Movie Review: Fair Game

Fair Game ***
Directed by: Doug Liman.
Written By: Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth based on books by Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame.
Starring: Naomi Watts (Valerie Plame), Sean Penn (Joe Wilson), David Andrews (Scooter Libby), Ty Burrell (Fred), Jessica Hecht (Sue), Norbert Leo Butz (Steve Norbert), Rebecca Rigg (Lisa), Brooke Smith (Diana), Thomas McCarthy (Jeff), Ashley Gerasimovich (Samantha Wilson), Quinn Broggy (Trevor Wilson), Michael Kelly (Jack McAllister), Noah Emmerich (Bill Johnson), Bruce McGill (Jim Pavitt), Adam LeFevre (Karl Rove), Polly Holliday (Diane Plame), Sam Shepard (Sam Plame).

Valerie Plame got screwed over – of that can be little doubt no matter what you think of the War in Iraq or her husband, Joe Wilson. She was a covert CIA Agent – only her husband and parents knew what her job actually was. Her husband was a former ambassador trying to make a living as a consultant in Washington, when the CIA approached him in the weeks after 9/11 about going to the African nation of Niger to see if it was possible that they had supplied yellow cake uranium to Iraq, and British intelligence had suggested. He went, thought it was impossible and told them. A few months later, he heard Bush at the State of the Union still saying that Iraq had tried to buy yellow cake from Niger. Eventually, tired of lies, he wrote an article for the New York Times, which started a media firestorm. In response, Scooter Libby, the Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, leaked the story that his wife was a CIA agent.

Fair Game, the new film by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identiry, Mr. and Mrs. Smith) is an interesting story that tells Wilson and Plame’s side of the story. It is based on the two books they wrote – separately – about the incident. It paints them in a positive light, and Libby is seen pretty much as an evil guy. Liman stops short of suggesting that anyone else was involved in the plot – but it strongly implies that at least Karl Rove was.

The film can be split into two different sections – before and after. I enjoyed the first part of the movie more, which concentrated on Plame and her role as a CIA Agent. This isn’t like most spy movies we see – with jet setting glamourous locations and shoot outs, but a more realistic approach. Naomi Watts does an excellent job in the role of Plame as she builds trust with her contacts, and tries to get to the truth of the matter in front of her. We do see some push back even in these scenes – with Libby constantly coming down to the CIA offices and questioning the staff, trying to get them to doubt themselves because most of them believe (correctly it turned out) that Iraq had no WMDs, and no program to try and produce them.

The second half concentrates more on Wilson, what he did, and how he defends himself and his wife when she refuses to speak after the story breaks. Sean Penn obviously relishes the opportunity to play a man openly critical of the Bush administration, but he hardly makes Wilson into a zealot. The movie paints him as a man who has strong opinions – and seemingly the need to share those opinions with anyone who will listen. He cannot even control himself at dinner with friends.

The heart of the movie is the performances by Watts and Penn. What is fascinating is they seem to take opposite approaches to the material, and yet appear to effortlessly embody a long standing married couple. Watts’ performance is largely internal – she tries her best not to give her emotions away, whether its with a contact, being questioned at the office, or as her life crumbles down around her. Penn on the other hand attacks the role – he relishes his numerous speeches and goes at them full bore. If you have to read Watts’ face to read her emotions, no such thing is needed with Penn – he tells you right to your face.

What surprised me is how honest the movie seems to be about these two people. Watts doesn’t really portray Plame as a heroine in a thriller – even in some of the early scenes where the movie seemingly tries to paint her that way. It is honest about the cost this had on their life and their marriage – at one point Plame has all but left Wilson. For his part, the movie sees Wilson as a man who relishes the attention. Before the story breaks, we see him speaking to a largely empty room of college students about his time in Iraq in the early 1990s. No one cares what he has to say. One article comes out, and he is all of sudden everyone, speaking to packed houses and loving every minute of it. He did what he did, at least in part, to get attention.

The film is intelligent, well made and well acted from beginning to end. But curiously, it was also rather unaffecting on an emotional level as well. Perhaps its because we see Wilson and Plame, and their two beautiful children and their nice house, and have a hard time really seeing them as victims – when the real victims are largely left off screen. (The movie tries to paint a picture of Plame’s work with scientists in the Iraqi nuclear program, but doesn’t really pull it off effectively). Yet it remained a fascinating movie to me – one that kept me involved from beginning to end. Not a great movie, but an interesting one nonetheless.

Movie Review: Megamind

Megamind ***
Directed by: Tom McGrath.
Written By: Alan J. Schoolcraft & Brent Simons.
Starring: Will Ferrell (Megamind), Brad Pitt (Metro Man), Tina Fey (Roxanne Ritchi), Jonah Hill (Tighten), David Cross (Minion), J.K. Simmons (Warden), Ben Stiller (Bernard).

A super villain cannot really exist unless he has a superhero to duel with. Life would become too boring if he was simply able to roll over everyone in their path with their superior intellect, strength or weaponry. This is the problem that poor Megamind faces early in his movie. He may not have been born to be a supervillian, but given his childhood it’s not really a surprise that he became one. As his galaxy was being eaten by a black hole, his parents sent him to earth in one of those pods – unfortunately another child from another planet was also sent at the same time. While Megamind is blue and has a huge head, and ends up being raised in a prison, the other child looks human, although incredibly attractive, and is raise by rich people. Megamind cannot seem to do anything right, while the other kid does everything perfectly – and can fly to boot. They hate each other from the beginning, and when they grow up, they start a war in Metro City, where poor Megamind always loses to his foe – now known as Metro Man. Megamind’s only friend is Minion, his fish. But then a strange thing happens – Megamind wins. Metro Man is killed, and no one can stand in Megamind’s way anymore. He can everything he always wanted – and he is miserable.

