2008: Top 10

These end of the year lists are both a blessing and a curse. It's fun to reflect back on the year in cinema and remember the best the year had to offer. Sometimes you get a year like 2007 where you have an abundance of riches to choose from. And then there are years like 2008. 2008 was not a great year for movies. I know last year I said I should refrain from making that kind of sweeping generalization as it will come back to bite me. That said, it's undeniable that my top 10 this year did not excite me the way my top 10 did last year. That is not meant to be an insult to the films listed below - far from it. I've been spoiled the last two years by having a number one film that I was in love with. That didn't happen this year. I love my number one, but that's not quite the same thing. I think having the kind of anchor in my top 10 list that both Once and Children of Men provided in the past would help me to feel more comfortable with the rest of my list.

A few notes before we get things started. I tried to see everything I could, but a few films got past me. Timecrimes, Dear Zachary, Che, The Reader, Valkyrie, and City of Ember are films I hope to catch in the near future. The first two in particular are unfortunate in that they really sound like my kind of films. I also want to point out how frustrating the release system was this year. I felt like I was scrambling to see far too many movies at the very end of the year. It's really disappointing that studios feel the need to hold so much back until December. Not only does this mean some films won't make my list because I didn't see them, but others don't have the proper time to sit with me. I saw Benjamin Button only this morning, and while it probably wouldn't make my top 10, I feel like it's too big to digest this quickly. Some films in my top 10 are likely to fluctuate big time in the coming month as I get time to think about them, namely The Wrestler, which could rise even higher if given the time. In short, this is a top 10 in flux. Not as complete as last year's, but with about 60 films screened it's a pretty good approximation of what I liked about 2008.

10. The Visitor

As film after film fell by the wayside in the last month, I began to look back on some of the smaller films of 2008 to fill out this list. The Visitor, from writer/director Thomas McCarthy, proved to be the true keeper. I loved his last film, The Station Agent, and here he touches on many of the same themes - namely loneliness and how people discover themselves through their relationships with others. It's delightful to see Richard Jenkins get such a great lead role for once, and he does a perfect job with the part. Really, the whole cast is a delight, working well off of each other to give you a warm feeling, even as things don't go so well for the characters. You know that in spite of what happens to them, everyone will be better off for having known each other.

9. Pineapple Express

I'll admit, I wasn't expecting much from this film after the opening scene. Stoner comedies are among the least funny films out there. They always go for the easiest jokes, and this starts off doing just that. Thankfully, this rose above that to deliver both a very funny film and a great examination of friendships. That last scene where the three heroes are reminiscing about what they'd just been through is perhaps the highlight of the whole thing. These guys are like kids who just had a fun adventure, and they even get a ride home with one character's grandmother. Brilliant. Special notice should go to James Franco, who gives such a fully realized performance that goes beyond just being funny. Oscars, please take note.

8. Frost/Nixon

I'm surprised Ron Howard had such a strong film in him. Usually he's content to go the bland, easy route (The Da Vinci Code), but here he takes two great actors and a strong script and lets that carry the film. Both Frank Langella as Nixon and Michael Sheen as Frost give career best performances, which should be no surprise given that they've had time to perfect them on stage. Perhaps the most unexpected delight of this film is how funny it is. It could easily have been a quiet drama, but the writing allows for some very funny moments. Nixon's reaction to having to film a segment called Nixon: The Man is hilarious. This is the kind of movie that I could see myself watching any time it pops on TV, which goes a long way when you really think about it.

7. Rachel Getting Married

This is, to me, the biggest surprise of the year. Everything else in my top 10 had something going for it prior to watching it. This was a film I was dragged to against my will, and indeed, resisted for half the run time. But slowly I allowed it to wash over me, and I found such a warm, wondrous delight of a film inhabited by so many great characters. The key to this film is that it's presented as simply a fly on the wall look at this wedding. No pretense, no narrative, just a family getting together to celebrate one daughter's wedding. The performances are great across the board, but the one person who has been overlooked this year is Bill Irwin. His performance really made me think hard about whether or not Heath Ledger is the best supporting actor of 2008. He felt so real to me, so honest, that I felt his every emotion. His reaction to learning he is going to be a grandparent is a moment to cherish in 2008.

6. The Wrestler

Darren Aronofsky is really proving to be a versatile director. Who'd have guessed he could turn out a film like this just two years after The Fountain? Mickey Rourke is the heart of this story, and you you come to feel for him in ways you wouldn't expect. I wouldn't have thought a film about wrestling could ever provide such depth, but these are people with a fascinating and largely untold story. Seeing the way they plan out their fights before hand, the genuine camaraderie between fighters, and the way they turn out washed up and alone at the end of their careers is unexpectedly riveting stuff.

