What has happened to our action heroes? I mean, my God. In less than 20 years, we’ve gone from charming, crazy bastards who wreak havoc in the name truth, justice, and the American way to remorseless, antisocial psychotics who wreak havoc because it’s fun and they’re getting paid buckets of money to do so. Are these the role models we want to be able to blame when our children “act up” and ‘jack the neighbors’ Benz? Has Hollywood lost all track of an easily defensible lack of moral focus?

Steven Soderbergh forced his cast to abide by a set of rules that sound a lot like what you and I have to trudge through every day: Drive yourself to work. Leave your friends at home. Dress yourself. Don’t be a big whiny baby.

So I’m really delighted and surprised to say that not only did I not roll my eyes once during *Possession,* I found it utterly compelling and devastatingly romantic and I didn’t ever want it to end.

But like the cute, charming guy you met in the supermarket who turned out to be such a common snore on your first (and only) date, *Blue Crush* ends up disappointing — all that potential squandered! It doesn’t take long for the story of smart and tough women to devolve into a slick, simplistic washout, all beautiful cinematography and standard sports platitudes. “When you fall off a wave, you gotta get right back on it again,” or something.

It’s bigger, it’s dumber, it’s more obvious, it’s less fun. It’s a sequel. Writer/director/just-about-everything-else-er Robert Rodriguez (The Faculty) makes big-budget movies on little budgets — he even does his own special effects on his iMac in his garage, or something — and so studios leave him alone to do his own thing. Which is good: … more…

The ironically titled *The Good Girl* asks us to consider the question: What makes a girl ‘good’? Is it behaving like the traditional selfless and demure lady, always making sure everyone else around you is happy (even if they make you miserable) and putting your own needs and desires last? Or is it okay to be a little selfish, to take a reckless chance on life, to look out for one’s own happiness for a change?

The title is surely meant to evoke the infamous tagline for The Usual Suspects, and the film plays like warmed-over Tarantino by way of wannabe Elmore Leonard. That said, Cletis is not without his own charms. Writer/director Chris Ver Wiel spins a slight tale out of the plight of an escaped con (Christian Slater: 3000 … more…

Legendary directory Claude Chabrol’s latest is a perverse little truffle, dainty psychological terror on the outside with a creamy filling of familial jealousy and unrepentant domestic psychopathy. Two Swiss families, the Pollets and the Polonskis, joined by a brief and nearly forgotten incident 20 years earlier, find themselves suddenly intertwined again, which is the spark … more…

If there’s a single fatal flaw common to many indies produced on minuscule budgets, it’s that no matter the talent and innovation of writers and directors, nonprofessional actors often aren’t able to do their material justice. But the most extraordinary thing about Group is the wholly believable and heart-wrenching depths of despair reached by the … more…