In the maelstrom of muck that passes itself as filmmaking today, it is reassuring to come across the occasional gem made by genuine talents who still know how to tell a classic story with coherence and charm. The aura of William Faulkner lingers over Get Low, a chunk of down-home rural Southern folklore based on a real event in 1938, when a Tennessee hermit emerged after decades of hiding in the woods to hear the nearby townsfolk's opinion of him at a mock funeral. Moving the action back a few years to the Depression, this film, the debut feature by the Oscar-winning cinematographer Aaron Schneider, is a funny and tender retelling of that story, resonating with warmth and sardonic wit and containing a majestic performance by Robert Duvall.

In one of his rare screen appearances of late, the iconic actor plays Felix Bush, a grizzled old recluse who has cut himself off from society for 40 years, after a barn burning that made him a local legend, feared by men and children alike. (Some folks swear he kills his victims with his bare hands.) What a shock when Felix wanders into town one day in battered rags with his shotgun and his mule, his gnarled face buried behind a white beard. Fearing his imminent passing, he decides that "it's time to get low"-meaning time to make plans for dying, including the purchase of a plot, a casket and a eulogy. This is great news for Frank Quinn (Bill Murray), an undertaker with basset-hound eyes and the doleful owner of a failing funeral parlor, who goes after the business. Better still, his customer envisions a funeral party-one last hurrah that will draw friends and enemies alike to his shack in the woods for the final send-off, provided each guest has a story to tell about him, true or false. Chuckling with mischievous glee, he even decides to sell $5 raffle tickets. The lucky winner will get 300 acres of virgin timber land and a mule named Gracie. This Depression-era come-on draws crowds so big that they set up a tent city to house the turnout. One caveat: The celebration must take place while he is still alive to enjoy it!

From this modest premise comes characters rich with tradition (shades of everything from Tobacco Road to Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller) that extend their lives beyond the limitations of the log cabin settings. The film is enhanced by bluegrass music, and the beautifully composed camera setups serve as exquisite backdrops for a series of keenly calibrated performances. Mr. Murray is both sad and funny as the opportunistic mortician with a well-concealed conscience, and Lucas Black more than holds his own as his young sidekick. Sissy Spacek, always a minimalist, is a touching and terrifically matched counterpart for Mr. Duvall-a still lovely and radiant old flame whose sister's death in the fire that haunted their lives for so many wasted years forms the mystery at the heart of the film. It takes the whole movie to solve that mystery and discover what Felix did to become his own guilt-ridden jailer for 40 years, but while you wait, you have the rare pleasure of watching two seasoned pros interact with heart and sensitivity. While the acting is uniformly fine, it is the welcome return of Mr. Duvall that is worth a special round of applause. Odd and unpredictable, he perfectly embodies all the qualities of old age-breathing through his sinuses, hobbling left to right like a hobby horse with wheels that need oil, his expressions rising and falling with appropriate awe when he eyes a casket of solid pecan with steel handles and a satin lining or selects with trepidation a new blue suit to be buried in. The nuances with which he demonstrates the value of doing more with less for maximum effect makes every scene an acting lesson. I couldn't take my eyes off his face. With his mouth open and his tongue poised, it's like he's snoring wide awake.

Simple, straightforward and stirring without sentimentality, Get Low is a treasure.

GET LOW
Running time 100 minutes
Written by Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell
Directed by Aaron Schneider
Starring Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Bill Murray, Lucas Black

3.5 Eyeballs out of 4

O.K., go ahead and make fun of Christmas. Every year, somebody does. Like the people in Beverly Hills in the verse to Irving Berlin’s legendary song who gave up dreaming of a “White Christmas,” I long ago gave up hoping for another holiday classic in the same league as Miracle on 34th Street, Christmas in Connecticut and It’s a Wonderful Life. Instead of sugarplums, we now get nauseating holiday thorns like Four Christmases, and the only thing that comes down the chimney is a serial killer.

Four Christmases is four nightmares rolled into one, all masquerading as alleged comedies and featuring cameo appearances by a supporting cast of genuine talents whose 401(k)’s must be Wall Street casualties. How else can you explain the presence of Reese Witherspoon, Sissy Spacek, Robert Duvall, Mary Steenburgen and Jon Voight, to name a few. Either the lighting in this horror is dreadful, or they are all red-faced from trashing their integrity for money. Probably both. To say this movie is beneath their dignity is like saying Michael Jackson is an obvious choice for a recurring role on Nip/Tuck.

Brad and Kate (Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon) are a rich San Francisco couple who hate marriage, kids and family reunions. When you meet their families, you instantly understand why every year they mail their presents and head for the airport, destined for some exotic new port in the sun in a Christmas world that never heard of an economic recession and nobody serves turkey. This year their Ray-Bans and bikinis are packed for Burma and Fiji when the Bay Area gets fogged in; their flight is canceled; and a TV reporter corners them for an interview that reveals their dilemma to all of their assorted relatives. Trapped, they gird their loins for a marathon of homecomings with four divorced parents, jealous siblings, savage children, screaming babies and worse. (I haven’t got the stomach to tell you about the masturbating grandmother.) Since the entire movie takes place in one day, these people must all live within 10 minutes of each other. By the time it’s over, Christmas spirit turns rancid and 24 hours seems like 24 days.

First, there’s Brad’s vicious, white trash father, Howard (Robert Duvall), and two sub-mental Neanderthal brothers, Denver and Dallas (Jon Favreau and country singer Tim McGraw), who live in a collapsing tract house and spend their lives hunting and fighting. Brad gets insulted, beaten, knocked unconscious and nearly electrocuted before he falls off the roof, while Kate gags on Christmas “treats” of aerosol-can cheese spread and baloney sandwiches slathered with Miracle Whip. Next stop is Kate’s mother, Marilyn (Mary Steenburgen), a religious nut, and brainless, mean-spirited sister Courtney (Kristen Chenoweth), whose grotesque children vomit all over Kate’s black cocktail dress and steal her pregnancy test. Before their visit ends, Kate and Brad get dragged off to Marilyn’s church pageant and forced to play Mary and Joseph, wrecking the manger before the big finale, a ghastly rock ’n’ roll “Silent Night”.

