Moon (2009)

Bleak and engrossing, this sci-fi thriller is like a Twilight Zone episode, where someone is all alone and things go from bad to worse. The reliable Sam Rockwell (great in David Mamet's Heist (2001), George Clooney's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) as Chuck Barris, Ridley Scott's Matchstick Men (2003), Choke, and Frost/Nixon) plays Sam Bell, an astronaut who is running a lunar energy station with no one to keep him company but the HAL-like computer GERTY (voice of Kevin Spacey, emoticons for a face). Lots of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) comparisons, as well as another movie that you would never guess, but I'm not telling because it's a spoiler. Director Duncan Jones and Rockwell each won film festival awards (Edinborough and Seattle, respectively) for this. Composer Clint Mansell (who scored all four of Darren Aronfsky's features so far, including The Wrestler, as well as a number of others) did a terrific job, too. After you see it, you might want to read the press kit, but it has spoilers big time. Just see it.

Just found out that Jones' real name is Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones, and he is the son of musician David Bowie, who was born David Robert Jones, and is famous for a lot of things, including being Ziggy Stardust.

Food, Inc. (2009)

You won't be alone if you lose your appetite or get depressed after seeing this documentary about the way big corporations control our food supply. I did. The filmmakers tried their best to end on an upbeat note, but one person's story left me sad for a while. And animals were most definitely harmed during the making of this movie. Go on an empty stomach, and then have something very healthy and organic for dinner afterwards. But do see it (I liked the music!). I have been advised by counsel not to say anything else.

Chéri (2009)

Director Stephen Frears may be best known these days for The Queen (2006), which won the Oscar for Helen Mirren, and was nominated for best picture, directing, screenplay, costumes, and music. But his resume is varied. Check out My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987--released in some places as Sammy and Rosie), The Grifters (1990) with John Cusack and Angelica Huston, Hero (1992) with Dustin Hoffman, The Snapper (1993) with Colm Meany, High Fidelity (2000) with John Cusack, Dirty Pretty Things (2002) with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Audrey Tatou, and Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005) with Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins; they are all first rate.

But the one that comes up in Chéri's publicity is his 1988 costume drama, Dangerous Liaisons, in which Glenn Close was the older woman and Michelle Pfeiffer played the ingénue (and was nominated for an Oscar), though she was 30 that year. That's because in Chéri, Pfeiffer (faves: Sweet Liberty (1986), Witches of Eastwick (1987), The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), Batman Returns (1992), White Oleander (2002)) played the older woman, Lea, in another costume drama, this one set at the end of the 19th century, during France's Belle Epoque. And, oh, those costumes! Oh, the hats! The gorgeous Pfeiffer's trim frame was swathed in the most luxurious fabrics and styles and topped with les chapeaux les plus élégants - my favorite being the one with the black lace brim when she got to Biarritz. Set design was also outstanding, with art nouveau furniture and architecture.

The screenplay was written by Christopher Hampton (Atonement (2007), and Dangerous Liaisons, for which he won an Oscar), based on two novels, Chéri (1920) and La Fin de Chéri (1926), by Colette, who also wrote the novel Gigi in 1945, on which the 1951 play and 1958 movie were based. This is a tale of a retired courtesan, Lea, and her relationship with Chéri (Rupert Friend, who played the kind young man in Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont and one of the Nazis in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas) who is the son of another ex-courtesan, played with great belly laughs and furrowed brows by Kathy Bates (she will be co-starring later this year with Pfeiffer and Ashton Kutcher in Personal Effects, and was great in About Schmidt (2002), Titanic (1997) as Molly Brown, Dolores Claiborne (1995) as Delores, Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), and the recurring character Bettina on HBO's Six Feet Under, in episodes that she directed). Bates won an Oscar for her role in Misery (1990), which I didn't see. Also seen are Felicity Jones (Cordelia in Brideshead Revisited) as the younger woman Edmée, and, in a cameo as La Copine, Anita Pallenberg (Keith Richards' baby mama, consort of Brian Jones and Mick Jaggar, and Queen impersonator in Mister Lonely (2007), which is about a Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) who befriends a Marilyn Monroe impersonator).

Chéri may be gone from the theatres by the time you read this, so be sure you rent the wide screen version and try to get a big monitor on which to see it!

