German director Wim Wenders has been named the head of the jury at the Venice Film Festival, which runs August 27-September 6. His latest film "Palermo Shooting" screened at last month's Cannes Film Festival to atrocious reviews. 

I must admit that as it was the second-to-last film to play at the Festival, I was a bit too tired to beg for a ticket. However, a handful of my fellow students did put forth the energy, but soon discovered that they were not going to be rewarded for this one. Aside from bad reviews shared in class, the group invented a new game: Would You Rather? The Palermo Shooting Edition. An example: Would you rather scoop out your eyes with spoons, or watch "Palermo Shooting" again? Ask any of my friends this question, and they will ask you for a spoon. 

So to hear that Wenders will be the head juror for the next big film festival fresh off of a failure is a bit strange. Wenders made his first appearance at the Venice Film Festival in 1972 with "Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter" (The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty Kick) and later won the Golden Lion for "Der Stand der Dinge" (The State of Things) in 1982. 

While at the Cannes Film Festival this past may, director Quentin Tarantino announced that his long-talked-about WWII film "Inglorious Bastards" would finally be going into production. Rumor has it that the film will be split into two parts, a la "Kill Bill," and that Tarantino has finished the script and is ready to start shooting!

"Inglorious Bastards" will be loosely based on Italian director Enzo Castellari's 1978 film of the same name. In an interview set to appear on the upcoming collector's DVD of Castellari's film, Tarantino claims that the 1978 film is only the beginning of where his two films will go. 

According to Tarantino, his film will feature "a bunch of hardened criminals on a military transport during World War II that got ambushed by the Nazis. Everyone but the criminals gets killed and the prisoners decide to make their way to neutral Switzerland and must fight the Nazis and the Allies to get there. It's a true No Man's Land scenario." 

No word on the casting yet; Tarantino has tossed dozens of big names around in the past few years, but no one is officially attached to the project yet. The film will be going into production later this year as Tarantino hopes to take it to next year's Cannes Film Festival. 

MSN has posted a link to the first international teaser trailer for the Coen Brothers' upcoming dark comedy "Burn After Reading."

"Burn After Reading" is a spy comedy chronicling what happens when an ousted CIA official's (John Malkovich) memoir accidentally falls into the hands of two goofy gym employees (Brad Pitt and George Clooney) who want to exploit their find. 

As if the synopsis and the pull of the Coen name aren't enough to get you to the theater, this trailer should get you excited about the September release. It's the perfect length and features enough quick editing to keep you entertained and guessing. 

Director Walter Salles ("The Motorcycle Diaries) and his co-directer Daniela Thomas return to the streets of Brazil for their competition entry at Cannes, "Linha de Passe." In realist style, the story follows four brothers in modern San Paulo as they learn how to cope with poverty and daily life in the director's hometown. 

"Linha de Passe" (a soccer term) chronicles one summer in the lives of pregnant housemaid Cleuza (Sandra Corveloni) and her four sons. Dario (Vinicius De Oliveira) is a talented soccer player who wants to go pro, Dinho (José Geraldo Rodrigues) is a motorcycle courier on the dangerous highways of San Paulo with a baby by a previous girlfriend, Denis (Joao Baldasserini) is a born-again Christian looking for some sort of salvation, and young Reginaldo (Kaique de Jesus Santos) rides the city bus all day and night searching for his unknown father. 

With "Linha de Passe," Salles wanted to break away from the typical stories of drugs and crime in Brazil and instead focus on the kids who live there and manage to save themselves. Drugs and crime are not absent from the film, but the actions are shown as pieces of these boys' lives and part of reality in the outskirts of the large Brazilian city. 

Thus, Salles provides viewers with a wandering plot that does not possess much structure. This is an exercise in cinema du realité: since when does real life have a three-act structure? The final sequence shows all four brothers being tested; Salles intercuts between all of the stories, raising the tension and cementing our emotional connection to the boys. The ending is open and left up to interpretation, but that does not mean it is not satisfying. 

Salles uses newcomers to the screen and unknown actors here, allowing the performances to be as close to real as possible. These four boys maintain individuality even as the camera flits from one story to another, following the characters as they go through daily life confronting sex, work, drugs, crime, unknown fathers, and, most dramatic of all, soccer tryouts. This family has no father, but these boys show that their relationship can lead to the salvation they seek. 

One of the biggest running jokes among our group at the Cannes Film Festival was Venice festival regular Jia Zhangke's in-competition debut "24 City." 

A combination documentary and fiction film, "24 City" chronicles the closing of an aeronautic factory in rural China. Once again, I had been duped by the Cannes program, which made the film sound as if it was a fictional story of a small Chinese community. That I could dig. But this combination business creates a disjoint from the viewer and the story: if this is a documentary but some pieces aren't real, how can you understand what truly happened and how people were really affected? 

The story is told by talking heads in front of a stationary camera, and though many critics praised it as a simple but effective personal story, the only positive thing I can say about the film is that it provided me with the opportunity to sneak a much-needed nap. Resting my head against that carpeted column in the back row of the Lumiere Theater, I silently and unconsciously thanked Zhangke for creating a film so boring and quiet that I was able to catch up on days of missed rest. 

If I learned one thing from the Cannes Film Festival schedule and program, it was that the summaries of the films could rarely be trusted. When I received my shiny ticket for Paolo Sorrentino's "Il Divo," I prepared myself for an Italian mafia movie along the lines of "The Godfather." I was surprised, not unpleasantly, to discover only a few minutes into the film that "Il Divo" is in fact a witty, action-packed film that looks as though Quentin Tarantino got his hands on "Smokin' Aces."

