FROZEN RIVER (now playing at home where your freeloading uncle Louie passed out and barfed in your favorite chair)

First time director Courtney Hunt has chosen the stark setting of the Mohawk reservation bordering Canada in upstate New York for Frozen River, a tale that she penned about two women living on the edge who are driven to desperate measures to survive.

Ray (Melissa Leo) is a middle-aged mom trying to raise two kids on her own. At first glance it appears that she's a victim of circumstance--her loser husband has cleared out, and her low paying job isn't bringing in enough scratch to keep up with the bills. But look a little closer and you'll see that most of her troubles are of her own doing, and her own doing is going to be her undoing.

She's trying to upgrade her single-wide trailer to a new double-wide, but can't come up with the balloon payment to get the thing delivered. Meanwhile, she's serving popcorn and Tang to her kids every night for dinner. And why? Because she just shelled out the rest of her cash to hang onto a giant screen TV from the rent-to-own place. In other words, her priorities are out of whack. (If she'd even held onto the money she's been spending on cigarettes, she'd at least been able to upgrade her meals to macaroni and cheese!)

When Ray meets Lila Littlewolf, (Misty Upham) a member of the reservation who's involved in smuggling undocumented aliens (mostly Chinese) across the border into the U.S., the temptation of quick and easy money sucks her in. The two women settle into an uneasy alliance--Lila has the connections, and Ray provides the wheels as the illegals are stuffed into the trunk of her car and ferried across a remote, frozen section of the St. Lawrence river.

Ray is understandably nervous about what she's doing, and intends to get out as soon as she's made enough to get that new double-wide. But things get complicated. With a young Pakistani couple in her trunk, Ray gets spooked and says to her partner, "Let's hope they're not the ones that blow themselves and everyone else up!" She then proceeds to jettison the couple's backpack--for fear of what it might contain--leaving it out in the cold and snow somewhere along their route. But OOPS...the couple's BABY was inside that backpack, and Ray and Lila are sent scrambling back to try to recover it before it's too late.

I don't know if director Courtney Hunt intended for us to feel sympathetic toward Ray as a hapless victim of circumstance, but to me she comes off as callous, ignorant, and a neglectful mother. But even someone like that might opt to do the noble thing in the end.

Leo was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress for her performance in Frozen River. In stark contrast, Misty Upham--a relatively inexperienced actress--probably did the best she could, but was unable to bring any depth to her character. I find it distracting when there's one person in a major role who's constantly drawing attention to herself for the wrong reasons.

There's a kind of beauty in the bleak landscape of Frozen River that a longtime desert dweller such as myself can be seduced by--seeing it on film--but would get my fill of in about two hours if I were actually there. And that's why we go to the movies...to be transported to someplace new and intriguing without--in this case--having to actually don the parka and the mukluks.

GRADE: B

TRANSFORMERS 2: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

Yes, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen is totally BANANAS-- but I like bananas, generally speaking. The transformers are giant shape-shifting robots that fall into two camps: The AUTOBOTS and the DECEPTICONS. Like the Democrats and the Republicans, they've been at war with each other since day one. On their home planet, Cybertron, they battled over Allspark--the energy source that gave them life. The Allspark gets shipped off the planet (Federal Express?) and ends up on Earth. That's the bare bones backstory from the first movie, and now the stage is set in Transformers 2 for the autobots--led by Optimus Prime, and the decepticons, led by Megatron--to battle it out again, this time with the fate of our planet hanging in the balance.

Hapless college student Sam Witwicky, (Shia LaBeouf) who killed Megatron in the first film, is swept up in the conflict again--along with his girlfriend Mikaela, (Megan Fox-the obligatory eye candy for teenage boys) and his parents (Kevin Dunn and Julie White).

