dir. Joel Schumacher
I swear I'm just as shocked by this as you are, but dig this: Phone Booth, the new film by Joel Schumacher--yes, that Joel Schumacher--is pretty damn good. Somehow--Grace of God? Shadow director?--the man who ruined Batman, the chump behind Bad Company and Flatliners, has managed to make a film worth seeing.

Which is to say, what the fuck?

Starring Colin Farrell as a New York publicist who picks up the receiver of a ringing pay phone and is informed that if he doesn't do exactly what the caller says he will be shot, the film is tighter, smarter, and more complicated than you would expect. Farrell, who is slowly living up to his hype, delivers a stunning performance--a neat trick given that for the bulk of the picture he is confined to a four-foot-square space.

Speaking of tricks: Phone Booth itself is little more than one. A gimmick gone wild, it breezes past in 80 quick minutes, starting from a sprint and only stumbling somewhat at the very end. And Schumacher, notorious for soaking his films in style, keeps matters relatively grounded, apparently realizing (perhaps for the first time in his career) that tension does not need flash. BRADLEY STEINBACHER

DysFunktional Family

dir. George Gallo
The one thing this documentary of comedian Eddie Griffin's return to his hometown of Kansas City proves is that pure luck is all you need to become famous in America. Where else in the whole wide fucking world could a semiliterate, semi-sensible insect of a human being make it so far with so little? This is no Richard Wright success story--the story of a black boy who is born with a big brain, learns to read and love books on his own, and becomes a world-famous author read and studied by graduate students. There is none of that in Eddie Griffin's story. According to this documentary, he was dumb when he was born; dumb when he was a teen, living with his dumb mother and uncles (one of whom is a junkie and a pimp; the other an amateur porn director). He was dumb as a young man; and, finally, he is dumb as a Hollywood movie star (Undercover Brother). The only thing he might have to his credit is that he looks kind of funny, with his beady eyes, small nose, funky head (a sort of black George Bush). But that is all there is: a funny face. And for this mug he gets a whole fucking documentary! Made in America. CHARLES MUDEDE

Assassination Tango

dir. Robert Duvall
The last film written and directed by Robert Duvall was The Apostle, a heroic effort in which one of the greatest American actors of all time wrote a simple moral drama about a complicated, deeply conflicted man. It was a plum of a part, which played to all of Duvall's strengths as an actor, particularly his ability to convey the zeal of a flawed man's convictions, and the ever-so-subtle cracks that appear in those convictions when things begin to fall apart. The style of the film was restrained and serious, but most of all, the film felt written; with the exception of Duvall's Pentecostal rants, when the glory of GAWD-uh seemed to take him over body and soul, every scene in the film was measured and intentional, leading through conflicts, toward a conclusion. The Apostle was a bracing surprise that gave one faith that actors might have a capacity for self-knowledge greater than any other artists.

Assassination Tango is another matter altogether, a disappointment of such magnitude that you almost can't believe your eyes. The film is piss poor, specifically because all the choices made by Duvall in creating his last film seem to have been reversed. The story rambles in one direction, then veers into a blind alley--the performances wind on and on like improv class in the seventh circle of Cassavetes hell, and the characters are wafer-thin excuses for the worst kind of cinematic vanity.

Duvall plays a grizzly, aging hit man with a younger girlfriend (Kathy Baker, in a role that almost doesn't exist) whose pre-teen daughter is clearly the raison d'être for the relationship. He's the kind of career criminal who lives by a set of inflexible "rules" that keep him alive and his makeshift family safe. When he is called away to Argentina to kill a politician (Why? I don't know. Why do you ask?), he finds himself captivated by the rhythms of the tango, and falls in with a beautiful Argentine mother (Luciana Pedraza), also much younger. Needless to say, he soon violates his "rules," imperiling his life and the safety of the seemingly helpless, ultraneedy ladies he left behind.

Duvall hams his way through the film in search, seemingly, of a meaningful direction for the story. Though he tries several (domestic drama, crime potboiler, character study, cross-cultural musical), he never makes a choice, settling instead on a series of improvisations whose only justification is an extended series of dance scenes. Though Assassination Tango might sound good on paper (lousy title notwithstanding), it's lost from the very first scene. SEAN NELSON

Cowboy Bebop

dir. Shinichirô Watanabe
Based on a popular Cartoon Network series of the same name, which I have never seen (because I hate cartoons), Cowboy Bebop is the story of a tall, slick, slightly bored bounty hunter and his sexy bounty-hunting posse--including one leggy sidekick who has the bounciest, most scintillating boobs in superhero cinema--and their self-guided attempt to save metropolitan Mars from terrorists. The year is 2071, even though it could just as well be present day, and the setting is Mars, even though it could just as easily be New York City--and those two "ideas" are as far as the creativity goes for the filmmakers of this beautifully drawn, brightly colored, candy-coated piece of shit. It's an R-rated action-adventure cartoon that somehow manages to be appallingly week on action (it drags on with boring, pensive scenes in which the literally two-dimensional cartoon characters say boring, pensive things like, "Of the days I've lived, only the ones spent with you seem real") and completely absent of unquestionably the best thing about every R-rated movie ever made: sex. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE