Movie Review: Life During Wartime

Life During Wartime ****
Directed By: Todd Solondz.
Written By: Todd Solondz
Starring: Shirley Henderson (Joy), Allison Janney (Trish), Ciarán Hinds (Bill), Paul Reubens (Andy), Michael K. Williams (Allen), Michael Lerner (Harvey), Dylan Riley Snyder (Timmy Maplewood), Ally Sheedy (Helen), Rich Pecci (Mark), Chris Marquette (Billy), Renée Taylor (Mona), Charlotte Rampling (Jacqueline).

Todd Solondz is one of the most original filmmakers working anywhere in the world today. His films all take place in a universe seemingly unto itself, with characters appearing in one movie after they were introduced in another. His films are mainly about extremely dysfunctional families, and often involve taboo bust conversations, and children placed in situations that we can barely believe we are seeing. The children in his films are not wide eyed innocents, but have been warped by their cluelessly cruel parents, and are in effect on their way to becoming monsters. In Solondz’s films, the sins of the parents are almost always visited upon they children. Oh, and all of his films are comedies – demented and dark comedies to be sure, but comedies nonetheless.

Life During Wartime takes place in the same universe as Solondz’s biggest hit – 1998’s Happiness. All of the major characters from that movie are back in this one (with a couple thrown in from his Welcome to the Dollhouse for good measure), but they are played by different actors. It doesn’t matter though. Like his previous film Palindromes – where he used 8 different actors to play a 13 year old girl who wants to become pregnant – these characters cannot change who they are no matter how different they look.

Like Happiness, Life During Wartime opens in a restaurant where Joy (here played by Shirley Henderson, taking over from Jane Adams) is eating with the sad sack man in her life, who tries to give her an ashtray with her name engraved on it. In Happiness, this was Andy (Jon Lovitz), who reacts harshly when Joy dumps him, and ends up committing suicide. (Andy returns several times in this movie as well as a ghost, and is played with scary skill by Paul “Pee Wee Herman” Reubens). This time though, the man who tries to give her the ashtray is Allen (Michael K. Williams taking over for Philip Seymour Hoffman), the phone sex freak in Happiness. The two have been married, and Allen says he has left all his addictions behind. But the waitress says differently, prompting Joy to leave Allen and travel from her hometown in New Jersey to Florida, where her mother and sister Trish (Allison Janney, taking over for Cynthia Stevenson) have relocated.

Trish has been able to put her life back together after her husband Bill (Ciaran Hinds taking over for Dylan Baker) was put in jail at the end of Happiness for pedophilia. She has told her young son Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder) that his father is dead. Trish has fallen for Harvey Wiener (Michael Lerner, who is playing the role that originated in Welcome to the Dollhouse), a devoted Jew who wants to be buried in Israel, despite never having been there before. In one of the films funniest, yet most shocking, scenes Trish confides in her young son that all Harvey has to do is touch her elbow and she becomes wet. Harvey is not especially attractive or rich, or young for that matter, but she is what Trish craves in a man – normal.

Meanwhile, Bill has been released from prison, and stalks through the movie almost silently. He visits the family’s new home in Florida – but only when they are not home. He picks up a woman (Charlotte Rampling) is a bar and takes her back to her hotel room. She catches him raiding her purse after they are done, and is offended and throws him out. He is not so much interested in sex with her, but he does need money. He then travels across country to Oregon to see his son Billy (Chris Marquette), now in university. In Happiness, perhaps the most memorable scene in the film comes when Bill confessed to Billy what he did to his friends at the sleepover. Perhaps the best scene in this movie is when the two of them talk – the conversation once again is not what we expect it to be.

Poor Joy. Along with Dawn Wiener from Welcome to the Dollhouse, she is the most sympathetic character in Solondz’s films. She is a nice person, unlike her sisters who are either obsessed with being normal (Trish) or else so self involved and egocentric – Helen (Ally Sheedy, brilliant in her one scene taking over for Lara Flynn Boyle), yet all she gets is dumped on by everyone. Her family considers her a failure, and then men in her life blame her for all of their failings. Andy comes back from the dead to haunt her, first seemingly being sweet, until she rejects him all over again, which makes him mean. Now Allen is blaming her for his own problems as well. It is no wonder that she is as meek as she is. In this film, Shirley Henderson plays Joy as a woman who is pretty much afraid to open her mouth – every time she does, all that happens is that she gets insulted. Already low on confidence in the first film, but this point she is almost destroyed.

In fact, we feel sorry for a lot of the characters in this movie. Poor Harvey, who does seem like a nice, normal guy in the film, but not as much. It is a testament to the strength of the film that perhaps the funniest scene in the movie is when Timmy mistakes Harvey for a pedophile. Only in a Solondz film would this even be attempted, let alone pulled off as brilliantly as it is. Harvey’s son Mark is back – even further gone done the road of misanthropy then he was in his one scene at the end of Palindromes. Even Bill the pedophile is portrayed with more complexity than most pedophiles get in the movies. Hinds plays him without judgment as a broken man, who knows he has made mistakes, and is still wondering about their consequences. He is much more sympathetic than his shallow, superficial ex-wife. Solondz even seems to hold his own profession up for ridicule when Helen arrives, having given up the glamorous world of poetry to become a Hollywood screenwriter, who is currently dating Keanu Reeves (who sadly, does not make a cameo). It is so hard to write a good screenplay that Joy could not possibly understand the stress and strain that Helen is under.