Megamind, the movie, feels right at home in the superhero genre. It is a bright and colorful animated film, that knows the rules of the genre and has a lot of fun with them. It doesn’t reach the heights of The Incredibles a few years ago, or even Despicable Me from earlier this year which also centered on a supervillian, but it’s fun in its own right.

I particularly loved the voice work in the film. Will Ferrell is certainly having fun as Megamind – I love the way he slightly mispronounced words (like Metrcity instead of Metro City). He is wonderful as the supervillian suffering delusions of grandeur, and relishing in his own evil, and he also does a nice transition when Megamind finds his conscience. Brad Pitt, who I think may be doing an impression of his friend George Clooney, is great as Metro Man as well – all perfect and shiny, it can’t be easy to be a hero like him. I love the overly dramatic David Cross as Megamind’s Minion, appropriately named Minion (which, I presume coincidently, is what Gru’s minions were called in Despicable Me). Jonah Hill is quite good as a loser cameraman who becomes a hero – and then a villain – pretty quickly. And Tina Fey is perhaps best of all as a spunky female reporter – aren’t they all.

Megamind is not a great animated film. It is a little too by the numbers for that, and as I mentioned, the film doesn’t reach the thrilling heights of The Incredibles, and doesn’t quite melt your heart like Despicable Me. And yet, it is a film that I think is a must see for super hero fans. So many of the superhero movies now take themselves so seriously – even great ones like The Dark Knight. It’s nice to see a movie in this genre with a sense of humor about itself. And Megamind fits the bill.

Movie Review: For Colored Girls

For Colored Girls ** ½
Directed by: Tyler Perry.
Written By: Tyler Perry based on the play by Ntozake Shange.
Starring: Kimberly Elise (Crystal / Brown), Janet Jackson (Jo / Red), Loretta Devine (Juanita / Green), Thandie Newton (Tangie / Orange), Anika Noni Rose (Yasmine / Yellow), Kerry Washington (Kelly / Blue), Tessa Thompson (Nyla / Purple), Phylicia Rashad (Gilda), Whoopi Goldberg (Alice / White), Macy Gray (Rose), Michael Ealy (Beau Willie), Omari Hardwick (Carl), Richard Lawson (Frank), Hill Harper (Donald), Khalil Kain (Bill).

It must be said that no matter what one thinks of Tyler Perry, that he is one of the most successful filmmakers in America right now. He makes 1 or 2 films a year for not that much money, casting actors who couldn’t open another movie if their lives depended on it, and comes away with hit after hit. He serves a market that pretty much every studio in the world ignores – African American Christians – and his legions of fans will follow him pretty much anywhere. I’m not sure what made Lions Gate take the chance on Perry in the first place with Diary of a Mad Black Woman – but it was the smartest business decision they ever made. Tyler Perry is a money making machine.

I have tried with Perry. I tried to connect with the material of his films, even though as a white agnostic I am pretty much as far away from his target demographic as I can get. Starting with 2005’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman (which he wrote, but did not direct a job he would take over on all subsequent films) he has made 9 films – and I have seen seven of those films. For me, Perry’s films are a little too morally simplistic – people are either entirely good or entirely bad, there are no shades of grey or complex people involved. Perry’s direction is a pretty straight forward point and shoot style – and it took him a few films behind the camera to even get that right. I understand why people like these films, but I have to admit that they really are not for me. I had pretty much given up trying (which is why I hadn’t seen his last two films).

But I was interested to see what Perry would do with For Colored Girls. For the first time, he wasn’t working with his own material to begin with – instead he was adapting the highly successful play from the 1970s by Ntozak Shange. Could this film be a breakout for Perry, one that crosses over and makes him even more successful than he already is?

Sadly, the answer appears to be no. From what I understand, the play was a series of monologues by its main characters explaining their vastly different lives to the audience. This works on stage, not as much as a movie. Perry is smart enough to know that, and forces them into a huge web of interconnected stories a la Robert Altman, providing supporting characters and connective tissue to flesh out the play. He leaves many of the monologues intact though – and he lets his actresses loose on the material. Watching the movie, I kept thinking how much I would have loved to see the play – there are such juicy moments in the movie, ones that allow these great actresses a chance to truly dig their teeth into the types of roles that are all too rare for women – African American women in particular. Yet, the result is curiously uninvolving as well. It feels stage bound, despite Perry’s attempt to add visual flourishes at times (mostly, he shouldn’t have). His most effective moments behind the camera come during those monologues when he gets right into the face of the actresses, who are pouring out their souls.

And the actresses are great for the most part. Kimberly Elise is a woman dealing with an abusive boyfriend, while trying to hold down a job for a demanding, The Devil Wears Prada esque boss, and raise her two children. That boss is Janet Jackson, who is a high powered magazine editor, struggling with trust issues with her stock broker husband who feels insecure. Elise’s neighbor is Thandie Newton, a woman trying to exorcise the demons of her past by sleeping with pretty much any man who will have her. Newton’s mother is Whoopi Goldberg, who has grabbed hold of one of those new religious movements and won’t let go. Her other daughter is Tessa Thompson, a beautiful 16 year old, who has just lost her virginity, and now is pregnant. Thompson’s dance teacher is Anika Noni Rose, who lets her guard down with the new man in her life, because he seems so damn nice. There is also Kerry Washington as a Child Welfare worker, who because of a mistake in her past cannot get pregnant. Phylicia Rashad plays a woman who sees everything that goes on in her apartment building (where Elise and Newton both live) and has advice for everything. Lorretta Devine is a nurse, trying hard to educate the women in this poor area about sexual safety, all the while being taken advantage of by her boyfriend. And in one unforgettable scene (the only one where Perry’s new found experimental style actually works wonders) Macy Gray is a drunken, back room abortionist.

