Year: 2008

(In theaters, January 2008) Every year, I do what I’m told and check out the Oscar-nominated films, catching up what I haven’t yet seen. Usually, this is an exercise in tediousness: Oscar rarely agrees with the paying public, and there’s usually a reason why I haven’t yet chosen to see those nominated films. But I think of it as a master-class in respectable cinema. There Will Be Blood is one of those films that aren’t all that enjoyable, but are made of very impressive pieces. Daniel Day-Lewis is exceptional as the obsessed oilman around whom this film revolves, an ultra-capitalist who’s not above two or three shocking gestures to prove his point. The clipped delivery of his dialog is only one of the elements that make his performance impossible to miss. Other sections of the film also hold up, in particular the historical re-creation of the early California oil boom. But writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson isn’t particularly interested in an accessible piece of cinema: The soundtrack of the film is as deliberately grating as in Punch-Drunk Love and his family epic stutters on and off without much connecting tissue. The film is about thirty minutes too long and yet so much material is missing that it often feels more like a series of sketches (or snippets from Upton Sinclair’s original novel) than a coherent film. The shock value of his character’s sudden violence also wears off quickly, leaving little to process once it’s done with a bang. At some point, I even started musing about how a battle between capitalist and preacher isn’t all that different from yet another Alien vs Predator film: whoever wins, the rest of us lose. (Am I the only one who dares compare those two films?) (Also: and am I the only one who started imagining Daniel Day-Lewis doing a cover of Kelis’ “Milkshake” at the end?) Other directors would have been able to do much better with the same material, but here we’re stuck in a deliberately myopic view of a fascinating time with an even more mesmerizing character. But, hey, if that’s the kind of thing that the Academy likes…

(On DVD, January 2008) If you’re looking for one of the biggest cultural icon of 20th-century Quebec, look no further: This is it. The movie that nearly every French-Canadian has seen at least once on TV, the classic story of an abused child suffering at the hands of her adopted mother in deep rural Quebec. (It’s based on a true story.) I hadn’t seen it in a while and while parts of the film appear quaint today, others have survived surprisingly well. It’s a surprise to recognize megastar Jeanette Bertrand in an early role, and hardly a surprise to remember that the actress who played the abusive mother, Lucie Mitchell, was instantly stereotyped and was reportedly assaulted in real life by people who couldn’t dissociate the actress with the character. Parts of the film are unbearably naive: The plot drivers are obvious, the technical quality of the film is poor, the staging is theatrical, the dialogs are on the nose, the scenes are slapped together (if you want to talk iconic, talk about the stove scene) and the ending reaches an apex of melodrama. But some fine bits still shine through: The outdoor scenes have a really convincing feel to them, the portrayal of an meek priest unable to stop the abuse can be seen as a daring criticism of the then all-powerful clergy, and as manipulative as it is, the melodrama still has a rough and respectable power. Certainly worth another look for anyone interested in French-Canadian pop-culture.

(In theaters, January 2008) As a confirmed fan of Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel autobiography, I had a number of apprehensions about this adaptation, but most of them were swept away by the end of the movie: It works both as a film and as an adaptation, and the mixture of drama, history and humor is just as balanced on the screen than in the page despite significant differences in how the story is told. The basic idea remains the same: This is the story of a young Iranian girl who, growing up, sees the Islamic revolution first-hand, survives the Iraq/Iran war and is sent to Europe when her rebellion gets to be dangerous. (Not that the story ends there.) The film itself is a wonderful piece of stylistic charm, mixing high technology with Satrapi’s iconic black-and-white drawings for a result that is quite unlike anything else in theaters this year. The writing is sharp either in French spoken dialogs or English sub-titles (one of which, regrettably, obscures a visual gag late in the film.) Fans of the original graphic novels will be pleased to note that the film exists as its own entity, with scenes that couldn’t exist on the page; film fans will be even happier to discover the wealth of extra material that the graphic autobiography (now available in a single unitary edition) has to offer. There’s a lot of biting humor and a lot of material to reflect upon, and the everyday details of life under an oppressive regime are telling. Comic books in written form have long escaped the “just for kids” stigma, and Persepolis will help do the same for the cinematographic form. If we’re lucky, it will mean more animated adaptations of successful graphic novels.