Christmas number three finds them in the clutches of Brad’s mother, Paula (a criminally wasted Sissy Spacek), an aging hippie whose new lover is a guy Brad’s age who used to be his best friend in high school. Reluctantly, they all play a demented board game that makes no sense. Mercifully, this segment is short. By the time they reach Lake Tahoe (try making that drive in one day) and the beautiful home of Kate’s much-married father (Jon Voight) and his new girlfriend, with ex-wife Marilyn and the rest of Kate’s nutty relatives all joining in for the second time in one day, the idyllic couple is so mortified by the things they’ve discovered about each other, so estranged from arguing and so stressed out after wasting their entire Christmas with four of the most obnoxious families on the planet that Kate is the only one who gets out of the car; Brad drives away, leaving her in the driveway. But this movie isn’t over yet. Forced by the day’s events to reevaluate the importance of family (huh?), Brad and Kate decide it might not be such a bad thing to start one of their own—a decision made, like everything else in the movie, for all the wrong reasons. Kids, reasons Brad, “are little walking tax shelters—you can write a lot of things off.”

Although it took four writers to come up with this drivel, Four Christmases has the cohesion of an impromptu game played on a boring road trip in which each passenger in the car takes turns adding a scene. “Remember,” says the driver, “to drag it out until we get to the next gas station.” Reese Witherspoon is adorable as ever. Vince Vaughn has the charisma of a dead armadillo. Nobody gets much help from hack director Seth Gordon (King of Kong). It’s vulgar, embarrassing and (this is the good part) only about 80 minutes long, but the acid reflux is guaranteed to last through New Year’s Eve.

rreed@observer.com

Hunter Hill and Perry Moore’s Lake City, from their own screenplay, was designed from the outset as a vehicle for veteran Oscar-winning actress Sissy Spacek. It was also consciously and even self-consciously modeled after such “Southern” movies as To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Sling Blade (1996), One False Move (1992), Tender Mercies (1983) and The Last Picture Show (1971). In their joint Director’s Q&A, Mr. Hill and Mr. Moore discuss the genesis of the film: “Lake City burned a hole through us: it was a story we had to tell. We’re both New Yorkers, but we grew up in the South, with its rich tradition of strong women who stand against all adversity to keep their families together. Our own mothers reflect that tradition, and Sissy’s character, Maggie, embodies it. At bottom, the movie was made to honor the bonds between mothers and sons.

“The story itself is an analog of some deeply emotional experiences through growing up in the South. The love of family, the longing for acceptance, the challenge of reconciling past pain with present needs, are all strands we pull together to weave the tapestry of the story. The strength of family, the bonds of mother and child, are tested to the utmost as harrowing events converge in the climax of the film.”

The film’s actual narrative follows the director’s prescriptions perhaps too literally. There is very little wasted motion, to be sure, but also very little real-life like ambience. For example, the male protagonist, Troy Garity’s Billy, is introduced across the table from his fellow cocaine dealer/nemesis, musician Dave Matthews’ Red, presumably in an urban or semi-urban environment. But that is just about all we see of the area until Billy packs up his belongings and takes a little boy named Clayton (Colin Ford) with him on his forced escape to his hometown, along the way making frantic, unanswered phone calls to the boy’s mother, Hope (Drea de Matteo). It seems that Hope has run off with a great deal of money and/or narcotics belonging to a fearsome gang of drug dealers.

Previously, we have been introduced to Ms. Spacek’s Maggie as she fended off a lucrative offer to sell her ancestral farmhouse to developers. We later see her operating a tractor, but are never shown what she produces, or indeed how she makes a living commensurate with her high-and-mighty dismissal of developers, among society’s newest villains. Some quaint townspeople are introduced, including Roy, a guitar-playing gas station operator, cast with vintage Nashville star, Keith Carradine.

On their way to Maggie’s house, Billy and Clayton are pulled over for speeding by an attractive lady trooper named Jennifer (Rebecca Romijn), who was not only Billy’s high-school classmate, but also, like Billy, an ex-drinker who stopped cold turkey and joined Alcoholics Anonymous. This string of coincidences is typical of the movie as a whole as it struggles to establish a foothold of plausibility before the mandatory climactic melodramatics take hold. In fact, as soon as Billy is settled in at Maggie’s house with Clayton, he rushes off to attend the local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous, where he encounters Jennifer, and you can write the romantic progression for yourself.

Still, the actors are effective enough in their assigned roles to keep the proceedings moderately coherent. Mr. Garity has the hardest job in making Billy traumatized well into adulthood by his lingering guilt over his part in his brother’s accidental death. Ms. Spacek is fortunately on hand to supply this film, as she has supplied so many others, with a necessary degree of credibility.

asarris@observer.com

Sissy Spacek could read her grocery list and hold my attention. So I am not surprised that her absorbing performance in Lake City makes an otherwise small, unexceptional little film seem a lot more important than it is. She’s a filmmaker’s best friend. Throw her some buckshot and she’ll convince you it’s caviar.

The filmmakers with a lot to be grateful for this time around are writer-directors Hunter Hill and Perry Moore, two transplanted Southerners who have based their movie on a traumatic childhood incident in Mr. Hill’s life. The story is a moving evocation of the bonds that tie mothers and sons in good times and bad. Ms. Spacek, in a role comprised of the same strong, implacable maternal forces that catapulted In the Bedroom to enduring greatness, plays Maggie Pope, a tough-tender woman of pioneer stock who has lost one son in a tragic accident and another son to the worldly destruction of big-city decadence in the fast lane. Living alone in the rambling house where she raised her family, facing a dwindling rural economy but refusing to sell out to developers her proud connection to the land she loves, she’s one of those “I will survive” moms you don’t see much anymore. Repairing her truck, carting home the fixings for her dinner, sitting on the front porch when the sun goes down, absorbed in thoughts of peace and balance in an unpleasantly changing world, she’s the kind of mom we should all be lucky enough to have—the kind of gingham-and-grits mom Thanksgiving Day reunions were invented for. A respected, hardworking member of the community with a warm smile and a friendly “Hi, y’all” for every neighbor, still hanging on to home and hearth even though she’s financially strapped, she has carved a niche in a rich Southern landscape made famous by William Faulkner, Horton Foote and Eudora Welty. Lake City, where she cannot be pried from the cornfields, is the kind of country-fried Southern town you always find in Sissy Spacek movies. It’s a perfect place to hide from the cruelty and violence of the outside world, lost in memories of happier times.