Solondz does not make it easy, either on his characters or his audience members. His films are often difficult to watch, so he is never really going to have a mainstream hit on his hands. In fact, many of the ardent supporters of his first two films – Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness – seem to have abandoned him on his two films after that (Storytelling and Palindromes). But for me, Solondz remains one of the most distinctive voices in American movies. His films challenge you to see things in a different way. His films may shock you, but they are always honest. Life During Wartime is one of the year’s best films, because Solondz takes risks, and pulls them brilliantly.

Movie Review: Winter's Bone

Winter’s Bone *** ½
Directed by: Debra Granik.
Written By: Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell.
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence (Ree Dolly), John Hawkes (Teardrop), Kevin Breznahan (Little Arthur), Dale Dickey (Merab), Garret Dillahunt (Sheriff Baskin), Shelley Waggener (Sonya), Lauren Sweetser (Gail), Ashlee Thompson (Ashlee), William White (Blond Milton), Casey MacLaren (Megan), Isaiah Stone (Sonny), Valerie Richards (Connie), Beth Domann (Alice), Tate Taylor (Satterfield), Cody Brown (Floyd), Ronnie Hall (Thump Milton).

I get tired of movies that seem to be on autopilot. Most movies are in that from the beginning of the movie, we can often see precisely what is going to happen by the end of the movie. These can get boring, even if they are well made, which is why I prefer movies that are more grounded in their characters then their stories. Winter’s Bone is a movie like that – a film that draws its characters in realistic ways, and then expands the main characters world into a place we rarely see in the movies. The film takes place in the backwoods of Missouri, where everyone knows everyone, everyone seems to be related somehow, and that has a code of silence more unbreakable than the mafia’s. They take care of their own one way or another around here.

The characters in Winter’s Bone are not on autopilot. Lesser filmmakers probably would have turned the film into a thriller, and while there are some elements of thrillers here, this movie is not a thriller. It stars Jennifer Lawrence is a wonderful performance as Ree Dolly, a mature beyond her years 17 year old. She has to pretty much raise her two younger siblings by herself. Her father runs off for weeks at a time, and her mother has had a nervous breakdown, and now spends all her time drugged out and staring off into space. She doesn’t complain, but just gets it done. When the sheriff comes to her house and tells her that her dad is due in court next week, she tells him to piss off. But then he tells her that in order to get bail, he put up their house and their land. If he doesn’t show, they lose it all. She hasn’t seen her dad in months, but she needs that house to take care of her brother and sister. So she goes to see everyone she can think of who may know where he dad is. These are people who do not like to talk to anyone, and are not going to be worn down by some pissant kid, who they would just as soon kill as tell her anything.

Lawrence carries the movie throughout. She is in practically every scene, and she has an unwavering moral code. She is smart, but had to drop out of school at a young age, and doesn’t really understand the way the world outside her own works – as when she goes to talk to a military recruiter who explains how things really work. All she knows is her backwoods home, and the people who have been around her forever. To her, all of this is normal, and although she looks longingly at the kids who get to go to school, she knows she isn’t one of them. She doesn’t complain or cry, she just goes ahead and does what needs to be done.

One of the accomplishments of Winter’s Bone is how well the cast fits together. Aside for Lawrence, John Hawkes and Garrett Dillahunt, I didn’t recognize the actors in this movie at all. They have the kind of faces you don’t see much in movies – beaten down, sad as if they have seen too much in their lives, yet determined to go on seeing it. Lawrence, who is gorgeous, doesn’t allow her beauty to overpower her character, nor does she stick out like a sore thumb like many beautiful women do in movies like this. She has the same look in her eyes, just younger, more hopeful and optimistic. John Hawkes, so good in so many movies, looks just like everyone else in the movie. He is turning himself into a kind of Harry Dean Stanton, of whom it was once written that the lines on his face look like a roadmap to hell. Hawkes has that same look. These actors fit into their surroundings, and the rest of the cast brings themselves up to their level.

Written and directed by Debra Granik (who made the excellent Down to the Bone a few years ago, which kickstarted Vera Farmiga’s career), Winter’s Bone is intelligent and brilliantly well made. At times, the film lacks narrative drive – it spends perhaps a little too much time on all those faces, and not enough moving the plot forward, but that’s a minor flaw. Winter’s Bone is about people and places we rarely see in the movies – and I for one am glad that I saw these ones.

Movie Review: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice ** ½
Directed by: Jon Turteltaub.
Written By: Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal & Matt Lopez and Doug Miro & Carlo Bernard.
Starring: Nicolas Cage (Balthazar), Jay Baruchel (Dave), Alfred Molina (Horvath), Teresa Palmer (Becky), Toby Kebbell (Drake Stone), Omar Benson Miller (Bennet), Monica Bellucci (Veronica), Alice Krige (Morgana).

I know a lot of people hate Nicolas Cage. They say he goes over the top way too often and that he often delivers utterly awful performances. While I wouldn’t really disagree with that notion ( I have after all seen The Wicker Man, Gone in 60 Seconds, Windtalkers and Ghost Rider among others), I have always loved Cage anyway. Yes, when he’s bad, he’s downright awful. But when he is great, like in last year’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, no one can match his zany brilliance. So, every time a Nicolas Cage movie comes out, I’m always there. His latest, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is neither a disaster nor brilliant, but kind of falls somewhere in between. In fact, while you wouldn’t say that Cage’s performance in the movie is subtle, he certainly is playing the straight man to Jay Baruchel.

