American Hustle

DRAMA

Hustle to Survive

8.0 out of 10 | Rental

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Rated: R Pervasive language, some sexual content and brief violence

Release Date: December 13, 2013 (limited)

Runtime: 2 hours 9 minutes

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Director: David O. Russell
Writers: Eric Singer, David O. Russell
Cast:  Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence, Louis C.K., Alessandro Nivola

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SYNOPSIS:  A con man, Irving Rosenfeld, along with his seductive British partner, Sydney Prosser, is forced to work for a wild FBI agent, Richie DiMaso. DiMaso pushes them into a world of Jersey powerbrokers and mafia.

REVIEW: The Fighter director David O. Russell reunites with Christian Bale and Amy Adams for another period drama based on real circumstances. Written by Eric Singer (The International) and director Russell, Bale, Adams and Cooper try to grift their way to their biggest score.

Irving (Christian Bale) lives a different type of life, growing up in a way that eventually led him to a life of grifting. Even with legitiment businesses from his father, he gravitates to taking advantage of those circling the bottom of the barrel where the desperate and despondent live. At a winter pool party Irving meets a kindred spirit in a woman named Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) who incidentally elevates his con game. But even keeping the cons small enough to manage, Irving and Sydney get pinched by eager young FBI man Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper). Forcing the pair into helping him make a name for himself, Richie promises to let them go if he is handed four significant busts. When Richie gets a taste for success he demands bigger busts from Irving and Sydney. Feeling way over his head, Irving must figure out how to balance his and Sydney's tentative freedom, the good name of the Mayor of Camden Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner) who he has grown to respect, the wants of DiMaso of the FBI and a bunch of mobsters and congressmen who want to invest in the Atlantic City boardwalk.

Set in the Spring of 1978 New York and New Jersey, American Hustle is a great throwback to the con artist movies of the past. Con games and artists are entertaining to watch. It is one of the reasons why White Collar works so well on the USA Network and why Paul Newman and Robert Redford's The Sting is such a classic. It's also why an audience will sit through a 138 minute movie. An audience will put into the time as long as there's a great payoff at the end.

But it's not just the con game that keeps this film rolling. Filled with great dramatic and comedic dialogue delivered by great actors and actresses, as well as a paced plotline, American Hustle boogies down. Adams, Cooper, Bale and Lawrence create unique and nuanced characters filled up with their talent. Louis C.K. and Cooper do great work on a comedic side, making audience laugh at how ridiculous their work relationship is. Bale's Irving and Adams' Sydney are in constant jeopardy, pinning their well-being and livelihood on their grifting talents. The problem is that they have never worked on this large a scale.

The style is 70s tones and disco abandon, letting the characters loose with necklines that extend to the waistline, wide lapels, hairy chest and gold medallions. The real world of 1978 was wrought with a recession, a war that left a bad taste in America's mouth and skyrocketing interest rates. While American Hustle is a story about scamming the system, it is also a backdrop for the state of the union. The FBI was still young and not even thinking about crime at the white collar level. Because of that and people's desperation grifting was very lucrative indeed.

The cast is brilliant, the story is superb and well paced. American Hustle is worth the money to watch, not unlike watching a street hustler move the hidden ball move under the three cups of the shell game. 

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The Dark Knight Rises

Knightfall

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Rated: PG-13  Intense sequences of violence, language, some sensuality and intense sequences of action.
Release Date: July 20, 2012
Runtime:  2 hours 45 minutes

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Director: Christopher Nolan
Writers: Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, David S. Goyer, based on characters created by Bob Kane
Cast:  Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Liam Neesn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gary Oldman, Marion Cotillard, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Matthew Modine

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SYNOPSIS: After the Batman is held responsible for District Attorney Harvey Dent's death, the caped crusader disappears from the streets of Gotham. Some years later, when terrorist leader Bane takes over the city, Bruce Wayne again dons his cowl as the Batman to protect the city that had forsaken him.

REVIEW: Christopher Nolan, the man who wrote, directed and breathed new life into the man behind the mask and the scourge of the streets of Gotham City with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, returns for the last installment of his trilogy of films with The Dark Knight Rises (see the The Dark Knight Trilogy: The Road So Far for the full story of the first two films of the trilogy). With Jonathan Nolan (The Prestige, Memento) and David S. Goyer (Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance), Christopher Nolan scribes a fully realized dramatic actioner from the characters created by Bob Kane that takes the Batman to the next level - as well as setting the bar higher for all other superhero films.