That reverie crashes to a halt with the unexpected arrival of Maggie’s son, Billy (the excellent Troy Garity), a desperate young man on the lam from Memphis drug dealers with his girlfriend’s son in tow. Billy has distanced himself from the way he was raised, but exposed again to his mother’s rock-solid family values, he experiences redemption in the comfort of local AA meetings; the trust of an old friend who has become a pretty local cop (Rebecca Romijn); and a new friendship with a gas station attendant who plays the guitar (Keith Carradine). Uncovering truths about guilt and blame that have torn the family apart for years, mother and son are brought closer than ever, and as the villains descend like vultures in time to poison the magnolias, they realize there is nothing they can’t face together.

Admittedly, it’s a bit hokey, but the humanity in Lake City far outweighs the occasional incredulity. Some first-rank talents have made significant contributions to the beauty and reality of this film. Both David Crank’s production design and the gorgeous cinematography by Robert Gantz depict the South in autumn (Virginia, I think) with an authenticity that is rare. The film has the outdoor reality of a Terrence Malick film, but there isn’t a slow moment or a single scene that drags on too long. What drags is a ghastly, ill-chosen title song called “World Without Tears” by a horror called Lucinda Williams, who sounds like road kill making one last stab at inhalation. Otherwise, there isn’t much to offend. What a blessing from Celluloid Heaven to see a movie about real people instead of cheesy animatronics and phony, computerized special effects. And there isn’t a trace of superficiality in any of the acting. Troy Garity made such an indelible impression on me in Soldier’s Girl, playing the mentally challenged army grunt murdered by his fellow recruits after falling in love with a transsexual, that I couldn’t wait to see what he might do next. He lives up to the anticipation with such individual potency and presence that I think he has both outgrown and surpassed the label of Jane Fonda’s son. As for Sissy Spacek, I can’t think of a sounder role to reflect the unique qualities that make her so special. Lake City may not be her greatest achievement, but in the way it combines the flawless integrity and no-frills honesty that have become her trademarks, it offers irrefutable proof of how valuable her artistry is to American motion pictures.

rreed@observer.com

Strangers, AMC Village VII, 2 p.m.

It could be a setup for some sort of awesome romantic comedy: a man and woman lock eyes on a train while both traveling to Berlin for the World Cup finals before accidentally switching backpacks. But, of course, things get more complicated as the couple in question is an Israeli man, and the woman hails from Ramallah but has been living in Paris, trying to escape the daily terrorism that comes with life in the Palestinian territories. Brace yourself for relationship metaphor for political conflict! Directed by Erez Tadmor and Guy Nattiv. (Watch the trailer above.)

My Life Inside, Village East Cinema 3, 2:15 p.m.

Lucía Gajá’s documentary (making its North American premiere at the festival) tells the harrowing story of Rosa Jiménez, a girl who got herself to the United States from Mexico looking for a better life. She met a man and married him. She had a baby. But then several years later a 2-year-old boy she was baby-sitting died in her care, and she found herself in jail for two years in Austin awaiting trial for murder. Guess whether Mexican immigrants are treated fairly in jail in Texas! Sigh.

The Universe of Keith Haring, AMC Village VII, 6 p.m.

Another day, another documentary about an era-defining New York artist. The Universe of Keith Haring is a look into Haring’s life—from his days living in a tiny and conservative Pennsylvania town to the big time when he was the man on the downtown '80s scene, hanging out with Madonna, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. Friends and family add anecdotes, but most will enjoy all the fun stuff about New York in the '70s and '80s.

Lake City, BMCC Tribeca PAC, 9:30

The good news about Lake City: Sissy Spacek is in it—and when is she not ever totally wonderful? The news that might make you go hmmm? So is Dave Matthews and he is playing a drug dealer. The movie is about a man (Troy Garity) and his son on the run, returning to his mother’s (Spacek) house in Virginia. Mother and son try to reconnect and heal a troubled, and somewhat haunted past.

The Cottage, Village East Cinema, 11:59 p.m.

Writer-director Paul Andrew Williams is in charge of this horror-comedy (Is this a new genre now? It sure seems to be) about a wimpy man who finds himself holding a gangster’s daughter hostage with his truly criminal brother (Andy Serkis, of Gollum fame). Everything seems to go wrong with their plan, and when their hostage escapes, they find even scarier things out in the woods. Oh, Brits.

Ms. Sarofim, who grew up in Houston, moved to New York seven years ago. Her father is the famous Egyptian-born financier, Fayez Sarofim, a.k.a. “the Sphinx.” Her mother, Louisa, sits on the board at the Menil Collection (art). Ms. Sarofim has acted, attended culinary school and worked at Le Bernardin. In recent years, she’s become known for her Halloween parties, which last year included a troupe of dancing midgets.

On Friday, April 25, her first produced film, Lake City, premiered at the Tribeca PAC theater. Ms. Sarofim also has a cameo playing the role of a hardscrabble hooker who gets beat up by the film’s drug-dealing villain played by … Dave Matthews!

After the screening, Ms. Sarofim hosted a bash at her West Village townhouse, of course. Among her guests: hotelier André Balazs, art dealer Larry Gagosian, director Brett Ratner, actress Marisa Tomei, designer Cynthia Rowley, Vogue editor Hamish Bowles, musician Bryan Ferry and pricelessly named Princess Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis.

“Typically, I host private parties, and this had a different business element to it,” Ms. Sarofim told the Transom later on the phone. “But I can honestly say I was very comfortable. I think people from all those different worlds really liked socializing together.”

Ms. Sarofim took it as a good sign that the film’s stars, Sissy Spacek and Troy Garity, stayed till 2:30 a.m. “Larry Gagosian was so excited to meet Sissy Spacek because he’s a big fan,” she said.

She and the film’s writer-director team Hunter Hill and Perry Moore have started a production company, Sixty-Six, with three more projects in the pipeline.

But all you ghouls out there lucky enough to be in Ms. Sarofim’s Rolodex can breathe easy: Her legendary Halloween bashes will go on! “Those are productions,” she said. “And I really feel that this is a continuation of that.”