The Sorceror’s Apprentice stars Cage as a former protégé of Merlin, who has spent the last 1300 years or so looking for someone call the Prime Merlinian – a sorcerer who has Merlin’s power, but has yet to find anyone. He needs the Prime Merlinian, because only they can kill Morgana, a powerful evil sorcerer once and for all. Cage’s Balthazar has imprisoned Morgan in a doll for the intervening years, fighting off evil sorceror’s, including Horvath (Alfred Molina) to do so. If she is ever let out of the doll, she could destroy the world. And it seems that in Physics student Dave (Baruchel), Balthazar has finally found his man.

I don’t feel the need to go into the intricacies of the plot, because really, it is all rather silly. Essentially Balthazar needs to train Dave to make him a powerful sorcerer, because Horvath and his protégé Drake (Toby Kebbell) want to free Morgana and soon. But Dave isn’t sure the life of a sorcerer is all that great – especially if it risks the new relationship he has with Becky (Teresa Palmer) who he been in love with since he was 10.

So yeah, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is silly from the start, but it also has moments that are damn fun as well. Baruchel is charming and funny as Dave – just like he has been in his other movies this year How to Train Your Dragon, The Trotsky and She’s Out of My League. There is a star in there waiting to come out. Cage is loopy and fun as Balthazar, without going too far over the top. He’s in fine form, but for me, I kind of wanted him to go a little farther over the top. After all, he’s playing a 1,300 year old sorcerer – if there was a time to go bizarre, this would be it. Luckily, Alfred Molina chews the scenery nicely as Horvath, and Kebbell is just plain fun as a Criss Angel clone. I can’t say I was bored by the movie because I wasn’t. It was fun in fits and starts, and even when it wasn’t, it wasn’t painfully awful either. But it wasn’t enough fun to really justify seeing the film either. The director is Jonathan Turteltaub who did the two National Treasure movies with Cage, and while this movie is just as goofy as those ones were, it didn’t bother me much this time. After all, this is about sorcerer’s not history. The film is a pleasant time waster, nothing more, nothing less.

Movie Review: Solitary Man

Solitary Man ***
Directed by: Brian Koppelman & David Levien.
Written By: Brian Koppelman.
Starring: Michael Douglas (Ben Kalmen), Susan Sarandon (Nancy Kalmen), Danny DeVito (Jimmy Merino), Mary-Louise Parker (Jordan Karsch), Jenna Fischer (Susan Porter), Imogen Poots (Allyson Karsch), Jesse Eisenberg (Daniel Cheston), Richard Schiff (Steve Heller), Jake Richard Siciliano (Scotty), David Costabile (Gary Porter), Ben Shenkman (Pete Hartofilias), Olivia Thirlby (Cheston's Girlfriend).

There are some roles that seem like an actor just needs to play them. For Michael Douglas, the role of Ben Kalmen in Solitary Man is one of those roles. By now, Douglas has played so many high powered businessmen in expensive suits and slicked back hair, that he can do them in his sleep. I think he is often underrated as an actor, and his performances are often much better than they seem on the surface – he makes everything look so easy, that his skill is often overlooked. Douglas delivers one of his best performances in Solitary Man – a solid movie no doubt, but one that is also a little perfunctory. It needed an actor liked Douglas to make it worthwhile – and Douglas delivers.

When we first meet Kalmen, he is looking at the window of a doctor’s office. His doctor comes in, and Kalmen launches into a spiel about getting him set up in a new car – he is New York’s “Honest Car Dealer” after all, and talking about golf. But his doctor has some bad news for him. One of his tests showed an irregularity, and he’ll need to come for more work. Kalmen drops the act and goes silent. We flash forward 6 and a half years later, and although Kalmen is still putting on his charming act, no one is buying anymore. He lost his car dealerships in some sort of scandal and spent all is money keeping himself out of jail. He has gotten divorced from his wife (Susan Sarandon) and has spent the intervening years screwing anything that moves – preferably younger women, but in a pinch he’ll take anything. His current “girlfriend” is Jordan (Mary Louise Parker) who is dating because her dad is a big shot and can help get him back on track. But Jordan has an 18 year old daughter, Allyson (Imogen Poots), and you know how it is. Even Kalmen’s daughter Susan (Jenna Fischer), who has let him get away with everything is growing tired of him.

I have never seen Douglas look older, saggier than he does in Solitary Man. Yes, Kalmen puts on a good show, trying not to let anyone see how desperate, how broke he is really is, but people can see through him. Even when he goes back to his old University with Allyson to try and pull some strings and get her in, everyone looks at him a little differently. He wants to be make in University – and even takes a young student (Jessie Eisenberg) he meets there under his wing, but he’s pushing 60 now, and instead of being the cool, older guy, he’s just the creepy old man who the kids humor more than anything else. He just cannot admit to himself that he has failed, that he has aged and that he is much closer to end of the his life than the beginning.

Douglas is the reason to see Solitary Man. He is surrounded by a wonderful supporting cast, all doing some excellent work, but their roles seem slightly preprogrammed. They fit neatly into their designated slot as the wise old best friend, loving ex-wife, daughter who puts up with too much, young apprentice, young sexpot, etc. They do their job, which is to support Douglas, and do it well. But this is Douglas’ show, and he carries the movie throughout. Douglas is great when he is in his salesman mode, but he is even better in the films quieter moments – sometimes just sitting by himself which is the only time he really allows himself to let his guard down, and not try and impress everyone.

