Killers of the Flower Moon

Killers of the Flower Moon; crime-drama, USA, 2023; D: Martin Scorsese, S: Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, Cara Jade Myers, William Belleau, Tatanka Means, JaNae Collins, Ty Mitchell, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser

Oklahoma, 1 9 2 0s. War veteran Ernest Burkhart moves in to live with his uncle William King Hale, who persuades him to meet and marry Osage Native Indian woman Mollie. Ever since the Osage Indians found oil on their land, they became rich, yet the law mandates that they must have a white legal guardian who "approves" their expenses. Ernest and Mollie get three kids. As numerous Osage Indians get murdered under mysterious circumstances one by one, but no investigation is taken, Mollie and others campaign to President Calvin Coolidge for help, who sends an FBI team. Ernest gives poison to Mollie hidden inside the insulin at the behest of Hale. They discover Hale ordered the murders so that he and his white associates will inherit all the oil rights and get its money. Hale is arrested and Ernest decides to testify against him in the court. Both are sentenced.

A fascinating reconstruction of an unjustifiably forgotten historical event, "Killers of the Flower Moon" is a movie made out of conscience and sense for justice, a one that picked up this real-life case from anonymity and made it timeless and unforgettable. The bizarre conspiracy scheme in which white men married Osage Indian women, then killed their family members little by little to inherit all the oil rights and their wealth is a dark chapter in American history, and it is wonderfully charitable and noble from director Martin Scorsese to create this movie monument to the victims of this crime. It is in a way a 'social issue-movie' and 'social activism-movie', yet it refuses to have its themes as the only ingredient, and instead takes the story, characters and craftsmanship as its center, which gives it versatility. One major flaw is that the crucial character of Mollie is strangely underwritten and underexplored. It almost plays out like a Hitchcock crime film, but its elements also again inadvertently echoe Scorsese's "Goodfellas" (especially in the finale when Ernest realizes the crime conspiracy might even come after him). 

At 3.5 hours, the movie is definitely overlong and requires a lot of focus, yet at the same time it is difficult to find any sequence that could be cut, since the authors undertook a colossal task of inserting as many details as possible since all these moments happened and were not fictional. Scorsese directs the movie in a rather standard, routine way, with only some scenes having that ingenuity from his earlier career (such as the owl entering inside the house, as a symbol for incoming death), yet when the storyline is so intruiging and engaging as here, nothing much could have been added to it, anyway. Robert De Niro is great as the hypocritical villain Hale who publicly feigns to be a good friend of the Osage Indians, even offering financial reward for any information about the murders, yet secretly plots and schemes to hire killers to eliminate certain Indians as for the chips to fall into his favor. In one memorable scene, Hale is sitting in his car, telling instructions: "Tell Ramsey it's time. We're off to Fort Worth." As Ernest just stares at him with a blank, confused face, Hale angrily adds: "Look at me like this makes sense." "Killers of the Flower Moon" is as close to a modern movie coming to that coveted 'golden age of Hollywood' style as it gets, taking its time to create a blend of all the right stuff to deliver a nutritional, mature product.

Grade:+++ 

Speaking of the Devil

Un piede in paradiso; comedy, Italy, 1991; D: E.B. Clucher, S: Bud Spencer, Thierry Lhermitte, Carol Alt, Sharon Madden, Sean Arnold, Diamy Spencer

Florida. Bull Webster is the owner of a small taxi company under the crunch of a loan shark, Morrison, who wants to buy the company and then destroy it. Debt is not Bull's only problem, since his daughter Candice returns to his home with a baby, yet the father is unknown. The forces of good and evil decide to test Bull's soul: an angel, in the form of a man, Victor, and the devil's henchman, in the form of a woman, Veronica, go to Earth and contact Bull. When a passanger cannot pay for the taxi fare, and thus gives Bull 10$ and a lottery ticket which later hits the 150 million $ jackpot, Bull's wife is kidnapped and taken for ransom. Bull however cannot find the ticket, until Victor tells him he hid it in his blue jacket, but it is gone. After a huge chase, Morrison threatens to shoot Victor if Bull doesn't give him the lottery ticket. Bull gives in, and thus the angel wins the match against the devil. Luckily, Bull beats the distracted Morrison, regains the ticket and uses it to open a new limousine company.

