What I Thought About What I Saw: 2009

“Best Of” lists give me heartburn. I rarely see films in the theater, so I never see the year-end prestige releases in time for year-end wrap up articles. That said, here are the top and bottom ten films of 2009. Or at least, here are the top and bottom ten of the 2009 releases I’ve seen so far.

First, the best:

10. THIRST

A Catholic priest contracts vampirism through a tainted blood transfusion. Everything’s under control, right up to the moment he falls in love. Unexpected, innovative, and scary, THIRST continues director Chan Wook-park’s streak of outstanding films.

9. THE HANGOVER

I don’t particularly like THE HANGOVER. It’s crass. It’s rude. It’s like a friend from you distance yourself once you figure out what he’s all about. But doggone is it funny. It’s funny during its introduction, it’s funny for all three acts, and it’s even funny during the closing credits. I just don’t think I’d have it over for dinner.

8. CORALINE

Coming from an original story by the great Neil Gaiman, CORALINE creates a complex, layered girl in its lead role and plunges her into worlds both delightful and terrifying. Remarkably, this film hit just the right note of scariness for my fourth-grader. It spoke to the existential fear of the child in ways the child can understand, but not in ways that’ll make him wake up screaming. Quite an achievement. Quite a film.

7. DUPLICITY

Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson walk away with this adult thriller about a couple of corporate spies and their lives, loves, plots, and counterplots. Julia Roberts and Clive Owen play the spies, and they handle their repartee with excellent timing and great wit. But Giamatti and Wilkinson as the competing corporate titans who employ them – wow!

6. PARIS 36

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who love Paris, and those who don’t know that they love Paris. If you love Paris, you’ll love this tribute to the City between the wars, when romance was in the air and anything was possible. Yeah, the heroes are Reds. But let’s face it: industrialists are boring. And the song and dance numbers? Fantastic!

5. CHOCOLATE

The tagline reads, “She’s a special needs girl with a need to kick some ass.” Laying down pretty much every brand of fu imaginable, dancer JeeJa Yanin makes for a convincing martial artist in this creative, well choreographed, and altogether entertaining Thai martial arts picture from director Prachya Pinkaew, the man behind TOM YUM GOONG and ONG-BAK.

4. STAR TREK

Having grown up on the original “Star Trek” TV series, I was all set to hate this reboot. But then I sat in a theater in Fort Lauderdale and got caught up in this big, goofy, ridiculous confection. STAR TREK, far from the train wreck I expected, is big, good-natured, rewatchable fun. It’s also my biggest surprise of the year.

3. DRAG ME TO HELL

Oh, Sylvia Ganush, you had me at “I don’t want your cat, you dirty pork queen!” As I wrote in my original review, DRAG ME TO HELL is everything you could want in a movie entitled “Drag Me to Hell.” It’s gory, it’s scary, it’s funny, and it’s so far over the top that it goes down the other side, turns around, and comes back over the top again. If a Sam Raimi horror movie with mystic séances, possessed goats, and gypsy curses doesn’t do it for you, you must not like horror movies.

2. GOODBYE SOLO

Here’s a small film about regular people that avoids all the bromides about life, death, and family; all while being one of the most powerful movies about life, death, and family released this year. Red West is weariness, and Souleyman Sy Savane is the immigrant experience. It has been months since I’ve seen this picture, and I still can’t get it out of my mind.

1. UP

Not only is up the best picture of 2009, I’m seriously considering calling it the best film of the decade. Not only is it the wisest film of the year, but it’s also the most beautiful, the most touching, and the most likely to challenge and entertain viewers aged five to one hundred five. I saw it in 3-D during its theatrical run and I’ve seen it on blu-ray at home. In either presentation, it’s magnificent. This is a towering achievement from a studio that practically has “towering achievement factory” on its letterhead.

Now, the worst:

10. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS’ fantasy depiction of the United States Army adopting the tactics of Al Qaeda in Iraq to win WWII was obscene. Yes, Tarantino knows how to manage all the technical aspect of filmmaking. Yes, the projection onto smoke was brilliant. But I can’t help but think that this film was an experiment in getting Western audiences to cheer for the tactics of the enemies of our civilization.

9. BIG MAN JAPAN

I don’t ask for much from my movies, but I do like to know what the heck is going on. BIG MAN JAPAN is an hour and twenty minutes of “WTH was that” topped with ten minutes of “WTF was that.” Neither funny nor comprehensible, BIG MAN JAPAN asks us to laugh at its characters. I don’t laugh at people.

8. CRANK 2

Look, this is a bad movie. Never mind that it’s compulsively watchable – Cheetos are compulsively edible, but they’re still bad food. Sexist, racist, ageist, and just about every –ist you can imagine, this film has no redeeming qualities. I can’t wait for the next one.

7. THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE

THE FIRST DATE EXPERIENCE would serve as a more accurate title. More specifically, the part of the first date when you sit across the table from your companion and realize that she is a wholly uninteresting human being. The part of the first date when you realize there isn’t going to be a second date.

6. TULPAN

I wanted to like TULPAN. I really did. But the film gave me no reason to care about any of the people onscreen. Where do you when apathy is the best you can muster?

5. UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS

I don’t care about vampires who aren’t Korean Catholic priests and I don’t care about werewolves who aren’t attacking platoons of British soldiers and I don’t care about women dressed up in fetish gear unless they’re wearing leprechaun costumes. UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS adds nothing of interest to the vampire, werewolf, or fetishwear genres. Pass.

4. ADVENTURELAND

I fail to perceive how the events of ADVENTURELAND could intrigue anyone who isn’t directly involved in the events of ADVENTURELAND. This is a movie about people who need to get over themselves, featuring a protagonist who needs to get over himself. I got over it pretty quickly.

3. HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU

HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU made no attempt to engage me, the straight male viewer. I felt like the fifth wheel at a girls’ night out.

2. WOLVERINE

I like Hugh Jackman. I like Liev Schreiber. Heck, I even Will i Am. This overwrought film wastes the talents of all involved and, in the process, wastes our time. WOLVERINE tells us nothing we didn’t already know about the character, and it takes an hour and a half to do it.

1. THE MUTANT CHRONICLES

From writing to direction to editing to music to acting to, well, everything, THE MUTANT CHRONICLES earns its position as the biggest train wreck of 2009. This film fails on every level and has nothing to recommend it. In fact, it’s so bad that I feel bad about grouping it in with the rest of the movies on this list, since they at least were legitimate movies. I’ve seen better student films from my buddies in film school.

Thirst

I love how fiction can surprise me.

I thought the vampire genre had been pretty well played out. We’ve had vampire superheroes, vampire messiahs, even vampire glitter queens. Where else could the genre go?

Then 2009 came along, and two films from two continents reinvigorated the genre. First, there was Sweden’s LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, a staggering work of beauty and empathy about Eli, the 400 year old vampire and Oskar, the boy who’s either her latest victim or her greatest love. Now, there’s THIRST, from Korean master director Chan-Wook Park (JSA, The Vengeance Trilogy). It’s about a Catholic priest who unwittingly becomes a vampire.

Wait – a priest who becomes a vampire? I know: what a hook! THIRST has more going for it than its hook, however. As played by Kang-ho Song (THE HOST, JSA, MEMORIES OF MURDER, SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE), this priest becomes a tangle of conflicting duties and desires, his face evoking a man who is emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually out of his league. He’d only wanted to do some (self abnegating) good, volunteering for a risky vaccine trial with a high probability of death. But when he survives, finding himself with new abilities and, oh yes, hungers, he doesn’t know what to do. Imagine Thomas à Kempis with a sudden, insatiable desire for, well, everything.