All of these actresses are very good to one extent or another – although Jackson’s brittle magazine exec feels forces right up until her final scene, which doesn’t quite come off either. My favorite was probably Newton, who is perfect as a party girl getting past her prime – although Thompson’s innocent teen in a situation beyond her control and the gut wrenching pain of Elise, and in one scene, Rose were excellent as well.

The problem is that even though For Colored Girls gives us great moments – they seem to remain isolated – not really part of the whole, but moments unto themselves. They don’t build on each other, and Perry doesn’t find smooth ways to get back and forth between storylines, and when they all crash together near the end it feels awkward. The film also goes on for too long – there is only so much constant pain and torment one can take, especially when it is this theatrical. The film moves uneasily from gritty realism to soap opera hysterics and back again, that I could never simply settle down and get into the film. It kept jerking me out of the moment.

Perhaps Perry should have pared down the number of characters in the film – or gone further in his rewrites and made the whole thing feel more organic and cinematic rather than a filmed play. Or perhaps he should have done just the opposite and fully embraced the theatricality of the piece, and simply let these actresses deliver their monologues, instead of forcing them into dramatic situations. I really don’t know the answer. For Colored Girls is a movie that never quite works, despite the great performances, despite the great moments. It is certainly a movie where the whole is much less than the sum of its parts.

Movie Review: Due Date

Due Date ***
Directed by: Todd Phillips
Written By: Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland and Adam Sztykiel & Todd Phillips.
Starring: Robert Downey Jr. (Peter Highman), Zach Galifianakis (Ethan Tremblay), Michelle Monaghan (Sarah Highman), Jamie Foxx (Darryl), Juliette Lewis (Heidi), Danny McBride (Lonnie), RZA (Airport Screener).

I think I could watch Robert Downey Jr. in just about anything. Right now, there is no other actor out there who is as consistently entertaining as Downey is. And pairing him up with Zach Galifianakis was a stroke of genius. Downey’s penchant for playing misanthropic characters meshes wonderfully well with Galifianakis comedy of the completely self-unaware. The two characters get thrown together on one of those cross country road trips that only ever seems to happen in the movies, and watching them together was a treat.

In Due Date, Downey plays an architect trying to get home from Atlanta to LA for the birth of his first child in four days (they have a C-Section scheduled). It shouldn’t be a problem, as he has a plane ticket and even gets on the plane. But then he meets Galifianakis – who screws everything up, somehow gets them both thrown off the plane, and put on the no fly list. Worse still, Downey has lost his wallet – meaning he has no way of renting a car, buying a train of bus ticket – anything. And since he has no ID, his wife cannot even wire him money. And that is when he meets Galifianakis again – he has rented a car, and is heading to LA to become an actor. Begrudgingly, Downey agrees to take the trip across the country with him.

Due Date is a standard issue cross country road trip comedy. It will undoubtedly remind viewers of John Hughes’s best film (and yes, it is his best by a mile) Planes, Trains and Automobiles with Downey playing the Steve Martin role and Galifianakis as John Candy. Due Date is not a classic comedy like that film is, but it is worthy of at least being mentioned alongside of it.

Expectations were high for this film, as it is the first that director Todd Philips has made since his own classic comedy – The Hangover – last year, and reteams him with Galifianakis, who was the best part of that film. While Due Date is not the laugh producer The Hangover was – few films are – I’m not even sure it was trying to be. This is a comedy about these two men, who the film defines so well, and their journey. It is a comedy of discomfort and awkward situations – ones that make you cringe as much as laugh. I’m not sure if either Downey or Galifianakis were really challenged by their roles here – they have played similar roles before – but they seem to be enjoying themselves a great deal. And a lot of humor is drawn out of the supporting characters who come in for a scene along the way – RZA as a profane customs agent at the airport, Juliette Lewis playing a Juliette Lewis-esque (and yes, I think she has earned that phrase) drug dealer, Danny McBride as a Western Union agent and Jamie Foxx as an old boyfriend of Downey’s wife (who may still be in love with her). Poor Michelle Monaghan, who is a gifted actress in her own right, plays what is essentially the same role whatever actress had in The Hangover playing the missing guys fiancée – sitting on the phone growing increasingly worried and angry at her missing partner.

Due Date doesn’t really do anything new or different. And it doesn’t have quite the same emotional resonance of Planes, Trains and Automobiles (they try, but they don’t come close to matching John Candy’s wonderful speech that starts “My family likes me…). Yet watching the movie I was constantly entertaining – constantly engaged with the characters – who the two leads do a great job with. Due Date is not as good as The Hangover or Planes, Trains and Automobiles. That much is undeniable. But then so few comedies can reach the heights of either of those movies, that holding them to that standard is probably unrealistic. Due Date does what it does well – it made me laugh, and an unnecessary masturbation sight gag aside – didn’t make me feel guilty about it in the morning.

Movie Review: 127 Hours

127 Hours *** ½
Directed by: Danny Boyle.
Written By: Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy based on the book by Aron Ralston.
Starring: James Franco (Aron Ralston), Kate Mara (Girl 1), Amber Tamblyn (Girl 2), Clémence Poésy (Girlfriend), Lizzy Caplan (Sonja), Treat Williams (Aron's Dad), Kate Burton (Mrs. Ralston).

