This Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film is considered one of the crowning achievements of the Czech New Wave movement of the late 1960s. This investigation of sexual liberation will seem a bit more innocent today than it probably played in its day of release, however it hasn’t lost its power to entertain and make one laugh.

Milos Hrma (Václav Neckár, LARKS ON A STRING) is following his father’s footsteps and training to become a train dispatcher. His great-grandfather, his grandfather and his father are embarrassments to the family and he is to change that. However, he’s only taking the job at the train depot because it’s easy work. Milos is far more interested in losing his virginity. Not even World War II and the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia can distract him from his goal.

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It’s amazing how flexible William Shakespeare’s work can be. It can be made faithful to the text, but with an inventive mind can take on such varying moods and dimensions.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE is the most performed of Shakespeare’s plays, but has been adapted to the screen very few times. The main reason has to be that the character and treatment of Shylock is anti-Semitic. However, director Michael Radford (IL POSTINO) here takes one of Shakespeare’s comedies and turns it into a tragedy by shifting the central character from Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes, ENEMY AT THE GATE) to Shylock (Al Pacino, THE GODFATHER), using Shylock’s desire for unbending revenge as his downfall.

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I’ve always felt that religion is a topic that films should deal more with. But studios are always scared of upsetting people or alienating a section of the potential audience. That’s why we get Christmas movies without a single mention of Christ. So it’s refreshing to find a film that discusses theological issues so frankly and openly as this film does.

As one might infer from the title, the film follows the life of Martin Luther (Joseph Fiennes, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE), who was a German Catholic monk, who rebelled against the corruption he saw and ignited the Reformation, leading to the formation of Protestantism and the translation of the Bible from Latin into common languages.

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This documentary is the story of Henry Darger, a janitor who had no friends and was often thought to be a bit crazy. Alone in his small apartment over decades, he created a 15,000-page novel and additional works including 12-foot paintings. The film tries to present the inner world of fantasy that Darger created for himself through the words of his magical story — IN THE REALMS OF THE UNREAL — as well as his autobiography and personal recollections of the few people who knew him.

We learn of his poor childhood and see the parallels between what happened to him when he lived in an orphanage and the war between a Christian army versus the evil child enslavers in his fictional story. He lived so fully in the world of his imagination that he named a general in the Christian army after himself, often acted out the various roles of the characters in his room and debated his own issues, especially religious crisis, within the pages of the novel.

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From first time writer-director Dan Harris comes a melancholy and darkly humorous look at a family recovering from the suicide of their swimming superstar son, Matt (Kip Pardue, THIRTEEN).

The film centers on Matt’s younger brother Tim (Emile Hirsch, LORDS OF DOGTOWN), who looks younger than 17, isn’t an athlete and only really speaks to his mother Sandy (Sigourney Weaver, ALIEN), who is a mother who loves her son dearly, but acts more like a kid than someone’s mother should. Tim’s father, Ben (Jeff Daniels, THE HOURS), pushed Matt hard to be the best. After the suicide, he can barely cope with life, becoming greatly withdrawn and highly insensitive. The Travis family also has a college-aged daughter named Penny (Michelle Williams, TV’s DAWSON’S CREEK), who probably could have been dropped from the screenplay.

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This film moves along entertainingly with some surprising depth, but ruins all its goodwill with an end that is two scenes way too long.

Alex “Hitch” Hitchens (Will Smith, ALI) is a famed date doctor, who opens up doors for unsure guys to meet the women of their dreams. He keeps a low profile so that he can operate under the radar. He works by referral only. By the looks of his New York City apartment, he most certainly doesn’t need to take out an ad in the yellow pages.

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Oliver Stone’s portrayal of the life of Alexander the Great plays like a haphazard history lesson where the professor is so in love with the story that he bores his class by rambling on about it. Having only seen the director’s cut of the film, which rearranged much of the third act, I can only imagine the snorefest that was the theatrical release.

Alexander is played very well as an adult by Colin Farrell (PHONE BOOTH). However, the screenplay, which serves as a highlight reel of Alexander’s accomplishments, never drives home the emotional weight that Farrell delivers in his performance.

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It’s amazing how this tragedy in American history played out in the media when it was happening and how things look in hindsight. William Gazecki’s documentary uses news and military footage from the standoff, footage from the Senate hearings after the event and interviews with scholars, writers, reporters and members of the Branch Davidians to reconstruct what happened during the 51-day standoff that lead to the burning of children within the compound in Texas.

Time and time again the film uncovers lie after lie that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI told about the event. The ATF said that the raid was not a publicity stunt, but it set up a press office and contacted local news media beforehand. When talking to Branch Davidian leader David Koresh on the phone, an AFT negotiator lies to Koresh about the helicopters firing at them and when caught in this lie comes up with a fancy way to dance around his wording so he can cover up his lie.

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Having recently begun seeing Luis Buñuel’s work, I have quickly become a great fan. BELLE DE JOUR and LOS OLVIDADOS are brilliant, and this film is too. Buñuel is cynical, but honest. Many, many films have dealt with nice people taking in homeless people. Usually they are pure fantasy, painted by people with good intentions, but who do not want to see the world for what it can be and usually is.

Viridiana (Silvia Pinal, SIMON OF THE DESERT) is about to take her vows as a nun when her uncle Don Jaime (Fernando Rey, THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE), who has been her benefactor for years, calls for her to visit him before she takes her oath. When she arrives, he is struck by how much she looks like his dead wife. Viridiana is coldly honest, but innately kind. Her piety seems to have sucked the passion out of her though. Don Jaime wants Viridiana to stay with him. Loneliness makes his motives and actions shady. A tragedy strikes and Viridiana, along with Don Jaime’s estranged son Jorge (Francisco Rabal, L’ ECLISSE), takes over the care of her uncle’s estate.
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Based on a stage play by Tennessee Williams that was adapted into a screenplay by Williams and Gore Vidal, the melodrama has eccentric heiress Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn, THE AFRICAN QUEEN) persuading lobotomy doctor Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY) into performing the surgery on her institutionalized niece Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor, WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOLFF?) with the lure of funding the state hospital the doctor works at.

Violet’s behavior quickly undermines her intentions — is she trying to help Catherine or hide something about her beloved son Sebastian, who died while on vacation the previous summer with Catherine. As the story unfolds, the tale becomes more and more torrid as only a Tennessee Williams tale can get.

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