Top 50 Films of the Decade 2000-2009 Part II

40. Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002)
Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven is a throwback to the Douglas Sirk films of the 1950s, where simmering erotic tension was just beneath the surface, and even if they were not explicit, you could tell that homosexuality and bi-racial romances were being implied. In a way, Haynes made the film that Sirk never could. Julianne Moore gives an excellent performance as a housewife you believes she has the perfect life, until she finds out her husband (Dennis Quaid) is gay, and it sends her into a tailspin. Dennis Haysbert plays her gardener, and despite their racial differences, the two start to fall in love. Patricia Clarkson is great in a small role as the nosy neighbor who sticks her nose in where it doesn’t belong. Haynes does a great job recreating Sirk’s dazzlingly Technicolor look, and the score by Elmer Bernstein brilliantly evokes the classic scores of the 1950s. This is not the 1950s as it really was – but how it was as filtered through the movies.

39. Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
This was a critical favorite back in 2003, but for some reason it has lost some its praise over the years. This mystifies me, as I still find Sofia Coppola’s drama of isolation and alienation to be both touching and funny. Bill Murray gives a great performance as an aging movie star who goes to Japan to make a lot of money shooting a whiskey commercial, and while there he meets Scarlett Johansson’s bored wife or a famed photographer. The two of them bond, and spend more and more time together, yet the relationship never becomes sexual like we think it’s going to. Instead, the movie just observes these characters in a foreign land with no one else to hang onto. I know that Johansson really has not delivered on her early promise, but she is fantastic in this movie, and Murray’s performance is still one of the best of the decade. Go back and watch the film again, and I think you’ll fall in love with it all over again.

38. About Schmidt (Alexander Payne, 2002)
Alexander Payne has firmly established himself as one of America’s best filmmakers (now make another damn film Alex!), and About Schmidt is one of the big reasons why. The film stars Jack Nicholson in one of the best performances of his career as a recently widowed man who travels across country to be at his daughter’s wedding. About Schmidt is a subtle comedy, which mixes in healthy doses of tears along with the laughs. Schmidt is a guy who has never been all that open or loving with the people in his life, and he has become isolated and remote by the passing of his wife – a woman who he pretty much hated by the end. Kathy Bates gives a lively performance as his future in law, but this really is Nicholson’s show. He foregoes his usual tendency to simply play Jack, and instead gets inside the skin of a character unlike anything he has ever played before. A sly comedy that sticks with you long after it’s over.

37. The Aviator (Martin Scorsese, 2004)
Unlike most of his cohorts who came of filmmaking age in the 1970s, Martin Scorsese is still turning out great films. The Aviator is at first glance, just another splashy, big budgeted Hollywood biopic, concentrating on Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) in the years before he became the crazed, germaphobic recluse who locked himself in his Las Vegas hotel and never came out. DiCaprio perfectly captures Hughes – which is a challenge because physically, I don’t see much resemblance. The movie is essentially about how the same things that destroyed Hughes – his possessiveness – is also what made him great in the first place. Brilliantly filmed by Scorsese and Robert Richardson, the film is almost three hours long but moves at a restless pace throughout. DiCaprio is great, but he is supported by a wonderful cast – most notably Cate Blanchatt in her Oscar winning turn as Katherine Hepburn. The Aviator is one of the many triumph’s of Scorsese’s career.

36. A.I. (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
I know Spielberg caught a lot of slack from critics for taking over one of Stanley Kubrick’s dream projects, but in my mind, A.I. is an almost perfect blend of the two radically different filmmakers. To those who say that Spielberg screwed up by giving the film a happy ending, all I can say is that if you call a movie which ends with the extinction of the human race a happy ending, then be my guest. This is Spielberg at his darkest – from the family who abandons David (Haley Joel Osment), to the Flesh Fair, to Gigolo Joe, to William Hurt as the icy, cruel inventor (which is right out of Kubrick by the way – watch the scene where he reaches for the naked woman’s breasts), this was the start of what in my mind has been the most fascinating segment of Spileberg’s career (at least until the latest Indy movie that is). A brilliantly well made film. I doubt Kubrick could have done any better.

35. Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006)
Lynch’s second surrealist shot at Hollywood of the decade proved once again that the older Lynch gets, the weirder he gets. This film, which he financed and distributed by himself, is about an actress (Laura Dern, in a stunning performance) making a film called On High in Blue Tomorrows, which is a remake of an old Polish film that was abandoned after the two leads were murdered. Thus begins this exercise in surrealism that includes a sitcom about giant rabbits speaking in non-sequitor with an inane laugh track in the background, and a group of prostitutes doing the Locomotion. What does it all mean? Well, I don’t have time to explain that here, nor would I really want to (or honestly, I don’t think I could), but this is a film that Lynch was born to make. That he had to make. A masterpiece.

