My Top 10 of 2007

MY TOP TEN OF 2007

1. No Country For Old Men
Written for the Screen and Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

No Surprise here. The Coens astound here in their best film since 1996's Fargo. Based on Cormac McCarthy's best-selling novel, this story pulsates with suspense, violence, brilliant acting, and the usual humor that we've come to love from the Coens. Simply stated, the film is just about perfect in every way, from Roger Deakins' bleakly brilliant cinematography to the seemingly absent score. Mix in incredible performances from Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Kelly MacDonald, Woody Harrelson, and Tommy Lee Jones, how could you not see this as the best film of the year? I'm just calling as I see it, friendo.

2. The Diving Bell and The Butterfly
Directed by Julian Schnabel

It helps to have a screenplay which is written by a multiple Oscar-winner, Ronald Harwood, but the brilliance of the film comes from the masterwork of director Julian Schnabel. He's shown his skill before in such films as Before Night Falls but never has he made a film this beautiful or imaginative. The story of famed Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby (Matheiu Amalric) after he suffers a paralyzing stroke is one that is heartbreaking, but eventually uplifting as he uses the one functioning part of his body, his left eye, to write his biography. A cameo by acting legend Max von Sydow makes your heart melt, and so does everything else in this astonishing film.

3. Away From Her
Written For The Screen and Directed by Sarah Polley

Sarah Polley, formerly known as an actress who bounced around in such films as eXistenZ and The Sweet Hereafter goes far beyond anyone's expectations with her debut feature as a director, Away From Her. The film chronicles the older couple of Grant (Gordon Pinsent) and Fiona (Jule Christie), and how they must cope with Fiona's mental disintegration at the hands of Alzheimer's Disease. Needless to say, Christie seems bound for an Oscar nomination for playing Fiona, but we should not forget the film experience as a whole. No movie this year is more moving or heartbreaking, nor does any film show bare emotion more accurately.

4. Juno
Directed by Jason Reitman
Written By Diablo Cody

The stripper-turned-cult blogger-turned-screenwriter, Diablo Cody came right out of left field with this incredibly wonderful film about a young girl named Juno (the effervescently funny and sweet Ellen Page) who is forced to learn about life rather quickly when she becomes pregnant. In a year filled with a bundle of feel-bad pictures, something about Juno felt extra refreshing. Page along with J.K. Simmons, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, and Allison Janney complete what is easily the best ensemble acting performance of the year. Filled with hilarious, pithy dialogue and a great soundtrack, no other movie will leave you with a better feeling.

5. There Will Be Blood
Written For The Screen and Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

No other movie this year overcomes it flaws the way Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood does. Despite the few chinks within it's story (it's relentlessness; it's complete abandonment of reality), it well makes up for it by being absolutely unforgettable. Daniel Day-Lewis' portrayal of Daniel Plainview, the manic oilman who despises humanity, is another achievement of acting that Day-Lewis can add to his already vastly impressive resume. Anderson, always a true visionary, channels the character perfectly with help from cinematographer Robert Elswit, and a score from Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood.

6. Michael Clayton
Written and Directed by Tony Gilroy

I think many were surprised that Michael Clayton was an original screenplay by Gilroy, and not some reworking of a John Grisham novel. Instead, Gilroy created a film that goes back to the classic law dramas of the 70's with true suspense and an infallible cast of actors. George Clooney, as the title character, gives his best performance to date as a man who is paid under the table by a major law firm to fix the messes that created by the clients and lawyers alike. When his next project becomes his crazed friend Arthur (the wonderful Tom Wilkinson), he has to rethink what he is doing. Add great performances by Tilda Swinton and Sidney Pollock, and you have one of the best law dramas in years.

7. Into The Wild
Written for the Screen and Directed by Sean Penn

The story of Christopher McCandless is one that is whimsically captivating despite it's tragic ending. Based on Jack Krakauer's book, Sean Penn recreates the story of McCandless, a young man who abandons his privileged life to travel to Alaska and live amongst nature. Emile Hirsch, a twenty-two year old, gives one of the best performances of the year as McCandless, and is boosted by a supporting cast which includes Catherine Keener, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, and the always wonderful Hal Holbrook. Penn's meditation on McCandless is one of wonder and adventure, and using a soundtrack filled with songs penned by Eddie Vedder, he is able to perfectly capture the world of transcendentalism that McCandless admires.

8. Atonement
Directed by Joe Wright

With the top billing going to rising stars James McAvoy and Keira Knightley, few knew that the film Atonement would be dominated by another trio of actresses: two unknowns and one legend. The story of Briony Tallis (played by Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai, and Vanessa Redgrave, respectively) and her successful attempt to destroy young love is heartbreaking and enthralling. Wright, hot off his beautiful version of Pride & Prejudice, constructs a film so well put-together, seeing it is like watching a masterful piece of art. All of the performances are first-rate, and the addition of Dario Marianelli's pulsating score and Seamus McGarvey's incandescent photography make this film simply beautiful.

9. Ratatouille
Written and Directed by Brad Bird

With The Incredibles, Brad Bird made a masterpiece that brilliantly addressed the themes of responsibility, marriage, and family. With Ratatouille, the message is not as profound, but the story and characters are so much more lovable and cuddly. Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt), is a cultured rat, obsessed with the idea of becoming a famous chef in Paris, France. When he finds his opportunity by helping a hopeless chef named Linguini (voiced by Lou Romano), he's finally able to make his delectable masterpieces. The story is touching, as all Pixar stories tend to be, and has probably the most lovable rat ever to grace the silver screen.

10. Knocked Up
Written and Directed by Judd Apatow

Another film in the Judd Apatow repertoire, Knocked Up is probably the funniest film of 2007. Filled with dirty jokes and the usual gang of Apatow actors (Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd, Jason Segel), it's brash humor and wicked description of pregnancy is hilarious. Seth Rogan (another member of the Apatow crew) and Grey Anatomy's Katherine Heigl make up the "beauty and the slacker" couple who come together for one night, only to become pregnant. Add a strikingly venomous performance by Apatow's real-life wife Leslie Mann as Heigl's disapproving sister, and you have a perfect companion piece to Apatow's earlier classic dirty comedy, The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

TIED FOR 11TH PLACE
(cause there were much more than ten good films this year)

Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited was as beautiful as it was puzzling; the denouement to the Bourne series The Bourne Ultimatum was the best and most exciting of the three; James Mangold's 3:10 To Yuma was one of the best westerns to be made in many years; Julie Taymor's meditation on the Beatles and life in the Turbulent 60's, Across The Universe, was exquisite; Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was as bloody as it was mesmerizing; David Cronenberg's second combination with actor Viggo Mortenson in Eastern Promises paid off as they make one of the most thrilling films of the year--with one killer nude/killing scene; John Carney's "modern-day musical", Once, is filled with incredible music and heart-tugging characters; and Tamara Jenkins' return to the silver screen with The Savages was one of tenderness and wonderful humor.

The Kite Runner (***)

THE KITE RUNNER
Directed by Marc Forster



***

Within the story of The Kite Runner you have something that is incredibly touching, painfully sad, profoundly heroic, and simply wonderful. Based on the best-selling novel by Khaled Hosseini, the film translates comfortably to the screen within the hands of director Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland).

The novel was well-loved by it's audience, but it seemed unlikely that it would transfer to the silver screen without some shade of prepackaged Hollywood filmmaking. Well, the movie does not walk away unscathed, but Forster does a good job of keeping the integrity of the story, and more importantly, keeping the heart. Dealing with such issues as child abuse and the tyrannical violence within Afghanistan, it seems strange that this film comes off feeling rather uplifting, but the story finds the satisfaction in the character's redemption.

