'Uncertainty' is no sure thing

The best reason to see Uncertainty -- a gimmicky drama from directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel: The cinematography of Rain Li. Li does an admirable job of photographing New York City from two vantage points linked by the famous Brooklyn Bridge. To restate the obvious -- a mainstay of all journalism -- we're talking Brooklyn and Manhattan and a story that splits in two. Lynn Collins and Joseph Gordon-Levitt play two couples, one living through a family Fourth of July in Brooklyn; the other running around Manhattan in a thriller of sorts. Neither half of the movie is well enough developed, but the actors are watchable and the directors have a bit of track record, having made The Deep End (interesting) and Bee Season (ambitious but failed). To put all this another way, Uncertainty proves marginally interesting as the work of a directing team that's not afraid to aim high with movies that always manage to look good.

The year in review: 2009's best

OK, so 2009 wasn't a banner year for movies, but that doesn't mean it didn't produce its share of memorable work. And, no, I don't want to hear about how Avatar saved the year for you or why Star Trek made your summer. The best of 2009 either took place away from Hollywood or in mainstream movies that were touched by indie spirit. I have to admit that I was shocked to discover no less than four French movies on my list. It's a little late in the game to be turning into a Francophile, but so be it -- at least for 2009.

Without further ado, then, my 10 best movies of the year with some footnotes about films that almost made my list and other memorable matters.

1. SUMMER HOURS

Director Olivier Assayas' impeccably acted Summer Hours deals with things that matter to us all -- or should: the deterioration of family bonds and the disconnection that can develop between generations. A mother passes away and her three grown children -- two brothers and a sister -- must decide what to do with her house and possessions. There's no faux melancholy here, only the sadness that's felt as time passes and the world as we understand it begins to vanish.

2. THE HURT LOCKER

Set in Baghdad, director Kathryn Bigelow's combat-ready movie could have been No. 1 on my list, but this year I put love for Summer Hours over respect for Bigelow's considerable achievement. The Hurt Locker builds unbearable tension as it follows a three-man bomb squad around Baghdad, showing how different soldiers react to the strains of war. Jeremy Renner does exceptionally fine work as a sergeant who finds both purpose and an undeniable high in defusing bombs. Bigelow works in a sparse, no-nonsense style that proves that she might be a Sam Fuller for the 21st Century.

3. UP IN THE AIR

George Clooney excels as a man who earns his living by depriving others of theirs. Clooney's Ryan Bingham works for a company that specializes in corporate dirty work. Too timid to downsize? Hire Bingham to let your people go. Funny and trenchant, director Jason Reitman's ultra-loose adaptation of a novel by Walter Kirn tops my list of mainstream entertainments. Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick give Clooney able support, and -- as he proved in Thank You For Smoking and Juno -- Reitman is much too smart to sabotage either a movie's entertainment value or its ability to say something meaningful.

4. A SERIOUS MAN

Joel and Ethan Coen defy expectation with a profoundly serious comedy based on their experiences growing up Jewish in a Minneapolis suburb. A Serious Man focuses on the fast-unraveling life of physics professor Larry Gopnick (Michael Stuhlbarg). Well observed down to the last painful detail, A Serious Man allows the Coens to ponder big questions. It should come as no surprise that the Coens' view of the world -- though often funny -- does not brim with optimism.

5. IN THE LOOP

The year's best satire deals with the way British and American bureaucrats talk themselves into an impending war in the Middle East. (Any resemblance to U.S. and British involvement in Iraq should be taken as purely intentional.) The result is compelling and arch, and just about everything in the movie rings true. The government officials that we meet are a venal lot, careerists who spend as much time jockeying with one another as they do advancing the interests of their respective countries. An ensemble cast shines, but Peter Capaldi earns special recognition as a ruthless, profanity-spewing PR man for the British prime minister.

6. THE INFORMANT!

Director Stephen Soderbergh denies us a strong rooting interest in this story of corporate corruption; Soderbergh does, however, make us wish that sanity might suddenly penetrate the movie's intricate web of irresponsibility and greed. Based on a true story, The Informant! not only lacks a bona fide hero, but takes a surprisingly comic approach to a price-fixing scandal. I know that sounds dull, but it's anything but. Matt Damon gives an Oscar worthy performance as whistler blower who's not all that he seems.

