Snap Judgments – A quick review of 5 movies

Black Book (2007) – In the final days of World War II, a Dutch Jew goes undercover within a German compound for the resistance. Some have called this Paul Verhoeven’s return to form. That's true - there's lots of violence, gratuitous sex, full-frontal male and female nudity, and the obligatory feces bath. There’s also too many characters, too many double-crossings, and too many jumbled endings to make this a good movie. But the (apparently true) story itself is interesting and it’s great to see 1945 from another perspective. C+

Next (2007) – The “umbrella scene” in Minority Report is expanded into full-length movie when Nicolas Cage is able to see 2 minutes into the future. Somehow terrorists know he plans to stop their detonation of a nuclear bomb in L.A. as the FBI plans to use him. Jessica Biel is OK as Cage’s love interest but Julianne Moore is taking herself way too seriously as the lead FBI agent. The action scenes are adequately staged by the cross-dressing Lee Tamahori and it’s never really boring. Not quite as crappy as I expected, but not quite craptastic either. They needed to let Cage loose – H.I. McDonnough-style, have Jessica Biel in her underwear (or less), and/or get Julianne Moore to curse out a pharmacist. C+

Civic Duty (2007) – Peter Krause has been great in two good television shows: "Sports Night" and "Six Feet Under". Here he tries to cross-over into big-screen leading man territory. Welcome to Carusoville. He plays an unemployed architect who becomes convinced a middle Eastern man who has just moved into his apartment complex is a terrorist. The movie is amateurish and predictable with its clunky plotting and dialogue. It’s poorly acted and really adds nothing to the discussion of a post 9/11 world that you haven’t heard before. D+

Bug (2007) – Ashley Judd is a lonely small-town woman still suffering from the loss of her son. Her abusive ex-husband isn’t helping matters when he shows up after some jail-time. She latches on to a paranoid schizophrenic who thinks the government has implanted bugs in our teeth to monitor us. Director William Friedkin does some interesting things with the camera, keeping it at waist level for the majority of the movie. His outdoor shots are beautiful as well with terrific use of the helicopter. But you can only dress up a whore so well, and this story is a big fat one - with no redeeming characters and sadness all around. Friedkin’s still got the chops; he just needs to pick a better story. C-

Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) – Set in early 1920s Ireland, this film is about 2 brothers who join the Irish Republican Army to fight against British occupation. After a treaty is signed, they join opposite sides. The realistic violence and torture scenes are brutal and the politics is at times, confusing. The pacing is slow and there is no actor that really jumps off the screen. I feel like I should have liked it more, given all of its accolades and Palme d’Or. But the whole thing was rather dull – like this “review”. B-