A MID-SUMMER NIGHT’S REVIEWS IN A HURRY for 2006 Destiny (aka Between Two Worlds) (1921, 96 min, NR) *** - Directed & co-written by Fritz Lang, starring Bernhard Goetzke, Lil Dagover, and Walter Janssen.  Much like Lang’s silent masterpieces “M” and “Die Nibelungen,” but this time not quite the right combination of powerful and silly.  Based on a childhood dream of Lang’s, the frame story is a powerful, surreal vision of Death setting up an impenetrable temple in a country village and striking a deal with a local couple when the man’s time has come.  Death’s candle-filled temple and the way he stands like a father with his hands on the couple’s shoulders are haunting.  Less effective, but sort of charmingly goofy, are the three visions in which the couple tries to prove that love can conquer death.  Like the dances in “The Nutcracker,” one sequence is set in the Middle East, one in Renaissance Rome, and one in China.  Lang is a master of black-and-white compositions and all three sequences have a jokey beauty to them, even if they’re repetitive and probably offensive to the groups represented by Germans in make-up.  Hitchcock remarked that this film was a great influence on him. Incident at Loch Ness (2004, 94 min, PG13) *** - Directed by Zak Penn, starring Werner Herzog, Penn, Kitana Baker, and Michael Kurnow.  Self-criticism is always more revealing and intriguing than criticism of others; “2001’s” director was kind of a robot, Orson Welles was a lot like “Citizen Kane,” and Michael Moore in “Bowling for Columbine,” like all Americans, likes guns.  And so we have the fake documentary “Incident at Loch Ness,” in which hack writer-producer-Hollywood type Zak Penn (played by real-life hack writer-producer-Hollywood type Zak Penn, of “X2,” “X3,” “Elektra,” and some other dumb movies; he looks like he would pledge at the same fraternity as Prince William and Aaron Eckhart) agrees to produce a documentary for Werner Herzog (played by himself), the great antithesis-of-Hollywood, true-to-his-artistic-vision filmmaker of “Aguirre, The Wrath of God” and “Fitzcarraldo.”  That the two don’t see eye-to-eye is an understatement—Werner wants to explore the “mythology” of the paranormal while Zak puts together a remote-controlled Nessie and hires a bikini-clad “sonar expert”—and the movie becomes a battle between artistry and commercialism.  Similarly, Herzog comes under a bit of criticism; even he “fakes” a little in documentary, asking for a Nessie expert who is “zealous yet credible.”  Then they DO see something in the water, a production assistant gets eaten, and everything goes cuckoo bananas.  “Incident” works as satire, comedy, and horror.  What’s fascinating is that Zak, by all accounts, really is the hardworking hack he plays in the movie, although we hope he’s not so despicable.  He stays “in character” even through the DVD commentary, in which he pisses off one co-commentator after another.  And it’s always fun to watch Werner Herzog on film because, no matter what his mood is, his tone of voice is always EXACTLY THE SAME:  slow, mellow, and precise. Jaws 2 (1978, 116 min, PG) ** - Directed by Jeannot Szwarc, starring Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gray, and Murray Hamilton.  A wholly unnecessary film that serves mostly to remind you how brilliant the original “Jaws” is.  “Jaws 2” is an exercise in taking most of the same elements as “Jaws” and re-arranging them in an inferior manner.  Nothing new, deeper, or interesting is added, and the movie seems to know this and is lethargic.  Exceptions:  the effects used to bring the shark to the screen are actually an improvement over the original (which shows how much Spielberg was able to convey by suggestion alone) and the final act, in which a group of teenagers on small sailboats is besieged, is moderately exciting.  I like how hardly anyone on the sunny beachfront wears sunglasses.