7. SERAPHINE.

A little-known painter who died in 1942, Seraphine de Senlis spent much of her life working as a domestic. A woman of mystical bent, Seraphine believed that God had commanded her to paint. She also believed that she had a winking, intimate relationship with the Virgin Mary. Not surprisingly, Seraphine wound up in an insane asylum. Director Martin Provost's somber movie revolves around a great performance from the Belgian actress Yolande Moreau, whose portrayal of Seraphine is utterly unselfish and deeply committed. Plain and portly, Seraphine isn't the sort of character who endears herself to us or to the residents of Senlis, the town in France's Picardy region where she resides, but Moreau's performance proves unforgettable.

8. 35 SHOTS OF RUM

French director Claire Denis' look at an African father and his daughter quietly (and that's a crucial word) reveals the subtleties of adjustment demanded by those making their way in a changing and increasingly multiracial society. Don't look for screaming or abrasive conflict. Denis' story deals with the great population change in Europe on the most intimate of levels. 35 Shots of Rum expands in the mind as you think about it, and, in some ways, can be viewed as a companion piece to Summer Hours, two movies about the shifting tone and tenor of life in Europe. If only we had American equivalents.

9. THE BEACHES OF AGNES.

I always like to include at least one documentary on my 10-best list. This year's spot goes to Agnes Varda's reflective (and joyfully creative) look at her own relationship to a life in film. The 81-year-old French director remembers her childhood, her development as a still photographer, then as a movie director, and, of course, as the wife of director Jacques Demy, most famous for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Varda's movie is at once arty and playful -- serious without ever being solemn. Varda, who was 80 when her film was made, concludes by telling us that she's alive and that she remembers. Good news for us on both counts.

10. BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS

OK, maybe it's a bit of stretch to put director Werner Herzog's helping of neo-noir nastiness on a 10-best list. And, yes, I have to admit that at times I was a little too aware of Nicolas Cage's tendency to push himself as far over the top as possible. Cage plays a reprobate detective, a guy who seems to have crawled out of the muck of post-Katrina New Orleans. But Herzog, who usually makes films involving great physical challenges (witness Fitzcarraldo or Grizzly Man), accomplished something wholly unexpected. In telling the story of a corrupt New Orleans detective, he rediscovered American funk. Lord knows, our CGI-dominated culture could use more of it.

I'm going to cheat a bit here, and add one more movie to my list, the film I regard as the year's best animated entertainment:

HONORABLE MENTION FOR THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX

Wes Anderson's adaptation of a Roald Dahl story about a rebellious fox boasted the year's best voice work in any animated feature, and, for me, stood out as one of the year's most enjoyable entertainments. How about George Clooney (as Mr. Fox) and Meryl Streep (as Mrs. Fox) as couple of the year?

FOOTNOTES

Not unlike health-care legislation, a 10-best list involves a series of ugly compromises. I could have gone in different directions. Take documentaries: I was partial to Every Little Step, Anvil: The Story of Anvil and My Neighbor, My Killer, which played at the Starz Denver Film Festival and which dealt with attempts at reconciliation in Rwarnda. I went for Varda's movie out of a sense of fondness for a director who insists on following her own muse.

Had I been able to see the five-hour version of John Woo's Red Cliff, it probably would have made my list. I passed because thus far I've seen only the condensed two-and-a-half hour edition that was released theatrically in the U.S. What I saw suggested that Woo may have made his masterpiece.

When it came to acting, 2009 was a strong year. Morgan Freeman's portrayal of Nelson Mandela in Invictus was quiet, subtle and revealing. Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer were superb as Mr. and Mrs. Tolstoy in The Last Station. Tom Hardy was spectacular as Britain's most violent convict in the little-seen Bronson, and Christian McKay accomplished the near-impossible in Me and Orson Welles: He brought Orson Welles back to life -- arrogance, genius and all.

Young women -- Carey Mulligan in An Education, Abbie Cornish in Bright Star and Emily Blunt in The Young Victoria -- distinguished themselves in 2009. And, yes, Mo'Nique stopped me in my tracks as an abusive mother in Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Saphire.

