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Monday, December 31, 2007 - 09:19:38
2007 - A YEAR IN REVIEW2007 has, in my opinion, been an exception year for film (thank you, Matt Smith). Now it's time for my annual Top 10. Making top 10 lists isn't a difficult enterprise; I make them all the time for various occassions. However, this year I thought I'd offer my Top 10 in pairs. Here are the twenty films that made an impact on me this year. They don't necessarily all constitute the year's best, but they are the 20 that I enjoyed the most.
1. The films that moved me the most: "Into the Wild" and "Zodiac." Sean Penn's "Into the Wild" was a great moviegoing pleasure. He captures the picturesque American landscape with precision and grace. David Fincher's "Zodiac" rocked me with its intensity and fine performances from Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey, Jr. These are my two favorite films of 2007.
2. Please, take another picture: "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" and "3:10 to Yuma." I thought both of these films were an aesthetic delight. Casey Affleck, Brad Pitt, Russell Crowe, Christian Bale and Ben Foster were each excellent in their own way.
3. Men behaving badly: "No Country for Old Men" and "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead." Whew, these two films hit me from the opening credits. They contain two of the year's best ensembles, and both will remembered well beyond our time.
4. The year of (no) birth control: "Juno" and "Knocked Up". "That ain't no etch-a-sketch. This is one doodle that can't be un-did, homeskillet." Ellen Page is the wonderful discovery of 2007.
5. This is how music movies should be made: "I'm Not There" and "Once." Better than any other movie musical or movie about music to grace the screen in almost a decade, these two films, polar opposite in their approach, take music (and our appreciation of it) to new levels.
6. Being bad is so damn fun: "Superbad" and "Grindhouse." "Superbad," was 2007's ultimate comedy introducing us to a character (McLovin) that has become a cult hero much like Napoleon Dynamite. And speaking of cults, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino (Tarantino much more for sure) took us on a crazy trip to a cinema world sparsely inhabited.
7. Real intense, intensely real: "Michael Clayon" and "Gone Baby Gone." Tony Gilroy's "Michael Clayton" is the finest (and most realistic) legal thriller ever made, and George Clooney is quickly becoming one of America's most acclaimed actors. Ben Affleck made one hell of a movie this year. Because he did (and thanks to Amy Ryan) he's on the list.
8. It doesn't take a lot of money to make an exceptional work of art: "Killer of Sheep" and "Shotgun Stories." Charles Burnett's student film was a magnificient look into the lives of the urban poor in Los Angeles. Jeff Nichols similarly inexpensive film examined the rural poor in Arkansas.
9. Why the edit room matters: "The Bourne Ultimatum" and "The Kite Runner." No film was as immaculately edited than Paul Greengrass's fantastic third Bourne installment. "The Kite Runner," with its sweeping camera work on the back of flying kites, was too beautiful to ignore.
10. Emotional quirks make for fine movies: "Lars and the Real Girl" and "Reign Over Me." Ryan Gosling's role in "Lars and the Real Girl" is warm and funny. Adam Sandler's role in "Reign Over Me" is dark and sad. Together, they compile two of the year's most interesting character studies.
11. (a). The five I didn't get to see: "There Will Be Blood," "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," "The Savages," "Atonement" and "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."
11. (b). The five that almost made it: "The Kingdom," "Waitress," "Sunshine," "Paris je t'aime," and "Away from Her."
Happy New Year.
Friday, December 28, 2007 - 10:30:49
MOVIEGOER REVIEW: SHOTGUN STORIESThe themes of revenge and protection are at the heart of "Shotgun Stories," a powerful and tense drama from director Jeff Nichols. Set in the rural communities of England and Keo, Arkansas, the film follows the intersection of two sets of brothers upon the death of their common father.
At the funeral, Son Hayes (Michael Shannon) and his two brothers Boy (Douglas Ligon) and Kid (Barlow Jacobs) invade the ceremony. Son offers a terse rebuke of the minister's eulogy and spits on his father's coffin. What follows is a feud between families, no different than any dark tale from the American West.