It is the beginning of the 1990s, and Guilio Andreotti is ambling towards his seventh term as Prime Minister. He is a strange creature - a short man with floppy ears and a dry sense of humor. Over the years, he has been blamed for nearly everything that has happened in Italy since the Punic Wars. His nicknames include: The Divine Julius, The First Letter of the Alphabet, The Hunchback, The Fox, Moloch, The Salamander, The Black Pope, Eternity, The Man From The Underworld, and Beelzebub. After 47 years in office, nothing scares him and accusations roll over him without leaving a trace. But as this election approaches, Andreotti is implicated in a wide range of illegal activities, most involving the mafia. In "Il Divo," Sorrentino plunges into Andreotti's psyche with original wit and dry humor as the man of many nicknames prepares himself for the "Trial of the Big Mafia." 

"Il Divo" opens with several glossaries of almost laughable length and detail. When these appeared on the screen, I began to worry. My memorization skills are not what they used to be, and I've never been one for politics. However, the following title sequence blew all of my concerns out of the water as Cassius's rocking "Toop Toop" backed a montage of assassinations accompanied by mobile three-dimensional captions telling you the identity of the deceased. Not a native Italian, I did not recognize any of the names (which included Aldo Moro, Roberto Calvi, and Giovanni Falcone), but that didn't detract from the film's entertainment value. It was made instantly clear by the script's clever humor and the wildly mobile camera that "Il Divo" was going to be a fun ride. 

The fast editing style of "Il Divo" is expertly tempered by Sorrentino's handling of his main character. When we first meet Andreotti, he has his head down on his desk while his voice-over explains that he has trouble sleeping and suffers from terrible migraines. Many doctors have told him that he will not live long, but they are dead now. He raises his head, revealing a face full of acupuncture needles. The blank stare on his face will remain there throughout the film, and he maintains the same vocal cadence as he rattles of his list of accusations to journalists, tells his wife of his implications, and finally confesses his sins to the audience. 

With relatively limited dialogue, Servillo's performance is closer to that of a contemporary Buster Keaton. In one scene, he is walking with his hands clasped in front of him and his usual determination through his house. He suddenly stops; a fluffy white cat is in his path. The two have a stare-down worthy of an old Western. Andreotti claps his hands forcefully a few times, and the cat finally backs down. Andreotti charges ahead, continuing on his former path. The real Andreotti is less than pleased with Sorrentino's film; he has made his opinions clear for the public, claiming "Il Divo" highlights a lot of his personal flaws and gives him flaws he doesn't have, but the more likely explanation for his concern is that Sorrentino lays all of Andreotti's sins at his feet.

There is no doubt in my mind that "Il Divo" is intensely political, but its weight is lost on non-Italian audiences. The other members of my group who saw the film at the Festival all confessed to giving up on trying to keep track of who was who early on in the film and decided instead to just enjoy the style and the dryly funny character of Andreotti. The dozens of Italian names are meaningless, but audiences will still understand the assassinations, wave of suicides, and illegal acts linked to Andreotti's name, making the final shot, a title card explaining that Andreotti has been acquitted of all 26 charges, set to Trio's 1982 "Da Da Da" all the more memorable and somehow, perfect. 

The Belgian directorial team of brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are no strangers to Cannes. The two have taken home two prestigious Palme d'Or awards in the last six years, for "Rosetta" and "L'Enfant." This year, they presented audiences with "La Silence de Lorna (Lorna's Silence)," a moral tale concerning a young Albanian woman and her deal with Russian mobsters to gain Belgian citizenship. "La Silence de Lorna" is a well-paced drama that illustrates the guilt that is forced upon this woman by her powerlessness.

Lorna, an Albanian woman, is living in Belgium and married to junkie Claudy in order to become a citizen. After the Russian mafia carry out their plans for Claudy, Lorna will marry one of their comrades in order to make him a Belgian in turn. Lorna and her boyfriend Sokol plan to use the money to open up a snack shop. This all seems simple enough, until Claudy begs Lorna to help him stay clean and she begins to feel guilty about what the Russians have in store for him.

Lorna asks her handlers about getting a quickie divorce, which would be possible if she could prove that Claudy was an abusive husband, but the Russians are determined to stick with the original plan, even if they tell her otherwise. A sweet little love story between Lorna and the charming but helpless Claudy develops, only adding gravity to Lorna's later guilt. 

"La Silence de Lorna" marks the Dardenne brothers' first film not shot in their hometown of Seraing. The change of scenery to Liege allows for a more realistic vision of the world of immigrants struggling to stay alive by means that aren't always honest, or legal. A technically low-key film that hinges upon Lorna's inability to control her life, "La Silence de Lorna" strongly depends upon the performance by lead actress Dobroshi. With striking short black hair, Dobroshi rises to the challenge in her big screen debut and provides audiences with a hauntingly human portrayal of a trapped woman. 

The film moves slowly but never drags. The viewer learns information as Lorna does; as each piece is revealed, we must decide what the right thing to do is and if how we would react is different than how Lorna does. Her silence ultimately leads to her guilt and eventual madness, showing the Dardennes' ability to create intense drama with quiet pieces. "La Silence de Lorna" isn't a total downer; the film possesses a few moments of humor and idealized romance as Lorna and Claudy grow to like one another and then as Lorna tries to convince him to hit her to get the divorce. 

A large gap in time towards the end creates a jump from the film's former chronological structure to an unknown point in the future, leading to an ending that is certain to split audiences. As Lorna is further consumed by guilt, she begins to lose her mind, and this formerly strong and resolute character degrades into a fragile creature incapable of protecting herself. She escapes, but to what end? 

Taking its title from those famous simians who speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil, Nuri B. Ceylan's "Three Monkeys" focuses on a family's reaction to tragedy by avoidance. The film, visually stunning in crisp HD, is a exercise in audience patience. With a bit of editing, this emotionally draining piece could be the perfect art house film. 