Song’s Father Sang-heon navigates these waters as best he can, and director Park keeps us in his shoes every step of the way. No matter where the story goes, we never disengage; we never stop believing. By the time the other shoe drops and Park has revealed his last horror (for oh yes, this is a horror movie), he’s wrung us out.

This movie works on every level. Along with its Swedish counterpart, it gives me new hope for the future of the genre.

Star Trek: Generations

History will treat STAR TREK; GENERATIONS unkindly.

I’ve long considered it a mildly successful entry in the Star Trek canon, weaving serious themes of addiction and mortality into a decent space adventure. Upon seeing it with my 9-year-old, however, I realize that it presumes too much. It presumes familiarity with and affection for characters from two long-cancelled television series. It presumes empathy for an android who, for newcomers to Trek, is just another machine. Most damning, its most important moments represent a passing of the torch from one Captain Kirk to a Captain Picard – moments with zero meaning for the viewer who grew up on neither one nor the other.

The story is standard Star Trek. It uses pseudoscience to maneuver Kirk and Picard together, puts a populated world at stake, and ends with world-saving fisticuffs with a madman. It takes character detours from time to time, concerning itself with the emotional development of a robot whom it assumes we care about from one of the television series. It even ends on a hopeful note, with the promise of new adventures to come.

Though I didn’t care about any of the new generation characters, never having watched their series, I cared enough about Kirk and Chekhov and Sulu and Scotty to carry me through. My son, however, didn’t know any of these people and, since the film never took the time to involve him, didn’t particularly care what happened to them.

I can understand that. It’s why future generations won’t go for this one.

The Sound of Music

This spring, I’ll celebrate my 18th anniversary. Next fall, I’ll have known my beautiful bride for fully half my life.

I just found out that she loves THE SOUND OF MUSIC as much as I do.

Turns out we share the same childhood experience of gathering for the annual broadcast of this venerable musical. Turns out we smiled at the same moments, knew the lyrics to the same songs.

I don’t think she has a crush on Julie Andrews. But hey, if she does, I’m down with that.

For this is a great, great film. From the beautiful aerial photography at the beginning to the introduction of the problematic Maria to her integration into the Von Trapp family and on through the resolution, this film carries us along on the beauty of the Alps, the magnetism of Andrews and costar Christopher Plummer, and as fine a songbook as one is likely to find in the American Musical.

Sure, some elements thud. I never have cared about the romantic prospects of the eldest Von Trapp girl. Not every number reaches great heights. But on the whole, this picture just sings. It’s beautiful to look at, beautiful to listen to, just plain beautiful.

Who’d have guessed that a woman who would marry me would have such great taste.

The Phantom Menace

I see no point in writing about all the ways THE PHANTOM MENACE goes wrong. I could make jokes at its expense, but funnier people have done so. I could enumerate its flaws, but more perceptive people have done so. I could ignore it, but I have young boys – so that’s out.

Instead, I’ll focus on the one thing THE PHANTOM MENACE gets right: its depiction of the adventures of jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi. I could have gone for a whole film of Liam Neeson’s sage master and Ewan MacGregor’s enthusiastic apprentice swashbuckling their way through the galaxy. The actors share a chemistry that makes us believe they’re friends and comrades, they have the athletic ability to make us believe they’re capable of the fights and stunts we see in the film, and they possess the charisma to make us want to believe in them.

I’ll see this movie again - as I said, I have young boys – and I’ll see it again after that. When I do, I won’t focus on the film in front me. Rather, I’ll imagine the film that could have been. That oughtta get me through.

Holiday

HOLIDAY is a perfect movie.

It comes from great source material, a play by Philip Barry (who also wrote THE PHILADELPHIA STORY). Donald Ogden Steward who adapted THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, wrote the screenplay. The great George Cukor, the man behind ADAM’S RIB, THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, and A STAR IS BORN, directed. It starred Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, and Edward Everett Horton led the supporting cast. Folks, you can’t screw this up.

And the people behind this one didn’t. The story, about a self-made man who falls in love with a young woman of privilege, provides a wonderful platform for Golden Age Hollywood banter and set pieces that radiate goodwill. Everything and everyone looks fabulous, Grant and Hepburn make their lines pop, and Horton assays yet another performance that backs his claim to the title of Best Supporting Actor Ever.

A digression on Horton: this guy really is the Best Supporting Actor Ever. He had perfect comic timing, a marvelous ability to move from stuffed shirt to Bohemian to calculator to hapless goofball without a hitch, and a gut-level likeability that has few parallels. I first noticed Horton in LOST HORIZON, which I saw nearly twenty years ago. Ever since, his appearance on the screen has upped the amperage of every picture in which I’ve seen him. The guy is just plain tops, and his picture should be on the poster of all the films in his body of work.

Back to HOLIDAY. My only question is why it took so long for this film to appear on my radar. It’s as funny, beautiful, and engaging as BRINGING UP BABY and THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. Why doesn’t it have the same pull on the popular imagination? Never mind. It only matters whether this film works for you. Give it a chance: I guarantee that it will.

College

Buster Keaton’s COLLEGE begins well enough, with a nicely paced comic bit involving a high school commencement speech, a rainstorm, and a wool suit. Unfortunately, it slows down as soon as its protagonist (Keaton) gets to college.

The character, you see, was a high school bookworm. Once in college, he decides to go out for sports. We’re expected to believe that the lithe Keaton is so incapable of athletic endeavor that he must have some kind of neuromuscular disorder, and we’re supposed to laugh at his hapless attempts at sport.

Problem is, I’m not a fan of laughing at people, and I didn’t laugh at Keaton. And since I didn’t laugh at him and never really believed in him, I didn’t care by the time he had to use his hard-won skills to rescue his ladylove. But even if I did care, the film’s epilogue would spoil it for me. I hate to get into spoiler territory (even if the film in question is 81 years old), but this film’s penultimate shot conveys such cynicism and bitterness that it sucked whatever goodwill the film had built right out of it.

Over the course of his career, Buster Keaton made some the greatest films ever. Sadly, COLLEGE is not among them.

Gates of Heaven

Errol Morris’s GATES OF HEAVEN improves with time. The more I think about it, the more I like and respect it.

It’s a documentary about the pet cemetery business, focusing on two ventures: one failed and one successful. A man who thought his dream was greater than mere business reality led the failed venture. A man who put business first led the successful one. As a study in contrasting business styles, it makes sense. But I think it’s going for something more.

I think that GATES OF HEAVEN tries to get at the nature of dreams, be they dreams of eternal union with one’s beloved pets, dreams of pursuing noble ventures, or dreams of financial, artistic, or even emotional success. While the whole pet cemetery (I keep wanting to type “Pet Sematary.” Thanks a lot, Mr. King.) thing mystifies me (bury it in the back yard, have a good cry, and move on, already), the need to dream sits right in my wheelhouse.

For isn’t that the uniquely human thing, the trait that sets us apart from everything else? Every animal eats, sleeps, procreates, and even reasons to the extent that it can. Only humans dream of a better day. Only humans fear failure or build philosophies of success or need to reconcile the hard, cold truth of death with the intuitive sense that there’s got to be more to life than, well, living.

GATES OF HEAVEN, doesn’t tell us, “This is the nature of dreams.” Rather, it works like a zen koan. It invites to observe it, consider it, meditate upon it. Like a koan, it opens itself to us as we open ourselves to it. GATES OF HEAVEN is worth the effort.