The story deals with the boyhood friendship between Amir (Zekeria Ebrahimi) and Hassan (Amad Khan Mahmidzada). Amir's father Baba (Homayoun Ershadi) is a powerfully rich man who has Hassan and his father work as servants in their home. Living almost like brothers, the two boys become incredibly close friends, and spend all their time flying kites and going to the movies to watch The Magnificent Seven. Amir loves to write stories and reads them to Hassan, but Baba does not see his writings as anything special. Baba knows of Amir's cowardliness toward bullies, and is ashamed that Hassan must stand up for him because he cannot stand up for himself.

Hassan is a skilled kite runner, which is a term to describe someone who knows how to run down a wild kite that has just been cut from it's string in the middle of the air. When Hassan goes to run down a kite for Amir he is cornered by the usual bullies who hate him because of his Haraza heritage. Amir sees the confrontation, where Hassan is beaten and raped, but runs away in fear instead of helping his friend. Hassan limps away quietly, but Amir's guilt plagues him. He begins insulting Hassan and even frames him to look like he is stealing from Baba. Hassan takes it in stride, which drives Amir even more crazy with culpability.

When Communist Russia bursts into Afghanistan, Baba and Amir escape Afghanistan and move to Los Angeles. Twenty years later, Amir (Khalid Abdalla) is married, a college graduate, and a published novelist. He gets a call from one of his father's associates giving him a cryptic message: Hassan has been killed and his son is in an orphanage deep within the Taliban in Afghanistan. For his friend Hassan, and other revealed personal reasons, Amir must return to a land he no longer knows to save Hassan's son.

More than anything, the film deals with Amir's redemption. Despite the success of graduating from college and getting married to a beautiful wife, Amir has never been able to forgive himself for his cowardice so many years ago. His fight with his conscience and his growing bravery is what makes the film so interesting.

The film is subdued by some rather muted performances in the film, but that seems forgivable seeing as the entire Middle Eastern cast was being directed by the European Forster. That said, one of the wonders of the film is the performance by Homayoun Ershadi as Baba. Ershadi, an actor who has seldom made appearances in American films, is the heart of most of the movie. He starts the film as a powerful man with money growing from his fingerprints, and ends as an ill man whose skills never got him any more than a job at a gas station in America. His integral role is the most warm-hearting of the film.

With this film, Marc Forster continues his trend of interesting filmmaking. His films have varied greatly from the indie melodrama Monster's Ball and last year's particularly under appreciated comedy Stranger Then Fiction. This film is not perfect, nor does it evoke feelings of a film that will be remembered for years to come, but it is something that is truly sincere and touchingly sweet.

There Will Be Blood (****)

THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Written for the Screen and Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson



****

No filmmaker in the last ten years has been more enigmatic than Paul Thomas Anderson. His films range from the extremely quirky romantic comedy Punch-Drunk Love, the meditation on the decadence of the 70's porn industry, Boogie Nights, and the unrelenting group melodrama Magnolia. It is hard to believe, with those wide range of credits, that he can then continue to make his most ambitious film to date, stylistically and thematically.

The film begins with Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) chugging eagerly away with a pick at the bottom of an oil well. He is alone, and when he slips down his ladder, he severely breaks his leg. What is foremost on his mind, though, is the situation in his well. Plainview labors to climb up his well with his leg, holding a giant grin on his face: he knows that he's struck gold. The rest of the film is essentially numerous versions of this opening sequence, as Plainview grows with more and more hunger to gain riches from the oil he discovers.

There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson's fifth film, is primarily the story of Plainview after his first discovery. When we finally hear him speak, he is now a self-made oil man who travels from town to town with his adopted son H.W. (Dillon Freasier) trying to find and buy oil-drilling prospects. When he is lead to the Sunday Ranch by a mysterious Paul Sunday, he heads over to see the land himself. He gets there and greets the owner Abel, whose son Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) is a mystical preacher in a slowly growing church.

Plainview sees that the ranch has oil practically bursting out of the ground, and quickly begins attempts to lease the land so he can begin to drill. Everything is agreed upon: he will drill in the ground, and in exchange he will pay five thousand dollars to the Sunday family for using their land. There is one issue, though: Eli does not totally trust Plainview's motives or the morality of his workers, and Plainview does not totally buy into Eli's piety, as Eli asks all of the money be used to promote his church. The battle of wits between these two men is what makes the overall conflict in the story, but we are never sure which side represents good or evil.

The film is loosely based on Upton Sinclair's Oil, a muckraking novel written decades after Sinclair's iconic 1920's book The Jungle. This is the first time that Anderson has ever adapted a screenplay from a book, and it stands to say that Anderson supposedly strays from the source material quite a bit. The entire story rests on the unrelenting personality of Daniel Plainview. Plainview is a man of strict morals, in which he feels he is the only that can break his code. His relationships with people are strained and cold. Even in his most close relationship with his son H.W., he uses the young man as more of a tool or a prop than a son.

In a very interesting subplot, Plainview meets a man named Henry (Kevin J. O'Connor) who claims to be his half-brother. Despite flimsy evidence, Plainview believes him, and Henry becomes the only person in the film that he truly confides in. He tells Henry about his hatred for the human race and his disdain in almost all his relationships with people. It is the most telling scene in the movie, at least of Plainview, and the only time Plainview takes the time to explain his unflinching personality.

Plainview's cold, distant personality is captured in an absolutely ferocious performance by Daniel Day-Lewis. Day-Lewis, one of the most supreme and dedicated actors of his generation, does another tremendous job of transformation here. His Daniel Plainview is one so collective yet conniving that he becomes the unquestioned dominating force throughout the picture. He sports a John Huston-like drawl throughout the film which makes his voice crackle and pop. There are less than a handful of scenes that don't have Plainview as the focus, and needless to say, those scenes don't last very long.

The only other actor who challenges Day-Lewis for supremacy in this film is Dano. Eli Sunday is a puzzling character--he is mild-mannered but bursts into loud, outlandish sermons when placed in his church. Plainview never believes in Eli's flailing and emotional outbursts, and Sunday becomes a representation of everything he wants to destroy. Sunday says believes in the power of God, but it is curious how often he asks for money, and how often his sermons turn into spectacles. Dano's performance as the naive yet intelligent Eli is one that is incredibly nuanced and complex, yet he is never able to out stage the presence of Plainview.

Many comparisons have been made by movie experts comparing the character of Daniel Plainview to the iconic character of Charles Foster Kane. I find this hard to fathom as Plainview never spends time in the film to lament over anything like Kane does with "rosebud", but the stories of the two are similar. Both men work as hard as they can do get riches they will never truly appreciate, but Kane does it to buy the love of the people around him, which he tragically finds is not something that can be bought. Plainview's fate seems much more fair, though, because he collects money to buy his own isolation from the rest of the world, and he earns it. The two films are much more dissimilar than most seem to realize but both are interesting stories of the power of greed and the disintegration of the soul.

The film, I must say, is no Citizen Kane. There Will Be Blood struggles at moments with it's story: like I said, there is never a satisfactory reason given for Plainview's hatred, women seem to have no purpose in the world of this film and many have been debating the appropriateness of the ending. Though I think it's silly to expect a conventional ending from the same guy who made it rain frogs at the conclusion of Magnolia, I believe the film's ending devolves into unneeded eccentricity. Yet, I get the feeling that this film couldn't have ended any other way, and that there was never any kind of room for anything appropriate to happen in the end.

