The Sea Inside

The Oscars are tonight and so I felt inspired to let you in on the first time I laid eyes on Javier Bardem, who is very likely to win his first statuette this evening for Best Supporting in No Country for Old Men. He was nominated once before way back in 2000 for another foreign film, Before Night Falls. But now he's full fledged American movie star material at the ripe old age of 39, even though he's been working since he was 2. Go figure. Anyhoo, I fell in love with the guy when I saw him in The Sea Inside.

This is the true story of Ramon Sampedro, who after a terrible diving accident spent some thirty years of his life as a quadriplegic trying to legally attain the right to an assisted suicide. This may sound like dreary subject matter but Bardem is brilliant and director Alejandro Amenabar (The Others) managed to take Sampedro's Letters from Hell and morph it into a screenplay with unbelievable depth and nuance. Rather than being about death or a longing for it, it is instead a story about life and it's quality, and about love and transcendence over circumstance. Every perspective is respectfully explored and if the film should bring you to tears, it will also open your heart.

And so it won Best Foreign Film back in 2005 and began my unrequited adoration of its star. Bardem was 35 when he played Sampedro at 55 and endured hours of makeup and hours in bed immobile. He learned a dialect of Spanish that was unfamiliar to him and how to write with a pencil in his mouth. He is utterly believable in this role and although the film has many fine actors in supporting parts - he is what made it memorable. Long before he played a sociopath with a Buster Brown haircut in a distinctly American film, Bardem had genius. Check out the website here.

Even Money

Addiction is such a juicy subject. Gambling is even juicier. We are all a little tempted, after all, to wish for the brass ring - the winning lottery ticket - the longshot at ten to one. The movies have often glossed up "the life" in all the flash and finery of a fine Vegas showgirl - lots of sequins and feathers and not a lot of substance. If so, Even Money is a film that shows the scars from the nips and tucks.

Forgive the sappy "film noir" voice overs for a moment. The film follows nine people down that road toward self destruction - the housewife losing the family savings, the bookie trying to come clean for love, the basketball star asked to shave points for a sibling, the has-been waiting for the score that will make him a star again. There's a wounded old detective and an organized crime boss. There's the up and comers and the down and outers. It's not exactly a new story and it takes a while to get going, but then there's a little something for everyone and it's all gritty.

Add to that a pretty remarkable ensemble cast (Kim Basinger, Forrest Whitaker, Ray Liotta, Danny Devito, Kelsey Grammer) and a decent director (Mark Rydell) and you have a pleasant evenings entertainment. Nothing to write home about, but you won't mind the price of admission. See the website here.

Sicko

It pleases me that Michael Moore has mellowed. He's not nearly as heavy handed as he used to be and I think he's learned that people may want to see the subject of his inquiry more than they wish to see his big, dumb guy shtick (even if big, dumb guy is why people always underestimate him and step in it.) If you hate him, go right ahead, but you have to admit he pokes his nose in some places that do deserve some poking. The health care system of the US of A is a train wreck that warrants some world class nose poking and he goes at it with his usual sarcastic gusto.

So Michael doesn't make his movie about the 50 million Americans who lack insurance altogether, but rather about the horror stories of those who do and are failed by a system rigged for profit. These stories will make you cry and he handles them with more courtesy and care than I could have imagined. He throws in a little trademark grandstanding for fun, but most of the film is real people who've lived the real tragedies of losing a loved one or the family home because of an inability to pay. He contrasts these stories with interviews with happy Europeans and Canadians who never have these worries. Okay, I didn't buy that either.

BUT, this is a film that makes one think. Maybe the fact that we have the world's most expensive health care system doesn't mean we have the best. Maybe socialized medicine is not something devised by Satan to deny people decent care. If you look at the systems of France (gasp) and the U.K. - there are some very viable solutions that we should be looking at and I had to wonder why we are so willing to believe that every other developed nation in the world has socialized medicine because it's such a terrible idea. Love him or hate him, Michael makes us reexamine ourselves. It's worth doing. Check his facts here.