'd been gone), but this turned out to be a serious disappointment. Wide release

I Love You, Man (Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Rashida Jones, dir. John Hamburg)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
This is a minor one in the canon of Apatow-adjacent comedies, certainly, but it's a perfectly entertaining way to spend 90 minutes (unfortunately, it's 110 minutes long). I laughed multiple times, and that's enough to excuse the predictable plotting, lack of insight and occasional overly vulgar bits. Rudd and Segel could save nearly anything, as they prove here with help from a formidable lineup of comedy all-stars. Wide release

Knowing (Nicolas Cage, Chandler Canterbury, Rose Byrne, dir. Alex Proyas)
This is being read by some as a religious allegory of sorts, so I expected far more heavy-handed sermonizing than I ultimately got. Really, as my friend pointed out, it's as much a Close Encounters ripoff as anything else, in the end. But all the mystical, weird sci-fi stuff is completely unearned, and also pretty inconsistent with the first half of the movie, which is more of a conspiracy-minded thriller. Neither part works particularly well, thanks to Cage's typically awful acting (which infects the rest of the cast) and a jumble of incoherent plotting, but at least the first half has a couple of cool action sequences, one with a plane crash and another with a truly impressive train derailment. It's not enough to make the movie worthwhile, though, especially as it heads toward the totally nonsensical, New Age-y ending. Angels or aliens, either way it's a complete mess. Wide release

Movies opening this week

Hear me chat about these movies with Jeffrey K. Howard of Vegas Film Critic and KVBC Channel 3 on this week's Josh Bell Hates Everything podcast. And check out my latest video segment, about The Last House on the Left. (I think last week's was smoother, unfortunately. It's a learning process.)

The Last House on the Left (Tony Goldwyn, Monica Potter, Garret Dillahunt, Sara Paxton, dir. Dennis Iliadis)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
I watched the original Wes Craven movie last week for the first time in a number of years, and it's clearly a very amateurish, rough production with a lot of elements that don't work. I love Craven, but of his most highly regarded films, it's definitely one of the worst. Still, part of the reason it's valuable at all is that roughness, that sense of its being a personal vision that comes across regardless of the limitations. Its political engagement may be a little overstated, but it's definitely there, and that lends the movie some weight and makes it seem less crass. This new version has the full power of Hollywood filmmaking behind it, but it thereby loses the personal touch, the sense of making a statement, and becomes another assembly-line horror movie, albeit with much nastier violence (Jeff, on the podcast, was extremely disgusted with the violence). It's very much like Watchmen in that it stays fairly faithful to the original narrative (although more things are changed here, some that seem pretty important) but completely misses the spirit and thus ends up meaningless. And that's even with Craven as producer (though he's probably just doing it to make some money and further extend his brand). Maybe it will point people toward the original, or Craven's films in general, though, and that wouldn't be a bad thing. Wide release

Miss March (Zach Cregger, Trevor Moore, Craig Robinson, Raquel Alessi, dir. Zach Cregger & Tervor Moore)
I really dislike Cregger and Moore's sketch-comedy show The Whitest Kids U' Know, so I suppose I was predisposed to dislike this movie. But it really is awful, and in a different way from the TV show, which is full of bizarre, absurd gags that stretch out interminably. Here, the gags are mostly conventional and obvious (although there are a handful of weird bits), and aren't quite flogged to death, but they're just as awful and unfunny and tone-deaf (perhaps even more so). Moore is one of the most grating screen presences I've ever experienced, and he basically is the movie, despite Cregger's straight man being the ostensible main character. File this one in the increasingly large pile of horrible movies of 2009, somewhere below Paul Blart but probably still above New in Town. Wide release

Movies opening this week

Hear me chat about these movies (mostly just Watchmen) with Jay Bosworth of Maximum Comics on this week's Josh Bell Hates Everything podcast. Also, as if reviewing movies in print, online, on the radio and in podcasts weren't enough, I'm now doing weekly video segments as well, which are online now and will eventually (hopefully) be part of a TV-show launch by Las Vegas Weekly's parent company in a few months. Check out the first one (about Watchmen) here. Feedback encouraged (it's my second time on camera, ever).

Two Lovers (Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw, dir. James Gray)
I haven't seen Gray's earliest films, but when watching We Own the Night I got the distinct impression that he was more interested in family dynamics than in cop drama, so I suppose it makes sense that he's finally dropped the crime stuff and made a movie that's all about relationships. Like We Own the Night, this movie is definitely plodding and awkward at times, and a touch melodramatic. But it's buoyed by strong performances - Phoenix (in his allegedly final role) does the insecure, needy codependent well, and Paltrow, who's known more these days for being famous than for being an actress, proves that she still has the skill to embody a real person. Both of their characters are essentially selfish and unlikeable, but the story manages to engage nonetheless, building a sort of sick, depressing inevitability to it as it reaches the end. (It's the first movie in the relaunched CineVegas arthouse series, now at the Brenden Theatres at the Palms, which always brings interesting movies to town. I'm glad to see it returning, and now at a theater that people actually go to.) Opened limited February 13; in Las Vegas this week

Watchmen (Patrick Wilson, Malin Akerman, Jackie Earle Haley, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, dir. Zack Snyder)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
I'm definitely already feeling Watchmen overload, and there isn't much to say beyond what I said in my review. I feel like I'm coming at this from an in-between place; I'm not some overexcited fanboy just hyped up by the fact the movie exists, but I'm not unfamiliar with the comics medium like a number of mainstream critics seem to be (Anthony Lane's snide, willfully ignorant dismissal of the movie and pretty much the entirety of comic books is especially unforgivable). I love the original graphic novel, and I would have loved to see a great movie version of it. I give Snyder credit for trying, but he was probably doomed from the start, and the slavishly faithful approach doesn't make for a satisfying movie. At least this might spur more people to read the original. Wide release