Somehow I think that when this role was offered to Douglas, he knew he had to do it. This is a smaller film after all – much smaller than we are used to seeing Douglas in. He has built a career since Wall Street as the kind of slick salesman, and has done a great job in a variety of roles. But most of the them, Douglas’ character seem so confident, so assured. Here he plays a guy who simply putting up that front to the world, where all around him things are crumbling. By the end of the movie, he may be ready to move on, to grow up and accept his life for what it is. For Ben Kalmen, that counts as a small miracle.

Movie Review: Inception

Inception ****
Directed by: Christopher Nolan.
Written By: Christopher Nolan.
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio (Cobb), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Arthur), Ellen Page (Ariadne), Marion Cotillard (Mal), Tom Hardy (Eames), Ken Watanabe (Saito), Cillian Murphy (Robert Fischer, Jr.), Dileep Rao (Yusuf), Tom Berenger (Browning), Pete Postlethwaite (Maurice Fischer), Michael Caine (Miles), Lukas Haas (Nash).

Inception is almost a throwback film, which is odd for a film that is so full of cutting edge visuals. It is a big budget mind screw of a movie that keeps going further and further down the rabbit hole which each new plot development. It reminded me of a time – the late 1960s through the mid 1970s to be exact – when talented directors were given a lot of money by the studios and told to make whatever the hell they wanted to. In an era where we mainly get mindless blockbusters, here is a movie that is all about the mind and a film that constantly twists and turns itself inside out. This is the type of film you get to make when you’re last film was The Dark Knight – a huge commercial and critical success – and the studio wants to keep you happy. And I for one am happy that director Christopher Nolan decided to push himself hard with this movie. It is his best film to date.

Inception takes place in the near future where corporate espionage has taken a new twist – instead of breaking into your office to steal your secrets, thieves break into your mind and find them. They do through what is called “shared dreaming” where they are hooked up to a machine with you, and enter the world. There are a lot of rules to this world that requires architects to build the dream world, but I won’t go into them. Essentially though, you only have so much time in the dream world before the dreamer’s subconscious turns on the outsiders and try to kill them. Luckily, if you die in a dream, you simply wake up. The further down into the dream world you go however, the more unstable things get, and the risk of falling into limbo becomes all too real. The dream world moves faster than real life – 5 minutes of actual sleeping is like an hour in the dream world, and when you get into dreams inside of dreams, the time limit speeds up even more.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, who is the most talented “extractor” in the business. He is able to get pretty much anything he wants from whoever he wants, but for reasons that are not explained, he can never go home again and see his kids – which is really all he wants to do. When a mission to get secrets out of Saito (Ken Watanabe) goes wrong, Saito isn’t angry, but instead offers Cobb and his team a new job. But this time, it isn’t extraction he wants, but inception – planting an idea into the head of one of his competitors – in this case Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy) who is about to inherit his dying fathers massive company. Inception is thought to be impossible, but Cobb takes the deal anyway, because Saito says that he can get him home again.

So DiCaprio assembles his team. In some regards, Inception feels like one of those 1960s heist movies, where a crackerjack team of professionals are assembled to pull off a seemingly impossible job. Cobb’s partner is Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt) who knows the risks, but follows Cobb anyway. Cobb adds a new architect, Ariadne (Ellen Page) to build the dream worlds, the skilled Eames (Tom Hardy) who is gifted at both theft and impersonation and Yusef (Dileep Rao) who can supply the team with the type of drugs they need to put them all under for long enough to get the job done. Since they are going three levels down – that is a dream inside a dream inside a dream – they need them. The biggest threat to them is Mal (Marion Cottilard), Cobb’s wife who shows up and screws up their plans.

That is all I am going to say about the plot. One of the joys of watching the movie is to see this intricately layered plot take twist after twist, and draw us further and further into this dream world. The smartest thing that Nolan did perhaps was not making the dream world too unreal – this isn’t like The Lovely Bones or What Dreams May Come – but rather a dream world that looks and feels much like our own, but is just slightly off kilter. The normal rules don’t really apply, and there is a mesmerizing sequence in zero gravity, but the film feels real. Like the best special effects, the ones in Inception are pretty much invisible.

Besides the plot is not really what the movie is about, it’s just what happens in the story. Like the recent Shutter Island, this film is really all about the DiCaprio characters mind, haunted by the past in ways that he only gradually comes to understand. Although they are not entering his subconscious, he brings it along with them anyway, and it becomes a danger to everyone else. The movie is about dreams and memory, the effects of the past on the present and finally life and death. A whole hell of a lot is going on beneath the surface of this film – it’s like a Charlie Kaufman film, if Kaufman made action thrillers instead of cerebral comedies.

The performances in the movie have got to be just right, or the whole effect of the film is blown. Luckily Nolan has assembled perhaps the best ensemble cast of the year. DiCaprio leads the cast, and he continues to show why he just may be the best actor of his generation – and the one most willing to take risks. He inhabits Cobb, which is a complicated role, wonderfully, and brings us into his mind literally. His supporting cast is excellent – particularly Ellen Page, miles away from Juno here, as the architect, and the only one who truly understands what Cobb is going through, and Cotillard, who is given a near impossible role as Cobb’s wife, but really only his projection of her. Joseph Gordon Levitt continues to prove that he is one of the best actors out there right now, and Tom Hardy builds on his excellent work in the under seen Bronson last years as Eames. The rest of the cast fills out their roles nicely.