I had my qualms about Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, but Christoph Waltz deserves big-time praise for creating one of the most frightening characters of the year: Hans Landa, a terrifyingly polite SS officer.

I don't think most people realized -- and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences probably won't either -- that Michael Jackson: This is It was a triumph of editing. Credit a talented team of editors who made something coherent and even revealing out of tons of raw footage.

Some of year's stronger movies flew under the radar of hype: Director Ramin Bahrani continued to explore the "real" America with Goodbye Solo, an unsentimental look at the oddball relationship between a bitter white southerner (Red West) and a taxi driver (Souleymane Sy Savane) who emigrated to the U.S. from Senegal. Director Sergei Dvortsevoy took us to the steppes of Kazakhstan for Tulpan, a simple story about a herdsman who wants nothing more than to find a wife. German director Uli Edel may have made the year's most exciting thriller by telling the real life story of the Baader Meinhof gang in his Baader Meinhof Complex.

Special mention is due The Messenger, which stars Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson as soldiers assigned to deliver news of GI deaths to their next of kin. To my way of thinking, director Oren Moverman came closer than anyone to date in showing the deep and abiding impact of war on the lives of those who survive it.

And one final note: I haven't had a chance to review A Single Man, but I have seen the movie. Director Tom Ford's finely wrought adaptation of a Christopher Isherwood novel about a gay English professor trying to cope with the death of his partner is graced by an admirably restrained performance from Colin Firth, as the English professor, and by a sad, nervy performance from Julianne Moore, as an increasingly desperate and lonely woman.

So that's it for 2009. With the awards season looming, we'll hear a lot more about the year's best movies, but I always enjoy the prospect of moving on.
People sometimes ask me to name the best movie I've ever seen.
Of course, I could pick a movie, but I always prefer to answer with hope rather than history.

"My favorite movie ever? I hope I haven't seen it yet."

Oh to be young, gifted and royal

Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend as royals in love.

The Young Victoria -- a look at the early years of the famed British queen who ascended to the throne at the age of 18 -- mixes pageantry and palace intrigue in ways that keep a generally tasteful historical drama from sagging under the weight of its own costumes. Nicely directed by Jean-Marc Valle and equally well-acted by Emily Blunt (as the title character), The Young Victoria centers on simmering conflicts over who would follow an ailing King William (Jim Broadbent) to the throne. William died in 1837.

Though respectful of the monarchy, The Young Victoria does suggest that family values -- especially royal family values -- aren't always exemplary. Victoria's mother (Miranda Richardson) and her pal, Sir John Conroy (Mark Strong), tired to take over the empire by urging the underage Victoria to sign her powers over to them, thereby establishing a regency and marginalizing Victoria's role.

Victoria may have been young, but she wasn't stupid. She resisted and ultimately chastened her mother and sent Conroy packing.

In addition to learning how to wear the crown, Blunt -- familiar from The Devil Wears Prada -- also shows how the queen discovered love. Blunt plays a touching duet with Rupert Friend, who appears as the liberal-minded and always supportive Prince Albert. Early on, King Leopold of Belgium (Thomas Kretschmann) encourages Albert to marry Victoria so that he can expand his sphere of influence. But Albert and Victoria -- who were first cousins -- trip everyone up by falling in love and trying to work out their respective roles as husband and wife and subject and sovereign.

I recently looked at a picture of Queen Victoria, and, not surprisingly, her resemblance to Blunt was slight to nil, but Blunt's convincing as a lively and engaged teen-ager who chooses to navigate treacherous political waters, a young woman who gradually becomes less reliant on her prime minister and trusted advisor (Paul Bettany).

Nicely acted by a large cast -- with special cheers for Broadbent's portrayal of an addled, angry William -- The Young Victoria is a smart costume drama that stops short of tackling what might have been the more interesting part of the story -- Victoria's long and much-discussed reign. Here's one movie that I thought ended too soon.

A 'Sherlock Holmes' for action junkies

A Watson and Holmes who break with tradition.

When I saw the trailer for Sherlock Holmes, I fell into a mild depression. Director Guy Ritchie -- best known for hyperactive British gangster movies -- seemed to have made Lock, Stock and Pipe-smoking Sherlock, a movie that turned the world's most cerebral detective into an action junkie. Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes looked as if it would flex enough cinematic muscle to start Sir Arthur Conan Doyle spinning in his grave.