Movies opening this week

No podcast this week because, well, just take a look at what I had to work with.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (Kristin Kreuk, Neal McDonough, Chris Klein, dir. Andrzej Bartkowiak)
The only remotely entertaining thing about this movie is Chris Klein's hilariously awful performance as a grizzled badass cop. Not only is he grossly miscast, but he then also overcompensates for his inherent blandness by reading every line with this absurd exaggerated sneer, and contorting his face into some hilarious parody of a tough guy (just check out the photo). Plus, he signs off all his walkie-talkie conversations with his support team by saying "Nash out!" like he's Ryan Seacrest. Except Ryan Seacrest would probably be more convincing in the role. Klein aside, this movie is boring and nonsensical and terribly written and surprisingly stingy with the fight sequences. And other than smoldering-hot three-day Chris Klein stubble, those are pretty much the only reason anyone would see a movie like this. Wide release

Movies opening this week (and last week)

Apologies for the unplanned hiatus in posting; I've been uncommonly busy the past couple of weeks. I think this is the first time I've completely missed posting about new releases since I started this blog over four years ago. Oops. Anyway, you can listen to me chat about last week's openings with my old Xtreme Disorder cohort Brian Black on last week's Josh Bell Hates Everything podcast; this week is so lacking in worthwhile releases that instead I devoted the podcast with Tony Macklin just to talking about the Oscars (it's missing the last 10 minutes, but I hope will be fixed ASAP).

Opening this week:

Fired Up (Nicholas D'Agosto, Eric Christian Olsen, Sarah Roemer, dir. Will Gluck)
Coraline aside, this year so far has been so dismal in terms of movie quality that I can't bother getting all, er, fired up about this forgettable and pointless movie. It doesn't have anything going for it, but it's short and efficient and I believe nearly made me laugh at one point (although I can't remember why). D'Agosto and Olsen give terrible performances, delivering every line, whether it's a joke or a heartfelt speech, with the same bored insincerity, and as has been noted elsewhere, D'Agosto and Olsen are just absurdly old (28 and 31, respectively) to be playing high-schoolers. It is indeed like the filmmakers aren't even trying, which sadly sums up most of 2009 so far. Wide release

From last week:

Confessions of a Shopaholic (Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Krysten Ritter, dir. P.J. Hogan)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
For a short time at the beginning, this movie almost had me on its side. Fisher is really charismatic and fun to watch, and as I've said many times, I like movies that bother to take seriously things that are traditionally considered frivolous. But this movie eventually drowns in its own hypocrisy, with no idea whether to be a smart cautionary tale or a frothy escapist comedy. Plus, it wastes a killer supporting cast. Still, I expect to see big things from Fisher, especially if she can find a vehicle worthy of her talents. Wide release

Friday the 13th (Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Amanda Righetti, dir. Marcus Nispel)
As others have pointed out, the original Friday the 13th isn't even all that good; it's completely overshadowed by the other two movies in the holy trinity of the slasher genre, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween, both of which are scarier, with more interesting characters and better writing, and made by genuine auteurs who went on to define an entire generation of horror filmmaking. This remake/reboot/re-whatever doesn't actually follow the first film's template anyway - it dispenses with the plot about Jason's mother killing camp counselors during the opening credits, and then plods through a generic rehash of Jason himself hacking up a bunch of interchangeable, frequently nude young people. There's no motivation or reason behind any of it, and Nispel gives it the same music-video look he brought to his Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. It's a bunch of cheap jump moments and gratuitous breast flashes, with nothing there to hold your interest. Even the original was better. Wide release

The International (Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Brian F. O'Byrne, dir. Tom Tykwer)
If nothing else, the overhead shots in this movie look wonderful, and the much-praised shootout at the Guggenheim (for which the filmmakers built a whole replica of its rotunda) is every bit as impressive as you've heard. Take that out and put it in, say, a James Bond movie, and you'd really have something. Unfortunately, the story surrounding it is dull and full of cardboard characters, and surprisingly slow-paced for something by the director of Run Lola Run (then again, I remember being completely bored by his Lola follow-up, The Princess and the Warrior). Maybe more suprising is how conventional it is, given Tykwer's penchant for artiness and experimentation (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer may have been a mess, but it was an audacious mess). I would strongly argue for Naomi Watts as the greatest actress currently working in English-language films, but even she can't make her useless character interesting. The movie's ending, with a sort of hollow non-victory, doesn't make an insightful comment on the futility of challenging entrenched institutions; instead it just makes the preceding two hours feel like even more of a waste of time. Wide release

Movies opening this week

Forget what I said last week about a podcast hiatus; listen to me chat about these movies with Jeffrey K. Howard of Vegas Film Critic in this week's Josh Bell Hates Everything podcast, which should be posted later today.

Coraline (Voices of Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman, dir. Henry Selick)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
Maybe I spoke too soon last week about the overall shittiness of this year's movies so far as well; I don't have much hope for the rest of February, but this turned out to be quite a well-made, entertaining film. It's great to see Selick back after so many years off from feature filmmaking; his James and the Giant Peach is a favorite of mine, and of course he never gets the credit he deserves for The Nightmare Before Christmas (although a lot of the press on Coraline seems to be working to correct that). The 3D in this movie was never gimmicky, which means you could probably see it in 2D and not miss much; that's the kind of 3D I prefer. I was surprised how genuinely creepy it got toward the end, yet still remained kid-friendly and positive. If you've already caught all the Oscar nominees and are despairing at the quality of everything else out right now, this is the one to see. Wide release

