TOWERING 'BABEL'
There's a shuddering moment in “Babel,” the powerful film from the talented Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu. It takes place at the border in Tecate. Gael García Bernal is chauffeuring his aunt and the two small children she cares for back in San Diego, when he faces off with a threatening Border Patrolman played by Clifton Collins Jr.
The aunt (wondrous Adriana Barraza) had shepherded the kids to her son's wedding in Tijuana after their parents (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) couldn't make it back home from a harrowing vacation ordeal in Morocco.
On the way into the U.S., the car is searched, and a dangerous tension erupts between Collins, empowered by the weapon on his belt, and the fidgety, anxious Bernal. The brief encounter in a 21/2-hour film in which six languages (including sign language) are spoken reflects the story's theme – how crucial understanding is among people from different cultures.
Pitt, now an influential Hollywood producer (“Running with Scissors”), does some of his best acting as a family man trapped in an isolated, foreign setting, far from his Rancho Santa Fe-like comfort zone.
In a movie that has something simple and profound to say about communication, Pitt does just that.
CULTURED PEARL
“Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” is politically incorrect, offensive, outrageous, twisted – and incredibly funny. You'll laugh, mortified that you did.
“Borat” is the naive, anti-Semitic, misogynistic character created by the British satirist Sacha Baron Cohen, “Da Ali G,” himself. In this brisk, 80-minute riot, Borat is touring the U.S. for his government, gathering vignettes to include in a documentary.
In one harrowing scene, he sings “The Star Spangled Banner” with his own mangled words at a Southern rodeo, and it almost gets him killed. Then there's nude wrestling with his obese producer.
At the beginning, Borat tells viewers:
“Thanks you for watching my film, I hope you like.” We like.
CONSIDER THESE MORSELS
There's a hefty serving of Thanksgiving films on the way, and the trailer for one of them, “For Your Consideration,” had an audience about to watch “The Queen” at Hillcrest Cinemas roaring. It's the latest from the bent mind of director Christopher Guest (“Best in Show”). In this one, he guides an independent film called “Home for Purim,” which unexpectedly and inappropriately gets Academy Award buzz. It had “The Queen” crowd buzzing.
Others (opening Nov. 22) are “Deck the Halls,” Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito as feuding neighbors; “The Fountain,” Hugh Jackman journeying through the ages to save the woman he loves; “Deja Vu,” Denzel Washington as an ATF agent saving people before they know it; “Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny,” with wonderboys Jack Black and Kyle Gass, and “Bobby” (Thanksgiving Day), director Emilio Estevez on the assassination of Bobby Kennedy.
