Since when did the holiday season become the time of year to reflect on tortured artists? If you don't believe me, look at the films released in New York and Los Angeles between Thanksgiving and Christmas. They're all there - Marquis de Sade, Jackson Pollock, Francisco Goya and to a lesser extent, State and Main's Joseph Turner White, Finding Forrester's Jamal Wallace, and Shadow of the Vampire's F.W. Murnau. It's enough to drive moviegoers to The Grinch or The Family Man.

Just when you thought Cuban popularity had gone the way of Men at Work and Crocodile Dundee, Before Night Falls blends the Caribbean "It" island of the moment with the angst-ridden story of an artist that just begs for a December release. What's stranger is that Falls is co-written and directed by a sculptor/painter (Julian Schnabel) whose only other film experience was helming another film about a tortured artist (Basquiat).

Luckily, Falls is much, much better than the critically over-praised Basquiat. The leap in Schnabel's style between the two films is nothing short of astonishing. Falls is beautifully shot and exceptionally well put together, with Schnabel using numerous cinematic techniques, usually to perfection. Parts of the film share the same gritty, washed-out look of the Mexican portion of Traffic - so much so that you expect to see Benicio del Toro make an appearance (or maybe it's the fact that he's in, like, every movie). Schnabel also makes great use of music in lieu of dialogue in several scenes.

On the negative side of things, the story of Jean Michel Basquiat was more interesting than that of Falls' Reinaldo Arenas. The film follows Arenas' life from his infancy in 1943 Cuba to his 1980 death in New York City. It's tragic and all, but tragedy doesn't always equate with entertainment (unless Kathie Lee Gifford's plane goes down over the Rockies). Your potential enjoyment of the film will hinge on whether you find the Arenas Chronicles to be remarkable or no different than any other tale of a tortured artist.

We see a young Arenas carving poetry into a tree. We see an older Arenas get a job at Cuba's National Library and join the rebels that eventually put Castro into power. But, mostly, we see Arenas write and then die a slow, painful death. Yeah, it's kind of interesting to see how he had to share a bed as a child, and how he was persecuted because of his unique ability as a writer, but we've seen this kind of thing before. Other than Schnabel's direction, three superstar cameos (one from Sean Penn and two from Johnny Depp) and a pretty electrifying (but still a bit over-hyped) performance from Javier Bardem (Almodovar's Live Flesh), there's just nothing going on here.

Falls was based on Arenas' memoirs, which were turned into a screenplay by Schnabel and debut scribes Cunningham O'Keefe and Lázaro Gómez Carriles. The cinematography is pleasant, and Carter Burwell's (O Brother, Where Art Thou?) effective score is bolstered by help from Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed.

2:05 –

for strong sexual content, some language and brief violence