After seeing the movie, I have to say that my fears were only partially justified. Sherlock Holmes is better than I expected, even though it boasts many overblown bursts of action, even though its story involves a secret society that might feel right at home in a Dan Brown novel and even though Ritchie fills in crucial narrative gaps with quick flashbacks that hit the screen with the force of a bandage being ripped off a fresh wound.

If you're a Holmes purist, you'd best stay home. Ritchie's movie doesn't quite leave us with a Sherlock in name only, but it's a long way from the Holmes and Watson created by Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in the 1940s and perhaps an even longer way from the Holmes who occupies digs at 221b Baker Street and still lives in readers' imaginations.

At times, Sherlock Holmes looks like a standard-issue buddy picture -- full of bickering and banter between Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and Watson (Jude Law). Law's Watson seems to have grown more assertive, too. Freshly insulted, an aggrieved Watson hauls off and punches Holmes in the face. In fact, many punches are thrown in Ritchie's high-stepping mixture of Holmesian iconography, Wild Wild West gadgetry and CGI-boosted effects.

For all the artificially enhanced action, Ritchie's best special effect is Downey, whose Holmes dabbles in drugs -- or so it's suggested -- enjoys bare-knuckle fighting and leaps to logical conclusions faster than a speeding bullet. (Sorry, Superman.) Downey's Holmes, of course, is not quite a superhero; he's an unkempt and idiosyncratic investigator whose efforts -- at least in this installment -- are devoted to preventing murders and preparing the audience for a sequel.

After the abject and semi-failures of movies such as RocknRolla, Revolver and Swept Away, I was a little surprised to learn that Ritchie had been handed the keys to a major and potentially lucrative Hollywood franchise. For the most part, Ritchie serves the narrative, an eclectic hodgepodge that evokes Doyle's creation, as well the ghosts of blockbusters past.

The movie's secondary characters are all a bit limited. Inspector Lastrade (Eddie Marsan) doesn't have that much to do. Rachel McAdams appears as Holmes' slightly compromised romantic interest. McAdams' Irene Adler -- inspired by a character from the Holmes' stories -- looks as if she'll be around for future movies. For his part, Watson is about to take up residence with his fiancee (Kelly Reilly). Holmes isn't happy about losing his companion.

A chilly Mark Strong provides the villainy in this installment. As the scheming Lord Blackood, Strong must look sinister, speak softly and glare when called upon. Lord Blackwood, we quickly learn, is behind a series of brutal murders that present Holmes with enough of a challenge to hold his attention.

Somehow, this teeming movie -- hobbled as it is by a second-rate plot -- crossed the finish line without rousing my ire. A final sequence on London's Tower Bridge -- then under construction -- offers a bit of vertiginous amusement. And Downey, whose mind moves as quickly as a pair of darting eyes, conveys intelligence even during the movie's most preposterous fights.

If I were an optimist, I might be tempted to suggest that Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes will encourage a new generation of readers to seek out the detective who proved that the brain was indeed mightier than the sword. But I don't think that will happen because in this edition, Holmes' actions speak louder than his words. Every punch is amplified. Every explosion has been cranked to ear-splitting volumes, and every repulsive 19th Century London sight -- rats, for example -- has been given a magnified ugliness.

You get the idea; I was able to overcome my initial bias and go along for the souped-up ride. You'll have to make up your own mind whether Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes is a spirited re-imagining, a brutal desecration or -- as I concluded -- something that falls between either of those sharply defined poles.

'It's Complicated,' luxurious and funny

Sometimes it's not easy to look your best.

After a year in which The Hangover seems to have been anointed as one of 2009's top comedies, Nancy Meyers' It's Complicated may be the closest we get to a grown-up antidote. Meyers' movie relies on an improbable contrivance and it's a little too soggy when it comes to drama, but the movie allows Meyers (Something's Gotta Give and What Women Want) to do what she does best: present well-upholstered comedies that balance prosperity and discontent. One thing's sure, when a couple in a Meyers' film breaks up, there's plenty of property over which to fight.