E.B. Clucher's 7th and final film collaboration with Bud Spencer, "Speaking of the Devil" is one of the best Spencer films: set in Florida to give it a sense of an American touch, filled with numerous good little jokes and a gentle story about the clash between selfishness and altruism without turning preachy, this is an overall really well done achievement. Even though Spencer's career was heading towards its sunset in the 90s, Clucher gave it one last go and delivered a fine film. The concept of the devil and an angel fighting over the soul of a protagonist has been done numerous times, for instance in Dragojevic's even better film "We're No Angels" released a year later, yet it still feels fresh due to the authors' positive energy, innocent charm and snappy character interactions. In one good gag, the attractive Veronica invites the protagonist, taxi driver Bull, to her hotel room, and then they have this exchange: "Are you free?" - "No, I'm married." - "I meant your cab." - "He's not married!" Upon hearing on the TV that he won the 150 million $ jackpot, Bull drops everything at the bar, rushes to his car, crashes through his fence in the backyard, and then even smashes the front door of his house open to maniacally search for the lottery ticket in his jacket. The finale, where Bull and Victor are driving in the car to get back home to stop the washing machine with said jacket inside before the timer activates it to wash, has even a clever idea: since they cannot make it in time, Bull simply takes a "shortcut" to the local power station and causes a room to explode, as to turn off electricity in the entire city and disable the washing machine. A light, somewhat overstretched, yet still sympathetic comedy that puts a smile on your face.

Grade:++

Even Pigs Go to Heaven

Nosila je rubac črleni; comedy, Croatia / Macedonia, 2022; D: Goran Dukić, S: Nataša Dorčić, Tesa Litvan, Branko Meničanin, Ljubo Zečević, Areta Čurković, Dora Polić, Ljubomir Kerekeš

Zagorje region. Several stories revolving around a woman, Anka, who lives in a small village: a girl, Ančica, gets pregnant with a local priest, so she hastily marries the dumb Ruda to cover it up... The Croatian War erupts and several men hide in Zagorje to escape the draft, while war planes can be heard in the sky... Anka is the owner of Beba, a talking pig at her farm, and leads her to a neighboring village to breed with a Serb pig, Rocky, yet when an air raid is heard, the two pigs escape into the forest and get lost. Luckily, Anka meets Beba again at a fair near the church... Despite a feud with Ančica, Anka makes up with her and the locals prepare pig meat. Anka shows Ančica's daughter how Beba got her own piglets.

"Babe" meets "My Sweet Little Village"—unusual surreal comedy "Even Pigs Go to Heaven" (original title: "She wore a red headscarf") about a woman and a talking pig does not even bother to conjure up a real plot, and is instead a loose collection of comical episodes and vignettes that all give a homage to the Zagorje region, neatly depicting their childish mentality and specific customs. Shrill director Goran Dukic ("Mirta Learns Statistics") crafts a wacky film that is not for everyone's taste, yet it has just enough style and sympathetic characters to sway the viewers: from the opening scenes where a man with a bucket splashes the statue of Tito to wash it, through daft dialogues ("Do you think the late Ruža is watching all of this right now from above?" - "Of course! She is dead, she is not blind!"; "If she drowned, I'll kill her!"), up to the bizarre idea of occasional black and yellow animation clips, and even Jesus on the Crucifix as the narrator (!), the movie has personality. Natasa Dorcic is great as Anka, who lovingly talks to her pet pig Beba, and their interactions and dialogues (for instance, when Beba hears about Virgin Mary giving birth, and assumes it was done through artificial insemination) are the highlight of the film. The funniest joke is when the women are having a party outside, in the backyard of the farm, and then even chickens start talking while observing them: "Have they gone crazy?" - "Let them! It's better they sing than that they... fry!" The chaotic narrative where certain subplots just come and go, and basically everything just stays the same, has its shortcomings, yet the film has an overall such a contagious tone at times that one is willing to forgive its flaws to enjoy in its virtues.

Grade:++

Spy X Family (Season 1)

Spy X Family; animated spy comedy action series, Japan, 2022; D: Kazuhiro Furuhashi, S: Takuya Eguchi, Atsumi Tanezaki, Saori Hayami, Hiroyuki Yoshino

Westalis and Ostania are two "twin countries" divided by one being a democracy and the other a dictatorship. Since Ostania's state official Desmond is suspected of having a dangerous plan, Westalian top spy Twilight is given an unusual assignment: to "create" a fake family and send his kid in the same class as Desmond's son, leading him to Desmond. Twilight is thus given a new identity as Loid Forger, a psychiatrist, and marries Yor, a woman who is secretly an assassin. He also adopts a little girl, Anya, and sends her to the private school to befriend Desmond's son. They are also later joined by a big dog that can see the future. In the end, Twilight is just barely able to talk to Desmond personally, who appears briefly with his bodyguards.