Transformers 2 is nearly non-stop action, with a few short breathers here and there--and sometimes it's hard to tell who's beating the living crap out of whom, since one big hulking robot looks pretty much like another (which wouldn't be politically correct to say on Cybertron). It's a big, ostentatious, chaotic, clang and bang fest--and I was just impressed by the sheer immensity and spectacle of it all (but then, I'm impressed by the 4-slice toaster!)

It's kind of like life...you may not know what's going on, but you can still enjoy yourself.

My favorite scene has got to be when Sam's mother gobbles some pot brownies, totally loses it,

and then runs amuck--which I've always wanted to do in a gorilla suit. There's something endearing about a gorilla suit that makes people more forgiving of the one who's running amuck.

There's a lot of off the wall humor in Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen--surprising, and yes, refreshing--since most action/thriller flicks take themselves much more seriously.

But I suppose that, when it comes down to it, what really appeals to me about this film is the many faces of heroism--both human and otherwise. I'd like to think that we'd all step up to the plate if some crazy, two-storied, clanking hulks of scrap metal were fighting and screwing around on top of the pyramids and causing them to, like...start to crumble and stuff. Somebody already messed with the nose on the Sphinx, and I'm still annoyed about that.

And now a word about reviving "dead" characters in sequels. Ever since J.R. Ewing got shot and supposedly died in the TV finale of Dallas in 1980--then got resurrected five years later in a follow up film--TV and screen writers have been playing fast and loose with the facts of life and death in Freddy Krueger-like fashion. A character like Megatron can be killed and revived as many times as may be convenient, when millions of bucks are on the line. The special effects (or computer graphics imagery) are the real stars of these blockbuster movies, and because it takes a lot of time and and a grueling amount of work to design and animate one of these big bad boys, expect that the dead shall rise again in the inevitable third installment.

GRADE: B +

GRAN TORINO (now playing at home where grandma asked if you'd gotten a toupee--but it was just the cat sitting on your head)

In Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood channels the spirit of Dirty Harry--senior citizen style. But it's like a Christmas tree with a shiny star on top and...oops...nothing else to fill out the branches.

Walt Kowalski (Eastwood) is a cantankerous old fart--a decorated Korean war veteran who lives next door to a Hmong family (immigrants from southeast Asia). He's an up front racist--a product of the era he grew up in and his experiences during the war. Living in close proximity with the Hmongs stirs up Walt's old prejudices-- but things gradually begin to thaw, (global warming?) and Walt's humanity begins to peep through when he takes the neighbor boy, Thao, (Bee Vang) under his wing. Thao's a good kid at heart--but he's torn between remaining that way, or getting mixed up with a local street gang.

When his hand is forced, Walt starts kickin' ass and taking names with the gang punks, and this is where Eastwood's scowling Dirty Harry persona emerges for one last hurrah. Walt sums it up when he says: WHAT THE HELL IS IT WITH KIDS, NOWADAYS? If there's any part of Gran Torino you could call satisfying, it's when the gang scum start getting their comeuppance courtesy of the Walt man.

His prized 1972 Gran Torino--which stays mainly motionless (a mistake) in the garage--serves as a symbol for all the old fashioned values (minus the racism) Walt is trying to defend. This would have been a more exciting film if Walt had taken that baby out, gunned the sucker, and chased the gang bangers all around the city while listening to some Glenn Miller music on the radio. But maybe he didn't want to mar the finish.

There's a bit of amusement when Walt attempts to teach Thao to "talk like a man." It's a quaint mixture of B.S. and bravado--the kind of raunchy trash talking guys used to do all the time (and still do when the political correctness police aren't around).

Unfortunately--and there's no other way to say this--the acting in Gran Torino is so awful that it's embarrasing at times. Yes, Eastwood (who produced and directed the film) has surrounded himself with inexperienced actors--but if I run an auto repair shop and Clint is paying me to work on his car, the fact that I may be employing unseasoned mechanics doesn't absolve me of the responsibility to get the job done right. While his fledgling cast mostly drones in monotone, Clint frequently over does it. When he sneers out the side of his mouth, he kinda looks like Popeye.

