Best Movies by Farr

Meditations on a Remake: "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3"

I have to admit it: the new "Taking Of Pelham 123" wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. (It's somewhat scary though when this reaction seems like the best you can hope for.)

Incidentally, I have a theory about remakes: in very few instances do they outshine the originals.

Indie producer/ director Roger Corman once told me why: think of all the moving parts and variables on a film production...all the things that can go wrong, all the areas where a movie can somehow fall short.

In Corman's view, with hits (and for recognition value, remakes tend to be made off past hits), the all-important fundamentals of the movie fall into place via some sort of ethereal creative alchemy. No director can force this to happen- when it does occur, all he or she can do is try to make the most of it.

Thus, from this perspective, attempting a remake is akin to making lightning strike twice.

As if to echo Corman, Michael Caine, who admittedly has appeared in his fair share of dreck, once mused that Hollywood would be wiser to remake indifferent films, rather than the winners.

"Why set yourself up to fail?", he asked reasonably.

I've always loved the original "Pelham" from 1974. It evokes the slightly run-down version of the Manhattan I knew as a kid. Like the city itself then, what the first "Pelham" lacks in polish, it makes up for in character and spirit.

The high body count is not what you remember, it's the characters: Walter Matthau as Zack Garber, world weary and with a mug like an old saddle-bag. In one memorable scene, he gently ridicules a group of Japanese subway officials as he gives them a tour of the MTA facilities- until he realizes they actually do speak English. Matthau's cohorts-like Jerry Stiller, the late James Broderick (Matthew's Dad) and Kenneth McMillan, each reflect a distinctly pungent spice in the varied melting pot of working New Yorkers.

Leading the villains is an intensely understated Robert Shaw, overseeing a motley band of bad guys...yet these bad guys are actually distinct, identifiable characters, each with their own tics and quirks. Both Martin Balsam (burdened with a bad head cold which serves as an ingenious plot device), and Hector Elizondo stand out in these roles.

Watching Tony Scott's well-received updating of the story predictably made me nostalgic for earlier times and earlier ways of making action pictures. Scott employs all the expected bells and whistles of today's blockbuster action film- swirling cameras, deafening music, rapid cutting, over-the-top stunts, graphic violence and language- to create an admittedly involving and diverting movie. Yet the subtlety and seasoning of the first humble effort is lost.

Standing in as the alpha baddie this time out, John Travolta is fun to watch, though at times his "Ryder" seems to be channeling Vince Vega from "Pulp Fiction". There is no mystery to his character, however- where Shaw's ring-leader was a terse, cool customer who carried the threat of death in his steely, dead eyes, Travolta spews venomous spit all over the place. The number of times the "f" word is used may set new records, not that anyone's counting.

But just when we're getting comfortable with him as a ruthless psychopath, we learn that he used to be a Wall Street finance wizard who got caught with his hand in the till. Gee- where did they come up with that one?

Also, Travolta's henchmen-even the talented Luis Guzman- play ciphers here, brutal-looking thugs who grunt more than speak. Their personalities and purpose feel wholly interchangeable within the action picture realm.

In the earlier picture, director Joseph Sargent made the City Hall portrayals satirical to leaven the tension. The addled, flu-afflicted Mayor was clearly modeled on Ed Koch, intended to mirror the calamitous state of city governance, as New York City was then hovering close to financial default.

James Gandolfini plays the new Mayor as a cynical operator with nary a trace of humor or irony. But here the film continues to reinforce those oh-so-familiar types: since the Mayor is a politician, he must also be a recently exposed philanderer...saw that one coming too!

All of which brings me to the central character...Here at least the film-makers tried to do the right thing, attempting to make the Garber character more layered and ambiguous. Washington's Garber is no longer a transit cop, but a formerly high-ranking MTA executive demoted to manning the switchboard pending a bribery allegation.

Ah...the old (very old) redemption theme....by remaining at the center of the crisis, Walter Garber can win back the trust and respect of his superiors in one fell swoop.