In the Turkish language "Three Monkeys," diegetic sound is more important than dialogue, just as reactions are more important than actions. The film opens with Servet (Ercan Kesal), an aging politician, falling asleep at the wheel. Instead of displaying the following collision, Ceylan cuts to the aftermath. This quiet and murky scene sets the tone for the rest of the film. 

Not wanting the accident on his record, Servet convinces his driver Eyup (Yavuz Bingol) to take the fall and serve time in prison. Servet promises to repay his friend for his troubles with a large sum of money upon his release. However, Eyup's sentence drags on and his wife Hacer (Itatice Aslan) grows impatient and asks Servet for an advance. The conditions to which Servet agrees are kept quiet from the audience until Hacer's and Eyup's teenage son Ismail (Ahmet Rifat Sungar) uncovers the truth about their more-than-professional relationship.

Upon Eyup's release from prison, Ceylan delivers several films' worth of past tragedies and current tensions, but he does not make understanding easy for the audience. A dead little boy proves that Hacer's indiscretion is not the first event to tear the family apart, but he disappears before the storyline is fully fleshed out. 

Political issues, class tensions, and family tragedies are hinted at but never expressly dealt with, focusing the film on its central three monkeys, er, characters. The amount of important information kept from the audience ensures that the viewer stays as lost as the characters. We never see the tragedies, and the difficulty in discerning exactly which event is the main tragedy that catalyzes this family's self-destruction, creates a barrier that holds the audience from identifying with these people. They are undeniably human, providing the yin to Arnaud Desplechin's yang in his Cannes entry "Un Conte De Noel," in which family members hold back nothing, but there is not enough character development or dialogue to allow the audience to understand motivations. 

"Three Monkeys" attempts to make up for this lack in character psychology and dialogue with detailed sounds and long stretches of silence. No ambient sound goes unnoticed; trains speeding by on nearby tracks and children playing become the soundtrack to the film, along with Hacer's darkly comic cellular phone ring tone, a bitter song about a woman falling in love and losing it. 

The film also succeeds as a triumph in cinematography. The murky hues and sepia tones give "Three Monkeys" a dark and off-putting feeling. Wide angle shots of picturesque scenery and I-can't-believe-those-are-real clouds reinforce the film's grave message but also distract from the depressing view of humanity and offer the most memorable moments of the film. The juxtaposition of tightly-framed close up shots on the characters' eyes or faces as they stare into space with despair, avoiding each other and ignoring each other's presence, with sweeping wide angle shots jars the viewer. Watching Hacer and Servet argue from far away gives the viewer that rush of voyeurism: we shouldn't be watching this private encounter, but we have been given access to it and it's impossible to turn our eyes away.

"Three Monkeys" is nothing if not thought-provoking. Definitely not among my favorite films at the Cannes Film Festival, "Three Monkeys" has managed to stay on my mind and under my skin. Some of the images are breathtaking, and without accompanying dialogue or music, I realized that I would much rather have seen the film as a series of still images in a gallery. At least this way, I could have walked through at my own pace, and I guarantee I would not have taken the film's 1 hour and 49 minute runtime to do so. Trimming the film by thirty minutes would likely result in a tighter and more commercially viable product. 

Overall, the film leaves us with the message the effects of avoidance and lack of communication. But, as we all know, pretending something didn't happen doesn't remove its existence. 

Last year, audiences were both charmed and horrified by Marjane Satrapi's animated autobiography "Persepolis." This year, director Ari Folman mesmerized viewers with his own account of Middle Eastern conflict with "Waltz With Bashir," his fourth film. A critical favorite at this year's Cannes Film Festival, the Israeli language "Waltz With Bashir" takes advantage of the flexibility of animation and the ability to explore memories and the subconscious through vivid imagery and surreal dream sequences. The only animated film in competition at Cannes this year, "Waltz With Bashir" stands out in visuals but not in its message.

One night in a bar, a friend of Ari's tells him about a recurring dream in which the friend is chased by 26 vicious dogs. These are the same dogs that Ari's friend shot during the first Lebanon War in order to keep them from waking up their owners and alerting them of the Israeli Army's presence. Ari then realizes that he cannot remember a single thing about his involvement in the conflict. Memory is a fickle thing, he is told; he may have suppressed these unpleasant memories. Determined to uncover the truth about his time in the Army and the events leading up to the 1982 massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. As he delves deeper into his past and conducts interviews with former comrades, Ari's brain begins to conjure partial memories blended with dreams and surreal imaginings.

"Waltz With Bashir," the only animated film in competition at Cannes this year, is a combination of Flash, hand-drawn 2D animation and 3D rendering recalling the animation of "A Scanner Darkly" and "Waking Life" (Richard Linklater) and blends interviews with subjective memories of the Lebanon War, forcing the viewer to question whether what they are watching is actual footage that has been animated, a recreation of actual events, or a dreamlike memory that exists only in Folman's mind. The film possesses a more detailed and colorful visual style than last year's "Persepolis," giving it the feel of a graphic novel rather than a children's story and making it less instantly accessible than its predecessor. The most memorable image in the film is Ari's own recurring dream of swimming in the sea with two comrades before the massacres at the refugee camps. Bathed in golden yellow with strong black outlines, the scene fills the theater with a warm glow, and the audience is haunted as each man stands and walks to the shore. 

This structuring of memories alongside interviews leads to a disjointed film. This disjoint, though, is perhaps a tool Folman uses to shock the viewer; it is easy to get lost in the striking visuals presented by Folman and his animation team, but the interviews remind audiences that this is a documentary of war horrors and murder. If only he had found a more subtle way to present his anti-war sentiments. As Ari grows closer and closer to remembering the actual events of the massacres, the images become more realistic and less dreamlike. He ends the film with a punch to the stomach (or a beat over the head, depending on how you have taken the film's sentiments): a cut to documentary footage of the aftermath of the massacres. As if we haven't already realized that these horrible events actually happened, Folman feels the need to remind us one final time, and this time, we'd better not forget it. 

