The Wackness

"The Wackness" is made up of lukewarm leftovers of other films. See, there's this teenager who just graduated high school. (What a promising premise!) He's spending his summer slumming it, selling pot in Manhattan. And you're not going to believe this, but his parents are total jerks! Boy, parents suck, amIright?

What could possibly lift this social outcast out of his depressed stupor? Hmm...wait a minute...maybe...a girl! One who's fun and outgoing! One who can teach our young hero to look on the bright side! How uplifting!

But wait...we need another character...someone who the protagonist can talk to about his problems, so we can witness his evolution. Wait! What about...a psychiatrist! Such a brilliant conceit! I can't believe it hasn't been done before, except in a million other mediocre films from "Good Will Hunting" to "Ordinary People".

OK, you get the picture. The "twist" here is that the shrink is also one of the customers of the protagonist, Luke. (It's also worth mentioning that the shrink is played by Ben Kingsley. His presence here is puzzling but his performance is strong.) This isn't quite as original as it might seem, as two years before another indie flick, "Driving Lessons", gave us a teen guided by an old, washed up alcoholic actress.

What saves this film from total banality is its last half hour. First, we get a refreshingly honest sex scene, which shows us what a real encounter between a virgin male and a more experienced female is like. (Most films are more like "Driving Lessons", which cuts away just as the lovers are starting to kiss and assumes that the young man receives some great sexual education overnight.)

Following that, the film meanders, which makes things feel less telegraphed. And it's honest enough to deny any easy resolution for its characters.

One other point is worth mentioning: the film is set in 1994, and some have praised it for giving a true sense of the time. But mostly this leads to a tiresome exercise in throwback references to Zima and "Melrose Place". The only real sense of the times is given by repeated references to Mayor Guiliani's harsh crackdown on crime in the city. The setting mostly seems like an excuse for writer-director Jonathan Levine to play his favorite mid-90s rap tunes.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "It's Blitz"

Few bands have evolved as much as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs over three albums while remaining winsome. Their debut, "Fever to Tell," was a guttural punch of garage rock, with piercing vocals, rollicking chords and heavy drums. Underrated follow-up "Show Your Bones" consolidated the band's strengths while proving that they could construct four minute songs just as captivating as their two minute numbers.

And now, "It's Blitz". The YYYs' third album is less a progression than a wholesale reinvention. It's a shit-hot electro pop record, the kind of music Madonna would make if she knew how to write songs.

On "It's Blitz," the YYYs take a genre frequently reserved for hacks and make it their own. Karen O's vocals are more polished, yet still sound every bit as human. Guitarist Nick Zinner now spends more time behind a synthesizer but still puts out soaring hooks. Brian Chase's beats are more industrial while losing none of their impact.

The formula is established on album opener "Zero," easily the best song here. Starting out with O's voice and one chord on a synthesizer, the song constantly builds, adding new flourishes from the percussion and synths. After the first chorus, the drums cut away and the band takes a breather. They frequently employ this trick to mix things up and increase their impact when they switch back to full-throttle mode. Later we get a spiraling synth solo (which is far better than it sounds on paper). By the time O kicks back in with the catchy chorus, the band has built up a towering wall of sound. You can't help but sing along.

The album's other bangers are also keepers. "Heads Will Roll" has a similar chord progression to "Blue Monday". It manages to rip from the '80s while still sounding fresh and modern. "Dull Life," with its foot stomping beat, is a veritable indie hoedown.

The slower songs are more of a mixed bag. "Soft Shock" is a grower, slowly climbing with help from a bittersweet synth hook. "Dragon Queen" offers an absurdly danceable bass line and some dense fretwork from Zinner. Repeating a trick she used on breakthrough single "Maps," on "Hysteric" O repeats a line in the chorus while slowly pushing her voice higher. O doesn't have half the range of Beyonce or Mariah, yet she comes off as far more convincing.

But the band also stumbles on the slower material. The two longest songs are probably the two worst: "Skeletons" is all ether, while "Runaway" feels a bit too syrupy with its piano hook. Album closer "Little Shadow" has several brilliant melodies which end up being drowned out by a thudding beat.

The bigger complaint from some fans is that Zinner is being pulled away from his guitar. While it does seem to be a shame that one of rock's heaviest six stringers is now spending more time on keyboards, we'll always have "Fever to Tell." Besides, had the YYYs simply repeated their debut album, they would have found increasingly diminished returns. We would likely have viewed them as yet another one-album wonder. Instead, we're all wondering how they can possibly top this record.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

I watched "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" on the Encore Western channel. You might not initially think of "McCabe" as a western; it features no tumbleweed, shootouts at high noon or bloodthirsty injuns.

