Alive and well

I've been decidedly absent from these pages lately and I apologize. I've spent the week in my hometown with family. While I love my family, I'm suffocating from the lack of Netflix and my local arthouse (damn it... Assayas "Clean" opened there this week. I can only hope it's still showing when I'm back in town on Tuesday). I've had to subsidize my cinematic viewing with a showing of Wolfgang Peterson's maddeningly under-characterized and overly aggressive "Poseidon" and the somewhat thrilling (but ultimately middling)"Da Vinci Code". Readers of the book will not be disappointed. And the most surprising thing about all of my ra-ra Hollywood viewings this week? I absolutely loved "Mission Impossible 3". Director J.J. Abrams fills the screen with meta action set pieces, allowing his mise-en-scene to thoroughly embroil the viewer in detailed and coherent shoot outs and explosions. He has created, probably, the best action film in the last five years. Ohh, and there's a brilliant portrayal of the villain by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Best....Villain....ever.

List-o-mania #2

1999:

1. Magnolia (Anderson)
2. Lovers of the Arctic Circle (Medem)
3. The Adventures of Sebastian Cole (Williams)
4. The Insider (Mann)
5. Eyes Wide Shut (Kubrick)
6. Limbo (Sayles)
7. Three Kings (Russell)
8. Talented Mr. Ripley (Minghella)
9. The Messenger (Besson)
10. The Iron Giant (Bird)


2000:

1. Almost Famous (Crowe)
2. Traffic (Soderbergh)
3. Kikujiro (Kitano)
4. Requiem For a Dream (Aronofsky)
5. Wonderland (Winterbottom)
6. Late August, Early September (Assayas)
7. Way of the Gun (McQuarrie)
8. Keeping the Faith (Norton)
9. L’Humanite (Dumont)
10. Legend of Bagger Vance (Redford)

2001:

1. The Man Who Wasn’t There (Coens)
2. The Yards (Gray)
3. Mulholland Drive (Lynch)
4. Memento (Nolan)
5. The Royal Tenebaums (Anderson)
6. The Claim (Winterbottom)
7. Made (Favreau)
8. Chopper (Dominik)
9. Ali (Mann)
10. Eureka (Aoyama)

2002:

1. Gangs of New York (Scorsese)
2. The Bed You Sleep In (Jost)
3. Minority Report (Spielberg)
4. Punch Drunk Love (Anderson)
5. 25th Hour (Lee)
6. Insomnia (Nolan)
7. Sex and Lucia (Medem)
8. Narc (Carnahan)
9. Last Orders (Schepsi)
10. The Son’s Room (Moretti)


2003:

1. Mystic River (Eastwood)
2. Lost In Translation (Coppola)
3. Return of the King (Jackson)
4. demonlover (Assayas)
5. All the Real Girls (Green)
6. Irreversible (Noe)
7. The Dancer Upstairs (Malkovich)
8. In America (Sheridan)
9. Purple Butterfly (Le)
10. Cold Mountain (Minghella)


2004:

1. The Aviator (Scorsese)
2. House of Flying Daggers (Yimou)
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry)
4. Spartan (Mamet)
5. Garden State (Braff)
6. Code 46 (Winterbottom)
7. The Life Aquatic (Anderson)
8. I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (Hodges)
9. Crimson Gold (Pahar)
10. Collateral (Mann)

List-o-mania

So... in order to gather a more comprehensive idea of my cinematic tastes (and it is broad, if I may say so) I've decided to post a copy of my "favs of the year" from 1990 on. It's amazing, looking back at some of these lists, how much they've changed. A majority of them have been left intact, and only a marginal number of films have been added, but a couple have been drastically re-numbered (especially 1998... P.T. Anderson's two breathtaking masterpieces now top my list whereas Kasi Lemmons' more moderate and accomplished character piece has fallen). Hindsight is 20-20. If only I could have the luxury of seeing every film that comes out every year.. then I'd feel more comfortable with these lists, but we know that will never happen, so here goes: The first post is from 1990-1998. 1998-2005 will be up soon.


1990:


1. Goodfellas (Scorsese)
2. King of New York (Ferrera)
3. Cinema Paradiso (Tornatore)
4. Twin Peaks (TV- Lynch)
5. Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer (McNaughton)
6. Miller’s Crossing (Coens)
7. Edward Scissorhands (Burton)
8. State of Grace (Joanau)
9. The Godfather Part 3 (Coppola)
10. Wild at Heart (Lynch)


1991:

1. The Double Life of Veronique (Kieslowski)
2. The Indian Runner (Penn)
3. JFK (Stone)
4. Zentropa (vonTrier)
5. Grand Canyon (Kasdan)
6. Homicide (Mamet)
7. Ju Dou (Yimou)
8. Bullet in the Head (Woo)
9. Barton Fink (Coens)
10. City of Hope (Sayles)


1992:

1. Laws of Gravity (Gomez)
2. Glengary Glen Ross (Mamet)
3. Bad Lieutenant (Ferrera)
4. The Player (Altman)
5. Bob Roberts (Robbins)
6. Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino)
7. All the Vermeers in New York (Jost)
8. A River Runs Through It (Redford)
9. Raise the Red Lantern (Yimou)
10. Last of the Mohicans (Mann)

1993:

1. Schindler’s List (Spielberg)
2. Short Cuts (Altman)
3. True Romance (Scott)
4. Fearless (Weir)
5. Age of Innocence (Scorsese)
6. Faraway, So Close (Wenders)
7. A Perfect World (Eastwood)
8. In the Name of the Father (Sheridan)
9. The Puppet Master (Hsiou-Hsien)
10. In the Line of Fire (Peterson)


1994:

1. Imaginary Crimes ( Drazan)
2. To Live (Yimou)
3. Cold Water (Assayas)
4. Trois Colors Trilogy (Kieslowski)
5. Forrest Gump (Zemeckis)
6. Last Seduction (Dahl)
7. Dangerous Game (Ferrera)
8. Clean, Shaven (Kerrigan)
9. Red Rock West (Dahl)
10. Hudsucker Proxy (Coens)

1995:

1. Casino (Scorsese)
2. Heat (Mann)
3. Seven (Fincher)
4. Smoke/Blue In the Face (Auster/Wang)
5. The Kingdom (vonTrier)
6. Funny Bones (Chelsom)
7. Kicking and Screaming (Stillman)
8. Shanghai Triad (Yimou)
9. Sonatine (Kitano)
10. Little Odessa (Gray)
11. The Day the Sun Turned Cold (Yim)
12. Clockers (Lee)


1996:

1. Breaking the Waves (vonTrier)
2. Swingers (Liman)
3. The English Patient (Minghella)
4. The Whole Wide World (Ireland)
5. Lone Star (Sayles)
6. Fargo (Coens)
7. The Funeral (Ferrera)
8. Irma Vep (Assayas)
9. Bottle Rocket (Anderson)
10. Basquiat (Schnabel)
11. Beautiful Girls (demme)
12. He Got Game (Lee)
13. Sleepers (Levinson)


1997:

1. Boogie Nights (Anderson)
2. Hard Eight (Anderson)
3. Kundun (Scorsese)
4. Eve’s Bayou (Lemmons)
5. Fireworks (Kitano)
6. La Scorta (Tognazzi)
7. Gattaca (Niccol)
8. Sweet Hereafter (Egoyan)
9. L.A. Confidential (Hanson)
10. Daytrippers (Mottola)


1998:

1. The Thin Red Line (Malick)
2. The Big Lebowski (Coens)
3. Saving Private Ryan (Spielberg)
4. The Truman Show (Weir)
5. Out of Sight (Soderbergh)
6. Zero Effect (Kasdan)
7. Chinese Box (Wang)
8. Pi (Aronofsky)
9. The Game (Fincher)
10. A Simple Plan (Raimi)
11. Lulu On the Bridge (Auster)

Italian faux-realism

"A Crime For 3 Sins"

Called "the most exciting and intricately plotted crime film since I don't know when!" by film critic Salvatore Fibrizio, A Crime For 3 Sins is finally being released on DVD.

Three low level crime men plan the perfect hold-up of an armored truck. Each does it for different reasons. Marco (Anthony Sante) is in desperate need of the money due to his gambling debts. Sal (Roberto Iolleni) plans on finally being able to use his wealth to steal his deaf-mute half sister away from their domineering father and create the perfect lifestyle where they can love each other openly and without fear of taboo retaliation. Tony (Alfred Mavala) banks on the money to, somehow, appease his wife and win her back from her many torrid love affairs with other men. But, complicating matters are Sgt. Azara (Federico Leulla), a dedicated and professional detective who gets wind of the heist due to the fact he's one of the many men sleeping with Tony's wife. Plus, shady associates of Sal's gambling debts find out about the plan and put their own execution of the heist in the works. Who will get to the money first? How will the seperate camps outsmart each other? And more importantly, will anyone walk away clean with the loot?

Directed with verve from acclaimed, reclusive filmmaker Dante Ferriota, this 131 minute version has finally been restored by NoShame DVD and given a proper release. Previously, only a severely truncated 94 minute version was available after the film's director pulled "A Crime For 3 Sins" from the Italian film market after a less-than-remarkable debut at the 1997 Venice Film Festival. Critics decried his uneven mixture of handheld cinematography coupled against Antonioni-like long takes, as well as the film's handling of it's matter-of-factly filmed themes of incest.