An amusing comedy take on the spy era of West and East Germany during the Cold War set in an alternate universe, "Spy X Family" seems as if the story was aimed to appeal to two utterly separate audiences: one obviously intended for the grown ups who understand the socio-historical context, and the other perplexingly intended for kids in elementary school. As such, these two disparate levels of the storyline clash sometimes badly with each other. The 'grown ups' story works, especially in the first two episodes which are excellent—each of the three protagonists who pretend that they are a family have something to gain from it (Twilight is only there for "professionalism" to spy on the politician; Yor is a lonely woman who wants to impress her co-workers at job who gossip as to why she is still single, to deflect from her secret identity as an assassin; Anya doesn't want to be an orphan), and each motivation has its purpose and a logic. 

The 2nd episode is especially delicious: Yor waits for Twilight for their date, but he is preoccupied with fighting villains on another location. Yor finally goes alone to a party, where her co-workers all have a date, and some even have their kids with them, so Yor is ashamed, sitting alone in the corner, as everyone thinks she lied she has a boyfriend. Just as a disappointed Yor wants to leave early, Twilight suddenly breaks the door open and enters the room, with blood (!) on his face, apologizing because he had to "restrain" a crazy patient, and accidentally blunders by saying Yor is his wife, which shocks everyone at the party, yet obviously makes Yor very proud and happy, giving her significance. The writing somewhat falters after that. Another great episode is #7 when Twilight goes to school and secretly tries to persuade Anya to apologize to Desmond's son, whom she punched earlier, so Anya sees Twilight's "SORRY" message everywhere—either being chopped in cypress trees, written on a note attached to a kid's back, or even written via ketchup on omelette in the cantina. Unfortunately, for some reason, when the story revolves around the 7-year old Anya in elementary school, it plays out like a kids' show, since the plots revolving around arts and class, Anya going shopping with her friend or getting instructions are simply boring and uninteresting. She is like Chibiusa from "Sailor Moon" in this anime. Also, Yor is underwritten, when she is one of the most fascinatingly unusual characters. Considering that very little is discovered by the end of the first season, and that there are too many 'filler' or 'empty walk' episodes, "Spy X Family" is an anime that is good, yet could have been much better if the authors were more focused on its better parts.

Grade:++

Marty

Marty; drama, USA, 1955; D: Delbert Mann, S: Ernest Borgnine, Betsy Blair, Esther Minciotti, Augusta Ciolli, Joe Mantell

The Bronx. Marty is a 34-year old butcher who lives with his mother and is under pressure to get married since all his five siblings already did. He calls a woman he met a month ago, but she rejects him. On Saturday evening, his friend Angie persuades him to go to a dance hall to meet women. When Clara (29) gets dumped by her date, a guy who found a better looking girl, Marty comforts her and they dance together. Marty and Clara talk and like each other, as he tells her he plans to buy the meat store he is working in. Marty's mother accepts her sister Catherine to live in the house, since her son Thomas is married to Virginia and they want to have privacy. Mother and Angie try to talk Marty out of seeing Clara again since she is ugly, but he still calls her again.

The first noticeable screenplay by screenwriting Paddy Chayefsky ("Hospital", "Network"), "Marty" is an honest, quiet, sincere little drama, yet today doesn't seem that fresh anymore, proving once again that a movie revolving only around a person's private feelings isn't enough to be fully cinematic. Its taboo theme of an incel is emotional and tragic, since the title character is a kind and honest soul, and he is played wonderfully by Ernest Borgnine, whereas the story shows how two ugly people, Marty and Clara, manage to nullify their "curse" by joining forces and becoming a couple. There is a great little sequence of mother and Marty talking during dinner, as he finally snaps to says out loud his suppressed pain of loneliness towards her ("Ma, sooner or later, there comes a point in a man's life when he's gotta face some facts. And one fact I gotta face is that, whatever it is that women like, I ain't got it... All that ever happened there was girls made me feel like a bug! ...I'm just a fat, ugly man."), which is electrifying and devastating at the same time. Yet besides that, the rest of the movie is pretty thin and banal, since nothing ever comes close to this sequence, and the storyline plays out like a standard melodrama at times, which feels underwritten for Chayefsky's talent. The subplots of Marty's mother accommodating her sister or Marty's friend talking about novelist Mickey Spillane don't really bring anything to the film. "Marty" is more valuable as a sociological study than as a cinematic experience, yet it has a sympathetic side to it.