That said, no other film released this year has more of a feeling of profundity. The film tackles so many themes at the same time, it's an accomplishment that this film was able to be made without being a complete mess. It addresses greed, the downside of capitalism, the inevitability of tragedy, and the role manipulation and materialism plays in today's churches and religions. Nobody comes away unscathed in this film, and that seems to be the point. The film is so brooding and so relentless in its mischievous actions you walk away pondering deep, dark thoughts.

Final Oscar Predictions

Updated January Oscar Predictions

Best Picture
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
*No Country For Old Men
There Will Be BloodBest Director
Paul Thomas Anderson, THERE WILL BE BLOOD
*Joel & Ethan Coen, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Sean Penn, INTO THE WILD
Julian Schnabel, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
Joe Wright, ATONEMENT
Best Actor
George Clooney, MICHAEL CLAYTON
*Daniel Day-Lewis, THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Johnny Depp, SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
Emile Hirsch, INTO THE WILD
Viggo Mortenson, EASTERN PROMISES

Best Actress
Helena Bonham Carter, SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
*Julie Christie, AWAY FROM HER
Marion Cottilard, LA VIE EN ROSE
Angelina Jolie, A MIGHTY HEART
Ellen Page, JUNO
Best Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck, THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY COWARD ROBERT FORD
*Javier Bardem, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Philip Seymour Hoffman, CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR
Hal Holbrook, INTO THE WILD
Tom Wilkinson, MICHAEL CLAYTON

Best Supporting Actress
*Cate Blanchett, I'M NOT THERE
Catherine Keener, INTO THE WILD
Saoirse Ronan, ATONEMENT
Amy Ryan, GONE BABY GONE
Tilda Swinton, MICHAEL CLAYTONBest Original Screenplay
Brad Bird, RATATOUILLE
*Diablo Cody, JUNO
Tony Gilroy, MICHAEL CLAYTON
Tamara Jenkins, THE SAVAGES
Nancy Olivier, LARS AND THE REAL GIRL

Best Adapted Screenplay
Paul Thomas Anderson, THERE WILL BE BLOOD
*Joel & Ethan Coen, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Christopher Hampton, ATONEMENT
Ronald Harwood, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
Sean Penn, INTO THE WILDBest Cinematography
*Roger Deakins, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Robert Elswit, THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Janusz Kaminski, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
Seamus McGarvey, ATONEMENT
Rodrigo Prieto, LUST, CAUTION

Best Art Direction
Dante Ferretti, SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
Jack Fisk, THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Dennis Gassner, THE GOLDEN COMPASS
*Sarah Greenwood, ATONEMENT
Patricia Norris, THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY COWARD ROBERT FORD
Best Editing
Jay Lash Cassidy, INTO THE WILD
John Gilroy, MICHAEL CLAYTON
Roderick Jaynes, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
*Tatiana Riegel & Dylan Tichenor, THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Paul Tothill, ATONEMENT

Best Costume Design
Colleen Atwood, SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
*Jacqueline Durran, ATONEMENT
Patricia Norris, THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY COWARD ROBERT FORD
Lai Pan, LUST, CAUTION
Rita Ryack, HAIRSPRAYBest Make-Up
*Nana Fischer, SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
John E. Jackson, LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA
Colin Penman, HAIRSPRAY

Best Visual Effects
Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End
*Spider-Man 3
TransformersBest Animated Feature
Beowulf
Persepolis
*Ratatouille

Best Foreign-Language Feature
*4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, dir. Christian Mingiu (Romania)
The Counterfeiters, dir. Stefan Ruzowitzki (Austria)
Gone With The Woman, dir. Peter Naess (Norway)
Persepolis, dir. Mrjane Strapi & Vincent Parronaud (France)
The Silly Age, dir. Pavel Giroud (Cuba)

Best Documentary Feature
Body of War
Lake of Fire
*No End In Sight
The Rape of Europa
Sicko

Best Original Score
Johnny Greenwood, THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Albert Iglesias, THE KITE RUNNER
*Dario Marianelli, ATONEMENT
Howard Shore, EASTERN PROMISES
Alan Silvestri, BEOWULF

Best Original Song
"That's How You Know" from ENCHANTED
"Grace Is Gone" from GRACE IS GONE
"Come So Far (Got So Far To Go)" from HAIRSPRAY
*"Guaranteed" from INTO THE WILD
"Dispedida" from LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA

Charlie Wilson's War (***)

CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR
Directed by Mike Nichols



***

Mike Nichol's new film tells a very interesting, but very true story. For close to fifty years, America laid in fear of the Communist empire in the Soviet Union, and the constant stand-off of nuclear weapons between the US and the USSR has been documented famously as the Cold War. In the late 80s, Afghanistan became the first nation ever to take down the Soviet Army, and the domino effect led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the crumble of the Communist regime. How exactly was Afghanistan able to destroy the firepower of Russia? With a little help from Texas congressman Charlie Wilson.

Charlie Wilson's War tells the story of how he was able to pull it off, despite most of the American government not wanting to "draw attention". The film is so whimsical and funny, it is made even more impressive by the fact that it follows very the actual story very closely. With an adapted screenplay by Emmy-award winning writer Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing), the film pulsates with humor and authenticity. Sure, the film settles for sentimentality when we want to see more sarcasm, but we can forgive it easily.

Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks), a democratic Congressman, was in charge of a district in Texas that asked for little more than "guns and low taxes". With a bunch of free time on his hands, Charlie indulged in scantily-clad secretaries, gallons upon gallons of whiskey, and created quite a reputation of poor character. That is, until he receives a call from Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts), a platinum blonde Southern belle who happens to be the sixth richest woman in the state of Texas. Herring, using her strong bravado, convinces Charlie to give more thought to the Freedom Fighters in Afghanistan, fighting against a Soviet Army that ruthlessly kills innocent people in their country. A pious woman, Herring knows if the Afghans can defeat them, Communism may fall as well.

When Charlie decides to indulge in Joanne's wishes, he meets Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a disgruntled CIA agent, recently fired for breaking his bosses windows. Gust is a large, brooding man, with just as much an affinity for alcohol as Charlie does. Together, followed by Charlie's personal assistant Bonnie (Amy Adams), they manage to conduct a covert war, supplying Afghanistan with the weapons needed to take down the Soviet tanks and helicopters. Without anybody watching, Charlie was able to get money for his operation, leading to the end of the Cold War.

How does Charlie do it? And why is it that Wilson is never mentioned in the history books? Well, truth is, Charlie Wilson is a perfect example of someone the USA would like to forget about when the history books are typed. His constant boozing and womanizing make him the perfect anti-role model, but the truth is, Charlie was the one who got the money to supply Afghanistan, and the whole story creates one incredibly intriguing movie. In Mike Nichol's first film since the seething sex drama Closer, Nichols continues to show his intuitive talent for hilarious dialogue, mixed with characters that we know would actually say the words.

The film features a first-rate cast, headlined by Tom Hanks. Hanks is in the kind of role that is perfect for him: a sincere, flawed, but overall hilarious character. People forget, when they saw him in Cast Away and Philadelphia, that Hanks is an actor best fit for comedy. And now, with his eyes puffy, and his face beginning to hang, his look is even more pitch-perfect, at least for a role like Charlie Wilson. Hanks accomplishes something incredible, creating an incredibly likable character, but never goes too far, so we still believe he is a real person.

