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O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU: The Coen brothers' say at the beginning of this film that they based it on The Odyssey. They have since confessed to never having read Homer's work, but there are elements in O Brother that comes directly from it: a Cyclops, three sirens, a hero named Ulysses with a wife named Penny (short for Penelope perhaps?), and a blind soothsayer. They also borrow from a couple of Hollywood films. One scene, involving a KKK meeting, is taken directly from The Wizard of Oz. The title of the film comes from Sullivan's Travels. In this Depression-era odyssey, Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) escapes from a chain gang with two friends, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson, who are about as smart as a "bag of hammers." The three men have one adventure after another to the accompaniment of some wonderful blue grass music. All three men are delightful, and John Goodman, Charles Durning, Michael Badalucco, and Holly Hunter bring great style to the film. O Brother is beautifully photographed and thoroughly entertaining. The whimsical Coen Brothers never fail to surprise me and I was quite delighted with the film. For pure enjoyment, I think it is worth a B+. Gary thinks a B is high enough. GRADE: B+/B

OCEAN'S ELEVEN: Before seeing this film I couldn't have imagined that a movie with George Clooney could be boring. Granted, I wasn't bored when the incredibly cool Clooney was on screen, but when he wasn't--Ho Hum. The original Ocean's Eleven, made in 1960, was an excuse for Frank and Dean and the rest of the Rat Pack to have some fun in Vegas while shooting a movie. I'm sure that the actors in this version had a lot of fun making it. I just wish we had had more fun watching it. Even Julia Roberts was boring. When she can't use that remarkable smile often enough, she really isn't that interesting to watch. Clooney and Brad Pitt kept us reasonably engaged and the actual heist of the Bellagio casino vault was worth watching. We also enjoyed Casey Affleck and Scott Caan as two quarrelsome brothers. The planning of the heist, however, made little if any sense. Those scenes are just excuses to introduce each character. But, there are so many people involved in the heist that you never really get to know any one of them--except, of course, for Clooney's Danny Ocean. Consequently, we didn't really get caught up in the story. Because of Clooney and the heist itself, I can go as high as C+. Gary enjoyed it a bit more than I did and gives it a B-.

OCEAN'S TWELVE: For celebrity watching, this is a good movie: For plot, not so much! All heist movies have convoluted plots, but this one raises the bar. Most of the time, it’s impossible to know what is going on. Some individual scenes play quite well, but as a whole it’s a bit of a mess. The actors are having great fun, though, and that is fun to watch. Brad Pitt has indicated that he is not terribly proud of the film, but he comes off well in it. He and Clooney are way cool. And, looking at the two of them for a couple of hours is quite pleasant. We especially liked the bit with Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis. (Unlike reader Paul K—See Readers’ Views) We also thought Catherine Zeta-Jones was a good addition to the cast. We decided it was about a C movie, but the merciful absence of car chases and gun battles elevated it to a C+. GRADE C+

OCEAN’S THIRTEEN: Ocean’s Eleven was good. Ocean’s Twelve not so much. Ocean’s Thirteen is pretty good. Clooney and Pitt are as cool as ever, and the plot is pleasingly complicated. It revolves around Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould), one of the original 11. Rueben suffers a heart attack after he is double-crossed by casino owner Willie Banks (Al Pacino), and Danny Ocean (Clooney) and company decide to get even. That involves digging a tunnel under Banks’s casino using a giant tunnel boring machine—the kind that was used to dig the chunnel between England and France. How did they manage to maneuver two of these 600-ton machines under the streets of Las Vegas without anyone noticing? I guess we’re not supposed to ask. Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin were nice additions to the mix. The fun of these movies is just to watch movie stars enjoying being movie stars, and that was entertaining. But don’t expect anything close to reality. I suppose there will be an Ocean’s Fourteen, although by now these boys must be known all over Vegas and barred from every Casino in town. Not sure how the writers will handle that. Gary says that they’ll ignore it. I think he’s right. GRADE B