Brüno (2009)

Whoa. This is not for the faint of heart or closed of mind--on a scale of 1 to 10, it has a cringe factor of 15. Jack liked Sascha Baron Cohen's (Cohen had cameos in Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)) Da Ali G Show on HBO, in which Cohen introduced his characters of Borat and Brüno (I didn't see it). We both loved the feature Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), in which Cohen (who is Jewish, duh) plays Borat, who is anti-Semitic. In Brüno, Cohen (who is straight) plays the title character, who is gay. Both have been called one-joke movies. Both have Cohen out in public with non-actors who think they're being filmed for documentary or interview purposes. I would say Borat, the movie, had a cringe factor of only (!) 8.5, and showed many more hilarious reactions of Cohen's unwitting victims. In Brüno, Cohen's envelope-pushing is the joke, while the onlookers look on, usually in disgust. I think the envelope is torn now.

It's impossible to recommend this movie, because everyone's cringe limit is different, but many will find it funny (not enough, however, to keep it from diving in the box office statistics, but I predict a long life on DVD). After the fact, Jack & I keep thinking of gags that we'll laugh about later (e.g. the Smart car, the stage parents, his "luggage"), so we're not at all sorry we saw it. The music video at the end is great, too. Caveat emptor: This may be rated R, but should be NC-17, in my humble opinion.

I Love You, Beth Cooper (2009)

We wanted to like this, but did not have high hopes as the reviews were particularly savage (here's one). Larry Doyle adapted his 2007 novel to the screen, after writing for The Simpsons, Beavis and Butt-Head, and The New Yorker and Esquire magazines, among others. The book won the Thurber Humor Prize last year, and people I trust have assured me that it's a very good, very funny read, which I will be starting soon. But the movie? Meh. Maybe the problem was translating the high school recollections of a then-40-something writer into a current teen movie, with almost as much property damage as Public Enemies. I give director Chris Columbus (I LOVED Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)) a little credit for the gimmick of casting Alan Ruck from Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) as the father of lead character Denis (Paul Rust, to be seen later this year in two very different releases: Quentin Tarentino's nasty holocaust revenge drama Inglourious Basterds and a mock-umentary about love called Paper Heart), and it's always nice to see alumni of Freaks & Geeks, this time Samm Levine as the convenience store clerk. Read the book instead, and go see Larry Doyle if he makes an appearance in your neck of the woods!

Public Enemies (2009)

We had planned to see this anyway, but the rave review in Rolling Stone (spoiler alert--read it later) convinced me to go sooner rather than later. It's almost 2-1/2 hours long, so be prepared for that, and it could have been trimmed here and there, but we had a good time. There were high production values in set design and props. The 1933 technology was the coolest: banks of telephone switchboards, whirling tape recorders and vinyl records, hand-cranked movie cameras, prop airplanes, steam engine trains, glinting chrome of the picture cars, discussion of a Ford with V-8, and scenes lit by fiery camera flashes and automatic gunfire explosions. Yes, there was a high body count and plenty of blood--this is not for the faint of heart.

But the principal actors, Johnny Depp (more in a moment) as John Dillinger, Christian Bale (I didn't see him as a 12-13 year old in Empire of the Sun (1987), but I really liked Laurel Canyon (2002), Batman Begins (2005), I'm Not There and The Prestige (both 2007), and The Dark Knight) as Dillinger's pursuer, G-Man Melvin Purvis, and Marion Cotillard (Oscar winner for La Vie en Rose (La môme) (2007), and the unexpectedly lightweight A Good Year (2006), unexpected, considering that Ridley Scott directed Russell Crowe and Cotillard from a novel by the readable Peter Mayle) as Dillinger's girlfriend Billie Frechette, and Billy Crudup (I liked Inventing the Abbotts (1997), Almost Famous (2000) where he played rock star Russell, and Robert de Niro's The Good Shepherd (2006)) as J. Edgar Hoover (playing him a bit on the prissy side, perhaps in light of the rumors that recently came to light about Hoover's cross-dressing) were so pretty that I could ignore the gore. 

