Capsule reviews...
Now Playing: stuff I've recently watched again on DVD
25th Hour- still as powerful as before, but this was the first time it really overwhelmed me emotionally (I actually cried during Brian Cox's final monologue). Everyone in this movie rules, and I'd consider bumping it up to #2 of 2002, if not for the fact that Songs From the Second Floor wouldn't be able to defend itself. Why couldn't anything I saw in 2003 get to me like this? Rating: ****.

In Cold Blood- this one didn't quite hold up for me as I had hoped. I actually felt some malaise set in early during the short scenes with the doomed family. Too idealized, in my opinion. I saw what the filmmakers were going for- contrasting their Norman Rockwell-ness with the harsher lives of Dick and Perry- but it could have been done in a subtler and less cloying way. All the scenes with the killers are effective though, and Blake and Wilson do excellent work in the film that they never manages to surpass since (though Wilson at least came close with The Year of the Quiet Sun). Gets overbearing again toward the end with the Capote surrogate saying lines like "six people are gonna die in cold blood. Three families have been broken" or something like that. Show, folks, don't tell. That the final scenes work at all is a testament to how well we've gotten to know the main characters, and to the late Conrad L. Hall, whose cinematography here is peerless. Rating: ***.

La Strada- pretty amazing, just as amazing as I'd remembered it really. Much of the effectiveness of the film comes from the appeal of the three principal characters, each a recognizable archetype to any child- Zampano the inarticulate bully, Il Matto the troublemaking smart-aleck, and Gelsomina the shy simpleton who amuses herself off away from everyone else. It's because these three types are so ingrained in our consciousness, not only in childhood but also through culture, that the film works the way it does. I've read reviews criticizing Il Matto's character for being mean-spirited, but that's why I think the performance works- this is like the shrimpy kid who's been getting beaten up for years, and who has learned to either amuse or confuse the bigger kids to keep them at bay. It's because Il Matto is not a holy fool that Zampano is able to remains a pathetic figure even after he has killed the man who has mocked him so mercilessly. Rating: ****.