11. And the ability of European filmmakers and actors to work in English means that those films can take place anywhere. 12. And the film takes such liberties with the book that the novelist is incensed. 13. And through the decades, New York City police films have taken an extravagant number of liberties. 14. And, of course, profitability depends not only on how much the films take in but how much they cost to make. 15. As it detects increasingly vital signs of life behind the absurd surfaces that Mendes presents so beautifully, the film takes on a gravity to match its evil zest. 16. As slick as these mechanical treats are, they become too much, as if the film took a break from the story to run through a fun house. 17. At certain points in the movie the audience is asked to push buttons to vote on the direction the film will take. 18. Both films take blood-spattered, quasi-erotic myths and reduce them in the end to simple nuclear-family equations. 19. Both films take place mostly in a cigar store. 20. But feature films take years to produce. |