Kevin Kline

Chaplin

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  • Title: Chaplin
  • IMDb: link

“What do we do now Charlie?”
“Smile.”

It is impossible to discuss Chaplin without first mentioning the singular performance by Robert Downey Jr. There are many biopics where the star does a passable job and others where movie magic truly happens and the actor, to an almost eerie extent (think Jim Carey in Man on the Moon, only better), embodies the subject on film.

Downey may have failed to take home the Oscar (Anthony Hopkins, also in this film, spirited it away for his performance as a cannibal), but there is nothing here to be ashamed of.  From the recreation of Chaplin’s famous scenes to the more intimate moments far from the cinema, Downey gives us a Chaplin that lives and breathes, and a magic that makes us want to go out and buy all of the Tramp‘s films.

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Trade

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  • Title: Trade
  • IMDb: link

Trade

The film begins with the kidnapping of Adriana (Paulina Gaitan), a 13 year-old girl from Mexico, and Veronica (Alicja Bacheleda-Curus), a young woman from the Baltic States.  They are taken by force to an unknown location and then put in the pipeline to be sold with others as sex slaves.  We watch their journey from Mexico, into the United States, and to New Jersey where they will be sold.

The other part of the story concerns American cop Ray (Kevin Kline) and Adriana’s brother Jorge (Cesar Ramos) who team-up to try and rescue his sister.

The film is full of disturbing scenes including the brutal rape of Veronica and highly suggestive scenes involving Adriana and girls and boys her age performing sex acts on the side of the road for money.  There are also scenes in which the girls are forced to change and pose provocatively for the camera, forcibly drugged, and beaten.  I honestly don’t know how this film avoided an NC-17 rating, which it justly deserves; it’s certainly not a film for the squeamish.

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A Prairie Home Companion

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  • Title: A Prairie Home Companion
  • IMDb: link

Garrison Keillor and Robert Altman do a very good job of showing the final day of the small radio show before the curtain is pulled down for good.  However when the film leaves the story for subplots involving an angel or the corporate hatchet man, it losses the feel and warmth that is so integral to making the rest of the film work.  The end result is a very good film that had it been handled a little different could have been great.

The film centers on an old time radio show that continues to broadcast in present day oblivious to the fact that time may well have past them by.  The performers are like a large dysfunctional but loving family that on this night, the final night the show will be broadcast, say goodbye.

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Don’t Call Me Stupid!

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  • Title: A Fish Called Wanda
  • IMDb: link

A hitman who quotes Nietzsche and believes the London Underground is a political movement, a stuttering animal lover who keeps accidentally killing small dogs, an English barrister stuck in a loveless marriage, a thief used as a patsy, and a woman named Wanda who wraps each one of them around her little finger to get what she wants.  Rarely are romantic comedies this good.

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