Unfortunately, the broken memories of being young and a member of the Israeli Army are often lost amidst the more visually stimulating dream sequences, but comments made by Folman's interviewees do manage to bring to the film several different viewpoints of the conflict. A sharp soundtrack mixing classical pieces with contemporary tracks like a cover of CAKE's "I Bombed Korea Today" provides stark contrasts to the images of death and destruction. The music, another character in the film, forces a feeling of discomfort onto the audience: should we tap our feet and sing along or shrink in horror? 

In Folman's defense, finding a new way to make an anti-war film is a difficult task in contemporary cinema. His decision to tell a personal account in the medium of animation is a step towards individuality and uniqueness, but his final switch over to actual footage plants "Waltz With Bashir" in the tired and over-trodden genre of anti-war films. 

As a student given a marketing assignment surrounding "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" while at the Cannes Film Festival, it is of great interest to me to see how the actual poster and marketing campaign will turn out. 

Here's a first look at the poster for Allen's newest release. The design is very simple, as most posters for Allen's films are, and features a partial portrait of three central characters. Though the title suggests Vicky, Cristina, and the city of Barcelona are the central focus of the film, it is really the three featured here on the poster: Juan Antonio, Cristina, and Marie Elena. 

"Vicky Cristina Barcelona" is set for a September 5 release. Check out our reviews here and here.

Universal has moved Clint Eastwood's new film "Changeling" up from a November release to October. The film is now slated to open in limited release October 24 and wide release the following week, October 31. 

"Changeling" premiered to positive reviews at this year's Cannes Film Festival, just as "Mystic River" did in 2003. 

“This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, 'Doc, my brother's crazy. He thinks he's a chicken.' And the doctor says, 'Well, why don't you turn him in?' And the guy says, 'I would, but I need the eggs.' Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships. You know, they're totally irrational and crazy and absurd, but I guess we keep going through it, because... most of us need the eggs.” —Woody Allen, "Annie Hall"

Woody Allen ended his Oscar-winning "Annie Hall" with that joke, one of the most unconventional yet appropriate odes to love to ever be committed to film. Since then, he has spent nearly 30 years trying to recapture the mix of humor and pathos that have helped make Annie Hall such an enduring classic, and, with "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," he has finally found it again. If not quite up to the level of "Annie Hall" or his masterpiece "Manhattan," "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" is nonetheless Allen’s strongest, most philosophically and morally profound film since 1989’s "Crimes and Misdemeanors."

If Allen’s last near-great film, 2005’s "Match Point," was the result of a shift in location to London from his beloved New York, then "Vicky Cristina Barcelona’s" success may be partially attributable to yet another move, this one to Barcelona, Spain. While the gloomy English landscape brought out Allen’s pessimistic side in the atheistic "Match Point" and existential "Cassandra’s Dream," Barcelona seems to have rekindled his romantic side. Of course, even romantic Woody Allen comes with a heaping side-order of questions and doubt. The film seems to be intended as a parable on human restlessness and the paradoxes inherent in the desire for both stability and romantic love. It is at times a happy film, but it is also often an uncertain and sad one.

It is told through an omniscient third-person narrator who recounts the actions and thoughts of the protagonists in the deadpan monotone of an author at a book reading. It’s a technique that I usually find insufferable, but it works here, functioning as a representation of the story’s status as a universal moral fable. Vicky and Cristina, played by Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson, are two college friends who take an extended vacation to Barcelona in order to unwind. Vicky is a straight-laced graduate student writing her dissertation on Catalan culture. She is engaged to Doug (Chris Messina), a wealthy lawyer from Manhattan (his goofy name and Messina’s performance make clear that he is intended as a decent but fundamentally unimpressive man). Cristina is the free spirit, the aspiring photographer attracted to the artistic, the romantic, the tragic. She has no real desires or long-term goals; she only knows that stability isn’t part of the plan. The women’s roles in Allen’s fable seem clear. Vicky represents the desire for stability, to have a predictable life, to know that when you wake up your pillows are still stuffed with the softest goose down and that your dull but loving spouse is still sleeping comfortably beside you. Cristina is the desire for excitement, for constant surprise, for passionate romance and tours through the artistic hotspots of Spain.

Such excitement comes in the form of Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a handsome and charming painter who invites the two girls on a private trip to his home town. Cristina is excited, Vicky is unimpressed, and by the end of the trip both have been successfully seduced by Juan Antonio. Back in Barcelona, Cristina and Juan Antonio begin a love affair. Doug comes to visit Vicky, who has begun having romantic feelings toward Juan Antonio and doubts about her engagement. Vicky’s fears are confirmed by the relationship between her married friends Mark (Kevin Dunn) and Judy (Patricia Clarkson). Judy confides to Vicky that she has not loved Mark for many years and is cheating on him with his work associate. The relationship between Mark and Judy is a secondary but crucial aspect of the story.

It is Allen’s way of showing the possible end result of sacrificing one’s happiness to stability: a comfortably but unsatisfying life from which their may be no escape. There is no such representation of the long-term results of Cristina’s lifestyle, because it is defined by the lack of a predicted destination. Instead, Allen introduces a new ingredient into Cristina’s life. When Juan Antonio’ passionate but unstable wife Maria (Penelope Cruz) attempts suicide, she comes to live with him and Cristina and soon becomes an equal romantic partner in the relationship. Allen presents the unorthodox relationship as a pleasant and exciting but refuses to resort to explicit representations of sex. A sexual encounter between Cristina and Maria would pass for tame on primetime television, and the heavily-touted menage-a-trois amounts to nothing more than a three-way kiss in a red-tinted darkroom. Ultimately, the point seems to be that no amount of happiness is ever enough for someone like Cristina, who eventually grows restless in her relationship and moves out. She is happy in her decision, but Allen is not so sure.