34. The Man Who Wasn’t There (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2001)
The Coens second film on this list is this wonderful, comedic film noir with Billy Bob Thornton’s best performance at its core. Thornton plays a barber who is so quiet that no one ever quite notices when he is around. He narrates his story in classic film noir style, and we learn about his wife’s (Frances McDormand, brilliant as always) infidelity with her boss (James Gandolfini), while at the same time he is approached by a sleazy man (Jon Polito) asking for an investment in a new idea called “dry cleaning”. Thornton decides to blackmail Gandolfini for the money, thus setting off a sequence of events, where the entire weight of the world comes crashing down on Thornton. The film is a classic firm noir story, with twists that only the Coen brothers could have thrown in (the constant talk of UFOs for example). Brilliantly shot by Roger Deakins, The Man Who Wasn’t There is a throwback to the type of film Hollywood doesn’t seem to know how to make anymore.

33. The Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001-2003)
No single film in Jackson’s trilogy would be, in my mind, worthy of a place on this list. But taken together as a huge, 10 hour epic, it is impossible to deny the filmmaking skill, and the storytelling ability that is on display throughout this entire series. From the opening scenes of Fellowship, which establishes Frodo, Gandalf and the rest of our heroes, through The Two Towers (which in my mind, is the best of the three films), which deepens the characters and the story, right up until the final moments of The Return of the King, which strike the perfect emotional note, we are in the hands of a master storyteller. Am I cheating in putting all three of these films together in one spot? I don’t think so, because to me, they really are one, staggering work.

32. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron, 2005)
Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men works on any number of levels. At its most basic, it is a wonderful Christian fable, about a vengeful God who punishes humanity by making them unable to reproduce for 30 years, thus throwing the whole world into chaos, before a miracle happens. It is also an intelligent dystopian view of the future, and breathless action film (those long, unbroken tracking shots during the climatic gunfight in the dilapidated refugee city are amazing). The movie is anchored by Clive Owen’s solid performance as a man who is long past the point of caring, until he is given a shattering wake-up call. Cuaron has been making great films for a while now – among them Y Tu Mama Tambien – but Children of Men is the film that lifted up among the top echelon of directors working today.

31. The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, 2009)
Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon is an engrossing, methodical black and white film about a small town in Germany just before WWI, where the adults teach the children a set of absolutist moral values, and are shocked to discover that the children expect them to uphold the same moral code. The danger is teaching children these values, according the movie anyway, is how it gives rise to them being easily swayed to following them on a larger scale. Specifically, for this film, the children of this movie will grow up to become the Nazis under Hitler 20 years later – but the theme is universal and could be set anywhere from Muslim countries that produce terrorists, to the American South where Christian fundamentalists bomb abortion clinics. The film is epic in scope, brilliantly shot by Christen Berger is gorgeous black and white, the film feels like it is based on a classic novel, but the work is all of Haneke’s own. One of the best filmmakers in the world right now, The White Ribbon is one of his masterpieces.

Movie Review: From Paris with Love

From Paris with Love ** ½
Directed By: Pierre Morel.
Written By: Adi Hasak based on a story by Luc Besson.
Starring: John Travolta (Charlie Wax), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (James Reece), Kasia Smutniak (Caroline), Richard Durden (Ambassador Bennington), Yin Bing (M. Wong), Amber Rose Revah (Nichole).

From Paris with Love is structured almost like a pop song – verse, chorus, verse chorus, etc. The verses in this case are scenes where John Travolta’s bald CIA agent makes jokes and says motherfucker a lot, while his new partner Jonathan Rhys Meyers looks flustered. The chorus are scenes where Travolta kills a hell of lot of people – using either his hands, guns or in one case a bazooka, while Rhys Meyers looks flustered. Yes, I would guess that Rhys Meyers looks flustered for a total of about 95% of his screen time in the movie. He is good at looking flustered however, just like Travolta is good at saying motherfucker, so From Paris with Love actually comes very close to being a good movie. From Paris with Love is one of those mindless action movies that have little in the way of plot or character development, but blows shit up real good. If you are expecting an intelligent spy drama, this isn’t it. But if you want some mindless escapism, I can certainly think of worse movies to see in theaters right now.

The movie takes place in Paris, as the title makes clear, where James Reece (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) works as an attaché to the ambassador. But that’s really just his cover. He is an agent for the CIA placed there to help – but most of his assignments consist of him changing license plates on getaway cars for other agents. He hungers for some action. When the agency sends Charlie Wax (John Travolta) to Paris to clean up some drug dealing terrorists, Reece gets his chance. He is partnered with Wax and his fiancée Caroline (Kasia Smutniak) seems surprisingly calm about her future husband’s line of work.

From the moment Wax arrives in France, he is a one man wrecking crew. Reece has to bail him out of customs, because the agents don’t want him to bring in his energy drinks, and he goes off on a rant. Soon, he is shooting up Chinese restaurants, and following one lead to another to another, and at each stop, Wax seemingly kills dozens of people singlehandedly. You would think the Paris police would be looking for this bald America killing everyone, but you’d be wrong. You would also think that drivers seeing this bald guy, hanging out the window of a speeding car holding a bazooka might pull over to the side of the road, and let him pass, but again, you’d be wrong. They just go on with their lives as if nothing is happening.