OFF THE MAP: (2003 Release) Joan Allen and Sam Elliott are unconventional parents in this charming low-key movie directed by Campbell Scott. Their daughter, Bo, who is a remarkable young lady, narrates the story. The family lives in a cabin in the high desert of New Mexico. They have no indoor plumbing or electricity and they grow most of their food. They also do some hunting, but never kill except for food. They also frequent the local dump taking only the "good stuff." Charley (Sam Elliot) is suffering from severe depression and his wife and daughter are wonderfully sympathetic to his pain. A stranger appears one day--an IRS agent. He is investigating the fact that they have not filed a tax return for many years. Since they live on less than $5,000 a year, they didn’t feel it was necessary to file returns. (We did find it difficult to believe that the IRS would send someone to their house.) Jim True-Frost, a former Chicago actor, is the agent. He is completely seduced by the family and by the New Mexico desert. "New Mexico is a powerful place," says Arlene (Joan Allen). It certainly changes the agent’s life! Allen and Elliott are marvelous and Valentina de Angelis makes Bo a charming and compelling young heroine (Amy Brenneman plays the grown-up Bo.) J.K. Simmons is Charley’s best friend and he is equally fine. The film premiered at Sundance in 2003 and is opening only now probably because, as Variety noted, its "unmelodramatic nature and unmomentous subject matter will make this a tough sell even on the review-driven specialized circuit." This film has a very measured pace and it may take you a while to get involved, but, sooner or later you will find yourself captivated. We liked this one very much. I say it’s an A-. Gary says B+. GRADE A-/B+

OFFSIDE: We went to see this Iranian film because it has gotten such praise from the critics. On Yahoo Movies, the average critics’ grade was A-. Either they saw a different film, or they used vastly different criteria for judging Offside than they would have used if it had been made in the U.S. Here are some of the critic’s comments: brilliant, warm-hearted comedy-drama , wonderfully funny, powerful, etc. We found it amateurish, frequently boring and only mildly amusing. It is interesting because it shows life in Iran and the exuberance and national pride of Iranian soccer fans. We see what happens when a group of young women disguise themselves as men in order to enter Tehran's Azadi Stadium to watch a 2006 World Cup qualifying game between Iran and Bahrain. Under Iranian law, no woman can attend a male sporting event. (One of the young woman is a soccer player herself, and she admits that men are not allowed to attend women’s games either.) The soldiers who arrest and guard the women are somewhat sympathetic to their desire to see the game. In fact, one of the soldiers does a play-by-play commentary for the arrested women. One amusing sequence involves a guard trying to explain why women aren’t permitted in the stadium. His response is that the sports fans might curse and swear and women shouldn’t be exposed to that. When asked why Japanese women were allowed in to see the Japan/Iran game, he replies that they didn’t speak Farsi and so wouldn’t understand the swearing. The film is shot in documentary style with hand-held cameras. It has never been shown in Iran, and the director was not given official permission to make the film. He pretended to be shooting a much less controversial film in order to use the Azadi Stadium for his set. His two previous films were forbidden by the Islamic government of Iran. Perhaps our critics wanted to reward his courage by praising his film. We, however, can’t really recommend it. For Gary it was a D movie. I don’t know what grade to give it. GRADE ?/D

OLD SCHOOL: This Animal House wannabe doesn't come close. But, it does have some laughs and three good performances by Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn. Wilson is so likeable and believable that he can bring off some incredibly hokey lines. And both Vaughn and Ferrell are quite funny. When Mitch (Wilson) ends a relationship, his friends--Frank (Ferrell) and Beanie (Vaughn) try to cheer him up by starting a fraternity--a very unusual fraternity. Some of the members are actually students at a local university, but others are way above the typical fraternity age limit. The purpose of the house is to throw outrageous parties, and they are good at it. There is a nice love story thrown in between Wilson and Ellen Pompeo, and Jeremy Priven plays Pritchard, the Dean of students. Pritchard has never gotten over the indignities he suffered at the hands of Mitch, Frank and Beanie during their college years, so he is determined to close down the fraternity. Sounds a bit like Animal House, doesn't it? Although Ferrell is quite amusing, he can't match the comic genius of John Belushi, and this movie doesn't deserve a grade higher than C. GRADE C

OLIVER TWIST: "Beware the historical costume drama whose most impressive feature is the production design." So said Mike Clark in his USA Today review, and we have to agree with him. Polanski’s 19th Century London looks authentic and wonderful. However, I wonder why this master director chose to make such a familiar story—a story that has had 18 film treatments including two big-screen movies. In 1922, Jackie Coogan played Oliver Twist and Lon Chaney was Fagin. In the 1948 version, director David Lean put Alec Guiness in the role of Fagin and Robert Newton was Bill Sykes. In this 2005 version, Ben Kingsley plays the complicated and always interesting Fagin. He is very good, and the young boy who plays Oliver (John Howard) is winsome and winning. But, it does go on for quite a long time, and because we know the story so well, it gets just a wee bit tedious. Especially since the British dialects are not always easy to understand. I do like Dickens, but the oh, so dark Oliver Twist is not my favorite. I’m almost ashamed to say that I think I like the musical version better. We both give this film a B-. GRADE B-