OK, but for me there's a problem. When Matthau ultimately tracks down Shaw with a gun, it seems only appropriate: he's a transit cop. But Denzel is in full mouse disguise with this character, complete with glasses and a sweater vest. When all of a sudden the film puts him into super-hero mode towards the end of the picture, we don't quite buy it. Or at least I didn't.

I know, I know...I'm over-thinking this, right? Sorry, but it's my natural reaction when so much of what we see on today's movie screens encourages us not to think at all.

Even so, in all good conscience I cannot label the new "Pelham" a total failure. It's a slick, sleek piece of work that delivers the action goods to a new generation of viewers who value images over words, action over character, and demonstration over suggestion.

And if a couple of credibility gaps pop up along the way, no big deal. Soon enough there'll be another sequence where someone gets mowed down by an automatic weapon from three inches away, and the resulting jolt should render issues of sense and logic irrelevant.

Still, if I have to choose between these two Walters, make mine Matthau.

For close to 2,000 outstanding movies on DVD, visit www.bestmoviesbyfarr.com.

Celebrating Streep at Sixty

With the start of her film career and eventual stardom all occurring during my pivotal college years, the work of actress Meryl Streep is so embedded in my consciousness that it feels as if I should measure my own milestones by hers.

This week, our most distinguished screen actress turns sixty, and looking back on her legacy, we find one of those rare, happy stories of a person with blazing talent setting a high but worthy goal for herself, and fulfilling it.

That goal was to create a body of work whose quality would stand (she unquestionably has), without resorting to roles designed to exploit her beauty or sex (she didn't). Even when her films fell short (as they frequently did in the '90s, when Hollywood had no clue what to do with her) her presence always counted for something. She was never a decorative accompaniment or support to a leading man; she always held her own, by virtue of her performances, but also the parts she took.

And we, her fans, know Meryl Streep primarily from the emotions and intelligence emanating from those roles, not via sensationalistic stories in the National Enquirer. There is a grounded, decidedly normal quality to the woman that makes the actress seem all the more extraordinary.

Off the set, she eschews the spotlight, and has raised four kids, now grown, in a happy marriage to sculptor Don Gummer. By all accounts, that very private, stable part of her life has kept her clear-eyed and put her success in healthy perspective over the years. One wonders, why can't more stars follow her example? Or let's just clone her.
Mary Louise Streep grew up in New Jersey, the daughter of a pharmaceutical executive and an artist turned homemaker. A self-professed child of the sixties, at first she couldn't take acting seriously in the midst of all the social foment. But she knew it was fun, and that she had a knack for it.

So, as a young adult in the early seventies she enrolled in the Yale School of Drama after graduating from Vassar...and never looked back.

Her first film is a personal favorite of mine- Fred Zinnemann's "Julia" (1977), starring Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, and Jason Robards. The movie is drenched in romance and nostalgia, all about Lillian Hellman's close childhood friend (Redgrave) battling the Nazis. And there, playing an insufferable society girl distracting the noble Lillian from going to her friend's aid, is Meryl. Seen today, she's almost unrecognizable. Here was a part even most good actresses would render forgettable, but there was something about Streep that reached out and grabbed you.

The Meryl we would first come to know and love appears in her very next movie, "The Deer Hunter" (1978), a male-oriented picture if there ever was one. Yet again, Streep's sheer virtuosity as Linda, who seems to embody every young woman left behind in war, registers. (This also marked her only film with the man she was first engaged to, actor John Cazale, who had played Fredo in "The Godfather". Tragically, Cazale was dying of bone cancer during production, and his loss soon after would be a bitter blow for Streep.)

Still the roles would keep coming, and as the eighties arrived, Meryl Streep was- unavoidably and inevitably- a star.

Viewed from a perspective of thirty years, Streep's painstaking discipline and sense of craft have never wavered, but the years have relaxed her to the extent that she will eagerly do comedies. Though some of these pictures are not entirely successful, her presence goes a long way towards redeeming them- and she is in fact a deft comedienne.