It would have been easy for Nolan to make a much simpler, more audience friendly hit. After The Dark Knight, he could have probably done anything he wanted to do – as long as he agreed to make another Batman sequel afterwards. But Nolan is a director who is constantly challenging my perception of him. He continues his string of excellent films that deal with the mind and morality, to go alongside the action – which he directs better than just about anyone else out there right now anyway. He has proven to be one of the best, most ambitious filmmakers out there right now – and Inception is another step forward for him.

Year in Review: 1963

In many ways, 1963 was the last gasp of the studio system. Sure, they would continue to produce their epics throughout the next few years, but this is when the tide really started to turn, and this is reflected in the Oscars of that year – where, while the studios still had enough clout to push their cumbersome epics into the Best Picture line-up (I’m thinking more of Cleopatra and How the West Was Won, more than Elia Kazan’s highly regarded America, America, which is unavailable on DVD, so I couldn’t watch it for this piece), but they went in other directions for their wins. The best films of 1963 come not from America – who only has 4 out of the top ten films on this list(and one of those is definitely NOT a studio production) – but from Italy, Sweden, Japan and Poland. The films by these filmmakers would be among the most celebrated and loved by the new generation of American filmmakers – who were just a few short years from greatness.

10. The Great Escape (John Sturges)
The Great Escape is one of the year’s best pure entertainments. The film is about a new, high tech German prison that they built to try and keep all the allied POWs captive during WWII. The film details the massive escape attempt from the prison – as three tunnels are devised in the hopes of breaking out 250 prisoners, and drawing resources away from the front lines in order to capture them. What everyone remembers about the film is Steve McQueen – perhaps in his best, and most iconic role as the “cooler king”, because he spends so much time in solitary because of his escape attempts – bouncing a baseball off the wall. His daring motorcycle escape is one of the best action sequences every put to film. The rest of the cast – led by James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, James Donald, Donald Pleasance and James Coburn are all wonderful in their roles as well. The movie can hardly be called a “feel good” story because of its tragic ending, but it certainly is one of the most entertaining films of the year – and one that remains endlessly re-watchable.

9. The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock)
On the surface, The Birds appears to be a rather simple, yet brilliantly well executed film, about flocks of birds who attack an unsuspecting woman (Tippi Hendron), her new boyfriend (Rod Taylor), and his family. The scenes with the bird attacks are brilliantly well staged by Hitchcock (especially a bird’s eye view of one attack), and there constant presence in the film builds a sense of true uneasiness throughout the whole thing. But the film is much more than a series of bird attacks – if it were just that, no matter how brilliant they were, the film would not be on the list. The film works to symmetrically break the Tippi Hendron character down. She is a spoiled brat at the beginning of the film, who thinks she is in complete control on her life. Throughout the film, she will continually learn that she is not as in control as she thinks she is – each time this mounting realization hits her, it is followed by a bird attack. She is broken down until in the end, she is essentially a guileless child again, completely dependent on someone else. The Birds is an absolutely brilliant film by the master, who while being late in his career, still never took the easy route.

8. Winter Light (Ingmar Bergman)
The middle installment of Ingmar Bergman’s “Silence of God” trilogy is, I think, the weakest – but that doesn’t mean it is not a great film. The film is about a Pastor (Gunnar Bjornstrand) who has lost his way. His wife has died, he has been having an affair with another woman (Ingrid Thulin), who loves him but who he can only treat with icy silence, or outright cruelty. When a parishioner (Max von Sydow) comes to him looking for advice about how to deal with the cruelty in the world, the fear of nuclear annihilation and the God’s silence, Bjornstrand is too involved with his own crisis to give von Sydow much comfort or support during his time of need. He can only tell him that they must have faith in the Lord, before admitting that he has lost his. Is it any wonder that von Sydow leaves him, and almost immediately commits suicide? Bergman was fascinated by the silence of God, not his absence per se, but by the fact that he no longer seemed to care about humanity. I think Winter Light could be one of Bergman’s most autobiographical films – painting a portrait of himself that is far from flattering as the selfish pastor who lets everyone around him down because he is so self involved. No, Winter Light doesn’t quite achieve the level of greatness of Through a Glass Darkly or The Silence – but it comes so damn close, it hardly matters.

7. Hud (Martin Ritt)
Paul Newman was known for playing charming characters – guys that women fall in love with easily because of that charm, and his good looks. In Martin Ritt’s Hud, based on a Larry McMurty novel, Newman gives one of his best performances, playing off of that image as the selfish, brutish, immoral, drunken title character. Hud has been fighting with his father (Melvyn Douglas) for years, because Douglas is a principled man, and Hud is selfish to the core. Hud’s older brother Norman died years ago, because of Hud’s behavior, and now Hud is trying to corrupt his nephew (Brandon De Wilde) into being just like him. Both Newman and DeWilde are attracted to the housekeeper (Patrica Neal), and although she is attracted to him, she is also wary – she knows exactly what kind of guy Hud is. Ritt’s film is about the difference between the generations – the older one is principled and honest, willing to lose everything if it means doing the right thing. The younger one doesn’t care about anyone but themselves. Newman is brilliant in the lead role, and the rest of the cast are his equal. The film is a penetrating, honest study of these men and women – and a classic American film.

