When I Stop Dreaming

2007. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. This is a perplexing film: beautiful and crude, detailed characters and awkward violence, long scenes without dialogue and scenes scored with odd, overwhelming music. After a second viewing, I thought it was all of the above, and a fascinating film, after all. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Daniel Plainview, a solitary prospector who abandons his search for silver when he strikes oil. Trying to stay a step ahead of competitors such as Standard Oil, he follows up on a tip to buy a remote goat ranch that has crude seeping out …

2007. Starring Emile Hirsch, Catherine Keener. Directed by Sean Penn. In 1992, Christopher McCandless graduated from college and began a mission — the point of which has since become the speculation of a best-seller written by Jon Krakauer and a film by Sean Penn. His journey winds through the American Southwest, to the corn fields of the Dakotas, but always — as he reminds everyone throughout the film — to Alaska. There he would he would finally escape other humans, then discover how much he needs them. McCandless, here portrayed by Emile Hirsch, comes off as wise-beyond-his-years free spirit and …

2007. Starring Tony Leung, Wei Tang. Directed by Ang Lee. The setting is Japan-occupied China in 1942. Wong Chia Chi (Wei Tang) is a young student pulled into an acting troup — and underground resistance cell — by a classmate. Her role in a patriotic play ignites a revolutionary fire in her, which may be fueled by an attraction to the group’s leader, Kuang Yu Min (Lee-Hom Wang), but forces her into the lead role when there’s an opportunity to get close to, and eventually assassinate, an official of the occupation government, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung). Mr. Yee hasn’t achieved …

2007. Starring Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem. Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Good vs evil, circa 1980. Sheriff Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) no longer understands the capacity for evil in his fellow human beings. He feels overmatched. The aging end of a line of gritty Texas lawmen, he struggles to admit to himself that “the dismal tide” is about to overtake him and his kind. “I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job,” he intones as the film begins. “But, I don’t want to push my chips forward and …

1973. Starring Christopher Mitchum. dir. Tulio Demicheli. Death by acid bath. Rifle-butt dentistry. Switchblade castrations. Ricco the Mean Machine delivers everything the DVD cover promises, and then some. Maybe a bit too much. A Spanish production, starring Christopher Mitchum (yep, Robert’s son), who may be the least-bloodthirsty avenger ever portrayed on film. Under long blond hair, Christopher looks a lot like his dad, with a lazy delivery that adds some ruthlessness to this character. Oh, he’ll kill you, but he won’t go out of his way to do it. Mitchum plays Ricco, the son of a organized-crime boss, who doesn’t …