As Meryl turns sixty, here's my own list of top Streep titles I'd want with me on most any deserted island:

Kramer Versus Kramer (1979)- On the brink of a big promotion, pre-occupied ad-man Ted Kramer (Dustin Hoffman) gets the wind knocked out of him when wife Joanna (Streep) leaves him and their young son, Billy (Justin Henry). Balancing career demands with caring for a young son he barely knows, Ted makes the hard choices necessary to be there for Billy. But when Joanna returns unexpectedly, a nasty custody battle ensues. Here Meryl teams with Hoffmann at the peak of his career and director Robert Benton for a near-flawless marital drama, depicting the dissolution of a marriage with unerring sensitivity. Touching performances from all three leads help bring an insightful script to heart-wrenching life. At Oscar time, "Kramer" won Best Picture, Benton took the honors for both direction and screenplay, Hoffman got the nod for Best Actor- and after just two years in film, Meryl walked away with the statuette for Best Supporting Actress.

The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)- Disgraced by her affair with a French lieutenant, Sara Woodruff (Streep) is regarded as a woman of ill repute in her South Britain seaside village. But Charles Smithson (Jeremy Irons) finds himself irresistibly drawn to this mysterious and guarded Victorian lady, even though he's engaged. As their story plays out, so too does the tale of modern-day actors Anna and Mike, who're playing the doomed lovers in a film, and tumbling into their own conflicted affair. In choosing to adapt John Fowles's complex and epic romance novel, British filmmaker Karel Reisz enlisted the help of dramatist Harold Pinter, who framed the sorrow-laden, 19th-century tale of sexual repression with an intriguing modern story, creating a film-within-a-film structure that reflects the early '80s milieu. Irons is perfectly cast as the love-bitten English gentleman, and the Oscar-nominated Streep is magnificent in her double role--oozing passion as Sara, and cool precision as Anna. Here's a love story like no other.

Sophie's Choice (1982)- Based on William Styron's book, title character Sophie (Streep) is a lovely, mysterious Polish émigré who settles in Brooklyn right after World War II, starting a new life with her brilliant but erratic lover, Nathan (Kevin Kline). Stingo, a naïve aspiring writer from the South (Peter MacNicol), becomes their neighbor and falls under the spell of this magnetic pair. Yet Sophie carries traumas from the recent war which she can't shake and this, combined with Nathan's own inner demons, threatens their future. With this picture, director Alan J. Pakula exposed the full breadth of Streep's prodigious talent when he cast her as Sophie. Beyond her astonishing turn, the film itself packs an emotional wallop- it's at once extremely literate, highly atmospheric and emotionally intense. Also, be warned - it does include some disturbing flashback sequences. Above all, it's a Streep tour-de-force, netting her a Best Actress Oscar. Kline is also solid as the tragic Nathan. This devastating film will stay with you long after the lights come up.

Silkwood (1983)- On her way to meet a journalist in 1974, Karen Silkwood (Streep), a plutonium-plant employee outraged at her management's disregard for safety procedures, vanished, never to be seen again. In this film, we follow Karen's attempts to obtain proof that her company is engineering a cover-up, despite threats, intimidation, and the disastrous effect it has on her relationship with boyfriend Drew (Kurt Russell). Mike Nichols brings a chilling true story to life with this suspenseful, engrossing exposé. Streep's nuanced portrayal shows an ordinary woman who, through fate, circumstance and a streak of raw defiance, risks her life for a cause bigger than herself. Russell executes one of his more interesting roles as Karen's beau, and the talented Cher sheds all her glamour to play Karen's lesbian friend Dolly. Director Nichols builds a gradual sense of dread, culminating in a nerve-jangling conclusion. Don't miss this blistering cautionary tale.

