Dont Say a Word (2001): review: 2.5/10

A psychiatrist lives in a large apartment in New York with a small girl and a woman with a broken leg which is in plaster. The other leg is bare. She lies on the beg and he gives her bare leg a sponge bath, presumably as a prelude to some sort of sexual activity. The bare leg is nice to see and, happily, features a lot in the film.

The small girl likes to play hiding games. But one day the shrink cannot find the girl: this is because she has been kidnapped as part of a complex scheme run by an unpleasant but cleverly calculating cold-hearted Englishman (probably from Yorkshire): his goal is to obtain detail of how to find a big ruby from a patient at the psychiatrist's hospital and to get the pyschiatrist to extract the information from the patient.The Englishman uses bad language and is threatening and even violent. He seems to be able to watch people all the time His coherts are unloveable too. Luckily one of the characters is a female police officer with beautiful long hair. She is very efficient. Eventually she will catch up with the baddies in a graveyard at night!

It starts off promisingly, but the plot is too convoluted and the characters not well fleshed out enough to garmer sympathy: it goes on forever

None of the acting is quite convincing- Murphy is totally out of her depth and, like everyone else, is just trying too hard. Douglas goes about being gruffly self assured and husky- as ever. The sound score is unsubtle.  The film requires more humour.

Heartbreakers (2001): review: 1/10

A mother-daughter team find rich men to marry and then divorce, thus makng a good living.

A real stinker of a film featuring:

1. a charmless performance from Weaver, who adopts a very unfunny Russian accent for much of the film.

2. a dull and obvious performance from Hackman

3. lifeless dialogue

4. very unattractive characters

5. a meandering plotline whcih completely fails to intreague, having a "make it up as we go along" quality.

It is also considerably overlong, and invites very unflattering comparasions with "Some Like it Hot".

Frailty (2001): review: 7/10

In Texas, a single parent father brings up two boys in Texas where he recieves messages from God demanding that he massacre some people. He co-opts the assistance of his sons: the elder is reluctant.

Lively and well made with good work from all the actors, but perhaps lacking a certain x-factor of humour.

Prozac Nation (2001): review: 1.5/10

A clever girl wins a place at Harvard to do journalism.

Unfortunately, her mother irritates her and her parents divorced many years before: these things have somehow made her into a narcissitic little worm, given to depression.

The film illustrates the commonplace that the central character to a film, however wicked, has to have some redeeming characteristics- even Hannibal, in Silence of the Lambs has charisma, wit and a definate sense of style- or the viewer will rapidly lose interest

The Wurtzel character here is merely a capable scribbler- this isn't enough to compensate for her being quite so boring and brattish, and I couldn't get beyond the first half of this one

Waking Life (2001): review- 8/10

Curious animated film in which the protagonist meets a run of people who espouse a range of philosophies.

Some may find the film naive and rambling, others might see it as Bergsonian; for me, Linklater manages to convey a incredible enthusiasm for his subject, indeed for life itself; and his film has an endearing American optomism about it.

Black Hawk Down (2001): review- 8/10

Magnificently filmed piece, principally about the spirit of comradeship among US soldiers.