Finally, the director has re-emerged with his original print and all of it's biting glory can be found on NoShame DVD.

Sounds interesting right? I'm glad you like it. It's a made up synopsis of a movie that doesn't exist. Over at www.moriartylabs.typepad.com/moriartys_dvd_shelf/, he threw together a contest in which we created the plot outline of an Italian crime film and submitted it to his site. The best one would get a copy of a new film called "Uno Bianca", apparently a 3 hour crime film from the director who brought American audiences "Cemetary Man" a few years back, and a film that bares striking similiarity with Michael Mann's "Heat". I didn't win with the above synopsis, but I gave it a great college try. The most heartening thing about all of this is the resurgence of giallo, cult, and hard-to-find Italian films being released on DVD- including such illustrious titles as "Double Game", "Forbidden Photos of a Lady Under Suspicion", "Pyjama Girl Case", "The Black Belly of the Tarantula" and "Fifth Cord". Couple those with all of the recent Argento, Fulci and "What Have You Done With Solange" discs, and one begins to jump for joy in all of the genre's excessive perversions. NoShame DVD and Blue Underground are the companies behind these flicks, and one can only hope that they continue their distribution of the lost and forgotten.

The Art of the Chase

Sixteen Blocks


I have to commend Richard Donner's "16 Blocks". Not only does it prove to be a highly entertaining, frenetically paced action film, but it manages to shroud Bruce Willis with his first role wherein he gets the chance to look, act and feel like the years are wearing on him (unlike the stubborn 'machoness' that Harrison clumsily exudes in "Firewall"). Willis is asked to do nothing super-heroish in the film. He walks steadily with a limp, runs continually out of breath and looks like shit the entire film, carrying a pale complexion that leads one to wonder if he was actually drinking before Donner yelled action. "16 Blocks" is an old-fashioned film that unfolds in real time as Jack Mosley (Willis) has to transport Eddie Bunker (Mos Def) 16 blocks to appear in court. Of course, it turns out that the court date is to virtually bury several of New York's finest, and they (as well as the gargantuan sprawl of the city itself) stand in the way. David Morse (such a fine character actor) is one of those cops, and "16 Blocks" certainly takes a jaundiced eye at the New York police department. There's a scene in a small bar towards the beginning of the film (the first that David Morse appears in) where Willis learns of his ex-partners motivations. The tightness and economy of that scene is breathless, and it's a tone that Donner sustains throughout the remainder of the film. Nice stuff.


Running Scared


I wish the same economy and tightness was found anywhere in Wayne Kramer's "Running Scared". Now, an admission- I was drawn to this film from the slightly glowing review of Andres Sarris in ****** .com in which he wrote that the film is not as bad as others are saying. I'm not sure what Sarris saw in the overly aggressive and emotionally bankrupt motivations of this film, but it didn't strike me as anything more than yet another Paul Walker vehicle in which he gets to look tough and overract. I won't go into the narrative details, except the fact that it's virtually about the allure and criminal perversions that often accompany a handgun as it passes through various hands, a trope that usually offers interesting results, as in the way Bresson handles the subtle human calibrations as a bill makes it way through the landscape. But I apologize for even mentioning Bresson in any comparison to "Running Scared". This is a crushingly boring film, even though it features probably 95 minutes worth of action and bloodshed. If anything, the most memorable part of takes place towards the end in which all the film's nauseatingly empty characters end up in a hockey rink and take practice on Walker's face. At this point, my disinterest in the film turned into pleading for the film's full frontal assault to end. And the most inane part of the whole affair is the way Kramer's script dodges it's hyper-reality and twists towards a happy climax.


Pulse


Kiyoshi Kurosawa is quickly becoming a filmmaker that I shout out to anyone interested in Asian cinema- with slight caution. His film's won't give you nightmares through cheap scares… they creep up on you and disturb your senses in subtle ways. And even then, not all of his films are designed to disturb. They slowly immerse the viewer in dread-soaked visions that leave your eyes searching the corners of the frame. And they feature great humor, such as in "Doppelganger". "Pulse" is no exception. There is one scene where a woman slowly walks out the shadows towards a man hiding in the same dark room. She swaggers and almost stumbles in a highly supernatural way that chilled me to the bone. But "Pulse" is not really a ghost story. Instead, it's an apocalyptic caution drama doused in horrific overtones, featuring images that rattle around in your head for days (such as an airplace crashing off-screen and the single take as a woman leaps from a water tower.) The idea is this- isolation and loneliness as the key to world destruction. People slowly fade out of reality and become black gobs of soot in their final minutes. Sometimes, they re-appear inside computer screens, slowly reaching out to the living for some kind of connection, which is Kurosawa's sly comment on the disconnected-ness that world wide technology like the internet is supposed to eliminate. Even if all of the film's ideas aren't readily understood on first viewing, "Pulse" is still a masterpiece of world cinema that sells itself as horror and comes off as something more. Essential viewing.

Lists!

And while we're at it.... in conjunction with the recent survey of Peckinpah's films, what better way to ammend that than with a list of how I rank his films! In order from favorite:

1) The Killer Elite
2) The Wild Bunch
3) Ride the High Country
4) Junior Bonner
5) The Getaway- simply becaise Steve McQueen oozes coolness from every pore.
6) Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
7) The Ballad of Cable Hogue
8) Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
9) Straw Dogs
10) The Deadly Companions
11) Cross of Iron
12) The Osterman Weekend
13) Major Dundee
14) Convoy- it means well....

Placing Peckinpah

There are very few pre-1990 filmmakers whose entire body of work can be seen by the average viewer. Studio rights, individual rights, bad prints (or lost prints)… these are just a few of the cinematic potholes that sink into our restoration and release process. DVD is a big proponent of the new fashion of multi-work releases and deluxe edition boxsets. In early January, Warner Brothers released the "legendary westerns" boxset which included "The Wild Bunch", "Ride the High Country", "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" and "The Ballad of Cable Hogue". With those four titles released, the entire canon of director Sam Peckinpah can be viewed and enjoyed within the comfort of your home. That's exactly what I did, and what follows is a small appreciation of the filmmaker's body of work.

So much is said about the violence of Peckinpah's films. That doesn't make any sense. I assume this is coming from people and pundits who were only privileged to see "The Wild Bunch" (1969) and "Straw Dogs" (1972), certainly two of his more polarizing films. and the ones that have been available on home video release the longest. While "The Wild Bunch" does belong in the halls of fantastic (and groundbreaking) movie-making, "Straw Dogs" was his follow-up to that masterpiece. "Straw Dogs" is a film in which Dustin Hoffman and his wife, Susan George, are continually assaulted both physically and mentally by the local community of the remote village they've settled in. In fact, "Straw Dogs" is still banned in the UK due to it's portrayal of a rape scene in which actress George eventually gives in and 'appears' to be enjoying the moment. Peckinpah dials down the physical violence just a bit, but he cranks up the psychological malaise. It's difficult to place "Straw Dogs" after "The Wild Bunch", and if the film doesn't succeed quite as well, it's because the performances of Hoffman and George are a little stilted. But what is clear from these two efforts is that Peckinpah finally found a stylistic voice. The success of "The Wild Bunch" gave him the levity to create a more interior work like "Straw Dogs". It charted a straight line within Hollywood in which he had the freedom to disappear in Mexico and take his time piecing together the melancholy haze that graces the visuals and mood of "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia". And they certainly gave him the chutzpah to barrel ahead and churn out nihilistic works like "Cross of Iron" and "The Osterman Weekend", films a little shoddy on look and tempo but striking in texture and creative authenticity. But, through all of this, are "The Wild Bunch" and "Straw Dogs" the reason there's not a more consistent and widespread demand for the works of Peckinpah to explode on modern viewers? Is he saddled with the monikor of "violent" because, as a culture, we're insatiable about pigeonholing our artists with one word? If one takes both of these dynamic and unsettling films out of his oeuvre, I wager that Peckinpah becomes more respected within the confines of the average viewer. Everyone understands the greatness of both these works on the industry in the late 60's and early 70's, but I think these two films also cast a shadow of distrust over the remainder of Peckinpah's career. It's easy to overlook the humor in many of his films, like in "The Killer Elite". It's easy to disregard the sensitive and congenial spirit pulsing through every look and gesture of Steve McQueen in "Junior Bonner". And it's irresponsible to view "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" as anything but a filmmaker coasting on pure delight in morphing the well-worn tropes of the western genre into a comedy of epic proportions. To so many, Peckinpah is forever remembered as the violent masochist who drank himself to death and focused on the dark corners of the human psyche. That is very unfair. Watch any other film besides "The Wild Bunch" and "Straw Dogs" and one will see a director enamored with humor, redemption, affection and trust. And at times, Peckinpah is much more satisfied with the playful listlessness of his characters on the screen rather than gun fire and rape.