127 Hours is a harrowing true story about a man trapped in a cavern for days on end with no one to talk to, and no real way of getting out of the situation alive. Directed by Danny Boyle, and starring James Franco, in an excellent performance, the movie takes this seemingly uncinematic story and makes it into an intense, visually alive experience – one that you will not soon forget.

Aron Ralston (Franco) is a young engineer whose passion is hiking in the desert region in Utah close to his house. He decides to head out solo one weekend, and neglects to tell anyone where he is going. He gets out to the desert and starts his hike, and quickly meets two beautiful young women who are lost. He guides them to wear they need to go, and the three laugh and flirt, before splitting up and heading on their separate ways. It isn’t long after this that Ralston slips, falls down a shaft in a cavern and ends up with his arm literally caught between a rock and a hard place – in this case the cavern’s wall. He cannot move his arm, and the few tools he has are pretty useless in chipping the rock away – in fact it appears like his arm is really supporting the rock, so the more he chips away, the more his arm is actually trapped there. He has a little water, a little food and his video camera – which he uses to document what happens over those 127 Hours he is trapped down there. Other than his encounter with the two girls early in the film, and a few disjointed flashbacks showing us Aron’s loving relationship with his family, and his troubled relationship with his ex-girlfriend, the film is essentially just Franco, down that shaft by himself – talking to his camera, and trying to find his way out.

But that doesn’t mean the film is boring in the least. Franco is a talented actor, and here he gives what is probably his performance to date. Aron maintains his dark sense of humor down there – which Franco gets perfectly – funny without being morbid, yet still recognizing the gravity of the situation. and it is also an intense, physical performance from Franco, who really does seem to start unraveling before our eyes. Franco is the heart of every scene in the movie, and he delivers a great performance.

Director Danny Boyle may go a little too far over the top with the visual fireworks at times in the movie. This is Boyle’s style, and while it worked amazingly well in Slumdog Millionaire, there were times in this film where I wished he would have played it a little more straight – lets flashy camera moves and rapid fire editing. To me, it freed the movie up just a little bit too much. I appreciated what Rodrigo Cortes did in Buried more – where he literally trapped us with Ryan Reynolds for an hour and a half. The pulsating, loud score by A.R. Rahman (who collaborated with Boyle on Slumdog Millionaire) adds to the intensity no doubt – although sometimes it becomes a little too overbearing. These are minor complaints – overall I did like the visuals of the film, and the score would be wonderful to listen to on its own. However, I think the film could have been even better if Boyle had realized that sometimes, less is more.

I don’t think it’s really giving anything away to reveal that Ralston makes it out of that cavern – after all, he has been doing the press rounds with Boyle and Franco, and the opening titles reveal that the film is based on a book written by Ralston. I won’t reveal how it is that he gets out, but needless to say it is painful and intense when it finally comes – and represents Franco at his best. The scene – which is probably no more than 3 minutes – is one of the hardest to watch of any film this year – but it is handled brilliantly by all involved.

There have been many survival stories put on film over the years – and a few like Sean Penn’s excellent Into the Wild which could be described as a non-survival story – but few can match 127 Hours for its sheer intensity. This is an inspiring story, but also one filled with pain and dark humor. That Boyle and Franco pulled it off at all is reason to celebrate.

Year in Review: 1964

1964 was another great year for movies, if for no other reason than because one of my all time favorite filmmakers made what I consider to be his best film. Yet all of the films on this list are deserving of praise. And when you look at the notable films missed section, you see that I have perhaps just barely scratched the surface of this year. Too bad the Academy didn’t notice.

10. A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone)
Sergio Leone invented the spaghetti Western with A Fistful of Dollars – a genre he would later perfect with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West. He felt that American Westerns were becoming too preachy, so he decided to make this Western with high style. An unofficial remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, the film stars Clint Eastwood as the “Man With No Name” (although quite clearly, in this film anyway, everyone calls him Joe) who rides into town and decides to hire himself out to both warring factions. The film is all style, but what style, and Eastwood gives an iconic performance, and Ennio Morricone contributes one of his best scores. This film isn’t as good as Yojimbo – and isn’t as good as Leone’s best work – but it’s still a great one.

9. Goldfinger (Guy Hamilton)
Goldfinger was not the first of the James Bond films – that was Dr. No – but it is definitely the best of them – the film that has set the standard that no Bond film (except maybe Casino Royale) has been able to match since. Sean Connery proves why he is the definitive Bond – he is all dry wit, delivered in his sexy, Scottish drawl, and action. Goldfinger (Gert Frobe) is the best Bond villain, because he seems the most real – no plans for world domination, the guy just wants to be rich – and Oddjob (Harold Sakata) is probably the most memorable henchmen of the series. We’ve seen the formula done so many times now, that even good Bond films sometimes feel warmed over – but that is never the case with Goldfinger, which is just pure movie joy.

8. Seven Days in May (John Frankenheimer)
If Dr. Strangelove (which we’ll get to) was the comic view of nuclear annihilation, than John Frankenheimer’s Seven Days in May was the more serious side of the same coin. The President (Frederic March) wants to sign an agreement with the Russians where they will both destroy their nuclear weapons for the good of the planet – a move that is extremely controversial. This is when a Colonel (Kirk Douglas) discovers that the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with several members of congress, are planning a coup d’etat to prevent the President from signing the agreement. The conspiracy is led by Burt Lancaster, who is Douglas’ commanding officer. The entire cast is great – including Edmond O’Brien as an aging alcoholic senator, Martin Balsam as an aid to the President, and Hugh Marlowe and Whit Bissell as other key members of the conspiracy. Although the plot would seem to be outlandish, it rings true in this movie, and Frankenheimer, who was as good as anyone has been at staging thrillers, makes this is a scary, and intense what-if scenario.