From Paris with Love is completely illogical if you sit down and think about it, which I would advise against. For one thing, you would think that CIA agents charged with wiping out drug dealers and terrorists would want to blend into their surrounding a little bit more than Wax does. But, if you just turn off your brain and go along for the ride, then From Paris with Love is actually an enjoyable action movie for its first two thirds. The dialogue is clever, and Travolta is having a blast playing this good bad guy, as he always does, and Rhys Meyers does what he is supposed to do. The action sequences, directed by Pierre Morel (Taken, District 13) is well handled and a hell of a lot of fun. The movie works for a hell of a lot longer than it probably should.

It’s only the last act of the movie that for me didn’t really work. The movie up until that point had little to no use for an actual plot (I still have no real idea how the drug dealers at the Chinese restaurant relate to everyone else, but I don’t really care). But in the last act, they try and add in double and triple crosses, and it doesn’t really work. You cannot go an entire movie with cookie cutter, one note characters and then expect us to care about them in the last act. It doesn’t work that way.

Overall, I would say that I enjoyed most of From Paris with Love. It’s not high art certainly, but it is entertaining trash. And sometimes, that’s enough. It is almost enough this time.

Movie Review: Dear John

Dear John **
Directed by: Lasse Hallström
Written By: Jamie Linden based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks.
Starring: Channing Tatum (John Tyree), Amanda Seyfried (Savannah Curtis), Richard Jenkins (Mr. Tyree), Henry Thomas (Tim), D.J. Cotrona (Noodles), Cullen Moss (Rooster), Gavin McCulley (Starks), Jose Lucena Jr. (Berry), Keith Robinson (Captain Stone), Scott Porter (Randy), Leslea Fisher (Susan), William Howard Bowman (Daniels).

Nicholas Sparks has hit on a formula that works for him. He takes impossibly beautiful, impossibly perfect people, brings them together for a short period of time where they fall madly, deeply in love, and then forces them apart. Sometimes they are able to get back together (like The Notebook) and sometimes they are apart forever (like Nights in Rodanthe), but no matter what millions of women buy the books and cry their eyes out. Then a movie gets made of the book, and millions of woman go see it and cry their eyes out all over again.

Dear John is the latest of his books to get the big screen treatment (although it won’t be for long, as The Last Song with Miley Cyrus comes out this spring), and it follows his pattern to the letter. John (Channing Tatum) is a buff soldier on leave in the spring of 2001 visiting his father (Richard Jenkins) in Charleston, North Carolina. It’s there that he has a “Meet Cute” with Savannah (Amanda Seyfried) on the beach. The two of them spend pretty much every waking moment they have for the next two weeks together, before he has to ship back to Germany, and she has to go back to school. They fall deeply in love, and make plans on what they are doing to do when he gets out of the army in a year. But then, of course, something happens in the fall of 2001, and John feels that he cannot leave the army right away, and agrees to reenlist for two years. The two write each other long love letters nearly every day, and they get them through their various difficulties.

But then something else happens to keep them apart even more. I won’t reveal what it is, but considering the title of the movie, they really are not trying to keep it a secret, are they? This plot twist angered me, because it was completely illogical, and flies in the face of everything we were led to believe about Savannah up until that point. And the movie, which up until then had been a solid, if tremendously cheesy romantic movie (which there is nothing really wrong with. It’s no more cheesy than The Notebook, and I have to admit, no matter how embarrassing it is, that I liked that movie), but at this point, the movie flies off the rails and never regains its composure. Instead, we are treated to even more illogical plot turns as the movie goes along – especially when these two finally meet again, which you know they are going to. I suppose I was supposed to feel sympathy for Seyfried’s character, but I didn’t. No matter how doe eyed beautiful she is, or how sad she looks when she tells him “Do you think sitting here by myself worrying about you was easy for me?”, I wanted to scream at her “No, but it is a hell of a lot easier than fighting a damn WAR!”. I suppose that women in the audience, which let’s face facts, are the only people with a reason to go see the movie in the first place, may feel differently, but I couldn’t stop thinking that she was a selfish bitch.

Okay, end rant. It must be said that Dear John is a fairly well acted movie. I am getting a little tired of seeing Tatum play these troubled, chiseled young men who keep all their emotions bottled up inside, but that is what this role requires of him, and he does a fine job with it. Seyfried is beautiful, and sweet in the opening sequences, and even after the plot twist, she tries her damnedest to make it feel natural, and if she doesn’t succeed it really isn’t her fault. Richard Jenkins is fine as John’s father, who has a mild form of autism, but it’s a rather one note performance, and I couldn’t help think that if this is the best role he could get coming off his Oscar nomination last year for The Visitor, than that’s just sad.

The film is directed by Lasse Hallstrom, who is talented at movies like this that require him to pull on our heartstrings. He is aways removed from his career at the beginning of the century, when his films kept inexplicably being nominated for tons of Oscars (The Cider House Rules is fine, Chocolat is pure crap), and way from removed from when he was actually making great films like My Life as a Dog and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?. But the direction is solid nonetheless. But in the filmmaker’s effort to pull on our heartstrings a little too hard – to have another reason to keep these two characters apart, they have undermined the entire movie. I’m sure that millions of women will go out and cry their eyes out at the movie. But I am also sure that I won’t be the only man who is dragged to the movie by his wife who just gets angry at the movie.

