Roger Ebert Reviews

Bill Murray's acting in Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation" is surely one of the most exquisitely controlled performances in recent movies. Without it, the film could be unwatchable. With it, I can't take my eyes away.  Not for a second, not for a frame, does his focus relax, and yet it seems effortless. It's sometimes said of an actor that we can't see him acting. I can't even see him not acting. He seems to be existing, merely existing, in the situation created for him by Sofia Coppola.

"Spoken Word" (Unrated, 116 minutes). The authoritative Kuno Becker plays a young Mexican-American who teaches in San Francisco and is popular on the Poetry Slam circuit. He learns his father (Ruben Blades) is dying, and returns him to near Santa Fe to spend time. Their relationship is tentative but heartfelt, although issues from the past reappear. An intelligent, empathetic film, with a real sense of place and the people who love there. With Persia White, from "Girlfriends." Three stars

"Life During Wartime" (R, 98 minutes). Todd Solondz's characters are disturbed, pleading and perverse, and some of them are so badly off they're dead, and must appear as ghosts. This is a "quasi-sequel" to his great "Happiness" (1998), with the same characters played by different actors at later points in their lives. All is sour and disappointed, and no one has hope. The first film found closure, this one finds entropic collapse. But it's well acted by Shirley Henderson, Ciaran Hinds, Allison Janney, Michael Lerner, Paul Reubens, Ally Sheedy and Dylan Riley Snyder. Two and a half stars

"Get Low" (PG-13, 102 minutes). Robert Duvall plays a backwoods hermit who figures his time is coming, and enlists the local undertaker (Bill Murray) in planning a big funeral send-off that he will pay for himself, and enjoy while he's still alive. Melodrama, human comedy, and a sweet reunion with an old squeeze (Sissy Spacek). Nice work by Lucas Black as the undertaker's assistant. Three stars

"Cropsey" (Unrated, 84 minutes). A drooling loner who lived on the grounds and in the tunnels of the notorious Willowbrook insane asylum on Staten Island, is convicted of the kidnapping and murder of two young girls. He's the perfect suspect. Was the real-life embodiment of the Boogie Man legends of campfires and nightmares. Does it even matter that there's no solid evidence against him? A creepy documentary. Three stars.

"Farewell" (Unrated; 113 minutes). The long-untold true Cold War spy story that the real Ronald Reagan called "one of the most important espionage cases of the 20th century." A KGB colonel (Emir Kusturica) and a French businessman (Guilaume Cant) smuggle Soviet secrets to the West and change the course of history. A tense thriller, an emotional drama about the cost of keeping secrets from one's family, and a fascinating piece of world political history. (JE) Three and a half stars.

"Dinner for Schmucks" (PG-13, 114 minutes) Paul Rudd plays an ambitious young executive invited to a special dinner party by his boss: Each guest has to bring a guest of his own who is a perfect idiot. Biggest idiot wins. Rudd isn't interested until he meets Steve Carell, playing a man whose hobby is filling giant dollhouses worth elegantly dressed dead mice. It's quite a dinner party. Three stars

"Best Worst Movie" (Unrated, 91 minutes). Engaging documentary about the filming, actors and legacy of "Troll 2," widely considered to be the worst film ever made. Directed by its child actor, now grown up, it centers on Arkansas dentist George Hardy, an enormously likable man, who gets caught up in a round of revival screenings jammed by "Troll 2" fans who recite the dialog with the movie. (It was about vegetarian goblins who made their human victims sprout limbs and leaves.) Three stars

"Mercy" (Unrated, 87 minutes). Scott Caan plays a pickup artist who meets a woman (Wendy Glenn) who isn't impressed by his new novel--or by him. He goes through a predictable arc of change, but the performances (also by James Caan as his father) are involving. Tries to cover too much ground in the running time. Two stars

"Agora" (Unrated, 141 minutes). Not your average sword and sandal epic. The study of Hypatia (Rachel Weisz), a scientific genius in the fourth century A.D., who taught with her father in the Library of Alexandria, which hoped to collect all the world's knowledge. She is so absorbed by her ideas that she fails to foresee the rising tension between pagans and Christians, which ends with Christians destroying the library. Hypatia was a real person. Weisz and director Alejandro Amenabar show her as an idealist not wary enough of real-world passions. Three stars

At nights in the summertime I heard lonesome whistles blowing, and dreamed of taking the train to the future. To romance. To the rest of my life. Or just simply out of town. Trains embody the fact of travel, the sense of moving through time and space and day and night. Airplanes are elevators whose doors close and then open in another city. The two Japanese kids in Jim Jarmusch's "Mystery Train" (1989) have the right idea. They're on a train to Memphis. With one suitcase suspended on a pole between them, they wander the bedraggled streets until passing by accident the door of the Sun record studios, which is a shrine for them.