The Pink Panther 2 (Steve Martin, Jean Reno, Emily Mortimer, Andy Garcia, dir. Harald Zwart)
And then there's this, which is right back to the standards that have been set over the last month. I've never seen any of the original Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies (I know, I know) or the first Steve Martin version, so my opinion may not be worth much here. It could just be in comparison to the mountain of terrible movies I've seen recently, but I found this to be relatively tolerable; not exactly funny or interesting or worthwhile, but acceptable to sit through for 90 minutes with no other choice. The jokes are stupid, the plot is useless, the direction is barely serviceable, and the actors are all on autopilot, but it's such a good cast (Martin, Reno, Mortimer, Garcia, Alfred Molina, John Cleese, Jeremy Irons, Lily Tomlin) that they're bound to make things occasionally mildly entertaining. This is blasphemy to die-hard Sellers fans (like this week's podcast guest) I'm sure, but for me it was enough that it didn't make me want to hang myself like New in Town or Paul Blart did. Wide release

Reign storm: Secret Warriors #1 and Agents of Atlas #1

I tend to stay away from Marvel's big crossover events these days, so aside from how they affect the handful of Marvel universe books I read regularly (She-Hulk, X-Factor, Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain Britain and MI-13), I'm only dimly aware of the details of Civil War, World War Hulk, Secret Invasion and Dark Reign. But this week I happened to pick up first issues of two new series Marvel is launching out of Dark Reign; one (Secret Warriors) thanks to persistent encouragement from the comic-book-store dudes, and the other (Agents of Atlas) because I generally like the writer, and liked at least the first half of the recent miniseries with the same characters.

And in a way these two series seem like textbook examples of how to and how not to draw in new readers who aren't immersed in crossover fever. Reading Secret Warriors #1, I felt like I was jumping into the middle chapter of some endless, tortuous ongoing story, and the experience was very dissatisfying. Yes, technically, scripter Jonathan Hickman (working from a story co-written with Marvel guru Brian Michael Bendis) introduced each character on the new team, and sort of explained what they were trying to accomplish, at least in some scenes. But it all seemed more like a perfunctory re-introduction than a real new start, and although I did learn each character's name, I learned next to nothing about any of their backstory or personality.

Instead I got an insanely convoluted explanation from leader Nick Fury of what the team's real goal with the opening mission was, and a confusing cliffhanger that seems to have left even hardcore fans a little unsure of what it means. Part of the selling point of this issue from the guys at the store was that it turns the Marvel universe on its head, but the final reveal just seems to needlessly complicate years of perfectly good stories, and comes off as another in a long line of cheap "everything you know is wrong!" gimmicks that Marvel and DC have been steadily peddling for the last few years. Furthermore, I think at this point I am just past caring whether the Marvel universe gets turned on its head or not; what I want to read is a mostly self-contained series with its own identity and set of characters that doesn't require an encyclopedic knowledge of several other series being published concurrently. I'm sure all the back-up pages in this issue with detailed lists of HYDRA bases and whatnot are full of really intricate connections to recent issues of various Avengers books or whatever, but to me they were pretty much meaningless. Stefano Caselli's art was lovely, though.

The first issue of the Agents of Atlas ongoing series didn't escape all the pitfalls of Secret Warriors, but it certainly did a better job of explaining its premise and establishing itself apart from other books. I'm sure it helps that I read writer Jeff Parker's Agents of Atlas miniseries and thus am vaguely familiar with the characters, but even so Parker introduced them at least as well as Hickman did the Secret Warriors, plus included enough exposition to encapsulate the plot of the old series and the relevant Secret Invasion/Dark Reign details. I'm not entirely sold on the new angle that ties the Agents to Norman Osborn's new HAMMER agency, but I suppose that's what's necessary to bring in the large number of fans who only care about a book if it's intimately connected to a dozen others.

Carlo Pagulayan's art didn't live up to the great work Leonard Kirk did on the Agents miniseries, but it was perfectly solid superhero stuff, and fit Parker's pulp-adventure tone well (better was the throwback Silver Age-ish art by Benton Jew in the backup story, which fulfills Marvel's requirement to feature Wolverine in 90 percent of their books). Even though my excitement for the Agents miniseries petered out toward the end, this issue was fun and likeable enough that I'll be giving the next one a shot, which is more than I can say for Secret Warriors.

Movies opening this week

Hear me chat about these movies with the gamely masochistic Ken Miller of Las Vegas Weekly in this week's Josh Bell Hates Everything podcast (probably the last one for a few weeks, since there isn't much worth talking about - or even screening in Vegas - for a little while).

New in Town (Renée Zellweger, Harry Connick Jr., Siobhan Fallon Hogan, dir. Jonas Elmer)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
I don't know if I'm just getting crankier, or if I've gotten stuck seeing more bad movies than usual, or if this month really is as shitty as it seems, but I can't remember a time when so many awful movies came out in quick succession to the almost complete absence of anything good. Even dumping-ground movies like this are often just mediocre, and sometimes even surprisingly good. But with this, Bride Wars and Paul Blart: Mall Cop, I've definitely seen some of the worst movies in recent memory, and quite possibly the worst movies I'll see all year (one can only hope). This has every awful rom-com cliché you can imagine, plus insults to both city folk and country folk, plus a main character who is alternately portrayed as a moron and a savvy businesswoman - but always as out of place in a man's world. I'm sure there are similar movies that are nearly as bad, but this one just struck all the wrong chords with me. It's sad enough that Paul Blart has been such a huge hit; I can only hope that people will have enough good sense to stay away from this movie this weekend. Wide release

The Uninvited (Emily Browning, Elizabeth Banks, Arielle Kebbel, David Strathairn, dir. Thomas and Charles Guard)
I think any amount of goodwill toward this movie has to come from diminished expectations; we expect the bottom of the barrel from our January horror movies, and this movie is slightly more competently assembled than its title doppelganger The Unborn. But it's also extremely dull and tedious, especially if you can figure out the rather obvious plot twist early on, and not particularly scary. The acting on the whole is slightly above average for this sort of thing (Banks has fun with her evil-stepmother part, even if the twist renders her performance a little problematic), and the plot mostly adds up even after it's completely turned on its head. But the characters remain uninteresting and one-dimensional, and unlike in the recent My Bloody Valentine remake, there isn't any fun camp along the way to the stupid reveal. If the plot mechanics don't grab you, there's not much else to go on. Wide release

Movies opening this week

No podcast this week, due to scheduling issues (and the fact that there's not really anything worth talking about).