It's Complicated begins long after any such martial haggling has stopped. Meryl Streep plays Jane Adler, a woman who has been divorced for a decade. At a party, Jane -- who runs an upscale Santa Barbara bakery -- runs into Jake (Alec Baldwin), her former husband. An attorney by trade, Jake's carting around his bossy trophy wife Agness (Lake Bell) and her bratty son Pedro (Emjay Anthony).

When Jane and Jake meet again in New York at their son's college graduation, they rekindle an old flame and the movie unveils -- perhaps a little too quickly -- its central conceit: The married Jake -- a man who's always had a roving eye -- casts his ex-wife in the role of his mistress.

No character in It's Complicated needs to pinch pennies. Jane's sprawling Santa Barbara home is enough to make you want to seize the property of the rich. Meyers' apparent devotion to conspicuous materialism has caused some critics to turn up their noses, but Meyers' brand of escapism allows for both fantasy and comic concentration. Her characters are free to worry only about relationships; they needn't fret about where the next latte might be coming from.

Streep's Jane isn't entirely satisfied with her role as mistress, so the script graciously provides her with an attractive alternative. Jane's been planning an addition to her house, a plot twist that brings her into contact with a recently divorced architect (Steve Martin). He's interested in her; she's interested in him, but she's also in the middle of an affair with her paunchy but perpetually libidinous ex-husband.

By now, just about everyone knows that Baldwin is a fine comic actor. The guy's ability to blend happy insensitivity and mild (very) self-awareness always makes me laugh. Martin, also known for comedy, plays his role fairly straight, although he's at the center of one of the movie's more amusing bits: Martin and Streep revisit the '60s, getting stoned on pot and trying to suppress their giggles in the middle of a social gathering.

Streep? Even as a rejected and somewhat insecure wife, she remains a diva, and the giddiness she brings to the role of Jane threatens to go over the top, particularly in the movie's early stages.

Meyers does better with the movie's comic moments than with its attempts to get serious, but It's Complicated succeeds as frothy comedy.

And, yes, after Julie & Julia and It's Complicated, Hollywood owes Streep a movie in which she can stay out the kitchen.

'Nine' out of 10? Hardly

Daniel Day-Lewis has trouble starting in Nine.

Hey, I've got a great idea for a film. Why not focus on a gifted director who has hit a spirit-stifling bad patch? After many great (and I mean truly great) movies, our director seems to have run out of creative steam. To make matters worse, his last few films were outright flops. Let's make him Italian, which could mean that he's having lots of trouble with the women in his life -- wives, mistresses, etc. In short, our hero's totally lost and unable even to fake his own brilliance.

But wait? That movie already has been made. It was called 8 1/2 . Released in 1963, the movie earned an honored place in director Federico Fellini's filmography, a portrait of an artist gone dry. In Fellini's movie, Marcello Mastroianni -- an actor whose exhausted charm always seemed inexhaustible -- portrayed the director.

The point: Some things are best left alone, but no.....

In 1982, a musical inspired by 8 1/2 -- it's called Nine -- reached Broadway. Now, Nine has become a muchp-hyped movie with a script by Michael Tolkin and the late Anthony Minghella and direction by Rob Marshall. An all-out A-team blitz, Nine's Oscar-heavy cast includes Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Kate Hudson, Fergie (of Black Eyed Peas fame) and Italian cinema goddess Sophia Loren.

That's one impressive group, but Marshall -- familiar to the world of big-screen musicals from his version of Chicago -- hasn't made a film that's worthy of its talent. A musical without memorable music, Nine seldom catches hold. Making a musical with non-musical talent may not be fatal, but Marshall's movie feels perpetually out of synch, as if it's always running to catch up with itself.

Elegance is not the movie's strong suit. The musical numbers have been inserted into the narrative with all the grace of a rain-soaked farmer stamping mud off his boots. Beyond that, Nine -- which includes black-and-white and color footage, as well as a bit of fantasy -- seems like a mediocre imitation of Fellini.

Day-Lewis seems an unlikely choice to play director Guido Contini, but he stoops, shrugs and mostly pulls of an Italian accent and attitude. Guido may have run out of ideas, but he hasn't run out of women. Fittingly, The movie opens with a musical number that introduces the women in Guido's life -- his muse (Kidman), his wife (Cotillard), an admiring journalist (Hudson), his mother (Loren), and a costume designer who's working on his new movie (Dench). When it comes to women, Guido is so busy, he needs a scorecard, and so -- at first -- do we.