6. Knife in the Water (Roman Polanski)
Knife in the Water was Roman Polanski’s debut film – and it has remained one of the best of his career. A wealthy couple are on their way to spend the day, and night, on their boat out on the lake. They run into a hitchhiker, and invite him along. What follows is a game of sexual one up manship, between the two men who are vying for the attention of the beautiful woman. Polanski’s imagery perfectly evokes the feeling of isolation and incarnation that is so key to the film. No one but these three characters is in the movie, and the film offers us glimpses into each of them, and it strips away all their outer layers to reveal the people underneath. The film feels more violent, more sexual than it actually is – no one dies in the film, and no one has sex – but the threat of both lays just beneath the surface. The cast certainly helps – Leon Niemczyk as the wealthy man, who feels his wife’s lust for the younger man, and doesn’t like it, Zygmunt Malanowicz as the young man with the knife, which is of course a phallic symbol, and especially Jolanta Umecka as the woman who is attracted to both men. Polanski would go onto make better films than Knife in the Water – but that doesn’t mean this isn’t a masterful film.

5. The Trial (Orson Welles)
Orson Welles is, of course, one of the greatest filmmakers of all time – and yet there are only a few of his films where his vision is up there on the screen with no compromises at all. The Trial is one of those few films. The film exists in a nightmare world where Joseph K. (Anthony Perkins) wakes up one day and is accused of a crime and arrested. They never tell him what his crime is, and he spends the entire film trying to figure it out. How is he supposed to defend himself when he has no idea what the hell he did? Based on Franz Kafka’s brilliant novel, Welles captures Kafka’s paranoid dystopia on film perfectly. He has always favored strange camera angles, and elaborate sets, and The Trial gives him an opportunity to play with those in abundance. Perkins is just about perfect in the lead role – a few years removed for Norman Bates, he had a squirmy energy that was right for the role. Welles used Perkins own hidden sexuality to great advantage – suggesting that he is hiding something, and doesn’t want to be found out, even though we are never told what they could be. Welles himself gives a wonderful performance as The Advocate – a lawyer, or something like that, who specializes in cases like Joseph’s, and whatever that may mean. He wants Joseph to gravel before him, and gets off on the power he has over people. My only problem with this masterpiece – that deserves to be mentioned right alongside other Welles masterpiece like Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, Touch of Evil and Chimes at Midnight – is the ending, which feels too final for the film, but when a film is this masterful, it’s impossible to complain.

4. High and Low (Akira Kurosawa)
Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low starts off as a fascinating moral puzzle, and then at the half way point, switches gears and becomes an equally fascinating police procedural. In the first half, Toshiro Mifune gives a marvelous performance as a successful businessman who has gone into huge debt to get the money he needs to take over the shoe company he works at. But his plans are thrown off when kidnappers advise them that they have his son – and want a huge amount of money from him for his return. Mifune agrees, but then learns that the kidnapper picked up the wrong boy – kidnapping his chauffer’s son, not his own. But the kidnapper is relentless. It doesn’t matter to him which boy he has – he will kill him if Mifune doesn’t pay up. He was willing to sacrifice everything to get his own son back, but will he do the same thing to get his servant’s son? The second half deals with the effort to locate the kidnapper, and is rigorous in its attention to detail. Kurosawa was always fascinated with Shakespeare – making Japanese versions of Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear, and although High and Low is not directly based on a Shakespeare play, it has the same epic feel, and tragedy in it that those other films do. The entire cast is great – especially Mifune who is put in an almost impossible situation, and finally Tsutomu Yamazaki as the kidnapper, whose motives are different than we expect. Kurosawa is best known for his samurai films – but he was equally at home in the crime drama – and High and Low represents him at his very best.

3. The Leopard (Luchino Visconti)
Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard is one of the most gorgeous epics in cinema history. It takes place in 1860s Sicily, where a revolution is underway, and the old aristocratic ways are dying out. The aristocracy is represented by Burt Lancaster’s aging patriarch – who married a woman he didn’t love because it was a “good match”, and is now watching as his way of life is dying. His nephew (Alain Delon) is the rising star of the family, but he as well needs a good match. Lancaster’s brother in law was not as wise with his money as Lancaster was, and now Delon’s inheritance is in jeopardy. But when Delon falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy man (Claudia Cardinale)– of lower class standing – things seem to be falling into place. The Leopard, with all its period detail – the huge palaces, the ornate ballrooms, the meticulous costumes – makes this the most visually stunning of all of Visconti’s films. In the end though, the film – despite all its talk of politics – is really about one man – Lancaster – and his acceptance of death and mortality. Almost the entire last hour of the film – and at over three hours this is an epic – is devoted to a ball, but the key scenes are right before when a visiting diplomat offers Lancaster a Senate seat in the new regime, and Lancaster refuses – knowing that his way is on the way out. At the ball, when he dances with Cardinale, it is a dance of death. He knows, as does she, as does Delon, now her fiancée, that in different times, it would be Lancaster who ended up with this beautiful woman (and Cardinale has to rank among the most beautiful women of all time). But age, class and social demands have made that all impossible. Visconti’s film is attuned to the smallest details that never get lost in the visual splendor. Visconti himself was descended from the aristocracy, but hated what it did to the common man. Yet, his familial roots show in this film, which is a thoughtful, sensitive character study. A masterful film.

