The Hot Spot

Dennis Hopper made this saucy steamer of a thriller, and then two years later he appeared in "Red Rock West," which was similar, except that it was much better. But "Red Rock West" didn't have Don Johnson and Jennifer Connelly going for it.

Snatch

Brad Pitt the boxing pikey. That's all I've got to say.

The Departed

Is this movie good a third time? "Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe f--- yourself."

12 Angry Men

A great movie for lawyers, but I'm still troubled that Henry Fonda's character makes the deal that he'll vote guilty if no one else agrees. I'm not sure that's how it's supposed to work.

In other lawyer news, I recently watched an episode of "30 Rock" where Tina Fey said she wasn't going to hit on some Wall Street types at a bar, because they worked for the firm of Daterape, Cokington, Cheeseball & Jag. LOL.

The Edge of Heaven

The director of the absolutely fantastic "Head-On" returns with a movie in which The Just Bourne Critic gave up interest after he realized it was one of those "Babel," "Amores Perros," "Short Cuts"-type movies. And the Bourne Critic quickly followed suit.

The Piano

Jane Campion's "In the Cut" has for some reason made me want to see her other work, including this serious, dramatic, brutal love story. It's a'ight.

Standard Operating Procedure

Errol Morris tackles the same subject as the recent "Taxi to the Dark Side" -- torture, Abu Ghraib, etc. Morris relies heavily on reenactments, though. "Taxi" made the soldiers seem kind of evil. Here, they just seem stupid. The thing in common with all their stories is that they weren't really responsible for what happened and they don't understand why they got in trouble. Well, who was then? Certainly not Lynndie England, at least according to Lynndie England.

Towards the end, one interrogator sums up the current situation in Iraq: If we leave, they're killing each other and they're not killing us; if we stay, they're killing each other and they're killing us. There might be some truth to that.

Control Room

An informative documentary about Al Jazeera, which I watched again mainly to see the deleted scenes with Deema Khatib.

The Trials of Henry Kissinger

The director of the way overrated "Why We Fight" made this earlier film about Mr. Kissinger. Here are a few things I learned. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the war in Vietnam, which Kissinger helped needlessly extend because they were close to peace in 1968, when Kissinger undercut it so he could get a job with Nixon. He won the prize in 1973, but the war didn't end until 2 years later. He planned secret bombings in Cambodia, where more than 500,000 civilians died, which helped the Khmer Rouge come to power. Kissinger and Ford met Suharto right before Indonesia invaded East Timor, and they gave him the "green light" and let him use American weapons. He also supervised CIA involvement in the coup of Chile's democratically elected President Salvador Allende.

There. Now you know too, and you don't need to see the movie.

The Bucket List

Let me tell you what's not on my bucket list: seeing this movie a second time.

Collateral

If there's a Michael Mann movie that comes close to the absolute brilliance of "The Last of the Mohicans" or "Heat" or "The Insider," this is it. It has a cameo by Jason Statham as his "Transporter" character, Javier Bardem as a gaucho, and Mark Ruffalo's best work since "In the Cut." I still love the scene at the Korean Club Fever, and I wish I could use in everyday conversation what Tom Cruise says to Jamie Foxx: "We gotta make the best of it. Improvise. Adapt to the environment. Darwn. S[tuff] happens. I Ching. Whatever, man. We gotta roll with it."

Mother of Tears

Any movie that has the line "Go and grab the Aramaic and Mycenaean dictionaries, will you?" is either going to be a documentary about the making of the new Mel Gibson flick or a bad horror film about an ancient curse, some witches, death cults, and other stuff. This is the latter. I consider myself an Asia Argento fan, but watching this I realized I can't think of a great movie she's been in, other than "xXx." This film's for tiger petters, not you, dear readers.

Legend

"The Princess Bride" meets "The Legend of Zelda" meets "A Bunch of Crap." Mia Sara, Tim Curry, Tom Cruise -- say what you will about the movie (it's terrible), it's great for the Kevin Bacon game.