People like Cristina will always be looking for new and more stimulating experiences, and Allen seems to suggest that their lives are no more fulfilling than the alternative. Despite this heady thematic material, the film is frequently very funny and ranks close to Allen’s most successful romantic comedies. Cruz, especially, emerges as true star, harnessing a fiery temper and rapid-fire Spanish dialogue to maximum comedic effect. Among the stars, Hall makes a bigger impression than the effective but uneven Johansson, if only because her character is allowed more complexity, by necessity, than Johansson’s. As in "Annie Hall," however, the humor is always in service of the material, resulting in the most moving film Allen has made in some time. The message, to extend the metaphor, seems to be that although we do need the eggs, once we get them we’re not always satisfied with what we find. It’s a sad truth of human relationships, and "Vicky Cristina Barcelona’s" great strength is in bringing it to light.

Written and directed by Woody Allen; produced by Jaume Roures; cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe; edited by Alisa Lepselter. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. With: Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Patricia Clarkson.

Possibly the most highly-anticipated premiere of the festival, Steven Soderbergh’s epic biopic "Che" is one of the most ambitious, important American films of the past few years. As much an event as a single movie, the still-unfinished version of "Che" that screened at Cannes was split into two individual films separated by a fifteen-minute intermission.

The first film, "The Argentine," covers the successful Cuban rebellion led by Fidel Castro, for whom Che Guevara (Benicio Del Toro) was a crucial lieutenant. The film cuts between the battle for Cuba and Che’s time as an important member of the Castro government. Controversially, Soderbergh neglects to include—or at least ends before—Che’s work as Castro’s brutal prosecutor and executor. As someone who has never been persuaded by the claims of Che’s heroism, this decision strikes me as a mistake. But I am not interested in reviewing the film based on what I wish it were but on what it is, and despite this omission, Soderbergh has little interest in political messages. Rather, "The Argentine" is a rigorous, if somewhat dramatically shapeless, document of a social movement and its impact. Soderbergh intercuts footage of Castro’s soldiers training and fighting with footage of interviews with Che by British and American journalists that allow the man to articulate his political and social message. By blending the two in defiance of traditional narrative structure, Soderbergh foregrounds the political ideology that led to the rebellion.

After a while, the seemingly endless string of similar battle sequences gets repetitive—there doesn’t seem to be much structure to it, no advancement, just stalling before the inevitable conclusion—but Soderbergh’s formal mastery—his preternatural sense of composition, his experimentation with film stocks and other optical tricks—keeps things interesting until the siege of Santa Clara, one of the most thrilling war sequences of recent cinema. The post-war footage of "Che" climaxes in a scene of Che at the United Nations, lashing out at his critics, the United States and the Latin American countries he feels have betrayed the Communist movement. The scene is charged with energy, mostly thanks to Benicio Del Toro’s forceful performance. Less acting than inhabiting, Del Toro is given little chance to delve into Che’s background or motivations (the movie is never interested in those things, thank God; this is not Soderbergh’s version of "Ray" or "Walk the Line").

As an account of a successful war effort, "The Argentine" is structured, both narratively and formally, as a traditional war movie. It is shot in Cinemascope, the images are bright and clear, and its presentation of Che the military leader borders on the heroic. Seen on its own, it could feel like a formally accomplished but somewhat hollow Hollywood movie. When seen in conjunction with the second segment, "Guerrilla," it becomes clear that "The Argentine’s" glossy style is simply a case of Soderbergh’s form matching his content. "Guerrilla" focuses on the failed Bolivian revolutionary campaign that ended in Che’s death, and this tonal difference from "The Argentine" has a noticable effect on its formal aspects. Shot mainly on trembling hand-held camera in 1.85:1, an aspect ratio more suited for intimate dramas than war epics, with a poetic sense of the natural world, it feels at times like a somber tone-poem, a funereal elegy for its fallen protagonist. The film is slower, more focused on mood than on action.

Where "The Argentine’s" camera is often gods-eye and triumphant, "Guerrilla’s" is more subjective, more inclined to get up close with the characters as they trudge slowly toward inevitable failure. "The Argentine" is uplifting; "Guerrilla" is depressive. While Del Toro is given more chance to “perform”—to proclaim, to yell, to emote—in "The Argentine," it is his work in "Guerrilla" that makes his overall performance such a stunning achievement. At the beginning of the film, Che is coming off of another failed revolutionary attempt in Africa, and Del Toro embodies his emotional state without once making it explicit. It is an internal, physical performance, tied up in body language and facial expression rather than words, which forces Del Toro to tone down his tendency to overact. As "Guerrilla" slowly marches on, Che’s situation is delivered to the audience through Del Toro’s internalized performance and through Soderbergh’s expressive visuals. As in Terrence Malick’s "The Thin Red Line," shots of natural life break up the narrative action, as if to suggest the indifference of nature toward human action. A scene of Che angrily striking his white horse, leaving bloody hand-marks on its coat, is effective both as drama and as a powerful evocation of its characters’ situation. Other decisions are more questionable, but all show the presence of a thoughtful, ambitious artist behind the camera.

At Che’s execution, there is a strange shift to the first person; Che’s death is represented by the first point-of-view shot of the film, as the camera falls to the floor and fades to white. I’m not sure what I think of that choice, but at least it is one. "Che" is a messy, challenging, sometimes unfocused work of popular art. It has and will continue to provoke argument, discussion, thought. I’m not sure it’s a great film—for one, the version I saw, where the two parts are shown back to back and each reflects and strengthens the other, will likely not be screened again; individually, "Guerrilla" is the more successful work—but it is a crucial one, from an artist I wasn’t sure would ever do work like this again. Welcome home, Steve. It’s good to have you back.