Inkheart (Brendan Fraser, Eliza Hope Bennett, Paul Bettany, dir. Iain Softley)
There's nothing particularly bad about this movie, but there isn't anything to get excited about, either. It's mediocre through and through, a half-hearted fantasy adventure with a sort of interesting premise (people who can bring books literally to life by reading aloud) that's never fully explored. Fraser coasts through another kid-friendly square-jawed-hero role, and the supporting players do solid but unremarkable work (this is a pretty deep cast, though - Helen Mirren, Jim Broadbent, Andy Serkis). You could take kids to it and be mildly entertained, but otherwise it's entirely missable. Wide release

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (Michael Sheen, Rhona Mitra, Bill Nighy, dir. Patrick Tatopoulos)
As amusing as it is to see Michael "Frost" Sheen with grungy long hair and a bare chest wailing and gnashing his teeth and turning into a werewolf, this movie is still an incoherent waste of time. I saw and reviewed the first Underworld movie when it was released in 2003, but remember very little about it, and I never saw the second one. Obviously die-hard fans of the series will get more out of this movie than I did, but doing a little Wikipedia research only led me to believe that Rise is even more pointless, filling in a tiny bit of back story that could have been relegated to a handful of flashbacks in the next sequel. Like the Star Wars prequels, it all leads up to a predetermined conclusion, and has essentially no suspense or audience investment. It also looks ugly and cheap, like it was shot on about three sets, and of course has terrible dialogue and hammy overacting, plus one of the most ludicrous sex scenes I've ever seen. At least it's short. Wide release

The Wire, season four

As I'm already more than halfway through the disappointing fifth and final season of The Wire, the strength and complexity of the excellent fourth season (as well as many of its satisfying plot developments) are starting to fade, but even the subsequent missteps can't taint the quality of what is easily the show's best set of episodes. I started watching The Wire because of the critical mass of praise, both from professionals and from friends, and it's mostly lived up to expectations. After being disappointed with certain elements of the third season (in particular, the storyline about drug-dealing free zone Hamsterdam), I came into the fourth season a little skeptical, but it quickly won me over with one of the most detailed and heartbreaking portrayals of a corrupt institution that the show has ever produced.

City hall, the drug trade, the ports and even to some extent the police force have gotten off lightly compared to the skewering handed to the school system during this season, but as mind-numbing as it could be it was always crushingly real, the potential of a handful of bright kids petering out right before your eyes as teachers, administrators and politicians stood by, helpless to stop it. Yet in its own way this was the show's most optimistic season: Pryzbylewski, after ending his law-enforcement career in disgrace last year, redeemed himself as a teacher, starting out in over his head but soon reaching his students in a meaningful way. Bunny Colvin, the well-meaning architect of Hamsterdam, teamed up with an equally well-meaning but non-street-savvy academic to start a successful program for kids seemingly lost to a life of crime. It got shut down by the end of the season, but in the meantime it effected real change in the lives of a handful of kids.

Tommy Carcetti, a fearsome combination of political know-how and genuine empathy, got elected mayor, and by the end of the season I would have been happy to vote the guy president. McNulty, glimpsed only briefly in most episodes and not at all in some, found peace as a beat officer not concerned with the knotty politics of high-level police work. Daniels finally got some recognition for his stellar command skills with a number of swift promotions. Boxing trainer Cutty, out of place in season three, became an important beacon of hope for the crime-infested neighborhood. Sure, not everything ended well for everyone (especially drug addict Bubbles, and three of the four school-age characters introduced at the beginning of the season), but there was a sense that something was going right somewhere, that not everything was unrelentingly bleak. Yet even with such guarded optimism, nothing during the season felt as unrealistic to me as Hamsterdam.

I know from watching part of season five that many of these positive developments are quickly undone, but that doesn't change the way that this season was probably more satisfying as a complete story than any other. In painting a detailed portrait of a modern American city, creators David Simon and Ed Burns tend toward the pessimistic, but here they never forgot to show the small rays of hope. Even a character like Namond, with a drug-hustling father in jail and a mother who is perhaps the worst parent of all time (constantly berating him to quit school, start dealing drugs and become more violent), can escape the streets thanks to a combination of willpower, education, luck and a helping hand (from Bunny Colvin). His success story, of course, is contrasted with that of his friend Randy, another smart kid who, thanks to a combination of bad luck, mistakes and an indifferent system, ends up irrevocably lost to the streets (as we see even clearer in season five). It's that level of nuance and empathy, combined with cynical realism, that makes this season the show's clear zenith.

Previous Wire coverage:

• Season three
• Season two
• Season one

Movies opening this week

Hear me chat about these movies with comedian and filmmaker Jason Harris on this week's Josh Bell Hates Everything podcast.

