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M-O-T-H-E-R

Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Albert Brooks'

Mother (1996)

with, of course, Albert Brooks as well as Debbie Reynolds and Rob Morrow.

Most of Brooks' carefully crafted films are in the Best 1176 list and deservedly so. (4 out of 6-there is one more postlist)

This one is my all time Albert Brooks best.

The whole idea of the film, how the mother/son relationship touches both lives absolutely, is frought with traps.

It could go wham-bam sitcom or slide off into psychobabble or even turn nasty and rancid.

None of this happens here.

There is a clear line through the script that is followed to a 'T'. There is careful, quiet, natural dialogue. There is the need for us to pay attention.

Brooks always demands thought and attention and we are well rewarded for it. There are no cheap shots.

Well, a few, but those are placed as comic relief.

I do not always like Brooks. It is tense. Almost all his work studies insecurity and isolation; paranoia and personal pain.

In this film, those themes are there but there is love and, most of all, there is Debbie Reynolds in an unexpectedly touching and winning performance as the mother. This was her first film role in 27 years!

Rob Morrow is Brooks' brother who has life all sewed up.

Somewhere in the second third there is a tipping point where you get that 'sewed up' is not all that great place to be.

There is no life there.

So it is a big 5 out of Netflix5.