7. Band of Outsiders (Jean Luc Godard)
I have often been very hard of Jean Luc Godard – especially in regards to his output in the past few decades. But the reason I am is because I know how good he can be, as he proved time and again in the 1960s. Band of Outsiders is to me one of his best films, perhaps because as Amy Taubin put it “it’s a Godard film for people who don’t much like Godard”. While his technical innovations and playfulness is on full display throughout the film, the film also tells a clear story of three young people who decide to become criminals, even though they don’t really know what they’re doing. The gorgeous Anna Karina is the woman that both the young men (Claude Brasseur and Sami Frey) want, and Band of Outsiders may actually be at its best when it doesn’t concentrate on its plot – the infamous Lourve race scene, or when they three of them dance together. The film is a head rush, and must have seemed radical in 1964. It doesn’t seem that way much anymore, but it remains perhaps Godard’s most entertaining film.

6. A Hard Day’s Night (Richard Lester)
A Hard Day’s Night is an inspired cinematic comic fantasy starring The Beatles. Most of the time when musicians decide to make a film, they come out with some insipid vanity project – but The Beatles always did things a little different. A Hard Day’s Night throws everything at the wall to see what will stick, and surprisingly, almost of it does. The Beatles aren’t really very good actors, but here playing themselves, they feel natural and unforced, even when the films goes on its many flights of fancy. The film is just pure fun – and it goes without saying, contains perhaps the greatest soundtrack of rock songs of any film in history.

5. The Naked Kiss (Samuel Fuller)
Samuel Fuller was one of the best directors of “B” movies in history – and The Naked Kiss ranks among my very favorite of his films. Constance Towers gives a wonderful performance as a prostitute who has moved to a new town, and has decided to reform her life – becoming a nurse, and falling in love with a rich, young man who loves her even after she tells him of her former life. What she doesn’t suspect is that her new man is really a pedophile, and when she is confronted with the awful truth, she snaps, and then has to try and prove her innocence. The film is innovatively shot by Fuller, in his typical hardboiled style, where he looks at hypocrisy and deviancy right in the face and doesn’t flinch. I do wish the ending had been a little tougher than it is, but that’s a small complaint with an otherwise great film.

4. Becket (Peter Glenville)
Becket is a film I don’t hear much mentioned anymore, and I don’t know why. It is a supremely well made and very entertaining film. Peter O’Toole gives one of his characteristically off the wall performances as King Henry II, who makes Thomas Becket (Richard Burton) the Archbishop of Canterbury, because he wants his good friend and adviser close to him. But Becket refuses to be just another mouthpiece for the King – and displays a mind of his own, much to the King’s displeasure. I loved O’Toole performance as the King, especially when he walks around his castle cursing Becket, because he is the only one who ever gave the King anything (to which the Queen replies “I gave you your children”, prompting perhaps my favorite line O’Toole ever uttered “But I don’t like my children”). Burton is also great, but it’s not as showy of a role. The pair is supported wonderfully well by the likes of John Gielgud, Pamela Brown and others. Yes, this is a straight ahead historical biopic – but rarely has one been done this well or provided this much entertainment.

3. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy)
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is one of the great movie musicals – because it is so unlike most movies the genre has to offer. Jacques Demy obviously admired the Hollywood musicals that came before this, and the film has the form, color and style of those films – but the subject matter is quite a bit darker. The great Catherine Den eve gives a wonderful performance as a teenager who falls in love with Nino Castelnuovo, and the day before he leaves for the war in Algeria, he impregnates her. He doesn’t write often, and her mother encourages her to marry and older, well to do admirer. When Castelnuovo returns, he is bitter and angry – not just because of the war, but because he has lost Deneuve, but slowly he rebuilds his life. We know what to expect from musicals – and while this movie offers the musical numbers we expect (in fact, everything in the film is sung, no matter how matter of fact), the ending of the film packs an unexpected wallop. Most musicals end with characters happy and riding off into the sunset together – in this one, everyone is miserable.

2. Marnie (Alfred Hitchcock)
Marnie was pretty rounded reviled when it first came out – but the years have been kind to it. I now consider the film to Hitchcock’s best of the 1960s – yes better than the much more famous Psycho or The Birds. Tippi Hendron gives a flawless performance as a woman who makes her living by stealing from her employers, then moving on and changing her identity. But then Sean Connery catches her stealing from him – and blackmails her into marrying him. It isn’t long before her sexual frigidity becomes a problem – but Connery is determined to help her work past this block – even if that means raping her. Marnie is a complex film, where no one is really a good person – Marnie is after all a thief, and Connery is a rapist – yet it is fascinating to watch these two characters interact with each other, and Hitchcock’s cinematic eye is as great as always. The solution to the mystery of Marnie’s frigidity isn’t all that interesting, and do I wish Hitchcock had ended the film on a less optimistic note. But no matter – Marnie is still a Hitchcock masterpiece that I feel has been underrated for too long.

1. Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick)
Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove is perhaps the best satire ever made, and also perhaps the funniest film I have ever seen. It is an inspired piece of comic lunacy from beginning to end – but also had the guts to mock the nuclear age with razor sharp insights. Sterling Hayden is a General, who launches a nuclear attack on Russia because he is convinced that there is communist plot to sap his “precious bodily fluids”, which he realized during the physical act of love, when he found he couldn’t perform. Peter Sellers gives a trio of excellent performances – one as the President, situated in his War Room, trying to come up with a plan to stop the planes, and meeting bureaucratic red tape (not to mention perhaps the funniest scene in history where we hear his side of a phone call with the drunken Russian Premier – “No, Dmitri, I do like you”), one as the freaky Nazi Dr. Strangelove, brought in for his expertise, and finally one as a mild mannered British officer stuck on the base with Hayden. This is inspired acting by Sellers, but it should also be noted that George C. Scott gives what I think is his best performance as the gung ho military man who advises them to go ahead with the attack, despite the fact that millions will die (“I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed a bit”). Kubrick somehow contains this mayhem, and sustains the comic momentum for its entire running time. He finds brilliant ways of shooting the film, and shows a surprising amount of humor for a man known to be so serious. Yes, 2001 is definitely Kubrick’s greatest cinematic achievement – but Dr. Strangelove is my favorite of his films.