5. Slumdog Millionaire

The great achievement of this film is how is really takes us right into the world of Indian slums. It opened my eyes to a people I knew little about. It's also a fun, inventive, and charming film. It's going to be interesting to see if this really can take Best Picture this year, and right now I suspect it will. Kudos to Danny Boyle for taking what could have been a schmaltzy story and injecting it with real emotion, jubilation, struggles, and hardships. And that final dance number really hits home how uplifting the story ultimately is.

4. In Bruges

Martin McDonagh made his first feature length film here, and it is an unexpected emotional roller coaster. In Bruges is both darkly hilarious and quietly sobering. I won't give away its secrets, but the film takes some dark and surprising turns as it tells its story. I love films that can make you laugh out loud at one moment, then have you get a bit teary eyed the next. Colin Farrell gives easily his best performance as a hitman who made one horrible mistake. Watching him cope with his grief is unexpectedly moving. The film's real secret, though, is Brendan Gleeson as Farrell's partner. Faced with a moral crisis of his own, he drives this great film home.

3. WALL·E

I knew this was going to be something special when I first heard about it, and sure enough, it stands high atop a mountain of Pixar films to be their best yet. I love that Pixar is willing to take such risks with their films, not going for the easy sell. Who else would have the guts to make an animated kids' film that has no real dialogue to speak of for most of the run time? The animation is truly stunning, leaps and bounds beyond what anyone else is doing these days. It's going to be hard for Pixar to top this one, but if anyone can do it, it's these guys.

2. Let The Right One In

This came so close to number one that I may still switch it. Time will tell. I mentioned earlier that there are films I am in love with and films I love. My number one film is not an easy one to be in love with, but this one is. Which is kind of weird considering this is a Swedish film about a child vampire forging a relationship with a school recluse. But it's so damn moving. The child performances are spot on, especially Lina Leandersson as the vampire. I know not many people have seen this one yet, nor will they considering what it is. But if you ever come across this one, please give it a shot. You've never seen something quite like this, and it has the most unexpectedly satisfying, thrilling, and deeply moving ending for any film this year.

1. The Dark Knight

After 4 viewings, I simply can't deny this is the strongest film of the year. The Dark Knight was my most anticipated film of the year, and miraculously it lived up to and exceeded those expectations. Batman has long been my favorite comic book character, and it has been a delight to see him get such a fine treatment in cinema. I never in my life would have dreamed that people would be talking about a Batman film being a serious contender for a Best Picture Oscar, but here we are. Obviously, at the center of this epic masterpiece is Heath Ledger. That final line of his, "I think we're destined to do this forever," just hits so painfully hard knowing that we'll never see him do this again. Far too long we've seen comic book characters treated in a jokey manor (Sam Raimi, I'm looking at you). It feels validating to see someone treat these kinds of stories seriously for a change and reap such huge rewards as a result.

The Wrestler

The Wrestler is not the film I wanted from Darren Aronofsky. A film about a professional wrestler staring Mickey Rourke of all people did not sound like my cup of tea. While I felt let down by The Fountain, Aronofsky's last film, I felt it was an ambitious film that felt like a logical followup to his masterpiece Requiem for a Dream. He was clearly creating a distinctive style for himself that, had he continued with it, would have made the word "Aronofsky-esque" a buzz word for cinema in future generations. Instead we got The Wrestler, a major departure from his last two films, and it may very well have solidified Aronofsky as one of the most versatile filmmaker of his generation.

Aronofsky is very much a part of a new 00's generation of young filmmakers, whose other players include Christopher Nolan and Richard Kelly of Donnie Darko fame. With the decade winding down, it feels very much like these new visionaries have helped shape this decade's cinema in much the same way Quentin Tarrantino did for the 90's. Unfortunately, when you help shape an era of film, you become in danger of being trapped in that decade. Tarantino may still be a big name, but he is certainly not the reliable filmmaker we all once hoped he'd be. And Richard Kelly perhaps demonstrated best of all how a filmmaker can capture the zeitgeist so perfectly, only to become irrelevant as the years pass. I honestly believe Aronofsky must have examined the career path Kelly has taken and realized he was in danger of following right behind. As a result, we have The Wrestler, a stripped down, achingly real portrait of a man with no certain future.