Last Chance Harvey (Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Eileen Atkins, dir. Joel Hopkins)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
It's a testament to how desperate the Hollywood Foreign Press is for "respectable" comedies to honor that this mediocre-at-best rom-com got two Golden Globe nominations. I suppose it's a safe bet nominating people like Hoffman and Thompson, but this is the very definition of forgettable. I'm already struggling to come up with something useful to say about it. One thing that does bug me is the way this is touted as a great showcase for older actors to play romantic roles, sort of ignoring the fact that Hoffman is still more than 20 years older than Thompson. A more refreshing and appropriate love interest for him might have been, say, Judi Dench or Helen Mirren, but I don't think producers are quite willing to take that risk yet. As it stands, Hoffman comes off more like a father figure than a love interest for Thompson, and it adds a layer of creepiness to the otherwise extremely dull story. Opened limited December 25; wide release this week

My Bloody Valentine (Jensen Ackles, Jaime King, Kerr Smith, dir. Patrick Lussier)
It's certainly the season of the shitty horror movie, as we learned last week with The Unborn, but this one at least is amusingly trashy and knows its limitations. There aren't any pretentious Holocaust references or appeals to Jewish mythology here; just a dude with a pickax and a gas mask hacking people to bits. Plus, it's in 3D (well, in most theaters; there's no point in seeing the non-3D version), and Lussier knows that, despite all the hype from people like James Cameron and Jeffrey Katzenberg, 3D is an inherently cheesy gimmick. So we get all sorts of things (pickax, gun, naked breasts, etc.) pointing out at the audience, very graphic three-dimensional gore, and things flying directly at the screen. It's all reasonably good fun if you like horror schlock, although of course also the plot is ridiculous, the acting (especially from Ackles) is terrible, and the twist ending is moronic. Still, if I didn't get such a headache from those damn 3D glasses, I would have had a pretty good time. Wide release

Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Kevin James, Jayma Mays, Keir O'Donnell, dir. Steve Carr)
I expected last week's Bride Wars to be the nadir of this typically dead movie period, but Mall Cop was actually a much more painful experience, despite not being quite as dire a sign for the state of American society. Completely unfunny, with an annoying, unlikable lead character, terrible acting all around, a plot stolen ineptly from Die Hard, lame fat jokes, lame slapstick, an absurdly unrealistic love interest, pointlessly extreme sports-oriented villains, a horrible soundtrack, stilted dialogue ... I could go on. Suffice to say, already easily a top contender for worst movie of the year. Wide release

Revolutionary Road (Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Kathy Bates, dir. Sam Mendes)
I come at these big Oscar-bait pictures with extreme skepticism, and this one never quite won me over. I think Winslet and DiCaprio both do impressive work, and I think that the examination of the deep underbelly of suburbia is still interesting if done right. But Mendes is a very careful and methodical director, and the movie comes off like a furniture catalog when it ought to be more emotionally affecting. Michael Shannon's overpraised performance is a complete cliche (the crazy guy who says what everyone is secretly thinking), and even Winslet and DiCaprio never seem to quite connect with each other. The novel is highly acclaimed and no doubt better at illuminating the inner lives of these characters, who seem just out of reach throughout the movie. Opened limited December 26; in Las Vegas this week

The Wrestler (Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, dir. Darren Aronofsky)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
This one, on the other hand, was much more successful at winning me over, although I still didn't exactly love it. Rourke gives a great performance, Aronofsky effectively overhauls his style, and Tomei brings depth to a stock stripper-with-a-heart-of-gold part. But the script does hit all the expected beats, and Wood's role especially is very paint-by-numbers. I'm a sucker for any movie that takes a profession or hobby that usually gets little respect and approaches it seriously, so I really like the movie's take on pro wrestling. And the stripped-down style and realistic performances do make the cliches go down easy. Reservations aside, this is a good movie, and an entirely worthwhile comeback for Rourke. Opened limited December 17; in Las Vegas this week

South Park: Imaginationland

I gave up on South Park almost three years ago, and I haven't really given the show much thought since then. There have been occasional moments when a certain episode enters the mainstream conversation, and my curiosity is mildly piqued; I read online about the World of Warcraft episode, and actually bothered checking out clips of the Steven-Spielberg-and-George-Lucas-sodomize-Indiana-Jones bit. The Indy segments only confirmed all my worst criticisms of the show, that it just makes labored topical jokes over and over again, beating viewers over the head with creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone's opinions on various current events.

One other South Park moment that seemed to get a good deal of attention was the "Imaginationland" trilogy of episodes, which at one time was conceived by Parker and Stone as a potential new feature film. It's been released on DVD sort of masquerading as a new movie (although all three episodes together only amount to about 66 minutes), and when I got the DVD in the mail I figured it would be a good opportunity to give the show another shot. Then, of course, the DVD sat next to my TV for a good nine months, but I finally did get around to watching it, and my response is a pretty resounding shrug. It's certainly not as labored or heavy-handed as many of the show's other latter-day episodes, but it's also lacking in the creative spark that made the early years (or the first feature film) so exciting.

Partly the trilogy gets by on the amusing juxtaposition of beloved childhood characters getting violently dismembered, but even that wears off quickly. Parker and Stone have terrorists show up as catalysts for the main storyline (they attack the world of human imagination), but that angle is left largely unexplored. For such a plot-driven set of episodes, it's full of narrative holes. There is a bit of mild social commentary at the end, but mostly "Imaginationland" is just about jokes, and in that area it inspires only a few chuckles. I feel like the subplot about Cartman trying to get Kyle to suck his balls gets trotted out in approximately every third episode.

Also on the DVD were two bonus episodes with content related to "Imaginationland." The first, "Woodland Critter Christmas," is one I saw back when I was watching the show regularly, and I remember it being a weird, twisted detour, one interested primarily in sick humor with very little topical relevance. The other, "Manbearpig," is a perfect example of the show's worst tendencies; it repeats its attacks on Al Gore until they lose all effectiveness, then fills time with some warmed-over bits of vulgar humor. "Imaginationland" as a whole is a sign that there's still some cleverness and creativity left in this old show, but it's not enough to get me back on board every week.

Movies opening this week

Hear me discuss these movies with Las Vegas Weekly Managing Editor Ken Miller in this week's Josh Bell Hates Everything podcast.