Johnny Depp, nearly as pretty as Cotillard, gets more than parentheses today. Looking at his list of credits I'm hard pressed to find one I didn't like. In Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow (1999), for which I won't forget the effects of the Headless Horseman galloping full speed, his sword slicing off others' heads, Depp portrayed Ichabod Crane as a squeamish investigator, and I predicted his next role would be more effeminate. Was I ever right! The following year he played a full-on drag queen, Bon Bon, a supporting role, in Julian Schnabel's deservedly praised Before Night Falls, in which Javier Bardem played real-life writer Reynaldo Arenas, who was persecuted for being gay. Depp can do butch, kinda, if he has to (Chocolat (2000), Sweeney Todd (2007), and this one, where he plays Dillinger as a ruthless dandy), but there's always something gender-bending about his characters (think Jack Sparrow in all three Pirates of the Carribbean (2006-7)).

Michael Mann (Oscar nominated for directing, producing, and co-writing The Insider (1999); I liked Ali (2001) and he co-produced Ford v Ferrari) directs from a script co-written by him, Ronan Bennett (new to me), and Ann Biderman (co-wrote Primal Fear (1996) and Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997) and just a few others). 

The music was great fun, with songs by Billie Holiday, Diana Krall (who appeared on screen singing "Bye Bye Blackbird"), Otis Taylor, Benny Goodman, and the Bruce Fowler Big Band (a plug for my friend, who is usually a film orchestrator these days, though he was on screen as the trombone player with Annie Ross & the Low Note Quintet in Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993)), as well as some banjo and guitar work that I enjoyed. I could see Oscar nominations for music, set design, wardrobe, cinematography, and sound, to name a few, at this early date. History teacher Jack wondered who paid for the property damage done by Dillinger and his merry men in the real-life robberies.

Every Little Step (2008)

Mary & Bob loved seeing this documentary when they were in NY, and they don't like everything, so I knew it would be a good bet. What I didn't know was that the producers/directors, Adam Del Deo and James D. Stern, also produced/directed two previous docs that sound interesting: The Year of the Yao (2004) about basketball player Yao Ming and ...So Goes the Nation (2006) about the role of Ohio in the 2004 presidential election. Stern was a producer on The Brothers Bloom, Easy Virtue, I'm Not There (the fascinating 2007 movie that looked at Bob Dylan's life with 6 different actors playing parts of his persona and used exclusively cover versions of his songs), and Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004), to name some that I can personally recommend. Every Little Step covers the casting of the 2006 revival of the 1975 game-changing musical, A Chorus Line, and intersperses that footage with archival video of the original creator, the late Michael Bennett, and others. 3,000 hopefuls showed up in New York to try out this time, and their stories are seamlessly woven with the true stories that were used in the original. Some users on imdb have taken issue with the authenticity of the documentary, but I don't think this will interfere in the slightest with your enjoyment of the movie.

Summer Hours (L'heure d'été) (2009)

In 1996 I loved a movie by the French director Olivier Assayas called Irma Vep. It starred Jean-Pierre Léaud, who played Antoine Doinel in several Truffaut movies in the '60s, and Maggie Cheung (In the Mood for Love (2000) and Jet Li's Hero (2002)). One of the things I liked about it was that it was non-linear: jumping from the story at hand, about a director (Léaud) remaking a silent movie called "Les Vampires" and casting Cheung (playing herself) as the lead, Irma Vep (an anagram of vampire), to the silent movie, to the new movie. Before today I had seen two others directed by Assayas (both of which were nominated for the Golden Palm Award at Cannes): Demonlover (2002), which had an ugly plot about corporate espionage, and Clean (2004), about a woman in recovery, which deservedly won Best Actress for Cheung at Cannes and also starred Nick Nolte, plus the very good Paris Je T'aime (2006), in which Assayas directed a segment. But I had forgotten until the opening credits that Summer Hours was an Assayas joint.

Completely different--no special effects nor stunts nor dream sequences--this was a family drama about three adult children of a wealthy widow who lives in a grand country house outside Paris, with a fabulous collection of art and furniture. There was a pretty good crowd at the neighborhood "art house" on a Saturday afternoon, and most seemed to enjoy it. Not many laughs, although there was a big one towards the end with a line spoken by Éloïse, the housekeeper, but the movie was sweet, and the country house location breathtaking. We should all be so lucky to spend our summer hours there. The three children were played by Juliette Binoche (Supporting Actress Oscar for The English Patient (1996), also noteworthy in Chocolat (2000), Bee Season (2005), and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)), Charles Berling (Demonlover and lots of other work in France), and Jérémie Renier (one of the thugs in the hilarious In Bruges (2008), and he starred in an excellent drama called The Child (L'enfant) (2005), which won the Golden Palm), and the mother by Edith Scob (new to me, but plenty of credits); they were all very good at treading lightly among the potential minefield that even a fully functional family can be. Recommended.