Nine takes place partly in Rome, some of it on a vast soundstage at Cinecitta Studios where Guido is preparing his next film, a massive project called Italia. The only trouble: There's no script for the movie, and Guido has no idea how he's going to pull a film out of the tumult that surrounds him. He's not sure he can keep bluffing -- at press conferences or with the large crew that awaits the maestro's command.

Wishing to escape the pressure, Guido retreats to a spa, but instead of finding peace, he discovers more chaos. His mistress, the entire film crew and then his wife follow in hot pursuit. What's a poor, harried artist to do? Talk to a cardinal? Try to juggle his time between an increasingly disgusted wife and a demanding mistress?

The actors -- few known for their musical accomplishment -- do reasonably well with the movie's singing chores, but -- in truth -- they don't have much with which to work. I felt sorry for Dench, who must sing a ghastly number called the Folies Bergere. Happily, she emerges with her dignity in tact. In a movie not given to understatement, Cruz swings for the rafters as Carla, Guido's sexy mistress. Marshall approaches Cruz's number as if its sole purpose were to film Cruz's body from every conceivable angle. Say this: It takes your mind off the lyrics.

At times, the movie tempers its melodrama with an antic spirit, but Nine's only real moment of delicacy comes at the very end. Before that, boisterous music -- most with a generic Broadway ring -- mocks most attempts at sophistication.

I have no idea whether Nine will connect at the box office. It certainly has enough star power to sell tickets. But Nine is a movie full of hyperventilated editing, exaggerated energies, faux sophistication and unvarnished shtick.

Add it all up, and it amounts to ... well ... very little indeed.

Nothing broken about 'Embraces'

Penelope Cruz in one of her Broken Embraces incarnations.

I've often argued that Spanish director Pedro Almodovar is incapable of making a bad movie. There's greater and lesser Almodovar, and that's about all that needs to be said.

Broken Embraces -- the latest movie from the now aging bad boy of Spanish cinema -- falls somewhere between lesser and greater. Still, Broken Embraces is a must-see for those who've followed Almodovar's career and for those who love the sensuous pleasures of movies.

In Broken Embraces, Almodovar explores a variety of interconnecting relationships, as he deals with familiar themes of lust, love and obsession. In case such deeply human passions were insufficient, Almodovar further atomizes his narrative, setting the story in both the past and the present. And beyond even all of that, Broken Embraces serves as an enticing inquiry into the very nature of film -- film as art, film as entertainment, film as consolation and film as an instrument of surveillance.

Tellingly -- and, of course ironically -- the most revealing bit of film in the Almodovar's elaborate story is a bit of grainy footage that we're told was shot by a rank amateur.

Almodovar, of course, is no amateur; he's a terrifically entertaining filmmaker with a buff's appreciation of the past. Alberto Iglesias' score evokes memories of Bernard Hermann's work for Hitchcock, suggesting the dread and danger that gives an Almodovar film its tension. There's even a bit of self-reverential humor with Almodovar using a film within his film to suggest his own international breakthrough, 1988's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

As is the case with most of Almodovar's films, the story is too complex to summarize, but not to follow as you watch. In brief: Lluis Homar portrays film director Mateo Blanco, a man who lost his eyesight and now goes by the pseudonym of Harry Caine. No longer able to direct, Harry writes screenplays with the help of Diego (Tamar Novas), his youthful assistant. Diego's mother (Blanca Portillo) has a long-standing relationship with Homar's Harry Caine -- or Mateo, if you prefer. She's his agent and protector.

The plot begins to spin when a young man (Ruben Ochandiano) who calls himself Ray X shows up at Harry's door. He wants Harry to write a script. Harry refuses, but soon discovers Ray X's true identity. He's the gay son of a financier named Ernesto Martel (Jose Luis Gomez). At one time Martel financed a movie for Harry, mostly to appease his mistress (Penelope Cruz). Cruz's Lena landed a starring role in the film. Harry fell for her and a terrible rivalry between director and financier ensued.