Anyway, here is my encapsulated wisdom on the year in movies, 2004, transposed to 2005:

As far as I can determine, 2005 seems to have been neither the best nor the worst year for movies, at least as far as the proportion of good (low as always) to bad (high as always) is concerned. Of course, the technology keeps changing—often to the consternation of the Luddites among us—and there’s also that mindless nostalgia for an idyllic past, in which all the bad movies have been mercifully expunged from memory. After all, I’ve been in the year-end 10-best business since 1958, when Jonas Mekas graciously allowed me to share his “Movie Journal” column in The Village Voice with my own 10-best list, which I’m now ashamed to remember failed to include both Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil—but that was 48 years ago, and I very much doubt that I will be around 47 years from now to second-guess my top-10 lists for 2005. So, with little fear of afterthought, and without further ado, here are my considered preferences for the past year, which, by my count at least, accounted for 480 releases in New York theaters:

English-Language Pictures

1. A History of Violence

2. The Squid and the Whale

3. Match Point

4. Sin City

5. Proof

6. Breakfast on Pluto

7. Walk the Line

8. Pride and Prejudice

9. Shopgirl

10. Junebug

Foreign-Language Pictures

1. 2046

2. Saraband

3. Look at Me

4. My Mother’s Smile

5. Brothers

6. My Summer of Love

7. The Memory of a Killer

8. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

9. Ushpizin

10. Paradise Now

Nonfiction Films

1. March of the Penguins

2. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

3. David Hockney: The Colors of Music

4. Gunner Palace

5. Stalin’s Wife

6. Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic

7. Cinévardaphoto

8. The Venetian Dilemma

9. With God on Our Side: George W. Bush and the Rise of the Religious Right in America

10. WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception

Films Other People Liked and I Didn’t

1. Brokeback Mountain

2. Munich

3. Syriana

4. Crash

5. The 40-Year-Old Virgin

6. Caché

7. The Family Stone

8. Mrs. Henderson Presents

9. The Weeping Meadow

10. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Special award to Gromit in Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit for maintaining and extending the comic spirit, gravitas and technological adaptability of Buster Keaton.

Runner-Up English-Language Films I Liked

The Ice Harvest, The Jacket, Separate Lies, Red Eye, The White Countess, Jarhead, The Upside of Anger, Winter Solstice, Wedding Crashers, Happy Endings, Hustle & Flow, Keane, In Her Shoes, Nine Lives, Fever Pitch, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, Transamerica, The Interpreter, Broken Flowers, Just Like Heaven, North Country, The Matador, Cinderella Man, Good Night, and Good Luck, Capote.

Runner-Up Foreign-Language Films I Liked

Head-On, À Toute de Suite, The Holy Girl, 3-Iron, Happily Ever After, The Ninth Day, Kings and Queen, Or (My Treasure), The Beat That My Heart Skipped, The Edukators, Tony Takitani, The President’s Last Bang, The Syrian Bride, Gilles’ Wife, Nina’s Tragedies, Downfall, Good Morning, Night,

Best Male Performances

1. Viggo Mortensen, A History of Violence

2. Cillian Murphy, Breakfast on Pluto

3. Tom Wilkinson, Separate Lies

Best Female Performances

1. Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line

2. Gwyneth Paltrow, Proof

3. Maria Bello, A History of Violence

Other Noteworthy Male Performances

William Hurt, Ed Harris, Ashton Holmes, A History of Violence. Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Match Point. Matthew Macfadyen, Pride and Prejudice. Steve Martin, Shopgirl. Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Randy Quaid, Brokeback Mountain. Will Smith, Hitch. Birol Ünel, Head-On. Sergio Castellitto, My Mother’s Smile. Adrien Brody, Kris Kristofferson, The Jacket. Kevin Costner, The Upside of Anger. Will Ferrell, Wallace Shawn, Larry Pine, Melinda and Melinda. Alessandro Nivola, Frank Hoyt Taylor, Ben McKenzie, Scott Wilson, Junebug. Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Sin City. Yvan Attal, Alain Chabat, Alain Cohen, Johnny Depp, Happily Ever After. Sean Penn, The Interpreter. Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Terrence Howard, Chris Bridges, Brendan Fraser, Crash. Ulrich Thomsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Brothers. Mathieu Amalric, Kings and Queen, Munich. Russell Crowe, Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man. Erland Josephson, Börje Ahlstedt, Saraband. Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Christopher Walken, Wedding Crashers. Tom Arnold, Jesse Bradford, Bobby Cannavale, Steve Coogan, Jason Ritter, Happy Endings. John Cusack, Dermot Mulroney, Christopher Plummer, Must Love Dogs. Cillian Murphy, Brian Cox, Red Eye. Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Takuya Kimura, 2046. Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Broken Flowers. Damian Lewis, Keane. Rupert Everett, David Harewood, John Neville, Separate Lies. Mark Ruffalo, Just Like Heaven. Anthony Hopkins, Jake Gyllenhaal, Proof. Peter Sarsgaard, Jarhead and Flightplan. Ralph Fiennes, Hiroyuki Sanada, Allan Corduner, The White Countess. Daniel Auteuil, Caché, Good Morning, Night. Bruno Ganz, Downfall. Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Dennis Haysbert, Jarhead. Rupert Friend, Robert Lang, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont.

Jeff Daniels, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline, Billy Baldwin, The Squid and the Whale. Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea, Breakfast on Pluto. Tom Hollander, Donald Sutherland, Pride and Prejudice. Stephen Dillane, Jason Isaacs, Joe Mantegna, Ian McShane, Aidan Quinn, Miguel Sandoval, Nine Lives. John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Randy Quaid, Oliver Platt, Mike Starr, The Ice Harvest. Sean Bean, Flightplan. Mark Feuerstein, In Her Shoes. David Strathairn, George Clooney, Frank Langella, Good Night, and Good Luck. Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Philip Baker Hall, The Matador, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote.