That's because "McCabe" is a western for realists. The action is set in a frontier mountain town in the Pacific northwest. It may not look like the standard western settlement, but it's every bit as lawless. Onto the scene steps McCabe (Warren Beatty), a successful poker player looking to move on to bigger things. He sets up a saloon with little knowledge or experience of how to run one. Luckily, a mysterious Brit named Mrs. Miller (the lovely Julie Christie) comes into town and offers to help manage the business. She effectively turns the saloon into a profitable whorehouse.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller are both first and foremost capitalists, looking to make a buck by hook or by crook. But their cynical exteriors can't entirely hide the burgeoning love they share for one another. This may sound like a few million other movie love affairs, but thankfully Altman doesn't overplay his hand.

The conflict doesn't arise so much as it creeps up on you. McCabe's property happens to have significant mining potential. A company offers to buy him out, but he puts them off, hoping to use his poker skills to bluff them into a higher offer. The firm responds by sending men to kill him.

Whether McCabe is up to the challenge is an open question. He initially projects himself as a classic cool customer, but the film goes back and forth about whether this is truth or just masculine bluster. The uncertainty gives "McCabe," which ambles in its first half, some impressive tension in its second.

The film is directed and co-written by Robert Altman. His trademark overlapping dialogue is in abundance here. While this technique adds a touch of realism, it makes it damn hard to hear what's being said at times. Likewise, Altman doesn't like to spell things out, which gives the viewer opportunities for discovery but can also make events a bit incoherent.

Casino

Watching "Casino" and "Goodfellas," two late-period Martin Scorcese films, is sort of like listening to U2's music from the past ten years. The themes are the same, the personas are the same, but somehow the work just seems like a hollow imitation of former glories.

Based on a true story, "Casino" is not a complicated film. It's an excruciating, three-hour tale of the rise and fall of Sam Rothstein (Robert De Niro) and Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci). The two childhood friends form an empire in Vegas, only to be brought down by their egos, the feds, and Sam's drug-addled wife (Sharon Stone).

The film has three major problems. The first is the incessant use of voice-over narration. Critics will usually bristle at too much of this technique, yet Scorcese uses voice-overs for almost the entirety of the first half of the film and gets a free pass, much as he did for the same offense in "Goodfellas."

The voice-overs reduce the film to a book on tape with pretty pictures accompanying it. They suck the drama out of the story, giving us just the facts, ma'am. Perhaps most egregiously, they completely waste the talents of one of the greatest actors of all time, De Niro, who's asked to nothing more than walk around in a suit and narrate his actions for much of the film.

A related problem is the excessive running time of "Casino." A standard treatment of this story would give us a few scenes of Sam's early days as a bookie, followed by his big break into Vegas and rise to the top. The second half of the movie would show his demise after meeting his future wife.

It could all be done in two hours. But Scorcese spends too much time in the casino, comprehensively cataloging Sam's strengths as a manager and the mob bosses' shady dealings behind the scenes. The level of detail is excessive; most of it can be inferred. Moreover, all of these crooks' maneuverings are complicated, which is why Scorcese has to rely on the narration as a crutch to explain it to us.

And speaking of crutches, we now come to the third major problem: the incessant pop songs on the soundtrack. Scorcese generally has good taste, but when music is used constantly it loses its effectiveness, becoming more like white noise. He doesn't help his cause by choosing a lot of similar sounding songs, mostly soul and whatever Rolling Stones track he has in his head at a given moment. (I'm a big Stones fan, but Scorcese's obsession is ridiculous. Someone at the MPAA needs to put a limit on the number of songs he can use per film by Mick and the boys.)

The shame of it is that if even half of what Scorcese recounts is true, this is a hell of a story. At one point Santoro apparently needed to change cars six times to lose his tail--six times!

Truth be told, Scorcese does find his rhythm in the final third of the film, chronicling the downfall of his three central characters with the brutal energy that made him a legend. Unfortunately, that vitality is buried underneath so much exposition and gloss that "Casino" feels more like an all-night bender than a jolt of adrenaline.

Billy Liar

It's hard to believe that coming-of-age dramedies about young men are still being released. Not only have plenty of them already been made, but none can hope to top 1963's "Billy Liar."

A clerk at a funeral home in northern England, Billy is even more irresponsible than most characters of his ilk. He's convinced two women that they are engaged to him and routinely steals from his boss. He frequently daydreams, picturing himself as the ruler of an imaginary nation called Astoria.