		Somewhere in Time (1980, 104 min, PG) **1/2 – Directed by Jeannot Szwarc, starring Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, and Christopher Plummer.  A romance that works well as longing and desire and sadness and tragedy, but not so much when the couple is actually together; it’s all dressed up and nowhere to go.  “Somewhere in Time” is intensely romantic, even schmaltzy, and absurd, but it is so open-faced and sincere that I had no difficulty accepting it early on.  It even has a speech in the middle that was romantic and sad; I liked it and I hate speeches in movies.  A playwright (Reeve) in 1980 falls in love with the photograph of an actress (Seymour) from the 1920s.  The movie’s first act is exciting, as he realizes the actress (as an old woman) gave him a watch years ago, and he finds his own signature in a hotel registry from 1912.  More than that, it is simply an inherently sweet and tragic premise.  Circles within circles, not just in time travel, but in the way romance is always somewhat self-serving; he falls in love with her looking at him.  Reeve is good for the part because, like Harrison Ford and Will Smith, he may not have an enormous range, but he is so likeable and sincere that when he believes something, no matter how preposterous, we believe it too.  But the movie only has about enough substance for an episode of “The Twilight Zone” or an hour-long “Outer Limits.”  Once he goes back in time he does—what?  Get in a squabble with the actress’s manager (Christopher Plummer).  Feel out of place.  Take her for a walk.  The section in 1912 is photographed nicely, like an impressionist painting, and, while Reeve and Seymour look nice together, it doesn’t live up to the expectations of the premise.  The frame story succeeds despite the dry spell of the middle—his abrupt return to the present is a genuine bummer.  In the end, the movie may be shallow and you can certainly call it silly, but it has a musical quality of loss and sweetness, thanks largely to John Barry’s beautiful (if sometimes overused) score.  I can’t give “Somewhere in Time” a wholehearted recommendation, but it does have a magical quality to it, if you’re willing to let it, and if you can tough through the second act. Thank You for Smoking (2006, 92 min, R) *** – Directed & written for the screen by Jason Reitman, starring Aaron Eckhart, William H. Macy, Katie Holmes, Maria Bello, Robert Duvall, and Rob Lowe.  A godsend for audiences who love movies packed with their favorite character actors being corrupt, stupid, slimy, downright evil, and always unrepentant.  It’s sometimes a smug and shallow satire, but, then again, so is its protagonist.  Professional jackass Aaron Eckhart (“In the Company of Men”) was born to play the smarmy, open-faced, shit-eating tobacco representative; it’s the kind of performance that’s so effortless, so natural, that it will certainly be overlooked come awards’ time.  The movie is mostly about that delicious balance between laws that protect us and the freedom to abuse ourselves out of existence.  Eckhart’s nemesis is the senator (god-who-walks-as-man William H. Macy) who is, in his way, virtually as despicable as Eckhart is.  Macy’s senator ends the movie by trying to edit cigarettes out of old movies and replace them with things like candy canes.  The movie’s best episode involves Eckhart meeting with a powerful and possibly insane Hollywood powerbroker (Rob Lowe) to try to get more cigarettes into the movie.  “Do you know what time it is Tokyo?” Lowe asks.  “4:00 tomorrow.  It’s the future.”  The movie is great fun as a comedy and not as successful at being a satire; it’s the kind of mass-market movie that tricks critics into thinking it’s much more “edgy” than it really is.  You’ll have a good time but probably won’t learn anything new.  And, yes, Jason Reitman is the son of “Ghostbusters” director Ivan Reitman. United 93 (2006, 91 min, R) ***1/2 – Directed & written by Paul Greengrass, starring Khalid Abdalla, Christian Clemenson, and Cheyenne Jackson.  Oh, part of my wants-wants-wants to go along with the flow and give this movie 4 stars.  And yet, and yet, and yet there are two things that jump out at me.  First are the title cards right after the movie has finished and the credits are about to begin.  It doesn’t matter what they say; having any little “message” here to tie things together in a needlessly comforting little bow so that we can go home with some kind of sentimental chaser to cut the grimness is a letdown (albeit a small one), especially after the movie so wisely refuses commentary for most of its runtime.  As for what it does say—the movie’s “lesson,” I guess—it’s an underwhelming complaint about governmental organization, as if all America needed to avert 9/11 was a cosmic FLYLady.  This is accurate to an extent, I suppose, but hardly matching the dramatic impact of what goes before it.  My second issue:  I understand that there was a European on United 93, and I accept that there was probably someone onboard who wanted to appease the terrorists, but why did he have to be the same person in this film?  Even audience members who equate “Frenchman” with “America-hating sissy” and smacked their lips at his treachery have to admit that this is jarring.  This is a bit of commentary from the filmmakers in a film that otherwise has none (like a piece of “Last Temptation of Christ” snuck into “Passion of the Christ”).  And that’s what “United 93” does so well:  it watches.  Director Greengrass tells his story in short, handheld shots, observing without judging, without using any big-name actors (although I did recognize Christian Clemenson from “The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.”).  Dialogue overlaps, real-life people play themselves, and characters are not given melodramatic backgrounds.  Greengrass knows how crowds move and what a riot looks like; it will be interesting to compare this to “World Trade Center” later this year from Oliver Stone, who, while certainly frenetic, is also a bit more of a painterly director.  “United 93” deserves mention in the same sentence as “The Exorcist,” not for subject matter, but because both films cause the same nervous-lump-in-the-stomach feeling as we wait for awful things to happen, as harried men with their sleeves rolled up and their neckties loosened notice something out-of-place on their radar screens. 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