The Girlfriend Experience

So the closing credits scroll on THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE and I turn to my wife and say, “I don’t know anything about these characters that I didn’t know in the first fifteen minutes.”

Sasha Grey plays a middle – high class hooker. She appears to be primarily concerned with running her business and cultivating her clients, and making as much money as she can as fast as she can. Chris Santos plays her boyfriend, a personal trainer who appears to be primarily concerned with running his business, cultivating his clients, and making as much money as he can as fast as he can. Hovering over them and their clients is the financial meltdown of ’08.

And that’s it, really. As the film goes on and its characters’ fortunes change, they appear to remain essentially the same people they were going in. One could argue that Grey’s character learns a life lesson along the way, but I submit that anyone in her line of work would have learned that particular lesson long before the opening credits hit the screen.

Perhaps the film works less as a drama and more as a (if you’ll forgive the overused phrase) tone poem. THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE evokes a sense of uncertainty and longing, one that permeates not only the lives of its characters but American society in the dark year of 2008. That’s fine, but hey, I was in America in 2008. Take me somewhere new.

Sherlock Holmes

I never believed that Robert Downey, Jr. was Sherlock Holmes. I never believed that Jude Law was Dr. Watson. I never believed that Rachel McAdams was anyone other than Rachel McAdams. I never believed. I never believed. I never believed.

Perhaps the movie was spoiled by the previews that came before it. Seeing Robert Downey, Jr. doing his shtick as Iron Man made me realize that the guy’s been playing the same character since the superlative KISS KISS BANG BANG. By the time he came onscreen in the feature, I was already done with him.

Perhaps it was spoiled by its seeming love for Victorian London, surely one of the most depressing combinations of city and era in history. As the film went from one CGI vista to the next, I sensed that it was trying to wow me, or at least draw me in. Instead, I merely thought, “The English exploited the world merely to fund that $#!^hole?”

Perhaps its casting choices killed it. McAdams is roughly ten years too young to be her character. Mark Strong, as the villain, is so much better than everyone else that he made me wonder why he isn’t starring in major motion pictures. And the leads, well, they are who they are and they play who they are.

Then again, the problem may have been the story. There’s all this business about an ominous raven, which we know (since this is a Holmes story) is just so much jerking us around. The pièce de résistance of the villain’s evil scheme is to bring the US back into the empire. Oh, the horror! Soccer! Fish and chips! “Spaced,” “Fawlty Towers,” and “Walking with Prehistoric Beasts”! Give me a break. By the time the movie gets around to flat-out ripping off The Da Vinci Code, I was through.

My wife, on the other hand, enjoyed the heck out of it.  Then again, she'd happily watch Robert Downey, Jr. fold socks, so your mileage may vary. I wanted to like SHERLOCK HOLMES. I was ready to invest in SHERLOCK HOLMES. But I just couldn’t suspend my disbelief.

It's a Wonderful Life

You know about aspirational marketing, right? It's selling not just a product, but a lifestyle, a self image. It's pretty much everything at REI, which we buy not because we need a high-quality oceangoing kayak, but because we want to the be kind of people who need a high-quality oceangoing kayak. It's why everyone in Apple commercials are young and hip, because hey, we're young and hip, right? It's about the difference between who we are and whom we wish to be.

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE is aspirational marketing for the noble life. George Bailey is the person we want to be, an individual who puts others before self, who stands up for what's right, who meets his responsibilities kindly and gently. And we see him garner his rewards in ways large and small, from the inner satisfactions of doing the right thing under hard conditions to the outer ones of earning the regard of his friends, relatives, and neighbors. George is even played by the man we want to be, an individual who spent his life doing the right thing; earned the regard of his friends, relatives and neighbors; and even rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Air Force Reserve. The supporting cast, of course, feels just right after all these years: Donna Reed is luminous, Lionel Barrymore is so evil he reminds us of Dick Cheney, and Henry Travers is just plain delightful as AS2 Clarence Odbody.

The whole thing works because it wears its heart on its sleeve. Frank Capra returned from WWII determined to celebrate the heroism of the common man, and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE doesn't deviate from its theme by one iota. Each episode of George's life speaks to the idea of doing one's best within one's sphere, and its culmination in inspiring the people of Bedford Falls to do the same inspires us. It inspires us to aspire to be better people.

That's something I can settle down to every Christmas Eve.

PS Last night's screening represented the first time my 9-yr-old sat for the whole thing. I'm so thrilled that he enjoyed it.

Here's a review by my eldest son:

I just watched STARWARS CLONE WARS VOLUME 1 and it’s not good. Well, I don’t think so. The new computer animated one’s better. I think they should’ve given the clone troopers more personality. They didn’t fail that in the new computer animated series. By the way I’m 9 years old. I think they made their lines to short, & didn’t bother givin’ ‘em a stronger accent . In STARWARS CLONEWARS VOLUME 2 they gave them more personality, but still not as good as the new computer animated series. The new computer animated series is AWSOME!! ...by the way.

Avatar

I saw AVATAR with my wife. We agreed that Cameron has created a beautiful and interesting world, but she lost her suspension of disbelief during the second-act crisis while I kept it going right up to the end credits.

I think that where she saw a simplistically anti-military romanticization of neolithic culture, I saw a golden age of science fiction, Edgar Rice Burroughs - type story brought to life. This is "Astounding Science Fiction," illustrated by Frazetta and rendered in fabulous 3-D.

So what if the story is standard pulp? This is pulp done right, filled with treats for science fiction fans (Sigourney Weaver taking on "the corporation," a Vasquez - type character kicking butts, multiple nods to _Dune_ and other classics of the "warrior gone native" subgenre), astoundingly beautiful environments for the spectacle - seekers, and good old-fashioned Hollywood liberalism for everyone else.

You wanna see a completely realized alien world? Here ya go. You wanna see stuff blown up real good? Here ya go. You wanna revel in a favorite genre's pulpy past? Have at it. AVATAR offers all these delights, and in spades.

I got what I paid for.

La Dolce Vita

I need to see every Fellini movie in the catalogue.

8 1/2 is the best film I've ever seen. LA DOLCE VITA makes the top 10. I'm having a Kurosawa moment, a time when a filmmaker blooms in my consciousness as a major, defining force; a time when I realize that I must seek out an entire oeuvre, consume it, internalize it. If these two pictures of Fellini's are so earth-shakingly brilliant, I must discover what else is out there.

Fellini's meditation on what actually constitutes "the sweet life" is beautiful, insightful, silly, and profound. Marcello Mastroianni (Fellini's Mifune) is at his most charming and shallow best, and he anchors a picture that says nearly everything there is to say about the disconnect between who we are, who we think we are, and who we want to be.

What a magnificent picture.

Gommorah

You gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.

--Tony Montana, Scarface

The average crack dealer earns $3.30 an hour and stands a 25% chance of getting killed in a four-year period.

--Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics

Two teenage boys find an arms cache of a local cell of the Camorra, or Neapolitan mob. They gleefully help themselves, then play among the ruins of a dilapidated housing project, pointing their weapons at one another and shouting, “I’m Tony Montana!” “No, I’m Tony Montana!”

Their time would have been better spent reading Levitt and Dubner.

