movieratings03

The searing, provocative coverage of writer-director Todd Solondz's film puts on two fronts: the first one is a surface layer of the assumptive contentment within a Middle America social class family. Underneath, their deep longings and perversions are exposed. Viewers may be turned off by the unbiased cohesion of righteous and deplorable behavior, but regardless of whether this is done in the name of black comedy or raw drama, it effectively shares with us a range of harsh and happy truths. Three Half out of Five Stars. Rated R. DIR: Todd Solondz. CAST: Jane Adams, Dylan Baker, Justin Elvin, Cynthia Stevenson, Lara Flynn Boyle, Jared Harris, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Camryn Manheim, Ben Gazzara, Louise Lasser. 1998

WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, THE **** Robin Williams, Glenn Close, Mary Beth Hurt, and John Lithgow offer terrific performances in this progressive look at the life of Garp--he's not an odd guy; he's just having to face the common problematic issues that come with childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. It's worth the watch to see the versatile mix of offbeat comedy and gritty believability when Garp and his mother move to New York and onward to find fulfillment. Even though things get over the top with the feminism/terrorism exploits in the conclusion, it all adds to the insight behind the wide range of characters. Rated R. 1982

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INFAMOUS **** Toby Jones's outstanding recreation of the inquisitive, homosexual writer Truman Capote, whose novel on a Kansas farm family murder incident was both the success and stumble of his career, lends all the more credibility to this picture. We're taken to 1959 when Truman and lifelong companion Nellie Harper Lee travel to the town of the murder to get their story. Sandra Bullock gives one of her finest performances as Nellie. Director-writer Douglas McGrath (Woody Allen's "Bullets Over Broadway") makes his script at times more clean-cut than credible in the scenes between the novelist and criminal Perry Smith. Yet this film generally compares with the prior year's "Capote" (dealing with the same subject), both of which are equally interesting in their individual prospectives on how Capote came to write "In Cold Blood." Rated R. 2006

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