A Cry In The Dark (1988)- In 1980, while camping with her husband Michael (Sam Neill) in the Australian Outback, young mother Lindy Chamberlain (Streep) discovers her baby daughter missing. Anguished but oddly reserved, she maintains to authorities that a dingo (Australian wild dog) dragged off the child from their tent as she was momentarily distracted. Prosecutors are not convinced, however, and Lindy suddenly finds herself the target of a vicious public who believes she is a murderess. Based on the shocking true story of a Seventh Day Adventist and his wife's personal and legal ordeal, Fred Schepisi's poignant, gut-wrenching drama builds on the astonishing performance of Streep, barely recognizable as the timid, aggrieved victim of near-daily assaults in the press. Schepisi builds suspense in the tense courtroom scenes, which are intercut with flashbacks to the camping trip, and never recoils from the lurid aspects of the Lindy witch hunt. With its sympathy for a minority faith and contempt for tabloid excess, "Dark" feels more relevant than ever.

The Hours (2001)- The plotline of this fascinating film moves seamlessly among three different time periods and women: the fragile existence of gifted but disturbed writer Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) as she starts writing "Mrs. Dalloway"; the claustrophobic life of Laura (Julianne Moore) a housewife and mother in late 1940s L.A. whose reading of Woolf's book causes a numbing depression to surface; and the predicament of Clarissa (Streep) a modern-day, Dalloway-like book editor, whose lifetime project, a dying author played by Ed Harris, is receding before her eyes. Each interwoven tale plays out a variation on Woolf's own isolation and sense of futility. Don't miss this subtle, insightful meditation on life's hidden detours which direct us away from self-knowledge and fulfillment. Director Stephen Daldry's ambitious piece resonates as a disturbing and profound drama, showcasing the prodigious talents of Streep, Moore, and Kidman (who won an Oscar). Ed Harris, Toni Collette, and John C. Reilly also shine in this haunting and memorable film.

Adaptation (2002)- Sad-sack, self-doubting Hollywood screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) is hired to script "The Orchid Thief" by New Yorker scribe Susan Orlean (Streep). Obsessed with the foxy author, and struggling with how to faithfully adapt the tale of Orleans's intriguing friendship with a renegade rare-flower expert John Laroche (Chris Cooper), Kaufman becomes increasingly stressed, unhinged, and of course, innovative in his approach. A brilliant meta-narrative and hilarious spoof of Hollywood's formulaic approach to telling stories, "Adaptation" is the brainchild of director Spike Jonze and real-life writer Kaufman, who teamed earlier on "Being John Malkovich." In fact, Kaufman really was hired to adapt the Orleans book, and took a chance writing a fun, zany, highly inventive script about his neurotic inability to wedge it into a conventional plot structure. He also invented a fictitious alter ego, twin brother Donald, who despite being a noodle-brained philistine, knows how to write a crack blockbuster. Cage's balding, uncomfortable turn in both roles is angst-filled genius, and Meryl, predictably, also delivers the goods.

Angels In America (2003)- This dramatic adaptation of Tony Kushner's award-winning play tracks several characters at the height of the AIDS crisis in mid-80s New York City, including Prior Walter (Justin Kirk), a young HIV+ man who begins to have visions of an angel (Emma Thompson) telling him he's a prophet, and gay-bashing conservative lawyer Roy Cohn (Al Pacino), whose underling Joe Pitt (Patrick Wilson) is a closeted Mormon having an affair with Prior's ex-boyfriend.Tackling the AIDS panic, religious intolerance, and Reagan-era conservative politics, Nichols's six-hour miniseries brings to the big screen everything that made Kushner's original play a Broadway smash in 1993, including the caliber of his actors: Pacino plays real-life, rock-ribbed conservative lawyer Cohn with despicable malice, while Thompson and Streep thoroughly enjoy showier roles as supernatural visitors. (Streep also plays Joe's straitlaced Mormon mother- and the tragic Ethel Rosenberg- to chilling perfection.) With its poetically inflected dialogue and dreamy special effects, "Angels" is a vibrant, pop-political melodrama for any age.

And so, this venerable phenomenon we call Meryl Streep greets her milestone with engines on full throttle, having just received her (gasp!) fifteenth Oscar nod for her superb work in last year's screen adaptation of John Patrick Shanley's "Doubt". In career terms, it seems many more roles lie in store for her, of which we will become glad and grateful beneficiaries.