Too bad, because the screenplay--which is about the triumph of human decency over hate--had a lot of potential. This group just couldn't pull it off.

So I'm sorry to bring you the bad news, Mr. Eastwood...but there's no way in heaven or hell to save this clunker from the scrap heap.

GRADE: D- (and I'm being generous)

WENDY AND LUCY (now playing at home where you're eating on paper plates because you're too lazy to wash the dishes)

Michelle Williams stars in this low budget indie film about a young girl (Williams) and her dog, Lucy, (Lucy) who get sidetracked in a small Oregon town on their road trip from Indiana to Alaska.

Wendy's apparently rootless, and thinks she'll be able to find lucrative work in the "new frontier." But she's on a tight budget, and gets busted trying to shoplift some dog food. With Lucy tied up outside the front of the store, Wendy gets hauled off to the pokey. When she returns, Lucy has disappeared. Then, Wendy's car breaks down, and the bill to fix it is astronomical. The rest of the film follows Wendy around in her frustrating efforts to get her vehicle repaired and to reunite with Lucy. Walter Dalton does a nice job as an old dude security guard who tries to assist Wendy in whatever way he can.

Wendy and Lucy was developed from a short story, and it FEELS like a postmodern short story--with no real plot and an ending with no resolution. Ostensibly, it's a character study, but we learn next to nothing about Wendy's character or motivation--except that she's not very personable--she responds to everyone in a perfunctory sort of way, (is this a hallmark of the current 20-something generation?) and has really bad judgement, as

evidenced by her decision to embark upon a long and clouded journey with finances that would leave her no margin for error. The only glimpse we get into her past is a phone call to whatever semblance of a family she has back in Indiana--and they are just as vapid as she is.

The one thing I did like about Wendy and Lucy is when Wendy wanders upon a homeless camp, the people she encounters there don't have the gleaming, perfect looking ACTORS' TEETH--a pervasive oversight that ruins the authenticity of just about every movie where such types are portrayed. You've got these unshaven, unshowered, grimy looking homeless dudes-- and when they open their mouths, there's a small fortune of cosmetic dental work inside there! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH HOLLYWOOD, ANYWAY? Is it just that they're so disconnected from reality that they don't remember how real people look anymore? Geez, it's easy enough to apply some of that black stuff on there so that you've got a realistic looking toothless person.

Give Wendy and Lucy kudos for being low budget enough to be using real people that obviously didn't require any alteration.

Wendy does truly SEEM to care about her canine companion, and there's some poignancy in the hopes rising-hopes falling aspect of her search for Lucy--but overall, there isn't enough here to sustain you through a jumbo size popcorn, large Coke, and box of Milk Duds. Most of us just expect more out of a feature length film.

GRADE: D

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD (now playing at home where you just blamed that fart on your dog again)

Revolutionary Road--from Richard Yates' 1961 novel-- could have been subtitled: "Lives of UNQUIET Desperation." What came into my head as I watched this bored young suburban couple from the fifties go at each other tooth and nail was a Mexican soap opera, where someone is pissed-off at someone else in every stinking scene. This movie isn't THAT over the top, but it gives you an idea of the predominant tone.

Leonardo DiCaprio is Frank Wheeler, and Kate Winslet is April, his wife. They're the perfect couple, or so their friends believe. But Frank dislikes his job, and April is chronically dissatisfied with...well, LIFE. Some of us are just never going to be content with the nice house with the white picket fence and the 2.3 kids running around in the yard--even though that was the ultimate dream back in the fifties. April feels that she's special--an aspiring actress--but when that doesn't go well, her disappointment is all consuming. So she adopts a new dream. She and Frank will move to Paris, where she'll work as some kind of secretary...or sumpthin.

It's half-baked pie in the sky, but she wins Frank over to the idea. April just wants to LIVE,

so practicality is not her strong suit.