Top 50 Films of the Decade 2000-2009 Part 1

Now that we are done looking back at 2009, let’s look back at the entire decade between 2000 and 2009. Over those 10 years, I saw well over 2,500 movies. These are the 50 that I liked more than the rest. Each one is masterful in its own way. Over the next five days, we will look at all 50 of my favorite films of the decade. Looking at this list, I am amazed at how many different filmmakers made a great film this decade, and just the wealth of great films that there were. Cinema is dead? I don’t think so. This list barely scratches the surface of the riches this past decade at the movies had to offer.

50. Last Days (Gus Van Sant, 2005)
Of all the great films that Gus Van Sant made over the course of this decade (and I would count Elephant, Paranoid Park and Milk as great films), Last Days was, for me, his best. It follows a rock star named Blake (brilliantly embodied by Michael Pitt) modeled after Kurt Cobain, as he stumbles around in a drug induced haze in his remote, dilapidated mansion. The film is mesmerizing as it sits back and follows Blake on his daily routine. The conclusion of Van Sant’s death trilogy, three films about young men who do not value their own lives, let alone anyone else’s, Last Days is a perfect mood piece – utterly transfixing. I know that many (if not most) audience members will find this film boring, but for me I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen for a second.

49. Ratatouille (Brad Bird, 2007)
Brad Bird has established himself as one of the best animators in the world. Ratatouille is a thrilling, emotional, wonderfully entertaining film from Pixar, about a rat named Remy, who dreams of being a world class chef. He gets his opportunity when he stumbles into a gourmet restaurant, and meets a young man who is completely talentless, but can be used like a puppet for what he wants. Ratatouille could be about anything – even movies – but the essential message is the same – don’t settle for crap when you can have true greatness. Bird’s film transcends the stereotypes of talking animal movies, and really is one of the most joyous films of the last 10 years.

48. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2000)
The Coen brothers first film of the decade is one of their best comedies. Three escaped convicts in Depression era America go on the run across the South in an Odyssey reminiscent of Homer’s. There’s John Goodman’s giant Cyclops, a guitar player who sold his soul to the devil, and of course the sirens. But the stars of the movie are George Clooney, Tim Blake Nelson and John Turturro, all hilarious as the three convicts. The visual look of the film is brilliant – sun burnt landscapes across the South. If you want to bring up the old criticism against the Coens, that the characters are little more than cartoons, I wouldn’t disagree with you on this film, but I do think that considering the movie is a throwback – a loving homage to the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s (the title of the movie comes from Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels), and as such the characters are appropriate for the film. One of the best pure comedies of the decade.

47. Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2004)
I know that Von Trier enrages as many people with his films as he engages. This decade, he took his films to another level. I could have just have easily included Dancer in the Dark or Antichrist on this list (shamefully, there wasn’t enough room), but I do think that Dogville is his best, most engaging film. Shot on a bare soundstage, the movie tells the story of Grace (Nicole Kidman in a fearless performance), who comes to the small mountain town of Dogville on the run from her past. At first, she finds the people helpful and kind, but soon they start to take advantage of her. Kidman’s performance is brilliant – perhaps the best of her career – but I think it is Paul Bettany who truly makes the film great. He holds himself above the rest of the people morally speaking, but at heart, he is really just another spineless coward. Dogville, at nearly three hours long, is engaging, fascinating and incendiary. Only Von Trier would even attempt to make this film.

46. The Incredibles (Brad Bird, 2004)
The second film for Bird and Pixar on this list, The Incredibles is one of those films that are endlessly rewatchable. It is also one of Pixar’s more complex efforts – a fun superhero movie, a great action movie, a touching family drama, a hilarious comedy, and a commentary on our times when we try and make everyone feel special, rewarding people for the most mundane of tasks. The Incredibles is breathlessly exciting entertainment, brilliantly well animated and a great story told with wit and precision. This is the film when we really knew that Bird was a special filmmaker.

45. Lake of Fire (Tony Kaye, 2007)
Far and away the best documentary of the decade (yes, it’s the only one of this list); Tony Kaye’s Lake of Fire has been almost completely ignored by audiences and critics alike. It is a two and half hour examination of the abortion debate, which steadfastly refuses to take sides. Just when you think the movie is becoming a little too pro-life, it snaps back and you start to think it’s pro-choice, and snaps back again. It interviews anyone it can find with an opinion on the debate – from the nutcases that make up the most vocal fringe of both sides, right down to reasonable people who make a rational case for their side. The movie, shot in beautiful black and white, is far and away the most level headed doc I have seen on the subject – and one that if you go in with an open mind, will likely make you doubt your side, at least for a few moments.