GOMORRAH, the searing film based on the nonfiction book of the same name, takes us into the lives of the people on the lower tiers of the multi-level marketing scheme that is Italian organized crime. It does so at an interesting time, mostly due to the unintended consequences of an Italian crackdown on Camorra leaders in the Naples area. See, Naples had been at peace, its criminal factions in equilibrium. But then all the top bosses went to prison, all the politicians got reelected, and all hell broke loose. Without the bosses to impose order, Naples became a free-for-all. It was a blood-in-the-streets kind of city while ambitious young thugs slugged it out to become the new bosses. And that’s where this film comes in. GOMORRAH puts us in a world in which two cells, formerly part of a larger organization but now independent (presumably, due to the imprisonment of their common boss), fight for domination of a particularly nasty part of Naples. As is so often the case, of course, the innocents and foot soldiers do most of the dying while other men get rich.

The film weaves five storylines into a depressing, yet compelling tapestry of life in the business end of organized crime. It does so through a near-documentarian photographic style, careful casting, and smart editing that keeps us moving among stories without ever losing the thread. This is a film worth watching.

I've Loved You So Long

This picture got mixed reviews, but I had to see it on the strength of its title. I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG sounds so plaintive, so fraught with history, that I had to find out what the film was about.

Kristin Scott Thomas has just served fifteen years in prison when her sister picks her up at the airport. Thomas is damaged, reserved, isolated, and nearly incapacitated. Her will is broken, and she's making up for it with anger and bravado and any armor she can muster. But prison was then and this is now.

And so we spend two hours with Thomas, her sister, and the family her sister has built. We get to know them, and we watch as Thomas slowly grows real strength under the shell of that anger and withdrawal. The actress carries this film with her performance, for it's a picture with few distractions. She carries it well, and we believe in her and her journey because she makes us believe.

This is a careful film, an empathetic film, and a worthwhile film. I'm glad I saw it.

Night and the City

Poor Harry Fabian. He's a sap, a sucker, an opportunist and a two-bit hustler. And he's the lead character in a noir picture, so you just know things will not go well for him. He begins the film on the run. Even in the opening moments, you know he's used to it.

As played by Richard Widmark, Fabian is calculating and naive, manipulative and painfully innocent, and nearly always in way over his head. Here's a guy who desperately wants to be somebody, to provide a life of ease and plenty to the one he loves. But he doesn't understand that ease and plenty are words that do not go together.

Fabian lives in London, photographed in beautiful black and white by Max Greene. This is a London of menace and long shadows, of big dreams and big friends and betrayal in, of all things, the sunlight. Under the direction of Jules Dassin, NIGHT AND THE CITY dares Fabian to guess what's around that next corner, what's going on behind peoples' eyes. Poor Harry, poor poor Harry. He isn't any good at it at all.

NIGHT AND THE CITY works because he feel for Harry, scoundrel that he is, and we root for him to find that life of ease and plenty. But this is a noir picture, and we know how things go. So we root anyway, and we try to look around the corners and behind the eyes, and we revel in a job well don.

Easy Virtue

EASY VIRTUE, based on the Noel Coward play, starts funny and gets serious. By the time it does so, we’ve so bonded with its characters that we care why things got serious and find ourselves invested in how things turn out.

Jessica Biel, interesting for the first time in her career, stars as the earnest American bride who accompanies her new husband to his country estate somewhere outside of London. She wants to join the family. The family wants to consume her. Only one side can win. Kristin Scott Thomas is the mother, horrified that her son hasn’t married the aristocrat next door. Colin Firth is the father, back from the war but never really back from the war. And the sisters, well, they’re going to have line up behind somebody now, won’t they?

And there you go. The film rocks along pleasantly for an hour and a half. I laughed a few times, smiled more, and generally enjoyed it. Not bad.

Big Man Japan

So, BIG MAN JAPAN. Hmm. Errg. Umm, well, uhhh.

What the &^(% was that?

I mean, WHAT THE &^(% WAS THAT?

Here’s a mockumentary about a complete loser whose job is to absorb 2.5 gigawatts of electricity and turn into Big Man Japan V, a gigantic loser who fights kaiju monsters in the cities of Japan. The Japanese people hate him for wasting electricity, breaking stuff, and getting chubby. He’ll never be as cool as his grandpa, Big Man Japan IV. I think we’re supposed to laugh at him, but I just felt bad. I think we’re supposed to laugh at the fantastical monsters he battles, but they just creeped me out.

Nevertheless, there is a lot going on here. BIG MAN JAPAN cleverly criticizes Japanese and American cultures and the fusion of the two. It laments the devolution of kaiju from the reflection of a nation’s fears to silly, cheap kids’ entertainment. It probably mocks Japanese figures with its idiosyncratic monster designs, but I’m insufficiently familiar with Japanese culture to get the jokes. But more than anything else, it baffles me.

The next morning, my nine-year-old (who’ll sit through all the subtitles in the world if there are giant monsters battling above them) started querying me about the film pretty much from the moment his head left the pillow. Being the sophisticate he is, he was trying to parse the criticisms of Ultraman from those of Power Rangers. Me, I couldn’t do it. It’s two days later, and the best I can come up with is, “What the &^(% was that?”

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

I once went to Rome. When my wife asked me what I thought of the city, I told her, “It’s as if there’s been a part of me missing all my life, and I never knew it until I came here. It’s the part of my that has been to Rome.”

THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR (MUMMY 3, or M3, hereafter) is like that. There had been a part of me missing all this time, and I never knew until I saw this film. Now, however, I have seen a yeti kick a field goal. I feel complete.

Never before in the history of mankind has there come a time when a man or woman has had to decide whether or not he or she is the kind of person who is willing to plunk down good money to see a yeti kick a field goal. But I have to ask, if you aren’t the kind of person who’s willing to see a yeti kick a field goal, then what kind of person are you? What chill winds blow through the bleak corridors of your soul?

Of course, M3 offers more than a yeti kicking a field goal. It features Michelle “I jumped a motorcycle onto the roof of a moving train” Yeoh swordfighting Jet “I don’t need a moniker because I’m Jet Li” Li. Sure, the scene’s so poorly edited that you’d think you were watching two anonymous stuntpeople instead of master practitioners of their craft, but still. The movie has silly jokes and outrageous action and everyone involved appears to be having a great time. What more do you want in a movie entitled THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR?

I mean, beside a yeti kicking a field goal.

Whatever Works

It's been a long time since I've had the pleasure to write that a Woody Allen film was laugh-out-loud funny. WHATEVER WORKS breaks the drought.

The film begins with Larry David (the guy from "Curb Your Enthusiasm") having coffee with some friends at a sidewalk cafe. He's holding forth on his theory of life, when he decides that his friends just aren't sharp enough, or interesting enough, to keep up. Perhaps, however, his audience is. He turns toward the camera and lets us have it, in a riotously funny monologue that sets the tone for the film while bringing tears to our eyes.

From there, WHATEVER WORKS takes us on a tour of Allen's philosophy of life, or at least the one he's espousing for these 90 or so minutes. The film feels stagey at times, and we're often reminded that we're watching actors mouth the words of another. But these are funny, incisive, biting words; they're worth hearind, and they're delivered well.

I laughed. I thought. I laughed some more. I can't wait to see this again with the one I love.

The Brothers Bloom

THE BROTHERS BLOOM doesn't want you to suspend your disbelief. Rare, that, and it creates an opportunity to tell a story that revels in its storyhood. It has a trustworthy-sounding narrator, outlines its chapters, and offers a world richer, more exotic, and flat-out more fun than our own. It tells its story with relish, for how can one not relish small touches like Maximilian Schell play a veteran con-man and thief who favors Turkish garb?

This is a con movie. As such, you can expect to spent part of your time guessing at the nature of the con, part of the time feeling proud of yourself for figuring out the con, and part of the time delighting in the surprises in the con. It's a pleasant way to spend an hour and a half, made all the more pleasant by the presence of likeable and capable actors, a sure hand on the camera, and beautiful locations both inside and out.

