Eros

The anthology movie has not been popular in recent years. Perhaps Eros is a good example of why. It features "erotic" films by three reasonably decent directors, but only one of the shorts winds up being reasonably decent. The first, and most excruciatingly dull and insulting, is Wong Kar Wai’s nicely filmed and incredibly derivative "The Hand." It has little to recommend it, unless you want to see a by-the-numbers story of unrequited love. After that, things pick up a good deal with Steven Soderbergh’s "Equilibrium." This one is ingeniously shot (by Soderbergh himself) in a manner that craftily blurs the distinction between dream and reality. Plus, it stars Alan Arkin and Robert Downey Jr., who are so good that one of them should be sent to prison. It’s lightweight entertainment, but it’s successful at that. The final segment is by Michelangelo Antonioni, and it seems to be a parody of a film by Michelangelo Antonioni. I laughed throughout it, but I think maybe it’s an unintentional parody, in which case it’s easily one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen. So, on the whole, this film gets 1 out of 3. You might as well wait for it to come out on DVD and then not buy it.