Other Noteworthy Female Performances

Connie Nielsen, The Ice Harvest, Brothers. Emily Watson, Linda Bassett, Hermione Norris, Separate Lies. Keira Knightley, Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Jacket. Joan Allen, The Upside of Anger. Laura Linney, Anna Paquin, Halley Feiffer, The Squid and the Whale. Abbie Cornish, Somersault. Sibel Kekilli, Head-On. Pernilla August, Daybreak. Eva Mendes, Hitch. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Emmanuelle Seigner, Happily Ever After. Drew Barrymore, Fever Pitch. Nicole Kidman, Catherine Keener, The Interpreter. Mercedes Morán, The Holy Girl. Emmanuelle Devos, Catherine Deneuve, Kings and Queen. Ronit Elkabetz, Dana Ivgy, Or (My Treasure). Nathalie Press, Emily Blunt, My Summer of Love. Renée Zellweger, Cinderella Man. Liv Ullmann, Julia Dufvenius, Gunnel Fred, Saraband. Rachel McAdams, Isla Fisher, Jane Seymour, Wedding Crashers. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Lisa Kudrow, Sarah Clarke, Happy Endings. Diane Lane, Elizabeth Perkins, Must Love Dogs. Scarlett Johansson, Emily Mortimer, Match Point. Rachel McAdams, Jayma Mays, Red Eye. Amy Adams, Embeth Davidtz, Celia Weston, Junebug. Ziyi Zhang, Gong Li, Faye Wong, 2046. Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange, Tilda Swinton, Julie Delpy, Broken Flowers. Reese Witherspoon, Dina Spybey, Just Like Heaven. Hope Davis, Proof, The Matador. Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette, Shirley MacLaine, In Her Shoes. Kathy Baker, Amy Brenneman, Elpidia Carrillo, Glenn Close, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Holly Hunter, Molly Parker, Mary Kay Place, Amanda Seyfried, Sissy Spacek, Robin Wright Penn, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Dakota Fanning, Nine Lives. Keira Knightley, Rosamund Pike, Pride and Prejudice. Charlize Theron, Frances McDormand, Michelle Monaghan, Sissy Spacek, North Country. Juliette Binoche, Annie Girardot, Caché. Claire Danes, Shopgirl, The Family Stone. Natasha Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave, Lynn Redgrave, The White Countess. Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Esposito, Thandie Newton, Crash. Maya Sansa, Good Morning, Night. Joan Plowright, Anna Massey, Zoe Tapper, Clare Higgins, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont. Ruth Negga, Breakfast on Pluto, Catheri

Anyway, here is my encapsulated wisdom on the year in movies, 2004, transposed to 2005:

As far as I can determine, 2005 seems to have been neither the best nor the worst year for movies, at least as far as the proportion of good (low as always) to bad (high as always) is concerned. Of course, the technology keeps changing—often to the consternation of the Luddites among us—and there’s also that mindless nostalgia for an idyllic past, in which all the bad movies have been mercifully expunged from memory. After all, I’ve been in the year-end 10-best business since 1958, when Jonas Mekas graciously allowed me to share his “Movie Journal” column in The Village Voice with my own 10-best list, which I’m now ashamed to remember failed to include both Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil—but that was 48 years ago, and I very much doubt that I will be around 47 years from now to second-guess my top-10 lists for 2005. So, with little fear of afterthought, and without further ado, here are my considered preferences for the past year, which, by my count at least, accounted for 480 releases in New York theaters:

English-Language Pictures

1. A History of Violence

2. The Squid and the Whale

3. Match Point

4. Sin City

5. Proof

6. Breakfast on Pluto

7. Walk the Line

8. Pride and Prejudice

9. Shopgirl

10. Junebug

Foreign-Language Pictures

1. 2046

2. Saraband

3. Look at Me

4. My Mother’s Smile

5. Brothers

6. My Summer of Love

7. The Memory of a Killer

8. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

9. Ushpizin

10. Paradise Now

Nonfiction Films

1. March of the Penguins

2. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

3. David Hockney: The Colors of Music

4. Gunner Palace

5. Stalin’s Wife

6. Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic

7. Cinévardaphoto

8. The Venetian Dilemma

9. With God on Our Side: George W. Bush and the Rise of the Religious Right in America

10. WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception

Films Other People Liked and I Didn’t

1. Brokeback Mountain

2. Munich

3. Syriana

4. Crash

5. The 40-Year-Old Virgin

6. Caché

7. The Family Stone

8. Mrs. Henderson Presents

9. The Weeping Meadow

10. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Special award to Gromit in Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit for maintaining and extending the comic spirit, gravitas and technological adaptability of Buster Keaton.

Runner-Up English-Language Films I Liked

The Ice Harvest, The Jacket, Separate Lies, Red Eye, The White Countess, Jarhead, The Upside of Anger, Winter Solstice, Wedding Crashers, Happy Endings, Hustle & Flow, Keane, In Her Shoes, Nine Lives, Fever Pitch, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, Transamerica, The Interpreter, Broken Flowers, Just Like Heaven, North Country, The Matador, Cinderella Man, Good Night, and Good Luck, Capote.

Runner-Up Foreign-Language Films I Liked

Head-On, À Toute de Suite, The Holy Girl, 3-Iron, Happily Ever After, The Ninth Day, Kings and Queen, Or (My Treasure), The Beat That My Heart Skipped, The Edukators, Tony Takitani, The President’s Last Bang, The Syrian Bride, Gilles’ Wife, Nina’s Tragedies, Downfall, Good Morning, Night,

Best Male Performances

1. Viggo Mortensen, A History of Violence

2. Cillian Murphy, Breakfast on Pluto

3. Tom Wilkinson, Separate Lies

Best Female Performances

1. Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line

2. Gwyneth Paltrow, Proof

3. Maria Bello, A History of Violence

Other Noteworthy Male Performances

William Hurt, Ed Harris, Ashton Holmes, A History of Violence. Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Match Point. Matthew Macfadyen, Pride and Prejudice. Steve Martin, Shopgirl. Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Randy Quaid, Brokeback Mountain. Will Smith, Hitch. Birol Ünel, Head-On. Sergio Castellitto, My Mother’s Smile. Adrien Brody, Kris Kristofferson, The Jacket. Kevin Costner, The Upside of Anger. Will Ferrell, Wallace Shawn, Larry Pine, Melinda and Melinda. Alessandro Nivola, Frank Hoyt Taylor, Ben McKenzie, Scott Wilson, Junebug. Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Sin City. Yvan Attal, Alain Chabat, Alain Cohen, Johnny Depp, Happily Ever After. Sean Penn, The Interpreter. Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Terrence Howard, Chris Bridges, Brendan Fraser, Crash. Ulrich Thomsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Brothers. Mathieu Amalric, Kings and Queen, Munich. Russell Crowe, Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man. Erland Josephson, Börje Ahlstedt, Saraband. Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Christopher Walken, Wedding Crashers. Tom Arnold, Jesse Bradford, Bobby Cannavale, Steve Coogan, Jason Ritter, Happy Endings. John Cusack, Dermot Mulroney, Christopher Plummer, Must Love Dogs. Cillian Murphy, Brian Cox, Red Eye. Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Takuya Kimura, 2046. Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Broken Flowers. Damian Lewis, Keane. Rupert Everett, David Harewood, John Neville, Separate Lies. Mark Ruffalo, Just Like Heaven. Anthony Hopkins, Jake Gyllenhaal, Proof. Peter Sarsgaard, Jarhead and Flightplan. Ralph Fiennes, Hiroyuki Sanada, Allan Corduner, The White Countess. Daniel Auteuil, Caché, Good Morning, Night. Bruno Ganz, Downfall. Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Dennis Haysbert, Jarhead. Rupert Friend, Robert Lang, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont.