Grade:++

Shaun of the Dead

Shaun of the Dead; horror comedy, UK, 2004; D: Edgar Wright, S: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield, Lucy Davis, Dylan Moran, Bill Nighy

London. Shaun, an electronics salesman, is under stress: his girlfriend Liz wants him to ditch his friend and roommate, Ed, who only plays video games all day. The stress becomes even worse when a zombie pandemic breaks out, so Shaun picks up Liz, Ed, Dianne, David, and Shaun's mother, whereas his stepfather has to be abandoned after he was bitten by zombies. The group hides in the Winchester pub, and finds a gun, yet has to shoot Shaun's mother who herself became a zombie. When David and Dianne get killed by zombies, Liz and Shaun flee back to the street, where they are saved by the army. Sometime later, people has beaten the zombies and things get back to normal, while Shaun still holds a zombie Ed hidden in his shack.

Zombie movies have been so overused and excessively exploited to death that it is surprising how the director Edgar Wright and actor-screenwriter Simon Pegg managed to make something new and fresh out it with "Shaun of the Dead", a fun horror comedy that uses the zombie pandemic as a catalyst for character growth and detemination of personality. In this edition, the "zombie intervention" manages to reconcile characters Liz and Shaun who broke up, but teamed up again to stay alive, yet at the same time Shaun never ditches his "third wheel", the slob friend Ed who is even kept in the end, since old habits die hard. Some ideas work (when Shaun and Ed spot the first zombie in the backyard, a woman, they at first assume she is drunk), and most of the jokes are funny (a zombie in a wheelchair; Shaun and the gang pretending they are zombies themselves to simply walk pass hundreds of zombies on the streets; TV clips showing an altered world where zombies are used as participants in survivial game shows), whereas Wright's sense for just plain wacky mood is contagious. However, the movie isn't that inspired, since the typical splatter kills of zombies seem mostly banal, and a more abundance of jokes (and not just the bare happy "hang-out" mood of these characters) would have been welcomed ("Hot Fuzz" is the funnier Wright-Pegg movie). As with most disaster movies, they show the characters what's truly important to them, and here the protagonist realizes he must let go of some habits to embrace the other ones which suit him more.

Grade:++

Caesar and Cleopatra

Caesar and Cleopatra; historical drama, UK, 1945; D: Gabriel Pascal, S: Claude Rains, Vivien Leigh, Francis L. Sullivan, Basil Sydney, Stewart Granger, Flora Robson, Raymond Lovell

Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt, 48 BC. Roman general Julius Caesar arrives with his army and, while walking alone, incognito meets Cleopatra sitting near the Sphinx of Giza during the night. They become friends, and she is later surprised to find out about his identity. Caesar wants to intervene in the dispute of succession by proclaiming both Cleopatra and her 14-year old brother Ptolemy XIII as joint rulers. Achillas and his army attack the royal palace, but Caesar's forces prevail. When Cleopatra orders the murder of Pothinus, Ptolemy XIII's regent, this triggers an angry mob attacking the palace. Caesar's army again prevails, thanks to reinforcements, and then leaves Egypt with his ship, much to the dismay of Cleopatra.

One of the better movies about the Ptolemaic Queen, with a budget of 5.2 million $, Gabriel Pascal's lavish and exotic spectacle "Caesar and Cleopatra" was at the time of its premiere the most expensive film of its time, even more expensive than the epic "Gone with the Wind" (whose budget was 3.9 million $), and both share the main actress, Vivien Leigh, who is energetic here as Hellenistic Queen Cleopatra. By limiting the story only to the first year of the encounter between Caesar and Cleopatra, and refusing to be historically accurate (bizarrely, Caesar here never falls in love with Cleopatra and even finds her arrogant), the movie feels skewed, meandering at times, whereas the ponderous and theatrical dialogues feel somehow too artificial. Nontheless, the opening sequence is brilliant, albeit entirely fictional—Caesar and Cleopatra meet at the "paws" of the Sphinx of Giza during the night, she doesn't know who he is, and thus mischiviously describes the statue as the "kitten of the Sphinx", whereas the set design gives for aesthetic, esoteric images. When Caesar accompanies Cleopatra to the empty palace throne and recommends she holds a "brave" pose, dressed in queen's clothes, while she awaits for Caesar, she is surprised when the Roman soldiers enter the room and give a salute to Caesar, realizing he was with her the entire time. The reconstruction of the city of Alexandria, with the palace, houses and pillars, is impressive, whereas certain dialogues have sharpness—for instance, Pothinus shows up and says: "I came to warn you of a danger, and to make you an offer", so Caesar replies: "Never mind the danger, make the offer!", while the Roman soldier intervenes: "Never mind the offer, what's the danger?!" Apollodorus also says at one point: "When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares it his duty." More care should have been given to the chemistry between the two title protagonists, yet the movie has more than enough virtues to warrant a more often mention among the film critics and film lexicons.