Is it slight? Yeah. Is it flawed? A little. Will it put a smile on your face? Absolutely. This is a fun little movie.

Blood: The Last Vampire

Vampires. Samurai. Ninjas. Do I have your attention? How about vampire samurai vs. vampire ninjas? And I'm not asking about your creepy Japanese schoolgirl in a sailor costume thing, but what if one of those vampire samurai was a Japanese schoolgirl in a sailor costume? That's right - BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE is a movie about a vampiric samurai schoolgirl. She fights other vampires, some of whom happen to be ninjas. She has one of those awesome mountain senseis with a wispy white beard. Oh, and you just know there's a magic sword and the fate of mankind hangs in the balance and so on.

Ah, but here's the thing: I've just seen two legitimately great films: MUNYURANGABO and BALLAST. How can I possibly evaluate a genre picture like BTLV after that? It comes down to this: how lustily is the genre picture a genre picture? Does it embrace its premise? If we accept that a vampire hunter movie isn't trying to compete with the aforementioned films, then all we have to do is discern whether it's a good vampire hunter movie.

My answer is yes, BTLV is as good a vampire hunter movie as one could want. Gianna Jun (a Korean, but that's not important right now) isn't much of a martial artist, but she's shot, edited, and CGIed well enough to keep the suspension of disbelief rolling along. The movie does a decent job of recreating late-60s Tokyo, the monster effects look good, the action sequences pop, and the climax is exceptionally well handled. So some of the performances, especially the American ones, are a bit creaky - that's par for the course.

Put simply, BTLV delivers on its premise and delivers an hour and a half of good, vampire-hunting fun. What more could you ask for in a movie about a vampiric samurai schoolgirl?

Ballast

BALLAST reminds me of FROZEN RIVER. Not because it’s about poor people, or because much of the action takes place in tiny houses, or because it’s a winter film. BALLAST reminds me of FROZEN RIVER because it’s a film about people first and story second.

That’s not to say that BALLAST has no story, or that its story isn’t a good one. But there’s a difference between characters who live in service to the story and a story that operates in service to the characters. Like FROZEN RIVER, BALLAST puts characters first and allows the story to flow from them. And like FROZEN RIVER, BALLAST delivers an engrossing experience, one that makes us feel that we know these people and makes us care deeply about who they are, what they say, and which choices they make.

I’m three paragraphs in, and I haven’t offered a synopsis or even a jumping-off point. I don’t want to. BALLAST doesn’t reveal its secrets up front, and I’m not about to spoil events that occur even in the film’s first five minutes. So this is one of those movies for which I’m going to ask you simply to take my word for it. BALLAST is one of the best films you’ll see this year. Do yourself a favor and seek it out.

Munyurangabo

MUNYURANGABO is flat-out brilliant.

Rwanda: ten years after the genocide. Two teenaged boys walk the road. One has a machete.

That machete, its mere existence, creates enough tension to turn what might be another ethnographic bore into an immersive and compelling story about these boys, about Rwanda, about Africa, about humanity's compulsion to divide into groups and find reasons to kill its own. This beautiful film draws us so completely into its world that we can sit, rapt, watching a family hoeing a field or two people repairing a wall. With the machete in the back of our minds, our attention never wanders. Surely, that's enough to commend the film. But MUNYURANGABO does more. It lays bare the heart of Rwanda, celebrates its culture, laments its past, and hopes for its future. Toward the end of the film, a poet looks at the camera and recites his work, a painful yet hopeful verse about where his country has been, where it is, and where it can go. The poet delivers his recitation in Kinyarwanda, the nation's language, and I came to believe that Kinyarwandan has a place among the world's most beautiful spoken tongues.

Do not miss this film.

Outlander

How do I say no to a Vikings and Aliens vs. Monsters movie (scratch that - *the* Vikings and Aliens vs. monsters movie), especially when it features Ron Perlman, John Hurt, and Jim Caviezel? And what's this? The monster lives under a lake? And it's - wait for it - it's a mom? And the alien Outlander (Jim Caviezel) has to ... hey, wait a minute, I read this book in the seventh grade!

That's right, folks, OUTLANDER is _Beowulf_. With spaceships. Friends, you can't screw this up.

And the people behind this movie didn't screw it up; not really. In fact, if you gave me fifty million dollars, some time, and some freedom, I couldn't make a Beowulf with Spaceships movie as good as OUTLANDER. If you gave me a decade or so to learn the craft, fifty million dollars, some time, and some freedom, however, I could probably make a Beowulf with Spaceships movie as good as OUTLANDER. This is a professional film: the script is tight, the photography pretty, the monster well-designed and realized, and the acting fine. But it's an average work by average professionals. It has no soul. Its story is too tight. Its sound design and score merely echo, not underline or expand. Its editing is so pedestrian that it seems like it came from a textbook. It's like some guy pitched "Vikings and Aliens vs. Monsters from the Public Domain," everyone got excited, and then they just sorta thought they could cruise by on the concept.

And they sorta do. I mean, really, y'know, it's fine. If you like monsters, aliens, Vikings, and epic poetry, it'll be right up your alley. But at the end of the day, it's no "Forth he fared at the fated moment, sturdy Scyld to the shelter of God."

Tulpan

Roger Ebert loved TULPAN, a film about a young sailor, recently discharged from the Russian Navy, who returns to the steppe of his native Kazakhstan to find a bride, buy a yurt, and settle down to herd sheep. In his review, the critic writes, "What does this sound like to you? Ethnographic boredom? I swear to you that if you live in a place where this film is playing, it is the best film in town. You'll enjoy it, not soon forget it, and you’ll tell your friends about it and try to persuade them to go, but you’ll have about as much luck with them as I’m probably having with you. Still, there has to come a time in everyone’s life when they see a deadpan comedy about the yurt dwellers of Kazakhstan."

That sounded like a challenge. After reading those words, how could I not see the film?

For my trouble, I got ethnographic boredom. Look, I don't think I'm ever going to the Kazakh steppe. I can't think of a reason why the Navy would send me, Delta doesn't fly there, and I'd rather go to Venice or Tokyo or Berlin in my free time than sign up for one of those bull$#!^ ethnovacations that cater to the Whole Foods Market crowd. So I looked to TULPAN to take me to a place I don't know, introduce me to people whose lives feel foreign to me, and let me walk a mile in their shoes for an hour and a half. The film did take me to the Steppe. It did introduce me to people whose lives felt foreign to me. But it didn't make me walk in their shoes. Why not? Because it didn't give me a reason to care.

Asa struck me as your basic callow youth, with nothing much to make him engaging beyond an ethnographic interest in his culture. His relatives were rough and hardworking, as I'd expect. The steppe looked like the steppe in MONGOL. And that was pretty much it. The film offered me nothing more on which to hang. I didn't laugh. I didn't cry. I didn't wait in suspense. I just sat there, looking at my watch.

Roger Ebert has introduced me to more great films than I can count, but TULPAN isn't one of them. It's all I could do to stay awake.

Yes Man

I liked YES MAN. I didn't love it, but I enjoyed as a lesser entry in the style of comedy I'm coming to think of as the Apatow school. It doesn't have a villain, its third-act crisis is organic to its story, and its characters mean well. Hey, it's even reasonably funny. I laughed three or four times.

Would it have been better with Jason Segel in the lead instead of serial over-actor Jim Carrey? Sure. Am I beginning to despair of seeing Zooey Deschanel in something that requires her to do more than act cute? Yeah. But there it is.