That's enough plot to give you a feel for the movie's main ingredients -- if not its flavor. With Almodovar that's an important distinction because story is not always the main source of pleasure in an Almodovar movie. For that, we look to Almodovar's unparalleled cinematic facility, his ability to tease, suggest and create uneasy anticipation in the bargain.

Almodovar seldom approaches a scene in expected ways, and at a time when critics are hailing James Cameron's visual achievements in Avatar, it's instructive to remember that Almodovar's approach to cinema has a richness and purity that has less to do with technological innovation than with the director's nearly infallible eye.

All of the performances in Broken Embraces are fine, but Cruz's work as Lena drives the movie. Cruz plays a woman who's struggling to settle on an identity. Is she Harry's lover? Martel's mistress? An actress? Can she be all of those things at once?

Broken Embraces takes place in at least a couple of worlds as well, the world of real guilt and crippling anxiety and the world of cinematic artifice. Almodovar has crafted a tricky, sometimes elusive movie that's beautifully fluid in its movements. Like many of his films, it's about what we see and what we don't, about why films are made and why they are watched. Greater or lesser, it's clearly the work of a master.

Broken Embraces opens in Denver Friday, Christmas. Because of a glut of movies also opening Friday, I'm posting a few reviews earlier than usual.

A cop who's bad to the bone

Tracy and Hepburn they're not. Cage and Mendes share a moment in Werner Herzog's very crazy Bad Lieutenant.

Despite its title, Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is only a distant cousin to Abel Ferrara's 1992 movie -- also called Bad Lieutenant. Ferrara's movie starred Harvey Keitel as the world's most depraved detective. The new version stars Nicolas Cage as an equally corrupted cop, but one who doesn't seem to have time to plumb any Dostoevskian depths.

I'd just about given up on Cage, tagging the former Oscar-winner as an actor who appears mostly in the kind of big-ticket movies that have words such as "National Treasure" in the title. But Cage gives his chops a real workout in Bad Lieutenant.

For his part, Herzog -- whose career includes both features (Nosferatu and Fitzcarraldo) and documentaries (Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of the World) -- comes closer to mixing his sensibilities with a straightforward story than he did in 2006's exciting but more conventional Rescue Dawn.

Part genre exercise and part goof, Bad Lieutenant revolves around Cage's performance, which is every bit as insane as his character. As a homicide detective with back problems, Cage's McDonagh snorts cocaine, has a prostitute for a girlfriend, steals drugs from people he threatens with arrest, fraternizes with murderers and smokes a fair amount of pot.

With his shoulders tilted at a sea-saw angle and his face looking as if it's about to implode, Cage turns himself into a reptile with a badge, something that has crawled out of New Orleans' post-Katrina waters and can't shake off all the muck. Assigned to investigate the execution-style murder of a family of five, McDonagh sinks deeper and deeper into reprobate ways. Occasionally, he hallucinates, imagining that he sees a couple of iguanas on a table, for example (Granted, it's a small field, but Herzog includes the best shot of iguanas with musical accompaniment ever filmed.)

As is the case with any self-respecting neo-noir, plenty of minor characters round out the cast. Eva Mendes plays a hooker who McDonagh keeps supplied with drugs. There are also bookies, gangsters and every other imaginable form of human slime.

Perhaps because he couldn't quite decide whether to be serious or grimly funny, Herzog walks the fine line between both extremes. He also makes sure to include scenes that etch themselves into noir memory: McDonagh depriving an elderly woman of her oxygen exemplifies the movie's mean-spirited lunacy. As Cage unleashes a sneering rage that's almost cartoonish, the scene becomes an exercise in shock and macabre humor.

Usually, I hate a movie with several endings, which is the case with Bad Lieutenant. Herzog can't seem to let go of this character, and, by the end, I understood why. McDonagh allows Herzog to make a movie that feels as if it has been composed of jazz-like improvisations, riffs so harsh they turn into a kind of warped comedy, something like the rude, low humor of a honking saxophone.

In Denver, Bad Lieutenant wasn't screened in advance for critics, so I had to catch up with it over the weekend. It's a seriously twisted movie, which -- at least in this case -- is a good thing. In New Orleans, Herzog and Cage seem to have pushed each other toward a wild, dangerous and often-funny collaboration. They've made a movie that lives proudly on the fringe.

Humans bad! Aliens good! It's 'Avatar'

Jake becomes an avatar to learn native ways.