2. The Silence (Ingmar Bergman)
In the first part of his Silence of God trilogy, Through a Glass Darkly, a woman goes insane because her need for God is so intense, and all she finds is a spider. In the second part, Winter Light, people talk constantly about how God is silent, and has abandoned them. In the third, and best part, of the trilogy, there is no talk of God, because God exists nowhere in the world that Ingmar Bergman has created in this film. Two women and a boy get off a train in an unknown city, and check themselves in a hotel. The women are sisters. Ingrid Thulin is a repressed woman whose illness forced them to get off the train in the first place. Her sister is Gunnell Lindblom, who is anything but repressed. The boy (Jorgen Lindstrom) is Lindblom’s son, but has lived so long with the two women that it hardly matters. The sisters hate each – for reasons left unexplained, but probably has to do with their father. Lindblom feels no sympathy for Thulin, and flaunts her sexuality. The Silence is one of Ingmar Bergman’s best films – perhaps his very best. Often thought of as a cerebral director, who uses long monologues to get all his thoughts out, The Silence shows a different side of Bergman. The film is almost entirely visual – with long stretches where no dialogue exists at all. The two sisters represent two sides of the same coin – Thulin is the mind, constantly thinking, constantly probing, but is slowly dying. Lindblom is the body, thoughtless to anything but her own immediate desire. The boy tries to reconcile these two opposites – bring them together, but he cannot. The world outside the hotel is falling apart – we see tanks rumbling down the street, war or something worse, seems to be at hand, but no one mentions it. The Silence is one of the most haunting films in cinema history. It would not be the film that I would recommend you start your journey into Bergman’s film on – but perhaps the one where you should end it. Bergman was a director of immense talent, and The Silence maybe the film where everything he wanted to say came out perfectly.

1. 8 ½ (Federico Fellini)
8 ½ is perhaps the greatest film about filmmaking in history. Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) is a successful film director, supposed to be concentrating on directing a new autobiographical science fiction film, when he loses interest. The film is essentially interwoven between Guido’s present, and flashbacks and dream sequences that merge with reality at several points. The film details his relationships with women – his long suffering wife, his mistress, his star, his mother – both how they are in reality, and how he wishes they would be. The action takes place in a spa, where he goes to get away from the massive set of a new science fiction he is supposed to be making – although no one, not even him has any idea what the movie is actually about – there is no screenplay to speak of. The film is full of memorable images – the opening scene, the harem scene, the massive set, the final procession. When I saw the film the first time, I was 15, had never seen a Fellini film before, and wasn’t ready for it. Yet, even though I left the film completely and utterly confused (those clowns at the end were strange to me then), I never forgot the film. Now, having seen it multiple times, the true genius of the inventiveness of Fellini’s work becomes clearer, and I regard the film as one of my favorites. I still think I prefer La Dolce Vita – the films whose huge international success this one references – but 8 ½ is a masterpiece just the same.

Just Missed The Top 10: Charade (Stanley Donen), Cleopatra (Joseph L. Mankiewicz), Contempt (Jean Luc Godard),How the West Was Won (John Ford & Henry Hathaway) , Irma la Douce (Billy Wilder), Lilies of the Field (Ralph Nelson), Lord of the Flies (Peter Brook), The Pink Panther (Blake Edwards), Shock Corridor (Samuel Fuller),The Sword in the Stone (Wolfgang Reitherman),The Ugly American (George H. Englund), Youth of the Beast (Seijun Suzuki).

Notable Films Missed: An Actor's Revenge (Kon Ichikawa), America America (Elia Kazan), Barren Lives (Nelson Periera Dos Santos), Bay of Angels (Jacques Demy), El Verdugo (Luis Garcia Berlanga), Il Sorpasso (Dino Risi), Judex (Georges Franju), Le Feu follet (Louis Malle), Mothlight (Stan Brakhage), Muriel (Alain Resnais), The Nutty Professor (Jerry Lewis), The Servant (Joseph Losey), The VIPS (Anthony Asquith),

Oscar Winner – Best Picture & Director: Tom Jones (Tony Richardson)
It can hardly be seen as surprising that the Academy went with Tony Richardson’s Tom Jones this year. I have a feeling they sensed the changing of the guard was coming – and given that the nominees included Cleopatra, How the West Was Won, America America – three old school epics, along with a slight black and white character study (Lilies of the Field), they probably decided they wanted to be a little edgier in their pick. Richardson’s adaptation of the once scandalous novel may have taken place in England’s past, but he filmed it as if it was taking place in the 1960s, with strange camera moves and editing that makes it very much a 1960s film. To me, the film which must have seemed modern at the time, is no hopelessly dated. I watched the film once, and didn’t find much in it to like if I’m being honest about it. It is an utterly forgettable film, and one of my least favorite winners. Out of the nominees, I guess I would have liked to see America America win, even though I haven’t seen it, because none of the other three nominees were great films either.

Oscar Winner – Best Actor: Sidney Poitier, Lilies of the Field
When I think of Sidney Poitier and his career, I often feel sad. For a long time, he was the only African American being cast in lead roles in American movies. As such, there was pressure on him – from himself among others – to represent the African American community in a positive light. Therefore, he was often not just playing a man, but he was playing “The Black Man”, and had to be honorable in all his dealing, lest he be accused of confirming unflattering stereotypes at a time when they couldn’t afford to do that. Having said all of that, Poitier really was a terrific actor, and his dignity shined through in his every role. And his role in Lilies of the Field is one of his best – he is far and away the best reason to see the film, which itself is kind of bland. He plays a travelling handyman who stops in the desert of Arizona and decides to help a group of nuns to build their church. What fascinates me about the film, and Poitier’s performance, is that his character remains an enigma. They don’t explain where he came from, or at the end of the film, where he is going. It’s a fascinating performance to be sure, and I don’t want to rain on his historic victory (he was the first African American man ever to win an acting Oscar), but no matter how good Poitier is in this film, he cannot match Paul Newman’s performance in Hud (Poitier reportedly admired Newman, because he could play whatever kind of character he wanted to).