The film certainly starts off at its own deliberate pace. For much of the opening scenes we follow right behind Randy "The Ram" Robinson, never seeing his face. This is a shot that repeats throughout the film, at first alienating, but eventually giving you an over the shoulder view of the man's life. Randy is played by Mickey Rourke, a man whose own career seems to have inevitably led to this film, a perfect meeting of actor and writing. Rourke gives an incredibly lived in performance, you feel the years of turmoil this guy has been through. He is supported by Marisa Tomei as a stripper friend named Cassidy, and Evan Rachel Wood as his estranged daughter Stephanie. Tomei does a good job playing off of Rourke, but Wood feels out of place. The estranged daughter storyline fits the film well, but the way it is handled makes the film stop in place in one major moment. A stronger actress perhaps could have made us feel a bit more empathy for the situation Randy had put his daughter in.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention some of the wrestling scenes, which are among the most uncomfortable and excruciating scenes I've seen all year. Aronofsky adds a level of tension to these scenes, especially after Ram has a heart attack and knows he should no longer be submitting himself to these acts. The scene that everyone will be talking about, however, is a fight early on that involves broken glass, a staple gun, and barbed wire. It is unbearable. It's also the breaking point. We see to what lengths Randy is willing to go to in order to hold on to his former glory days, and it is here that he also finally is given a chance to reexamine the path his life has taken. This scene is so visceral, you would be forgiven for looking away. But it is an inevitable step in this man's path, a crossroads. Randy has seen what becomes of men like him - wheelchair bound, dependant on colostomy bags, lost hearing. It isn't pretty and he knows a change is needed.

Aronofsky has been able to change up his style early in his career without abandoning the themes and characters that made his past films work. In many ways, the story of Randy mirrors that of Harry Goldfarb in Requiem. Both are men who are traveling down an inevitable path from which there appear to be no exits. But where Harry's life is eternally doomed, there is a ray of hope for Randy. The film ends ambiguously, and the more cynical could see it as the final curtain for Randy. But there is certainly enough there to let you assume that he will finally embrace a change in his life.

Gran Torino

How does one judge a bad film that entertains immensely? Is it still a bad film or does the fact that it was so entertaining raise to another level? Is a guilty pleasure a good movie or simply a bad one you still like? These are the kinds of questions Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino raises, a film with some glaringly obvious flaws that should have destroyed it, yet instead made the film all the more endearing.

I make no bones about it, I really enjoy Clint Eastwood films, both when he's doing the acting and when he's doing the directing. Changeling, from earlier this year, was a major misstep in my opinion, and Flags of Our Fathers was hit or miss, but everything else he's done for a long while has really pleased me. Each of those films had their flaws, however, and there's no denying it. Here Eastwood presents us with what is purported to be his acting swan song, and it feels like an ode to his classic Dirty Harry character if the guy had grown old and alienated everyone he knew. We've been getting a lot of these deconstructionist reimaginings of classic characters lately, notably with a double whammy from Sylvester Stallone, but that streak really started with Eastwood's Unforgiven back in 1992. It worked perfectly there, not so much here.

I think the two biggest flaws here are the horrible acting and the simplified story. Aside from Eastwood, everyone is a newcomer. Eastwood went out and found regular Hmong folks to be in his movie, and while it makes it feel a bit more authentic, it is at times unbearable listening to the constant forced line deliveries. Granted, there isn't exactly a huge repository of young seasoned Asian actors out there, so it's nice that Eastwood was trying to expand the selection, so to speak. On top of that, Eastwood himself gives an occasionally groan worthy performance, literally growling half his lines. As much as I enjoy Eastwood, it's clear that if he's nominated for an Oscar for this it's only because the Academy loves him as a person so much.

The story is the other problem. Eastwood plays Walt, a retied widower living in a neighborhood increasingly filled with minorities. This doesn't please him one bit. Yet after an altercation on his front lawn, he gets to know his neighbors and realizes he has more in common with them than with his own family. It builds to a showdown between Eastwood and a local gang that have been harassing his neighbors. If you go in expecting a Dirty Harry movie, you'll be surprised by the outcome. If you go in expecting a deconstruction of a Dirty Harry movie, you won't be. Either way, the ending is fairly satisfying, though a bit unlikely. The problem is how simplified everything is. In Eastwood's world things are either black or white, never gray. His family is unrepentantly unlikable, his neighbors are all saints, the gang members are purely evil. Unforgiven seemed to find a nice middle ground for its characters, but that has been abandoned here.

And yet... I can't help but admit that I was entertained throughout. It's a lot of goofy fun. On some level I think Eastwood intended it that way, but on another I think he took a lot of this very seriously, which makes it all the more amusing. At the heart of it all is Walt, such a strange and verbally abusive character that you laugh both at and with. What, for example, are we to make of his repeated threats using his hand to mimic a gun? If an 80 year old man walked up to a corner boy and did that, they'd laugh him off. Hell, even Dirty Harry would have trouble making that gesture genuinely frightening. Is Walt aware of that? Does he even care?

This is not the highbrow Eastwood of recent years, whether it is aspiring to be that or not. What it is, though, is a genuinely amusing, if sometimes gratingly silly film. It's always a welcome pleasure to see Eastwood back on the screen, and while this isn't quite the fitting swan song I'd like it to be, it is an amusing deconstructive coda to a string of tough guy roles.