Of coarse, Hanks is boosted by a great supporting cast. Hoffman is dependable as Gust, a big chunk of sweaty, chain-smoking aggression--a perfect denouement to Hoffman's incredible year with The Savages and Before The Devil Knows You're Dead. Julia Roberts, in her first major role since 2004's Ocean's Twelve, is ravishing as Joanne Herring, even if the role is very limited. Amy Adams, once again, is lovable as Wilson's sensible personal assistant Bonnie, who seems to be the only woman working for Charlie who isn't required to boost eye-popping cleavage. Ned Beatty has a very good cameo as Doc Long, the politician who is the biggest financial contributor to Charlie's mission.

The film does not boast incredible filmmaking, nor does it totally deliver the effect I feel this material really deserves, but what it is, is entertaining. You can tell that the talent that has come together here is really doing it's best. Mike Nichols, a master filmmaker of his time, shows that he isn't done yet. Like Sidney Lumet with Before The Devil Knows You're Dead, Nichols seems to be showing that he is still able to deliver powerful, effective films, and with Charlie Wilson's War, he makes a film that is very funny, very charming, and absolutely wonderful.

(Note: As shone thoroughly in the film, despite helping Afghanistan defeat the Soviets, Charlie was not able to help the Afghans recover from all the damage, nor was he able to find money to build schools in the country. The very people that we gave weapons and training to would become the Taliban, a terrorist group known for much violence, including September 11th.)

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly (****)

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
Directed by Julian Schnabel



****

"Besides my left eye, there are only two things that aren't paralyzed: my imagination and my memory."- Jean-Dominique Bauby

And so goes one of the more memorable lines from Julian Schnabel's revolutionary new film The Diving Bell and The Butterfly. Based on the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, the film tells the story of one man's tragic fall and his courageous fight to live, even through the damnedest conditions.

Editor for Elle fashion magazine, Bauby (Mathieu Amalric) was a man of great excess and minor celebrity, but his flight to the top of the fashion world is devastatingly stilted by a massive stroke which causes his entire body to be paralyzed--a condition his doctor refers to as "locked-in syndrome". The only functioning part of his body is his left eye. He sees his doctors, his therapists, and his visitors, but his ability to communicate with them has gone. He has dreams that he is locked inside of a diving bell, drifting at the bottom of the ocean, and when he wakes, his fate is not much different.

After wakes of bitterness and self-pity, Bauby decides to work with his speech therapist Henriette (Marie-Josee Croze) in devising a form of communication. He is able to learn a way of dictating letters by blinking his one functional eye, and through that slow process, Bauby is able to create phrases and connect with the outside world. He even decides to dictate his own autobiography based mostly on his experiences in "locked-in syndrome".

A majority of the film is seen through the point-of-view of Bauby himself (a scene showing his infected right eye getting stitched is particularly difficult to watch), and his isolation is very well documented. The character of Bauby, though, is not a depressing one, but is in fact very life-affirming. He refuses to be locked in, and consistently takes journeys far all over the world, to the best restaurants in France, and frequently to moments in his past. He recalls visits to his aging, senile father (the legendary Max von Sydow) and a vacation he took with his mistress. He chooses life as apposed to prison.

Neither is Bauby shown in a complimentary light, but shown as a regular man. He cracks sarcastic jokes in his mind at the helplessness at which doctors debate his conditions, and frequently takes the opportunity to notice a woman's cleavage. Celine (Emmanuelle Seigner), an ex-girlfriend and mother to three of his children, visits him frequently, despite the fact that he is no longer in love with her.

Everything in this film is excellent for many reasons. This film captures a lot of things that make movies magical: imagination, beauty, humor, poignancy, sadness, and all the while telling a powerful story of a man who overcomes his own capture. It's hard for anybody to contemplate what it would be like to be locked in their own bodies, but this film displays with such detail and skill, it is probably as close we will come with knowing. Julian Schnabel's work in this film is truly something to cherish. Known for his 2000 film Before Night Falls, Schnabel has the ability to create moments of true sincerity and heartbreak, and still has the focus to expand the minds of his viewers with his technique.

Filled to the brim with breathtaking music and sweeping camera work, this is probably the overall best-made film that has come out in 2007. Working closely with the autobiography by Bauby itself, the film is able to recreate the exact mental state of a man. This is a very hard feat to accomplish, particularly when you factor in the complexities of Bauby's personality. No other time in recent memory have I felt so close to a character in a film than I did while watching this film.

Though the film has many great supporting performances (particularly by von Sydow and Seigner), the film is dominated by the performance by Mathieu Amalric. Quite a prolific worker in French films, Amalric deserves just as much credit with creating the world of Bauby as Schnabel. His wonderful spirit in the scenes of his own memory, compared to watching him confined in paralysis is a piece of chameleon acting that is beyond difficult, yet Amalric does it with seeming ease.

In the end, Bauby certainly does not seem like the perfect man, but we hope that any one of us could have the same spirit as he did in that terrible shape. The movies are filled with films that insult our intelligence by showing us the stories of people that they feel like we should respect, whether or not they deserve it (American Gangster comes to mind). Few times does a story come around that is truly inspirational and exemplifies what bravery really is. Bravery is not authoritative and gun-toting. Bravery is the power to overcome any terrible circumstance, whether it's something you brought on yourself or not. The Diving Bell and The Butterfly tells the story of that kind of bravery.

Atonement (****)

ATONEMENT
Directed by Joe Wright



****

There are only two ways that the events in Atonement are presented. They are presented as they happen, but they are also presented through the conspicuous eyes and imagination of Briony Tallis. The two points of view present one of the main themes of the movie, which is that everything can look rather different if seen from another perspective--and mistakes can be made if you judge only on one perspective.

The film begins with Briony (Saoirse Ronan) at the precocious age of thirteen. She is pounding away furiously on her typewriter, spewing out a play about the futility of falling in love too quickly. The summarization of her play alone shows that she is probably far too brilliant for her age. She scampers around her large estate glancing things with her small, blue, beady eyes, when she sees her sister Cecilia (Keira Knightly) and the housekeeper's son Robbie (James McAvoy) talking by the pool, and taking part in other mischievous activities.

We see the same encounter between Cecilia and Robbie later in the film, but from their perspective, and we see it as a much more innocent moment. Robbie has spent the last few years in school, which was paid for by Cecilia's father. Cecilia uses this information to act like she dislikes Robbie, but truthfully they both lust deeply after each other. It is not long after that moment that the two become honest with each other and their feelings, and fall for each other rather passionately. Perhaps too passionately, as young Briony catches their consummation of love on the library bookcase.

Of coarse, Briony does not understand what she has seen, and goes to the police with a rather vicious lie. Influenced not only by misunderstanding, but also by her own jealous, romantic feelings for Robbie, Briony says something that she fully believes is true, but is fully a figment of her own exasperatingly large imagination. This has disastrous consequences as the young, fleeting love between Cecilia and Robbie is destroyed as Robbie is arrested for a crime he did not commit.

The film is set against the backdrop of World War II, and much of the second half of the film deals with it firsthand. Robbie is given the option of joining the Army, as apposed to continuing out his sentence in prison. Cecilia and Briony both have become nurses at different hospitals, where they often see the harsh reality of war battle. Briony, now 18, has grown to realize the immense power of the fib that she told, and is trying constantly, but unsuccessfully, to forgive herself for it.

Adapted from Ian McEwen's novel, which was thought to be 'un-adaptable', the film constructs the material successfully in order for the audience to comprehend it. There are many moments that are shown twice to detail how clearly the mind of a child can misconstrue the situation, but the film also balances the change of time. The film spans over an entire decade (and sometimes longer), and the subtlety at which the stories at home and the stories at battle are connected do not baffle.

