Xavi Rayuela

Godard said something like: "I pity the French film industry because it has no money, and the American film industry because it has no imagination." It's a remake world: The book - Patricia Highsmith - is excellent source material. If you want to see the real deal, watch "Purple Noon" with Alain Delon: the earlier (1960) French version. Slick, vapid, shallow. The usual suspects: Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Every time Matt Damon opened his mouth with that horse-tooth grin, I wanted to see Naples and die...

The Tourette's thing doesn't come off. Ultimately, it's a contrivance and a distraction. Great cast - some good actors from Boardwalk Empire that need work - and period Brooklyn (and Harlem) in the 50s is a nice idea. An oblique swipe at Robert Moses?

Jon Hamm is Don Draper of "Madmen." He "is" Don Draper. Or, maybe he's not Don Draper after all. He's just some drunk who struck it lucky. A different person altogether. A war hero. A high-level Mideast diplomat and negotiator? A one-hit wonder? This guy can act. Maybe if he was looking for parts in the 50s, he would have been Marlon Brando, or at least Victor Mature. So, Beirut: A spy movie? Thriller? Cross purposes in the dark streets of intrigue? Take-me-to-the-Kasbah streets? A romance? The evil Mossad? The feckless Americans? The crazy PLO terrorists? The drunk American diplomat? Trying to drink his way out of a family drama? Was this movie an advertisement for Alcoholics Anonymous?

This is a nicely produced film with excellent actors - Tim Roth (Pulp Fiction), Catherine Jane McCormack (Tailor of Panama), Clive Owen (The Croupier) - but it would help a lot if you were Jewish. The story is a bit interesting - WWII, refugees from Poland, concentration camps - but that's all pretty old-hat. It meanders along and then doesn't wind up anywhere. Again, if you were interested in the resilience and history of the Jewish faith and the Jewish people...maybe. Catherine McCormack has an interesting role.

After watching "Operation Finale" tonight, I thought about this earlier made-for-TV version with Robert Duvall. "The Man Who Captured Eichmann" is a far superior film. Interesting how they took a fascinating story in "Operation..." - the capture of Eichmann hiding out rather anonymously around Buenos Aires - and turned it into a rather boring docudrama. This one is a real thriller: Spies! The Mossad! Intrigue in the dark streets of intrigue! Expertly produced and, well, Duvall is Duvall. This film is perhaps a little more interesting because it was shot on location in Argentina. And after making this film down there, Duvall went on to make at least one other film - "Assassination Tango" - which is about assassination (got it) of an unpunished military figure from the Dirty War and about the tango! Duvall met and married one of the Argentine actors - his fourth wife, Luciana Pedraza, granddaughter of Argentine aviation pioneer Susana Ferrari Billinghurst - who had a small role teaching him how to dance the dance.

This movie is based on a groundbreaking Patricia Highsmith novel - "The Price of Salt" - which was written 70 years ago when same-sex relationships among women were extremely controversial. So controversial that the largely autobiographical novel (refused by Highsmith's publisher) was written under a pseudonym. Don't get me wrong - it's a reasonably good movie. And to be fair, it is a nice period piece. But lesbian relationships have moved very much into the mainstream culture now. So the provocative nature - and emotional impact - of the original material has lost much of its authenticity in the film, "Carol." The development - the tortuous odyssey of the film's production which took over ten years with various backers and screenwriters - is perhaps a more interesting story than the movie itself. And to present the film as a "romantic drama" is somewhat disingenuous when - in my opinion - the film's marketing strategy is its potential appeal to a now rather conventional women's lib and bi-curious audience. In a word? It's "trendy."

Fiction: We don't like fiction. Historical or otherwise. We want truth: "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." If we don't get truth? We quibble. Out of the gate? This story is not true. There never was a guy named General Gordon and he did not lead the Chinese Army to victory carrying only a cane. Chinese Gordon? (Give me break!) The Sudan? Where is that anyway? Is it somewhere near the Grand Canyon. If it's not, don't waste my time. See America first!

Marlon Brando, in his declining years, decided to become a cowboy. This is one of those attempts. Not bad. The film is interesting on several counts: the Canadian director, Sidney Furie ("The Leather Boys" and "The Ipcress File"), the supporting actor John Saxon (who is a very convincing Mexican existentialist bandit), Anjanette Comer (funeral assistant to Mr. Joyboy in "The Loved One"), and Brando himself. There is no substitute for real talent. Was Hollywood ready for Brando? (Probably not) But that's like asking if Hollywood was ready for Orson Welles. (See "One-Eyed Jacks" for the real deal.)

Well, if you're interesting in crime, in history, the Hollywood Blacklist, scintillating direction and script, actors, locations -- this is the non plus ultra.The alpha and the omega. You don't get much better than this. The Asphalt Jungle: John Huston (directing), W.R. Burnett (script), Sterling Hayden, Sam Jaffe, Tony Caruso, James Whitmore. That's hard to beat in heist films. But Rififi edges it out...by a hair trigger..,