ONCE: This is another example of a film whose critical raves created expectations that were impossible to meet. The New York Times critic said it was the best movie musical he had seen in the last 20 years. I’m afraid we cannot agree. The movie is charming, with a very natural and believable young couple. But, we had a problem with the film. The songs in the movie are about feelings and experiences, so it’s important to understand the words. However, that was difficult for us, perhaps because of the Irish accents. I missed some of the lyrics and Gary missed most of them. We liked the music, but the songs were best when we could catch all the lyrics. The guy (Glen Hansard) works in his father’s vacuum repair shop and spends his free time writing songs and performing as a street musician. The girl (Markéta Irglová) has come to Ireland from The Czech Republic and sells flowers on the street. She, too, is a musician. They meet and become friends and collaborators. The best scene in the film takes place in a recording studio, where the guy makes a CD of some of his songs, so that he can take it to London and makes his fortune in the music business. The energy of the scene reminded me of the recording session in last year’s Hustle & Flow. The Irish writer/director, John Carney, wanted to make his low-budget musical as naturalistic as possible, so he cast non-actors in the leading roles. Hansard is the front man for the Irish alt-rock group the Frames, and Irglova is a pianist. The film won an audience award at the Sundance Film Festival. It is definitely a film-festival type movie, and enjoyable as such. Gary finds it impossible to grade, but for me, it was a solid B movie. GRADE B

ONE HOUR PHOTO: The best thing about this movie is the compelling performance of Robin Williams as a lonely disturbed man who becomes obsessed with a family who brings their photos to him for developing. He has worked in the photo lab of a discount superstore for thirteen years, and has collected copies of all the Sorkin family photos. His apartment is barren except for one wall that is papered with these photos. This is a very strange man! In his imagination, he has become part of the family, and when he discovers that the Sorkins are not quite the ideal family he thinks they are, he goes off the deep end. The problem with this movie is that it moves so slowly we had too much time to notice plot details that didn't ring true. Williams' performance deserves an A, and we liked the way the director built the suspense, but we can't give the film more than a B-. Connie Nielsen and Michael Vartan play Nina and Will Sorkin, Gary Cole is the manager of the superstore, and Eric LaSalle plays a detective. The film was written and directed by Mark Romanek. GRADE B-

ONE NIGHT AT McCOOL'S: "How not perfect can one woman be!" Randy (Matt Dillon) is talking about Jewel (Liv Tyler), the extraordinary woman who walked into his life one night and turned it upside down. Randy is explaining to Burmeister (Michael Douglas) why he has hired the hit man to remove Jewel from his life. We also hear about Jewel from two other men who have fallen under her spell. Carl (Paul Reiser) is working out his obsession with a therapist (Reba McEntire) and Detective Dehling (John Goodman) is confessing to a titillated priest. These interlocking recollections are told Rashomon style in this black comedy. We thought Liv Tyler was properly sensual and appealing as a femme fatale that drives men wild and makes their life crazy. McCOOL'S is the first movie from producer/actor Michael Douglas's new smaller-scale company, Furthur. The casting is unusual and inspired. Andrew Dice Clay even appears in a double role. The acting is uniformly good and the script is quirky and clever. Our local critic thought it had too many bodies to be a comedy. Has the man ever seen FARGO? Gary thought it was very funny and might go as high as a B+. I settled on a B. It is rated R for sex and violence. GRADE B+/B

OPEN RANGE: Kevin Costner has created a classic western in Open Range. Classic in the sense that it contains all the classic western elements: a lot of gorgeous scenery, a lot of men shooting each other, a generous amount of men bonding over camp fires and on horseback, and a little bit of romance. It also borrows a bit from High Noon and Gunfight at the OK Corral. Costner and Robert Duvall are partners in a free-range cattle operation and they run afoul of a tyrannical rancher who wants to rid of the world of free-range cattlemen. Duvall is absolutely wonderful! That man totally inhabits every role he plays, and here he acts circles around Costner, who isn't all that bad himself. The climactic gun battle is quite good--more realistic than many I've seen. Annette Benning plays the classic girl-behind-the-picket-fence, but with a twist: she's a grown woman with a mind of her own. Michael Gambon, the Irish actor, makes a credible villain. I thought the movie was too long and had too many endings, so I gave it a B-. Gary liked it better than I. He says B+. GRADE B+/B-