The war is shown in brutal, grizzly actuality. Robbie's journey through the evacuation at the beach in Dunkirk is shot in one beautiful, languid tracking shot. A scene depicting Briony in the middle of a hospital being quickly filled with wounded soldiers is both breathtaking and unvarnished. This film probably has the most unrelenting depiction of war violence of any film since Saving Private Ryan. That being said, the film uses the wretchedness of the war to show the separation of the two lovers. They keep writing each other letters, and are sometimes able to see each other briefly, but their relationship can never flourish because of Briony's mistake.

In the nature of many of the Merchant-Ivory films, the real beauty of Atonement is the astonishing skill in which the film was made. Their are several stages to the story, each filled with it's own color and tone. War scenes are desaturated, scenes in the estate are filled with an almost dreamlike brightness, and the hospitals are shown in such sharp, conflicting colors such as red, blue, and white. Joe Wright, making his first film since his wistfully beautiful version of Pride & Prejudice, makes here a film that is so sharp and polished, that it is a marvel. Everything from Dario Marianelli's blisteringly powerful score down to the exquisite choice of costumes is note perfect.

McAvoy, a young Scottish actor, fresh off of his success in The Last King of Scotland, gives his most eye-catching performance in this film. Robbie is an honest, good-hearted man plagued by a sexual infatuation that gets him in the biggest trouble of his life. Equally, Keira Knightley is ravishing as Cecilia. This is not a role of much variety, nor does it spark much complexity in the story itself, but Knightley treats the character justly, and allows it to come into it's fruition. They both depict the most tragically doomed couple since Jack and Rose in Titanic.

In a piece of wondrous casting, the character of Briony is played by three different actresses, each representing a different part of Briony's life. Saoirse Ronan's mouse-like portrayal of the young, suspicious Briony is probably the most captivating. Ronan's performance consists of jealousy, anger, heartbreak, and intelligence, but the young 13-year-old is able to pull it off. Depicting Briony as the 18-year-old nurse, wishing to atone for what she's done is Romola Garai. She does a wonderful job of showing a woman seeking forgiveness, surrounded by death. Then lastly, the legendary Vanessa Redgrave portrays Briony decades later, as a much respected novelist who unleashes some very serious irony to the story.

The film is epic and sweeping, and is beautiful to watch based on it's aesthetic value alone. The only thing that isn't beautiful in this movie is some of the actions some of the characters partake in, sometimes unwillingly. Atonement is a great achievement in filmmaking and is one of the very best films of this year. Few films are able to take all the small aspects of a movie, and perfect them the way this film does, and still have time to tell a heartbreaking story that is beautifully acted.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (***1/2)

SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
Directed by Tim Burton



***1/2

Stephen Sondheim's bloody musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is one of the most beloved stage plays in history. It's dark images and abundance of blood never stopped bevies of fans to come in to watch the story of the throat-slitting barber. So, you could see how many fans might have been worried when word came that it was going to be made into a Hollywood motion picture. How would you be able to get away with making this into a film with jeopardizing it's ferociousness?

In comes Tim Burton--possibly the most imaginative filmmaker since Stanley Kubrick--to take the reigns over the project. He brings in his most common collaborator in Johnny Depp to play the title character, and his wife, the ageless Helena Bonham Carter, to play the role of the meat pie maker Mrs. Lovett. How would these two performers, with no true singing talent, do in the roles? In a word: beautifully. It's true that neither Depp nor Carter have voices that blow you away, but they construct the performances so well that our focus moves from the singing to the power of the songs themselves.

The story of Sweeney Todd begins with the story of Benjamen Barker (Depp), a barber married to the beautiful Lucy, with a gorgeous baby daughter named Johanna. When the powerful Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) falls for Lucy and lusts after her, he has Barker disbarred and takes Lucy and Johanna for himself. After fifteen years, Barker manages to get out of prison and returns to London where he has changed his hairstyle and has become Sweeney Todd, a man obsessed with revenge on the people who took his life and family.

His old barber shop is now owned by Mrs. Lovett (Carter), a dainty woman who is rumored to make the worst meat pies on the planet, and has a shop covered with cockroaches. When she realizes Todd's true identity, she tells him that Lucy has since poisoned herself, and Johanna is still living in merciless captivity by Judge Turpin. Meanwhile, Todd's young companion on the ship to London, Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower) falls in love with Johanna, but is unable to get to her through Turpin's strict constraint.

After embarrassing the showy, Italian barber Signor Pirelli (a very cute cameo from Sacha Baron Cohen), Todd and Lovett construct a nearly flawless business proposition. With his barbering skills, Sweeney Todd will draw customers who, seeking a shave, will have their throats viciously sliced, and Mrs. Lovett will use the bodies to bake the meatiest meat pies ever sold in London. Todd is able to extract his thirst for blood, and Mrs. Lovett is able to make much of a profit on her much-improved meat pies.

After this plot summary, it seems obvious to say that this is one of the bloodiest films that I've ever seen. Every throat that Todd cuts sprays blood in countless directions, and afterward, Todd uses a foot petal to send their bloody corpses down a chute to the cellar, where Mrs. Lovett cooks up a nice pie with their remains. Its hard to imagine any filmmaker other than Burton who can construct this bloodbath without putting the original material at risk (he dealt with this delicate balance before in Sleepy Hollow). Burton instead makes the flaming red blood another corner stone in the spectacle that makes the film so tantalizing.

The music in film is preserved from the original Stephen Sondheim material, and the movie is essentially wall-to-wall with music. Like I've mentioned before, none of the actors in the film have particularly striking singing voices, but they're able to sing without power and allow the booming music in the background take center stage. Powerful songs such as "Johanna" and "No Place Like London" are reprised throughout the film with enough sweetness that the strength of voice never distracts. Remember, voice strength never hurt Chicago, which is easily the best American musical since Cabaret.

The performances in the film by Depp and Carter are what truly drive the film. Depp's portrayal as the vengeful, razor-wielding Todd is one the best, if not quirkiest of his career. Depp has spent the last fifteen years taking roles that makes us say "Well, I've never seen anyone do that before", and he continues with that trend here. As for Carter, her portrayal of Mrs. Lovett (a role immortalized by Angela Lansbury) is sweet, irresistible, and equally demented. Lovett's unyielding crush on Todd makes her the one character in the story a bit stranger than he is.

Their are very good performances in all the supporting roles as well. Alan Rickman's ruthless performance as the tyrant Judge Turpin is one of power and authority, a trait that this much underrated actor has employed in many roles over his career. Jaime Cambell Bower is convincing as Anthony, a young man fallen head over heels with the daughter of Todd. A true tour-de-force comes from a performance of the young Ed Sanders as Toby, a young vagabond who goes from the workhouse to working for Mrs. Lovett when her business booms. His presence is felt in his love for Mrs. Lovett and his finale has so much power, that I shall not reveal it.

Sweeney Todd is a testament to the filmmaking talent of Tim Burton. With this movie, he has established himself as a true cinematic visionary, with very few of his peers being nearly as brave or wondrous. It always seemed that Burton was more suited for animation, since live-action seems to stilt his infinite capabilities. But a film like this one makes you glad that he was willing to give it a shot. Never was beautiful, show-stopping music and unrelenting violence combined in a better way than this.