Whatever Works (2009)

In the 1980s, Woody Allen movies would open in January in NY and LA but not until March in my parents' home town. For much of that decade I was single in LA, so I waited until my parents' yearly vacation to southern California in February to see each one. It was a nice routine. This time, because Jack, Amy, & I are big Larry David fans (and Jack & I really like Woody Allen's work--I, for one, have seen all 40 of the movies he directed that are listed on imdb, including the segment of New York Stories (1989), and I have enjoyed every one except perhaps Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)), we had to wait to find a time when the three of us could go together (that girl is always working this summer!). That's why we weren't there opening night and why we didn't go to Brüno today. Fans that we are, damn the reviews, full speed ahead.

And if you are a fan, too, don't miss this. Arguably not his best, but plenty of laughs. Who better to serve as the Allen alter-ego, with complete contempt for most other human beings, expressed in big vocabulary words, than David (Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO, which was a comedy special before it was a series, writer of Seinfeld, and teeny parts in in Radio Days (1984) and the Allen segment of New York Stories, which was called "Oedipus Wrecks," plus--I have to put this in for Judy--he was in a 1983 Henry Jaglom movie called Can She Bake a Cherry Pie, which Judy hated because the lead characters were so annoyingly neurotic)? Allen wrote this script in the 1970s for Zero Mostel, shelved it when Mostel died, then dusted it off, updated it, and cast David with wonderful supporting actors Evan Rachel Wood (I first noticed her in the TV series Once and Again (1999-2002), also unforgettable in Thirteen (2003), The Upside of Anger (2005), Down in the Valley (2005), Running With Scissors (2006), and The Wrestler) as Melodie, Patricia Clarkson (hugely talented--see her in the TV series Murder One (1995-96), High Art (1998), Far From Heaven (2002), Pieces of April, The Station Agent (2003), Good Night and Good Luck (2005), Lars and the Real Girl (2007), Elegy, HBO's Six Feet Under (7 episodes 2002-05), Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, not necessarily in that order) as Marietta, and Ed Begley Jr. (not quite 60 years old, he has 232 acting credits on imdb--some that I liked were his recurring role in 8 episodes of Six Feet Under (2001-05), 5 of Arrested Development (Fox 2005-06), 15 of Gary Unmarried (CBS 2008-09), This is Spinal Tap (1984), Best in Show (2000), A Mighty Wind (2003), For Your Consideration (2006), the under-the-radar She-Devil (1989) with Roseanne Barr and Meryl Streep, and, as his own fanatically ecological self, in the HGTV series Living With Ed) as John. Michael McKean (who has lots of credits besides This is Spinal Tap, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration, and, of course playing Lenny on Laverne & Shirley (1976-83)) is under-used as one of the deli guys who, like in Allen's Broadway Danny Rose (1984), introduce the characters and comment on the action from time to time. When Melodie goes out to hear music, be sure to notice the name of the band on the theatre marquee, proving that Allen's feelings about metal music have not changed since Dianne Wiest character took him in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). Oh, and, at one point in the last reel, I shrieked out loud. Sorry!

After you see it, you may enjoy this long transcript of a press conference with Allen, David, and others (I consider at least one element in it a spoiler, so I don't recommend you read it before).

Lymelife (2008)

This had about the same rating on imdb as The Hangover: 8.1 and 8.3 out of 10, but this one had 1366 votes, and Hangover had 37168. Lymelife drew me in because of its cast: Alec Baldwin (some of my faves: NBC's 30 Rock, The Cooler (2003), Malice (1994), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), Beetle Juice (1988)), Macauley Culkin's not-so-little brothers Kieran (Igby Goes Down and The Dangerous Life of Altar Boys, both in 2002) and Rory (The Chumscrubber (2005) and he played the 10-year-old Keiran in Igby), Jill Hennessey (68 episodes of Law & Order from 1993-96 and 117 of Crossing Jordan 2001-07), a desperate Cynthia Nixon (a small part in Igby, daughter Alex Tanner in all 10 episodes of the excellent political-fiction miniseries Tanner '88 on HBO, Miranda in all 94 episodes of HBO's Sex & The City as well as the 2008 feature film, and Eleanor Roosevelt in the HBO TV-movie Warm Springs in 2005), Eric's daughter/Julia's niece Emma Roberts (Nancy Drew in 2007), and a very good Timothy Hutton (he broke out in Ordinary People (1980), which is my best example of a movie I liked better than the book; then there were, among others, Taps (1981), The Falcon and the Snowman (1985), Kinsey (2004), which was great, and I liked the admittedly chick-flick-like Last Holiday (2006), which I saw on a plane).

