Some Movies I Haven't Seen, and a Few I Have

I haven't been keeping up with my theatrical viewing recently. I saw Breach, which I'll probably write about next month. If you liked Shattered Glass, well, then you'll like this--maybe even better. Billy Ray has gone and made the D.C. movie of the year . . . again. I'll have a review of Smokin' Aces up on Friday (ace isn't the first word I'd use to describe it). And I saw the D.C. premiere of Mine Your Own Business, a very fine documentary about NGOs and the mining industry, tonight (full disclosure: my current employer helped co-sponsor the screening). But somehow I've still not managed to see Volver, The Last King of Scotland, Pan's Labyrinth, or Letters from Iwo Jima--a rather unacceptable situation that I hope to soon remedy.

I did manage to catch The Fan, Tony Scott's mid 90s De Niro-sports-stalker pic, on DVD. I can't say it was one of the director's better films. It might best be described as flash, splash, and rehash – or better yet, just trash. Scott's direction is vivid, glossy, and dashing as always, like an AT&T commercial on steroids, and De Niro turns what should've been a nothing role into something almost compelling. But he's just replaying better parts (Pupkin, Bickle), and Scott's direction can't even manage the bloated, overwrought guilty pleasure of something like Last Boyscout. Surprisingly, Snipes is the best thing here, a conflicted, but ultimately decent, guy. It's not high art, or maybe even art in any sense, but it's an honest performance.