GREAT FILMS: Manhattan (1979)

MANHATTAN
Directed by Woody Allen

Out of all of Woody Allen's great work, it seems to me that none of his films are as beautiful and incandescent as Manhattan. It studies the usual Woody subjects: the troubles within sexual relationships and the futility of intellectualism. More than anything, though, Allen's eighth film is a love song to the city he loves. A city brewing with culture and occasional crumminess, Allen has dedicated essentially his entire catalog of films to showcasing New York City, but no other film demonstrates Allen's obsession like Manhattan.

The story follows a group New Yorkers, including Isaac (Allen), a paranoid television writer, who hates the low-brow material he writes and is in the middle of a healthy affair with a 17-year-old girl named Tracy (Mariel Hemingway). His friend Yale (Michael Murphey) is a college professor who is happily married to Emily (Anne Byrne), even though he can't get his mind off of his mistress Mary (Diane Keaton).

Both men are conflicted with their lives. Isaac irrationally quits his job, and constantly questions his immoral relationship with Tracy. Yale endlessly fails to choose between his love for the comforting Emily, or his lust for the high-strung Mary. On top of it all, Isaac has to deal with his ex-wife Jill (Meryl Streep) who plans to write a memoir about their unsuccessful marriage--and how she chose to leave him for another woman.

As all of Woody's films, Manhattan is filled with charming, flawed characters and hilarious, pithy dialogue, but this film is one of the only films Allen ever made where substance took a back seat to style. We remember the one-liners in the movie, but what we remember more is Allen's use of George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" throughout the soundtrack. What we remember more is iconic cinematographer Gordon Willis' incredible black and white photography. No other film that Allen has made has such a detail for tone and cinematography.

There are a lot of moments which tackle Woody's usual subject matter of romantic relationships and their ability to make people hysteric. Yale drops Mary to bring some stability in his life, but he is completely unable to get her out of his mind. He unwisely suggests that Isaac take Mary out. Equally unwise, Isaac gets rid of Tracy, despite the fact that she truly loves him. The complexity within the constant hooking up and breaking up is something that is not uncommon in Woody films. Needless to say, the relationship between Isaac and Mary does not work out.

The sweetest moments in Manhattan are the ones that involve Isaac and Tracy. Hemingway's performance as the emotionally mature teenager may be the greatest performance in a Woody Allen film. It's incredibly nuanced performance, because we believe that she actually loves the much older, balding Isaac. Months after he has left her, Isaac sits talking to Emily, explaining to her his missed opportunity with Tracy.

It is rumored that Woody Allen disliked this film so much that he asked United Artists not to release it. It makes sense when you come to realize that this movie is very different stylistically than any other movie he made. There is a moment in the film when Mary and Isaac are walking through a planetarium, and the dark tone of the photography literally drenches them in darkness for quite a few minutes. Very few filmmakers would be brave enough to do this, but what it does is put emphasis on the important dialogue that is being spoken by the characters in the scene.

This movie is not a socially relevant as Annie Hall and does not have a message that blows you away like Crimes and Misdemeanors, but Manhattan is by far the most beautiful film Woody Allen ever made. There's a moment toward the end of the movie where Isaac talks into a Dictaphone, stating all the things that make life worth living, which includes Groucho Marx, classical music, and of coarse, Tracy. Through this reflection, he realizes how much he loves Tracy. As the audience, when we watch Woody recite those things, we realize that this film is one of those things that makes life worth living.

The Savages (***1/2)

THE SAVAGES
Written and Directed by Tamara Jenkins

Savages - Trailer

***1/2

Ever since her charming feature Slums of Beverly Hills, filmmaker Tamara Jenkins has been MIA in movie theaters. Luckily, her return to filmmaking is with a film with such a great amount of heart, that it surpasses any of her previous work. Jenkins' The Savages is a film about familial responsibility. Though the dramatic comedy about family disorder is as common today as the brainless action film, this film is a one of a kind in the genre, because it focuses on the later result of that dysfunction.

The story is about Wendy Savage (Laura Linney), a woman in her mid-thirties with a desk job, and high ambitions to have her play financed--a play based on the irresponsibility of her parents in her childhood. She is also involved in a deep affair with a married 52-year-old man named Larry (Peter Friedman) who finds the time to indulge in sexual inhibitions with her in between walking his dog. When she receives a disturbing phone call about the health of her father, she is compelled to call her older brother John (Phillip Seymour Hoffman).

John is in the middle of dealing with his own issues. He's a theater professor who's struggling to write a book on Bertolt Brecht, and refuses to marry his Polish girlfriend when her visa has expired, and she will be deported. When Wendy calls him, she informs him that their father Lenny (Phillip Bosco) is being thrown out on the street when his girlfriend dies, and he's unable to legally stay in her home. To top it off, Lenny is suffering from Parkinson's Disease which has caused him to have Dementia.

Lenny's condition has gone far beyond anything they can take on themselves, and they put him in a nursing home in Buffalo. In the meantime, John and Wendy live together in John's house as they try to come to grips with their own lives, and caring for a father who never thought much of caring for them when they were children.

It is mentioned quite a few times throughout the film that Lenny was nearly nonexistent in Wendy and John's childhood, and though its obvious that they have both turned out well despite it, the effects of the abandonment has effected them deeply in their personal relationships and their overall self-confidence. Despite it all, though, they work increasingly hard to make Lenny comfortable, even if they are never able to overcome the guilt of putting him in a nursing home smelling of death.

The film is a breakthrough in the career of Tamara Jenkins. The script is equipped with all the sparkling charm usual to her earlier work, but this film is a lot more mature and grizzled (like Hoffman's beard). There are wonderful moments and superb pieces of dialogue, such as scenes where the two siblings discuss their own careers and futures as writers. The combination of being proud for a loved one and the subtle sibling competition is hard to show on screen. This film manages to do it with a couple lines and stares.

Of coarse, the film would be close to nothing without the work of it's great cast. Linney and Hoffman may be the two most dependable actors, in their respective genders, in film today. Hoffman, coming off a monster year where he also starred in Before The Devil Knows You're Dead and Charlie Wilson's War probably does his best work of this year in this small film, where he displays an emotionally confused 42-year-old with the self-esteem of a 12-year-old. Philip Bosco, known mostly for his work on the stage is transcendent as Lenny Savage, a man as helpless in old age and illness as he was neglectful as a father.

Of coarse, most of the emotional load of the film falls on Linney. Her ability to make Wendy likable and sweet despite being narcissistic and childish is what truly drives the film. Linney creates no pity parties for her character, but she is able to discover her own self-loathing. Without even realizing it, she becomes the backbone of an ever-decreasing family. She makes mistakes sexually and lies to get grant money from FEMA, but she is not all that much more horrible than anybody else.

The film succeeds as an offbeat comedy, even though the laughs come few and far between. Luckily, the audience doesn't get it's gut-check off of side-splitting laughs, but off of watching two people who realize the moment where they have to grow up and start taking care of their family. This is a hard task for two people who have no role model for a responsible family members. There's no need to laugh, the audience will be satisfied with their never-ending smile.

Juno (****)

JUNO
Directed by Jason Reitman



****

It's wonderful to see a film that is as exquisitely executed as Juno is. The movie is being touted as the offbeat comedy of the year, and I believe that it truly earns that title, but I think it is a lot more than that. It very well could be the best offbeat comedy of the last several years. Using tremendous dialogue, and a slew of excellent performances, Juno is one of the finer films that I've seen about what it is like to make a connection with somebody else.