Now, their friends believe that the Wheelers are whacked, but don't dare let on because this was the last decade we had where people were actually polite to one another. But the fire is back in the young couple's eyes as they look forward to their "liberation." Until things start looking up for Frank at work--a promotion--and the bird in the hand begins to look much better to him. Will this be the death of yet another of April's dreams? The pull of security. The pull of freedom. Something we've all struggled with at times.

DiCaprio and Winslet swing for the fences in their fighting scenes--two people in "love" who cross the line and go for the jugular--trying to inflict as much emotional abuse on each other as they can before their shouting match voices give out. Perhaps not since Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? have we witnessed an onscreen couple emit such raw emotion.

Kathy Bates has a turn as realtor Helen Givings-- and Michael Shannon is wickedly delightful as her mathematician son, John, who's on furlough from the mental institution where he's been receiving electric shock treatments. John is a loose cannon, and when he comes a calling, his blunt and prickly assessments of the Wheelers' relationship further stirs up the hornets nest that is their life together. Ironically, John seems to be the only character in Revolutionary Road who has the freedom to be who he wants to be. And I, for one, would love to be able to just rattle off whatever I damn well please and have it dismissed with a wave of the hand and a "Oh, He's not well!" Come to think of it...

Revolutionary Road is, above all, a film about dreams--and how it is often more important to be chasing a dream than to catch up with one. Lose your dreams and you may lose your mind...or worse.

When that happens, it's all over but the shouting.

GRADE: B

THE PROPOSAL

So Sandra Bullock was hitting the TV talk show circuit, promoting The Proposal by playing up her "nude" scene--a first for her. When I think about it, it seems a little odd for a woman to go on national TV and say, HEY--COME CHECK OUT MY BODY, EVERYBODY! It just illustrates how convoluted our moral standards are in this country. If a teacher posted racy photos of herself on the web, she'd lose her job. If a politician fools around on his spouse, it's a big scandal. But actors flaunt convention all the time in their steamy sex scenes...and they even allow it to be filmed! HAVE THEY NO SHAME? Actors are held to no moral standard whatsoever, because it's just "acting"--even though they may exert more influence over a greater number of people (their fans) than any one teacher has over her relative handful of students.

At times, we may feel like knocking other people around a bit to relieve our anger and frustrations. But we don't do that--we watch a football game instead. Actors provide a similar kind of safety valve by portraying things that many of us would LIKE to do ourselves, but know that we'll get into trouble for if we do. And if an actor is really feeling the part, it ain't acting--okay? (Remember, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie fell in love on the movie set.) So they're getting away with it, is my point.

And as to the heretofore mentioned "nekkid" scene--well, kiddies, it's a PG-13 flick, so get your expectations back in line with reality, and understand that there are many creative ways to conceal the naked truth--and Bullock is an expert at it.

And NOW...back to our movie! Margaret (Sandra Bullock) is editor-in-chief at a New York publishing firm. She intimidates all the underlings that inhabit the place, including her assistant, Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds). But she's a Canadian citizen, and a snafu with her visa may result in her getting kicked out of the country...unless...AHA! She'll get Andrew to agree to a sham marriage (and later, a quickie divorce) and the problem will go away. Andrew goes along with it--he knows she's in a vulnerable position--and he can squeeze some concessions out of her. Like publishing his novel, for one thing. But there's an Immigration guy (Denis O'Hare) who is on to them from the beginning, and he hounds them all the way to Alaska where they've gone to meet Andrew's family, just to make the charade appear legit. The gang that plays Andrew's family: Mary Steenburgen, (mom) Craig T. Nelson, (pop) and Betty White ("Gammy") embodies inspired casting. And you can always count on something coming out of Betty White's mouth that's off the wall and unexpected. If you've never been to Alaska, (one of my old stomping grounds) you need to see this movie just to get a taste of how pristine and downright gorgeous the place is.

