Gran Torino, Defiance, Hotel for Dogs, Confessions of a Shopaholic

Next door lives a large family of Hmong immigrants, including two young siblings, shy Thao (Bee Vang) and spunky Sue (Ahney Her), who tries to break through Walt´s gruff barrier and won´t take no for an answer. The local gang tries to initiate Thao into their ranks by having him steal Walt´s pristine 1972 Gran Torino; that doesn´t go too well, with Thao finding himself staring at the barrel of Walt´s rifle. But instead of animosity between the neighbors, Sue and her family insist Thao pays off his debt by doing work for Walt, who is forced to take on the kid, and teach him to become a man in the process. Walt´s prejudice is eventually broken down, as he finds himself getting to know his Hmong neighbors, and enjoying it.

Two years after Eastwood was mostly ignored at awards time with a pair of excellent films, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, he has been largely ignored again with another pair of excellent films, Changeling and Torino – for my money, each better than any of the 2008 Best Picture Oscar nominees. Payback, perhaps, for the less-deserving Million Dollar Baby taking the Best Pic award in 2004. An inconsistent (but mostly good) director throughout much of his career, Eastwood, nearing 80, has become the best working US director during the past five years.

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Daniel Craig stars as Tuvia Bielski, who along with brothers Zus (Liev Schreiber), Asael (Jamie Bell), and young Aron (George MacKay), takes to the forest after the rest of their family has been slaughtered in Eastern Poland (now Belarus). The four brothers soon meet other Jews taking refuge in the forests, and unite with them despite concerns of being able to care for too many others. Tuvia returns to the village to take revenge on those responsible for killing his family, but soon after he returns, and the group of outcasts increases, he realizes his responsibility is to protect and care for his people, rather than, as other partisan groups and resistance fighters in the area, attack German forces.

Orphaned Andi (Emma Roberts) and her younger brother Bruce (Jake T. Austin) try to survive city life with their evil wannabe rocker foster parents (Lisa Kudrow and Kevin Dillon), under the watchful eyes of benevolent social services officer Bernie (Don Cheadle). They have a scrappy dog, Friday, whom they have to hide from their foster parents, eventually letting him stay at an abandoned hotel with two other canine pals. And then, well, the dogs keep on coming, and some kind kids from the local pet shop donate their time to help look after them. Eventually, they rescue more strays from the clutches of evil dogcatchers, and the titular Hotel for Dogs is founded, with Rube Goldberg-like devices created by Bruce so the mutts can entertain themselves.

With a better cast than you´d expect for this kind of material, including a feisty Isla Fisher in the lead, P.J. Hogan´s Confessions of a Shopaholic is about as good as one could reasonably expect. And unlike other films skewed to the same demographic, Sex and the City, The Women, and (shudder) Bride Wars, this one actually confronts materialism to a reasonable degree. Of course, given the current economic climate, does the movie do true justice to the effects of shopaholism? No, but I´ll be waiting for the film that does.

Fisher, in a role that should elevate her the level of semi-stardom enjoyed by Amy Adams (and you´ll forgive me if I cannot tell the two apart), stars as Rebecca Bloomwood, a woman who makes her latest purchase with $50 in cash and $70 split between three different credit cards. She´s just lost her job, has racked up an impossible level of debt over the years, and is currently being chased by a persistent collector, who she claims is an ex-boyfriend stalker to avoid embarrassment and have security drag him away. The depressing reality of this situation, that I´d like to see.

But no, this is Jerry Bruckheimer-produced fantasy. So Rebecca somehow gets a gig at a financial magazine, where she advises readers on consumer caution, all the while keeping an eye on her dream job at sister magazine Alette, a fashion rag run by a French-accented Kristen Scott Thomas. She romances Brit boss Luke (Hugh Dancy), struggles through some shopaholic support-group meetings, and visits her parents (John Goodman & Joan Cusack), who inform her that they´ve spent all their savings. Eventually, Rebecca makes a big splash with her financial column, but will her true shopaholic nature reveal itself and threaten her job? Oh, what irony.