MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen) *****
BATTLE IN SEATTLE (Stuart Townsend) **1/2
Another promising debut -- mostly for its kineticism and roiling texture -- but Townsend's sprawling canvas quickly conquers him, overflowing with so many one-note characters that you'll forget someone is in the film by the time they resurface twenty minutes later. Prologue and epilogue are incredibly didactic, and the film is an overall celebration of the WTO protesters, but Townsend admirably doesn't let them off the hook altogether (they're at least partially responsible for a lot of collateral damage -- government officials are not painted as villains, just out of their league -- and there's an underlying defeatist streak to all the protesters' actions). Bonus points for scoring numerous sequences with an instrumental loop of The National's "Fake Empire."
REDACTED (Brian De Palma) *1/2 [Digital projection]
CHOP SHOP (Ramin Bahrani) ****
STUCK (Stuart Gordon) ****