But one cannot debate Peckinpah without bringing up his numerous forays into the western genre. It's the western that defines him. In fact, seven of his first nine films are westerns. And couple those with the wild streak of "Convoy" in 1977- in which eighteen wheelers could be seamlessly substituted for horses, and "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" in which Warren Oates tramples around Mexico with a human head, dodging hired hitman- and you begin to see that these two works could also easily fall under the graces of the wild western tradition. It's not that the western is such an easy genre to tackle, but it gives filmmakers such a wide canvas to work with- both in look and allegorical character development. His first two films, "Ride the High Country" and "The Deadly Companions", are great westerns not because of what they present, but because of what they infer- the dying vestiges of a landscape concerned not with fighting Indians and shoot outs at the OK Corral, but with men fighting something inside themselves. Both films feature lead actors (Randolph Scott and Joel Mcrea, Brian Keith) as worn out figures in a land that slowly passing them by. The latest and best filmmaker to conduct this sort of redemptive strike at man-versus-the-western-landscape-as-savior is Tommy Lee Jones with his "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada". That film certainly wouldn't have been quite as pungent without the slow-to-burn moral compass guiding Brian Keith in "The Deadly Companions" and Warren Oates in "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" as both Peckinpah characters pay their dues across the western vistas, wrangling their sins (a head and a child's body) in the form of a journey. Redemption, like revenge, is a common theme in all of Peckinpah's works, but he doesn't pull at the core quite as evocative as he does in "The Deadly Companions". In "Ride the High Country", Scott and Mcrea are brokeback (sorry, couldn’t resist) gunslingers who begin escorting gold to a small mining town, and end up violently protecting the virginal figure of Mariette Hartley. Again, like the best of the genre, Peckinpah circumvents the values and norms of the western, slowly turning the story inward, and in the case of his first two films, creates a rigid sense of individualism and timelessness that ends with his characters bowing out in poetic and humane fashion.

As far as style, that came about with "The Wild Bunch". Peckinpah's fascination with dragging out the images of bodies falling, cross-cutting amongst a single violent incident and prolonging the final blow started in 1968. There wasn't a hint of it in 1966 when he polished off "Major Dundee". And while this became a minor distraction in later efforts (especially in one fantastically designed bar room brawl in 1972's "Junior Bonner"), Peckinpah coalesced his editing trickery with "The Wild Bunch" and used it as a trope throughout the remainder of his work (as well as the recurring images of children bearing witness to various acts of violence and bloodshed). In fact, Peckinpah's claim to visual auterism is his manner of cross-cutting and frenetically inserting images against each other. That, above all else, is what aligns Peckinpah with so many peers of his generation. He was not the author of very many of his works. The few writing credits affixed to his name come from a partnership with another writer. Peckinpah was a visualist… a filmmaker who adapted the writings of others and marginally surfaced his sensibilities. He became a chameleon to a vast array of genres and styles, yet another characteristic of a director less concerned with vanity and more interested in telling as many stories as possible. Can you imagine the shock that must have followed the cathartic bloodletting of "The Wild Bunch" in 1968 when he released the playfully subdued "Ballad of Cable Hogue" two years later, giving Jason Robards one of his most charismatic and unpretentious roles? Or the sledgehammer see-saw effect that "Junior Bonner" must've had when it was released in 1972, sandwiched between "The Getaway" and "Straw Dogs". Or, as judging by a lot of critics reactions to his final film, "The Osterman Weekend", the release of an aggressively paranoid 70's thriller ten long years after that genre had run its gamut? That's why I love cinema; the ability to be constantly poked, prodded and challenged by my expectations of a filmmaker. I can think of no higher praise for Peckinpah than that.
So, with all that said… the purpose of this short writing is to explain that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to the dynamic career of Sam Peckinpah. All of these titles are available on DVD. Check them out.

Films from Opposite Corners of the World

Eytan Fox's "Walk On Water" covers some of the same ground as Steven Speilberg's Munich, albeit in much more modest terms. Eyal, (Lior Ashkenazi, an actor who should be destined for international stardom with his dashing good looks and cerebral portrayal of inner turmoil) is a MOSSAD agent whose specialty is assassinating Nazi war criminals through lethal injection. His next assignment turns out to be the hunt for an 86 year old Nazi commander who is still believed to be alive. In order to ascertain whether this fact is true or not, Eyal is asked to impersonate an Israeli tour guide and get comfortable with the nazi commander's grandson when he arrives for a visit. Eyal gets to know the grandson, Axel Himmelman (Knut Berger) and granddaughter Pia (Caroline Peters) as he leads them around the city. All of the story's tension builds around the fundamental question of can Eyal carry out his mission after forming a unique relationship with his target's grandchildren? Director Fox adroitly underscores subtle moral complexities within the story. This is not a film that dwells on the tensions of the assassinations like Munich. Fox instead focuses on the slow immersion of Eyal into the secular and humane beliefs of Axel and Pia. To complicate matters, Axel is homosexual, a lifestyle in stark contrast to Eyal beliefs. The connection these two make by the end of the film is surprising and moving. The manner of Eyal's assassination method is also emblematic of Fox's almost subliminal handling of the film's moral center- lethal injection, requiring that Eyal comfortably wedge himself close enough to strike his victim. "Walk On Water" also confronts the wavering guilt that has slowly built inside Eyal after committing so many murders (both on the job and in his personal life), and like "Munich", this guilt exposes itself in an ending that is both humble and miraculous. Highly recommended film. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada Why is the western such an enduring genre? Is it because it gives filmmakers the freedom to present globally profound ideas against a (highly) picturesque background? Or is it because the genre lends itself to stories that resonate with our innate sense of the past and our progression from rugged determination to technological advancement? Either way, Tommy Lee Jones' "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" is a brutally honest and unflinching portrait of a profound idea (redemption) situated against that picturesque backdrop. Written by Guillermo Arriaga ("21 Grams, Amorres Perros), he tackles this story with the same sense of fractured fervor that punctuates those stories. While the first 45 minutes or so keeps you guessing about the timelines, jumping between the budding friendship of Tommy Lee Jones and his friend Melquiades (Julio Cidillo) and the new arrival of Mike Norton (Barry Pepper) and his perky, short-skirted wife (Melissa Leo), Arriaga's script doesn't feel ambivalent and unnecessary like it did in his previous efforts. Each character is given weight and pretense, and while the inextricable connections between all four eventually becomes clear in a harrowing manner, Tommy Lee Jones is the kindred spirit behind this film, turning in a performance that's both slightly off-kilter and wonderous in his quiet intensity. "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" deftly builds towards a journey through the Texas and Mexico landscape with Jones and Pepper that's frightening and intoxicating. Parts of the film (the insertion of a blind man in the middle of nowhere, a female "healer" in a small town) play like great excerpts from a Faulkner novel and, ultimately, as with most westerns, the journey through the desolate landscape becomes the unspoken crux of the film. As a first time director, Jones' images are crisp and straight forward and he elicits strong supporting roles from January Jones and Dwight Yoakem, a tremendously funny actor in almost every scene as the town's local sheriff. "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" takes the western as its pretext and paints a moving portrait of two men in search for something more than a burial ground for Melquiades, a casualty of territorial and ethnic injustice. But then again, isn't that what a great western does?

Tops in pops '05

1) The Mars Volta, "Frances the Mute"- Head and shoulders above everything else I listened to this year, "Frances The Mute" is a stunning album in every sense of the word. Channeling the long lost ghost of Led Zeppelin, FM radio play and prog-rock with a vengeance, they throw everything at you in this 75 minute opus. More free-form and improvisatory than their previous album, this is one helluva great cd to get lost with.

2) Explosions In the Sky, "How Strange, Innocence"- This quartet from Austin, Texas will never hit it big. Why? They're four guys who play instrumental pieces without a single word! I discovered this band by accident late in the year and their sound (a cross between Mogwai and the repetitive background fuzz of early Sonic Youth) builds to hugely satisfying crescendos. This album, entitled "How Casual, Innocence" was released in '05, but it's a remix of eight early demo songs that never got off the ground after they formed in 2000. Just as I was conducting more research on these guys, I kept thinking how perfect their moody music would be for soundtracks, then I realized a lot the unique music in the film Friday Night Lights is courtesy of Explosions In the Sky. I can't recommend this band enough. It's always engaging when you discover a band you feel no one else has heard before.

3) Smile, Smile- "Smile Smile"- This debut EP from Dallas male and female duo Jencey and Ryan Hamilton (and the inferences to The White Stripes must be infuriating) is deceptively simple. Lush melodies are overlapped against keyboard, guitar and a mechanized drum beat, creating some of the most oddly moving sounds of the year.

4) My Morning Jacket, "Z"- Whatever one wishes to classify My Morning Jacket under (alt-country, bluegrass, rock fusion), after three albums it's clear they're here to stay. "Z" is an all-out exploration of genre and sound, easily swooning between 70's style rock and lazy alternative country. This one stayed in my cd player for three months straight.


5) Gorillaz, "Demon Days"- Former Blur frontman Daman Albarn took refuge with his band Gorillaz (really no more than himself splurging in the studio and inviting various musical personalities, and Dennis Hopper, to join in the fun) and this second album progresses his playful and irreverent sense of hip hop, electronica and…. Gospel? At first glance, this all seems like a mess. But on repeat listens, there's a definite method to this album's madness. The tunes become hypnotic and tell unique stories, either through spoken word or through the way Albarn's voice suddenly becomes clear after mumbling. It's all very subtle… and brilliant.