After the Batman (Christian Bale, The Flowers of War) and the new Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) defeat the two-faced Harvey Dent, they take it upon themselves to cast the Batman as the villain and leaving the memory of Harvey Dent as the shining example of the righteousness of good in the city of Gotham. Pursued by the Gotham Police Department, the Batman abruptly disappears from the city streets. In addition, Bruce Wayne becomes a recluse, not even bothering to take part in the goings-on of Wayne Enterprises. Some years pass and the city of Gotham, with Commissioner Gordon at the head of the police department and the Dent Act in full effect for the criminals of the city, has become a town with low crime rates and no villainous underbelly. As Gotham City enjoys a period of tranquility and peace under The Dent Act, a new threat emerges in the guise of Bane (Tom Hardy, This Means War), a terrorist who shares the cleansing vision of his one-time mentor Ra's Al Ghul Ra's Al Ghul (Liam Neeson, Battleship) as the leader of the League of Assassins. When the mechanical masked Bane hatches a plot to cut off Gotham Island from the rest of the country by declaring marshal law under his rule, the Batman must come out of retirement to confront and attempt to defeat the skilled and vicious man. With only Commissioner Gordon, a new GPD detective named John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 50/50), the devious alter ego of Selina Kyle as the leather-clad Catwoman (Ann Hathaway, Alice in Wonderland), Wayne Enterprises CEO Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman, Dolphin Tale), perspective business partner Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard, Contagion) and his trusty butler Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island), the Batman fights an uphill battle that may break him physically and spiritually.

Christopher Nolan completes his vision of the Dark Knight with The Dark Knight Rises, the third in his trilogy of Batman films. Where Tim Burton's vision turned Gotham City into an abstract landscape filled with darkness and a little camp, and where Joel Schumacher lit up that darkness with iridescent color and a cartooned version of the Caped Crusader and his trusty side kick Robin, Nolan grounds his Bruce Wayne and cowled hero into a reality-based Shakespearean tragic drama centered around real architecture and deep symbolism. Throughout his films, Nolan denotes the Batman as a symbol to the city's denizens. In Batman Begins, when the Scarecrow rules the city with the symbol (and gases) of fear, the Batman became a darker, more dangerous symbol of real fear is. In The Dark Knight, the Joker hopes to mar the shining symbol of the city by corrupting Harvey Dent and his accomplishments as the city's district attorney. Instead of letting the Joker win, the Batman became the villain to shoulder the weight of the city's fury against his alleged murderous atrocities. In The Dark Knight Rises, Bruce Wayne and his alter ego must face difficult decisions and dire consequences to become a symbol for the city again. Can he rise up against the more skilled Bane to save the city he cherishes, and save himself in the process?

In The Dark Knight Rises: Prologue, the first six minutes of film was marred with the unintelligible rants of the mechanically respirator Bane. In the finished product, there are no more issues with his speech for the most part. With an elegant, raspy accent, Bane stands above his minions as a dangerous and driven man - bent on the destruction of Gotham City as per his one-time mentor Ra's A Ghul. Where Heath Ledger's Joker was a brilliantly psychotic maniac, Tom Hardy's Bane is a powerful and driven menace. Is Bane a better villain than the Joker? I am sure that many would find it blasphemy to speak ill of Ledger's last role. The brilliance of Nolan manages to set the characterizations of each rogue so far apart in scope and mission as to not warrant a comparison. In the comics, the Joker has been a mainstay menace to the Batman since the caped crusader's beginnings. Bane, although turned into a silly trench coated henchman in Joel Schumacher’s effort for Batman and Robin, was a critical component in a surprising and successful Knightfall story arc to the destruction and eventual resurrection of the man who would be Batman.