Jeff Daniels, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline, Billy Baldwin, The Squid and the Whale. Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea, Breakfast on Pluto. Tom Hollander, Donald Sutherland, Pride and Prejudice. Stephen Dillane, Jason Isaacs, Joe Mantegna, Ian McShane, Aidan Quinn, Miguel Sandoval, Nine Lives. John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Randy Quaid, Oliver Platt, Mike Starr, The Ice Harvest. Sean Bean, Flightplan. Mark Feuerstein, In Her Shoes. David Strathairn, George Clooney, Frank Langella, Good Night, and Good Luck. Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Philip Baker Hall, The Matador, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote.

Other Noteworthy Female Performances

Connie Nielsen, The Ice Harvest, Brothers. Emily Watson, Linda Bassett, Hermione Norris, Separate Lies. Keira Knightley, Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Jacket. Joan Allen, The Upside of Anger. Laura Linney, Anna Paquin, Halley Feiffer, The Squid and the Whale. Abbie Cornish, Somersault. Sibel Kekilli, Head-On. Pernilla August, Daybreak. Eva Mendes, Hitch. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Emmanuelle Seigner, Happily Ever After. Drew Barrymore, Fever Pitch. Nicole Kidman, Catherine Keener, The Interpreter. Mercedes Morán, The Holy Girl. Emmanuelle Devos, Catherine Deneuve, Kings and Queen. Ronit Elkabetz, Dana Ivgy, Or (My Treasure). Nathalie Press, Emily Blunt, My Summer of Love. Renée Zellweger, Cinderella Man. Liv Ullmann, Julia Dufvenius, Gunnel Fred, Saraband. Rachel McAdams, Isla Fisher, Jane Seymour, Wedding Crashers. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Lisa Kudrow, Sarah Clarke, Happy Endings. Diane Lane, Elizabeth Perkins, Must Love Dogs. Scarlett Johansson, Emily Mortimer, Match Point. Rachel McAdams, Jayma Mays, Red Eye. Amy Adams, Embeth Davidtz, Celia Weston, Junebug. Ziyi Zhang, Gong Li, Faye Wong, 2046. Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange, Tilda Swinton, Julie Delpy, Broken Flowers. Reese Witherspoon, Dina Spybey, Just Like Heaven. Hope Davis, Proof, The Matador. Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette, Shirley MacLaine, In Her Shoes. Kathy Baker, Amy Brenneman, Elpidia Carrillo, Glenn Close, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Holly Hunter, Molly Parker, Mary Kay Place, Amanda Seyfried, Sissy Spacek, Robin Wright Penn, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Dakota Fanning, Nine Lives. Keira Knightley, Rosamund Pike, Pride and Prejudice. Charlize Theron, Frances McDormand, Michelle Monaghan, Sissy Spacek, North Country. Juliette Binoche, Annie Girardot, Caché. Claire Danes, Shopgirl, The Family Stone. Natasha Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave, Lynn Redgrave, The White Countess. Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Esposito, Thandie Newton, Crash. Maya Sansa, Good Morning, Night. Joan Plowright, Anna Massey, Zoe Tapper, Clare Higgins, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont. Ruth Negga, Breakfast on Pluto, Catheri

That’s how we first see her in North Country, playing an abused wife named Josey Ames who sports the kind of split lip and swollen shiner usually reserved for bare-knuckle heavyweights. This time, Josey fights back. She wipes off the blood, scoops up her two kids and flees to her parents back in the snowy, burned-out butt end of northern Minnesota, where she left home in disgrace as a rape victim and unwed mother years ago.

Although her long-suffering mother (another deeply honest and riveting performance by Sissy Spacek) feels compassion for Josey’s hardscrabble life, her father (Richard Jenkins, the funeral-director patriarch from Six Feet Under) has never forgiven the daughter he regards as a slut. Josey doesn’t waste much time seeking approval or licking her wounds. She’s got to get a job, rebuild her life and support her kids, and the only game in town that pays real wages is the filthy, dangerous mines where local fathers, husbands and sons who have broken their backs for generations are now being forced to endure the sudden invasion of women on the work force.

This is a real hell, where female miners are exposed to the harsh and rugged labor of a male-dominated world, resented and ridiculed, and subjected to shocking and even life-threatening ordeals, both physical and emotional. From their humiliating medical exams to their punishing assignments hauling rocks from the quarries, driving trucks, lifting heavy machinery and inhaling fumes that lead to crippling diseases, Josey and a handful of desperate women take whatever the men dish out. Scraping toxic grease and oil from huge engines and grinding machines, being subjected to daily sexual advances, meeting hostility and hate in every dark hole in the mine, their only escape from the dirt and dreariness of their lives is sex, alcohol and violent ice-hockey games. When Josey takes her grievances to the president of the company, instead of sympathy, she’s offered a choice: worsened conditions or instant resignation. Resenting her first sign of strength, the men increase the hardships against Josey’s friends and co-workers—leaving dildoes in their lunch boxes, destroying their locker room, smearing the walls with excrement—until Josey finally declares war. When she quits, it’s not because she’s taken all she can, but because she’s given all she’s got. The result is a class-action lawsuit that changed the laws protecting women against sexual harassment in the American workplace, and a compelling issue-empowered movie in the tradition of Silkwood, Norma Rae and Erin Brockovich.

The film is “inspired by” the true story of Lois Jenson, who sued the Eveleth Mines in the Mesabi Iron Range in 1988, and adapted from the book Class Action, by Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy Gansler, who, for reasons that have never been explained, were halfway through their research when the subject of their story washed her hands of the project and has since refused to cooperate with the publication of the book, the paperback edition or the movie. Names have been changed and some of the plot points fictionalized, but nothing can dilute the impact of a story with this much courage and humanity.

It’s a rich, complex experience, informed and elevated by an exemplary band of dedicated artists on every level. In her first American film, acclaimed New Zealand director Niki Caro brings the disenfranchised, granite-faced Minnesota miners to life with the same dignity and quality as the misunderstood Maoris in her acclaimed Whale Rider. The great cinematographer Chris Menges has captured the psychic and physical desolation of the Iron Range’s ravaged industrial landscape with a wintry chill that is almost beautiful, like the optimism beneath the small town’s surface ugliness. Michael Seitzman’s script provides a valiant look at a certain kind of working-class woman and derives its strengths from closely observed details and emotions instead of the obvious movie clichés of action, sex and violence.