44. The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2009)
America spent most of the past decade mired in war in Iraq, and Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker is far and away the best of the many films that have already been made about the subject. Bigelow and her screenwriter, Mark Boal, strip away the politics of the Iraq war, and instead focus on giving us a grunt eye’s view of the action over there, focusing on a three man team whose job it is to defuse IEDs wherever they find them. The Hurt Locker is one of the most intense film going experiences of the decade – an edge of your seat thriller that uses the action not only to terrify us, but also to develop the films characters – particularly Jeremy Renner’s brilliant, risk addicted cowboy. Probably the best pure war movie of the decade.

43. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2002)
Hayao Miyazaki is one of the greatest animators in history, and Spirited Away may well be his masterpiece. This is the story of a little girl who enters a magical spa with her parents, whose greed and gluttony immediately turns them into pigs, leaving their daughter to try and fend for herself, and reverse things. The is beautifully well animated from start to finish – full of interesting characters like the witch with the giant head, the multi-armed man in the basement, and the polluted River God. Miyazaki mixes in his environmental agenda (which has been present in many of his films), but never lets the movie get bogged down or preachy. Easily one of the best animated films of the decade.

42. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)
Wes Anderson’s best film – more mature than Rushmore, and more refined than what came after – this tale of the dysfunctional, brilliant Tenenbaum clan is Anderson’s best, because although it remains firmly in his comfort zone, it is also the film where he challenged himself the most. His large cast of eccentric loonies is led by Gene Hackman, in what is probably going to be the last great performance of his career, since he seems to have retired, as the father of three genius kids who has never been there for them. He reenters their lives as adults, and causes nothing but trouble. Anderson’s film is a colorful menagerie, a mixture of hilarious comedy made up of awkward moments, and real life drama that rings true. This is the movie where Anderson became a truly great filmmaker.

41. Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze, 2009)
I cannot think of another film this decade, or perhaps ever, that better gets inside the head of child, and remembers what it was like to be one. The pain and confusion, sitting right next to anger and sexual frustration. Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are gets this, and he ends up making a movie that exposes the inner psyche of his protagonist, even as he travels to a strange fantasy world of his own making. Set to a great score by Carter Burwell and Karen O. from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Where the Wild Things Are also features perhaps the best vocal performances of the decade – particularly by James Gandolfini as Carol, the Wild Thing that most represent Max and his pain. Audiences were confused into thinking this was a kids film, when in reality it is not. It is a film about childhood, and there’s a huge difference.

2009 Year in Review: Best Unreleased Films (Watch for Them in 2010)

As we wrap up our look back at 2009 today, be sure to watch out for the following films opening sometime in 2010, or at least getting a DVD release. I saw most of these at the 2009 Toronto Film Festival, and all of them are worth your time, and the top five are great films. I could have added Ian Fitzgibbon’s supremely entertaining British gangster flick Perrier’s Bounty, Gary Yates’ just released Canadian crime comedy High Life or the French film L’Affaire Farewell with a marvelous performance by director Emir Kustrica as well, or the recent Oscar nominee for best foreign language film The Secret of Their Eyes (which I think is better than a few films on this list, but I still want to ensure that the films below get noticed), but there was only room for 10.

10. George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead (George A. Romero)
In my mind, this is inarguably the least of all of Romero’s zombie films. However, it is still intelligent and stylish – a take on the Western genre (most notably William Wyler’s The Big Country), as a small, island town is torn apart by two warring families who disagree on what to do about the recent zombie outbreak – one family wants to kill all zombies, the others want to “take care of their own”. Romero’s social conscience is on full display here, and there is dynamite performance by Kenneth Walsh. Not as good as the other Romero zombie movies because the performances are weaker, and the screenplay less well thought out – plus after the brilliant reboot that was Diary of the Dead, this is a bit of a letdown. Still, anyone interested in Romero and his zombies needs to see his latest installment.

9. Enter the Void (Gaspar Noe)
Enter the Void is a film that I cannot honestly say I actually liked very much – but it is a film that everyone with an interest in offbeat, mind fuck cinema simply must see. The movie is about a low level American drug dealer living in Tokyo, and his sister, who is working as stripper. The movie is told entirely from the point of view of the brother – literally – we see everything from his point of view, even blinks. When he is killed at the end of the first act, he starts to float above the action, and see everything that goes on beneath him, ending in a wild orgy at a hotel, where all the characters, good and bad, have gathered. At two and half hours, the film is probably an hour too long – and the last act gets fairly ridiculous with all of the trippy “travel” sequences, where the drug dealer will transport from one place to another through lights (or, at one point, an aborted fetus). But you have to hand it to Noe, who follows his story right to the illogical end – which takes place inside his sister vagina during sex. Not a film I would ever want to sit through again, but one I am glad I saw once – and would recommend people interested in this type of thing (all three of you), to watch on the big screen if at all possible.

8. Leaves of Grass (Tim Blake Nelson)
At the present time, I am not sure if Tim Blake Nelson’s film is even going to get a theatrical release – it could go straight to DVD. That would be a shame, because although the movie is a little on the predictable side, it is the best showcase Edward Norton has had for a long time. He plays dual roles as twins from Oklahoma, one who has left and remade himself into a philosophy professor, and the other who never left, and has become the best pot grower in the country. Nelson’s film is part stoner comedy, part crime drama and part philosophical mind trip, all of which is supremely entertaining.