Many believe that Nolan may spread the story too thin by the introduction of too many characters. Before Batman Begins, the thought was that using minor rogues in the form of Ra's Al Ghul and the Scarecrow would undermine the success of the film, but its success spurred a sequel. With Bane, Cat Woman, and the possible return of Ra's Al Ghul, the same critics thought the same dilution of story might occur. Although long with a runtime coming in at 165 minutes, Nolan crafts a solid and dramatic tale that redeems Bane as a major pivotal villain in the canon of the Batman's rogue gallery and history, and cements all of Nolan's films of the Dark Knight into a carefully crafted, interwoven and tragic tale that borders more on fine drama than superhero fare. If you are looking for a super-powered follow-up to The Avengers, look elsewhere. If you are looking for too-human drama, The Dark Knight Rises is for you. Nolan's trilogy could be considered a saga in three acts. Act 1 in Batman Begins is Bruce's birth from man into the flawed, anti-hero and protector of the city. Act 2 in The Dark Knight takes the Batman from anti-hero to hero to villain. Act 3 in The Dark Knight Rises is Bruce returning as the reviled anti-hero to fight against odds he cannot overcome.

The Dark Knight Rises is a continuation of the foundation of what Nolan and his writers had already built in the first two films. Adding in elements from the Knightfall story arc and a dash of No Man's Land story arc, The Dark Knight Rises is both a telling of the physical breaking of the Batman and the spiritual breaking of the Gotham's citizenry. Equal parts Bane and Bruce, the Batman takes somewhat of a back seat to both. There is plenty of story and action, but the cowled avenger is relegated to the end of the first act and the sensational climax last act. For lovers of the dark detective, some story elements will be more obvious than for non-readers. This first-hand knowledge will not deter from the story, but will serve to foreshadow surprises later on.

The cast is stellar as always. Christian Bale gets a chance to just be Bruce for a majority of the film, but still managed to engage his gravelly deep voice of the Batman when needed. While Tom Hardy is barely recognizable behind Bane's mechanical mask, he does exude a fierce obsession of the destruction of Gotham that mirrors that of Ra's Al Ghul machinations from the first film. Ann Hathaway's Selina Kyle/Catwoman returns to the skin tight bodysuit and the razor's edge of doing for herself and doing for others. New character John Blake, played by Gordon-Levitt, steps out from the shadows of the GPD to become a detective in his own right. Oldman is still perfect as the ragged, war-weary, and determined Commissioner Gordon.

Similar to Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy where I enjoyed Spider-Man 2 the most with its established hero and superior villain, the performance of Ledger's Joker and the story in total stands out as the best of the Dark Knight trilogy for me. The Dark Knight Rises is a dramatic story with a sensational ending, working perfectly into the Nolan hero narrative. We can discuss and debate the merits of each film all day, but in the end all I can say is - 'why so serious?'.

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WORTH: Matinee and BluRay

The Flowers of War

Selfless Sacrifices

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Rated: R Strong violence, including a sexual assault, disturbing images and brief strong language
Release Date: January 20, 2012
Runtime: 2 hr 21 min

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Director: Zhang Yimou

Writers: Heng Liu, based on the novel '13 Flowers of Nanjing' by Geling Yan
Cast: Christian Bale, Ni Ni, Tong Dawei, Tianyuan Huang, Kefan Cao, Atsuro Watabe, Zhang Xinyi

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SYNOPSIS: A westerner John Miller finds unexpected refuge in a cathedral along with a group of schoolgirls and courtesans during the the Japanese invasion of China's capital city of Nanking in 1937. Posing as a priest, John tries to find a way to lead the women out of the city and to safety.

REVIEW: Director Yimou Shang, one of the most respected and best-known directors of the Chinese Fifth Generation, is acclaimed by his western peers and international film festivals for such films as Raise the Red Lantern and the visually stunning Hero. Based on Yan Geling's novel '13 Flowers of Nanjing" that focuses around an often looked at moment in Chinese history, Shang takes a lengthy tale from veteran screenwriter Heng Liu (Assembly, Tie ren) to bring The Flowers of War to life. 

