Rating: (3 of 4)

Before I start this edition's review, I'd like to apologize to anyone out there who's actually paying attention. In my last review, I made a typographical error and said that the release year of Spirited Away was 1991 when it was in fact 2001. (Oh, and if you haven't seen that movie yet, what in the world are you waitng for?)

Anyway, on to the good stuff:

There are few things I like more than picking up a promising-looking movie that I've never heard of made by a director I've never heard of and starring actors I've never heard of, watching it, and finding that it wasn't anything like a waste of my time. Such a film was Simple Men by director Hal Hartley. The only people in this film who I've seen before at all were two actors from a film called Nadja, which I do not recommend seeing under any circumstances.

Simple Men, on the other hand, is quite recommendable. The acting is passable if not award-winning, the writing is quick and witty most of the time (though once or twice it sounds like it was written by a pretentious, talentless film student), and it's got all that other good stuff that makes a movie worth watching, like characters and a plot you can't help being interested in. It had several very good parts, mostly comedic, and hardly anything that turned me off.

I've since read that Simple Men isn't one of Hartley's better films... I shall investigate, and perhaps we'll have another of his films next time around? Come back in three weeks for the exciting conclusion.

Chalk another one up for the little guys. This $141,000-grossing flick is well worth a rent and "APPROX. 105 MIN." of your time.

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