6) Coldplay, "X/Y"- Let the bashing begin. Wasn't there a cute little line about me being gay if I liked Coldplay tossed into a film somewhere this year? Oh well. I’m comfortable with my masculinity, and I still love Coldplay.

The horror... the horror

The New World

Twenty-five days into the new year, and I doubt I'll find a better film this year than The New World. Directed by Terrence Malick, The New World is yet another moving effort from an artist adept at charging each frame with spirituality and depth. Like the early images of The Thin Red Line, Days of Heaven and the final half hour of Badlands, The New World is a visionary experience as it observes the interaction between people from vastly different cultures and backgrounds. It could be dangerous (or the ultimate put-down, boring) to spend so much time with three characters who frolic and find pleasure in nature quite as randomly as the film's three main protagonists do in The New World, but Malick infuses every moment of his film with innocence and heartfelt emotion. Shot in natural light by cinematographer Emmanual Lubezki, actors Colin Farrell, Christian Bale and newcomer Q'Orianka Kilcher give restrained and genuine performances, relying on casual glances and body language rather than overt acting. And while a great deal of concern has been given towards Malick's disregard for formal narrative, The New World dispenses a ton of exposition within small jump cuts and intuition. He doesn't feel a need for dialogue. The New World is a tone poem of sorts, and the type of poetic cinema he's been gravitating towards since Days of Heaven. He reaches the apex of his career with The New World. Now let's just hope his timeline of producing films continues to decrease.


Electra Glide In Blue


Electra Glide In BlueElectra Glide In Blue is a curious thing- at once a bracing example of 70's era cinema as well as the lone feature by a director so full of promise and a jaundiced eye for underscoring police corruption in such a playful and biting manner. But, as it stands, this was the only film ever directed by record producer James Guercia (of the band Chicago) and stars a young Robert Blake. Blake plays John Wintergreen, an Arizona motorcycle cop who obeys the law and passionately wants to become detective. He gets his chance when a desert recluse's body turns up and his assumption of murder is quickly validated by veteran detective Harve (Mitchell Ryan). Wintergreen soon becomes witness to the brutal methods of investigation that Harve employs as they scour the desert for a killer. The counter-culture that seems so prevalent in various 'communes' throughout the desert soon become the target of Harve's authoritative search. But, as in so many great films, the resolution of the murder is less interesting than the truths learned by the protagonist along the way. No one comes out unscathed in this film. Blake gives a commanding performance as the moral compass amidst the sweltering desert heat. Even though the film bows out with a heavy handed message concerning the dichotomy between old and new cultures ala Easy Rider, Guercia's film is certainly an underrated classic that deserves its recognition now on DVD. On any given day, I'd be hard pressed not to include this film as one of the best films of the 1970's.


Hostel



Eli Roth's Hostel has to be given its due for attempting to portray the grimy and twisted characteristics of grindhouse cinema on a mainstream American screen. So why is it still a lackluster effort from a director capable of so much more? I once met Eli Roth. On Halloween 2002, my brother and some friends and I trekked down to Austin, Texas, where Harry Knowles and the Aint-It-Cool-News gang were putting on a Horror-fest of films. Shown on the Alamo Drafthouse Rolling Roadshow, the night was screened against the backdrop of the now defunct Travis County State Hospital- a show of its own since we got to freely wander the grounds and the empty buildings. I remember venturing through the children's ward, pitch black, using only my cell phone as light and seeing some of the crayon drawings still lingering on the padded walls. It was chilling. And the films themselves, Alone in the Dark, some Greek horror movie, Argento's Twitch of the Death Nerve and finally the world premier of Roth's Cabin Fever, paled in comparison to this. But, before Cabin Fever, one of the hosts made the announcement that they were serving lemonade. I got in the long line and was just about to the front when the guy handing out lemonade said he was out. I stood back for a second and curiosity got the better of me. Why lemonade? Why not hot chocolate since it was 45 degrees out? I approached the man serving lemonade and we struck up a short conversation. He told me "you'll understand about the lemonade once you see the final movie tonight." We chatted about the night's event, shared a few favorite horror films and parted ways. After Cabin Fever was over, they introduced Eli on stage, which only added to the crowd's fervor over the cheesy, reverential aspects of the film's delights. I was in minimal shock. Wow… he never even introduced himself as a director or made any mention of his involvement with the event (which seems like a contradiction compared to the preening I've read about his demeanor at Cabin Fever's Toronto Film Festival debut) So, what does all this add up to? In that brief conversation, I could see Roth's passion for filmmaking. And more succinctly, his love of horror films now and then. So it's only natural that Roth would push audience limits with grotesqueries. The first half of Hostel plays way too juvenile, with actors Jay Hernandez and Derek Richardson trading lines like "Edward salad-hands groped up Josh!" The guys party more, insult each other over a fanny pack one of them carries, and take pictures of themselves in the bathroom as they screw European women. They find out about a hostel in the Czech Republic where "the girls make all your dreams come true". Of course, this hostel is a front for mean and nasty people to do mean and nasty things (and you know just how grotesque the process must be to have Takashi Miike pop in and do a great cameo). By the time the meanness of the second half kicks in though, the tone is all wrong. We don't care about these people anymore. In Cabin Fever, the tone was cheeky and playful all along. Even when things turn sour, Roth sustained a genuine sense of humor and apathy with the film's dingy teenagers. In Hostel, he tries to combine the best of both tones and fails. Hostel doesn't win you over as either a cheeky, playful throwback or a serious endeavor into the increasingly hard-to-mimic grindhouse movement. It just feels like lazy filmmaking.

Best of 2005

2005 was a great year for film. I've been formally compiling 'best of' lists for almost 12 years now, so why change the intro this year: Composed below are my choices for favorite films of the year. These twenty best may be someone else's twenty worst, nevertheless, so here's hoping we can meet in a compromise and look forward to 2006.



20. "2046"- Wong Kar Wai's elegant, visually sumptuous mood piece grows upon each viewing (and I wouldn't be surprised if it moves up this list in due time). Billed as a sequel to his previous film, "In the Mood For Love", Wong Kar Wai carries the sexual longing forward, again utilizing some of the best (and most beautiful) male and female stars of Asian cinema. At times, the story is set on auto pilot and the musings of lost love flow easily, but the performances of Zhang Yiyi and Tony Leung ground the film. And if all else fails, turn the sound down and get lost in the lush images.

19. "Domino"- I'm not sure if I just gained credibility or lost it by putting a Tony Scott film ahead of a Wong Kar Wai art flick, but oh well. Maybe everyone will keep reading anyway to see where in the hell this goes. Do I really have to apologize for this? It's no doubt my love for director Tony Scott overshadows a lot of things. Keira Knightley is so damn cool here. Though Scott re-visits set pieces from earlier films, it's hard not to fall under the spell of his hot-wired commitment. And by the time cult legend Tom Waits shows up in the middle of the desert after the characters crash their bus due to methamphetamine addiction, you sorta toss your hands up in the air and give in to the film's go-for-broke sensibility anyway. Great pulp cinema. No apologies here.

18. "Walk the Line"- Though Reese Witherspoon outshines Joaquin Phoenix here, the beauty of James Mangold's biopic film is in the unexpected and striking ways he avoids so many tropes of the genre. Where last year's "Ray" was turgid and plodding, "Walk the Line" is lively and fierce. Almost shoving aside the music of Johnny Cash, Mangold instead redirects the film's energy to the connection between Cash and June Carter. The final images, almost an anti-climax, only speak louder of the film's love and appreciation for human connection over pedestrian 'rockabilly' recreation.

17. "Batman Begins"- Give a wily outsider the chance, and he can re-create a dying franchise. I've loved Christopher Nolan since discovering his black and white no-budget debut "Following" in 1999, and here he's given the opportunity to flesh out the Batman series in dark, moving and operatic ways.

16. "Hustle and Flow"- Craig Brewer's Sundance hit carries a long way on the charismatic performance of Terence Howard, but it's also a wonderfully orchestrated ensemble piece. Taraji Henson , Anthony Anderson and Taryn Manning as Howard's main blonde trick provide moments of revelatory emotion and truth in a world full of catastrophe and chaos. Alongside "Walk the Line", "Hustle and Flow" also features tremendous moments that reveal just how electric and breathtaking it can be to produce art out of nothing except words, ideas and interaction.

15. "Cinderella Man"- Ron Howard's Depression-era boxing flick warms the heart and bruises the eye. Russell Crowe is mesmerizing here, and this is the first film that I kinda recognize the greatness of Paul Giamatti.

14. "Happy Endings"- Not known for making masterpieces, independent filmmaker Don Roos certainly rolled the dice here and came up with a jackpot. I mean, honestly, any movie maker who can give Lisa Kudrow and Tom Arnold the roles of their career has to be special. Sort of like Altman's "Short Cuts" on a smaller scale, Roos adds heart and context to the film by inserting text on the bottom of the screen to explain his character's futures as the film plays. It sounds coy, but it works. This one slipped under the radar and got no love on it's release. Rent it now.