Frost/Nixon

Richard Nixon is one of those rare Presidents, not unlike Lincoln, Washington, and Roosevelt, that has transcended the Presidency to become a mythic figure in our culture. But unlike those others, he has attained that position through his wrong doings, not through his greatest achievements. I only have one memory of the man: his death. I was too young to be aware of him before then, and I was simply not around when he was President. Interestingly enough, much of what I've gleaned from cinema about him is that he was a tragic man who almost deserves our sympathies. Such was the case with Oliver Stone's Nixon, and such is the case here with Frost/Nixon. Here is a portrait of a man that is seen as both cunning, sly, and cruel, yet at the same time tragically lost and lonely. How many other Presidents get such a multifaceted examination so consistently in films?

Based on the stage play of the same name, and staring the same stars, Frost/Nixon centers around the four day interviews between British talk show host David Frost (Michael Sheen) and former President Nixon (Frank Langella). In an interesting take on the two men, both see this as an opportunity to reclaim some of their past glories. Nixon wants to use it as a way to show the public he's a misunderstood good guy after all, while Frost longs for the chance to be relevant again after a slew of failed TV shows. Clearly both men won't get what they want.

This is a prefect example of how if you have a great screenplay and terrific performances across the board, you've almost certainly got yourself a good movie. I've long been a naysayer of Ron Howard, and here he does nothing to change that. He lacks any sort of real style, and he does everything as safely as possible. That worked wonderfully for him once before, with Apollo 13, and now it works again for him here. Because he has such a simple approach to the material, he allows the stronger aspects of writing and acting to shine through unobstructed. And boy do they.

The two central performances of Sheen and Langella are uniformly excellent, among the year's best. They've had a great deal of time to perfect these roles on the stage, and it really shows. Langella is clearly the showier role, yet he doesn't allow it to become a caricature. Often times he is simply delivering long monologue answers to questions, yet he does it with such wit, charm, and charisma that you can understand why one character says he wished he'd voted for Nixon when he had the chance. I don't think this is ever meant to be a damning portrayal, simply a tragic one. Nixon often comes across as a man in need of an audience, yet never knowing what to do with that audience. Take his impromptu piano performance for friends and family, or his rambling stories with no point. He loves attention but is at a loss as to how to keep that audience happy. He even muses at one point that perhaps that very quality was what made him ill prepared to be President.

Sheen has the tougher job of the two. He has to play Frost as a guy way out of his league, yet make him alternatively charming, cocky, frightened, and authoritative. His is the real character arc of the film. Frost constantly has a look on his face that indicates he is grasping to his calm demeanor with only the most tenuous of strings. He knows he is in over his head, but he refuses to let anyone else know. The other actors all do great stuff. Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt as Frost's two investigators bring a great air of levity, while at the same time grounding it all in reality by reminding us that there's more at stake here than just one man's reputation. And Toby Jones is quickly becoming one of the most entertaining character actors working today. His Swifty Lazar is only in a few brief scenes, but you can't take your eyes off of him.

The real star, however, is the screenplay. The writing is so assured that it allows two people to just talk back and forth with the knowledge that it this is in fact riveting. The interviews between these two men are the most gripping scenes in the movie. Much of it is lifted from actual transcripts, but it's all pieced together in such a way that it allows us to see inside these two men, really understand what it is that makes them tick. Fascinating stuff. What's also very surprising about the writing is how funny it is. There are some truly great laugh out loud moments I simply wasn't expecting. I know the idea of a movie about two people conducting an interview sounds like it has the potential to be boring, but the writing never allows that to be the case.

I think the unsung hero of this film - and many great films of this nature - is the editing. If the editing wasn't just right, it's entirely possible that the screenplay would have lost some of its edge. Editing is something you don't get with a stage play, and I think it is used here in such a way that this feels like more than a play. Howard picks exactly the right moments to cut to a close up of an actor, inviting us inside each man's head at crucial moments in the interviews. There is also a use of talking heads shots where people in the film comment on the events that transpired, allowing the film to have a sort of analytic feel to it while also feeling so personal. The tension constantly builds, even if we know deep down that this wasn't a major moment in history.

This is much more an Oscar contender than I ever would have given it credit for. Langella is a strong candidate for the win, and in a fair world Sheen would be in the running for a lead actor nomination as well. And perhaps most important of all, this is just a really fun movie. Not something I would have expected to say before I saw it, but I could easily sit through this one again and just enjoy it. There's a lot to be said about movies that can inform, examine, and entertain, all at once.