“Ramona & Beezus” (G, 103 minutes). A sweet comedy inspired by the much-loved novels by Beverly Cleary. Joey King sparkles as the innocent-looking 9-year-old trouble-magnet Ramona, and Disney star Selena Gomez plays her teenage sister. Ramona gets into dire situations in everyday life, and James Bondian predicaments in her daydreams. A featherweight comedy of no great consequence, except undoubtedly to kids about Ramona's age. Three stars

"Salt" (PG-13, 100 minutes). A damn fine thriller. It does all the things I can't stand in bad movies, and does them in a good one. Angelina Jolie stars as a CISA agent fighting ingle-handedly to save the world from nuclear destruction. Hardly a second is believable, but so what? Superbly crafted, it's a splendid example of a genre action picture. Directed by Philip Noyce. Four stars

"Inception" (PG-13, 148 minutes). An astonishingly original and inventive thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a men who infiltrates the minds of others to steal secrets. Now he's hired to implant one. Ken Watanabe is a billionaire who wants to place at idea in the mind of his rival (Cillian Murphy). DiCaprio Assembles a team (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Ellen Page) to assist him, in a dazzling achievement that rises above the thriller level and enters the realm of mind control--in the plot, and in the audience. Written and directed by Christopher Nolan ("Memento," "The Dark Knight"). Four stars

"Wild Grass" (Unrated, 113 minutes). Because Marguerite went to buy shoes that day in Paris, her purse happened to be snatched, and Georges happened to find her billfold, and everything in the film descends from those improbable coincidences. Alain Resnais' work continues to exercise that freedom: If anything can happen, nothing musthappen, as he creates a free-wheeling exercise in comedy, or fate, or irony, or whatever, with great wit and visual style. Three stars

"Something Better Somewhere Else" (Unrated, 76 minutes). An anthology of four short films telling separate stories, sometimes with overlapping actors, that are delightful and filmed with craft and style. The theme: The grass may be greener on the other side of the road. Yes, but these people are taking big chances, and know it. Written and directed by Ron Lazzeretti, who knows what he's doing. Three stars

Having seen "The Last Airbender" gross untold millions despite the worst reviews in many a year, I confess myself discouraged at the prospect of reviewing "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." This is a much better film than "Airbender," which is faint praise, but it's becoming clear that every weekend brings another heavily marketed action "comedy" that pounds tens of millions out of consumers before evaporating.

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (PG, 108 minutes). Nicolas Cage plays the good magician Balthazar, who for 1,300 years has held the evil magicians Morgana (Alice Krige) and Horvath (Alfred Molina) captive. In modern New York, he discovers at last the Prime Merlinian, the master magician who can vanquish the captive villains for once and all. This is young Dave (Jay Baruchel), who would rather smooch with cute Becky (Teresa Palmer) than learn his sorcering lessons. Lots of special effects in a typical two-weekend special. Not and, far from good. Two and a half stars

"The Kids are All Right" (R, 104 minutes). A sweet and civilized comedy, quietly satirical, about a lesbian couple, their children, and the father the kids share via sperm donation. When they meet him, they like him, he likes them, and their moms are not so sure. What happens is calmly funny, sometimes fraught, and very human. With pitch-perfect performances by Julianne Moore and Annette Bening as the moms, Mark Ruffalo as the dad, and Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson as the 20-something children. Directed by Lisa Cholodenko. Three and a half stars

"La Mission" (R, 117 minutes). Benjamin Bratt plays a good man in San Francisco's Mission district--a single dad, hard-working, strong values, doing favors for neighbors. His son (Jeremy Ray Valdez) will be going to UCLA. He's growing friendly with his upstairs neighbor (Erika Alexander). Then he discovers his son is gay, he responds violently, and everything starts coming apart. A well-meaning, sincerely acted film that tries to say too much, too quickly. Two and a half stars