Few things during the Cannes Film Festival were more baffling to me than when Clint Eastwood's solid but deeply flawed "Changeling" began racking up the most positive reviews of the fest. I’m not sure whether it’s the international press’ tendency to praise Eastwood for anything he does or whether I was simply too exhausted to recognize that it is, in fact, as good as everyone says, but there has yet to be another film on which my initial opinion and the reviews have differed so strongly.

In the first line of his "Variety" review, Todd McCarthy favorably compared the film to Eastwood’s effective but overwrought "Mystic River," which might, despite my inability to see what thematic similarities the films have, help to explain my reservations. Because despite his typically graceful and lovely directorial hand, Eastwood seems, with "Changeling," to have embraced his melodramatic side whole-heartedly. Some of the film is beautiful and moving. The rest tends toward the unbelievable and shrill. The reason for this may be that "Changeling" is Eastwood’s angriest film since 1992’s "Unforgiven," his Oscar-winning treatise on the representations of violence and revenge in film.

The target here is institutional corruption, embodied by the Los Angeles Police Department. Based on actual events, "Changeling" recounts the story of Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), a 1920s housewife whose child Walter is abducted from their home while Collins was at work. After a five-month search, the L.A.P.D. return a child they claim to be Walter to Collins. Problem is, the child is clearly not her son; he looks different, is three inches shorter and is circumcised while Walter was not. "Changeling" presents the return of the false child not simply as a case of incompetence but of the police department knowlingly not doing its job in order to repair its damaged image.

One of the forces damaging the department is local preacher Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), who, on his popular radio show, calls for the police to be held responsible for their incompetence and violent enforcement tactics. Early on, Malkovich embodies Eastwood’s polemical instincts, as he takes interest in the Collins’ case and urges her to stand up against the police. She does, repeatedly urging Police Captain J.J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) to admit his mistake and begin looking for her real son. Leery of looking bad, Jones continues to insist that Collins is not only crazy but a bad mother, eventually committing her to an insane asylum in order to get her out of the way.

The issue of parental responsibility is brought up early and often in "Changeling." Collins is a single mother, her husband having abandoned her soon after she became pregnant. Early on, when Walter asks her why his father left, she describes his decision as rejecting a package marked “Responsibility.” "Changeling," at a basic level, is the story of Collins doing everything in her power to accept that package. For about an hour, "Changeling" is simply a story of a mother’s enduring love for her son, and on those terms the film is extremely effective. Jolie’s own real-life role as mother seems to have informed her performance, which for the most part is admirably restrained in its evocation of maternal love and protectiveness. When Collins realizes that her son has been abducted, the cracking of her façade is wrenching to behold.

Eastwood too seems to be in top form in the early going. The directorial style he has cultivated over his past few films, defined by slow tracking shots, heavy use of shadow and lovely, self-penned musical scores is in full effect early on. For a while, I too thought I was watching one of the best films of the festival. Unfortunately, Eastwood’s early restraint gives way to hysterics and pulpy melodrama as soon as Collins is committed to the institution. The scenes in the asylum feel like they’re from a cheesy horror movie or, at the very best, some of the more overcooked moments from "Girl, Interrupted." Amy Ryan shows up as a tough-as-nails prostitute committed to the institution for causing trouble for a police officer who also happened to be one of her clients. Ryan is a wonderful actress, rightfully Oscar-nominated for her work in last year’s "Gone Baby Gone," but she is given nothing to do with her clichéd role other than to swear and act tough. Equally hollow is the presentation of the asylum’s head doctor, who seems to have come straight out of a completely different movie.

Ultimately, that defines the biggest problem with "Changeling." Eastwood can be a masterful director, but he loses control of his picture’s tone, as if he wasn’t sure what kind of movie he wanted to make. While Collins is stuck in the hospital, the film cuts between her suffering and a police investigation into a pyschopath named Gordon Northcott (Jason Butler Harner) who may have killed Collins’ real son. The contrast between this story, which is handled as a solid, unpretentious police thriller, and the melodramatic asylum scenes is jarring and gives "Changeling" a sloppy, disjointed feeling going into its final thirty minutes. Once Collins is released from the asylum, the film turns into a courtroom procedural, as Collins and Briegleb file a lawsuit against the police department. The seemingly endless courtroom scenes, which are intercut with footage from Northcott’s trial, drag the film out through the final stretch, leading up to a final scene featuring one of the cheesiest dialogue exchanges of the festival.

Eastwood has proven his adeptness at genre deconstruction before in his anti-western masterpiece "Unforgiven," so it is possible that he is executing a similar experiment with melodrama in "Changeling." But his overwrought excesses don’t cohere into anything like satire or analysis; they seem instead like the work of a man too passionate about his material to realize that so much of it feels so very false.

Directed by Clint Eastwood; written by J. Michael Straczynski; cinematography by Tom Stern; edited by Joel Cox. Running time: 140 minutes.

With: Angelina Jolie, Jeffrey Donovan, John Malkovich, Michael Kelly, Jason Butler Harner, Amy Ryan.

The Cannes Film Festival opened with Fernando Meirelles’ "Blindness," an adaptation of José Saramago’s novel. And although I don’t think any film could undermine the near-holy experience of sitting in the Lumière Theatre for the first time, it would be hard to imagine a more underwhelming opening night feature. By most accounts, Saramago’s "Blindness," which I have not read, is a stunning novel, a claim I have no trouble believing. There’s clearly a great movie to be made from this material, but Meirelles’ is not it.