And the impeccable cast grabs your heart through sensitivity to the human condition, not aggression: Woody Harrelson is surprisingly understated as the reluctant lawyer who defends one vulnerable woman against a corporate Goliath; Frances McDormand is heartbreaking as the friend who has given her life for the mines and now enters the courtroom at the eleventh hour to change the outcome of the trial from her deathbed; and Ms. Spacek, in a small but pivotal role, is dynamic as a mother torn between two loyalties who finds the inner conviction to stand up and be counted on her own terms.

But it is really Charlize Theron whose triumphant performance gives the film its thunderous center. From her hangdog introduction to her final assertiveness, she demonstrates every nuance, every frailty, every exhaustion and every hope of a loser who redefines herself. From the slope of her shoulders to the proud lift of her chin, she moves into the mind and soul of Josey Ames the way Sally Field established squatter’s rights on the persona and spirit of Norma Rae. It’s a memorable and touching portrayal of a certain kind of woman who is vital and determined instead of neurotic and victimized. Hers is a trenchant portrait of a degraded footnote to gender politics, raised up and transformed by the soaring power of the uncrushable human spirit. And let’s face it: She’s still something to marvel at, even in overalls.

Carol the Clown

Tick. Tock. Carol Channing has always reminded me of a walking alarm clock. And during a career playing Lorelei Lee, Dolly Levi and a cartoon alley cat named Mehitabel, she developed a reputation for being one of the world’s most delectable dumb blondes. She is none of those things, as you will quickly learn if you are lucky and wise enough to hitch, hike, cab or grift your way over to Feinstein’s at the Regency, where she is singing, clowning and otherwise strutting her stuff (through Oct. 22) in a rare nightclub act that she calls The First 80 Years Are the Hardest. I guess you could call it a “cabaret comeback,” since she hasn’t appeared in an intimate setting in more years than the Hilton sisters can count. Some people were born to make comebacks. If they stay away too long, the public demands their return to the center spot. The indefinable and indestructible Carol Channing, I am happy to say, is one of them. She is, I am even happier to say, in terrific shape. And the welcome applause on her opening night was louder than anything they’ve heard over at the U.N. all year.

The first time I ever saw Carol Channing, I was 16 years old, on a family vacation and sitting at my first ringside table in the show room of the old Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. The drums rolled, the trumpets blared, the pinspot lit her exploding lemon-pudding wig, and my contact lenses fell out of my eyes and onto the floor. I was on my hands and knees, blindly feeling the carpet. My relatives were on their hands and knees, the people at the next table were on their hands and knees, and before I could whisper “Let me die right here, under a table in Vegas, before this embarrassment ends,” Carol Channing was on her hands and knees, calling for a flashlight and milking the applause. My lobster-faced predicament, and the way she shaped my mortification into improvised comic genius, turned into … material! It gives me great pleasure to report that, at the Regency, she hasn’t changed at all.

The marshmallow fluff has been replaced by a sensible and attractive silver bob, the rolling eyes once made up for target practice are softer and friendlier now, and at an age when most showbiz veterans fall asleep after the 6 o’clock news and a snifter of Ovaltine (she’ll be 85 in January), Carol Channing is just getting her second wind.

The evening is unplugged from start to finish. I wish I could tell you what I saw and what it’s all about, but I know when I’m licked. In a fire-engine red double-breasted tuxedo with rhinestone buttons and a sequined vest, she talks about her first audition for the legendary Abe Lastfogel at the William Morris Agency, when she came down from Bennington College and performed a Haitian corn-grinding chant praying for rain. (I couldn’t make this stuff up.) Doing her best Sophie Tucker imitation, she quotes the best advice that old trout gave her about what to wear when she opened in Vegas: “To the boys around the crap table, a low-cut dress is just another place to lose the dice.” Then she rhapsodizes about some of the traffic that has paraded through the dressing rooms of her career: Tallulah, Merman, a flotilla of visiting royalty from every nation, and the Queen Mother, to whom she once tossed a diamond during a command performance, and then wanted 12 more for the children of her chimney sweep.

In a voice that sounds like a cross between Ernest Borgnine and a foghorn on Frisco Bay, she sang her trademark songs: “Little Rock” and “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” and “Hello, Dolly!”, with the audience singing along. People shouted out favorites, and sometimes she even remembered them. She dazzled with the same old “Cecilia Sisson” routine she performed when I was 16—the specialty routine about a failed star who couldn’t survive talking pictures because she whistled through her teeth like a wind through the Grand Canyon. It brought down the house. O.K., the act isn’t really much more than a long, rambling monologue that takes on the style of a ditzy stream-of-consciousness that is positively Faulknerian. The structure is as disorganized as Fibber McGee’s closet.

The show is called The First 80 Years Are The Hardest, and there are times when it might possibly be best enjoyed if you are in your 80’s, too. Still, a genuinely happy time full of fun, amazement and charm is guaranteed. Is she giving up and giving in? Are you crazy? A new doctorate degree from Cal State now entitles her to be addressed as “Dr. Channing,” she’s an honorary member of an Indian tribe in Oklahoma, she recently married a junior high-school sweetheart she hadn’t seen for 70 years named Harry Kullijian (whom she drags to the stage for a soft-shoe duet), and Michele Lee and Celeste Holm surprised her with new restorations of all of her Tonys, Golden Globes, and lifetime-achievement awards, which were stolen last year in a robbery. She deserves all the attention, accolades and applause she can get. The first 80 years may have been the hardest, but Carol Channing is finally living on Easy Street.

In the Bedroom is such a meticulously observed portrait of small-town New England life that it's difficult to believe it's a first feature by director Todd Field, an actor who also co-wrote the eloquent, emotionally gripping script with Rob Festinger. A good director can often capture the way real people talk and think on film, but Mr. Field shows the way they live and feel, day by day, in the aftermath of a brutal and senseless crime that wrecks the balance of life in a coastal village in Maine. Sissy Spacek and the great British actor Tom Wilkinson play Ruth and Matt Fowler, two pillars of their community with a comfortable and satisfying middle-class lifestyle. Matt is the gentle, respected town doctor everyone trusts, and Ruth is a resourceful housewife with a music degree who leads the high-school glee club. They have high hopes and big plans for their only son, Frank (Nick Stahl), who lets them down by spending his last summer before college tending lobster traps and hanging out with a lonely, unhappy, socially inferior but good-natured older woman named Natalie (Marisa Tomei), who is trapped with two kids of her own and a violent, abusive husband from whom she is not yet divorced.

