The Insider (M)
Director: Michael Mann
Bug Rating: 3.5/5

One of the more highly touted movies in the approach to the Oscars, The Insider delivers to its potential. Well nearly.
And although it is probably 20 minutes too long and a shade boring in parts, it is a very, very solidly done film.
And when the Politically Motivated Movie Awards, the Oscars, are announced, The Insider can comfortably expect to figure in a fair few categories.
And that’s not just because this year has been an incredibly poor year for films, and would have been worse had it not been for some recent releases.
Directed by Michael Mann (shamefaced director of Heat, with De Niro and Pacino, surely one of the most overrated pieces of garbage ever) this is the tale of a man who makes a decision which will change everything – his family, his existence, himself.
Jeffrey Wigand (a paunchy Russell Crowe ,who is a dead ringer for that guy on the front of those Norton Anti-Virus computer things) must decide whether or not to go public with some nasty information on the tobacco industry for whom he used to be a top-ranking scientist.
Helping make his decision are the news team behind that mecca of journalistic integrity, Sixty Minutes. They are producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino - same ol') and anchor Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer) and they may just restore some faith in journalism, with a few speeches on ethics peppered around. Ok, so it's a big ask, but you never know.
The story that unfolds is always interesting but not always terrifically exciting. Basically, a problem arises when it turns out the network may not be able to air Wigand’s interview because of an upcoming business decision. And the man has more or less thrown away life as he knew it, including his family, so you can understand he is more than a little pissed.
The Insider is a good film, not a great one. The script is great, the acting is great, particularly Plummer, Crowe and Pacino, in that order. They could have ended it at any number of points and it would have been a great film, but instead it drags on and definitely loses a bug in the process.
But because it is a true story, expect it to be nominated for several categories, particularly picture and director with plenty of flashy little touches thrown in for good measure. Hopefully, Plummer will be nominated for his work. Ditto Russell Crowe.
And when a tearful Gwenyth Paltrow reads out Matt Damon’s or Leonardo Di Caprio’s names for some shitheap, we can all snicker.

- Michael Gordon-Brown

The Sixth Sense (M)
Director:
Bug Rating: 4/5

Dead set, didn't you just feel like killing yourself when the twist at the end of The Sixth Sense revealed itself?
An ending to die for, and most of us missed it – if we are totally honest.
Yes, even your humble fillum reviewer, who often boasts that he can see a plot device faster than John Howard's shoulder starts to twitch when the little runt's under pressure, didn't have a ghost of a chance of spotting the twist.
It seems very few patrons got beyond the spirit of director/screenwriter M Night Shyamalan's brilliantly conceived story and saw the bleeding obvious.
And the film's box office bonanza suggests millions clearly felt it necessary to return to the marquee for a second screening to make sure that they weren't completely stupid the first time around, hoping that the good Night Shyamalan had engaged in some unfair flights of visual or fictional fancy to blind us to reality.
It was a movie that sparked debate in workplaces and cafes around Oz, and the big question was asked over and over again: if Bruce Willis is such a dead-pan actor, how come it didn't dawn on most of us during the movie.
Think about how absolutely amazing that is.
Not the twist. That 1999 spawned a movie that was actually talked about afterwards. Worth talking about.
For that alone - in an era when Hollywood is resorting more and more to remakes, rehashes and stupid sequels, The Sixth Sense deserves its Best Film nomination for next month's Oscars.
Probably the only other film that people dissected for days afterwards - Being John Malkovich - wasn't nominated. If there's any god in Tinseltown, it should walk away with the original screenplay Oscar.
So here some very sound reasons why The Sixth Sense should be Hollywood's bext flick pick come Oscar night.
1. It's only half as long as the other nominated films.
2. It's the only one that you'd have remotely considered parting with the hard-earned to see twice.
3. It's by far the most engrossing, captivating movie of those nominated.
4. It didn't have Tom Hanks in it so there's no risk of one of his rambling acceptance speeches.
5. An Oscar would be good for current video – and upcoming pay-TV – promotions
But here are the five equally sound reasons why The Sixth Sense won't win best film.
1. It's too old and a win won't mean a box office kickalong.
2. Bruce Willis is in it.
3. It's not an overlong boring historical/romance/dramatic blockbuster with soaring music, panoramic vistas and thousands of extras such as the woeful The English Patient and the head-nodding Braveheart.
4. It didn't have Tom Hanks in it.
5. It's bloody hard to give best picture to a fillum that probably won't win anything else.