Milk

A long time ago, the screenwriter got as much play in advertising as the above the line talent. Take a look at the trailers for Network and you'll notice that it's credited as a Paddy Chayefsky film, not a Sydney Lumet film. That's not something you see these days, so when the advertisements for Milk made writer Dustin Lance Black's name so prominent, it made me expect something exceptionally well written. This isn't a guy with a lot of previous writing experience (his only big credit is the TV show Big Love), so clearly something must have been special about his writing here if producers felt using his name in the trailers would be worthwhile. So color me surprised to discover that Milk's single greatest failing is that it follows a very by-the-numbers screenplay that has almost no interest in any of its supporting characters. No amount of great acting can overcome what amounts to a been there, done that writing approach. What a shame.

For those who aren't familiar with him, Harvey Milk was an openly gay politician in San Francisco who fought to protect the rights of homosexuals in the late 70's, before he was gunned down by a fellow city supervisor. This is certainly an interesting story to be told, especially in light of the recent passing of Prop 8 in California. Yet the script does not do the man's plight justice. From the very get-go, I could tell the writer was not confident with his story. The whole movie is framed as Harvey recording his story on tape because he fears he might be assassinated. This tells us two things quickly: 1) Black is worried we won't connect with the film unless he states right off the bat that something tragic will happen, and 2) Black isn't sure of how to string together the events of Milk's life without some sort of narration. This framing device is made all the more irrelevant in retrospect because we never see any point where Harvey might feel like his death is imminent, nor do we see any reason for him to reiterate to anyone his life's story.

The acting is strong across the board (with one major exception), but if a character's name isn't Harvey Milk, apparently they don't warrant anything more than a surface examination. Each character seems to have one facet to them that separates them from other characters: Emile Hirsch plays the rebellious kid, James Franco is the supportive guy, and Josh Brolin is the opposition. Hirsch does surprisingly well considering how stock his character feels most of the time. Franco really has nothing to do here, but he does create a warm presence and plays well off of Penn. And Brolin deserved so much more examination than he got. His Dan White murdered two people, yet we really don't understand why. Perhaps the film subscribes to the Twinkies Defense? Brolin does a great job of making White seem uncertain of himself, like an animal cornered in his own den by trespassers. Yet it's not enough to make us see why he would do what he did. The one actor who feels totally out of place is Diego Luna. His character is tacked on, almost as if his existence in real life demanded he be shoehorned into the film. While the character isn't necessarily supposed to be liked, Luna does a horrible job of making us care about him in any way, grating on the nerves whenever he appears. When he does something very important late in the film, it feels completely pointless to the overall film, almost as if the film had to stop and deal with this other character for a few minutes. Luna's character is actually less likable than a man who murders two people - Black could not have intended that when he wrote the film.

Finally, there's Sean Penn. Clearly the best performance of the film, and probably award worthy. Penn really goes for it here, embracing Harvey in a way I feel a lot of other actors might have shied away from. Particularly interesting is the way he shapes Milk into both an immensely likable guy, but also one with an undeniable conniving undercurrent to him. The way he manipulates some people around him makes Milk a far more interesting character than he would have been if he was just a tragic hero. Penn is front and center for most of the run time, and he carries the film well.

Director Gus Van Sant is known for his more artsy films, often taking less of a narrative approach than an atmospheric one. Here he is back in mainstream territory, but with the occasional artistic flourishes. The way he would frame certain shots so that some characters were out of frame, or other shots where the camera is zoomed out to an almost unnatural level help to create a feeling of alienation that Milk and others certainly must have felt at times. But those flourishes aren't enough to mask the fact that the film hits all the beats you might expect from a biopic. While I've had some serious problems with Van Sant's atmospheric pictures, I would have preferred him to take some sort of risks with the narrative here so that I didn't feel like I've seen it all before.

Good performances and a timely story are not enough to overcome the poor writing here, and I can't really recommend Milk because of that. An interesting side note, we almost got a repeat of the Capote/Infamous showdown from a couple of years back. Bryan Singer was planning to have his next film be about Harvey Milk as well, but felt that it was futile since he was beaten to the punch. That's a shame, as I feel like there's so much more that could have been explored about this story. A film about the relationship between Milk and White could have made for a far more unique take on this story.

Slumdog Millionaire

A great film can do more than just tell a wonderful story: it can take you to another world, let you see life through a different set of eyes. Slumdog Millionaire may not have the most original story, but damn does it transport you. Shot on location in Mumbai, India, we are able to witness the harsh realities and stunning perseverance of a people and place we most likely would never otherwise visit. It's not always the most pretty experience, but it is an enveloping and enlightening one.