Cursed with a pathological need to over-enunciate its themes, "Blindness" is a clear case of a director being, quite simply, out of his league. This should come as no surprise; "Blindness" would be a tough assignment even for a brilliant director, and Meirelles has always been a fundamentally shallow one. Gifted with a formidable visual sense but little else, he has made his name creating striking but intellectually hollow films. His breakthrough hit "City of God" was an exciting but derivative Scorsese rip-off, and "The Constant Gardener," one of the first of the many recent vaguely racist films that claim to deal with African issues while shifting audience identification onto a white protagonist, is a prime example of undeniable formal chops used in the service of wrong-headed and offensive ideas. "Blindness" is smarter than either of those films, but not because of anything Meirelles does.

The original story—that of an unnamed country whose citizens are stricken with an infectious disease that causes blindness—is rich with moral and allegorical implications, but Meirelles seems ill-equipped to fully understand or explore them. Instead, he narrows in on a handful of the more obvious themes and then spends two hours hammering them into the ground. The word “subtle” does not seem to be in his vocabulary. The problems are apparent immediately. The film begins with a voice-over from Danny Glover, in the role of the wise black man (and a one-eyed man in a land of the blind). “I don’t think we went blind,” Glover intones. “I think we always were.” Apparently, the film’s conceit isn’t extreme enough to already be a clear metaphor; we need to be told right away, or we might not get it. The voice-over appears again throughout the film, popping up any time Meirelles feels the need to explain a character’s emotions or emphasize a key thematic note.

The emphasis and telegraphing of thematic content is a consistent trait of "Blindness." One of the film’s motifs is the surfeit of stimuli that dominates our lives: traffic, television, radio, white noise. A point is made to distinguish between regular blindness, which results in darkness, and the “white blindness” or the film. The difference is clear: rather than the emptiness that darkness implies, the film’s citizens are driven blind by the buildup of these stimuli; white is, after all, the result of combining every color of the spectrum. Like many of "Blindness’" ideas, it’s an interesting one executed poorly. Meirelles approaches it by framing seemingly every shot in as unnatural and cluttered a way as possible, so that objects protrude into every corner of the frame, dominating the characters’ environments. It’s a rigorous strategy that results in a few striking images but mostly just comes off as obvious and showy, as does Meirelles’ tendency to end each scene with a blinding fade to white, a tiring tactic designed to imitate the characters’ visions, as if we didn’t already have a pretty good idea what seeing nothing but white would look like. These techniques also distance the audience from the film’s characters, who remain nameless throughout.

This would be fine if Meirelles had the commitment to embrace keeping his audience at arm’s length. But once the protagonists—led by Mark Ruffalo’s doctor and his wife (Julianne Moore), one of the few not stricken by the disease—are shipped off to an asylum for quarantine, Meirelles attempts to draw pathos from their increasingly desperate circumstances. The victims descend into chaos, fighting over food and shelter. A despot (Gael Garcia Bernal) emerges and declares himself king, taking charge of the asylum and selling food in exchange for valuables and sex. As the situation grows dire, the doctor and his wife attempt to take charge and coordinate an escape from the asylum into the devastated outside world. The idea seems to be to structure the story as an allegory for the creation of civilization, of blindness and chaos eventually leading to knowledge and control. It’s another interesting idea, but Meirelles presents the madness of the asylum in such an obvious way that it’s almost laughable.

Many of the events are truly disturbing, but it’s cheap and easy to elicit emotional response through horrifying images and much harder to do so through character and tone. A scene where a several women are raped by the king and his followers is upsetting but unecessary. The same effect could be accomplished through implication, but Meirelles insists on rubbing the audience’s nose in his message. Audience reaction should be earned, not forced, and he consistently comes down on the wrong side of this line.

The one exception is Moore, who stands out brilliantly among an uneven cast (Ruffalo is wasted, and Bernal is effective but seems to be performing in a different movie). It’s perhaps not a shock that Moore can pull off the role of a suffering housewife, but there’s more to it than that; as she attempts to lead her followers through the tragedy, her face and body gradually register increasing measures of horror, exhaustion, devastation and strength. It’s deep, layered acting, powerful but never showy. Meirelles could learn a thing or two from Moore, who has, over the years, proven herself a master of subtlety.

The same cannot be said of Meirelles, and "Blindness" is perhaps the most damning document yet of his inability to trust his audiences’ intelligence. Everything is stated, then repeated again and again. Nothing is left for the audience to infer or figure out. There are no grey areas, no questions left beyond those that Meirelles has hammered into our skulls. Any provocative issues raised by the film seem to be those that managed to seep in from Saramago’s novel. "Blindness" is a great story made mediocre by an unprepared director, and that’s a crying shame.

Ask almost anyone about “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” and the biggest question on his or her mind is most likely, “Is Indy really back?” Or perhaps, “Did George Lucas muck it up like he did ‘Star Wars?’” Fans of the archeologist and adventurer can rest assured, for together, screen giants George Lucas and Steven Speilberg have found the right balance of comedy, action, fantasy, and fun to create a film worthy of joining the “Indiana Jones” series. Sure, it’s a little silly, but that’s just the good doctor’s style.

It’s been nineteen years since Dr. Jones last appeared on the big screen, a fact that director Spielberg has taken into account and played up to his advantage. “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” opens with a car chase between a jeep full of soldiers and a convertible brimming with poodle-skirt- and letter jacket-wearing teens. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s 1957, the age of the atomic bomb, the Red Scare, and little green men. Meanwhile, our beloved Indy is being pulled out of a Russian soldier’s trunk. The professor and his sidekick Mac have been brought in by Soviet officer Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), a slender and striking figure dressed in fencing gear and armed with a rapier, to help them find a coveted object in a large warehouse labeled “Hangar 51.” Well, Spielberg’s gone and told us the ending already. Might as well enjoy the rest of the film for the popcorn movie it is. 

