Nicholas Nickleby, Black Book, The Promise, Running on Karma, A Matter of Loaf and Death, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, & Away from Her

Nicholas Nickleby was actually pretty good. Charlie Hunnam, of the late and lamented by me Undeclared, stars as the titular character, and Jim Broadbent, Christopher Plummer, Jamie Bell, Romola Garai, Tom Courtenay, Anne Hathaway, Juliet Stevenson, Nathan Lane (with Dame Edna as his wife), Alan Cumming, Timothy Spall, Edward Fox, and Kevin McKidd provide able backup. Written and directed by Douglas McGrath, who is also responsible for Emma and Infamous, the less good version of both Emma and the Truman Capote story, he actually manages to make a fine film here, worth watching if you enjoy either social commentary or Dickens (probably both if you enjoy one, really). It's fairly funny, captures the spirit of the Dickens novel without attempting to fit everything into it, and just a very fine way to spend over two hours.

Black Book is a Paul Verhoeven film, so it's full of sex and violence. I enjoyed it thoroughly. It goes to show that Carice van Houten actually can act (and Hollywood had no idea what to do with her, probably because she bleached her pubes on screen here), and the others who are ok in Valkyrie are quite good here. Verhoeven gets slammed unfairly for making Showgirls and Hollow Man (neither of which are good movies per se), but he is also responsible for Robocop, Total Recall, Starship Troopers, and The Fourth Man, all great to amazing films. He is someone who makes watchable films, as long as he isn't censored horribly. I need to make an effort to see some more of his earlier Dutch films. Spetters was kind of hard for me to watch, as I was never able to find a particularly good quality subtitled (or dubbed) version when I looked a few years ago. It's out on DVD here, though, so I'm going to put it in my Netflix queue, along with Soldier of Orange.

The Promise was crap. Sorry, Chen Kaige, but terrible CGI and Cecilia Cheung are not enough to make me sit through crap. The script was a mess, and I didn't even realize that the DVD had a skip in it that made me rewatch four minutes until it skipped for the second time. Avoid like the plague this movie is on Chen Kaige's career.

Running on Karma has Andy Lau in a very fake muscle suit, and starts the movie as a male stripper, who used to be a monk and can see the future and past of people and can talk to animals. He befriends the cop (Cecilia Cheung) who was involved in a sting over his fully nude strip show and helps her solve crimes, including one of a dude who can contort himself in very small places. It is utterly ridiculous. It's co-directed by Johnny To, who's very talented, so it actually is a strange thriller, but with some very, very silly things in it to accept. And then it takes a very, very weird turn in the third act. Karma is a very important part of the film. This ending would never fly in a non-Buddhist country.

A Matter of Loaf and Death is the new Wallace and Gromit short. I am a huge fan of Aardman Animation, and while this isn't as strong as The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave, or The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, it's up there with Chicken Run and A Grand Day Out. I think I missed cheese. But the animation is as strong as ever, it just didn't quite do it for me as much as their best, although it was full of funny references and terrible dog puns. Still definitely worth watching whenever it actually airs in the US.

The Wind That Shakes the Barley is a Ken Loach film about the origins of Ireland, and the fighting between those who founded the IRA and those who took the Irish Free State way out. As such, it actually is a companion piece with Neil Jordan's Michael Collins, which I saw back in 1996 at a pre-release screening in Cincinnati for an Irish group my grandfather was a member of. Anyway, the film was frustrating, because neither the ubernationalists or the more conciliatory Free-staters were really wrong, so seeing the ending just made me pissed all over again at Eamon De Valera. Damn you. Of course, the parallels between the IRA and terrorist organizations and guerrillas of today is used by Loach very effectively to point out that the British never had a chance in Ireland, and the only surprising thing is that it took so long for them to give up. It's a very good looking film, and for those interested in Irish history, definitely worth it.

Away from Her was directed by Sarah Polley, from an Alice Munro story, and is about a couple, deeply in love, and the wife gets Alzheimer's. Depressing as hell, but beautifully shot, and great acting all around. If you can handle two hours of sadness, I can't think of a better film about Alzheimer's out there. Infinitely better than The Notebook (which I tried to watch once, but man, it was just ugh).