In 1937 China, the Japanese have invaded the city of Nanking (Nanjing). In the midst of brutal and prolonged battle over the city and attempts by the citizens to escape to a refuge outside the city, several young female students trying to escape are forced to return to their western catholic cathedral through smoke, debris and firefights. Also trying to reach the cathedral is John Miller (Christain Bale, The Fighter), a mortician hired to prepare and bury the Father of the cathedral who was killed during the fighting. Left to care for the schoolgirls, young adopted orphan George (Tianyuan Huang) pleads with John to help them escape from the cathedral and the city. Soon a group of Chinese courtesans, or prostitutes, from the Qin Huai River district make their own way to the cathedral, filled with the promise of protection by one of the attendants of the church who had since run away. John Miller tries to take advantage of both the accommodations, the available wine, and the ministrations of the lovely professional women. But when Japanese soldiers try to ransack the church and victimize the young girls, John, who had fallen unconscious and drunk wearing the late Father's robes and collar, realizes that he is the only one who has the capability to protect the girls from harm by the Japanese inside and outside the church walls and keep the courtesans hidden.

Both brutal and beautiful, The Flowers of War looks at the atrocities that the Japanese committed on the Chinese citizens during their campaigns in the then Chinese capital city of Nanking. Based loosely on historical events, the schoolgirls are forced to withstand uncivilized acts from the enemy combatants, even as they have to temper their disgust of the courtesans taking up room and resources inside the church. Outside the church walls, countless bodies are strewn along the rubble of the fallen city. Japanese soldiers corral any Chinese citizens along like cattle, shooting their guns in the air to drive the people along, making a sport of it. Any girls they come across end up being used for additional sport. Inside the walls, the schoolgirls are taken in by the myth of what the courtesans are meant to be, touted and reviled in poetry. Quickly they come to despise them, not wanting the courtesans to even use their bathroom. They bicker and fight with each other, with only George and John to keep them civil and apart. When the Japanese breach the nominal security of the church walls, they chase after the found schoolgirls in attempts to rape them. Even after the Japanese are eventually led away from the Cathedral by a lone Chinese sniper, Major Li (Tong Dawei, Red Cliff), the schoolgirls and women are irreversibly affected and brought closer together.

The cast is superb. Christian Bale brings the same intensity to his role of the mortician turned protector as he did in The Fighter. John Miller comes to the cathedral hired to prepare and bury the Father of the church. Putting his life in peril just to make it to the church, he only stays to take advantage of the accommodation, the church's winery stash, and the hope of finding some donation box money. But when the schoolgirls are at risk, John realized that he needs to focus on the others in his charge as opposed to himself. Newcomer Ni Ni as prim and proper courtesan Yu Mo is astounding, emotional and breathtaking. Young Tianyuan Huang's character George is both timid and loyal, desperate to keep his promise to the church's Father, his adopted father, to keep the girl safe. Zhang Xinyi comes to the role of schoolgirl Shu with a heavy heart as she is held responsible by the other schoolgirls for her father's failure to get them all out of the city by boat and the fact that her father (Kefan Cao, The Founding of a Republic) had turned to the Japanese as a consultant - a traitor. On the other side of the battlefield is the cultured and intelligent music loving Colonel Hasegawa (Atsurô Watabe, Hard Romanticker) who apologizes for the actions of his soldiers and guarantees the safety of the girls by the placing of guards around the entire perimeter, all with the simple request that the girls sing for him.

The Flowers of War may suffer the same fate as other films with the release of Lu Chuan's outstanding City of Life and Death. Will it become a matter of Armageddon versus Deep Impact? The Flowers of War focuses on the horrors that the Japanese soldiers committed to the Chinese. Were all the Japanese soldiers and officers as depraved as depicted? Is the film more of a propaganda piece? There is little in way of historical foundation over than the statistic of 200,000 slaughtered people during the invasion of Nanking, the start of the film on December 13, 1937, and the set piece of Winchester Cathedral.

With Christian Bale in the middle of the tale, American audiences may show some interest in the film's limited release. Some of the elements leading up to the climatic finale may falter and require you to suspend your disbelief a bit, and some of the dialogue may take you out of the 30s and into more recent decades, but historical accuracy aside The Flowers of War is emotionally charged, beautifully shot, and well-paced for its 141 minutes. Cinephiles interested in war-torn civilian dramas should check it out.

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WORTH: Matinee or Rental

The Dark Knight Rises Prologue

Knightfall

Director: Christopher Nolan

Writers: Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan, David S. Goyer, characters from Bob Kane
Cast: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Liam Neeson, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine

SYNOPSIS: Murderous villain Bane arrives in Gotham City, bent on destroying the myth and the body of the Batman.