You can sniff out the ending of this one early on--in fact, you can pretty much figure out how ANY romantic comedy is going to go, once the premise is laid out. But that doesn't count as a strike against The Proposal. A rom com is a rom com is a rom com...and when in Rome, you do as the Romans do (unless you're the pope). In short, the leading couple is going to end up happy, one way or another. Where romantic comedies succeed is in sowing the seeds of doubt among non-film critics as to whether that happy ending is actually going to come about, as they cross their fingers and hope against hope that it will.

Going in, I had this one pegged as more lighthearted fluff--Sandra Bullock's stock in trade. But DAMN, it's so nice when a movie exceeds your expectations by a mile and then some. Lighthearted fluff in the minds of some, perhaps-- but this is a beautiful film. Not only cinematically, but in spirit as well. And it's genuinely funny.

The Proposal was made the way they used to make movies...with tremendous heart and devotion to the craft. I say you better see it.

GRADE: A-

(I'm only taking off a few points for the "too much ado" nekkid scene.)

POWDER BLUE (now playing at home where your dog has just chewed the buttons off your favorite shirt)

Powder Blue is and indie film that has the key elements an R-rated feature SHOULD have-- that's nudity and cussing--PLUS an interesting cast, and a fairly compelling story to tell. It's sort of a poor man's Crash, as it follows the exploits of four lonely souls whose lives intertwine in L.A. during the holidays.

Forrest Whitaker is Charlie, an individual so messed up that he goes around offering strangers money to shoot him and put him out of his misery. If I see one more movie about somebody who wants to die because he screwed up his life (like this one and the disturbing Seven Pounds with Will Smith) I"m going to go jump off a building! Each of us needs to play the hand we were dealt, otherwise what kind of a damn Texas Hold 'em poker game would this be? Anyway, there's more to Charlie than what's revealed in the beginning. Whitaker, with an Oscar already resting on his mantle, works for his supper as a tortured soul who's reached the end of his rope.

Rose-Johnny (Jessica Biel) is a stripper, (and also desperate...for love) with a young son on a life support system and near death. On top of THAT, she loses her dog! Qwerty Doolittle, ( Eddie Redmayne-- and I think "Qwerty" must stand for quirky here) who works as an embalmer at a funeral home, finds the pooch and that initiates his connection to Rose-Johnny. By all appearances they're an unlikely pair, but my uncle Viggo used to eat cucumber and marshmallow sandwiches, so there's no accounting for taste.

Ray Liotta plays Jack Doheny, an ex-con whose poor health may send him to an early demise. Jack has a thing for Rose-Johnny and goes to see her at the strip club. He obtains a private session with her, then pushes her off of him when she's just doing her job by trying to get him all hot and bothered. Because the film did hold my interest, I'm giving Powder Blue a pass on some of its unrealistic elements--but THAT scene, and all the others like it in dozens of movies I've seen over the years where some guy "nobly" rejects the advances of a sexy woman because he just wants to TALK...well, I just sit there and yell at the screen: ARE YOU A MAN, OR WHAT? Of the four primary characters, Jack's motivations are the most baffling. He becomes a kind of sugar daddy to Rose-Johnny, who reluctantly relents to it, for a while. It seems that Jack may be trying to vicariously re-live his past with an old love through Rose-Johnny.

Patrick Swayze, Lisa Kudrow, and Kris Kristofferson all have minor roles. You've never seen Swayze as such a blatant stereotype, and may not recognize him at first. And I hate to say this, because I've always liked him as a song writer, but Kris Kristofferson is a crummy actor.

Besides the obvious comparison to Crash, Powder Blue also borrows from The Shining-- in a scene that I won't give away--but you'll recognize it.

In the end, some of these quirky folks find redemption and a chance to move on, while others end up face first in the crapper.

But that's L.A. for you.

GRADE: B-