Happy Birthday and thanks, Meryl Streep.

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In Advance of Father's Day, Ten Cinematic Takes on Being a Dad

Prior to saluting fathers far and wide later this month, why not pop in some first-rate DVD titles that examine the distinct challenges of fatherhood, and how various dads rise to the occasion or, for a host of reasons, fall short.

I lead with one of the most heartbreaking foreign films on record: Vittorio de Sica's neo-realist masterpiece, "Bicycle Thieves" (1948). Here a man who depends on his bicycle for his living sees it stolen out from under him, and with his adoring son in tow, scours Rome to retrieve it. Finally, he resorts to the theft of another bike to put bread on his table. "Thieves" still packs a wallop, portraying poverty's heartless capacity to rob a father of the thing an impressionable son needs to see most --his basic dignity. For his powerful work, De Sica was awarded a special Oscar in 1948 several years before the Academy established a category for best foreign film.

Next, don't miss "House of Strangers" (1949), Joseph L. Mankiewicz's scorching tale of a destructive family vendetta. Self-made immigrant banker Gino Monetti (Edward G. Robinson) treats three of his four employee sons like dirt, reserving his favor only for Max (Richard Conte), who's made good on his own as a lawyer. When Gino's old ways of doing business run afoul of banking regulations, only Max tries to help him, and ends up doing jail time, while the other brothers wrest control of the bank from their broken dad. Once Nick is sprung, his first instinct is revenge, but time and the love of a woman (a stunning Susan Hayward) make him reconsider. Though screenplay credit went to Philip Yordan, Mankiewicz's inspired touch is evident in the film's tight pacing and its sharp, flavorful script. Robinson is masterful in yet another Italian-American turn, and Conte also registers as a slick operator who's not quite as tough as he seems.

In Vincente Minnelli's classic "Father Of The Bride" (1950), we see the lighter side to being a dad, particularly if you can laugh at the prospect of opening your wallet for your daughter's wedding. When lovely Kay Banks (Elizabeth Taylor) announces her engagement to Buckley Dunstan (Don Taylor), life for Kay's doting father Stanley (Spencer Tracy) turns inside out. His wife Ellie (Joan Bennett), wants formal nuptials for Kay, so Stanley finds himself consumed by the exhausting business of planning a big wedding, not to mention the headache of paying for one. This big-hearted MGM comedy provided the template for an idea that's been executed countless times, but never quite so charmingly. The wry Tracy is note-perfect as the aggrieved Dad, and young Liz makes a radiant bride-to-be. And Minnelli keeps the whole affair--replete with hilariously solemn heart-to-heart talks, a disastrous engagement party, and lovers' spats--from derailing into broad farce. If you're choosing a "Bride," make it the original.

No list of top father films can exclude Elia Kazan's "East Of Eden" (1955), an adaptation of the old Cain and Abel story updated to 1917 Monterey, via John Steinbeck. In his first featured role, James Dean plays errant son Cal, who aches for the approval of his upright father (Raymond Massey). A young, luminous Julie Harris plays Abra, the love interest of favored brother Aron (Richard Davalos), who soon becomes torn between the two siblings. Ultimately a series of dramatic events causes a transformation in Cal's relationship to his dad. Kazan's landmark film features vibrant color and atmosphere, top-flight performances and a dazzling screenplay adapted by Paul Osborn. Oscar-nominated Dean, Harris, Burl Ives and Oscar-winner Jo Van Fleet as Cal's reclusive mother, stand out in a stellar ensemble. (Note: Dean's next role in the better known "Rebel Without A Cause" would also portray a troubled father/son relationship, though of a decidedly different sort.)

