For me there are two Peter Sellars movies, The Pink Panther and Dr. Strangelove. Both are very different movies and Sellars is very different in each one. One thing is true of both movies and of Sellars in both movies and that is they are fall down funny movies. Originally The Pink Panther was to be a movie for David Niven and follow more of a James Bond like theme. Thank goodness for comedy that didn’t happen. The sad thing about us gaining a Peter Sellars is that this movie killed David Niven’s career.

For those that have not seen it, the movie The Pink Panther is about the famous French Inspector Clouseau in search of world renown jewel thief, The Phantom. Years earlier Princess Dala has been presented a rare gem, the largest of its kind in the world. Princess Dala goes on holiday and the jewel is stolen. It is thought that The Phantom has taken the gem. Hilarity ensues as Clouseau goes about hunting down the Phantom and the jewel.

With the invention of the character Inspector Jaques Clouseau, Sellars and writer Blake Edwards (with the help of Maurice Richlin) created one of the great movie icons of cinema history. Clouseau is as funny as he is inept. Peter Sellars cemented his film legend with this part. His timing and comedic performance are unmatched. His understated delivery is funny but also some great acting. This film would take Sellars from tortured auteur to movie star. David Niven who plays the part of the fine English man Sir Charles Lytton is brilliant and completely deadpan. Though at the time his performance may have been considered debonair, in 2009 it is viewed as a caricature of a James Bond. There are so many subtle jokes and references a first time viewer will easily be able to find this movie as fresh as the day it was released.****/**** •

• The U.S. poster for The Pink Panther is classic and very collectible. The foreign posters have the same artwork but with altered titles and background colors and are not as desirable. The original U.S. poster shown here was created by Jack Rickard who designed other posters for movies such as The Fortune Cookie starring Jack Lemmon and Uptown Saturday Night starring Sidney Portier and Bill Cosby. Jack Rickard is well known for his illustration style and his long running stint with Mad Magazine.

BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 

Frost/Nixon 

Milk 

The Reader 

Slumdog Millionaire

The Reader (2008) review

The film smacks us right away as a series of moral dilemmas. Certainly contrived by author Bernhard Schlink, whose original original The Reader was an international bestseller. Schlink, a lawyer/judge who usually writes detective stories. He broke with his writing and took on the novel which becomes a meditation on Nazism and takes on the denial of the surviving participants and the incomprehension of Germans like Michael who were born in the aftermath. The questions are fair ones—that perhaps resonate more deeply in the 21st Century. What of the role of guilt in victims, guilt of the perpetrators, guilt of the individuals and the collective. What of the justice, the forgiveness, redemption and of course, literacy and the role in Western thought.

All of this is a pretty heady stuff for any film to take on its shoulders. The director, Stephen Daldry (The Hours) pulls all of this together with help from David Hare’s screenplay and the remarkable cinematography of Roger Deakins together with a sensitive score by Nico Muhly, this is indeed rarefied film-making.

The story pulls us into post-WWII Germany when teenager Michael Berg (David Cross) becomes ill and is helped home by Hanna, a stranger twice his age (Kate Winslet). Naturally, when Michael recovers from scarlet fever and seeks out his healer Hanna to thank her, the two become passionate. David Kross is amazing as the young Michael. Some say the key role in the film. As the two are quickly drawn into this passionate but secretive affair, Michael discovers that Hanna loves being read to and their physical relationship deepens. Despite their intense bond, Hanna mysteriously disappears one day. Michael is left heartbroken.

Eight years later, while Michael is a law student observing the Nazi war crime trials, he is stunned to find Hanna – this time as a defendant in the courtroom. As Hanna’s past is revealed, Michael uncovers a deep secret that will impact both of their lives. The Reader is a wonderful story.

Kate Winslet is magnificent, especially her scenes with the wonderful David Kross are filled with compelling, contradictory and totally believable undertones. I think the problems with the film on the shoulders of director Stephen Daldry. Some of the scenes are confusing and painfully long with little point. His other films like “Billy Elliot” and “The Hours” have some of the same issues with long drawn out scenes. Ralph Fiennes who I always find to be amazing in everything he does, has some wonderful moments with Winslet and they are able to keep the mood almost haunting of what could have been.

In the end we are left with a good movie, but one that could have been better. The acting is superb with some surprising feelings. The oscar nomination will find this movie an audience that it might not have found otherwise, ***/**** •.

• The posters for the film are all designed the same way with snippets of the face thing either done on small or large scale. Clean lines give it a classic look, but I think they could have gone retro WWII with it and done a better job and pulled more audiences to see it.