The film stars rising star Ellen Page as Juno, an edgy sixteen year-old girl who gets knocked up after her and her goofy friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera) decide to have bored, living-room-chair sex. After chugging down gallons of Sunny D and taking numerous pregnancy tests, Juno realizes the unfortunate truth: she is pregnant. She contemplates abortion, until she realizes it would be more useful to give it up for adoption. She finds the perfect looking couple in the yellow pages in Mark (Jason Bateman) and Vanessa Loring (Jeniffer Garner). Her A/C repairman father Mac (J.K. Simmons) and her dog-loving step-mother Bren (Alison Janney) both accept her decision, and off Juno is into the unorthodox world of teenage pregnancy.

The movie would not be nearly as good if all those characters weren't as superbly cast as they were. The strength of the film comes from the great chemistry between all the actors on the screen. Jason Reitman, hot off the success of Thank You For Smoking, does a very good job of balancing all of the supporting performances underneath the stellar work of Page. There are no characters here who feel like stock stereotypes, but there are plenty who you may feel like giving a hug.

The film was written by stripper-turned-blogger-turned-screenwriter Diablo Cody. It is Cody's first screenplay, which makes it that much more impressive that she completely captured the essence of this bitingly humorous and incredibly charming story. This is not the first film made about teenage pregnancy, but it is easily the best. Cody does not settle for the sentimentality that most of those other films had, and instead the film flips a switch and it ends up it is not about pregnancy at all, but about people.

There are plenty magical little moments throughout the film, which is sparkling with wonderful humor. The wit of the dialogue, mostly spoken by Juno herself, is so quick and striking, you find yourself attempting to stop yourself from laughing so you can hear what is coming next. Throughout the laughs, though, the moments that stay with you are the conversations where you won't laugh. Many scenes in this movie are examples of Cody's beautifully written dialogue, my personal favorite being when Juno talks to Bleeker to tell him all the reasons why she likes him.

One of the twists in the film is Juno's relationship with Mark. A commercial jingle writer, Mark is constantly debating the possibility of being a father, while under the immense pressure Vanessa to grow up from his rock star dreams. Garner and Bateman's portrayal of the beautiful couple slowly crumbling is heartbreaking if not honest. Juno learns a lot about what lays beneath the surface of the beauty.

The film is easily a coming-out party for Ellen Page, an actress already known for her edginess after playing a 14-year-old trying to expose a pedophile in 2005's Hard Candy. Page completely embodies Cody's words, being probably the most lovable irresponsible movie teenager since Ferris Bueller. It's not just that Page is edgy or funny, she captures the heart of the audience with true sincerity. There is nothing forced in this performance. With Page we have the next great actress of her generation, and in this film, we have the best performance of her young, promising career.

Along with Page, Garner, and Bateman, the rest of the cast delivers first-rate performances. Michael Cera continues his wonderful year after Superbad, playing the tic-tac-loving Bleeker. His acute strangeness makes him perfect for Juno. Alison Janney is, as always, dependable as the strong-willed stepmother. Then, we have J.K. Simmons, giving one of his best performances as Mac. One of the best highlights of the film is a moment when Mac explains to Juno what he thinks is the concept of true love, the kind that lasts forever.

One thing that I shouldn't forget to mention is that the film has some great music spread throughout (highlighted by The Moldy Peaches' "Anyone Else But You") which is almost a motif because it is so heavily highlighted. Most of the music speaks like a Greek chorus for the movie, and will most likely stay in your head after you've left the theater.

The film does not promote teenage sex, nor demote it. What it does as a film is sit back and watch objectively and casually say, "That's life and those things happen", which can easily be said about a lot of moments in the film. We've seen all the characters in this films throughout our lives, homes, and, unfortunately, schools, but this film is not supposed to be any kind of lesson, but a document. A document about life and the things that happen which we don't expect.

Margot At The Wedding (*1/2)

MARGOT AT THE WEDDING
Written and Directed by Noah Baumbach



*1/2

There are a lot of similarities between Noah Baumbach's first film The Squid and The Whale and his new film Margot at the Wedding. Both deal with unbearable intellectuals who are terrible people and even worse parents. Baumbach doesn't seem to like writing about people with high character, but at least in The Squid and The Whale the characters were somewhat charming, making them likable to a majority of the audience. The same cannot be said for the characters in this film.

The film stars Nicole Kidman as Margot, a successful writer who takes her son Claude (Zane Pais) with her as she travels to visit her sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) as she gets married. Pauline's fiance is Malcolm (Jack Black) a mustached, chubby loafer of whom Margot severely disapproves of. The sisters have reunited for the first time in a few years, with Pauline having moved into their childhood home, and we see very early in their reunion that this is a family with deep issues.

We learn that Margot is in the middle of her own rocky marriage and is in the middle of an affair with a writer (Ciaran Hinds) who just so happens to live near Pauline. Pauline has a secret of her own, she is pregnant with Malcolm's baby, and may have been the deciding factor in the engagement.

Baumbach laces the film with many scenes that are sexually disturbing, and tacks on a subplot about fiendish neighbors that roast pigs on their front lawns. We learn that Margot is essentially a monster who spends a good amount of time trying to bring down all of the people that she may or may not love. Beyond that, the film dwindles into a pretentious mess. There's little to no point to the way the film meanders around. Instead of trying to expose emotional scars, the film goes to length to make its characters unlikable. It succeeds.

To be fair, the film is earnest, it takes risks, and has actors who seems to truly believe in this story. Yet for all that, the film has too many scenes of emotional breakdowns that make the film lag. Perhaps the best moment of the film is a small cameo by John Turturro as Margot's husband Jim, a man so gentle, and completely counters all of the coarseness of Margot's ferociousness. Perhaps it's that Jim is the only character in the film that isn't under some kind of extreme emotional turmoil that makes him so refreshing compared to everyone else.

The movie is strange, but it is strange because it exposes the strangeness that we all have inside ourselves. I have many times met people who are like Margot, a person so upset with themselves that take it all out on the people who care for them most. I just don't think it makes a very interesting film. You can get points for bravery, and this film is very brave, but for all the offbeat, arty sidetracks that this film takes, it doesn't hold interest.

Nicole Kidman has always had a reputation for playing these kind of emotionally bare roles. She's as good as she always is, if the desired effect is making the audience cringe. Unfortunately, the most misused performer in the film is Jack Black. He's simply asked to do too much in this role, more than he is capable of. When he is funny the film doesn't work, and when adjusts to the humor of the film, he isn't funny. Somewhat of a guiding light for the film, Jennifer Jason Leigh probably does the best job of being emotionally bare without being mind-achingly annoying.

Much in the tradition of a film released earlier this year, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead, this is a tremendous premise with a very promising cast, that is unfortunately filled with completely unbearable characters. It's not unwatchable, and Leigh's performance is sometimes enough to get you through it, but it seems that this film tries a little too hard to be unconventional, that it instead comes off as off putting.

Latest Critics Awards

Here are links to all the latest critics awards that have recently been released over the last week:

National Board of Review

Boston Society of Film Critics Awards

LA Film Critics Association Awards

New York Film Critics Circle Awards

Chicago Film Critics Association Awards

I'm Not There (***)

I'M NOT THERE
Directed by Todd Haynes



***

Bob Dylan is one of the most mysteriously mesmerizing figures in twentieth century culture. His music, filled with jamming instruments and thought-provoking lyrics, has spoken for countless generations of listeners. There are so many people who find solace in his droll voice and screeching harmonica, it's almost impossible to diminish his sound into a particular genre or time. Dylan, himself, is so mysterious and unspecific that it's impossible to show his story with one solid plot line.

Todd Haynes' I'm Not There expounds upon that idea, by recruiting six different actors to recreate different moments in the songwriter's life. What Haynes ends up with is an exotically bizarre film, that stretches the very definition of film making, and creates a story as sorted and majestic as it's cornerstone.