I fear that people are going to go to see this expecting one thing while getting another, and being put off because of it. The premise is that Jamal (Dev Patel), a young man who grew up in the slums with no real education, has found himself on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, within grasp of winning the top prize. When the show breaks for the night, he is snatched by the authorities and tortured, under the assumption that a guy like him could never possibly know all these answers. From there we learn that each question on the show has a connection to a major point in his life, told through extensive flashbacks. I fear people are going to be more interested in the present day game show aspect of the movie - which is the more immediately thrilling aspect of the film - and less so in the back story. That is a huge mistake. The game show is simply a way to frame Jamal's life story, which is the true heart of the film. Remember that a picture frame is vital to the painting, but no matter how great a frame it is, it's not the reason you look at the painting. And it is through Jamal's life that we begin to grasp what an awesome achievement this film really is.

The mere fact that a film like this exists and stands a good chance of major Oscar consideration come year's end is a miracle in itself. Director Danny Boyle, a filmmaker I've admired but never loved, shot much of the film undercover on location in the slums. As a result, what we see surrounding the story is almost a documentary of the real Mumbai. Those are real slums, real starving people - an honest-to-God living and breathing world in every frame. I think that this film works in a more powerful way than a documentary would simply because it uses the fictional story of Jamal as a way to give us an entry point to this world.

I mentioned before that the story itself is not especially inventive or original. The characters are fairly archetypal, but they all feel so fully lived in that you completely forgive the film that transgression. I honestly felt like I'd experienced Jamal's life by the end of the film. So many movies these days feel rushed, unexplored, not totally realized. Not here. Slumdog has this quality about it that makes you feel like you've been enveloped, and by the end you are completely satisfied. Not enough films get credit for taking an idea or a world and exploring it to the last detail. Charlie Kaufman is one of those few who get that concept, and while I would not compare Slumdog Millionaire to any of Kaufman's narratives, they both do share this idea of a world fully realized.

At times this film can get quite dark, which may come as a shock at first. It opens with our hero being brutally tortured. The majority of his life leading up to the game show is dreary and gritty. But at the same time, it is filled with moments of great hope and honesty, and those moments of triumph are made all the more powerful for having been rooted in such a murky world. Boyle aids these moments with some great visual flairs and musical cues. Perhaps the most inspiring moment comes during the credits, of all times, as the cast breaks out into a Bollywood style song and dance number. It's like the visual embodiment of the happiness Jamal feels by the film's end, also reflecting how you will likely feel as you leave this deeply affecting film.

Quantum of Solace

I've noticed a trend in the James Bond pictures, perhaps you have too. They seem to come in cycles, where the first in the cycle is hard edged, dark, and generally very well received. As they progress forward, however, it becomes more and more difficult to hold onto that edge, slowly slipping into a world of silliness. Inevitably they hit a low point (Moonraker, A View to a Kill, Die Another Day) and the franchise needs to be rebooted. Those inevitable reboots never last, unfortunately, and the cycle repeats itself. So following the most daring reboot in the franchise's history - Casino Royale - it is interesting to see if this new cycle of Bond can finally overcome the failings of past installments and actually continue with what made Royale so refreshing.

The short answer is no, Quantum of Solace does not live up to what was started two years ago. This feels much more like typical Bond fare, which may be a good thing, may be bad, depending on your opinion of the franchise. Gone is the character development of the last film, instead replaced by wall to wall action. I think what makes many of the earliest Bond films stand out to this day is that they didn't rely too heavily on action set pieces. Take Goldfinger, still considered the quintessential 007 outing. Bond spends half the movie hanging out with his enemy, just talking. Casino Royale followed in that tradition with the drawn out poker game at its center. It's fun to get to know your characters so that when the action does occur, it has more of a resonance, a sense of danger. It's surprising to see that director Marc Forster, a man known for films focused more on talking and characters than action, is so keen on moving the film along at a brisk, unrelenting pace. And while the action may be a bit much for my own taste, it's undenibale that some of these action scenes are the most kinetic of the franchise's history. If you like big action, you won't be let down here.

Solace picks up just where the last film left off, with the mysterious Mr. White being interrogated about the organization he works for. Bond seems interested in only one thing - revenge for his lost love Vesper. The theme of the film ends up being how Bond comes to reconcile his job with his emotions. At the start he has no problem shooting first and asking questions second, but by the film's end he seems to realize there is more to it than just revenge. Sure, he will always have that dark side to him, but it becomes tempered by his need to do the job right. In just one film, Daniel Craig has simply become James Bond. It took really no time at all to see his face and think "Bond." That's a testament to just how good he is at the part. He's not given a whole lot to do here, but just the way he carries himself makes you believe he is the suavest secret agent in the world. Indeed, it is Craig that makes pretty much everything in this film work. While the film feels a bit regressive, Craig's performance alone demands me to recommend this film. You get the real feeling that this is a character that is growing and changing on screen, not a rigidly defined guy we've see over and over for 40 plus years. That's a pretty amazing feat.