Yet it's not hard to sympathize with Billy, who is constantly browbeaten by his parents at home and his boss at work. When his ideal arrives--a beautiful girl played by the wonderful Julie Christie, ready to whisk him away to London--he backs down and returns to his parents.

This ending is just about perfect. We learn that Billy is selfish but not a bad person. He's also a dreamer, not a doer. Like so many who rage against the stultifying dullness of suburbia, Billy would be lost without its safety and comforts.

The film was directed by Joel Schlesinger, most famous for his work in "Midnight Cowboy." Schlesinger is far better here, with energetic camerawork and a terrific sequence involving Christie waltzing through the city. Schlesinger also neatly handles Billy's reveries, which are often interrupted suddenly by nuisances such as his parents. As is so often the case with great works, many would imitate Schlesinger, but few could compare.

Bruno

"Bruno" is a very funny movie, superior to at least 90 percent of Hollywood's new releases. It features great acting, ridiculous costumes, social commentary, and plenty of penis jokes.

But "Bruno" is not as good as "Borat," Sacha Baron Cohen's previous incendiary travelogue. The problem is this: Cohen's conceit is to use his characters--a clueless Kazakh in "Borat," an extremely gay TV host in "Bruno"--to say and do outrageous things, then have ordinary people go along with them to reveal their small-mindedness and bigotry.

But in "Bruno," Cohen rachets up the shock value, which often makes his victims' outraged reactions seem reasonable. When Bruno gets Paula Abdul to sit on a Mexican because he has no furniture, it's queasily funny, especially as she talks about helping the less fortunate. But when she is horrified to be offered hors d'oeuvers served on a naked man's body, you can only sympathize with her--the last thing Cohen wants.

Only briefly does Cohen tap into the serious homophobia that plagues much of our nation. One such segment is his interview with a pastor who claims to convert homosexuals. It's not the funniest part of the film, but it's easily the most socially important.

To be fair, Cohen is also skewering other targets, most notably our celebrity-obsessed culture. Posing as a photo shoot coordinator, Bruno gets parents to agree to have their small children operate heavy machinery, be exposed to lead phosphorus and lose 10 pounds in a week. And "Bruno" has plenty of moments which are funny for their own sake, such as when a charity PR consultant urges him to help with the situation in "Derfar."

Also not to be overlooked are Cohen's tremendous acting abilities. Most actors can have dozens of takes to get their lines right. Cohen has only one shot--and he doesn't know how his victims will respond to his antics.

It should also be noted that "Bruno" doesn't have as much narrative coherence as "Borat." Granted, the latter film had a thin wisp of a plot: Borat traveled across the country to meet Pamela Anderson. But "Bruno" feels even more haphazard: the titular character is merely trying to get famous, which allows Cohen to basically do whatever he wants.

This may seem like a small quibble; plot is certainly not why we watch these films. But it's indicative of a larger problem, a lack of overarching satirical vision which prevents "Bruno" from becoming a classic.

The Conversation

Say you're a visionary director who's just made one of the greatest films in American history. You're working on the sequel, another classic, and you've got a little time on your hands. What do you do? How about making a low-key suspense film with almost no cast and a few locations?

That movie is "The Conversation," Francis Ford Coppola's minor masterpiece. The wispy plot revolves around Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), a surveillance expert hired to record a conversation between two people who appear to be having an affair. Their talk seems to indicate that they are in danger. Harry, who has already seen his work lead to three killings, attempts to intervene, with nasty consequences.

The paradox of the film is that Harry is the nation's top surveillance man, yet he fiercely guards his own private life, refusing even to give out his phone number. His hypocrisy and just desserts are the stuff of Hitchcock.

Coppola's direction is precise yet effortless; here is a master at the top of his game. The camerawork and soundtrack help to elevate what could have been merely a clever little film. Hackman is just right for the stolid and stoic role of Harry.

The one problem with the film is its glacial pacing. Do we really need to see Harry fiddling with his recording equipment before playing back the tapes? Here is yet another Hollywood film that would have been cut down to 90 minutes in the hands of a European director (including Hitchcock, a Brit).

Nonetheless, "The Conversation" is a historically significant work. It's a film from one of America's greatest directors during his relatively brief peak. It also leads one to wonder how Coppola's career could have turned out if he chose a different path. He could have made three or four films like "The Conversation" in the time it took him to make "Apocalypse Now," without suffering the creative burnout and collapse which that debacle wrought.