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Now I realize why James Cameron’s TITANIC wasn’t like a Robert Altman film, because Roy Ward Bard’s A NIGHT TO REMEMBER already was. Without the super bells and whistles of the Oscar-winning blockbuster, this film tells the doomed voyage of the Titanic.

If one central character could be pointed out it would be Second Officer Charles Herbert Lightoller (Kenneth More, THE LONGEST DAY). First and foremost the film allows the tragedy of the ship’s impending doom to provide all the drama the film needs. No trumped up gunfights and mysteries about missing jewels in this film. The film plays out as naturally as a documentary.

It peeks into the lives and feelings of the ship’s crew, the ship’s builders, the first class passengers and the poor families riding in steerage. In short economic vignettes, the film makes us care about a group of characters and hope for all their survival. The film is truly a tale of survival for all of the passengers and crew on Titanic. There’s no one to root against. The film just watches people as the sinking brings out the good in some and the selfish evil in others. In providing more details about how the incident played out, the film highlights the morbid irony of the tragedy.

Man, what a downer of a film. But it’s also extremely well written and well performed. This is probably the third time I’ve seen the film and I really took notice to the fact that Nicolas Cage’s Ben Sanderson really isn’t the central character in the film. That role belongs to Elisabeth Shue (KARATE KID) as prostitute Sera. This is emphasized in the beginning with having a lengthy prologue with Ben in L.A.

The film establishes the reasons for Ben’s quest to drink himself to death then once Ben heads to Vegas the credits finally kick in. At this point Ben’s fate is virtually sealed. That beginning part is all set up and now the film can really begin. How things turn out for Sera are still up in the air though. Sera is still haunted by her pimp/boyfriend Yuri (Julian Sands, TIMECODE), who is in debt with some gangsters.

This interesting thriller presents an intriguing premise. Government agents, lead by Lipton (Cliff De Young, GLORY) and Col. Mason (Mason Adams, UNDER SIEGE), hire special effects wizard Rollie Tyler (Bryan Brown, COCKTAIL) to help them fake the murder of gang informant Nicholas DeFranco (Jerry Orbach, TV’s LAW & ORDER). But as in cases like this who can be trusted is questionable.

Aiding Rollie is his actress girlfriend Ellen (Diane Venora, HEAT) and f/x assistant Andy (Martha Gehman, THE LEGEND OF BILLY JEAN). Once things get really hairy, detective Leo McCarthy (Brian Dennehy, COCOON) is assigned to the case and smells something funky.

The set-up is great and the plot provides a bunch of nice twists. Unlike a lot of thrillers and action films, the main characters have realistic skills and use them to save their lives. The action seems to actually be building one event at a time without a predestined plot driving the story direction.

The gender flipped version of PRETTY WOMAN doesn’t even understand why that fantasy worked. Kat Ellis (Debra Messing, TV’s WILL & GRACE) is desperate to make her ex-fiancee Jeffrey (Jeremy Sheffield, TV’s MERLIN) jealous at her sister Amy’s wedding that she hires legendary male prostitute Nick Mercer (Dermot Mulroney, ABOUT SCHIMDT). Jeffrey is the best man for Edward (Jack Davenport, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL) who is marrying Amy (Amy Adams, JUNEBUG).

Messing’s character is annoying and rude. Mulroney’s character is the cool and calm “perfect man,” who knows how to woo any woman. Never works for one second. Then the film tries to have Kat and Nick fall for each other. There’s less chemistry here than in a social studies class. There’s also a twist-secret that Nick finds out before Kat that is so lamely executed.

Disney really let a potential blockbuster slip through their fingers with this one. It’s HARRY POTTER with superheroes and they didn’t see the potential in a great franchise. The film got dumped in August with little support and wasn’t even screened for all the critics.

Will Stronghold (Michael Angarano, LORDS OF DOGTOWN) is the son of the two most famous superheroes in the world — The Commander (Kurt Russell, ESACPE FROM NEW YORK) and Jetstream (Kelly Preston, JERRY MAGUIRE). He is about to attend a special high school for superheroes and is an instant celeb because of his parents. Making things worse is that his powers haven’t materialized yet.

His best friend Layla (Danielle Panabaker, EMPIRE FALLS), who can control plants, tries to cheer him up, but he is too afraid that he will be assigned to sidekick courses instead of hero courses like his dad. If this weren’t bad enough, he has a run in with dark loner Warren Peace (Steven Strait, UNDISCOVERED), whose mother was a hero and his father was a villain that Will’s father put away. During a cafeteria altercation involving fireballs, Will discovers his superstrength. After this, he is moved to the hero courses where beautiful mechanics wizard Gwen (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, THE RING TWO) takes a liking to him.

For some reason it took some time for me to get around to seeing the 2004 Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film. It’s funny that I’d see this film a day after watching LEAVING LAS VEGAS for the films have a lot of similarities. The central characters want to die. Their loved one(s) don’t want them to die, but the central characters are adamant and do not want to be persuaded differently.