The rest of the performances are all only ok, with the exception of Judi Dench. She has become such an integral part of this franchise that it's almost impossible to imagine anyone else filling the role of M when she eventually does depart. She is surprisingly given a fair amount of screen time here, and her interaction with Bond is a highlight of the Danial Craig cycle so far. Her relationship with him is at times both antagonistic and motherly, and it works wonderfully. As villain Dominic Greene, Mathieu Amalric is sadly forgettable. I suspect that has more to do with his character's lack of definition than the actor's abilities. He simply feels like an even less formidable enemy for James than Le Chiffre did in the last film. The franchise is clearly setting up a SPECTRE-like evil organization, but is would be nice to get an actual antagonist and not just business men who present no real danger to our hero. Mr. White comes closest, but we simply know too little of him at this point. Much like my feelings on the last film, this film feels like one big setup for the sequel. While that was ok with Casino Royale because it was the beginning of something new, here it just feels like stalling.

Obviously, if you're a fan of 007, you'll see this film regardless of critical opinion. I'm the exact same way. And Quantum of Solace is honestly not a bad film. It has moments of genuine greatness, however few and far between they are. It's just that compared to Casino Royale this is a let down. Compared to the typical Bond picture? This probably holds up a bit better than average. If you like explosions, hot women, suave spies, and a plot you can't quite fully wrap your head around, you'll enjoy this. If you want a bit of that introspective quality that Craig's first outing had, you will be left wanting.

RIP Michael Crichton

1942-2008

Michael Crichton is the reason I write, the reason I read.

In the sixth grade my teacher had an expansive library in our classroom that had everything from children's books to classics to modern bestsellers. At the time I was getting burned out on reading, having grown too old to enjoy the books of my youth. Perusing the shelves of her library one day I came across Jurassic Park. Loving the movie, I decided I should read the book. My first grown-up book, it opened my eyes to the ability words have to transport us to another world. Not only did this book singlehandedly make me the avid reader I became over the years, but it made me want to explore the power of written words.

No matter what you thought of Crichton's writing style or unconventional beliefs, there is no denying the impact he had on pop culture. There's a reason he holds a record for being the only person to have simultaneously the number one book, movie, and TV show in the country. He was a man who knew how to transfix his audience through a combination of thoroughly researched information and exciting narrative. Reading one of his books you felt like you were really learning something while being entertained.

If you go through my reviews over the years, the film that pops up in references the most is Jurassic Park. While cinema was not very kind to many of his works, that was one that had undeniably been treated right. I loved it for the very simple fact that it was one of the most ingeniously simple ideas for a story I've seen during my lifetime. We take it for granted now, but looking back it makes sense that it became such a phenomenon. There were very few, if any Crichton novels that I didn't take something away from, he always made me look at the world in a slightly different way. His novels encouraged you to go out and explore and research things you never would have even thought about otherwise.

As you can see, I could go on and on about Crichton for ages. I am deeply saddened by his passing, which came as a sudden shock to me. I respect that he wanted to keep his declining health private, and I simply wish to thank him for his many literary and film contributions over the years that I've cherished. No other writer has affected me in quite the way he has, and I am forever grateful to him for that.

"I am certain that there is too much certainty in the world."
- Michael Crichton

Catching Up: Mini Reviews

So many movies, so little time to review them. I saw a number of movies over the last month and some of them took some real time to wrap my head around. While some may deserve more analysis, for now this will have to do - many more movies are quickly approaching on the horizon. The next two months are the most exciting for movies, and I look forward to sinking my teeth into the fall season's offerings. For now, though, reviews.


Happy-Go-Lucky

I recognize I'm in the minority on this one, but dear lord was this film a pain to sit through at times. Director Mike Leigh presents us with Poppy, one of the most grating characters of the year. Cheerful to the point of derangement, Poppy refuses to let anyone not be affected by her chipper attitude. There's no real plot to speak of, just a series of moments in her life and the characters she meets along the way. I was unable to believe that this character could or would exist in the world, or that anyone would do some of the things she does. The one truly shining element here is Eddie Marsan as her polar opposite driving instructor. Perhaps it says more about me than the film itself that I often preferred his volatile character to Poppy, but he was riveting. These are two people that should not have met, but because they have it rushes inevitably to a shocking and powerful confrontation that almost single-handedly redeemed this movie. As unimpressed as I was by this film, I would be happy to see Marsan get some recognition during the awards season.