Just Missed The Top 10: Cheyenne Autumn (John Ford), Gertrud (Carl Theodor Dreyer), The Killers (Don Siegal), Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi), Mary Poppins (Robert Stevenson), My Fair Lady (George Cukor).

Notable Films Missed: The Art of Vision (Stan Brakage), Before the Revolution (Bernardo Bertolucci), Black God, White Devil (Glauber Rocha), Charulata (Sayajit Ray), Dog Star Man (Stan Brakage), I Am Cuba (Mikheil Kalatozishvi), Red Desert (Michangelo Antonnini), The Saragossa Manuscript (Wojciech Has), Scorpio Rising (Kenneth Anger), Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors (Sergei Parajanov),Topikapi (Jules Dassin), Woman in the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara),Zorba the Greek (Michael Cacoyannis).

Oscar Winner – Best Picture & Director: My Fair Lady (George Cukor)
My Fair Lady is a fine movie of its sort. It is a big, bold, colorful musical full of wonderful, memorable songs, and charming performances by Rex Harrison, Audrey Hepburn and the rest of the cast. What keeps the movie from being truly great in my opinion is that the film, at over three hours, wears out its welcome, even if the ending is a charmer. Also, I am annoyed by sing-talking, like Rex Harrison does in the film, and the fact that Hepburn was cast at all considering she cannot sing and had to have her voice dubbed. If you can’t sing, don’t be in a musical! Still, it’s not surprising that the Academy gave the film the Oscar that year. 1964 really was a slightly schizophrenic year for the nominees – I mean really, how are you supposed to compare this film with Dr. Strangelove?

Oscar Winner – Best Actor: Rex Harrison, My Fair Lady
Rex Harrison was apparently a drunken asshole in real life, but onscreen he was charismatic and charming. His performance as Henry Higgins has the perfect amount of pompousness to it, and he really does a fine job with it. My only real problem with the performance, as mentioned above, is that he sing talks his way through all the songs. If you can sing, then belt it out, and if you can’t, then don’t be in a musical. Considering that Harrison beat out Peter Sellers, Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton for this Oscar – all of whom are better overall actors, delivered better performances this year and have a grand total of zero acting Oscar between them, makes this win undeserving.

Oscar Winner – Best Actress: Julie Andrews, Mary Poppins
Julie Andrews had sympathy of her side when she won this award. She had been the original Eliza Doolittle on Broadway, but lost the part to Audrey Hepburn, who can’t sing, in the movie because the studio didn’t deem Andrews famous enough to have the film role. I guess Andrews got the last laugh however, because being passed over for that role, allowed her to deliver one of her most famous screen performances – as the charming British nanny Mary Poppins. I loved the movie as a kid, but haven’t watched it in years – which is probably for the best. I have a feeling I may cringe if I ever watch it again.

Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actor: Peter Ustinov, Topikapi
I love Peter Ustinov. I love Jules Dassin, especially when he’s working in the heist genre. So why then I have never seen this movie, which is said to be an excellent comic caper, with Ustinov amazing in his role? Beats me, but I haven’t. I have always meant to see the film, and I certainly will one day, but for now I am comforted by the fact that there is a great Peter Ustinov performance out there waiting for me to discover it.

Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actress: Lila Kedrova, Zorba the Greek
For whatever reason, I have never been that anxious to see Zorba the Greek. Perhaps it’s because I still cringe every time I think of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which isn’t the fault of this film, but perhaps has turned me off of all movies with a boisterous Greek person. I do here the film is quite good, and that Kedrova’s performance as a French War Widow was a worthy winner, but until I get past my biases, this will remain a mystery to me.

Year in Review: 1972

1972 was a great year for movies. Hollywood was still in the midst of its upheaval, and the reins had been turned over to younger filmmakers with distinct visions. But despite what people tell you about how Steven Spielberg and George Lucas ruined this, and introduced the era of the blockbuster with Jaws and Star Wars a few years later, it actually started this year. The number one film on this list – one of the greatest of all time – was actually the first to go wide immediately – something that the later two films would copy.

10. Images (Robert Altman)
Images is perhaps easier to place in the Altman canon now than it was when it was first released, and seemed so unlike anything he had done before. Looking at it now, we see a filmmaker taking a first run at similar material that he would do a little better later on – most notably in his masterpiece Three Women from 1977. The film stars Susannah York in a brilliant performance about a housewife and the three men in her life – her clueless husband, her former French lover, now dead, who continues to haunt her, and her neighbor who thinks she shares his rape fantasies, and is perhaps right. The movie places us in her diseased mind, and plays tricks with us – we are never quite sure if what we are seeing is real or not, and although by the end, we know she has committed murder, it isn’t the one we think she did. The photography by Vilmos Zsigmond is great; the score by John Williams evocative, and Altman’s direction is superb, if not what we expect from him. Images deserves to be placed alongside the most interesting of Altman movies.