13. "Layer Cake"- Not only does Daniel Craig ooze coolness here, Matthew Vaughn's stylish British gangster flick follows a relatively formulaic narrative (i.e. double and triple crosses in the great noir tradition) while managing to seem fresh and highly entertaining. Plus, the color scheme is way cool as well.

12. "Kung Fu Hustle"- One of the most enjoyable times at the theater this year was with Stephen Chow's ebullient and playful "Kung Fu Hustle". Watch it a second time, and you get even more pleasure out of it's Buster Keaton antics and widescreen compositions.

11. "Nobody Knows"- Hirokazu Kore-eda's film is a small, humble piece of filmmaking. Based on real events, four Japanese children are left to fend for themselves after their mother never returns home. The immersion into this world is undeniable. Every trip to the grocery store and every moment on the balcony overlooking their decrepit street is given weighty proportions. And when disaster strikes, it's all the more heartbreaking.

10. "Funny Ha Ha"- Twenty-somethings caught in limbo. Sound familiar? It's not. Andrew Bujalski's debut feature captures some of the brilliant glimmers of interaction between people that marks the realistic works of early Cassavettes. Kate Dollenmayer gives an altogether endearing performance, and though there's a lot of stammering, "yeahs", and "stuff" in this film, Bujalski has an acute eye for the way people use language and laughter to mask their emotions. A true gem of independent filmmaking.

9. "Syriana"- Stephen Gaghan's effort is the most political film on this list, tackling current issues with grace, resolve and conviction. Juggling an all star cast, multiple continents and often segueing into political undercurrents that had my head spinning, "Syriana" turns an intelligent script into a schizophrenic potboiler.

8. "Throwdown"- Is Johnny To the most underappreciated talent working in Asian cinema today? Probably. Even though he has two other films floating around the festival circuit right now (Breaking News and Election… both receiving no less than raves) "Throwdown" was the film I happened to catch this year. This latest film from the action maestro (though his films are often more about 'inaction') feels like the type of genre film Godard might have made back in the day. Alternating between whimsical fairy tale, flashes of hard edged gangsterism, and kitschy romance, "Throwdown" is exhilarating to watch no matter what genre it tackles. The images of Cherry Ying running (slow motion) down a city street as money sprinkles out of her hand and a lush song blares over the soundtrack is an unmistakable joy to behold.

7. "Kings and Queens"- There's plenty to love in Arnaud Desplechin's two and half hour gabfest. Mathieu Amalric, alone, is worth the price of admission. Following the intersection of two former lovers as they slowly reconnect in life (albeit from far different routes) "kings and Queens" is maddening, heartbreaking, tedious and complex... all the things I love about cinema.

6. "Capote"- Once you get beyond Philip Seymour Hoffman's Capote impersonation (and it doesn't take long), director Bennett Miller guides us through a small slice of the writer's life. What soon takes center stage is a compelling series of collisions- collisions between cultures (Kansas and New York), collisions between life and death, and the struggle between the creative process and one's moral compass. Cinematographer Adam Kimmell deserves credit for his evocative cinematography and if Clifton Collins Jr. doesn’t take home the supporting actor award, then the Oscars are rigged (oh well…. This will just give me a reason to complain about someone else next year, like I did last year, and probably will every year the Oscars are around.)

5. "Head-On"- Fatih Akin's German-Hungarian film is epic in every way. A man and woman meet, marry under false pretenses, then spend the rest of the film pretending not to agonize over their feigned relationship. Violent, erotic and wholly compelling, Birol Unel and Sibel Kikilli give beautiful performances. Following their love-hate relationship over the course of five years, at first glance, Akin's couple are sex-addicted, drug-addicted and suicidal. But as the film plays on, glimpses of emotional connection and a sense of shared history (both personal and national) emerge, all of which coalesces into a finale that is sublime.

4. "A History of Violence"- The third film on this list that inspects revenge and the multiple forms it takes, Cronenberg's latest defies expectations as it mutates genre from the inside out and whose every image (and for that matter, line of dialogue) is ripe with double meanings and hidden complexities. After all is said and done, Cronenberg's playful trip of idyllic-life-turned-sour is less about violence and more about the destruction of the nuclear family.

3. "Munich"- Steven Spielberg's masterpiece finally delivers on the mixture of intelligent cinema and heady political comment he's been grappling after for the previous five to six years. From the opening steadicam shot of a group of terrorists quickly shedding their costumes in a dimly lit courtyard to the auspicious images of a man running away from his country in front of the New York skyline, Spielberg is in visual and intellectual command here.

2. "Memories of Murder"- Joon Ho-Bong's film retells the completely unscientific method of tracking a serial killer in South Korea during the 1980's. Devoid of forensic research, the film's lead detectives (Kang Ho-son and Sang Kiyun Kim) instead turn to violence and torture. But that leads them no where. Essentially a whodunit, Joon's film is also about military occupation and the large crevices between investigative skills then and now. Featuring two grandstanding scenes- one as a girl wanders down a lonely, rainy road next to a cornfield and the second the film's final moments as the detective, years later, realizes just how close he might have come to seeing the killer- stand as breathtaking examples of South Korea's vibrant filmmakers and the limitless imagination invested in so many of their films.

1. "Oldboy"- I supose this list could be subtitled "Or How I learned to stop worrying and love asian cinema". The second film in Chan Wook Park's 'revenge trilogy' bustles with carefully choreographed images, sharp humor and a seething rage that is unmatched in recent international cinema. It's interesting that the theme of revenge rattles around in so many films this year (both in theaters and on this list), and while the director Park gleefully rolls this film towards its shocking denouement, it's also a painfully accurate meditation on memory and transformation from child to adult. Watching this film gives me the impression we're seeing something truly electric from an international talent just waiting to begin a long and fulfilling career. The best film of this year.

Films Big and Small

Creep

Even though it was a direct-to-video release, garnering little mainstream theater time except for a few screenings at various "Frightfests" around the festival circuit, Christopher Smith's "Creep" is a film that rivals the reckless abandon of sanity that infests Rob Zombie's "House of 1,000 Corpses". Starring "Run Lola Run" sprinter Franka Potente, she plays Kay, a woman who is en route to (possibly) meet George Clooney at a party. After falling asleep and missing the last metro train on the London underground, she awakes to find herself locked in the massive subway system where something is slowly hunting her. Never mind the plot. Holes abound and the acting is uniformly average, but the film hits such a note of savage intensity that it spirals into an unbelievably demented story of torture and scientific experiments run amuck beneath the concrete. This is not for the squeamish. "Creep" is a horror film that deserves its place on the midnight circuit festivals. It deserves long standing and newfound support on video. And director Christopher Smith certainly has the visual chops for bigger and better things. The atmosphere is photographically ripe- full of green fluorescents and ominous blacks. The editing is sharp, creating unusually genuine scares from quick cuts and Smith's knack for utilizing the darkness around the edges of the screen. And Potente delivers on the heroine in peril character, having fun running around in ripped stockings, being the bait for men both monstrous and normal. And through all the sickening plot twists, "Creep" maintains a sense of humor that, ultimately, collides into a finale that subtly resonates a social conscience.


Munich

Steven Speilberg's "Munich" is a thrilling, tightly constructed drama that finally delivers on his promise of intellectual cinema without the falter of maudlin sentiment in the final third act. So much of Speilberg's oeuvre in the last five years (with the exception of "Minority Report" in 2002) grips you so wonderfully in the beginning with high expectations of kinetic ideas and energy, then gradually unravels as emotions and forced happy endings take place. With "Munich", that does not happen. The final five minutes of this film are as devoid of optimism as the first five. Avner (Eric Bana) is spiritually and psychologically bankrupt. There are no clear winners. And like so many other films this year, "Munich" is a film about repressed violence slowly re-incarnating itself in various other forms. A masterpiece.


Grizzly Man

Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man" continues his long progression of documentary oddities- films that portray marginal figures in society butted against social and political impasses. This time, the subject is Timothy Treadwell, a man who spent 13 seasons in the Alaskan wildlife living and befriending grizzly bears. That is, until they ate him. Treadwell is an ingratiating character, and Herzog presents him in many forms and fashions; allowing him to spit virulent slanders towards the Parks department one minute then crying over the carcass of a dead fox the next. On the right afternoon, "Grizzly Man" could easily pass as a broad comedy (especially when a coroner and one of Treadwell's female friends woodenly act out the trading of his personal belongings, and the same coroner later tells his improvised vision of what he thought really happened with wide-eyed wonderment) and Herzog's holier-than-thou voice over lends the tale even more comedic credence. It's not that I'm being unfair to the film. Perhaps Herzog wants us to take things lightly due to the exaggerated premise of the film. If this were meant as pure drama, the film wouldn't be as fascinating.