YES MAN tells the story of Carl, a guy who works at a bank in Brea, yet flits from Griffith Park to Balboa Park without a second thought. He's nearly fifty, yet he acts like a guy who's closing in on thirty. His improbably young and attractive ex-wife left him because he always says no. He's about to lose his improbably young and attractive best friend because he always says no. And he's never getting out of his bullet-in-the-head job because he always says no. But one day, he allows a nutty friend (Whom you can tell is genuine because he dresses like a hippie. In American films, genuine people always dress like hippies.) to talk him into attending a self help / quasi religious seminar dedicated to getting people to say yes. So far, so good. I can get behind a life-embracing ideology - I just don't want to smell like patchouli oil. This ideology requires no patchouli oil and it's led by Terence Stamp, which is pretty cool. Further, it requires neither a significant monetary outlay nor kneeling before Zod. Carl chooses well: he goes for it and embrace the culture of Yes.

Before you know it, the guy's in the middle of a full-bloom midlife crisis. He gets a new improbably young and attractive girlfriend. He learns to play the guitar. He takes flying lessons. He goes to all-night parties where one can assume he makes the other attendees uncomfortable because he's old enough to be, like, their dad, man. He's ridin' the groove train, baby, and he's livin' like he'll never run out of Viagra and Motrin.

That's your setup, and it's a perfectly fine frame upon which to hang a series of jokes and gags that should make you smile from time to time, grin occasionally, and even laugh if you're an easy touch like me. But Carrey's gotta embrace the fact that America's tired of watching him mug his way through pictures. Settle down, Jim, and insist on the rewrites that'll make it seem as if you weren't shoehorned into a younger man's story. Do that, and I'll invest much more in your character. And when I really invest in your character, that's when the real laughter comes.

The 400 Blows

You may or may not like or care about the French New Wave. The name François Truffaut may make you feel uncomfortable, like a reminder of some long-forgotten, yet uncompleted, homework assignment. Or maybe you avoid black and white films, or subtitles, or foreign pictures in general.

But don’t skip THE 400 BLOWS because you’re daunted or put off by any of the above, because THE 400 BLOWS is one of the best movies about childhood I’ve seen. Director Truffaut clearly remembers what it is to be a child: to hang on every gesture, every overheard word of his parents because those gestures and words constitute the weft and weave of his security; to feel the frustration and anger of unjust punishment because of one’s powerlessness to resist it; indeed, to make life-changing decisions not because you’re particularly good or evil but because they seem like a good idea at the time and, hey, you’re a kid – what do you know?

Antoine Doinel, 13, serves as the film’s subject. He’s a lower-class kid. His mother’s a tramp and his stepfather’s a nice enough guy who, at some point, ignored his own best judgment and married a tramp. At the beginning of the film, his martinet of a schoolteacher punishes him unjustly. He resists in the only way he can and gets caught. And away we go.

But the key to this film lies not in its story, interesting as that may be. The key lies in its observation of Antoine’s viewpoint. Watch him watch his parents, his teachers, his friends. Watch him decide whom to follow and whom to betray. Watch him realize (slowly though the realization may come) that the real world is upon him and the time for games is just about over. Watch him prioritize and decide, and watch his developing relationship with honesty.

Watch it all, and remember how it was for you. Imagine how it is for your kids. Don’t let the pedigree or the vintage or the foreignness deter you: THE 400 BLOWS is worth your time.

Sugar

Recently, I read book entitled Odd Man Out, by Matt McCarthy. The author had played college baseball at Yale and was recruited by the Angels. He survived spring training and made it to Single A. When the season began, he pitched to win. By the time the season ended, he was pitching not to lose. The next year, he was in grad school.

SUGAR’s like that, but with a critical difference. Its pitcher is an undereducated Dominican. Grad school is not an option. His family is counting on him. He’s desperate not just to make it, but to not fail. And minor league baseball is like a death march, an endurance contest where one injury or one bad month or pissing off the wrong guy means the eponymous Sugar is just another loser selling third-rate cell phone chargers on the one corner of his dusty little Dominican town. Every time a guy quits, or gets fired, or just disappears, we hear about how he’d “had enough” and was “looking forward to freedom.” But once you’re off that train, it keeps rolling and you can never get back on.

SUGAR captures that desperation and ambition and pressure. It feels like a documentary and its understated approach adds to its drama. Its actors seem unstudied, its places realistic, and its sense of how it feels to have the world riding on one’s shoulders absolutely true. This is a compelling, honest film about baseball and about being young, talented, and desperate. I’m glad I saw it.

Before the Rain

We humans, all around the world, we have so much in common. We love to divide ourselves into tribes and find reasons to kill one another.

BEFORE THE RAIN is a film about people killing one another in Macedonia. The Christians hate the Muslims for atrocities committed under Muslim rule. The Muslims hate the Christians for atrocities committed under Christian rule. UN observers observe, and they bury the dead, and people in nice places like London natter on about standing up for peace. But as one Macedonian observes, “Look around the world. Peace is the exception, not the rule.” And you know what the saddest part is? This film could have been set in Sudan, or in the Kashmir, or in the Colombian mountains, or on the wrong side of the tracks in virtually any major city in the world.

BEFORE THE RAIN tells its story in three parts. The first, “Words,” centers on an Orthodox monk and the refugee whom he shelters. It’s about what we say and don’t say, and how the right or wrong word is life or death. The second, “Faces,” tells the story of a London photo editor and the men she loves, and why. It speaks to the gap between the civilized and uncivilized worlds, and how that gap is often smaller than we wish to acknowledge. The third, “Pictures,” is about intentions and the conflict between human aspiration and human nature. The chapters work as individual stories, but together they create a heartbreaking film about not just ethnic strife in Macedonia, but about elements of the human condition that have been rending hearts ever since the first primate picked up a stick and used it to club some other primate from the next tribe over.

What a sad, beautiful, compelling movie.

Goodbye Solo

An old man gets into a cab. He gives the driver $100 and tells him that he’ll pay him $1000 to pick him up in one week, drive him to a cliff, and leave him there.

The man is William, played by Red West with all the wear and all the fire that one might expect from Elvis’s old fixer. The cabbie is Solo played by Souleymane Sy Savane in a performance that takes a standard issue Noble Immigrant role and fills it with life.

The film is a quiet study of two men, one fatigued and one indefatigable. Their scenes together, in the cab and out of it, are filled with a quiet power. Demonstrating once again that the human face is the most interesting subject in the world, GOODBYE SOLO takes the time to allow us to get to know these faces, get to know the people behind them. It works, for we find ourselves hanging on every word. We find ourselves hoping, for both men.

This is a good movie, sure and steady, with organic developments and a strong sense of place. I’m glad I saw it.

Terminator Salvation

If there’s something McG wishes he could retcon out of the original TERMINATOR, it must be Kyle Reese saying, “The Resistance was winning. We were overrunning SkyNet when the machines sent back a Terminator to kill you before you could bear John Connor. And John Connor sent me back to save you.”

See, TERMINATOR SALVATION is all about an assault on SkyNet. And we know that the Resistance doesn’t overrun SkyNet until Kyle Reese is at least in his late twenties. So it can’t work, right? Right?

Still forget that niggling complaint. And forget the facts that CGI stunts are (by definition) dull, one of the heroes is a murderer, and Christian Bale’s “gruff guy” schtick is getting old. Anton Yelchin and Moon Bloodgood have great screen presence, and Sam Worthington makes for a fun hero even if his role forces him to retread stuff that Battlestar Galactica did three years ago. The goods balance the bads in this picture, leaving us with a reasonably effective action picture that achieves its goals of (a) blowin’ up stuff real good and (b) giving us all another opportunity to bask in the glory that is Michael Ironside.