The film that captures the father we'd all want to be- and to have- must be Robert Mulligan's perennially touching "To Kill A Mockingbird" (1962), based on Harper Lee's autobiographical novel. Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck), a widower and small-town lawyer in the Depression-era South, bravely defends a black man accused of raping a white girl, causing resentment in the community. Meanwhile his two children, Scout and Jem (Mary Badham and Phillip Alford), try to unravel the mystery of Boo Radley, the supposedly crazy man who lives nearby. A film that speaks volumes about racial intolerance in our country's recent past, this is also a moving and perceptive study of the relationship between two children and their single-parent father, with much of the action seen through young Scout's eyes. The child actors all turn in affecting, natural performances, and Peck, in the role of his career, deservedly won the Oscar for Best Actor. Make this required viewing for all children 12 and over.

Another memorable entry concerning a man suddenly confronted with single parenthood: Robert Benton's "Kramer Versus Kramer" (1979).On the brink of a big promotion, pre-occupied ad-man Ted Kramer (Dustin Hoffman) gets the wind knocked out of him when wife Joanna (Streep) leaves him and their young son, Billy (Justin Henry). Forced to balance career demands with caring for a young son he barely knows, Ted makes hard choices to be there for Billy. But when Joanna returns unexpectedly, a nasty custody battle ensues. Hoffman hit a career high-point with this near-flawless drama, which depicts the dissolution of a marriage with unerring sensitivity. Top-flight performances from the two leads help bring an insightful script to heart-rending life. At Oscar time, "Kramer" won Best Picture, Benton took the honors for direction and screenplay, and Hoffman got the nod for Best Actor.

Back to foreign soil and Akira Kurosawa's epic, "Ran" (1982). In this adaptation of "King Lear" transplanted to sixteenth century Japan, powerful warlord Hidetora (Tatsuya Nakadai) decides to divide his lands and riches among his two seemingly compliant older sons, banishing honest third son Saburo (Daisuke Ryu) after he challenges his proud father's will. With his family soon splintered and set against each other, Hidetora realizes too late his error in judgment, and the injustice he visited on the forthright Saburo. Kurosawa's late-career triumph is a vibrant, colorful epic, its drama magnified by an awesome visual sweep encompassing both period pageantry and setting. Shakespeare's fundamental themes of loyalty and betrayal play out with full force, thanks to superb performances by both Nakudai (a Kurosawa veteran) and Ryu in the pivotal roles. Another breathtaking achievement from this revered master of cinema.

Three years later came director Emir Kusturica's poignant "When Father Was Away On Business". Set in 1950s Sarajevo, the film portrays oppressive times in Tito's Yugoslavia, as married official Mesha is sent to work in the mines as punishment for flirting with a sexy female comrade not his wife. Younger son Malik survives this period of uncertainty with a measure of hope and humor, believing his mother's story that his father is on a prolonged business trip. When Dad returns from his lengthy trip, normal routines resume, with the master of the house a touch wiser and humbler. "Father" evocatively portrays a challenging time and place, and against this grim backdrop, paints a warmer portrait of childhood innocence and imagination, as the adorable Malik manages to put a hopeful, fantastic spin on circumstances and events unfolding around him.

Returning stateside, John Singleton's ground-breaking "Boyz N The Hood" (1991) focuses on the stiff price payed by youth at risk without fathers. Growing up in South Central LA, young Tre Styles (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) is sent by struggling divorcée Reva (Angela Bassett) to live with his father, Furious (Laurence Fishburne), a no-nonsense figure who tries to instill Tre with solid values. But Tre and rudderless, fatherless friends Ricky (Morris Chestnut) and Dough Boy (Ice Cube) are emmeshed in a world of gang warfare, and soon the cycle of violence catches up to them. Singleton's explosive drama deals head-on with the allure of thug life, inner-city poverty and racism--without ever losing its heart or appeal. Fishburne scores as the streetwise dad who schools Gooding's Tre with important life lessons. Just 23 when "Boyz" hit theaters, Singleton earned two Oscar nods for his gritty tale of urban strife.