The long list of technical credits for James Cameron's much-hyped Avatar don't pile as high as the stacks of money the movie surely will earn, but they do attest to Cameron's ability to push the medium to its limits. Like Titanic, Avatar will be a box office bonanza, prompting multiple viewings among fans and producing a stream of devotees who believe the movie's encompassing use of 3D and masterful deployment of motion-capture techniques will revolutionize moviemaking as we know it.

At minimum, Avatar seems destined to become a touchstone for geeks everywhere, and five minutes in, you certainly can see why it took Cameron four years to complete his elaborate sci-fi fantasy.

For more than an hour, I found myself wondering whether Cameron hadn't achieved what he hoped, a full immersion in a world so compelling, it sweeps you away. But the movie kept on going -- two hours and 40 minutes -- long enough to expose its deficiencies: the over-ripe pulpy dialogue, the juvenile thinking and the obvious and dated references to such politically explosive matters as Vietnam and Bush era foreign policy.

Avatar's catalog of effects, which carry the picture a long way, range from industrial-strength macho to Tinkerbell ethereal. And, I swear, I thought of both George Lucas and Walt Disney while watching Avatar, not quite the right references for those us who prefer Cameron in his grisly sci-fi mode, a la The Terminator and Aliens.

The thematic underpinnings of the story can't be regarded as one of its strongest points: Avatar pits imperialism, materialism and greed against the natural purity of an indigenous population on the planet Pandora. Ravenous corporate earthlings -- in cahoots with the military -- want to trample the planet, regarding it only as a source of the mineral unobtainium. I'm not making up that name, by the way. Unobtainium? Why not something even less subtle? How about greedium?

The locals -- aliens called the Na'vi -- live in Pandroa's forests and are in tune with the natural environment. Cameron imbues the Na'vi with many of the idealized qualities with which Earth's indigenous populations so often are romanticized. They love nature and understand how to live in harmony with animals, even ferocious ones. Forget selfish individualism. Among the Na'vi, there's much talk of "the people."

Like Titanic, Avatar also revolves around a love story. Sam Worthington plays Jake Scully, a Marine whose legs were paralyzed in combat. Jake arrives on Pandora to replace his late scientist brother. Because Jake shares DNA history with his brother, he's able to complete his brother's mission and become an avatar, a creature created by mixing human and alien DNA. A human subject climbs into a sleeping chamber, dozes off and emerges in the wilds of Pandora as an avatar, in this case as a member of the Na'vi tribe, 10-feet tall creatures that look like humans, although they still have tails.

Once propelled into the world of the Na'vi, Jake -- or more precisely his Na'vi avatar -- is able to walk and run. The Na'Vi princess Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) takes a liking to Jake and initiates him into the ways of the Na'vi, which include learning how to merge with the spirits of other creatures (it's done by linking tails), riding prehistoric-looking beasts and generally adopting a greener-than-thou attitude. The Na'vi may appear primitive, but their intelligence is more geared toward survival than that of the earthlings, who already have despoiled their own planet.

At times, Avatar almost seems like a fairy tale -- assuming you like fairy tales that come fully equipped with bruising battles and thudding heavy machinery. The jungles and floating mountains of Pandora are richly imagined, and state-of-the-art 3D tends to pull you into the world that Cameron so painstakingly has created.

The movie raises questions that are less than groundbreaking. We know that Jake will fall for Neytiri and that he will face a moral dilemma. Will he side with the Na'vi or with the corporate militarists -- led by Giovanni Ribisi (as a heartless businessman) and Stephen Lang (as a Marine officer)? Sigourney Weaver signs on as a scientist who believes that the way to win Na'vi hearts is through understanding and diplomacy. She wants to bond with the Na'vi; the corporate guys want to break them to pieces.

I wasn't bored by Avatar, but the longer it wore on, the more it became apparent that the thinking behind it can be as simplistic as the movie's technology is complex. And even that wouldn't matter if it didn't seem as if Cameron was taking himself so damn seriously. I guess when you're able to raise somewhere around $300 million to make a movie, ego inflation is inevitable.

And after the revenue-producing triumphs of Titanic, who really believed that Cameron would be content as the self-proclaimed king of only one world?