A Babel Beyond Compare...

Pieter Brueghel, The building of the Tower of Babel, 1563

...plus spending A Good Year with Russell Crowe, and How To Finish a Novel 101: Will Ferrell plays it straight in Stranger Than Fiction:

A Good Year: Ridley Scott doesn't just make historical warfare movies (Gladiator; Kingdom of Heaven), but he's fond of working with Russell Crowe. In this movie--gorgeously shot in the Provence area of France--Crowe, as Max, a workaholic London trader, rediscovers his "inner child"--and a childhood flame--when his uncle (played in flashbacks by the incomparable Albert Finney) passes away and, in the absence of a will, de facto leaves him his estate, which includes vineyards that produce an awful wine and ??? The story gets a little complicated when his "love child" cousin, who happens to know a great deal about the wine business, enters the picture. This gentle, nostalgic romp takes a few gentle twists and turns before Max--sorry to be so cliche-ish, here--"finds himself. It's good to see Ridley Scott applying his hawkish eye for detail to--one more time--gentle pursuits. Ninina needs 2.75 popcorn boxes.

Stranger Than Fiction: I could give you the punch line, but I won't. All I'm going to say about this existential "dramedy" is that Will Ferrell can play it straight: he gives a very subtle, nuanced performance as an IRS agent whose every step is--literally--dictated by a melancholic author's (Emma Thompson: need I say more?) written word. It's what she hasn't written yet, though: the movie very effectively weaves back and forth, but it's not so circuitous that you can't keep up with it with your eyes: it's your (literary) mind you have to stay one step ahead of. Ferrell; Thompson; add Dustin Hoffman (no more; no less: you know), (a very subdued) Queen Latifah, and the engaging Maggie Gyllenhaal to the mix, and you know you have to stay on your toes. Ninina needs 3.75 popcorn boxes.

Babel: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Amores Perros; 21 Grams) and his screenwriter, Guillermo Arriaga (with whom Inarritu developed the story concept)have created a global mini-masterpiece that--were you to remove its somewhat sparse dialogue--would still strike your very core. Three disparate stories--in Morocco; in Tokyo; on the Mexican border--come together: they weave in and out of each other, as it were, and, in the long run, strengthen each other into a cohensive whole. There is a punch line (of sorts), but, again, I won't give it away. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett give solid performances, but I was especially impressed by the (in the truest sense of the word) "international" actors. We always work best with what we know: Inarritu has presented us with his world view. It is, perhaps, best, after all, to listen when we don't understand? Ninina needs 4 popcorn boxes!