Using every aspect of the surrounding landscape, and relying on the dimming light from the setting sun, the film is immaculately shot by William Eggleston. The farmlands and fish ponds mutter a sad tune as these brothers wage war on each other.
Michael Shannon recently graced the screen in "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," and G. Alan Wilkins, as local drug dealer Shampoo, radiate the film's gentle light. They are guided by a solid script, written by Nichols, that keeps the dialogue simple; to do otherwise would be disingenuous to the film's sense of place.
It's this understanding of place and self that makes "Shotgun Stories" a film to behold and cherish.
Thursday, December 27, 2007 - 12:24:28
Here's the hilarious red band trailer for "Semi-Pro" starring Will Ferrell. Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, the owner-player of the Flint Michigan Tropics. The film is written by Scot Armstrong ("Old School") and directed by Kent Alterman, who executive produced "Little Children," "A History of Violence" and "Elf." MOVIEGOER REVIEW: JUNO
Youthful sex, and a failure to use some form of contraception, is a common theme at the movies this year. Judd Apatow showed how a crude and immature boy could grow up when his one night stand gets pregnant in "Knocked Up," one the year's warmest and funniest comedies. Now comes "Juno," a film that tells the story of a young girl having to grow up when her own one night stand goes awry.
Starring Ellen Page (Juno MacGuff) and Michael Cera (Paulie Bleeker), who also played Evan in the Apatow-produced "Superbad," this tender and super smart film follows this unusual high-school couple during the nine months of her pregnancy. "It all started with a chair," the film begins. After a brief conversation with Bleeker, as he is called, she decides to have an abortion. But a trip to the clinic called "Women Now," because they "help women now" convinces her otherwise. She decides to carry the baby to term and give it up for adoption.
Cool and witty beyond her young age, Juno proudly displays her protruding belly under vintage t-shirts and weathered zip hoodys. She knows good music and says funny things like "He is the cheese to my macaroni" and "I've taken like three pregnancy tests, and I am for shizz up the spout."
Diablo Cody is the author of this artfully crafted dialogue. Surprisingly, "Juno" is her first screenplay. Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner play Mark and Vanessa Loring, the potential adoptive parents who are on different sides of the matter. Mark is a former rock musician longing for independence and Vanessa is a desperate-to-be-mother unable to have children of her own. Mark and Vanessa are a bad match, but the performances of Bateman and Garner are picture perfect. You believe everything about them, even if you don't like it.
Mac and Bren MacGuff, Juno's father and step-mother, are played compassionately by J.K. Simmons (of the "Spider-man" movies) and Allison Janney (C.J. Cregg from television's "The West Wing"). Leah, played by Olivia Thirlby, is Juno's lone friend. She's there when Juno breaks the news to her folks, and when Mac says, referring to Mr. Bleeker, "I didn't think he had it in him," Leah, always the pleaser, responds, "I know, right?" She's the humorous sidekick, never letting things get too emotional or too serious.
Jason Reitman last directed "Thank You for Smoking" in 2005; a film that took a satirical look at the tobacco lobby. Unlike that film, there's not a hint of satire in "Juno." Instead, weaved through Cody's words and Page's Oscar-worthy performance, is a film that is honest and totally boss. MOVIEGOER REVIEW: THE GREAT DEBATERS
There is great admiration to be given to Denzel Washington's latest film "The Great Debaters." The story of a small Wiley College debate team, whose talents and accomplishments set the stage for one of the best, and most historically significant, amateur competition moments in American history. Mr. Washington, who also stars as the film's lead Melvin B. Tolson, returns to the director's chair, five years removed from his debut "Antwone Fisher." Like that film, "The Great Debaters" is simple, yet robust. In spurts, it will blow you away.