Oil and more

Syriana

Written and directed by Stephen Gaghan as a bustling and diligently plotted mosaic of oil moguls, CIA operatives, lawyers and Middle Eastern pawns, "Syriana" is an energetic and exhaustive effort that ranks as one of the most exhilarating films of the year. Much like his previous screenwriting effort, "Traffic", Gaghan juggles time, space and a myriad of characters as they rotate and bounce around the solidifying idea of securing (and profiting from) the world's precious oil expenditures in the Middle East. Much has been made of "Syriana's" complex structure and obfuscated motives of the film's dozen or so main characters. Honestly, that's part of the film's greatness. I found it alluring to connect the dots between Jeffrey Wright's judicial turn as a lawyer (working for who knows) and the Sheik brothers (Alexander Siddig), people connected with most of the film's economic matters. Even more promising is the storyline that follows Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon) as an energy consultant who finds himself inadvertently allied with the Sheik after his son is killed in an accident at the Sheik's palace. If that doesn't satisfy, you have George Clooney portraying a CIA operative who performs shadow missions in the Middle East and soon finds himself closed off and hung out to dry by the very people who sent him on his cloak-and-dagger assignments. His arch is the most defined in the film, ultimately transforming him into the film's patriotic conscience…. and the closest thing to the film's hero. Clearly, Clooney's role is there to appease the action starved fanatics who might stroll into the film expecting an old fashioned intrigue 'actioner', but even his performance and the arch of his character is interesting. Plus he gets to spout off nice snippets of dialogue such as "Guilty until investigated? Has the ring of being written as it's said." Another of the film's plotlines traces the progression of a young Islamic man (Mazhar Munir) from despondent, unemployed worker to suicide bomber fairly quickly (which has always been Gaghan's shortcoming as a screenwriter… paraphrasing his characters' lifestyle choices in a very clipped fashion) but actor Munir makes the most of it, effectively capturing the futility of one's dead-end status as well as the confusion that faith and obligation lend to that futility. Not completely successful in storytelling- two scenes involving William Hurt beg the question that there was more left on the cutting room floor- Gaghan straddles the uneasy line between entertainment and political commentary, but it's still a fascinating film that generates genuine tension in mood, sound, editing and ideas. I loved it.


Doppelganger


Reaching back into the faults (jeez, is 2003 really that far back?), I finally tracked down a copy of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Doppelganger". Beginning as a creepy psychological horror and ending up closer to an Abbott and Costello comedy, the film stars Koji Yakusho ("Shall We Dance?", "The Eel") as a scientist who begins to see his (evil?) double. From the outset, Yakusho is working on a robotic breakthrough that will give paralyzed people the ability to telepathically control the 'arms' and 'fingers' of this robot so they can crack an egg or light a cigarette. When his project hits a stone wall, he begins to see himself in public places. Is this his imagination or has he really met his double? Kurosawa doesn't waste time in establishing the dual nature of his character. Everything is played with a straight face. Yakusho eventually accepts his double and begins to live with it, allowing the double to, literally, wreck his career and force him to hit the road with an assistant and the sister of a man who died after coming in contact with his double early in the film. Of course, Yakusho's double is everything he isn't in real life (please, no mentions of "Fight Club" are warranted.) The title of the film is a mask not only for its central plot, but for the film's overall schematic. Wildly erratic in tone, Kuroawa has made two films here; one plagued by eerie, slow moving pans in the beginning and the second full of humor and casual violence as it winds towards a completely absurdist finale. This is a world where, when the unwanted double shows up towards the end of the film, Yakusho's assistant gently picks up a hammer and utters "you want me to get rid of him?" This is certainly the funniest of Kurosawa's films, adeptly wavering between genre and mood with the precision and countenance of a master filmmaker.

DVD mania

Happy Endings

Even though "The Opposite of Sex" was a smart, cynical comedy, nothing could prepare one for the sustained enjoyment and precise characterizations conjured up in "Happy Endings", the third film from writer-director Don Roos. Taking its cue from the sprawling multi-character pieces of Altman and P.T. Anderson (and yes, it's set in Los Angeles where a series of interconnected people zig-zag through life, love and guilt), don't let this discredit the originality and warmth of Roos' script. It's a post-modern sprawling, multi-character piece, where the audience is privy to the action on the screen as well occasionally being littered with text on the side of the image that explains a moment in the scene or gives us a glimpse into the character's future. This sounds glib, or perhaps even artificial. I mean, really, do we need a film to be so self-reflexive that we are burdened with image and text? Has Godard maneuvered into mainstream Hollywood that quickly? But it works… and it works well. It's not an artificial gimmick because Roos builds enough emotion around his characters that we desire to know more than the film's 128 minute running time allows. Perhaps the most moving example of this is a scene in which Maggie Gyllenhaal (as sexy and confident as ever) is lying in bed with her new found lover (a charismatic and terrifically cast Tom Arnold!). The image moves to a small box in the corner of the screen as their tryst continues and the text reads "He will have sex with just 2 more women after Jude. In the last week of his life, a nurse will remind him of Jude and she will think his smiles are for her." I can't think of any recent film that elaborated so succinctly (and poetically) on the invisible tangents that are ignored in most films. Ninety-nine percent of all films don't care what happens to its characters once they supply the necessary narrative drive. And to that point, we usually don't care either. But Roos has an affinity for his creations. He wants them to continue on outside of the linear script and he gives each one of them a past, present and future, whether it's shown on screen or not. "Happy Endings" is a remarkably touching film, formidably cast with a host of actors- Lisa Kudrow, Steve Coogan, Laura Dern, the aforementioned Gyllenhaal and Arnold, Jason Ritter and Jesse Bradford all give stand out performances. There isn’t a single wasted moment or feeling elicited from "Happy Endings". It's one of the very best films of the year. How in the hell did everyone miss it?


My Voyage To Italy


Martin Scorsese's "My Voyage To Italy" is probably the closest we'll ever come to an autobiographical screen representation of the director's magnificent career. Couple this with "A Personal Journey Through American Movies", and you have eight hours of documented images that seared a deep impression on the filmmaker in his formative years. Culling images from the films of Rossellini, Fellini, De Sica and Antonioni, Scorsese compulsively works his way through the narratives and subversive feelings of many of the Italian neo-realism masterpieces. It's not hard to glean where a majority of Scorsese's cinematic tropes have come from. Watching him explain the obvious joys of Federico Fellini's "I, Vitelloni", one quickly understands where the wrestling of faith, flesh and community in "Mean Streets" comes from. And even deeper than that, he gives us glimpses at a single camera move within the same Fellini masterpiece that, basically, shaped and defined every tracking shot Scorsese himself ever attempted. I can think of any other straight forward "documentary" that would give us quite as much insight into the creative mind of a working artist with as much sincerity and eloquence as Scorsese does in "My Voyage To Italy".

9 Songs


Michael Winterbottom's "9 Songs" charts the romance of an amorous couple in between concert footage of 9 songs (get it). And when I say amorous, I should say pornographic. Winterbottom's cast (male Kirean O' Brien and female Margo Stilley) bare it all for the camera. Ejaculation, full frontal nudity, oral sex and penetration….and did I mention drugs and rock and roll? I'm sure that's the point of Winterbottom's erotic exercise, but what impresses most are the small moments between his lead actors. During the sex scenes, they have the magnetisism of a true pornographic couple, which is to say it's non-existent. But when Winterbottom frames them out of bed, eating dinner, talking shit to each other, or teasing with little dances, their personalities arise and we sorta care about the arch of their relationship. I never thought I'd say this, but "9 Songs" would've work better without the hardcore sex.

Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance


Chan Wookpark's "Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance" does live up to the hype that I've been hearing about for two long years now. Not quite as emotionally gripping or uncomfortably perverse as "Oldboy", there's still an aura of brilliance that hovers throughout this first film in Park's revenge trilogy. Played out in a precise rhythm of cuts and sounds, the film tracks the ultimately violent decisions an unemployed deaf/mute factory worker makes in the hopes of gaining an organ transplant for his dying sister. Enlisting the aid of his revolutionary-minded girlfriend, they decide to kidnap the factory manager's daughter and blackmail him. Of course, tragedy strikes and the four main characters are forced to stumble through a series of bloody confrontations. I have to admit, even though the film is not as strong in its emotional connection to its characters as Park's "Oldboy", "Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance" is a strong visual masterpiece, relying on wordless stretches of images that cast a hallucinatory haze over the film. Certain narrative plot points are skipped outright (such as the entire kidnapping), and Park edits the film in a manner that culminates in an amazingly poignant finale. Chan Wook Park is one of the best directors working today and his oeuvre is yet another reason why Korean cinema contains some of the most vibrant and revelatory moments in international film.

The Bio pic is back....

Once you get beyond the somewhat distracting nasal tone of Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote, Bennett Miller's "Capote" is certainly nothing to laugh at. "Capote" succeeds where a lot of biopics fail. Instead of saddling itself with 30 or 40 years of the ubiquitous 'rise and fall' of its protagonist, the film focuses on a sliver of the writer's life- specifically the five years spent on his research and relationship with two men accused of murder in a small Kansas town, and the ensuing masterwork that resulted from those acquaintances. This compression of time allows the film to create layer upon layer of emotional complexity between its characters and it serves as a terrific representation of guilt versus complicity.