REVIEW: The DC Universe has only improved with the addition of Christopher Nolan's vision of the Batman and the city of Gotham. In Batman Begins, the writer and director remade the image of the Bat with a new origin of Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) as he loses his family to a mugger's bullets and the rise of the Batman as the scourge of villainy throughout the alleyways and dark corners of Gotham. Ra's Al Ghul (Liam Neeson), the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy), and an underworld mob boss named Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson). In The Dark Knight, Nolan and Bale return to find the citizens of Gotham demanding for the head of the Batman, all the while he, Lt. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), and the district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) look to solve the riddle of his latest and craziest adversary, the Joker (Heath Ledger). Soon in the heat of 2012, Bruce and the Batman will return with the closing entry of the trilogy with The Dark Knight Rises.

It is called Operation Early Bird. Across the country, hidden clues and a viral campaign led the intuitive among us to the www.operationearlybird.com website. On the site's homepage a countdown clock wound down to an inevitable conclusion. Once the last number turned into a zero, the counter gave way to a map of the country with glowing dots scattered across the nation. Upon closer inspection, each dot represented an exclusive showing of The Dark Knight Rises prologue. Servers soon crashed, and browser sessions timed out. And once the fog and bandwidth cleared, every showing across North America was sold out.

For those who hunger for vengeance in the darkness, the summary of the prologue follows below.

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The Warner Bros. logo and the Legendary logo displays on a black ice background, followed by the glacial cracks forming the Batman icon. 

Commissioner Jim Gordon is heard as a voice over as the logos fade to black. The next scene fades in to show Commissioner Gordon outside at a podium touting his remembrance and belief in what Harvey Dent meant for him and stood for the city of Gotham. Pictures of Harvey Dent adorn the stage beside and behind the podium. Gordon moves away from the podium and sits down. The scene fades to black.

The next scene springs to white as we see a Lear jet on a desert mountain tarmac, a Land Rover bouncing on a dirt road toward the plane. In the back seat of the vehicle are three hooded figures in restraints. Leonid Pavel is led from the vehicle to who seems to be a CIA field agent. Another agent informs the special agent in charge that the hooded prisoners are believed to be associated with the terrorist Bane. All are led onto the plane in preparation for take off.

As the plane flies low over the rolling hills and jagged rock outcroppings, the CIA agent tells the prisoners that the flight manifest only has room for his staff, the guards, Pavel and one of the prisoners. If one of them tells him about the terrorist known as Bane, he will let that snitch stay on the plane. The other two are destined to be thrown out of the open side door into the empty air. Neither of the first two hooded prisoners say a word as they are interrogated with the threat of a jump without a parachute. The third hooded prisoner speaks up in a gravelly synthesized voice. The CIA agent pulls off the hood to reveal the prisoner is Bane himself. Talking with a mechanized voice modulator, he confronts the agent. 

As Bane does rants, a multi-prop cargo plane flies in over the Lear jet. The jet stream from the cargo plane bucks the Lear around in its wake. The rear cargo ramp opens and four black-clad soldiers repel out of the opening, into the air and descending to the Lear. They land hard on both sides of the plane over the wings and start shooting the CIA guards through the windows. Catching the agents by surprise, they attach powerful magnets or spikes to the side of the Lear's fuselage. The more powerful cargo plane, now connected to the smaller plane, pulls the Lear out of its flight path and up-ends it in mid-flight. The Lear's wings, from the cargo plane's jet stream and the air speed, shear off the craft completely. The Lear is left looking more like an up-ended missile than an airplane. Meanwhile, the agents are thrown to the front wall between the cabin and the cockpit. Eventually they are all killed. Bane's soldiers on the outside of the plane add det cord to the hull and blow out the tail of the plane.

A body bag descends from the cargo plane and into the now open hull. The bag is open to reveal a seemingly dead soldier. Bane sticks a IV feed tube in Pavel's arm to start the extract of blood from his arm to a blood bag, and possibly to the soldier in the body bag. A quick camera shot makes it look like someone is trying to perform CPR on the dead gray man. As Bane's extract team ascends their ropes back to the cargo plane, the last soldier starts to tie up for his escape. Bane tells him he is to stay behind. As he unties himself from the gear, the soldier seems to revel in the sacrifice Bane has asked him to make for the cause. Bane ties Pavel to his ascent rig. The plane suddenly falls away to earth as Bane and Pavel are pulled back to the cargo plane. The scene fades to black.

