My Kid Could Paint That (DVD)

My Kid Could Paint That (2007) directed by Amir Bar-Lev. Sensitive and thought-provoking documentary about precocious four-year-old artist Marla Olmstead. Is she a prodigy along the lines of young Mozart, who started composing at the age of four, or is her artwork a fraud that was influenced by her father? She has already sold paintings totaling $300,000, so certainly some people are convinced. This film doesn't come up with any definitive answers, but it gives you a lot of food for thought. The extras on the DVD are instructive, too. Marla, by the way, is now 7. Grade: A

The Brave One (DVD)

The Brave One (2007) starring Jodie Foster, Terrence Howard, Mary Steenburgen, Nicky Katt. Foster stars as a New York radio show host who turns vigilante when her fiance is beaten to death. Howard plays the cop who takes a while to realize that she is the killer he's looking for. Comes close to being a standard revenge flick, but has subtleties that save it. Foster and Howard are excellent. Directed by Neil Jordan. Grade: B+

Love Unto Death (DVD)

Love Unto Death (1984) starring Pierre Arditi, Sabine Azema. Simon and Elisabeth are a happy couple until Simon suffers a severe seizure. The movie then becomes a meditation on how to sustain love when facing one's own mortality. In French, with English subtitles. Grade: B-

Life Is a Bed of Roses (DVD)

Life Is a Bed of Roses (1983). Alain Resnais directs this three-part tribute to French filmmakers Georges Melies, Marcel L'Herbier and Eric Rohmer. It's a bizarre little movie that combines elements of fantasy, intellectualism and science fiction. Although it gets good reviews elsewhere, I have to give it a Grade: D.

Atonement (DVD)

Atonement (2007) starring Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Saoirse Ronan, Brenda Blethyn, Vanessa Redgrave. It's 1935 in England, and the coming war with Germany is just a rumor. A 13-year-old girl (Ronan) misinterprets a moment of passion between her sister (Kinghtley) and a servant's son (McAvoy). From the girl's fevered imagination springs an accusation, fingering the servant's son for a crime he did not commit, and irrevocably altering the lives of all involved. It's a melancholy tale, and well told. Nominated for an Oscar as Best Picture. Based on the novel by Ian McEwan. Grade: A-

Enchanted (DVD)

Enchanted (2007) starring Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Timothy Spall, Susan Sarandon. Adams is utterly charming in the roll of Giselle, a would-be princess who is cast out of a Disney cartoon-existence into the mean streets of New York by her wicked stepmother-to-be (Sarandon). Dempsey is adequate as the three-dimensional New Yorker she meets and (of course) falls in love with. Marsden is amusing as her not-too-bright Prince Charming, although in reality his name is Prince Edward. It all ends happily ever after and no doubt will live on in the hearts of a generation of girls forever. Grade: B+

Michael Clayton (DVD)

Michael Clayton (2007) starring George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack, Michael O'Keefe. One of the best movies of 2007, with Clooney starring as Michael Clayton, a burned-out, tapped out fixer for a top-drawer law firm. Although he is an attorney, he is best at solving special problems for the firm. When his good friend Arthur (Wilkinson) becomes one of the problems, Clayton becomes enmeshed in a plot to beat down a class-action suit being brought by victims of a pesticide company. It's beautifully played by Clooney, and could easily have won the Oscar for Best Screenplay. What it did win was an Oscar for supporting actress Tilda Swinton, and we'll have to be content with that. As for me, I'm going to keep the disc and watch it again, to see if those few loose ends I thought I detected were real or imagined. Grade: A-

Things We Lost in the Fire (DVD)

Things We Lost in the Fire (2007) starring Benicio Del Toro, Halle Berry, David Duchovny. Berry plays Audrey, the grieving widow of Brian (Duchovny), and Del Toro plays Brian's best friend, Jerry, now a recovering heroin addict. Audrey and Jerry lean on each other in bearing their life burdens. The script, unfortunately, is slow-moving and there doesn't seem to be much chemistry among the players. Grade: C

Lady Chatterley (DVD)

Lady Chatterley (2006) starring Marina Hands, Jean-Louis Coullo'ch. At two hours, 35 minutes, this leisurely version of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" is way too long. It was loved by the French, who gave it five Cesar awards -- France's equivalent of the Academy Award. Not coincidentally, it was made in France, with English subtitles, although the action is clearly supposed to take place in England. It's a simple story of two adults falling in love, and features ample nudity, both male and female. Lady Chatterley falls in love with her husband's gamekeeper, and what starts out as a physical relationship develops into a mature emotional bond. It's not a bad movie, but you may find that it's not worth the investment of time. Grade: B-

We Own the Night (DVD)

We Own the Night (2007) starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Robert Duvall, Eva Mendes, Tony Musante. Two brothers (Phoenix and Wahlberg) find themselves occupying different worlds as adults. One manages a nightclub, the other is a cop. But their worlds collide when the Russian mob starts running drugs through the nightclub. What starts out as a tense thriller winds down into an anticlimactic police drama, but it definitely holds your interest through to the end. Grade: B

Gone Baby Gone (DVD)

Gone Baby Gone (2007) starring Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, Amy Ryan. A pair of private investigators (Affleck and Monaghan) reluctantly agree to try to help find a missing four-year-old girl. From there, the plot is so full of twists and turns that I was left thinking about it hours later. And yet, the more I think about it, the more certain plot points don't make sense. Ryan was nominated for an Oscar as supporting actress. Directed by Ben Affleck. Grade: B

Beowulf: Director's Cut (DVD)

Beowulf: Director's Cut (2007) starring Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Crispin Glover, Angelina Jolie, Robin Wright Penn. It's sometime in the Dark Ages, and a manlike ogre named Grendel (Glover) is terrorizing the Danes. The great hero Beowulf (Winstone) arrives by sea to battle the beast. After dispatching Grendel, however, Beowulf finds that he must deal with Grendel's mother (Jolie), who is bent on revenge -- or is it something else she wants from him? The movie is done in "photorealistic animation," which means the actors kind of look like themselves, but everything is a bit off. Grade: C+

Papillon (DVD)

Papillon (1973) starring Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman. Sentenced to a French penal colony, convicts scheme to escape. Chief among the schemers is Papillon (McQueen), who thinks of little else. (Papillon is French for "butterfly," and Papillon has a large butterfly tattooed on his chest.) The film seems a bit dated, and its extreme length (2 hours, 30 minutes) detracts from its impact, but still entertaining for long stretches. Grade: B-