Let the Right One In

If you've had your ear to the ground, you've probably heard rumblings about this one. Believe the hype - it's a masterpiece. It's unique visions like this that make me love watching movies. Classified as a horror film, I feel that is incorrect. It has a young girl who is a vampire, and there are certainly scenes of shocking violence, but at it's heart it is a beautiful love story between two kids trying to come to terms with who they are and what place they occupy in the world. I haven't been this affected by a movie in a long while, and can't recommend this highly enough. The nature of the characters make it hard to accept some of their actions, but at the same time you can't help but love the two kids in spite of those actions. The end especially had me literally cheer out loud for the characters. Trust me, you haven't seen a film quite like this before, this is one of the best you'll probably find all year.




Synecdoche, New York

I still haven't totally come to grips with the implications of this film after nearly a month of contemplation. Suffice it to say, Charlie Kaufman is one of our most original minds working today, and while this doesn't deliver quite on the level of his greatest work, it is still at times fascinating and moving. It follows a playwright named Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman) as he tries to make the most important work of art ever conceived. Right off the bat you should not expect narrative sense from this film - think David Lynch lite. Time passes these characters by with almost no notice, physical space becomes undefinable, and real and imagined begin to merge into one. Caden attempts to recreate his life on a gigantic sound stage, but as he does it all begins to fold in on itself. He starts telling the story of how he's telling the story of how he's telling the story, etc. Hoffman is great, as are all the women in his life - Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton, Diane Weist and more. It seems to falter at the end when it becomes less clear what is happening anymore, and the film seems to lack a coherent ending - but then again, so does life. I would recommend Kaufman's own Adaptation over this as it hits on many of the same themes, but this is a solid film with moments of brilliance. I think had Kaufman found a director instead of directing it himself, it could have been a masterpiece.





Trick 'r Treat

Here's a film with a story. Filmed in 2007 and set for an October release last year, it suddenly disappeared from the schedule. Presumed to be released this October, it once again was MIA. One would assume this means bad things, but quite the opposite is true, in fact. Trick 'r Treat is one of the best Halloween films in many years. It tells a number of intertwining stories all set on Halloween, each evoking different aspects of the holiday. It is clever, fun, scary, and very darkly hilarious. And Sam, the central... not villain, but let's call him an antagonist - is one fascinating and creepy horror film character. Dylan Baker shines as a man with a dark secret, and Brian Cox evokes the image of John Carpenter in his storyline, perhaps the most frightening of the movie. This is a film to be seen with a big audience, and it demands to be seen as close to Halloween as possible. It has been screened a number of times recently in hopes of getting the word out, and I think it's working - I have heard absolutely no negative feedback from those who've seen it. Who knows when or if this film will ever get released, but if the opportunity to see it ever does come up, take it. This is a new Halloween cult classic waiting to be discovered.





W.

Oliver Stone can be so hit or miss. His two past "president" movies were both masterpieces, but many of his other films fall completely flat, like World Trade Center. His latest falls somewhere in between. The film puts up a great argument for the need to tell Bush's story on film, but the timing is still too soon. It feels as though so much more could have been explored had we had some hindsight. Still, what Stone does tackle is often fascinating, especially W's relationship with his father. Josh Brolin embodies the man eerily well, but the rest of the cast is hit or miss. James Cromwell doesn't particularly evoke Bush Sr, but he gives a well rounded performance regardless. Jeffrey Wright makes you feel sympathy for Colin Powell, who was clearly misled by those he trusted. But Thandie Newton gives a Razzie-worthy performance as Condoleezza Rice. It's like she's never seen Rice before in her life and just did some sort of bizarre caricature of a dimwitted yes man politician. It's absurd. I was surprised to find myself understanding our president in new ways because of this film. While Stone's film doesn't forgive him for his mistakes, it does put them into an interesting perspective.





Zach and Miri Make a Porno

Oh, Kevin Smith. I'm an unapologetic Smith fan, so my bias will be showing whenever I talk about him. I recognize he isn't a great director, and his dialogue can be on the verbose side, but I enjoy everything he's done. And while I also enjoyed this film, I felt it was on the lower tier of his work. The laughs are undeniably there, and the actors are almost uniformly perfectly cast, but the story itself feels off. In many ways it feels like Chasing Amy-lite. The relationship between Zack and Miri feels forced oftentimes, and the ending feels incredibly rushed. As just a comedy, it works well, but I kept hoping for it to rise above comedy and be something more. I have to give a special mention to Jason Mewes, who has really pulled himself together in recent years. He showed in Clerks II and especially here that he is a born performer, exuding more charm and charisma than anyone else in the film. He turns Lester the Molester (not a porn name, by the way) into a lovable guy, no easy feat. I can't help but kind of hope Smith would move onto something new and put films like this behind him. He's starting to run out of things to say in this genre, and I think he has such talent that if he ever did decide to do a drama (or even his long rumored horror film) it could be a revelation.