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Dogma (1999, 130 min, R) *** - Directed & written by Kevin Smith, starring Linda Fiorentino, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Alan Rickman. Writer-director Smith uses comedy, parody, and fantasy in this surreal, sometimes devout and sometimes skeptical examination of Catholicism. An indirect (and hot) descendent of Christ (Fiorentino) crosses paths with two rogue angels (Damon and Affleck) in New Jersey. The movie mixes the low-brow with exhaustively-researched Church doctrines, all with Smith’s trademark witty repartee and occasionally clunky direction.
The Dreamers (2004, 116 min, NC17) **1/2 – Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, starring Michael Pitt, Eva Green, and Louis Garrel. That a movie with riots, incest, menage-a-trois, cinephilia, and endless minutes of nudity can be so un-involving is nothing short of amazing. In this “American Pie” for the art house crowd, three naked brats lock themselves in an apartment in 1968 and screw around while Paris riots. Each time they exchange bodily fluids is intended to be profound because “The Dreamers” is “frank about sexuality,” which means that its characters do things a lot weirder than anything you and I ever have done, and involving much less body fat. A blank American (Pitt, with the stupidest face I’ve ever seen on an actor) gets drawn into the singular relationship between two Paris twins (Green and Garrel) who cover up their own blankness with elevated talk and wannabee eccentricity. If they were teenagers today they would spend their time hanging around the mall trying to “freak people out;” if they are adults today they probably work in plastics. Maybe I would have been drawn in if Bertolucci had played the movie as juicy melodrama (a la “The Fall of the House of Usher”), pointed satire (like “Y Tu Mama Tambien”), or with the wistful melancholy of well-meaning transgressions gone too far (“Jules et Jim”). Still, he does get in some athletic long takes and exciting camera movements, the bluesy soundtrack is good, and the apartment where the kids mess around drips with atmosphere.
Dressed to Kill (1980, 105 min, R) ***1/2 – Directed by Brian De Palma, starring Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, and Nancy Allen. Voyeuristic, meticulously shot, and dreamily gauzy thriller about a razor-wielding stalker obsessed with a psychiatrist (Caine) and one of his sexually unsatisfied patients (Dickinson). Throw a remorseless hooker into the mix (Allen) and you have a first-rate guilty pleasure about sexual inadequacy, gender reassignment, fear of arousal, and liking to watch.
Dude, Where’s My Car? (2000, 83 min, PG13) ** - Directed by Danny Leiner, starring Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott. Surprisingly innocent and occasionally charming comic exploits of two oafish but well-meaning stoners in search of a missing automobile. Their vocabulary consists primarily of the words “dude” and “sweet,” and their quest brings them across ostriches, strippers, extra-terrestrials, and blows to the crotch. With shooting gallery direction, no character arc, no great images, no emotional investment, and no point, the movie plays as a series of “Saturday Night Live” or “MAD TV” sketches strung together, and can only be rated on how many individual scenes succeed. For me, it was about 50%. “Where’s My Car?” is at least genial about its own shoddiness—a trait that makes some viewers more forgiving than others, or at least less threatened—and there is some memorable “duh, duh” dialogue. The high water mark for two dopes solving a crime whose greatest obstacle is their own short attention spans is, of course, John Goodman and Jeff Bridges as Walter and The Dude in the Coen Brothers’ “The Big Lebowski.”
Daredevil (2003, 103 min, PG13) ** - Directed by Mark Steven Johnson, starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, and Colin Farrell. Yet another Marvel superhero movie, this one is about a blind stuntman who uses kung-fu to battle the forces of evil. Made well enough, with some good religious imagery, but vaguely listless and without anything to set it apart from the also not-very-good “Spider-man” and “X-Men.”
Deep Impact (1998, 120 min, PG13) ** - Directed by Mimi Leder, starring Robert Duvall, Tea Leoni, and Morgan Freeman. Saccharine and clumsy end-of-the-world “epic” about a comet, asteroid, or some other flaming brick falling from outer space. The movie wants to be a serious drama about real people making peace with death, but its budget demands that everything be broad and laid on thick. Still, there are some good images, including a supernatural tidal wave.
The Deer Hunter (1978, 183 min, R) **** - Directed & co-written by Michael Cimino, starring Robert De Niro, Jon Cazale, Christopher Walken, and John Savage. Three boyhood chums (De Niro, Walken, and Savage) from an ethnic enclave in Detroit have their mettles tested in the furnace of Vietnam. When they come home they are never the same again. Includes a harrowing game of Russian roulette that challenges our ability to not blink. A sad, powerful film, wisely shot in a slow, nearly documentary-style by director Cimino. Oscars include Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor Walken.
Dementia 13 (1963, 81 min, B&W, NR) *** - Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Patrick Magee, Luana Anders, and Bart Patton. The great Coppola’s feature debut—made for B movie king Roger Corman—succeeds not because we care about the characters or what happens to them next but because it is so deliciously lurid and trashily macabre. Greed, beheading, axes, insanity, secrets from the past, and a recently-altered will collide when a family straight out of Edgar Alan Poe reunites at an Irish castle. The movie combines drive-in humor with evocative (and cheap) black-and-white images.