So, y’know, TERMINATOR SALVATION is ok. Not great, not terribly bad, and worth the money if you see it for free. I’m not complaining. I got what I paid for.

Crank: High Voltage

I’m not gonna tell you that CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE (CRANK 2, henceforth) is a good movie. I’m not gonna tell you that I liked it anyway. But I am going to tell you that I respect it.

CRANK 2 is loud, jumpy, vulgar, violent, sexist, racist, crude, and offensive in nearly every imaginable way. I respect its absolute dedication to loudness, jumpiness, vulgarity, violence, sexism, racism, crudeness, and offensiveness. CRANK 2 does nothing by half measures: it goes so far over the top that it forgets where the top is and shoots for the moon.

As faithful fans may recall, CRANK ends with its hero (Chev Chelios: what a great movie name!) falling 1000 feet out of a helicopter. And blinking. CRANK 2 goes from there to a world of kaiju heroes battling in a world of miniatures, severed heads kept alive in aquariums (with voice synthesizers that say, “$^%& you, Chev Chelios!”), and ridiculous amounts of nudity and violence that I’d term gratuitous if nudity and violence weren’t the whole point of the movie.

If this sounds like your thing, have at it. I saw it for two reasons. First, it was free and I had nothing else to do. Second, I grudgingly respected the first installment for its dedication to being just plain wrong. So I’ll be there for CRANK 3. I know it’ll be bad. I know it’ll be offensive. But some train wrecks I just can’t help watching.

All About Eve

I’ve been expanding my horizons.

I’ve noticed that I see an inordinate number of guy movies. Advertise something in which some stuff blows up real good, or somebody kicks somebody else in the face, or someone intones, “I’m getting too old for this $#!^,” and it’s likely to find a place in my rental queue. Some of them are quite good. But it’s not enough to only seek out that which seeks us out. Thus, I’ve queued up a number of films that skew female. And I’ve learned that most chick movies go on my nerves.

So many chick movies, particularly romantic comedies, aren’t about women at all. They’re about stunted children, little girls in women’s bodies who still believe in ridiculous, destructive Brontean romanticism. How does that not get old?

Imagine, then, the thrill, the delight of seeing ALL ABOUT EVE for the first time. Here’s a movie about women, actual women, the kind of women you can sink your teeth into, the kind of women who can sink their teeth into you. Bette Davis, in the performance of a lifetime, is Margo Channing, a queen of Broadway and monarch in life. She’s smart, she’s proud, she’s tough, and she knows the ropes. She’s also too old to play the romantic lead much longer: her cheeks are starting to sag and all those cigarettes are catching up with her. Anne Baxter is Eve Harrington, who begins the story as what we’d refer to today as a stalker. She’s pretty and young and bright. She worms her way into Margo’s life, studies her, becomes her. Fasten your seatbelts. We’re in for a bumpy ride.

Pawns and victims include critic Addison De Witt, played by George Sanders in an Oscar-winning performance; Celeste Holm; Hugh Marlowe; Thelma Ritter; and even a very young (but already sparkling) Marilyn Monroe. These people feel like real people, with real problems and agendas of their own. Seeing them clash and jostle in the wake of powerhouses Davis and Baxter adds depth and texture to the story, making every minute of this film’s 2:18 length feel vital and real.

Movies about women don’t have to be chick movies. ALL ABOUT EVE proves that. Bring on the next.

State of Play

STATE OF PLAY is a political thriller, a journalism thriller. It begins with two deaths, which lead to more deaths, which lead to two reporters racing against time to uncover the byzantine twists of a story which isn’t what it seems even after they’ve realized that it isn’t what it seems. It’s a good story, well told, with sophistication and surprises; and it makes Washington as exciting as it seemed when I first moved here.

Russell Crowe, who Can Do No Wrong, and Rachel McAdams play reporters from the fictional Washington Globe. He’s an old school, ink-stained bastard of the highest order, and she, well, she writes the blog. Helen Mirren is their publisher, Jeff Daniels is the Minority Whip, and Ben Affleck and Robin Wright Penn are a straying congressman and the wife who stands beside him at the Press Conference of Shame. Why bother telling you this? Because these are high caliber performers, the kind who merit putting a film on the rental queue for their names alone. There are some weaker performances farther down the credits list, but don’t let them pull you out of the story.

For that matter, don’t let the story pull you out of the story. Early on, you may think it’s just another jeremiad against the political punching bag of the day. But give it time. Let a surprising Jason Bateman performance work on you, and see where things go. I think you’ll be pleased.

I understand that STATE OF PLAY is an adaptation of a BBC series with Bill Nighy and Kelly MacDonald, among others, so I’ll end with a question: have you seen it? Should I?

A Dirty Shame

A DIRTY SHAME is a comedy, I think. It isn’t funny, which kind of works against it, but it is outlandish. So if outlandish is your thing, there you are.

It’s a sex addiction farce that centers on sexual practices in which, to the best of my knowledge, no one engages. The sexual practices are supposed to be outlandishly funny, but they’re actually just ridiculous. There are some practices in the film in which people actually engage, but they’re handled with such wide-eyed wonder that it seems like the picture was made by people who’d only read about sex in books. This is the kind of sex comedy an early adolescent may find amusing because he or she doesn’t know any better.

Yes, there’s a heavyhanded lesson about tolerance and, yes, the film does have a sweet, sweet heart, but it failed to pass the first test of the comedy. It failed to bring so much as a smile to my lips.

Maybe next time, Mr. Waters.

The Aura

THE AURA is about a guy, a simple guy, kind of a sap, who gets in way over his head. There’s a girl, of course, and guns, and money. Lots of money.

In other words, it’s a noir picture. It’s also Argentine, which is pretty cool since that makes it the first Argentine noir picture I’ve ever seen. The sap is sufficiently sappish, the girl is sufficiently girlish, and so forth, and the whole thing really catches fire in the last 45 minutes. Problem is, it’s a two hour long picture. Act One takes forever and Act Two takes nearly as long. Act Three, that last 45 minutes, is solid, but even it could have been a bit shorter. Here’s a movie that has all the elements it needs but that could have benefitted from one more, supertight, edit.

It’s that edit that keeps this film from excellence and renders it, instead, to the vault of pretty-goodness. Still, if you like noir, and you’re interested in seeing an Argentine take on the genre, THE AURA ain’t bad.

Words and Music

"Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers and Hart Songbook" is the soundtrack of heaven. I discovered it in the CD collection of a girl I was dating in 1989. I married the girl and, twenty years later, we still have the CD. So when I heard that there was a Rodgers and Hart biopic and that it was pretty doggone good, into the queue it went. I wanted to learn about these guys and their music.

I learned that the music is good, but it’s really the performer who makes it live.

WORDS AND MUSIC follows the Rodgers and Hart career arc, but it's more a retrospective, with moments of story serving mostly to segue between performances by distinguished artists of the day. But here's the problem: in the hands of wrong people, R&H's music goes from smart and sly classics to dated pop. Lena Horne is great and all, but her rendition of “Lady is a Tramp” in the film just can’t stand up to Ella’s on disc. June Allyson’s “Thou Swell” is a wet noodle compared to Nat King Cole’s in “Live at the Sands.” And don’t even get me started on comparisons with Sinatra.