- Don Gordon-Brown

Postscript: The Bug should be paraochial and root for Aussie sheila Toni Collette to win the best supporting actress award. But frankly, for her limited time on screen and a couple of slow jaw drops, if Ms Collette gets the golden statuette, it'll be the most unwarranted gong since Kim Basinger won for her gormless performance as a purring, pouting pussy in the over-hyped LA Confidential.

The Green Mile (M)
Director: Frank Darabont
Bug Rating: 3/5

The Green Mile is the harrowing story of an innocent white man who finds himself on death row in southern 1930s USA.
Okay, take it easy! Just joshin'.
Of course he's black - and what's more, you just know he's going to be strapped into Old Sparky and turned into cajun-styled southern fried nigger before the end credits. Innocent, guilty or in-between.
The action on the green mile (the stretch of linoneum with the brown flecks that the inmates make their last walk over) takes place in Cold Mountain Penitentiary, where most of the inmates are white.
Okay! Just joshin'!
We forgot to tell you that this is based on a Stephen King fictional novel, didn't we?
Of course most of the inmates are black, just as the good Lord above intended.
The only trouble is they're all one man – John Coffee (Michael Clarke Duncan), a gentle giant condemned to die for the rape/murder of two little white farmgirls.
His death row head warder is the gentle and decent Paul Edgecomb - Tom Hanks proving that has he gets older and chubbier, he's one of the plainest leading men Hollywood has ever churned out.
Now Edgecomb gets this crazy notion into his puffy little head that Coffee might just be innocent after all, despite the obvious pigmentation.
He comes to this conclusion after Coffee demonsrates certain amazing supernatural powers.
And, no, we're not talking about his ability to dance gracefully without getting pissed first.
Edgecomb has this acute bladder infection that he just can't shake. Coffee uses his 'powers' to suck out all the poison in Edgecomb's system.
Now hold on! It's not that sort of prison film. Coffee grabs Edgecomb by the groin through the prison bars and sucks the poison out using the power of his healing hand.
It's a neat trick that involves Coffee going into convulsions and spewing out of his mouth all the bad stuff in the form of a zillion miniature locusts or magic dust or some such special effects thing.
A grateful Edgecomb rushes home and gives the missues (Bonnie Hunt) an overdue grease and oil change, and then takes a day off to talk to Coffee's defence lawyer (Gary Sinise), convinced that such a gifted soul could not possibly be guilty of such evil murders.
And even more so after Coffee brings back to life one squashed dead jail mouse, and exorcises the rampant cancer from the wife of prison warden Hal Moores (James "I Never Sleep" Cromwell).
So far so good. If you can accept the marriage of a conventional gritty prison drama with a fair dose of supernatural hocus pocus, The Green Mile is thoroughly enjoyable and clever movie-making.
It's got dollops of cleverly executed humour many so-called comedies would kill for, and some excellent execution scenes for the morbid at heart.
Fine support performances abound, especially Doug Hutchison as the snivveling, cowardly, psychopath guard Percy Wetmore. He deserved a supporting actor nomination; Duncan got one instead.
The Green Mile's three hours pass rather painlessly, so someone's doing something right.
But this reviewer can't excuse the one over-riding flaw in the script.
Coffee uses his telepathic powers to show Edgecomb that the real killer of the girls was another recently-deceased deathrow inmate, who was working on the girls' parents farm at the time of their abduction.
Hallelujah, brother!
Does Edgecomb use this information to save Coffee now that he knows he's innocent?
Does he take a picture of the serial killer to the girls' parents and show at least the possibility there's been a miscarriage of justice? A stay of execution. A retrial. A pardon.
Nope.
The simple-minded Coffee says "I'm tired, boss." Let's do this now, he says. Besides, I'm black, aren't I?
Edgecomb's got to admit there's no arguing with that. Niggers are like a box of chocolates. Provided they're dark chocolates.
So they strap Coffee into old Sparky, and Edgecomb does a very dramatic thing - he steps forward and shakes the hand of a man who is truly a gift of God. Before the switch is pulled, naturally, 'cos you just can't be too careful with e-lect-tricity.
And then it's perculated Coffee all round.
Much has been written about this being director Darabont's second big-screen adaptation of a Stephen King prison novel.
In the excellent The Shawshank Redemption of a few years back, the innocent white Tim Robbins escapes from the brutal prison and lives out his life on an idyllic beach paradise.
In The Green Mile, innocent black John Coffey gets to dance hot foot with Old Sparky.
That's the great thing about America.
My country. Right or wrong.