9. Chloe in the Afternoon (Eric Rohmer)
I wonder if more people have seen a Rohmer movie, or remember Gene Hackman’s line in Night Moves about them – where he said they were as exciting as watching paint dry. I have to admit, I need to delve deeper in Rohmer’s films, but this simple film is pretty much perfect for what it is – but yes, if you’re someone like Hackman in Night Moves, you may complain that nothing happens. It is a film about a office worker who likes to take late lunches – the crowds aren’t as bad, and he’s peaceful. Then he meets Chloe, and they spend their afternoons together – talking, laughing, flirting etc. It makes the executive feel good to know this beautiful young woman likes him – although he has a wife at home. He likes to daydream about the beautiful women in Paris, but now that he is presented with a real live one, he isn’t quite sure what he wants. The movie is about the games we play with each other – and how even something so seemingly innocent can blow up in our faces.

8. The King of Marvin Gardens (Bob Rafelson)
The King of Marvin Gardens is a very strange film. It stars Jack Nicholson, in a very un-Jack Nicholson role. He is quiet, only really letting out his feelings when he works as an all night DJ, when he is sure no one is listening to him. He travels to Atlantic City to see his brother (Bruce Dern) who has big deals cooking, and wants his help. When Nicholson gets there, it becomes clear that these big deals will probably never go through, and also finds Dern living with two women – Ellen Burstyn and her daughter Julie Ann Robinson – who seem to be in a game of sexual competition with each other. The movie is undeniable strange, but it is also completely unique. Bob Rafelson was a great director early in the 1970s – with Five Easy Pieces and this one, but his career for whatever reason was impossible to sustain. But he left us with two great films – and that is more than you can say for most filmmakers. The King of Marvin Gardens is completely, totally original.

7. Frenzy (Alfred Hitchcock)
Frenzy was Alfred Hitchcock’s second last film – but in many ways, it was the last time he would make one of his classic thrillers (his last film, Family Plot, unseen by me, is apparently more of a dark comedy). It isn’t quite as complex as his very best films, but it is much more violent and sexually explicit (what a difference the 12 years between Psycho and this film made to what you could show on screen). It is a classic Hitchcock setup, where an innocent man seems guilty of a series of brutal murders committed by someone only known as The Necktie Killer. We know he is innocent, because we know the identity of the killer from the start – in fact we often follow him along on his exploits, and Hitchcock does a masterful job at creating suspense in scene after scene as we watch him commit the crime, and then try to escape. The film is a throwback to his earlier work, with a level of violence. It isn’t one of his very best, but it’s better than just about any thriller made in recent memory.

6. Sleuth (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
Sleuth is an excellent two person movie starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine, each delivering one of their best performances. Olivier is an aging mystery writer, and Caine is his young, trophy wife’s lover. Caine comes to the house to tell Olivier that his marriage is over, and that he will be taking his wife. But Olivier doesn’t take this lying down – he loves games, and is an expert at them, and he decides to have some fun with Caine. The plot gets complicated as it moves along, and yet it is always buoyed by these two great performances, and the direction by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and old studio master who excelled in doing movies like this, where dialogue is everything. I doubt Anthony Schafer had to change a word of his play – they didn’t expand it like so many plays do, but the film doesn’t feel stage bound. It feels alive and fresh, witty and fun. Forget the remake, which had some marginal charms of its own – this is the version you need to see.

5. The Heartbreak Kid (Elaine May)
Elaine May made The Heartbreak Kid as a kid of opposite version of her old partner’s The Graduate (Nichols and May were a hit on Broadway before they had a falling out). The Heartbreak Kid is not as well known, or as well remembered as The Graduate (and the awful Ben Stiller remake didn’t help), but in my mind it is a better film – funnier, and yet more realistic, with an ending that is just about perfect. Charles Grodin gives the best performance of his career as a Jew who marries his girlfriend (the absolutely wonderfully Jeannie Berlin solely because she won’t sleep with him until they are married. But after the wedding night, she starts to drive him insane, and on the Honeymoon meet the shiksa goddess Cybil Sheppard and is instantly in love. She flirts back, and the two have chemistry together, but when she returns to college, he divorces his wife and goes to win her over for good. The performances by these three – not to mention Eddie Albert as Sheppard’s father – are wonderful, and the movie is hilarious, and yet also rather sad. The final scene in the movie has Grodin getting everything he wanted – and realizing that he is still a hollow shell of a man.

4. Cabaret (Bob Fosse)
Cabaret is one of my favorite movie musicals for a simple reason – it doesn’t feel the need to make us happy, but instead shows us a darker side of humanity. Bob Fosse specialized in this – how else can you explain All That Jazz, an even better film, that ends with his surrogate being zipped into a body bag? The film is anchored by Liza Minnelli’s stunning performance as Sally Bowles – who in Germany circa 1930 takes absolutely nothing seriously, not even the rising tide of Nazism. She is a nihilist in some ways, completely lost in the moment, and not caring about what happens. She is also a stunning musical performer – almost as good as her mother – and she delivers a knockout performance here. The title cabaret is overseen with exuberance by Joel Grey, who keeps the show going, no matter what. Cabaret is a sad movie, not one of happiness, but one of desperation. It plays like a musical version of Visconti’s The Damned, with all that exuberance, the sexuality and Nazis rising at the same time.