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The next minute or two shows a montage of scenes of Batman, Catwoman, the Batpod, a new aerial vehicle, and more... ending with Bane walking away with a cracked Batman helmet that he tosses away nonchalantly.

The six to seven minutes of prologue blazed by more less it was three to four minutes. The action was quick and inspired. In a compressed span of film experience, Bane's reach and audacity was fully established. Batman will have his fists full if he intends on going man to man against Bane. My only complaint is that Bane's mechanized voice was difficult to decipher at times. Otherwise, that six minutes proves that Nolan is going to take us on a hell of a ride next Summer.

Audiences were given an advanced look at the film's prologue prior to its July 20th, 2012 opening next Summer. Christopher Nolan states, in a Warner Bros. Pictures news release, that "Our experience on 'The Dark Knight' shooting and projecting IMAX 15 perf 65mm/70mm film was inspiring. The immersive quality of the image goes beyond any other filmmaking tool available, and in revisiting Gotham, we were determined to shoot even more of the movie in this unique format."

The Fighter

Powerful Truths

[Christian Bale, Mark Wahlberg, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo, Jack McGee, Mickey O'Keefe]

image from about.com

RANT: Today's trip to the movie house supports my theory that human nature is only half bad. On the bad side is the guy that keeps his phone on, gets a call, then takes the call in the theater itself. On the good side, a woman sitting two seats down from the phone call guy told him to take the call outside the theater. On the bad side, the same guy started talking louder on the phone when he was standing in the entry corridor. And on the good side, the same woman followed the phone call guy and told him that the entire theater can still hear his conversation. Hurray for making a stand for the greater good against the tyranny of rudeness.

SYNOPSIS: A small town fighter tries for a title shot, walking in the footsteps of his big brother.

Director Davis O. Russell, best known for I Heart Huckabees and Three Kings, brings the "based on a true" story of boxer "Irish" Micky Ward and his trainer/big brother Dicky Eklund to the screen. The story revolves around Micky's early career as he attempts a run at a welterweight title. A somewhat passion project for Mark Wahlberg, he plays "Irish" Micky Ward. Joining him is Christian Bale as his brother from another father, playing Dicky Eklund.

Running into a series of losses due to poorly planned boxing matches by his brother and manager/mother Alice Ward (Melissa Leo), Micky finds himself on the verge of quitting. While his brother has trained him from the beginning, Dicky has spiraled into a destructive habit of crack smoking, run-ins with the law and irresponsibility to Micky's career. Contemplating quitting, Micky takes up with bartender Charlene Fleming (Amy Adams) who helps Micky find his confidence to return to the ring. Torn between loyalty to his family and the success of his career, Micky painfully decides to break away to be managed by a local business man, his father George (Jack McGee), and trained by Lowell Police Department sergeant Mickey O'Keefe (playing himself). Finally putting together a string of wins, Micky finds himself the contender for the welterweight title in London.

The movie is more then about mere fighting inside the ring. "Irish" Micky Ward is a struggling boxer, fighting to live up to the shadow of the limited success of his brother. Dicky fought and knocked down "Sugar" Ray Leonard, and since has fought the habits of drinking, drugs and civil disobedience. Dicky and Micky's mother Alice fights against the knowledge of what Dicky has done to himself and fights against the certainty that Dicky will never make a comeback to the ring, thereby living vicariously through Micky to realize the dream of the failed title shot for Dicky years before.

Mark Wahlberg picks a great film and a great role. His performance as Micky, though, is almost secondary to the method that Christian Bale brings to the role of Dicky. And Amy Adams sinks her teeth into the role of Charlene in such a raw manner that Enchanted seems like a fairy tale. If one of them doesn't get a best supporting nod by the end of the awards season, I would be surprised. The rest of the cast is stellar, allowing us to laugh, cry and feel the pain and drama that the citizens of Lowell felt.

Worth: Matinee and DVD

I am also trying out a new rating system shown below based on reader reaction to my somewhat complex monetary rating scale. I will give both ratings and see what kind of reaction I muster. A movie can receive up to 5 popcorn buckets. Why popcorn buckets? Because I am a slave to the thousand + calorie delight! Enjoy!