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1408 The haunted house flick gets downsized for 1408, a fairly effective creepshow in which our protagonist only has to worry about a haunted room. But what a room! Hack writer Mike Enslin (an excellent John Cusack) has built a career penning guide books on supposedly haunted locales across America, even though he doesn't believe for a minute in the supernatural. So when he receives a postcard from the Dolphin Hotel in New York telling him not to enter the establishment's room 1408, he scoffs at the warning but elects to check it out anyway. At first, the spooky proceedings are kept on a low-key simmer, and as long as the movie plays it close to the vest, it works beautifully: The initial meeting between Enslin and hotel manager Gerald Olin (Samuel L. Jackson) is suitably tart (indeed, the movie could have used a lot more of Mr. Jackson), and director Mikael Hafstrom, rebounding from the godawful Jennifer Aniston thriller Derailed, milks a lot of tension out of Enslin's slow-burn realization that this might indeed be, as Olin put it, "an evil fucking room." But scripters Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski don't just adapt Stephen King's short story; they stick a helium tank needle into it and expand it to grotesque proportions. The small-scale shudders eventually give way to special effects blowouts, while the movie ends up with so many plot tentacles that some are either underdeveloped (Enslin's relationship with his dad) or forgotten completely (who exactly sent the postcard?). Still, let's not complain too much: As far as recent King adaptations go, 1408 runs the numbers better than most. **1/2
LA VIE EN ROSE Say what one must about La Vie En Rose, but there's no arguing the excellence of the performance at the center of this ambitious and erratic biopic about French singing sensation Edith Piaf. Piaf's life contained enough drama to fill 10 HBO miniseries, and here director and co-writer Oliver Dahan attempts to cram it all into one 140-minute motion picture. Faithful in some instances, negligent in others, he has nevertheless fashioned a screen biography that employs some tricks of the trade (hopscotching between different decades, moments of stark surrealism) to allow this to break away from the generally staid biopic form. His film isn't always successful, but it always remains watchable, thanks primarily to the fervent turn by Marion Cotillard. In the same manner as Jamie Foxx with Ray Charles and Reese Witherspoon with June Carter Cash, Cotillard doesn't play the role as much as become possessed by it. From a feisty waif singing for her supper on the mean Parisian streets, to the regal songbird known internationally as La Mome Piaf ("The Little Sparrow"), to the emotionally and physically battered woman who still managed to successfully headline concerts (in this respect, she and Judy Garland had much in common), Cotillard is an indomitable force as she eats, breathes and sleeps every moment up until Piaf's early death at the age of 47. As a movie, La Vie En Rose est bon. But as a performer, Marion Cotillard est magnifique. ***
LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD Entertainment Weekly almost had it right when a recent cover story named 1988's Die Hard the best action movie ever made (but over Raiders of the Lost Ark? Come on ...). Bruce Willis returns to his signature role of John McClane for the fourth time, and the twist here is that the aging detective finds himself battling cyber-terrorists who threaten to shut down the entire United States with a few strokes of a keyboard. The movie's billing itself as the story of an "analog" cop living in a "digital" age, and we all know what that means. No mouse pads or monitors for our hero; instead, it's all flying fists, rapid-fire weaponry and explosions. Lots of explosions. Yet even director Len Wiseman and scripter Mark Bomback don't have complete faith in the cop's old-fashioned heroics since they saddle him with a sidekick (Justin Long) who's a genius when it comes to computers. An overlong running time allows matters to occasionally become stale (the blueprint calls for our protagonists to evade, fight, escape, repeat), although Willis does his part by tossing out those patented McClane quips with aplomb. And while there's no denying that the picture is packed with memorable action sequences, the film often collapses into a heap of silliness, with McClane surviving some encounters that would tax all sorts of leaps of logic. The appeal of the character has always been that he's Everyman, not Superman. Yet Live Free Or Die Hard blows that train of thought to smithereens; Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes gang can only wish they could do some of the things John McClane executes so effortlessly here. **1/2