3. Deliverence (John Boorman)
John Boorman’s Deliverance is a nightmare of a film – a film that reminded me of the work of Sam Peckinpah, particularly Straw Dogs, where a seemingly civilized man is confronted by violence and is forced to act. The four men at the heart of Deliverance face the same choices. Sure, they are big on acting tough and macho, but when put to the test, only two of the four really have the instincts to survive. They are four city slickers (Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty) who head out on a rafting expedition in the middle of nowhere. And that’s when the hillbillies show up. If you can hear the phrase “I’m going make you squeal like a pig” and not squirm uncomfortably, then it’s because you haven’t seen this movie. The film is intense, violent, disturbing and ultimately quite challenging. The performances bring a degree of rawness, realism to the proceedings that is necessary, because we must believe these four guys – not just as men but as friends – for the film to work. All of the performances are great, but Ned Beatty gets the prize for the best one – and a brave performance it is at that. I guarantee that once you’ve seen Deliverance, you will never forget it.

2. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Werner Herzog)
No one makes films quite like Werner Herzog. This mad, German director has a huge resume of films, almost all of them unique and different not just from everything else, but from each other as well. But for me, the only time he ever got this perfect was this film. The great, and insane, Klaus Kinski gives his best performance as Aguirre, a European explorer leading an expedition up the river in the Amazon. They are completely unprepared for the climate – their bulky armor is unsuited for the environment – and as the expedition goes forward, violence erupts, and Aguirre goes almost completely insane. The movie reminded me of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and of course Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, but perhaps even more insane. Herzog’s direction is wonderful, weird and completely his own – and in Kinski he found the perfect Aguirre. A strange, one of a kind masterpiece.

1. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola)
Does anything really need to be said about The Godfather? It is one of the few films in cinema history that you could describe as absolutely perfect. Francis Ford Coppola’s epic beginning to his series is the most entertaining entry in the series – pitch perfect casting of Marlon Brando as The Don, and Al Pacino, James Caan and John Cavazle as his three very different sons, and Robert Duvall as his adoptive son. A plot that moves relentlessly for nearly three hours, piling up body after body, and showing us Michael’s fall from grace – from an idealist who wants nothing to do with the family business, into a murderer and mobster (the second film will show just how far his descent goes). The direction is wonderful, the screenplay full of iconic lines that still have the ability to appear real. Yes, The Godfather is one of the very best films ever made.

Just Missed The Top 10: Across 110th Street (Barry Shear), Avanti! (Billy Wilder), The Candidate (Michael Ritchie), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Bunuel), Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex*(*but were afraid to ask) (Woody Allen), Fritz the Cat (Ralph Bakshi), The Getaway (Sam Peckinpah), Last House on the Left (Wes Craven).

Notable Films Missed: The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Rainer Werner Fassbinder), Butterflies Are Free (Milton Katselas), The Emigrants (Jan Troell), Fat City (John Huston), Fellini's Roma (Federico Fellini), Out 1: Spectre (Jacques Rivette), Pakeezah (Kamal Amrohi), Pink Flamingos (John Waters), Rocker (Klaus Lemke), Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky), Sounder (Martin Ritt), Tout va bien (Jean Luc Godard & Jean Pierre Gorin), Two English Girls (Francois Truffaut).

Oscar Winner – Best Picture: The Godfather
Some choices for the Best Picture Oscar are obvious – and this is one of them. The Godfather was the perfect blend of old and new Hollywood – from its cast of veterans alongside newcomers, to its epic Hollywood feel, from fresh, exciting young director. It was also far and away the most popular film of the year – the biggest hit, an instantly iconic film that has come to define the gangster movie. No other choice really seemed to have these things going for it – and it’s why almost 40 years later it stands up as one of the best winners of all time.

Oscar Winner – Best Director: Bob Fosse, Cabaret
It’s easy to forget, since The Godfather won the Best Picture Oscar, that Bob Fosse’s Cabaret actually won the most Oscars this year – 8 compared to The Godfather’s 3. Fosse’s movie, which shows the moral decay in Germany on the eve of WWII, is one of the best known musicals of the 1970s. It contains some excellent songs, performances and a distinctive Fosse feel to it. It is a great achievement from a great director.

Oscar Winner – Best Actor: Marlon Brando, The Godfather
Much like the film itself, there should be little that needs to be said about what is perhaps the most iconic, the most imitated movie performance of all time. Considering this was Brando’s big comeback role, you’d think he’d give it his all – but while the performance remains one of the greatest in history, Brando hardly seemed to care. He didn’t bother to learn his lines, and instead had them written everywhere around him. He decided on the day of shooting his first scene that he wanted to pet a cat while doing it, so he did. And on and on. That Brando could simply toss off a performance this good is astounding – it truly is one of the best in history, from one of the great actors of all time.

Oscar Winner – Best Actress: Liza Minnelli, Cabaret
Liza Minelli’s performance in Cabaret is one of the great musical performances of all time. Some have complained over the years that she is too talented to play Sally Bowles – who is supposed to be only average. But to me, when I see a musical, and I want to see it done to the hilt. Minnelli proves a number of times in this movie that she is as good as her mother – had she been in the old studio age, she would have had even more success. It is a magnificent performance in a great film.

Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actor: Joel Grey, Cabaret
Joel Grey looks and acts much like a sideshow freak through most of Cabaret. He is the Master of Ceremonies at the title club, and he keeps the show on stage no matter what. Perhaps Grey only won because the three Godfather boys – Pacino, Caan and Duvall split the vote – but I don’t think so (even if I would have voted for one of them). This is a cheerfully insane performance, one of the strangest of all time to win an Oscar, and sheer genius by a musical legend.

Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actress: Eileen Heckart, Butterflies Are Free
I have never seen Butterflies Are Free, nor had any real desire to. The movie, about a blind man and his overbearing mother (Heckart) sounds kind of lame, and the only time anyone ever mentions it is when talking about Oscar winning performances – and even then they don’t sound too enthused. If it comes on TCM one day, I’ll watch it, but I’m certainly not going out of my way to see it.