THE SEA INSIDE tells the true-life story of Spaniard Ramon Sampedro (Javier Bardem, BEFORE NIGHT FALLS), who at the age of 20 became a paraplegic who could not move any of his limbs. For 28 years, he has been cared for by his brother’s wife Manuela (Mabel Rivera) and later with the help of her son Javier (Tamar Novas). Ramon is part of an euthanasia organization fighting for his right to die. Taking his case is lawyer Julia (Belén Rueda), who is suffering from a disease that afflicts her with frequent heart attacks and will one day leave her a vegetable.

Romantic comedies today all have gimmicks. It’s the only thing that makes them stand out. I was surprised that this film didn’t have one, but that’s not a good thing. The film is a collection of random “character moments” that really don’t amount to much. Nothing surprises you in the least about what happens.

Sarah (Diane Lane, THE PERFECT STORM) is recently divorced and her sisters Carol (Elizabeth Perkins, INDIAN SUMMER) and Christine (Ali Hillis, KISS KISS BANG BANG) are desperately trying to get her back into the dating scene. They sign her up on PerfectMatch.com (which the film blatantly reminds us three times) and she goes through one of those over-the-top montages of horribly unbelievable bad dates. Then she ends up going to the dog park with Jake (John Cusack, HIGH FIDELITY), who is also recently divorced, whose friend Charlie (Ben Shenkman, ANGELS IN AMERICA) just wants to get him laid.

This fictionalized version of the Brothers Grimm, who wrote some of the most famous fairy tales, is a film about Jacob Grimm’s desperate desire to hold onto his belief in magical things. Because the film fails to establish this idea with any strong emotional power early on, the film suffers in the beginning.

After Jacob’s purchase of magic beans leads to the death of his sister, Wil (Matt Damon, OCEAN’S TWELVE) and Jacob (Heath Ledger, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN) grow up and become con men, who fake supernatural events and then get paid to rid the town of their witches and demons. When the French authority of their area discovers their scheme, sadistic French military leader Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce, BRAZIL) makes a deal with the Brothers Grimm. They will travel to a village where another group of con men are working in order to reveal their deception.

Those who pay attention to global political issues surrounding the oil industry will learn nothing new from this film, but for a passive political observer this film will be an eye-opener. Nonetheless, for people in the know and for those who know nothing, the film delves into the corruption of the oil industry and the governments that support them.

The film is labyrinthine in how it deals with the issue, which is so complex that not one single character in the film knows the whole picture. It’s not as confusing as some have made it out to be, but the film certainly does not present any easy answers.

There are four major threads that weave together in the film. Bob Barnes (George Clooney, OCEAN’S ELEVEN) is a CIA agent married to a CIA agent who is desperate to settle down for his son’s sake. Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon, THE BOURNE IDENTITY) is a commodities broker based in Geneva, whose co-workers have little faith he can seal the big deal with the Emir of an oil rich Middle Eastern country. Bryan is married to Julie (Amanda Peet, CHANGING LANE), who wishes her husband could spend more time with his family as well. Through a bizarre accident, Bryan becomes an advisor to the Emir’s son Prince Nasir Al-Subaai (Alexander Siddig, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN) and finally feels he is involved in something important. Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright, 2004’s THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE) is a lawyer assigned to investigate any wrongdoing involved in the merger of two giant oil firms — lead by Dean Whiting (Christopher Plummer, THE INSIDER) and Jimmy Pope (Chris Cooper, AMERICAN BEAUTY). His investigation leads to loud-mouthed lobbyist Danny Dalton (Tim Blake Nelson, O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?), who isn’t ashamed to say that corruption is how things run. In the final thread, Wasim Khan (Mazhar Munir, film debut) is a young Pakistani oil worker, who after a major oil company merger, is out of a job in a foreign country, which leads him to join an extremist Islamic school.

Steven Spielberg has got guts to make this film. It’s not that no one has said what he is saying before, but it’s never been said in such a high-profile fashion. Spielberg used his power in Hollywood to make a challenging debate on the nature of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

The film chronicles Israel’s response to the murder of its 11 athletes at the 1972 Olympic games in Munch, Germany. Israeli prime minister Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen, THE STATION AGENT) decides to retaliate. Her government sets up a secret assassination team to hunt down the men who planned the Black September attack and kill them. The leader of the group is Avner (Eric Bana, THE HULK), whose father was Meir’s old bodyguard. The other team members include hotheaded Steve (Daniel Craig, LAYER CAKE), the older, level-headed cleaner Carl (Ciaran Hinds, ROAD TO PERDITION), toy/bomb maker Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz, AMELIE) and fake ID expert Hans (Hanns Zischler, SUNSHINE). Their contact at Mossad is Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush, SHINE), who blindly believes in the cause and has the luxury to do so because he never gets his hands dirty.