Love Liza, Factotum, The Double Life of Veronique, Music & Lyrics, & 3:10 to Yuma

Love Liza has a good performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman. Wait a second. It has a performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman. Therefore it has a good performance from him. As for the rest of the movie, I didn't entirely care for it, being not a fan of huffing fumes or radio controlled planes. The raw emotional film made me feel uncomfortable throughout most of it. So I can appreciate it, but I didn't like it nearly as much as I should have.

Factotum actually fits well with Love Liza. I just couldn't understand why Chinaski just couldn't try to conform a little. I know that's the point, but man, he needed a kick in the ass. Maybe I enjoy society a little too much to read and/or enjoy Bukowski. Good performances, in the service of another largely pointless film. Largely, as Marisa Tomei (she of the undeserved Oscar for My Cousin Vinny (still a film I utterly love and watched again this weekend)) is topless, as is Lili Taylor.

The Double Life of Veronique is a typical Krzysztof Kieslowski film about moral choices and coincidences, this one about two women, one named Veronique in Paris, and the other Weronika in Warsaw. Of course, they're deeply linked, and a strong performance from Irene Jacob ties the film together extremely well. And as typical for Kieslowski, I loved it. In this particular case, the Weinsteins asked to add in a couple extra scenes, included on the Criterion DVD (Have I mentioned how much I love them? Because I do), which are really unnecessary, unless you can't connect the clear trend of the film until the original end. If you can't figure out how the next couple of minutes would go without the scenes, you haven't paid any attention.

Music & Lyrics is a trifle, but Hugh Grant is eminently watchable. And how can you ever complain about Aasif Mandvi? Of course, it wasn't much of a plot, but the music (a lot by Adam Schlesinger, who makes pop music for movies that is far better than it has any right to be) and the likable cast made me not regret it at all. If you don't actually want to spend the 96 minutes to watch the entire film, you owe it to yourself to watch the video for PoP! Goes My Heart. Especially if you love utterly absurd 80s videos, of which this is a completely perfect parody.

3:10 to Yuma is the 1957 film that James Mangold just remade. The central performances from Glenn Ford (as the almost psychotic Ben Wade) and Van Heflin (as the honest but poor Dan Evans) are what elevates this film to more than its basic plot. And it's absolutely horrendous theme song. I didn't like the ending very much, although I'm not sure how else it could have ended in the days of the Hays Code. And I loved the sex scene. The horrible repression that led to that scene is why this country has this idea of the 50s as a clean time. Damnit, the bartender had sex with the leader of the gang after just a brief time. That's not a more innocent time than now. It's the same as it ever was.