Don’t get me wrong: the movie’s ok, particularly if you’re interested in even a fictionalized biopic of Rodgers and Hart. It’s just that nearly every time someone sang, I found myself comparing the performance with that of a better artist. All things considered, I prefer to remember Rodgers and Hart with the help of Fitzgerald and Cole and Sinatra, not the folks behind this picture.

Written on the Wind

Sooner or later, I had to get to Douglas Sirk. This is a director of influence, discussed and referenced decades after his passing. I've been putting him off because he worked in a time (the early Technicolor era) and a genre (melodrama) that doesn't appeal to me. But his work is seen as multilayered, with pulp for the matinee audience and cutting social commentary for the dinner-and-drinks crowd, and any student of the art form has to see him sometime. So what did Douglas Sirk have to say to me?

He had to say that America really, really needed rock 'n roll.

WRITTEN ON THE WIND's surface gloss is one of vapidity. It's shallow, finding joy in glittery handbags and hand blown glassware and gauzes and mind-numbingly plastic choral music - it's trying too hard to buy class, when real class comes from within. But look beneath the polish and you'll find all those old needs and emotions which have colored human drama since we figured out to get a steady supply of food, water, and shelter. You can't live on polish - it's too slippery. You need the grit of humanity, the anger and the love and the biology and all the rest. You need to embrace it, because it's the only way to get any real traction.

That's where rock and roll comes in. America needed it because it needed to put aside the postwar happy face and get back to the hard business of living. It needed Berry to remind it how to dance, Elvis to remind it how to love, The Beatles to rejuvenate it, and The Doors to help it find the dark places of its soul. All these things that Sirk criticizes, all these attitudes he laments, all the silliness he lampoons, they needed rock 'n roll to clean them out and ground America in reality once again.

Sirk had a lot to say. I'm glad I took the time to listen.

The Counterfeiters

THE COUNTERFEITERS (Die Fälscher), is the story of Salomon Smolianoff, a real-life convicted counterfeiter who, with along with other Jewish inmates of Sachsenhausen concentration camp, were forced to carry out Operation Bernhard. It's based on the memoirs of Adolf Burger, another prisoner who plays a critical role in the film.

Operation Bernhardt was directed by, and named after, Schutzstaffel Sturmbannführer (SS Major) Bernhard Krüger, who set up a team of 142 counterfeiters from inmates at Sachsenhausen concentration camp at first, and then from other camps, especially Auschwitz. Beginning in 1942, the work of engraving the complex printing plates, developing the appropriate rag-based paper with the correct watermarks, and breaking the code to generate valid serial numbers was extremely difficult, but by the time Sachsenhausen was evacuated in April 1945 the printing press had produced 8,965,080 banknotes with a total value of £134,610,810. The notes are considered among the most perfect counterfeits ever produced, being almost impossible to distinguish from the real currency. (Wikipedia: Operation Bernhardt)

It's the best history lesson about this particular episode of the War that has been committed to film. Unfortunately, it isn't a particularly gripping film. The picture's framing story tells us that its protagonist will survive, so the next hour and a half is merely an exercise in seeing how he does it. Sure, his conscience evolves. Sure, there are ethical dilemmas about the merits of saving one's own skin versus throwing a wrench into the Nazi war machine. But there isn't much we haven't seen before, and the film never fully captures our imagination.

If you're a history buff, I recommend this THE COUNTERFEITERS for its depiction of Operation Bernhardt. Otherwise, while it's a good film, I wouldn't counsel you to go out of your way for it.

The Lady Eve

The Lady Eve has the wrong title. The title should be Barbara Stanwyck Kicks Ass and Take Name for an Hour and a Half. Well, perhaps that's a bit much. How about Barbara Stanwyck is Better Than You, or Hey Moron, Why Aren't You in Love with Barbara Stanwyck Yet?

Whatever you call it, Preston Sturges's screwball comedy about a naive millionaire and the fraudsters out to fleece him is utterly, delightfully, hilariously brilliant. This is a movie that works spoken, physical, and character-based comedy into every scene, creating laugh-out-loud moments from sophisticated banter, pratfalls, and even simple moments like the unguarded shuffling of a deck of cards or the presentation of a lei.

Henry Fonda is the millionaire, a child of privilege on the return voyage from a long expedition up the Amazon. He's young, he's clumsy, he's idealistic, and he's so ridiculously, adorably, unstoppably in love that if you, dear reader, don't root for him, then you have an iron heart. Barbara Stanwyck is one of the fraudsters, the pretty girl who specializes in lovestruck rich morons. I've been crushing on Stanwyck since I saw Ball of Fire in 1982, and I've gotta tell you that her performance in this film eclipses even that classic. Stanwyck dominates every moment of The Lady Eve. She steals every scene she's in, and she steals every scene she's not in because even when none of the other characters are talking about her, they're talking about her. Her energy, her charisma, her combination of looks, brains, and balls (There's really no other way to put it: this dame's got big brass Bill the Goat balls.) sells Fonda's slackjawed lovesickness and sells her character's wit and audacity.

Toss in spot-on supporting comic performances from hall of famers Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette, William Demarest, and Eric Blore, perfect direction, editing, and scoring, and you have as good a screwball comedy as anyone has ever run through a projector. And, again, Stanwyck. What a performer. What a performance.

What a movie.

The Mutant Chronicles

Where do you go after a movie like 8 1/2? When you've just had a gourmet meal, what do you eat the next time you get hungry?

You go to a genre picture like THE MUTANT CHRONICLES for the same reason you go to McDonald's after that gourmet meal. When you've had a transcendent experience, you need to reset. Otherwise, you won't give perfectly fine but otherwise average fare its due. You'll be measuring it against that masterpiece, and it'll come up short.

And THE MUTANT CHRONICLES is as greasy a burger as you could want after the feast of 8 1/2. It's poorly written, poorly edited, poorly scored, poorly acted, and poorly conceived. It's an uncomfortable mishmash of WWI, zombies, and apocalyptic science fantasy set in a steampunk world that doesn't understand that automatic weapons create more and worse tissue damage in less time than swords. It has lame prophecies, halfhearted fu, and John Malkovich reading his lines from the back of a prop. It's just plain bad in every way, a nice counterpoint to 8 1/2 and a good way to ensure that the subsequent pictures on my Netflix queue get a fair shake.

So, yeah, I'm recommending it, after a fashion. If you spend all your time in the best restaurants, you need to remind your palette what bad tastes like. THE MUTANT CHRONICLES does the trick.

8 1/2

8 1/2 may the best film ever made.

If not, it is the best film about art ever made. Released in 1963, it would have been as relevant in 1889, the year after ROUNDHAY GARDEN SCENE, as it would be if it premiered tomorrow. It's a film that encompasses everything that art is about, or at least is supposed to be about. It's about the tension between truth and fiction, between art and commerce, between awareness and narcissism. And it's about everything that life is about. It's about commitment and betrayal, about memory and currency, reality and fantasy. It's about who we are and who we want to be, about ourselves and our self-constructs. It is, simply put, magnificent. It is the apotheosis of film and the indictment of the thin gruel we, as filmgoers, so regularly accept.

OK, so that's what it looks like when my mind is blown.

But this feels like a film I could see a thousand times. Not only is it a multisensual feast, but it probes, really probes, into the beating heart of life in a way no film I'd previously seen ever has. The photography complements the music complements the finely crafted story complements the performances complements the ideas that form the core of the work. 8 1/2 reveals Fellini at the height of his power, grappling with elemental dilemmas that have confronted man since he became self-aware. Mastroianni is incomparable. Cardinale and Aimée are revelatory. Every single thing about this picture is perfect. My only regret is that I've waited this long to see it.