OPEN WATER: Scuba diving was never high on my things-to-do list, but after seeing this independent film, it fell right off the bottom of the page. Based on a true story, Open Water taps into our latent fears of sharks, drowning, the unknown, and the feeling of being terribly alone in an unresponsive universe. It is a relatively short film at 1 hr. 19 minutes and the story is simple. A couple goes on a scuba diving expedition while on vacation, but they accidently get left behind to fend for themselves in shark-infested waters. The actors are convincing and the dialogue is realistic. Barbara and I agree on a B for Open Water. (Barb's Note: The tension builds slowly in this movie, but by the end you'll feel like you're in the water with this unfortunate couple. You won't catch me scuba diving in open water! ) GRADE B

ORANGE COUNTY: This is an amusing comedy about a young man who lives in Orange County, CA and dreams of going to Stanford University and becoming a writer. Getting to Stanford turns out to be difficult, especially when the high school's misguided guidance counselor, played by Lily Tomlin, sends the wrong transcript. Colin Hanks (the son of Tom Hanks) is Shaun Brumder, the only sane member of his outrageously dysfunctional family. With Catherine O'Hara as his permanently wigged out mother, John Lithgow as his workaholic father, and Jack Black as his completely burned out brother, it's amazing that Shaun turned out to be a model son. Schuyler Fisk, Sissy Spacek's daughter, is sweet and supportive as Ashley, Shaun's girlfriend. Jake Kasdan, the son of director Lawrence Kasden, directed this film and he did a creditable job. It was written by Mike White who also wrote Chuck and Buck. Kasden was apparently able to talk many of his father's famous friends into appearing in his first film. Kevin Kline, Gary Marshall, Chevy Chase, Harold Ramis and Ben Stiller all appear in minor, but funny, roles. I especially want to mention the very funny Jack Black, who first got our attention in High Fidelity. He reminds me of John Belushi: Black can raise one eyebrow and it makes me laugh. Orange County is our first 2002 movie, and we enjoyed it. GRADE B.

OSAMA: Barbara asked me to write the review of this film. As I reflect, I realize it will be nearly impossible to evaluate fairly. Even though it was the winner a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, it is clearly not a polished product that can be compared with most other films we are exposed to. It was the director's first feature film and the first feature film produced in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. Actors and actresses in the film are all non-professionals from the city of Kabul. To find the lead, a young girl, the director looked in schools, orphanages, street children centers, and refugee camps. He eventually found his lead when he encountered her on the streets. The story focuses on the impossible plight of women under the Taliban Regime. Women were not permitted to work or even leave their homes without a male relative. This meant that widows without brothers or male cousins could not venture out of their homes even for food or water. In desperation, a mother and grandmother disguise their young granddaughter (Osama) as a male. The story is a simple one about this unlucky girl. I recommend it, not because it is enjoyable, but because it should be experienced. Roger Ebert gives it 3 ½ stars. I simply can't put a grade on it.

THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL: This film is set in an historically interesting period in 16^th Century England. The characters are historical, King Henry VIII, his first wife Katharine, Anne Boleyn and her sister Mary. Hollywood has always been big on "historical," but not so big on "accuracy. This film is based on Philippa Gregory’s novel, which Barbara rated much higher than the film. For a story about ambition, sex, and betrayal, the film comes off bland and at times dull. Some critics say "stunningly dull." I wouldn’t go quite that far and have to admit that the costumes and set were outstanding. The leads, Natalie Portman (Anne Boleyn), Scarlett Johansson (Mary Boleyn), and Eric Bana (King Henry VIII), who have all shown talent in other roles were, in my opinion, hampered by a weak script. Plus, I think Portman and Johansson were miscast. For me, the most believable scenes were those played by Ana Torrent who portrayed Katharine of Aragon, Heny’s first wife. I went to this film based on Barbara’s regard for Gregory’s novel (same title as the film). My recommendation is to read the novel. My grade is only slightly lower than Barbara’s. GRADE C/C+

OVER THE HEDGE: Let me start by saying we don’t care much for animated features. Two exceptions have been The Lion King and Shrek which we loved. This one is no Shrek. This movie doesn’t have a story that catches your imagination. The animals are cute enough, and the celebrity voices are entertaining, but it’s all rather ho-hum. I chuckled a couple of times and the "suburbia" jokes but, for the most part it was just mildly entertaining. The kids in our audience seems to enjoy it quite a bit so, if you decide to see it, I suggest you take a couple of kids with you. For us, this film gets a generous C. For children, it’s probably in the B to B+ range. GRADE C