Three Great Movies in One Week?

I saw three movies this week that I really liked. March is a good time for movies, because it isn't the lame Oscar-bait biopics and Issue Films, but and it's not the awful Hollywood summer pablum. Here are the three I saw:

Thank You For Smoking. If anyone tells you that Thank You For Smoking is an insightful, incisive and biting satire, they are full of baloney. The satire is of the broad literary sort -- funny acronyms and the like. There is little insight in the film about its topic, the manipulation of truth and morality.

That said, it's wonderfully funny. Aaron Eckhart is a very special actor, and he's really found his niche in Neil Labute's films, and in this one, playing a guy who is both a believably horrible person and slick enough that you might be willing to forgive him.

There's a scene where Eckhart is visiting Hollywood super-agent Rob Lowe at his huge agency complex. He's getting a tour from an eager young assistant, and the stop at the koi pond. The assistant points out a few koi... "That one cost $8,000. That one cost $12,000: gift from Oprah."

Eckhart offers an impressed mumble.

"Yeah," says the assistant, "its almost enough to make you want to give up sushi." Then he adds, in the perfect off-handed/serious tone, "But I guess you couldn't do that, really."

Then I said "HAH!!! HAHAHAHAHA!"

The Inside Man

A perfectly executed film. The sort of regular-Joe touch that marks some of Spike Lee's best work (especially Do The Right Thing) really grounds this bank robbery, and there's enough intruige in there to keep you guessing until the very end. The plot is simple but nonetheless surprising, and the acting is uniformly spectacular. Note the presence of two regulars on "The Wire."

There are little touches of stylization that are really effective in the context of the film, and don't feel showy. And it's designed and photographed beautifully as well.

Also on this film: Is there any doubt that Denzel Washington is America's Finest Movie Star? I mean, there's a few other real good ones (Clooney), and some sort of Emeritus ones (Hoffman, Freeman), but can you seriously compare like Brad Pitt or Matt Damon to Denzel? Hell to the naw.

Finally: Brick.

What a winner this one is, and certainly the best I saw of the three. The premise is pretty simple: it's a film noir set in a contemporary high school. Sort of a serious answer to the Clueless variety of classical comedies placed in that setting. And it WORKS. Boy does it work.

Its much more Daschell Hammett than the kind of Chandler thing that's often parodied (no complicated similes, lots of tough talk). The characters talk in a semi-made-up language that echoes both the way language is created in the streets, and in young people. Social groups become very important... burnouts, drama queens, and how they interact.

What's wonderful is that none of this gets in the way of the story, which is thrilling and is never deflated by the absurdity of the setting. In fact, even when the setting is funny (and it often is), it seems almost to strengthen the tension, rather than undercutting it. This is a VERY New Sincerity quality for a film to have.

Any of you all see any of these? Thoughts? Seen something else good?

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