Oscar Winner – Best Actress: Patricia Neal, Hud
Patricia Neal is excellent in Hud, as the handywoman who is lusted after by Paul Newman, and is protected by his nephew Brandon De Wilde. It is a marvelous performance by an actress who had been working steadily for years. Oddly though, I think that this is more of a supporting performance than a lead one. She doesn’t have the screen time that Newman does, and perhaps not even as much as Melvyn Douglas who won the supporting actor Oscar for the film. It hardly matters though, as Neal is terrific and deserved to win an Oscar for the film – even if I think it is in the wrong category.

Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actor: Melvyn Douglas, Hud
Melvyn Douglas was a great actor for decades before Hud was released – most often working in the great comedies, most notably Ninotchka. But by 1963, despite an impressive resume, Douglas had never even been nominated for an Oscar let alone winning one. Giving him the award for Hud was a nice way for the Academy to make up for that – and better still, they gave him an Oscar for an excellent performance, far better than the other nominees.

Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actress: Margaret Rutherford, THE VIPS
I have to admit, that I have not seen this film. For a long time, it wasn’t available on DVD, and by the time it came out, I didn’t bother to rent it – again, it is a film that I will likely see at some point in the future. The film was not very well received at the time – and is notable mainly for it being the second collaboration between Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor that year, following Cleopatra. If not for Rutherford’s win, I have a feeling that The VIPS, which sounds like a more melodramatic version of Grand Hotel (if that’s possible) set in an airport would most likely be all but forgotten today. Still, considering that I cannot say I was found of any of the other nominees – Lila Skala in Lilies of the Field or any of the three nominees from Tom Jones, I guess I would most likely be pissed at whoever won the award this year.

Movie Review: Despicable Me

Despicable Me *** ½
Directed by: Pierre Coffin & Chris Renaud.
Written By: Ken Daurio & Cinco Paul & Sergio Pablos.
Starring: Steve Carell (Gru), Jason Segel (Vector), Russell Brand (Dr. Nefario), Julie Andrews (Gru's Mom), Will Arnett (Mr. Perkins), Kristen Wiig (Miss Hattie), Miranda Cosgrove (Margo), Dana Gaier (Edith), Elsie Fisher (Agnes).

Gru is a supervillian that would fit right in to the most ridiculous James Bond movie. He is tall, bald, has remarkably skinny legs and sounds like a Russian Arnold Schwarzenegger at times. He wants to be the best villain of all time – and he is pretty evil, as we witness early on in the movie when comes across a little boy crying over his split ice cream cone, and then makes him a balloon dog to cheer him up, only to pop it right after just because he can. His latest plan isn’t to take over the world, like many Bond villains, but instead to steal the moon. His rival, Vector, has just stolen a pyramid in Egypt, so Gru decides he needs to go even bigger if he is going to top him.

To do so, he needs a loan for the Bank of Evil (formerly Lehman Brothers a helpful sign informs us), but the Bank Executive thinks that Gru is getting too old, and that perhaps he should support Vector instead. Besides, in order to do what he needs to, Gru needs a shrink ray to make the moon a more manageable size, and Vector has stolen it, and despite his best efforts, Gru cannot break into Vector’s house. It is helpful that there “lairs” are really just two houses in the same suburban area. Gru hits upon an idea when he sees three orphan girls going door to door to sell cookies, and Vector opens his impregnable fortress to them. It isn’t long before Gru has adopted the three girls, not because he loves them, but to use them to get inside. But the three girls are so cute and lovable that not even Gru can hold out for long.

Despicable Me is one of the best, funniest animated movies of the year. It helps that they have the best voice cast this side of Toy Story. Steve Carell is great as Gru – disguising his voice, but you can still tell it is him. Jason Segal gets even nerdier then usual as Vector and Russell Brand is wonderful as the aging, hard of hearing Dr. Nefario, who always seems to get Gru’s order mixed up. Best of all may be the three little girls – particularly the lovable Agnes voice by Elsie Fisher, who voice matches the almost impossible cute animation for her character. Look into her eyes, and listen to her talk about her love of unicorns – especially if they are fluffy – and it’s impossible not to fall in love with her. And don’t even get me started on the wonderful minions.

Despicable Me is inventively animated for beginning to end. The theater near my house where I saw it, wasn’t playing it in 3-D, and perhaps that’s just as well – I’m growing increasingly tired with the technology, and can count the number of times that 3-D has actually enhanced a movie going experience on one hand, with a couple of fingers left over. The film is almost impossible colorful, and I fear that 3-D may have taken the edge off of those colors – which is a shame, because it works wonderfully here.

I continually find that many animated movies have grown lazy – slapping together stories and characters that don’t really interest audiences, simply to make a quick buck. That’s why, Toy Story aside, we get so many animated sequels that just are not very good. But Despicable Me feels fresh and alive – it draws us in almost immediately, and its rapid fire jokes almost all hit their marks. To put it quite simply, I had more fun at Despicable Me than I did at almost any other film this summer.