Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Kirpianuscus The games of characters, the atmosphere of South , the brilliant performance of Kevin Specey and the fascinating work of John Cusack are pieces of a great movie about guilty, truth, desires and their high price. an innocent writer, a rich man, clues and a death as key of dark rooms of the life of community. and, always, the ambiguity between what you see and what you know. sure, the references to "Citizen Kane" iis obvious. maybe, too obvious. but , like it, it is a film about the fragility and shadows of a world more than a man. a film of large games. games of destiny or only sketches of a mind who knows the rules of life.

Hitchcoc I think Eastwood did a good directing job, but should have left about 25% on the cutting room floor. It's a good story, with Cusack being the eyewitness to Spacey's millionaire eccentricities. Spacey is one of the most threatening figures in all of acting. Cusack's character is merely a vehicle for the story. Part of the problem for me is the supernatural stuff. The story could have stood on its own without all that voodoo stuff. Also, the character of Chablis, while entertaining at times, gets really tiresome. His/Her appearance in the courtroom is a big disappointment. This person is there for comic relief but really doesn't advance the plot, other than to show us how open minded Cusack's character is. Shorten this film by a half hour and she the superfluities, and it becomes taut and gripping. I did enjoy the defense attorney with his "aw shucks" mentality (Who's Hobbes?), but without our favorite villain, it was not great. Also, the conclusion was too much. Stop it right there.

ThatMOVIENut Clint Eastwood directs this tale of murder, society and deceit set in Savannah. Wealthy socialite Jim Williams (Spacey) invites writer John Kelso (Cusack) to cover one of his highly esteemed parties at Christmas. However, complications arise when a man, an acquaintance of Williams' is shot following an argument over money. Kelso decides to stick around and write up the case, but is there more going on here than meets the eye? Guilty of overstuff, Eastwood's adaptation of the novel is well acted and directed, but several elements, most prominently a voodoo shaman (hence the story's title), go nowhere or add to the themes of power, relationships and prejudice. At two and half hours, it just feels like screenwriter John Lee Hancock didn't know what else to cut (apparently, the one trial of the film was four in reality), and so there are strands here that simply don't add to the main thrust of the narrative as we learn more about what really happened with Williams. The voodoo aspect is maybe 10% of the film, and is honestly only here because it explains the title, and an event that happens later in the film that has an alternate explanation.Still, those elements don't entirely eclipse a fairly engaging legal drama, giving you a decent lens into the investigation and methods of the trial, as well as a stellar performance from Spacey. He's alternately charming and smooth, a man you'd like to be around, yet you sense something's amiss and that's there more going on under the surface. Plus, the film has a good sense of humour about itself, be it with Williams or with Lady Chablis, a transgender performer who has ties to the victim and often plays around with Kelso, including a pretty fun bit in an ER.In the end 'Midnight' is in the mid tier of Eastwood's filmography: well made and entertaining, but bloated and maybe needed a rethink or different writer to tighten it up. Still, it's leagues better than 'J. Edgar' or some of his recent works.

James Hitchcock As an actor Clint Eastwood tended to specialise in action movies; although there were occasional exceptions such as "Play Misty for Me", his default settings were "tough cowboy" or "tough cop", occasionally "tough soldier" or "tough spy". As a director, however, he has had a wider range, alternating action films with other genres, as in the recent musical biopic "Jersey Boys". His "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" is partly a crime drama, but it is also much more than that. Jim Williams, a wealthy businessman from Savannah, Georgia is charged with murder following the death of his gay lover Billy Hanson. Williams admits shooting Hanson but claims that the killing was self-defence, an explanation which may well be true as Hanson, an alcoholic and drug abuser, had a notoriously unpredictable temper and had been heard making threats against Williams. When I saw the film recently I assumed that the story was a fictitious one and that John Berendt's book on which it is based must be a novel. In fact, the book is a work of non-fiction based upon real-life events which took place in the 1980s. Jim Williams was a real person, as is his lawyer Sonny Seiler. (Seiler appears in the movie playing not himself but the presiding judge at the trial). John Kelso, the reporter covering the case, is based on Berendt himself and Hanson on Williams's real- life lover Danny Hansford. Some changes were, however, made for dramatic purposes in the film. In reality Williams was actually tried four times when juries failed to agree, making him the only man in the history of Georgia to stand four times for the same alleged crime. (He was eventually acquitted, but died shortly afterwards). Here, however, the four trials are combined into one. The film is more than just a courtroom thriller, although the trial plays an important part. It is also a portrait of Southern society in the late twentieth century. The city of Savannah almost features as a character in its own right, genteel but faded in best Southern Gothic style, with its genteel but faded houses, dating back to the pre-Civil War era, inhabited by genteel but faded families, some of them also dating back to the pre-Civil War era. There are a number of colourful or eccentric characters, such as the black drag queen Lady Chablis (apparently another real-life individual, here playing herself), the voodoo priestess Minerva, a man who regularly takes an imaginary dog for a walk and another who goes everywhere accompanied by flies and makes regular threats to poison the city's water supply. Remarkably, this last is selected as a juror at Williams's trial without either side objecting to him, despite his obvious mental instability. It is Minerva who carries out, at Williams's behest, the bizarre voodoo ceremony which gave the book and film their title; she explains that the period before midnight is the time for good magic and the period after midnight that for evil magic. Films set in the South- "To Kill a Mockingbird" being a good example- often revolve around issues of race and social class, to which this one adds issues of sexual identity and sexual orientation. Savannah is portrayed as a deeply traditional place, dominated by its traditional leading families. Not all of these are white; Kelso is invited to a black debutantes' ball which seems to have been organised with the express purpose of demonstrating that the city has its black aristocracy as well as a white one. We learn that Williams is a nouveau-riche parvenu from a humble social background, but he is accepted by the elite because his style, elegance and gentlemanly ways mean that he has learned to behave like one of them. Although the elite traditionally disapproves of homosexuality in principle they turn a blind eye to his relationship with Hanson, partly because he keeps it discreet and partly because the bisexual Hanson- the "good time not yet had by all"- has had love affairs with several members of that elite, both men and women. Lady Chablis is also tolerated, largely because people find her amusing, but when Kelso tries to take her as his guest to the debutantes' ball she is decidedly not welcome. There are two excellent acting performances. The first comes from Kevin Spacey as Williams, whose pose as a quiet, elegant Southern gentleman may hide some murky secrets. The second comes from Jack Thompson as Sonny Seiler, a larger-than-life, ebullient character who, like his client, may be putting up a facade. Seiler's outward persona, which he uses to charm juries, is that of the simple Southern "good ol' boy", but there can be no doubt that beneath it he is hiding a razor-sharp legal brain. Hanson is played by Jude Law who in the same year (1997) also played the homosexual lover of an older man in "Wilde", where he was Lord Alfred Douglas to Stephen Fry's Oscar Wilde.When the came out film critical reviews were mixed and it was not a success at the box office. Yet to my mind it should have been. It is a good example of Eastwood's directorial ability- others include "Unforgiven" and the more recent "Gran Torino"-to combine the conventions of various types of action movie- the Western, the war film or the crime thriller- with some sharp social comment, thus producing something which not only works well as a drama but also says something of greater significance. 8/10