American Beauty (M)
Director: Sam Mendes
Bug Rating: 4/5

That American Beauty topped the Oscar nominations with eight categories says more about last year's output from Hollywood than it does about the film itself.
Not that American Beauty isn't fine entertainment.
The story of a dysfunctional family at war – Lester and Carolyn Burnham (Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening) and the teen bitch ashamed to be their daughter, Jane (Thora Birch) – made for one of those rare movies in 1999 where this reviewer actually felt he got his money's worth. (Yes, he does pay from time to time).
Screenwriter/co-producer Alan Ball's witty words strike home with all the force of the combatants' rapier like ripostes, and the flick is barely a reel old when you know as much about this feuding family as you need to be revoted by – or rooting for – their respective corners. It's a zingfest executed by top actors and a first-time director without nerves or pretentions, Sam Mendes, and all thrown on screen in a visual treat by Oscar-winning director of photography Conrad L Hall (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid).
Lester is going through mid-rift crisis: he hates himself, his wife and his job but not necessarily in that order.
Rose-growing real estate agent Carolyn is so into Dale Carnegie "Dare to be Great" mode that she barely notices that Lester's on the other side of the bed doing a fair imitation of an Indian teepee.
At least his job sucks, but even this Lester throws in when it looks like he's about to be overlooked for promotion. A little bit of -out-of-character blackmail ensures a sizable redundancy payout - and a revigourated Lester decides to take a stand on the homefront as well.
While Carolyn focuses on sales and secateurs, Lester leers after Jane's school-mate Angela (Mena Suvari) and much of this film's visual splendour comes from fantasy sequences as he dreams of being the only prick in a sea of rose petals covering a naked and nubile Angela.
With Carolyn off limits, Lester starts pumping iron instead. He wants Angela, a thick-lipped tease that would be every red-blooded male's American wetdream.
Lester's drooling over the worldly-wise teenager makes Jane even more embarrassed; a sickening state she didn't believe possible.
She takes a liking to the odd young man next door Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley) who likes to videotape her. He's the son of the even stranger Colonel Fitts (Chris Cooper, October Sky) and Barbara Fitts (Allison Janney).
Carolyn finds she's not so frigid after all when she comes under the spell and then thighs of her main property selling protagonist Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher) and their "Who's the king!" sex scene in the motel is the film's comedy highlight.
Which is a good time to point out the problems with American Beauty.
As witty as the dialogue is, the sex bits - such as Lester wanking off in the shower and on the bed - are free kicks, really.
And so has it proved with the acting.
One suspects neither Spacey nor Bening raised a sweat doing these well-crafted roles, and while they've done them justice, they don't warrant an Oscar night acceptance speech either.
There are also a few disturbing trends at the movie's end which also detract from the overall appreciation of American Beauty.
There's a homophoebic stereoptype that is a downright howler - and scriptwriter Ball should be flailed naked by rubber hoses in a gay bathhouse over it.
And then there's the way Ball resolves Burnham's endless bickering.
Finding a solution out of the end of the barrel might just be Ball's way of driving home a powerful message about what's wrong with modern American society.
I thought it was a very cheap shot.

- Don Gordon-Brown

The Cider House Rules (M)
Director:
Bug Rating: 3/5

"I didn't mind that."
"That wasn't too bad, was it?"
"I quite enjoyed that one."
These were some of the comments as Brisbane's finest fillum critics filed out of a preview theatrette screening of this year's Best Film Oscar nominee, The Cider House Rules.
If TCHR was one of the five best flicks of the year, the critics' reactions don't say a lot about the vintage of '99 now, do they?
Long after the lights came up, not one of our kind was still sitting in their seats, sobbing uncontrollably and fighting desperately to retain their composure under a soggy hankie.
Not one threw their yellow Spirex notebook againt the foyer wall and shouted: "Stuff journalism. I'm going back to uni and study hard to become a doctor."
Not one of these hardened, cynical reviewers turned to his peers and said: "No, I won't come and have a beer today. I'm going to go home and give the missus a big squeeze and tell her how much I love her and what she means to me. Then I'm going to go and dig up that vegie patch she's been after me to do for weeks. Life's too short, you know."
Life is short, but that didn't stop us sitting in the dark for three hours watching what really amounts to a better-quality Mills and Boon adventure-romance, only longer.
It's solid enough storyyelling, the acting is competent and the visuals pleasant enough.
But Best Picture material? Really!