La Dolce Vita, 2 stars

Fear of sounding like a philistine kept me silent for quite a while about the fact that I simply did not like this movie. However, I finally feel free to say it: My name is Brooke, and I did not like “La Dolce Vita”.

Never before has a film so highly regarded in the canon disappointed me so greatly. Its sin was not to be offensive; while I don’t particularly care for “Salo”, I respect its boundary-pushing and don’t begrudge it an inclusion on anyone’s great films list. Nor was it impenetrable; you’re talking to one of the great evangelists for “Last Year at Marienbad” here. I have no problem with a movie making an artful sort of nonsense. No, “La Dolce Vita”’s sin was that it bored me.

I am not a newcomer to Fellini, as anyone who knows me well is already aware. In fact, I adore “8 ½” and am generally fond of many of his other works despite our differing sensibilities. (Give me one mid-century European art-house director’s films for a desert island, and I’m going to take Bergman every time.) However, “La Dolce Vita” had me checking my watch in several places as it appeared that entire scenes were taking place for no reason. Whole conversations would pass without a single interesting line and without any discernible point.

The plot concerns a playboy who has grown disillusioned with his life of endless parties and women and seeks out a series of escapes from the “sweet life” to which he has grown accustomed. None work, however, and he ends the film resigned to continue living the life of pleasure he is immune to enjoying. I could understand the point of long, seemingly endless scenes at parties as a way to make the audience understand the plight of our hero. However, these scenes also contain no poetry, no sense of connection; the filmmaker has aligned himself instead with the bores our hero longs to escape.

Roger Ebert adores this film and claims that it improves with viewings throughout life. I admit to the possibility that I will see this film again in my forties or fifties just to see if his opinion, which I so greatly respect, but for now I must file it under “possibly misunderstood, probably just overrated”.

He's Just Not That Into You, 2 stars

Boy, I have now forgotten how this wound up in my queue in the first place. I blame a certain girly emotion which compels me to rent otherwise unappealing, unfeminist trash out of a misguided desire to see a happy ending and love conquering all. (See also "The Holiday".) The happy ending is provided in this particular film, but at the expense of any pretense of believability.

Speaking of believability, it is somewhat remarkable that this movie even exists in the first place. It's based on a book whose title came from a throwaway line in a "Sex and the City" episode. The book itself is not a work of fiction and has no characters. It is instead a collection of witty self-help aphorisms about relationships. (The one time I encountered the book, I turned to a random page which warned me away from having post-breakup sex.) From a book with no characters now comes a film with too many. There are at least four main couples and several peripheral characters, none of whom seem to know how to be honest or even verbalize their desires properly. We have a married music exec who can't keep it in his pants when hot young singers come sniffing for connections. There's the classic woman pushing 40 whose boyfriend refuses to commit to marriage. The film's most annoying couple is composed of a clingy simpering woman who is Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction inexplicably played for laughs. She meets her perfect match in the Mac Guy. Come to think of it, maybe that's what he deserves for so many smarmy, sanctimonious commercials.

If all of this sounds overstuffed and tired, that's because it is. Many talented actors are thrust into the film and left to spin their wheels for the movie's two-hour-plus (!) running time. Jennifer Connelly appears to have wandered here from the set of "A Beautiful Mind"; her weepy, put-upon-wife schtick works less well here when her husband has made the understandable decision to cheat on her with Scarlett Johansson. Jennifer Aniston plays another thinly disguised version of herself, and poor Ginnifer Goodwin (who I hear is actually pretty good in Big Love) is given such a thankless and annoying role that I would actively avoid seeing her in anything again. A pity, because she may well have talent that this film didn't have room for. Overall, the film is offensive, stereotypical, and an insult to intelligent romantic films like Annie Hall or Before Sunrise.

Gunnin' For That #1 Spot, 2 stars

Either I am old or this movie has an attention deficit problem. (I refuse to entertain the notion that both might be true.) Here we have a documentary about the crème de le crème of high school basketball players and an exhibition game they play in Harlem. This is all well and good, the boys are talented and the game itself is fluid and hypnotic. At least, it is so when the editor of the film has not stepped all over the footage. My chief gripe with the film's style is twofold. First, the editing of the actual game is choppy and showy, and from the score progressions we see it is clear that some pivotal shots have been cut out. Occasionally we see the shot that ties the score or causes a lead change, but at other times that shot has clearly been left on the editing floor. A more comprehensive, flowing editing style would have served the material better. Secondly, when we are introcuced to each player we are shown a mock Googling of the player, with multiple windows opening and showing us an overview of media coverage of this or that young man. I am by no means a Luddite. All told, I probably spend five hours or more online each day. That being said, I do not go to a film to see the browsing experience recreated onscreen. Have we learned nothing from "The Net"? It is still not exciting to watch people use cmputers onscreen, despite the advances in Internet technology since then. When these montages begin, you can almost hear the worries of the filmmakers that skillful sportsmanship alone will not be enough to hold the attention of younger viewers.

Those of you who know me well may think this an odd choice of material for me. I admit that this was watched on one of the nights when it was not my turn to pick the movie. However, I was interested in Adam Yauch's filmmaking technique, as I am generally intrigued when artists from other disciplines decide to dabble in film. The topic seemed to have potential. Unfortunately, clearly visible pandering took the film down several notches and left me wishing someone had just turned on a camera from the bleachers of Rucker Park and let these kids play.