It's an awkward situation, but the Fowlers are trying to be patient, understanding and modern. Frank tells his worried parents that "it's just a summer thing," but while Matt looks the other way, Ruth insists the infatuation must end before it goes too far. Suddenly, the idyllic Fowlers are shaken out of the maple trees when Frank is murdered in a jealous rage by Natalie's estranged husband. From this point on, the film illuminates every nuance of a punishing tragedy with stunning poise, a truly affecting plot and refined, provocative performances, as the Fowlers grow divisive in their grief, then disillusioned with an ineffectual judicial system that defeats them at every turn. At the hearing, Natalie fails to deliver the crucial testimony necessary for a murder conviction, Frank's killer is released on bail, the criminal trial is postponed, the case is obscured under a mountain of red tape and the wheels of justice turn to rust.

People handle grief in different ways. Matt dutifully continues to empty his son's lobster traps and lunch with sympathetic neighbors at the coffee shop; Ruth brews endless pots of tea, watches brainless TV shows without smiling and rarely says a word, dying a little more inside each day; and the town moves on. While the Fowlers hide their pain, creating a wall of silence that transforms their marriage into an empty ritual of suppression and resolve, everything around them seems unchanged. One of the most wrenching aspects of this film is the way Mr. Field juxtaposes the growing internal frustration, helplessness and despair of decent, honest, conflicted people with the sound of lawnmowers, the color of the sunset, the laughter of children. Everything outside seems normal, yet nothing will ever be the same. Then the power of Ms. Spacek's and Mr. Wilkinson's acting, beautifully etched till now in understatement, erupts in a critical moment of truth when the dam bursts at last. In a scalding scene, Ruth torments Matt with all of her pent-up fury, stopping just short of wrecking his life, and he holds back only the words that could wound her forever. It's like an emotional exorcism. Slowly, gradually, excruciatingly, the Fowlers orchestrate an unspoken plan to find the kind of closure denied them by a system that drags its heels and then fails them. The shocking conclusion left me numb, speechless and devastated.

The acting is splendid, but Ms. Spacek has never been more agonizingly truthful in the way she displays an acute perception of the everyday details of domestic life. In her moist eyes and body language, she also reflects how the most casual routines can unleash reservoirs of feeling following the loss of a loved one. Her face reveals myriad emotions, even without dialogue. She is simply phenomenal. The realism of Mr. Wilkinson's uncluttered sweetness and the subtlety of Ms. Tomei's own unacknowledged mourning as an outsider are equally astonishing. And Todd Field is as skillful at depicting softball games and backyard cookouts as he is at the big dramatic confrontations. Balancing every challenging element, he emerges as a warm and careful director of such serious range, elegance and introspection that it's impossible to overestimate the importance of his vision and insight. In the Bedroom is a profound work of masterful and confident restraint, but its impact is overwhelming. A daring, rewarding film, it is undeniably disturbing-but in these unpredictable times, when grief has become a first-hand experience in the daily lives of so many, no film could be more perceptive or relevant. I have seen it twice, and it haunts me still.

Two Hunks, No Action

Spy Game stars Robert Redford, the older man every woman wants, and Brad Pitt, the younger man every woman's daughter wants. Is the screen big enough to hold them both? Spy Game is a poor test. It's so big and noisy and scattered (not to mention ridiculously complicated) that they almost get lost in the confusion. It's also not much of a challenge.

The story of the young C.I.A. operative in trouble and the old C.I.A. veteran who has 24 hours to rescue him is so old it's hairy, and you've seen it a hundred times before. Instead of the word "spy," just substitute "cop," "firefighter" or "soldier" and you get the drill. Anyone could play these parts, but the hope of action director Tony Scott is that the commercial appeal of Messrs. Redford and Pitt will elevate the mundane to something of a box-office lure. I say good luck to them all at the bank, but Spy Game is still a yawn, and the two glamour boys (who, by the way, look awful) are both snoring.

Mr. Redford, whose wrinkled face looks like a map of Afghanistan, is Nathan Muir, a secret agent from the good old James Bond years who is one day away from retirement (think Jack Nicholson in The Pledge ) when he finds out that Tom (Boy Scout) Bishop (Mr. Pitt)-the protégé he discovered as a sharpshooter in Vietnam-has been arrested in China and charged with espionage. Muir has 24 hours to rescue Tom before he's executed. The C.I.A., which has disintegrated since the Cold War, is in an embarrassing position: The President's trip to China for trade negotiations is one week away. Trying to save the life of one rogue spy would be a public-relations risk.

Tom was always a maverick cowboy who couldn't obey orders. Who cares if the Chinese carve him up for chop suey in a rat-infested prison in the middle of a smallpox epidemic? "You go off the reservation, I will not come after you" was Muir's biggest threat. But it's the one warning Boy Scout ignored. So it's up to Muir to outwit his superiors, save his favorite student, avoid an international incident and-this being a Robert Redford movie-demonstrate some patriotism when the clock is ticking and the chips are down. The plot is simplicity itself. But for more than two hours, we jump from the Chinese dungeon where Tom is being beaten to dog meat (played by a Victorian prison near London), to lengthy flashbacks to West Germany (played by Budapest), Vietnam and war-torn Beirut (both played by Morocco), to top-secret meetings at C.I.A. headquarters that look hilariously like contract negotiations over lunch at the William Morris office.

Most of the bad guys are Communists, Asians and Arabs, which is supposed to make the violent killings O.K., but there are no good guys here. It seems to me the real villains are the people at the C.I.A., all of whom are depicted as paranoid, dangerous, cold-hearted, untrustworthy, lethal and completely merciless. (Yeah, yeah, I get it: That's why they're called "mercenaries.") There isn't one government agent in this film that you would want to invite home for Christmas.

Despite the machine guns, explosions, tortures and bloodshed, Spy Game is a follow-the-dots bore with only one mild diversion: the opportunity to watch Mr. Redford and Mr. Pitt try to underplay each other. When Bob lowers his voice, Brad mumbles. When Bob cracks his jaw, Brad narrows his eyes. They both do a lot of things with lips. Hovering around in the background, in cameos destined to bring some sign of life to the proceedings, are Charlotte Rampling, David Hemmings, Catherine McCormack, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Stephen Dillane and others. They knock themselves out trying to show how global intrigue has changed in the past 16 years. They should all have stayed home and watched CNN.