Bride Wars (Kate Hudson, Anne Hathaway, Candice Bergen, dir. Gary Winick)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
Make no mistake: This is a terrible movie. But I think I was hoping for something a little more go-for-broke terrible, rather than the simply mundane terrible that's the actual result. It's so easy to hate this movie that it's almost not worth the effort, although the combination of Kate Hudson's embarrassing career, the rampant condescending sexism and Hollywood's absurd obsession with ostentatious weddings is quite the toxic blend. Honestly, I had been sort of looking forward to this movie since seeing the trailer, because something this repellently awful is really quite fun to tear apart. But it was glossy and light enough not to be as despicable as something like Seven Pounds, which has higher pretensions to saying something important. I'm appalled by the movie's message, but it's not delivered with enough conviction to get me really riled. However, I'm happy to let MaryAnn Johanson do the talking. Wide release

Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Ahney Her, dir. Clint Eastwood)
I like Clint Eastwood, I really do, but I think he is getting a pass here, big time, thanks to the memories this movie evokes of his past tough-guy efforts. It's a clumsily written, predictable story (aside from the mildly interesting ending), with awful dialogue and some questionable acting from the supporting players. Eastwood's playing with his own image, but I don't think it comes off as clever or really has anything to say about lone-man-against-the-world movies. There is a small school of thought arguing that rather than an actual Clint Eastwood macho-tough-guy movie, it's a satire of same. I don't buy this argument, but it can be interesting to contemplate. (This AV Club podcast teases it out intelligently.) Really, this is a trite movie about a crotchety old guy whose heart warms thanks to his spunky teenage neighbors, full of silly old-timey racial epithets and some pretty broad stereotypes. If it weren't for Eastwood and the added poignancy of this possibly being his last performance, no one would be paying attention. Opened limited December 12; wide release this week

The Unborn (Odette Yustman, Meagan Good, Cam Gigandet, Gary Oldman, dir. David S. Goyer)
Here we have the perfect illustration of the January dumping ground: the shitty chick flick for women, and the shitty horror movie for guys. Marginally better than Bride Wars, this is nevertheless a waste of time, a perfectly disposable horror movie devoid of any scares that don't come from the ever-present jump moment, full of plot holes and indifferent performances, and with many supposedly creepy effects moments (the dog with the upside-down head) that just look silly. Goyer gets a lot of credit for writing or co-writing a handful of decent superhero movies (the first two Blades, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight), but he was also at least partly responsible for Jumper and Kickboxer 2. This is firmly in that latter camp, and doesn't bode well for Goyer's supposed next directorial outing, the Magneto spinoff movie. Wide release

TV premiering tonight: 13 - Fear Is Real

It's a shame that Sam Raimi has stooped so low as to executive-produce this crap; sure, he's put his name on plenty of schlock before, but at least low-budget horror movies and cheesy fantasy series have a certain entertainment value. Shitty reality shows are pretty much the lowest form of pop-culture product, and this is a particularly egregious example. It throws the superficial trappings of a horror movie over your standard elimination-challenges-and-backstabbing format, ripping off pretty much wholesale a number of ideas from the Saw movies without attribution. Like on Sci Fi's Estate of Panic, many of the "scary" challenges amount to something close to torture (in the first episode, contestants are placed in coffins and buried underground), although the contestants are all such whiny morons that it's tough to feel sorry for them.

The saddest thing is that they either believe they are in some sort of actual danger, or they're all acting that way to further the lame horror-movie conceit. One especially despicable contestant wails about "monsters" and is afraid of every little sound, even as a camera crew is following her every move. Another prays to Jesus during the buried-alive challenge; certainly He's intimately concerned with the fates of reality-show contestants. All of this fabricated peril simply serves to highlight how unreal reality shows generally are, making the title of this one especially ironic. Sam Raimi, do you really need money this badly? The CW, Wednesdays, 8 p.m.

Movies opening this week

The Reader (Kate Winslet, David Kross, Ralph Fiennes, dir. Stephen Daldry)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
Oscar-bait fatigue plus Nazi-movie fatigue equals nothing more to say about this movie. Although I will note that it's been a particularly good year for hot Kate Winslet sex scenes that movies later make you feel bad about enjoying (more Winslet nudity in this one than in Revolutionary Road, at least). Opened limited December 10; in Las Vegas this week

Fall TV update: dramas

Just in time for the midseason stuff to get rolling.

Brothers & Sisters (ABC)
I've been slowly losing interest in this show, which had a real jump-the-shark moment last season when it was revealed that Rebecca wasn't actually the long-lost Walker half-sibling, merely so that she could then get it on with her heretofore assumed half-brother Justin (as absurd as this sounds if you've never watched the show, it was nearly as absurd to longtime viewers). This show has always straddled a line between earnest family drama and lifestyle-porn soap opera, and it seems to be trending further and further in the soap direction. This season has brought a search for a new long-lost half-sibling, a paternity crisis and a little baby in peril. Now rumor has it that Balthazar Getty has been dumped from the show, and while his character is indeed useless, I don't know that I can sit through some drawn-out grieving process if they kill him off. A bunch of returning shows (Lost, Friday Night Lights, Damages, The Closer) that I want to watch are about to come back, and there are a few new ones I want to check out as well, so this may just end up being sacrificed to clear up the schedule a bit.

Chuck (NBC)
Although a lot of people seem to find the current second season of this show a great improvement, I think it's about as amusing and insubstantial as the first, which is to say that I thoroughly enjoy it but rarely get excited about it. That's about right for a show like this - it's pure fun entertainment, with a handful of nice emotional moments. The plots often don't make sense, the character development is minimal, and the dialogue can be hokey, but there is enough in the way of rousing action, funny one-liners, appealing eye-candy and romantic entanglements to hold my attention.