One of the six Dylans is an 11-year-old black boy who hops trains, sings folk songs, and calls himself Woody Guthrie (Marcus Carl Franklin, in a performance that shows skill far beyond his age). He's a representation of the young drifter Dylan was before he found comfort of his idol folk singer Guthrie. Then there is Jack Rollins (Christian Bale), a young, disillusioned man who has dedicated his time to writing protest songs that capture the social unrest of society. With the help of obvious Joan Baez-remake Alice Fabian (Julianne Moore), he's able to find an audience for his "fingerpoint songs".

Then there is Robbie Clark (Heath Ledger), a Brando-esque movie star, who's fame started when he played a role based on Jack Rollins. His indulgences in celebrity and rocky relationship with his wife Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), showcase the time of Dylan's troubled marriage and consequent divorce with his first wife, Sara. There's Arthur (Ben Whishaw) a Dylan-esque poet who is reciting a nonsensical interview regarding his career.

We see Jude (Cate Blanchett--who probably looks and sounds the most like Dylan) an amphetamine-fueled, hydrogenous rock star who's facing a mountain of backlash from those fans who feel he abandoned his folk roots and "went electric"; an obvious reference to Dylan's exile from folk. We go back to Jack Rollins who has transformed himself into a born-again Christian named John (Bale), disclosing Dylan's own spiritual awakening in the 80's. Then in the film's most puzzling sequence, we see Billy the Kid (Richard Gere), a nineteenth-century cowboy outlaw who's arrested for being an agitator. Possibly a reflection on Dylan's secluded times in the late 60's and early 70's.

With the movie, we see another example of the boldness of Todd Haynes. Haynes, known for his 2002 film Far From Heaven and the 1998 cult film The Velvet Goldmine, embellishes his reputation as a filmmaker who has chosen to expand on the ideas on what film is supposed to be. This is a much safer way to portray Dylan on film, I feel. Perhaps Hayens realized that using one actor to showcase all of Dylan's life might end up being the portrait of a shape-shifting schizophrenic.

It's hard to imagine anyone who is not a fan of Dylan's music being a fan of this film. It takes a lot of chances that are hard to appreciate unless you can either understand the scope of Dylan's music. Even fans of Dylan might be thrown off by the film's non-linear chaos, but at least they can sit back and enjoy the music, which is either sung by Dylan himself, or synced by the actors. Even I, as much as I enjoyed myself, saw that there are many times during the course of this experience where it becomes too convoluted and outlandish for it's own good.

That said, it is exciting to see a filmmaker and his actors take such big risks. Each story has it's own style and grace. The Jack Rollins/Pastor John section is told like a documentary. Robbie's tale of decadence is shot like a modern American drama. Billy the Kid's wild west is shot like a, you guessed it, American western film. Then there is the story of Jude, which is created with such Fellini-esque surrealism, it's almost hard to pin point where reality is and when Jude is in drug-induced fantasy.

There are moments recreated. Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone"-influenced hook-up with bombshell Edie Sedgwick is shown through Jude's turbulent battle with a former lover named Coco. The legendary electric "Judas" performance is shown in such manic filmmaking, even those who are not familiar with the moment will be scorched.

The performances are earnest enough. Bale's protest singer and subsequent preacher is sincere, if not vague by the documentary style (which probably was the point). Ledger as a womanizing superstar is probably one of the more effective performances, showing a very sad document of a crumbling love. Whishaw, whose clips just seem to pop up sporadically between the other stories, is formidable, showing Dylan's quiet, strange defiance. Franklin's performance as the hitch-hiking lost boy looking to be a rock star is both startling and impressive. Gere, stuck in a entire segment that seems from another film, does well in the role, even if I'm still not sure why he was there to begin with.

As has been much proclaimed in the media, the film's core comes from Blanchett's complete transformation as Jude. Her performance catches lightning in a bottle. It's bold, strong and dominates the picture despite less than 40 minutes of screen time in a 2 hour plus film. It's not that Blanchett becomes Dylan that's impressive, not even that she becomes a man, but that she becomes a myth, an idea that the entire film is based on. The role is just as vague as the film supposes Dylan is, but she is able to completely embrace it.

This is one of those movies that you enjoy because of it's unrelenting bravery, not because it totally works as a film. It spirals too much for my liking, but there is never a point where I felt lost or bored. What we have is a document of a man who completely transformed his identity on more than one occasion, and was able to transform rock & roll music in the process as well.

Updated December Oscar Predictions

Updated December Oscar Predictions

Best Picture
American Gangster
*Atonement
Into The Wild
No Country For Old Men
There Will Be BloodBest Director
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
*Joel & Ethan Coen, No Country For Old Men
Sidney Lumet, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead
Mike Nichols, Charlie Wilson's War
Joe Wright, AtonementBest Actor
*Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Emile Hirsch, Into The Wild
Tommy Lee Jones, In The Valley of Elah
James McAvoy, Atonement
Denzel Washington, American GangsterBest Actress
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Marie Corillard, La Vie En Rose
*Keira Knightley, Atonement
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, JunoBest Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck, Assassination of Jesse James by Coward Robert Ford
*Javier Bardem, No Country For Old Men
Hal Holbrook, Into The Wild
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

Best Supporting Actress
*Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Jennifer Jason Leigh, Margot At The Wedding
Kelly MacDonald, No Country For Old Men
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton
Best Original Screenplay
Judd Apatow, Knocked Up
Brad Bird, Ratatouille
*Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages
Kelly Masterson, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

Best Adapted Screenplay
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
*Joel & Ethan Coen, No Country For Old Men
Christopher Hampton, Atonement
Sean Penn, Into The Wild
Sarah Polley, Away From HerBest Animated Feature
Beowulf
*Persepolis
Ratatouille

Best Cinematography
*Roger Deakins, No Country For Old Men
Robert Elswit, There Will Be Blood
Seamus McGarvey, Atonement
Rodrigo Prieto, Lust, Caution
Roberto Schaefer, The Kite Runner

Best Art Direction
Dante Ferretti, Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Jack Fisk, There Will Be Blood
Dennis Gassner, The Golden Compass
*Sarah Greenwood, Atonement
Arthur Max, American Gangster
Best Film Editing
Jay Lash Cassidy, Into The Wild
John Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Roderick Jaynes, No Country For Old Men
*Tatiana Riegal & Dylan Tichenor, There Will Be Blood
Pietro Scalia, American Gangster

Best Original Score
Alexandre Desplat, Lust, Caution
Michael Giacchino, Ratatouille
Alberto Iglesias, The Kite Runner
*Dario Marianelli, Atonement
Alan Silvestri, Beowulf
Best Costume Design
Coleen Atwood, Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
*Jacqueline Durran, Atonement
Ruth Myers, The Golden Compass
Patricia Norris, Assassination of Jesse James by Coward Robert Ford
Lai Pan, Lust, Caution

Best Sounding Mixing
*Craig Berkley, No Country For Old Men
Peter J. Derlin, Transformers
William B. Kaplan, Beowulf
Lee Orloff, Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End
William Sarokin, American Gangster

Best Sound Editing
Ben Barker, The Golden Compass
Joseph Bonn, Spider-Man 3
Krysten Mate & Teresa Eckton, Ratatouille
*Al Nelson, Beowulf
Brad North & John Mete, 300

Best Make-Up
Nana Fischer, Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
*John E. Jackson, Love In The Time of Cholera
Colin Penman, Hairspray

Best Visual Effects
*300
The Golden Compass
Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End