Grade:++

Two Players from the Bench

Dva igrača s klupe; satire / black comedy / drama, Croatia, 2005; D: Dejan Šorak, S: Goran Navojec, Borko Perić, Tarik Filipović, Dora Lipovčan, Renne Gjoni

The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) filed an indictment for a massacre perpetrated during the Croatian War against Croatian Colonel Skoka. The only people who could contradict the indictment and testify that Skoka was with them in another location during the war crime, soldiers Joso and Mato, have vanished. Since Skoka is considered a hero among Croatian population, the government sends manipulator Antiša to hire peasant Ante and a Serb from Banja Luka, Duško, who look identical as Joso and Mato, and thus play the two witnesses who will testify and get paid 20,000€ each. They do, the prosecutor thus has to drop the indictment against Skoka, but then an indictment against Joso and Mato is filed. Reluctantly, Ante and Duško accept to go to jail at the Hague for 8 years for an even bigger salary, and to take Joso's and Mato's punishment.

Dejan Sorak's black comedy "Two players from the Bench" has an almost "Simpsons"-like crazy idea of the Croatian government "cheating" in its cooperation with the Hague-based war crimes Tribunal around that time, by hiring two "doubles" who will play witnesses and then demolish the indictment of a popular Croatian war hero (arguably an analogy of Ante Gotovina), yet the movie needed much better writing, execution, inspiration and more humor to edge itself into something better. With an overlong running time of 112 minutes, the movie definitely needed a better editor to remove some "empty walk", especially since too much time is spent in the first half on Ante and Dusko just hiding in the abandoned warehouse and rehearsing their "roles" from the script, whereas the subplot involving a Ukrainian prostitute who befriends Ante could have been either removed or rewritten to play a role in the story later on. Some of the best jokes are when the secret agents are "modeling" Ante and Dusko to look exactly like the Croatian soldiers Joso and Mato, even making photos of them near a pit, ostensibly from the war time, yet in a diner, Antisa insists that Dusko needs to lose a specific tooth, since his "clone" Mato also has a missing tooth. Cue Ante punching Dusko in the jaw, who falls on the ground but indeed finds out that he lost that specific tooth. When Antisa mentions that Joso also had a scar on his cheek, Dusko jokingly offers himself to give Ante a scar for free. In the preliminary hearing sequence, when he blunders and casts doubt that he is Mato, Dusko randomly just smiles and points with his finger at his missing tooth, almost as a "ace in the sleeve". While somewhat clumsy and underwritten, the movie is a sly contemplation on the illusion of justice and the "big fish" hiding behind small people.

Grade:++

A Time to Kill

A Time to Kill; legal thriller-drama, USA, 1996; D: Joel Schumacher, S: Matthew McConaughey, Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, Sandra Bullock, Oliver Platt, Charles S. Dutton, Brenda Fricker, Donald Sutherland, Kiefer Sutherland, Rae'Ven Larrymore Kelly, Beth Grant, Patrick McGoohan, Ashley Judd, Chris Cooper, Tonea Stewart, M. Emmet Walsh

Mississippi. Two racist white men abduct and rape a 10-year old African American girl, Tonya Hailey, leaving her permanently infertile. The two are arrested, but then shot and killed in the police station by the girl's father, Carl, as revenge. The police thus arrest Carl. Lawyer Jake is given the task to defend Carl on trial for murder, pleading insanity. Reluctantly, Jake accepts the free help of lawyer Ellen. At the same time, the Ku Klux Klan is trying to intimidate Jake into giving up on the case by attacking his home. Ultimately, the judge rules Carl not guilty. 