I'm not one for writing plot synopsis, but I feel that in the case of "Capote", the film's excellence lies in its narrative trajectory. More observant viewers will recognize the theme of the film from it's opening moments- a shot of a Midwestern farm treeline juxtaposed with the New York skyline at night- director Miller's perfect evocation of the violent and jarring collision between personalities and cultures that soon become enmeshed as the film wears on. New York writer Truman Capote (Hoffman) reads an article in the paper about a Kansas family that were brutally bound and murdered. He immediately feels this is the proper idea for his next book, his first non-ficition entry. Traveling with his friend and research companion Harper Lee (the outstanding, reserved Catherine Keener) they quickly ingratiate themselves into the small Kansas town where the murders took place. Capote's fame and penchant for rabid storytelling win him inside the graces of a local policeman's home (Chris Cooper). This gives Capote detailed, unedited peeks at the crime scene photos. Soon after, two drifters are arrested and accused of the murder. Capote is on the steps as the two men (Mark Pellegrino and the should-be-nominated Clifton Collins Jr.) are led back into town. He and Perry Smith (Collins Jr.) locks eyes and its obvious there is an unspoken (sexual?) attraction between the two men. Soon, Capote finds himself spending days with the incarcerated killer Perry where he quickly identifies with the man's sense of abandonment in childhood. The film's poetic script sums up their relationship best- "Perry and I were like brothers. Except at one point he went out the back door and I went out the front." Perry and his accomplice receive a swift "guilty" verdict and are placed on Death Row where Capote continues to investigate Perry's psyche through random visits. Capote becomes infatuated with Perry, eventually helping him find a better lawyer to raise an appeal. Or is because Capote has yet to find out exactly what happened inside that Kansas farmhouse from Perry himself? Is his dedication to finding a stay of execution for the killers done out of compassion or artistic selfishness? These are only a few of the complex emotions and unspoken drives of the film.

The film is continually enthralling, eliciting grand emotions out of small moments. Take for instance the honesty in which Clifton Collins Jr. responds to Capote as he breaks down, wishing he could've done more for the convicted killer. Or the monumental scene in which our perceptions of Perry drastically change and he talks about that night in the farmhouse. But even that grandstanding scene is shaded with complexity, especially since Perry's "confession" comes right after the realization that Capote may not be the 'amigo' he had once thought. Without seeing the film, I understand all of this is hard to comprehend. It's one of the best of the year. Someone should just give Clifton Collins Jr. the Oscar now.


James Mangold's "Walk the Line", by definition of the above writing, should not succeed as a biopic. It does conjur up those excessive 30 or 40 years of a struggling artist's life that usually sinks all the energy out of the film (as it does in "Ray" from last year). And it almost does here, starting back in childhood where the tragic accident and death of Johnny Cash's older brother instills the prerequsite demons and addicition in him. But, the performances of Joaquin Phoenix and especially Reese Witherspoon carry "Walk the Line" towards a climax that is suprisingly affecting. A nice film indeed.

Girl Power

Directed by Tony Scott and written by Richard Kelly, "Domino" is one of the most entertaining films I've seen this year. Everything about this hyper-kinetic film shouldn't work- from the time fractured (and time-worn) narrative structure of the film to the washed out, amped-up, frenetic pace of it's telling, it's anchor and heart lies in the performance of Keira Knightley. Alternating between a sexy prowess and the ultimate kick-ass-and-take-names-girl in a flash, her range as Domino is impressive to say the least. Sure, Scott and company wade through a host of meta-cinema tropes used to similar effect in previous films ("True Romance" and "Enemy of the State", specifically), but "Domino" succeeds despite it's barrage of cameos and at times, shallow humor. It also succeeds in giving the audience a trio of outsiders to associate with in Knightley, Mickey Rourke and newcomer Edgar Ramirez. Plus, it's hard to dislike a film that blazes off the deep end and eventually weaves in a subplot with mescaline and Tom Waits as some sort of expunged angel stumbling across the gang in a desert.



Niki Caro's "North Country" also details the exploits of a society-fringed female, this time charting the legal and emotional battles of a sexually harassed mine worker in Minnesota. Already pegged as a sure-fire Oscar contender next year, the small glories of Caro's film comes not from Charlize Theron as Josey Aimes, the beleaguered center of the film, but from very strong supporting performances from Richard Jenkins as her father and her best friends played Frances McDormand and Sean Bean. Perhaps the most intense scene of the year comes courtesy of Jenkins as he finally overcomes his reservations about his daughter's conviction and stands up for her as she tries to speak at a miner's council meeting. Caro's a wise director, allowing the emotion to speak for itself, casually and slowly swinging the camera back and forth between Theron and Jenkins on stage as he stumbles through his improves speech. It's a thrilling moment in a film that has some nice, if somewhat cliché, perspectives on blue collar America in a not-so-distant time.

High Tension, Miike madness and George Clooney!

High Tension (Haute Tension)

Alexander Aja's High Tension is a smart and claustrophobic thriller for the first 75 minutes. Then, the twist comes… and it's a twist that betrays the tight and suspenseful mechanics of the film's grandstanding first 2/3. It's sad…. In today's movie-going market, the few great twist endings of the past ten years (Fight Club, The Sixth Sense) have set up an entire generation of other filmmakers to fail. They taught them how to build exciting (if somewhat derivative) momentum, and then pull the rug out from underneath the audience not with genuine surprise or candor, but with laziness and a penchant for one-upmanship.

Marie (Cecilie de France) and Alex (Maiwenn) travel to Alex's parent's house in the south French countryside for a quiet weekend of studying. But things are not as pleasant as they signify, which Aja blatantly establishes with a quick cutaway to a man sitting inside a beat up truck in the same countryside, getting a blow-job from something. We soon learn he's getting it from a severed head. Inside the house, Marie and Alex settle for bed. Marie pleasures herself while listening to her headphones. Her lesbian tendencies are hinted at, coupled by her appearance and the juxtaposition of her masturbation immediately after spying on Alex in the shower.

Eventually, innocence and violence collide as the stranger arrives at the house of Marie and Alex during the middle of the night. Marie is the only one who escapes the killer's grasp through a gloriously well conceived cat and mouse game that takes place throughout the house. But Alex is taken hostage, so Marie sneaks into the back of the truck with her and the games continue across the marginally inhabited countryside.

The best moments of the film come from Aja's economical sense of framing and pace. The film's sleek gore (and there is a plethora, complete with a boldly established slashing in the bedroom and a beheading on a staircase that would make Sam Raimi proud) is underscored by true moments of hideous violence, made all the more terrifying by Francois Eudes' minimal score of high pitches and unnerving sounds.

But all of this becomes moot when seventy five minutes in, Aja deems it necessary to make a great statement on female inadequacy and multiple personalities. Yep, you guessed it… and I'm sure you know what the twist is without me expounding. What's so wrong with leaving some things unexplained? In this day and age, I find the idea of a rampaging redneck killer without a clear motive much more terrifying than wrapping clarification around something as juvenile and facile as sexual orientation gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Good Night and Good Luck

George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck investigates the month long on-air verbal spar between television journalist Edward R. Murrow (David Straithern) and Senator Joe McCarthy with flair and dignity. Straithern plays Murrow in a fairly cryptic manner…. And it's obvious that Clooney and company didn't begin this project to surface the emotional undercurrents of its main players. Rather, like All the President's Men, Good Night and Good Luck is a film about responsible journalism in a time that denied and condemned autocratic political analysis. Both of these films contain liberal marsmanship, of course, but they avoid bleeding heart status, concentrating on the integrity of work over feeling (as the latter film explicitly suggests by eschewing a single exterior shot). The closest that Good Night and Good Luck gets to individual illumination is through the supporting role of a wonderful Ray Wise as Don Hollenbeck, a reporter and colleague of Murrow. The writings of one local newspaper man eventually force Hollenbeck to commit suicide. Straithern, again removing emotion from the forefront of his masterful recreation of Murrow, challenges the viewer with a simple and direct news flash of his friend's suicide. He plays the scene as he would any other news briefing, but there are small reflections of disgust and anger with the establishment that pushed his friend to the grave. It's a small moment in a solid film that chooses the intellectual way out of a very ignorant point in our history.