This was the directorial debut for co-writer/editor Derick Martini, and it won him the International Critics' Award (FIPRESCI) at last year's Toronto Film Festival. The movie takes its title from the 1970s-era Lyme disease scare in Long Island, which is when and where the movie is set. No one is happy in this group, but I do not disagree with its being called a comedy/drama. The music, with hits from the 70s plus early Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, and others, in addition to the score by brother/co-writer Steven Martini's band The Spaceship Martini, is good.

The Hangover (2009)

Time to stop procrastinating: I guess the reason I've been putting off writing about this is that it was lightweight and I figured most people would have already seen it. So, just in case you have not, Todd Phillips, the writer/director of Old School (2003) has another Peter Pan project, i.e. a story about men who won't grow up. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Bradley Cooper (handsome pal to the lead in both Failure to Launch (2006) and Yes Man, and depraved actor in 6 episodes of the depraved FX-TV series Nip/Tuck) was the star, but I was glad that the talented Ed Helms (Andy on The Office, bit parts in Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanemo Bay (2008), Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007), and Evan Almighty) had a lot to do as well, and glad that he got to sing a little (one of my favorite moments was season 3, episode 14, "The Return," when Andy recorded "Rockin' Robin" in 4 parts for his ringtone--I have looked but can't find a link for you). Four guys leave for a bachelor jaunt in Las Vegas, three wake up with no memory of what happened the night before, and things go downhill from there. It is very very funny, but definitely sophomoric; maybe even freshmanic. The Mr. Chow (played by Ken Jeong: soon to be in the Adam Sandler-Seth Rogen-Judd Apatow project Funny People later this year) running gag is particularly grade-school, but that's not really out of place here. With Heather Graham, playing, as usual, the baby-faced slut, and Mike Tyson as himself. Adjust your expectations and you will have a good time. You will not read the credits (even I didn't), but you won't leave, because, during most of them, there is a long series of amusing snapshots of "the night before." The Hangover 2 is already in development.

Away We Go (2009)

Jack & I saw this a few days ago, and later that night we met up with John to hear some music. "How was the movie?" asked John. "It was a chick flick," replied Jack. I liked it a lot, but I suppose that could serve as confirmation of Jack's assessment. On further questioning, Jack insisted that he enjoyed it as well. I can only presume that he thought it too much of a chick flick for John to like, or perhaps that he was teasing John, and maybe me as well. He remains inscrutable on this one (and we haven't gotten back to the topic). Director Sam Mendes burst into features with the Oscar winning American Beauty in 1999, followed by Road to Perdition (2002) starring Tom Hanks, the excellently bleak Jarhead (2005) with Jake Gyllenhaal, and then Revolutionary Road last year, starring Mendes' wife Kate Winslet opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. As fans of NBC-TV's The Office, Jack & I looked forward to seeing John Krasinski (Jim in The Office, Leatherheads (2008), and License to Wed (2007)) starring with Maya Rudolph (I just learned she is the daughter of the late pop-jazz singer Minnie Riperton ("Lovin' You"), but she's better known for at least 7 years on Saturday Night Live; and she starred in Idiocracy (2006), which I found pretty hard to sit through). Krasinski usually plays the straight man, and this is no exception. As in The Office, he is faced with ludicrous situations and outrageous people, and he reacts both passively and aggressively (he gets some fun quirks of his own, too).