I close with one more potent father/son tale, set in war-torn Northern Ireland: "In The Name Of The Father" (1994), directed by Jim Sheridan. Based on a real-life case, "Name" recounts the saga of Gerry Conlon (Daniel Day-Lewis), an innocent Belfast native sentenced to prison for an IRA bombing after his British interrogators force him to sign a false confession. Imprisoned alongside his father, Giuseppe (Pete Postlethwaite)-falsely accused of abetting the crime-Gerry spends years trying to exonerate his family name with the help of lawyer Gareth Peirce (Emma Thompson). Both Day-Lewis and Postlethwaite give gut-wrenching turns as the angry son and his bewildered father, and the ever-reliable Thompson lends fiery support as their dogged barrister. Nominated for seven Oscars, this ode to human dignity is also a hard-hitting story of political injustice.

Are Serious Dramas an Endangered Species?

I don’t get out enough. But when I do, I most always learn something.

Attending a party last week, I saw something new: Between the bar area and dance floor was a connecting room, and passing through it, I noticed many party-goers lining the walls, each in isolation checking emails on their Blackberries.

Checking emails- in the middle of a party?

Before wireless portable devices, when you went to a social event, you had to jump in and give yourself over to the experience. In this scenario of forced socialization, very often you actually met someone new and perhaps pursued some unplanned adventure.

Now, if people at a party look unfamiliar or uninteresting, you don’t really need to engage. You can simply step out, check your email, and see if you can’t find a more reassuring, recognizable face to hook up with across town.

You have to wonder, does this new behavior fulfill the promise of the digital world by opening up channels of communication, or is does it close them down?

And just what is the long-term price to be paid for technology that reduces our focus, patience, and attention spans?

Let’s consider this in relation to film. Regardless of technology’s impact, it seems the public will always pay to see anything that transports them away from reality. Regardless of quality, fantasies, comedies, action films, and comic book adaptations are here to stay, because for the most part, they hold our attention and go down easy.

But what about serious drama- by which I mean realistic, unflinching dramas about regular people facing authentic life challenges, both big and small? These pictures may be less entertaining in the moment, but often end up shedding valuable perspective on the human condition- insight you won’t find in your average spine-tingler or farce.

Will the prospect of venturing into uncomfortable, unfamiliar cinematic territory increasingly make us retreat to check our I-Phones at the popcorn stand, or worse, prevent us from buying a ticket in the first place?

Based purely on box office results, it would appear serious drama is not taken seriously, or to be more precise, not taken much at all.

While larger- than-life escapist hit franchises (Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter, James Bond, Pirates Of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, Batman, Spiderman, and A Night At The Museum) routinely gross between $500 million and one billion dollars, just consider the scale of difference in revenues for these ten critically acclaimed serious dramas:

The Reader- $67 MM Gross
Milk- $51
Doubt- $46
Capote- $42
Into The Wild- $22
Little Children- $15
The Savages- $8
Frozen River- $2.5

Understanding the sizable differences in distribution and marketing might placed behind these distinct types of movies, the fact remains that though most of the features listed turned a profit, the degree of payback to the studios was dwarfed by these blockbusters.

It’s also a matter of exposure and eyeballs: If even Oscar winners “Milk” or “The Reader” are drawing only a fraction of the audience commanded by “A Night At The Museum”, you can believe either variation on the following theme: a) many people simply aren’t moved to see a potentially “difficult” film, or b) studio executives decide in advance they won’t be, and so don’t make the movie easily accessible to them.

Tying back to the Blackberry phenomenon, a subtle but disturbing cycle emerges, whereby easily distracted consumers get fed what will still command their diminishing concentrations and tolerance, while movies that demand more but offer more in return become, like that stranger you never meet at the party, a lost opportunity.

Mind you, even before the advent of the Palm Pilot, movies whose chief aim was diversion and entertainment always attracted the biggest audiences. The issue comes down to balance and degree: Looking back over the top-ten box-office titles of the now distant past, you can find a few serious films sprinkled in among the comedies and epic adventures, with titles like Gone With The Wind, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, The Best Years Of Our Lives, The Bridge On The River Kwai, and The Graduate.