Fringe (Fox)
This is another show that is never quite at the top of my to-watch list, but still has enough going for it that I come back every week. It has yet to transcend its X-Files-meets-Alias origins; virtually every cold open could double as an X-Files teaser, and the vast conspiracy is so vague and all-consuming that I worry it will turn out to be as convoluted and nonsensical as the ones on those other two shows became. Still, a lot of the mysteries are pretty creepy, there are some interesting background nuggets being doled out about the various characters, and John Noble is always entertaining as the addled-yet-mysterious Walter Bishop. I remain hopeful that, with patience, this will turn into a great show rather than just a decent pastiche.

Gossip Girl (The CW)
I think I've been beating the drum for this show pretty incessantly, but every week reminds me of just how good it is. Along with 30 Rock and Pushing Daisies, it's been the thing I most look forward to watching each week, and it's easily surpassed Josh Schwartz's last rich-teens drama, The O.C. There's been no similar second-season decline in quality; if anything, the show's only gotten better, with richer character development, juicier plot twists and stronger dialogue. The interplay between Chuck and Blair is masterful, and Leighton Meester constantly impresses me with her portrayal of Blair. I know for some people the notion of a teen soap is too much to get past, but if you're open to it, this really is one of the best shows on TV.

Pushing Daisies (ABC)
This show is about to depart the airwaves (the final three episodes are currently TBA on ABC's schedule, although they've been produced, so even if the network axes them altogether they'll at least end up on DVD), and I'm really sad to see it go. It took me a while to warm up to Bryan Fuller's quirky, cutesy vision, but this season has been consistently excellent, with nearly as much clever quippery as 30 Rock, plus an intriguing ongoing mystery and engaging standalone stories. In short, it's unique, great TV, which means I probably shouldn't be surprised it got canceled. There's really no point in trying to jump on board now, but this is absolutely something to look for on DVD (and it will end up with only 22 episodes total, making it easy to plow through the whole series quickly).

Movies opening this week

Bedtime Stories (Adam Sandler, Keri Russell, Guy Pearce, dir. Adam Shankman)
I've never been a Sandler fan, but even people who love his style of humor will probably be bored with this neutered kiddie flick. Sandler sleepwalks through the whole thing like he's just waiting to cash a check, the effects work is lazily uncreative, and there is a disturbing CGI guinea pig with giant eyes who has no reason to exist. At least You Don't Mess With the Zohan had a point, of sorts. Wide release

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Taraji P. Henson, dir. David Fincher)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
This one seems to have lost its Oscar-frontrunner status to Slumdog Millionaire, although I think it will probably still end up getting plenty of attention come nomination time. It's also been subject to a bit of a backlash, which I think is interesting in the context of Fincher's career. Last year, Zodiac was neglected by the studios and shunned by audiences, and it was taken up by many critics (myself included) as a rallying point. This year, Fincher's new movie is being derided as a cliched Hollywood product by some (although most reviews have been positive), and thoroughly embraced by the studio system. And while it may be warmer and more accessible, I still think Benjamin Button is very much in line thematically and stylistically with Fincher's other work. Its epic love story is surrounded by the constant spectre of mortality, and Fincher's expert craftsmanship is always on display. I found Zodiac more complex, more challenging and ultimately more rewarding, but I still think this is another triumph for Fincher. Wide release

Doubt (Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, dir. John Patrick Shanley)
I'm sure this works much better on stage, where its boldface allegory can be viewed as symbolism rather than realism. Set in an actual place and an actual time period, this schematic story of a Catholic priest who may or may not have molested a young boy and the nun determined to bring him down comes off as clumsy and artificial. The actors give it their all, and occasionally manage to make the characters seem close to human, but most of the time they speak and act as if they ought to be walking around with big signs labeled "Doubt," "Faith" and "Certainty." Opened limited December 12; in Las Vegas this week

Frost/Nixon (Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Sam Rockwell, dir. Ron Howard)
This movie is about 90 minutes of setup for one great 15-minute showdown, when Frost actually engages Nixon seriously about the Watergate crimes, and Nixon responds with anger and regret. In those moments, Langella and Sheen live up to the promise of a monumental face-off, but the rest of the movie is just another bland Ron Howard's Great Moments in American History project, as competent and dull as a book report. Opened limited December 5; in Las Vegas this week

I've Loved You So Long (Kristin Scott Thomas, Elsa Zylberstein, Serge Hazanavicius, dir. Philippe Claudel)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
Thomas gets as much mileage as she can out of her performance here, but otherwise this is the slightly arty French version of a Lifetime "stalwart mother endures injustice" movie. She'll probably get an Oscar nomination and then not win, and then everyone will deservedly cease caring about this thoroughly mediocre movie. Opened limited October 24; in Las Vegas this week

The Spirit (Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Eva Mendes, Scarlett Johansson, dir. Frank Miller)
I've never really followed Miller's comics career, although I have of course read The Dark Knight Returns, and I read 300 before seeing the movie. His reputation as a comics creator has taken quite the beating in recent years, and this movie seems to be an extension of that descent into self-parody, with its emphasis on absurd hard-boiled dialogue, bizarre non sequiturs and extreme objectification of women. I liked the Sin City movie, but it featured a style very particular to its subject matter, and slapping that same aesthetic on something else doesn't really work. Miller seems determined to carve out a career as a filmmaker (he's already attached to a proposed Buck Rogers movie), but this is not exactly a promising start. Wide release

Valkyrie (Tom Cruise, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, dir. Bryan Singer)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
The hype on this movie has been so negative for so long that people may be dismissing it before giving it much consideration, but it's actually a pretty good thriller with a surprising amount of suspense. Cruise is miscast, sure, but not egregiously, and Singer's choice to let the actors all use their natural voices is smart. They're not speaking German anyway, so why bother with distracting accents? That always bugs me in movies like this, so I was happy to see at least one director take the pragmatic route. This is well-crafted entertainment; it's not particularly profound despite its subject matter, but it's definitely worth seeing. Wide release

The alternate top 10

I'll have the requisite top 10 list of this year's movies in Las Vegas Weekly this coming week, and will probably do a post here elaborating a bit on it. But in the meantime I thought I'd steal an idea from an AV Club commenter and make an alternate list, of the top 10 movies from other years that I saw for the first time this year.

