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Epic and gothic  — the second half of Mike Nichols miniseries based on Tony Kushner’s play is fulfilling and maddening and wonderful.

Joe Pitt (Patrick Wilson, THE ALAMO) has left his wife Harper (Mary-Louise Parker, FRIED GREEN TOMATOES), who floats around in a Valium daze, to strike up an affair with Louis Ironson (Ben Shenkman, ROGER DODGER). Prior Walter (Justin Kirk, LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION!) has been visited by The Angel of America (Emma Thompson, MUCH ADU ABOUT NOTHING), who wants Prior to become a prophet. Belize (Jeffrey Wright, ALI) worries about Prior’s struggle with AIDS and that he may be having delusions. He also has to deal with the foul nature of Roy Cohn (Al Pacino, HEAT), who has been secretly admitted to the hospital to treat his AIDS.

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This film is a charming, uplifting tale that exemplifies the kind of films that were greatly popular during the World War II years. The film was nominated for 10 Oscars and won seven, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Bing Crosby), Best Supporting Actor (Barry Fitzgerald), Best Director (Leo McCarey), Best Music, Original Song (“Swinging on a Star”), Best Writing, Original Story (McCarey) and Best Writing, Screenplay (Frank Butler, Frank Cavett). (An interesting trivia note is that Fitzgerald was also nominated as best actor, which the Academy changed the rules on later about being nominated in both categories).

Fitzgerald (THE QUIET MAN) plays an elderly priest named Fitzgibbon. Crosby plays the young priest Father Chuck O’Malley, who has been assigned to Fitzgibbon’s church to liven things up and help save it from financial ruin. Fitzgibbon is very set in his ways and clashes with O’Malley’s more modern and less pious approach to the ministry.

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This fairly non-partisan documentary about an evangelical church in Texas putting on its controversial haunted house displays the best and worst of the more fundamental Christian movement in America.

For 10 years, Trinity Church has been putting on Hell House, where different mini-plays display real world violence from a fundamental Christian perspective. The people who put on the performance really are dedicated to the cause of bringing the message of Jesus to non-believers. The film does a wonderful job of just watching the process of the Hell House being constructed from auditions, to practice, to script writing to performance.

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Neil Simon adapted his play for the screen and was benefited by wonderful performances from Jack Lemmon as finicky Felix Ungar and Walter Matthau as sloppy Oscar Madison.

The film starts with a depressed Felix wondering the streets of New York. His wife has just filed for divorce. At his weekly poker game, Oscar and his other friends wonder why Felix is late. The humor of the film comes from the situation and how Felix hopeless bungles through it. It perfectly walks the line between the tragic and the humorous.

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When Danny DeVito steps behind the camera, we usually get a dark comedy. The 1980s THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN and THE WAR OF THE ROSES are shining examples of his work. His recent DEATH TO SMOOCHY and DUPLEX make us wonder what the heck is going on. DUPLEX is crude, shallow and its worst sin is that it’s quite unfunny.

Alex Rose (Ben Stiller, REALITY BITES) and Nancy Kendricks (Drew Barrymore, CHARLIE’S ANGELS) have bought a duplex in Manhattan. However, due to rent control, they cannot kick out the elderly Mrs. Connelly (Eileen Essel, FINDING NEVERLAND) from the upstairs apartment. The old woman quickly becomes a nuisance to the yuppie couple and inadvertently leads to all sort of misery for them. This leads Alex and Nancy to want to murder Mrs. Connelly.

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Based on the award-winning children’s book by Chris Van Allsburg, this film from director Robert Zemeckis (WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT) is an enchanted ode to believing in the potential for magic, mainly in Santa Claus.

Using motion-capture technology to animate a digital version of the actors, the film is part visual effects, part animation and part live-action acting. A lot has been said about the creepy nature of the characters, which has led to a love it or hate it attitude toward the film. From my rating you see that I fall into the love it club. I agree at times some of the characters look stiff and not life like, but for the most part I didn’t notice or better yet didn’t mind.

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This is one of the stranger film noirs you may ever see. Detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews, THE LOVED ONE) is assigned to the murder case of beautiful Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney, NIGHT AND THE CITY). McPherson first interviews the gossip writer Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb, 1950’s CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN), who then accompanies him to interview socialite Ann Treadwell (Judith Anderson, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF) and Laura’s boy-toy fiancée Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price, THE FLY).

What’s fascinating about the film is the implausibility of the actions of many of the characters, but the film’s lack of caring. Would an investigator really take a murder suspect along for the ride to interview other suspects? When McPherson interviews Lydecker, the writer is in the bathtub, eventually getting out and asking McPherson for his robe. How many murder suspects appear fully nude (even if its off camera) to the detective?

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I just love Bette Davis. It’s hard to say that this film is Davis at her best, because that would undermine her amazing work in ALL ABOUT EVE, JEZEBEL and WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? Her transformation in this film is drastic, but the testament to her skills is that never for a second do you believe she isn’t the same character.

In this film, Davis plays Charlotte Vale, a woman in her late twenties to mid-thirties who has become a meek spinster under the tyrannical authority of her traditional mother (Gladys Cooper, MY FAIR LADY). One day, Charlotte’s sister-in-law June (Bonita Granville, THESE THREE) brings psychiatrist Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains, NOTORIOUS) to the house to help Charlotte, who is on the brink of a mental breakdown. Charlotte ends up at Dr. Jaquith’s sanitarium where she learns to come out of her shell and become her own person.

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Based on a true story, director Steven Schachter (THE WOOL CAP) and star William H. Macy (THE COOLER) have crafted this heart-warming TV biopic that chronicles the story of Bill Porter (Macy), a man with cerebral palsy who through patience and perseverance became a top door-to-door salesman for the Watkins company.

Porter’s mother (Helen Mirren, CALENDAR GIRLS) drives her son to succeed. Porter’s dedication to the products he sold and determination made him a born salesman. The film paints Porter as an inspirational figure in the mode of movie-of-the-week fashion. Where this film stands above the typical movie-of-the-week is through Macy’s wonderful performance and the relationships the film develops with the women in Porter’s life.

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Director Carl Theodor Dreyer spent his career perfecting and rewriting his main themes in every film that he produced. He was a perfectionist and spent a great deal of time planning his films and saving the money needed to film them the way he wanted.

Set in the 17-Century, the film follows a Puritan reverend named Absalon Pedersson (Thorkild Roose, THE BLACK CHANCELLOR), who is involved in the persecution of witches. He has married a woman much younger than him named Anne (Lisbeth Movin, BABETTE’S FEAST). What we come to learn as the church puts the elderly Herlofs Marte (Anna Svierkier, only film performance) on trial for witchcraft is that Anne’s mother was also charged with witchcraft and Absalon married her to shelter her. Absalon’s mother Meret (Sigrid Neiiendam, LIFE ON THE HEGN FARM) hates Anne and is always skeptical of her every move. Then Absalon’s grown son Martin (Preben Lerdorff Rye, THE RED EARTH) comes home and quickly becomes smitten with his father’s young bride.

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