One of the seven film adaptations made in the 90s based on the popular novels by John Grisham, "A Time to Kill" is a somewhat clumsy and inconsistent meditation on the thin line between vigilantism, revenge and legal justice, yet still good enough, honest and genuine to engage the viewers even today. The crystal clear cinematography by Peter Menzies Jr. makes even conventional scenes look good and aesthetic, though the best component is Samuel L. Jackson's emotional and powerful performance as Carl. The major flaw is that the movie wastes too much time on its middle part, depicting overlong preparations of the lawyer Jake for the case, as well as his cliche rejection of Ellen's assistance again and again, only to in the end accept her help, anyway, when in fact more time should have been invested into Carl, into what his psychological profile is, and in what emotional state he was left when he shot the rapists of his daughter. Some more philosophical lines and sharp quotes are scarce, yet they stand out, such as the one where Jake's mentor, Lucien, now an alcoholic, contemplates: "If you win this case, justice will prevail, and if you lose, justice will also prevail. Now that is a strange case...  It ain't easy saving the world, even one case at a time." Jake also comments on Lucien's alcoholism: "They took away your license, but they can never take away your mind, unless you allow it." More of these kind of scenes would have been welcomed. The moral compass of the movie is skewed and controversial since Carl should have pleaded guilty, and not "not guilty", due to the problematic message that vigilantism and revenge are acceptable in certain circumstances, yet the final legal segment has enough suspense and power to stand out in the foreground.

Grade:++

The Birdcage

The Birdcage; comedy, USA, 1996; D: Mike Nichols, S: Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Dan Futterman, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, Calista Flockhart, Hank Azaria, Christine Baranski

South Beach. Armand Goldman is the owner of the gay night club "The Birdcage" and in a relationship with Albert. This becomes a problem when Armand's son Val (20) announces that he is engaged to Barbara Keeley (18) whose father is Kevin Keeley, a conservative Senator who is publicly against LGBT community. Armand and Val thus decide to hide Albert during Kevin's visit to their house and bring Val's mother Katherine to play Armand's wife and pretend they are conservative. When Kevin and his wife Louise arrive to meet, Albert suddenly appears disguised as a woman, playing Val's mother, but then Katherine arrives late, and the disguise is revealed. In order to hide Kevin from the reporters, Armand disguises him as a drag woman in his show and escorts him through the back exit. Val and Barbara marry.

Mike Nichols' 15th feature length film, a one which reunited him with Elaine May who wrote the script based on the French comedy film "La Cage aux Folles", is one of the rare good American remakes that is able to be both respectful and wildly comical at the same time as it contemplates on the relationship between liberalism and conservatism. Robin Williams is great as the gay club owner Armand, and Gene Hackman shows his underrated comical side as the conservative Senator Kevin, though other actors also have bits and pieces where they rise to the occasion: in one of the best sight gags, Calista Flockhart's character Barbara is talking with her father Kevin in his office about her engagement, and as the telephone rings, she maniacally fast grabs it to answer the call first. Albert's antics as he cannot perform on stage because he thinks Armand is cheating on him are funny in one great dialogue: "I've done everything I could to make myself attractive to you. I've lost and gained over a 100 pounds in the last year". 

Albert is finally calmed down upon taking the "pirin" pills, and Armand finds out it's just aspirin with the first two letters, "A" and "S", scratched off. The middle part of the film somehow takes too long and isn't that fun, yet the encounter of Armand and Kevin in the finale is great—trying to hide their Jewish name Goldman, he keeps changing it, so Kevin finally protests: "Is it Coleman or Coldman?" Cue Williams' impeccable comic timing as he mends the situation by quickly replying with: "Coleman! The "D" is silent!" A missed opportunity is the abrupt ending of the charade just as Christine Baranski's character shows up, who was announced for so long just to have her appearance suddenly cut short, when instead it would have been far better for the story to prolong this comedy complication even longer. Nichols directs the movie in a conventional, but competent manner, and some more subversive observations manage to appear here and there—Kevin's friend, politician Jackson, is supposedly good because he is a conservative, but is a hypocrite, a cheater and a liar when it is revealed he died while having sex with a prostitute who is a minor, whereas the gay couple of Armand and Albert are loyal, moral and decent people, forced to be something they don't want to during the delicious dinner sequence in the finale to try to fit in. "The Birdcage" needed more burlesque jokes, more punchlines, yet as it is it demonstrates that quality comedies are a very satisfaying experience. 

Grade:++