The writers, Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, who are married, are featured prominently on most of the movie posters. Turns out they are novelists, and Eggars was nominated for a Pulitzer and has written the script for the upcoming Spike Jonze-directed Where the Wild Things Are. The supporting characters range from mad to worse, and Krasinki and Rudolph's Burt and Verona frequently channel The Office's Jim and Pam as the only sane people on the screen (without the at-the-camera reaction shots). Noteworthy contributing cast members include Catherine O'Hara (loved her in Beetle Juice (1998) and all the Christopher Guest movies, especially For Your Consideration (2006)), Jeff Daniels (some faves: Radio Days (1987), Fly Away Home (1996), 2 Days in the Valley (1996) (which was Charlize Theron's screen debut), and The Squid and the Whale (2005)), Allison Janney (who first came to my attention in the fabulous Big Night (1996) (I have got to add this to my food movie list); in 1999 was in American Beauty, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Drop Dead Gorgeous; major mom parts in Hairspray and Juno in 2007; and, of course, 155 episodes of The West Wing on NBC), Jake's sister Maggie Gyllenhaal (known for offbeat roles--do see The Dark Knight (a relatively mainstream role), Stranger Than Fiction (2006), Secretary (2002), Donnie Darko (2001) in which she played Jake's character's sister, and the very dark SherryBaby (2006)), Josh Hamilton (Outsourced) in a long blonde wig, and Melanie Lynskey, who co-starred with Winslet in Heavenly Creatures (1994), which was the film debut for both of them (I really need to see it one day), playing the friend in Montreal.

Angels & Demons (2009) and a little about our trip to Rome

It was fun to see this a week after Amy & I returned from Italy (unfortunately she wasn't able to join Jack & me for the movie that day). Rome was at the end of our trip, and we had only a couple of days to take three tours and walk around the city center before returning home. One of these tours was of the Vatican museum, where we learned, among other things, that the Swiss Guards must be bachelors, and that the Vatican is a country in its own right. Our 20-something American guide, speaking into a microphone that transmitted into our headsets (I loved the headsets as long as I could keep within wireless range - our group of about 50 had been recruited individually outside St. Peter's, left), said goodbye as we entered the Sistine Chapel, below. He told us that a Japanese corporation had made an extensive and expensive restoration of the landmark ceiling in exchange for copyrights on the images. So no photographs were permitted. Our guide said, "Go ahead and shoot. If you get caught, blame me." The guards hollered, "NO PHOTO," in deep voices. I removed the lens cap and hoped that the auto-focus switch was in the "on" position as I clicked the camera at waist height. A guard walked up to me and disapprovingly tapped my lens with his finger (I made a big show of wiping his fingerprints off). So it made me smile that so many scenes took place inside the chapel (apparently Allan Cameron's production design crew was allowed to take pictures so they could recreate the paintings on their set--read the "Filming" section of the Wikipedia article for more details). As it happens, we also visited another key location, the Piazza del Popolo, on our own (just before getting terribly lost in the Borghese Gardens), and noted that it contained one of the several obelisks that another young American tour guide told us about (he opined that it must have been quite an ordeal to drag the huge stone structures to Rome from Egypt).

Anyway, back to the subject at hand: director Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon, The Da Vinci Code (2006), A Beautiful Mind (2 Oscars - 2001), Ed TV (1999), Parenthood (1989), Gung Ho (1986), Cocoon (1985), and Splash (1984), when he and Tom Hanks were both just starting their movie careers, just to name a few of my faves) has given us another entertaining movie with high production values--not his best, but still worth seeing. I read The Da Vinci Code before seeing it in 2006 (usually I don't read first, but I figured 80% of the audience would've done so) but I haven't read the other Dan Brown book. It was a compelling story, though violent like its predecessor. I liked the way the camera moved in and out of the crowds and the overhead shots of when the police pushed all the people out of (the set of) St. Peter's square. Clearly, there were many sets constructed for this one. Tom Hanks (Oscars for Philadelphia (1993) and Forrest Gump (1994); nominated for Big (1988), Saving Private Ryan (1998), and Cast Away (2000); and I have liked lots of his other movies, including Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), Punchline (1988), and Volunteers (1985)) was just fine reprising his role as Robert Langdon in the prequel-turned-sequel. Equally serviceable performances were turned in by the supporting cast: Ewan McGregor (brilliant in Trainspotting (1996) and Cassandra's Dream (2007), also was in the questionable Star Wars prequels I-III (1999-2005)) as Camerlengo McKenna, Ayelet Zurer (she is Israeli) as Vittoria (who was Italian), Stellan Skarsgård (hilarious as the temperamental director Werner on last season's Entourage and in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2000), but usually plays dramatic roles such as in Timecode (2000)) as Commander Richter, and Armin Mueller-Stahl (long list of non-starring roles) as Cardinal Strauss. Howard's father, Rance Howard, had a cameo as Cardinal Beck.