1. Quiet City (Aaron Katz, 2007) Okay, so this is only from last year, but I didn't get around to it in time to put it on my 2007 top 10, where it certainly would have found a place. I haven't seen that many mumblecore movies (and the Duplass brothers' 2008 effort, Baghead, disappointed me), but this is easily my favorite of the movement, a lovely, touching story of emotional connection in New York City. More thoughts in my original post.

2. The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940) As I noted in my post about this movie, I sometimes have a tough time with the ingrained sexism of old screwball comedies, even more so than melodramas or musicals or various other genres. I think it's easier to view outdated moral codes as interesting curiosities when you're not meant to be laughing along with them. It didn't bother me much in this film, or at least it was greatly outweighed by the wonderful writing and acting, which make things go down much easier.

3. Persepolis (Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi, 2007) Yes, another one from last year, but damn there were so many good movies last year, and I just didn't get to all of them in time. This is such a lovely coming-of-age story, a beautifully animated film that preserves the look of the graphic novel it's based on while also carving out its own identity. I love seeing a story about conflicts in the Middle East filtered through one person's specific experiences, which somehow makes it all seem more real than a meticulously researched journalistic documentary.

4. Sullivan's Travels (Preston Sturges, 1941) This is the rare movie that almost constantly surprised me from start to finish; even though it was fairly obvious where it was all going to end up, the road getting there was not at all what I expected. It's sort of amazing that Sturges was able to get this kind of multi-level satire into a Hollywood movie in the 1940s. He brilliantly has it both ways by making a movie about how social realism is worthless, and filmmakers should just make comedies instead, and then filling the movie with plenty of unflinching social realism amidst the comedy. Veronica Lake is mesmerizing as the love interest/sidekick, and the writing is constantly razor-sharp. It's no surprise that the Coen brothers used an allusion to this movie as the title to O Brother, Where Art Thou?; it's exactly the kind of audacious genre mash-up that they're known for making.

5. Original Sin (Michael Cristofer, 2001) "The Wild Things of 19th-century Cuba," I called this movie when I posted about it, and you should know that Wild Things is one of my very favorite movies. Angelina Jolie tried for sexy and dangerous again this year in Wanted (before going back to dour and serious for Changeling), but she lacked the verve and abandon she exhibits in this movie, a luxuriously lurid and campy tale of sex and betrayal. It's gloriously over-the-top and start-to-finish entertaining, and seriously deserves to build a cult following.

6. I Walked With a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943) I watched this just after writing up my post on the two versions of Cat People for the Val Lewton blogathon; this is another Lewton movie directed by Jacques Tourneur, who made Cat People, and like Cat People, it's a subtle, atmospheric take on a familiar horror idea. What we think of as zombies are not exactly what show up in this movie; this is more about voodoo priests taking control of people, as in the underrated Wes Craven movie The Serpent and the Rainbow. Tourneur uses zombification as a way to explore colonialism and white guilt, and manages a number of understated and unsettling moments along the way.

7. Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minelli, 1944) I'm working on gaining a better appreciation of old musicals, and I think Judy Garland may just singlehandedly bring me around. I watched the entirely superfluous Garland musical The Harvey Girls a year or two ago, and had plenty of fun with it even though it was consistently mediocre, thanks to Garland's radiant charisma and lovely singing (also Angela Lansbury as an evil showgirl). And I liked the spectacle of Minnelli's Gigi, even if I didn't really connect with it. But this one works on all levels, as a colorful spectacle and as a showcase for Garland's singing and as a melancholy story of growing up and apart. It's a movie that envelops you and sometimes even overwhelms you, and I imagine it's a magical experience on a big screen.

8. Bad Day at Black Rock (John Sturges, 1955) A sort of anti-Western, with Spencer Tracy as the lone-gunman hero, only he's past middle age and crippled and more interested in legal documents than gunfights. He walks into a typically corrupt frontier town and for most of the movie just has a lot of tense conversations with people. Sturges builds suspense over these exchanges and the mystery of what horrible secret the townspeople are hiding, and even though the reveal hinges on a bit of clumsy social commentary, the final showdown manages to be both exciting and a bit hollow, leaving you with as much bitterness as hope.

9. Pride & Prejudice (Joe Wright, 2005) I had this sitting around for months and finally got up the motivation to watch it after seeing Wright's Atonement, a marvelously directed, visually stunning movie whose parts don't necessarily add up to a satisfying whole. Pride is less visually showy than Atonement, but it still looks wonderful, and it's not as gauzy and fluttery as some Jane Austen adaptations. A former college classmate of mine who is an Austen scholar absolutely hates this movie, I think partially for the way it adds excessive "grit" to the novel's story, but it's been so long since I read the book that I doubt I noticed the differences or the similarities. I can only compare it to other movies that come from similar source material, and in that sense I appreciated the bit of grit, the way that the story is about country life during that time period and not just about romance. Romance is key, too, but it's the intersection of love and the practical demands of life that this movie really highlights.

10. The Divorcee (Robert Z. Leonard, 1930) I did a freelance project that required me to watch a bunch of pre-Hays Code melodramas, and this was the best of the lot, a vehicle for the underrated Norma Shearer (of whom Dan Callahan wrote an excellent appreciation). Shearer plays a refreshingly independent (y'know, for the 1930s) woman who divorces her cheating husband and then goes on to live it up on her own terms. There's quite a bit of racy material here (which of course seems pretty tame from our perspective), and Shearer gives an assured, saucy performance, radiating confidence both socially and sexually. Of course, even a pre-Code movie puts the independent woman back in her place by the end, but until then this movie is progressive and exciting.