Short Cuts 1

I thought it my duty to warn people of some films to avoid. Here's a recent batch of forgettable wastes of time.

The Ninth Gate (Polanski, 2003?) - Occult garbage about rare books about the devil (who knew he was an artist to boot? I think his pseudonym was "Rockwell"!) with Johnny Depp and Frank Langella both wasted; Rosemary's Baby this isn't, awful it is. 3*

Untraceable (Gregory Hoblit, 08) - Sadistic internet killer plays with the police (Diane Lane, Colin Hanks, Tom's son) and the public; just an excuse for gory murders, not well done at that. 3*

Breach - true story of FBI mole/spy Robert Hansson should have been better with Chris Cooper in the lead; a numbing bore as most spies are boring anyway, which this shows. Watch The Good Shepherd instead (DeNiro directed Matt Damon). 4*

Tipping the Velvet (Geoffrey Sax, 02) - sensational BBC mini-series about male impersonators in London with lots of R rated Lesbian scenes, and even with Diana Rigg's daughter (Rachel Sterling?) in the lead, it's overly sentimental and over the top. Only for the prurient. 4*

Keeping the Faith (Edward Norton, 2000) - comedic fluff with Ed Norton (directing also), Ben Stiller, and Jenna Gelfman torn between a rabbi (Stiller) and a priest (Norton). Yep, it's a stretch, not funny, and you keep waiting for something interesting to happen. 4*

My Super Ex-Girlfriend (Ivan Reitman) - with a big director and Uma Thurman, you'd expect more from this, but it's not funny nor exciting in the least. super ex-bitch is more like it - a yawner. 3*

Le Professional (George Lautner, 81, France) - terribly lit and overexposed movie, you can see double shadows on the walls in every interior scene, distracts from the boring hit man story, which also has some awful music. Belmondo deserves better. 2*