What Dr. Jones helps them to find is a magnetic entity that appears to be alien. A chase scene and action sequence ensues (the impossibility of which I will get to later), resulting in Indy’s expected escape. This is only the beginning. Mutt Williams (Shia LeBeouf), a stereotypical greaser in all the glory of the Fonz, contacts Indy with news from a mutual friend, Professor Oxley (John Hurt). It seems the dear old fellow has gone and gotten himself kidnapped while trying to hunt down the lost Crystal Skull of Akator. He has sent Mutt a map but it is written in a code only our beloved archaeologist can decipher. Mutt is afraid that his mother and Indy’s former flame Marion (Karen Allen reprising her role from “Raiders of the Lost Ark”) is in grave danger. Thus, Mutt convinces Indy to embark on another adventure to find the Crystal Skull and save Oxley and Marion. One small problem: they’re not the only ones after the mysterious artifact. Spalko wants to get her gloved hands on the skull in order to amass all the knowledge of the world, a power that she thinks will help her end the Cold War and prevent all future wars.

Ridiculous as the story is, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” fails to disappoint. After submerging yourself in the Indiana Jones world, a magical place in which ancient objects possess hidden powers and an archaeology professor is able to defeat international armies with the crack of a whip, you are free to let the adventure wash over you. And wash over you it does.

In the first twenty minutes of the film, our hero swings into a truck, is involved in a high-speed chase in a warehouse, is blasted into the desert on a rocket, and is launched into the air in a fridge when an atomic bomb test detonates. Aside from being a little dusty, Dr. Jones is completely unscathed. This opening segment sets the pace for the rest of the film: it retains the energy and humor of the original trilogy, but “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” abandons story and plausibility (as much as one can expect from the series) in the interest of flashy action sequences. Since Spielberg is inherently against the over-use of special effects, I assume this decision was made in order to prove that Harrison Ford is not yet too old to play the adventurer. However, since Ford has never made a point of trying to act younger than he is and much of the film’s humor comes from Mutt’s referring to him as “old man,” the fourth installment seems a silly place to start. Nonetheless, this crusade for the Crystal Skull soon becomes an excuse to throw the characters into one over-the-top sequence after another. 

On that note, it’s no great surprise that the purpose and true power of the Crystal Skull remains largely a mystery. Sure, it opens doors, scares away giant ants, and frightens the natives, but Indy and company wouldn’t have been in those situations if not searching for the strange magnetic object. The first problem they must overcome is getting the skull before the enemy does. Over the two-hour length of the film, the skull switches hands, often being chucked like a football, just as often as Indy’s supposed comrade switches sides, and there is much cheesy dialogue to be had along the way. When Indy’s companions ask him how he knows that he must take the skull under a waterfall, he replies, “Because it told me.” After this line, we understand why The Ox is now a little more Kurtz than doting professor and that Indy himself might be approaching the same fate.

Given that he is working with a tongue-in-cheek script – please, Mr. Lucas, stop writing dialogue! – Mr. Ford succeeds in inviting the viewer back into Indy’s world. Years may have passed, but he is not yet done with this character. Sure, the archaeology is a little shaky in this film – our aging professor does little more than decipher code – but that doesn’t discount his ability to bring audiences back into his world. Karen Allen likewise invigorates the film with nostalgic charm. Her Marion Ravenwood recaptures the tomboyish charm and willingness to go on an adventure of her “Raiders” role. Unfortunately the characters are too busy rushing between action sequences that she and Indy are not given the chance to properly reconnect. Thrown into car chases and at one point, multiple waterfalls, the former couple quickly starts to bicker. When she finally shares an important piece of information about their relationship and her son with Indy, it is overwhelmed by flashy sequences and becomes another source for cheap laughs. 

Speaking of that little piece of information, though Mr. Labeouf’s Mutt Williams starts wooden, he proves his worth about halfway through the film and shows his skill with a blade. He even does gymnastics as one scene finds him swinging from vine to vine with monkeys in the jungle. And – spoiler alert! – just like dear old Dad, he’s got his own characteristic habit. As Indy has his hat, Mutt is armed with a comb, prepared to coif at any moment.

Ms. Blanchett’s Officer Spalko is delightfully campy. Channeling her Natasha of “Rocky and Bullwinkle,” Spalko more resembles a Bond villain than an Indy enemy. This is the first Indy film not to feature the Nazis as the enemy, and Blanchett appears to be having fun playing up every stereotype she can spear on her rapier. As great as her desire for the Crystal Skull is, Spalko appears happy to have come up against someone that is her equal. I wish I could say the same for the Russian army, for if “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” teaches the viewer anything, it’s that everyone in the Russian army is a really bad shot. Greatly outnumbered, Indy and his companions consistently make it through unharmed. 

In a conclusion worthy of Disney’s takeoff on historical adventure series “National Treasure,” Lucas’s influences on the space alien storyline and desire for heavy special effects shines through. After almost two hours of high-speed antics, the ending may disappoint audiences. However, no matter what the critics say, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” will make bank from the box office to the inevitable DVD box set. For a summer blockbuster and sequel, “Indiana Jones” excites, entertains, and most importantly, rewards audiences for the 19-year wait. I just hope it’s not another two decades before we see him back on the big screen. As a final note, there are rumors flying that Spielberg has hinted at a fifth film with Labeouf in the lead, but as we can see from the final scene of “Crystal Skull,” Indy isn’t quite ready to surrender the hat.

Written by David Koepp; directed by Steven Spielberg; produced by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas; cinematography by Janusz Kaminski; production design by Larry Dias; editing by Michael Kahn. Running time: 123 minutes. Rated PG-13.

With: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Shia Lebeouf, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Cate Blanchett, Jim Broadbent.