7. The Loved Ones (Sean Bryne)
The winner of the People’s Choice Award for the Midnight Madness program, Sean Bryne’s The Loved Ones is a brutal and unrelenting horror film. Set in Australia it is about a teenager who is drowning himself in drugs following the death of his father, who seems to just be coming out of his downward spiral on prom night with the help of his girlfriend. Not realizing that the shy loner girl he rejected has plans of her own for a memorable prom night. The final is hard core horror at its best – it never devolves into torture porn, yet the violence is purposefully off putting. The performance by Robin McLeavy as the obsessed girl is every bit as creepy and brilliant as Kathy Bates’ Oscar winning turn in Misery. Watch out for this one – something tells me it will end up going straight to video (as horror movies where people talk in accents often do), before the inevitable Hollywood remake.

6. Vincere (Marco Bellochio)
Marco Bellochio was a hero to auteurist critics in the 1960s with his film Fists in the Pocket, then for some reason fell out of vogue for nearly 40 years, despite the fact that he never stopped making movies. His latest film should help to restore his reputation. Set in Italy in early 20th Century, the movie stars Giovanna Mezzogiorno as Ida Dasler, Mussolini’s first wife and mother of his first son, who has all been written out of history. Before WWI, they two are lovers and get married, and she bares him a son. When he returns from the war, his political stock is rising, and he disavows all knowledge of her and her son. She will not let it go, and ends up being put in a mental hospital to try and shut her up. To a certain extent, this is an old fashioned “tortured woman” picture (something Joan Crawford could have done), but rarely have those films been so well made, well acted and well written. Mezzogiorno gives a great performance, as does Filippo Timi as Mussolini (and later as his own son). This one is getting a theatrical release later this spring, so watch out for it.

5. Wild Grass (Alain Resnais)
With the death of Erich Rohmer last week, Resnais remains one of the few surviving French New Wave directors, and is a on an even shorter list of those directors who are still doing interesting work. This film is a wildly ambitious love letter to the movies themselves – a demented romantic comedy about a man who becomes obsessed with the woman whose wallet he finds, and just when she starts coming around, decides that she isn’t so special after all. The movie acrobatic camera work is a marvel to behold, and the movie twists and turns itself around like a pretzel. A marvelous, one of a kind movie from Resnais, and a terrific opportunity for the entire cast to deliver unique performances. A real gem.

4. Life During Wartime (Todd Solondz)
Most critics jumped off the Todd Solondz bandwagon after his critically acclaimed film Happiness in 1998. But I have continued to follow his career with great interest in the years since, as to me, he remains a one of a kind talent, crafting movies that are like moral tests that are impossible to pass. Life During Wartime is a sequel of sorts to Happiness – all the characters are back, they are just played by different people this time around. The cast is a wonder – highlighted by a great turn by Allison Janney as the sister who has no idea who inappropriate she is being, and Paul Reubens, who is perfectly cast as the ghost of Jon Lovitz’s character from the first film. The result is an uncomfortably hilarious, wholly original film that only Solondz could make.

3. Mother (Bong Joon-ho)
Korea is one of the most interesting countries in the world right now for filmmaking, and in my mind Bong Joon-ho is the best director currently working in that country. The three films of his that I have seen – the wonderful police procedural Memories of Murder (trust me, track that masterpiece down), his monster movie The Host and now Mother have marked him for me as one of the best directors in the world. In this film, a young girl is found murdered, and the police suspect that it is the work of the mentally challenged young man from the neighborhood – they drag him in for questioning, and he confesses, but he doesn’t quite seem to know what is going on. The film focuses on his mother (obviously) – a remarkable performance by Kim Hye-ja who is overly devoted to her son, and wants to prove his innocence. This is a marvelous film – part police procedural, part revenge movie, part thriller, part drama, part surrealist movie, Bong combines these elements masterfully. The fact that the Academy had a chance to nominate this film, and didn’t, is yet another reason why the Foreign Language Film category needs to be changed.

2. Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold)
England produced two first rate films in 2009 about a teenage girl falling for an older man – An Education, and this one which I think is far superior, even though I loved An Education. Katie Jarvis is a real find here, playing Mia, a 15 year old high school dropout, who wants to become a professional dancer. When she meets Connor (Michael Fassbender), the latest in her mother’s seemingly never ending string of boyfriends, there is something not quite right in the way he looks at her. Fish Tank is like Catherine Hardwicke’s thirteen, without all the bombast. Instead it is an insightful, powerful film, anchored by two great performances that deals with the issues it presents openly and honestly. A great sophomore film for director Arnold.

