染血将军的凯旋

　　Women on the Run. Vera has lived a wonderful life with Jindrich, and she is fully determined to fulfill his last wish - running a marathon. The emancipated and spirited mother of three daughters doesn't think that doing so will be a problem. She and her daughters will split up the route into four parts, and they'll overcome the over 42-kilometer-long challenge as a family relay team. Of course, the fact that neither of them has ever ran even a meter poses no problem.

　　Siskel and Ebert once ran a special show entitled "Movies I'm Embarrassed to Admit I Liked." I suppose that if I composed such a list of guilty pleasures, this one would be one of them . . . but upon reflection, it's really a lot better than that. Fifteen year-old science prodigy Mitch (Gabe Jarret) is recruited by ambitious college professor William Atherton (in yet another of his patented roles as a loathsome character) to work on the professor's prize laser project, not knowing that the prof is really developing a government weapon. Along the way, Mitch is befriended by Chris (Val Kilmer), another prodigy a few years his senior who teaches the Mitch how to loosen up.
　　This could have degenerated into nothing more than just another teen revenge comedy, but there's so much more: the dialogue is laced with sharp wit there are some lovely scenes that have nothing to do with the story yet are carefully set up, almost as blackouts (e.g., Mitch goes to a lecture at which a few students have left tape recorders instead of attending later, at another lecture there are more tape recorders than students and, in a final scene, one large tape recorder gives the lecture to a room populated by nothing but other small recorders!) and throw-away scenes that make you want to stop and back up the tape (e.g., Chris off-handedly cutting a slice off a bar of solid nitrogen to make a slug for the coffee machine).
　　It's also one of the few movies to boast the presence of the memorable Michelle Meyerink -- as Jordan, the "girl-nerd" who made being smart and female something to be emulated. And there's Tears for Fears great song, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" providing the perfect coda as the closing credits begin to roll . . . . Yes: really now, what's there to be embarrassed about?

　　伯克曼一家正面临一场家庭危机。老爸伯纳德（杰夫·丹尼尔斯 Jeff Daniels 饰）事业正在走下坡路，曾是畅销作家的他如今变得湮没无闻，反而是妻子琼（劳拉·琳妮 Laura Linney 饰）而今在写作上声名鹊起，令伯纳德倍感落差，并选择用尖酸刻薄嘴脸面对妻子的成功，二人不得不面临婚姻破裂的结局。两个儿子必定要因父母关系受到困扰。大儿子沃尔特（杰西·艾森伯格 Jesse Eisenberg 饰）16岁了，正值青春萌动，他坚决站在父亲一边，不料自己喜欢的女生竟然上了父亲的床；小儿子弗兰克（欧文•克莱恩 Owen Kline 饰）12岁，将父母离婚视作世界末日，甚至开始喝酒，因支持母亲变得和哥哥势不两立。一家四口的不知所措深深印在两个孩子的成长里面……