I found it difficult not to draw parallels to many sports films made recently. "Glory Road," for example, which chronicles the miraclous 1966 NCAA tournament title by Texas Western, the first team to start five black players, and "We Are Marshall," about the season following a plane crash involving the football team. In fact, "The Great Debaters," felt like those films, with Tolson, played flawlessly by Mr. Washington, serving as their inimitable leader. After all, the same principles of perseverence and hard work apply in debate, and Mr. Washington's film, from a script by Robert Eisele, follows the same formula as these two films.
The cast, led by Forest Whitaker (James Farmer, Sr.) and newcomers Nate Parker (Henry Lowe), Jurnee Smollett (Samantha Booke) and Denzel Whitaker (James Farmer, Jr.) (unrelated to either Mr. Washington or Mr. Whitaker), is effortlessly good.
The film also illustrates the painful and terrible attitudes of the Jim Crowe south. When Mr. Farmer, Sr. is humiliated in front of his family for running over a white man's pig, you want to curl up under your seat. And when the team comes upon a lyching while driving to a debate late one night, you'll feel your stomach drop. Not since "Mississippi Burning," have we seen such frightening images brought to the screen.
And while these experiences could have shattered this team, they soldier on to victory after victory, and then a lot more. At the conclusion of the film we find out that Mr. Lowe went on to become a minister, Ms. Booke, a lawyer, and Mr. Farmer, Jr. a leader in the civil rights movement, and the founder of the Congress of Racial Equality.
Mr. Washington does a fine job telling their story. They, like us, should be proud.
Monday, December 24, 2007 - 12:05:54
Max wishes everyone happy holidays on the Arkansas Times blog, and I will do the same here. Enjoy your traditions, whatever they may be. And your family and friends. Bask in the joy of giving. Watch a movie. Smile.
Happy holidays,
The Moviegoer
2007 Christmas Top 10
1. A Christmas Story
2. Bad Santa
3. Scrooged
4. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
5. It's a Wonderful Life
6. Miracle on 34th Street
7. Joyeux Noel
8. Love Actually
9. A Christmas Carol
10. The Family Stone MOVIEGOER REVIEW: MARGOT AT THE WEDDING
Watching a film about parents being bad to their children isn't something that is particularly appealing to me. However, in 2005, Noah Baumbach, a relatively unknown filmmaker, made a whopper of a film called "The Squid and the Whale," starring Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels as parents on the brink of divorce. Baumbach intimated in several press interviews that the film was autobiographical, although which parts and which characters we'll never really know. Nonetheless, this film, made in New York was a sophisticated, if not academic, assessment of parents and children and divorce. I loved it.
So it was only reasonable that his next picture, "Margot at the Wedding," starring Nicole Kidman, Jack Black and Jennifer Jason Leigh, would knock my socks off. Baumbach had a niche, and because of his gift for screenwriting he could tell difficult stories well, and in a way that didn't seem trivial.
"Margot at the Wedding," is the story of Margot (Nicole Kidman) and her son Claude (Zane Pais) who together travel to Margot's sister Pauline's (Jennifer Jason Leigh) wedding to Malcolm (Jack Black). Margot's in the midst of leaving her husband (John Turturro, briefly), so it only stands to reason that attending a wedding would be an unappealing endeavor.
And that's precisely what it turns out to be. Margot's as mean as a snake, and not just to her sister for whom she has generally disapproval. But to her son, who can't seem to do anything right, despite never doing anything wrong, and to her husband, at whom she fires demonic insults that would sear the flesh of any real human being.
Like many of Baumbach's characters, those central to the film are writers, wanna-be writers or failed writers. They swim in angst, self loathing, and jealousy, as if their profession, if not their craft, has yet to heal them from their awful past. And Baumbach's script alludes to an awful past for Margot and Pauline.
Sadly, this film just makes you uncomfortable. You want Margot to stop being Margot, Pauline to stop being Pauline, and Malcolm to stop being Malcom. The days leading up their wedding are a hate-fest, and what they say and how they act will cause you to squirm in your seat. That's because it seems that this script, unlike "The Squid and the Whale," and despite it's 91- minute running time, didn't see the virtue in brevity. A few less insults and a few more moments of compassion would have made for a more tolerable film. Maybe next time.
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