1. A Prophet (Jacques Audiard)
There are certain films that key to a director’s career – that one film that kicks it up another notch and shows just how far ahead of everyone else they really are. To be, A Prophet is that film for French director Jacques Audiard. The two films that immediately proceed A Prophet on his resume were the excellent thriller Read My Lips, and the remake of James Toback’s crime film The Beat My Heart Skipped – both quite good. But in A Prophet, he reaches an entirely new level. The film stars Tahar Rahim in a brilliant performance as a young Arab man sent to prison in France for causing trouble during the riots. He doesn’t fit in with the Arabs in jail, or anyone else for that matter. The Corsicans, who run the jail (led by a brilliant Niels Arestrup), reach out to him to have him kill a fellow prisoner they cannot get close to. Thus begins Rahim’s education at the hands of the Corsicans, as he gradually becomes more confident, and more criminal. At two and half hours, Audiard spins his dizzying web of violence and intrigue. It is a masterful film, and would have easily ranked high on my 2009 top ten list had it actually gotten a release this year. As it stands, I will have a tough time choosing who to root for if this, or The White Ribbon, as both got nominated for the foreign language film Oscar this year. A masterpiece.

2009 Year in Review: Best Directorial Debuts

One of the most exciting things every year is to watch new filmmakers emerge and making great films their first time out. When a new filmmaker emerges, it forces you to take off those blinders and simply watch the films. This year produced many great new filmmakers. In addition to the top 10 listed below, I am looking forward to seeing whether James Mottern can make something as intelligent as Trucker the next time around and whether actress Drew Barrymore can make something as fun as Whip It again. Sophie Barthes made a hugely ambitious debut with Cold Souls, but I hope next time she scales it back and makes a more complete, satisfying film. I wonder if Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity is simply going to be a one off, like The Blair Witch Project, or the start of something special. The 10 filmmakers listed below however did even better.

10. Sin Nombre (Cary Fukunaga)
Sin Nombre tells the story of two very different people from South America, both trying to cross the border into America. Paulina Gaitlin stars as a young woman from Guatemala travelling with her father to America so she can join him and his new family. Edgar Flores is a Mexican gang banger, who cannot take the life anymore and kills his boss, and has to flee before the rest of the gang catches up with him. Their paths intersect, and Gaitlin will not let him go on without her. Sin Nombre goes beyond the stereotypes of illegal immigrants, and gets to the heart of their stories. Cary Fukunaga has crafted a memorable, exciting, honest film – I cannot wait to see what he does next.

9. A Single Man (Tom Ford)
Fashion designer Ford has crafted a fine debut film – visually interesting, emotionally resonant and magnificently acted. Colin Firth stars as George, a gay professor in 1960s California whose life starts to fall apart after the death of his long time partner (Matthew Goode). The movie follows George over the course of one day, at the end of which he plans to kill himself. The main attraction to the movie is Firth, who is utterly brilliant in his best performance, but the rest of the cast – especially Julianne Moore as his drunken best pal – are also wonderful. But Ford’s film is more than just an actor’s showcase – it is visually inventive and alive from beginning to end. As a fashion designer, he obviously loves beautiful things – and that would include this movie.

8. Moon (Duncan Jones)
Jones, the son of David Bowie, has crafted an intelligent, low budget science fiction film with a great performance by Sam Rockwell at the center. Rockwell is stationed by himself on the moon for a three year contract harvesting a new energy source they have found there. His only company is the ships ever present computer, with the voice of Kevin Spacey. When Rockwell gets into an accident and almost dies, he wakes up to discover another him on board. Things get stranger from there. Science fiction, at least good science fiction, has always been more about ideas than special effects (although, it must be said that Jones does a lot with the special effects considering his budget). This is a great debut film.

7. Big Fan (Robert Siegel)
Robert Siegel’s broke out last year with his screenplay for Darren Aronofsky’s magnificent film The Wrestler. This year, he stepped into the director’s chair for the first time and crafted this wonderful, under seen indie film. Comedian Patton Oswalt gives a terrific dramatic performance as a guy in his mid 30s who still lives at home with his mother, and who defines his entire life on the success of the New York Football Giants. When he meets his favorite player in a strip club, he thinks his dream is coming true – but when the player ends up beating him up, his world crashes down around him. Big Fan is a great movie about when fandom becomes dangerous obsession, and marks Siegel as a director to watch.

6. Zombieland (Ruben Flesicher)
Zombieland maintains an incredible comedic pace from beginning to end, and that all has to do with Flesicher’s direction. Right off the bat, he establishes this world over run by zombies, and that Jessie Eisenberg is going to be our unlikely hero, with his hilarious voice over narration. He then introduces more characters – the demented Woody Harrellson, the sweet Abigail Breslin, and the sultry Emma Stone, and keeps the laughs and the gore coming on strong. It is hard to make a horror comedy – so many are downright horrid – but Flesicher nailed the tone from the beginning. Let’s see if he can keep it going.

5. Crazy Heart (Scott Cooper)
Scott Cooper’s debut film could have easily become one cliché after another. After all, it is a movie about an aging country music star whose stock has fallen, and is lost in alcoholism who is saved by his relationship with a beautiful younger woman and her son. Yet, the reason why Crazy Heart works is because Cooper, along with his great cast led by Jeff Bridges, but also featuring great work by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell, make you believe that these clichés are true for these people. That’s a hard thing to pull off, but Cooper and company do so brilliantly well – with great help from T-Bone Burnett and Ryan Bingham, whose songs make the movie.