3 From Takashi Miike

Three films from Takashi Miike. First, let me say I love the oeuvre of Miike. He is maddening and humorous and twisted…. and through his prodigious 14 year, 60 plus film career, you never know what type of monstrosity he will spray across the screen. One Missed Call, filmed in 2003, is an obvious attempt to capitalize on the Japanese horror sensation of Ringu, Ju-On and Kurosawa's Pulse. The theme- teenagers are terrorized by an omniscient entity beyond the grave through their technology (in this case cell phones that ring, create a "missed call" message and then leave a voice-mail in the future allowing the girls to hear their own death). It's not very original, naturally, but Miike drapes the entire affair within an eerie, dank atmosphere. The final 25 minutes as a young girl explores a dilapidated mental hospital gets extra credit for its sinister tone and genuine aura of fear. Next comes Miike's 1998 science fiction drama hybrid called Andromedia, a tale of virtual reality love (I'm not kidding!). A young girl, Mai (Yora Kinoki) is killed in an accident and her scientist father re-creates her memories into a virtual reality computer program. Her boyfriend and half-brother are then responsible for taking care of her before a group of corporate yakuza types shanghai the computer program and use it for much more evil purposes. Once again, the beauty of a Miike film is certainly not in the liner notes. What ultimately erupts on-screen is a somewhat delicate and affecting love story. The other phenomenal thing about Miike is that no matter how hastily a film is produced, he never loses concentration on the images. Andromedia is a gorgeous looking film, exemplified by one scene where Mai and her boyfriend reminisce about their time on a merry-go-round and the scene morphs into a delicate gold and red flashback…. It’s certainly one of Miike's more poignant moments in a long career of image making. Finally, there's this year's film called Izo. I definitely don't recommend this for anyone wanting to gently immerse themselves into the cinema of Miike. Izo is a violent and intoxicating collage of genre and style. Nakayama Kazuya stars as Izo, an ex-warlord crucified for his actions on earth. He then becomes an avenging soul, and the next 2 hours and five minutes are spent as Izo bounces through time and space, slicing every single person who steps in front of him. Above all else, this is Miike's most violent and incoherent film. This is not always a bad thing. Gozu, Miike's 2004 masterpiece, features some of the same demented meld of genre and pace, but in a much more affective way. Izo is downright demented (and featuring the same type of finale where a grotesque birth ends or begins the madness all over). Perhaps a person more educated on Japanese mythology will understand all the motives and poetic dialogue, but as it stands, Izo is a film full of nightmarish images and fractured, cryptic performances from a host of Japan's most recognized stars (Takeshi Kitano, Miki Ryosuke and Ken Ogata to name a few).

A History of Violence

Fantastic film! A word of warning though- do not see this film on a Sunday afternoon in a crowded multiplex theater. It's interesting to see people when their confronted with an art film on their commercial film screen. Right from the opening, Cronenberg's western noir pastiche elicited the wrong responses from people- snickers during pretty intense sex scenes and laughter at the sight of people being blown away in visceral swipes of real time violence. It's almost too much irony to swallow; people lapping up and responding inapropiately to the exact type of action film that Cronenberg juxtaposes within this art house framework. But, that point aside, this is Cronenberg's best (and scariest) film in quite some time and one of my favorites of the year.

Cronenberg has created a 'fill the void' film- if you want to interpret it as a violent political outcry against the government and our societies' penchant for blood, you got it. If you prefer to see it as an extension of Cronenberg's sensation for the doppelganger, you've got that. And if you care to view A History of Violence as a fairly straightforward re-creation of a graphic novel that allows Cronenberg to confront his sexual and psychological fetishes, then you've certainly got that right. Me, I love everything about it. From the opening scene (as two "bad men" check out of a hotel), Cronenberg douses a supreme sense of dread over the film. The way the camera slowly glides along in one take, the lazy (almost hallucinatory) manner in which the two men carry on a conversation, and the slow ambiguous walk into the hotel office- all of it places us in the capable hands of a director refusing to play by convention. It's not too far off from the nightmarish suburban hinterlands of David Lynch, especially the dark greens and shadowy blacks of the film's final moments between Viggo and an excessively entertaining William Hurt as well as the cartoonish niceness of the small town Viggo and his family reside (where everybody on the street knows your first name). Still, none of this would mean anything if it weren't for the talents of the cast and Cronenberg's reluctance to play anything straight (and turn the film's second half into a dark mirror of the first). The playful and erotic sex between Tom Stall (Viggo) and his wife (Maria Bello) that preceeds the outburst of violence soon gives way to an angry, grudge fuck on a staircase that leaves the wife's back bruised after the killings. Even something as natural and expected as a brief shot of her naked body coming out of the bathroom in front of her husband carries mordant guilt and doubt. This is a film about transgression. This is a film about lies and the way a snake can shed it's skin, but never turn into anything but a snake. And for the record, there's nothing wrong with laughing or having fun at a movie, just not one as serious and determined as A History of Violence.

3 Films

Sydney Pollack's The Interpretor is politically correct, mildly amusing entertainment with a slapdash of 70's paranoia thrown in for good measure... and after all... that's what we've come to expect from Mr. Pollack. There is a certain amount of gritty tension within the framework of this thriller, though- specifically a French Connection-like tailing scene where all three groups being followed by the powers-that-be end up on the same bus... and it's almost worth the price of admission alone to see the looks on all three agents' faces as they realize, at the exact same moment, that their paths have crossed and some really heavy stuff is about to go down. That said, Sean Penn is firing on all cylinders and Catherine Keener is good for a laugh or too with her world weary sarcasm on full display.


Another film dealing with racial tension, albeit on a much less panaromic view than third world genocide like Pollack's attempt, is Paul Haggis' Crash. God I really, really wanted to love this film. I usually go nuts over this type of gliding, multi-linear soap opera that explicitely overlaps human drama over the course of one fateful day. Altman's Short Cuts and Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, specifically, come to mind as two films that stand out last decade as controversial and rousing masterpieces. And there's more in common than that. Haggis, Altman and Anderson all three implode their mounting human suffering by juxtaposing a denouement that has nature step in and blindly spreading her will across the landscape (earthquakes, frogs, and snow in Los Angeles). It's convinving with Altman, bewildering and thrilling with Anderson, but only cute with Haggis. The performances are fine.... but the film has such an enormous weight of "importance" hovering over it, that Haggis' overwriting stumps the personal and emotional ties I began to develop with the characters. Two scenes stand out- Daniel (Michael Pena) lowering himself to his daughter's level and talking to her as she hides underneath the bed and Matt Dillon saving Thandie Newton from a burning car after an... let's call it uncomfortable... encounter the night before. If Crash had sustained the honest elicitations of those two scenes, then we could very nearly have another great controversial and rousing masterpiece to stand alongside the other two. Instead, we end up with a sporadic message movie that is no better than a film that barely even tries. Haggis and company try too hard.


And the cream of this week's crop came from the small screen in Niel Mueller's The Assassination of Richard Nixon. I thought it'd be pretty damn hard for Sean Penn to top his performance in Eastwood's Mystic River, but he does it here, engulfing us with a character that begins uncomfortably and grows into an altogether anamolistic embodiment. It's a frightening performance that tells the true story of Sam Bicke (Travis Bickle, anyone?), a furniture salesman who cracks under the pressure of everyday life and hatches a grand scheme with potentially disastrous consequences. What is most interesting about the film is the way that Bicke slowly transfers all his personal rage and frustration onto an amorphous body such as the American government.. and Richard Nixon in particular. Even better, the film draws an interesting hypothesis on Bicke- that his insanity grew largely out of the disappointment of not just himself, but the entire nation. Would Bicke have even targeted Richard Nixon if he hadn't heard his boss tell him one night that Nixon is a great salesman because Nixon sold the American public (twice) on a lie to end the war in Vietnam? What if Bicke had looked over at the television screen and seen a game show host instead? Would he of transferred the same dissolution on that person? It's an interesting take on the slow-to-burn madman theory and Penn sells it. And the final image is downright brilliant.

He-men and the Hill

There they sat. Five men a long way from the friendly confines of a dugout. The cameras weren't exactly their friends today. They were there in the hopes of capturing something.... monumental? Probably not. The only real question poised is why hasn't Curt Schilling run for public office? He did his best step-and-avoid-it today! Did anyone really expect anything from the Congressional hearings on steroid abuse in baseball today? I sure didn't. I knew Jose Canseco would play the savior and attempt to become the second coming of truth within the multi-leveled hypocricies of major league baseball. I knew Palmeiro would flash his panache and point his finger- especially since he has the luxury of being the only player involved in this fiasco that hasn't been mentioned since day one. His name has only been dragged through the mud for 30 days or so. And I certainly knew Sammy Sosa would play the "i-don't-speak-english-well-enough-yet-to-soundly-answer-any-questions-even-though-i've-been-in-the-states-since-1948 schtick". It worked well. Give the man an Oscar. He certainly knows what to say when your brand new baseball organization sends a ride to pick you up at the airport and you request a limo instead. But perhaps the real revelation came from Mark McGwire. Neither confirming nor denying his involvement with the usage of performance enhancing drugs, he was clearly the committee's shadow target after that. It was obvious the committee was on a witch hunt, and they just may have achived that purpose after McGwire's non answer. Pointedly trying to goad a definitive yes or no out of him after his opening statement, McGwire stood steadfast and replied that he only wished to discuss the present and future, not the past. I think I'll try that next time I end up in court. I doubt it will work. Still, I have to admit that baseball took a minor varnishing today-if only in my mind. And not simply because of the actions on the Hill, but because all of this hoopla has taken away from the blossoming feeling of spring training. Instead of looking forward to opening day, everyone now has to wonder what will happen in the future. The last thing I want are congressional suits fucking around with the unparalalled bliss that baseball gives me. But, after seeing these guys on the hill today, I'm forced to remind myself that the only way baseball will exist as an innocent pastime is in my teenage head.... times when I remember meeting Pete Rose at a baseball card convention before slamming into the revelation that he committed a cardinal sin. Times when I'd spend my days reading the stats on the back of baseball cards and creating my own lineups. If all of this sounds too fatalistic.. perhaps it is. I'm a knee jerker and in 3 months, this may all blow over. But right now, it stings.