Everyone has something embarrassing in their life they've done that haunts them for years afterward, long after everyone else has forgotten. People stay up some nights reliving this horrific thing they've done. For example, for Malcolm McDowell, it's probably "Caligula." Good money says that "Legend" is Tom Cruise's "Caligula."

Cruise plays a scrawny Puck-ish Link-like sprightly nymph something-or-other, and a year after this he made "Top Gun" and "The Color of Money." Something happened in between these movies. I don't know what: a deal with a certain Someone, magic beans, acting steroids. Something. Tom Cruise changed. For the better. And a year after this, Mia made "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." And after this Curry made "Clue." Anyone who's read the Dennis Lehane novel "Darkness, Take My Hand" will have an idea what I'm getting at. This was the nadir of everyone's acting careers, and it was hopefully the nadir of my movie watching for the month.

The Silence of the Lambs

It places the lotion in the basket.

Iron Man

A decent blockbuster, but it thinks it's too cool for its own good. Watchable, but forgettable.

I remember seeing Robert Downey Jr. on the cover of Rolling Stone recently. The premise of the story (from what I gather; I didn't read it) is that Downey Jr. is on a roll, he's the man to watch, etc. This is based on the fact that this year he was in "Iron Man" (which was well reviewed) and "Tropic Thunder" (where he was great). To me, the bar for achievement in acting has just been lowered. To qualify as having a stunning year in movies, at least for Rolling Stone, you have to go 2 for 2. That's all we ask: that someone be good in two movies in a row. I think we can expect a little better from our actors. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking Downey Jr. I thought he was also good in last year's "Zodiac." I'm talking strictly about the media and movie reviewers and how they get on whatever bandwagon is playing at the multiplex this week.

Bigger, Stronger, Faster*

*The Side Effects of Being American

A documentary about steroids in sports and America, made by a weightlifter whose two brothers have dabbled in the substance. There's nothing new about the technique or storytelling; the film owes quite a bit to "Roger & Me." But the filmmaker, Chris Bell, has made a captivating film that is informative and also captures a lot of intensely personal moments with his family. The most striking scene to me was when his mother was telling him she doesn't understand why her sons can't be satisfied with their God-given bodies and why they don't realize maybe there's something they have that Arnold and Sly don't. And what's even more impressive is how he manages to extract truths from his personal life and from the culture in general about what it means to be American.

A few months ago, someone asked me what movies I liked recently. I gave her my list, and she said I must like documentaries. I denied it, but half of my list was documentaries. This movie made me realize I don't prefer the genre, I just think that lately they are where the talent and ingenuity is at. Last year, nothing stuck with me like "Sicko" or "The King of Kong" or "The Devil Came on Horseback." This year, "Bigger, Stronger, Faster*" is The Film. So far.

Taxi to the Dark Side

An Afghan taxi driver takes three passengers for a ride in 2002, and he never comes home. Instead he was tortured to death by Americans at Bagram, and then those soldiers went on to Abu Ghraib. "You've always got people in the military who are just this side of the Marquis de Sade," says a colonel. According to this documentary, 105 people have died in US custody "over there," and 37 have been ruled to be homicides.

A lawyer who is interviewed about the Guantanamo mess says habeas corpus is the essence of the law. And Congress tried to strip it away, several times. Here's my rule of thumb: if you're scared to ask whether you're holding the right guy, you've probably got the wrong guy. And speaking of rules of thumb, if you get an interview technique from the Khmer Rouge (waterboarding), it's probably a bad idea.

I found it personally offensive when some talking heads started blaming "24" for its "nonsense" and ridiculous ticking-bomb scenarios and frequent depiction of torture. Here's my final rule of thumb for this post: if you're taking issue with the best show ever, you're taking issue with the wrong show. And Jack Bauer will want to talk to you.