But in the ensuing forty years leading up to the present, no films of this type have ever broken the top ten at the box-office. Suffice it to say, I wish one would.

Here then are five serious, human-scale domestic films that deserve a wider audience:

You Can Count On Me (’00)- Scarred by the loss of their parents years before, siblings Sammy and Terry Prescott (Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo) have pursued different paths in life. She's settled into domestic life as a single mother, while he leads a troubled existence on the road. After a two-year absence, Terry visits and asks to borrow money, then sticks around as he bonds with Sammy's 8-year-old son, Rudy (Rory Culkin). This fascinating film examines how two very different siblings cope with a single, life-changing tragedy, and how this event affects their own interactions. Thanks to a sharp script and assured direction, this complex relationship is portrayed with a nuanced mix of humor and heartbreak. Linney received an Oscar nod for her portrayal of Sammy.

In The Bedroom (’01)- When their college-age son Frank brings home his new girlfriend, Nathalie (Marisa Tomei), parents Matt (Tom Wilkinson) and Ruth (Sissy Spacek) are apprehensive, since Nathalie is a mother of two whose volatile ex won't let go of her emotionally. Neither of them wants to believe that Frank's life is in danger, or can imagine how they'll respond when and if the worst happens. Todd Field's impressive directorial debut maps the consequences of inconsolable grief and corrosive ill will on a Maine couple. By turns tense, shocking, and devastating, "Bedroom" showcases gut-wrenching, exquisite performances from veterans Wilkinson and Spacek, whose emotional turmoil feels frighteningly real.

Tape (’01)- In a seedy motel in Lansing, Michigan, bright, under-achieving drug-dealer Vince (Ethan Hawke) is reunited with high-school friend Jon (Robert Sean Leonard), now a film-maker. Vince launches a gradual attack against his self-satisfied pal, accusing Jon of date-raping Vince's former girlfriend Amy years before. To make matters more interesting, Amy (Uma Thurman) happens to live nearby, and Vince has invited her to join them. This makes for a most unconventional high-school reunion. Director Richard Linklater dares to sustain a drama on a single dingy set, and thanks to a biting script and superb performances, succeeds. Though Thurman expertly plays the pivotal role of Amy, less a victim than a detached female looking on with bemusement at two ranting males, the show is Hawke's and Leonard's, as their characters wage a savage battle of wits, with life-changing implications. Taut and clever, "Tape" is immensely satisfying fare.

Away From Her (’06)- Soul-mates Fiona (Julie Christie) and Grant (Gordon Pinsent) have led a long, happy married life together in the rural comfort of Canada's northern climes. But when Fiona's memory begins to slip, and she becomes alarmingly disoriented, they seek out a facility to handle her care. Then a turn of events spurs Grant's guilt and conflict over past indiscretions. Director Sarah Polley's "Away From Her" observes with elegiac warmth and delicacy the emotional turbulence visited upon a couple in their silver years by the onset of Alzheimer's. In her directorial debut, Polley (best known as an actor) coaxes exemplary turns from her talented cast- especially from the still-radiant Christie, whose mounting fears and erratic behavior prompt her move to a nursing home, where she begins to forget the man she's spent most of her years with. Plaintive yet defiant, "Away From Her" is a touching study of marriage which even Ingmar Bergman would be proud of.

Half Nelson (’06)- Seeking to impart real ideas instead of dry facts, eighth-grade history teacher Dan (Ryan Gosling) likes to engage his inner-city students in meaningful conversations, and has established a good rapport with most, especially Drey (Shareeka Epps), a bright student whom he also coaches on the girls basketball team. But Dan's personal life is clouded by heavy drug use, a secret Drey soon discovers, purely by chance. Gosling gives a fearless performance as the idealistic young educator who has a confident manner in the classroom, but whose addiction problem is starting to affect both his job performance and his friendship with Drey, played with a mix of sheepish charm and street-hardened intensity by Epps. Smart and stridently unsentimental, "Half Nelson" will get its grip on you.