4. 500 Days of Summer (Marc Webb)
The romantic comedy is perhaps my least favorite genre, because they really haven’t come up with anything new or original to say in them since the 1930s. But 500 Days of Summer is an absolute joy – a wonder to behold – as it tells the story of a couple who are almost right for each other. Joseph Gordon Levitt continues his excellent streak of performances here as an architect slumming it in a job for a greeting card company, who thinks he has found the girl of his dreams in Summer (Zooey Deschanell). The movie flashes back and forth in time to during and after their relationship to see how things went so terribly wrong. Marvelously directed by Marc Webb – who is visually inventive throughout, 500 Days of Summer is the best romantic comedy in years – and a marvelous debut picture for Webb.

3. The Messenger (Oren Moverman)
Until now, Oren Moverman has made his living as a screenwriter – collaborating on such films as I’m Not There, Married Life and Jesus’ Son. But in The Messenger, he steps into the director’s chair for the first time, and does a wonderful job. Yes, The Messenger is a movie more about writing and acting than it is about directing, but Moverman knows enough to kind of stay out of his own way here. His direction is subtle, the camera hovering behind the characters, or closing in for a close-up at just the right moment. Moverman is the real deal as a director – not just a writer.

2. In the Loop (Armando Iannucci)
In the Loop is the best political satire in years. Armando Iannucci comes from a television background, and it shows, as the movie does look at times like an episode of The Office (or presumably, The Thick Of It, the series that this movie is a spinoff from). Yet the visual style (and yes, the movie does have a visual style) is appropriate the movie itself. Grubby backrooms, monuments that appear small and less grand than normal, and the jump cut style editing help to make the tone of the film, yet never detract from the writing or the performances. I hope that Iannucci makes more films, and doesn’t simply go back to television.

1. District 9 (Neil Blomkamp)

Blomkamp’s directorial debut was, to be, the most challenging film any newcomer took on this year. He mixes together science fiction, action and his social agenda, with a story that packs an emotional wallop in Sharlto Copley’s descent from bumbling bureaucrat into a alien prawn. He uses special effects perfectly, blending them effortlessly into the background, or right there in your face. His pseudo-documentary style at the beginning of the film is handled brilliantly well, and as the movie moves into action movie terrain, he handles the transition well, and creates the best action sequences of the year. I have no idea how involved producer Peter Jackson was in the making of this film, but I have a feeling that this is the start of a brilliant career for Blomkamp.

Movie Review: Which Way Home

Which Way Home ***
Directed By: Rebecca Cammisa.

Every year, thousands of people try to illegally cross the border from Mexico into the United States, where they hope to find a better life for themselves and their families. It isn’t just Mexicans trying to cross, but people from all South American countries, who feel that there is no hope for them where they live, and want to start again. Among these thousands of people are many children – often who come alone with no adults to look out for them. They make the journey of thousands of miles on top of trains, and have to try and fight off corrupt police as well as smugglers, just in an attempt to get to border in the first place. When they get there, they have to try and dodge the border patrol as they make their way through the desert. Many of these people die out there in the middle of nowhere – all alone in the world.

Which Way Home is a fascinating documentary that follows some of these children as they make this long, perilous journey. They talk of home lives that are not good – stepfathers who hate them and beat them, dead parents, no jobs, no money, no hope. Yet, in many ways these are typical kids and teenagers. When the filmmakers track down they kids families back in their home countries, we can hardly believe what they say about their own kids. How they are lazy deadbeats, who do little but drag them down. These kids are 13 years old – of course they’re lazy! In North America, this is par for the course, but down there, these kids are essentially unwanted by a lot of their families. It makes you wonder why they didn’t use birth control. Parents hope that if their kids make to America, they will be adopted, and then be able to send them money. Who is out there adopting teenagers for South America?

And yet, somehow, these kids have not given up on themselves. They talk about going to America, getting back in school, becoming doctors, making money and sending it home to the very families that do not want them. They do not give up on themselves, but instead fight to make it for weeks at a time. There are some groups out there to help, but mainly the people they meet along the way only want to exploit them.

The filmmakers do not either hinder or help them on their journey. Instead, they just sit back and observe them, and what they go through. Are they just another group exploiting these kids? Not really. The kids would be doing this regardless of whether or not the filmmakers were there. And in America, where there is so much posturing and grandstanding about illegal immigrants (right Lou Dobbs), it is valuable to see the people try to get across not as criminals, but as real people with hopes and dreams of a better life.

The movie suffers a little bit because of Cary Fukunaga’s excellent fiction film, Sin Nombre, which came out earlier in 2009, which told a similar story. Sin Nombre had the advantage of being able to better tell the story, because the filmmakers could get the characters to do whatever they wanted. That film was more dramatic and powerful. But Which Way Home is more true to life – it’s messier, less predictable and just as heartbreaking. This is a good little documentary.