(In theaters, January 2008) The best horror films are often those that don’t reach for your throat with cheap shocks, loud stingers and oceans of blood. The Orphanage will feel immediately familiar to fans of The Sixth Sense, The Others and Pan’s Labyrinth: For a long time, there’s little to suggest that this is a horror film, and the hints only accumulate gradually. Cranked like a purring machine, The Orphanage is light on shocks and deep in atmosphere. Belén Rueda’s performance carries nearly the entire film as her character falls apart over the course of the events. There’s much to applaud in the script, from the double-trigger twist to an emotionally satisfying climax that works by not wimping out. There are a few rough spots for dramatic purposes, but the rest of the film holds together and is easily better than the vast majority of American horror films. Remember the pedigree I mentioned? This is the horror film that every connoisseur will have to see this year, if only to nag those who haven’t.

(On DVD, January 2008) This brainy documentary takes on a tough subject (the way the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq was mishandled) without much in terms of eye-candy: It’s mostly Baghdad footage and talking heads for the entire duration. But don’t let that stop you from watching this intelligent explanation of how and why the United States has really dropped the ball and exacerbated existing problems after its invasion. A lot of this material will be familiar to observers of the situation over the past few years, but No End In Sight does a fine job at piecing it together in a coherent picture that goes beyond the easy headlines. It’s a matter of policy decisions and adapting to the fact on the ground –and in there like in the rest of its administration, the Bush II regime is completely incompetent. The film shows over and over how capable people are ignored, sidelined or fired and replaced with ideologically malleable people who don’t have a clue. It adds up to a profoundly depressing portrait, a methodical argument without much in terms of overt partisan polemic. (Though Rumsfeld act as the film’s own bitter comic relief.) It’s not documentary-as-entertainment like we’ve seen so frequently over the past few years, but it’s a clever, remarkable piece of non-fiction cinema. It certainly deserves its Oscar nomination.

(In theaters, January 2008) If you want to understand Hollywood, why not avoid the best, ignore the worst and take a look at what falls right in-between? Take Mad Money, for instance, a middle-of-the-road criminal comedy that does nothing particularly well but still manages to entertain as long as you don’t ask too many questions. The setup is elegant: Three women in menial jobs at the Federal Reserve unite to smuggle out dollar bills on their way to the shredder. The details are dull and asinine (I can think of five practical objections to the scheme without thinking too hard: serial numbers; job rotation; truly-random searches, money laundering and volume handling), but this is not a detail-oriented movie. It’s really an excuse to see Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes play their own demographic stereotypes and spend some time thinking about what we would do in a similar situation. Never mind the weird ethics in which the movie tortures itself, the inner moral contradictions, the cheap ending or the broad physical comedy that never feels even connected to reality. It’s not such a bad time at the movies: in fact, given the dearth of female-driven movie out there, it’s almost a welcome change of pace. Mad Money‘s script is clumsy, from a flashback-driven structure to a disappointing number of modest laughs here and there. But its main problem is the film’s lack of overall ambition, mordant wit, ethical concern or sustained tension: it doesn’t do much with what it has in stock. Oh, fans of the three lead actresses will be happy, but no one will be overly impressed. And that can very well stand for most of Hollywood’s mid-list offerings.

(On DVD, January 2008) there’s something hilarious about the film’s self-important message about the dangers of letting your daughter go to the big city. Hard drugs, abusive boyfriends and Internet pornography are inevitable consequences of parental indulgence! The upper-middle-class paranoia of the script plays doubly false given the film’s own titillation factor and goody-goody characters. The murder mystery ends up being a false front for a hypocritical feature-length reactionary tract that resolves itself in a bitterly unsatisfying twist. While the pacing is generally satisfying and the production value hold up well, the film itself is a hollow shell. Too bad; the actors do generally well with what they’re given, and it’s always a pleasure to see Michel Côté get in a fist-fight.

(In theaters, January 2008) There are a number of really nice things about this film, and it’s a shame that some of them work at cross-purposes. Juno may begin as a tart-tongued indie comedy with a lot of cynicism, but it gradually transforms itself into a relatively better-mannered romantic drama with a lot more heart than you’d expect from Rainn Wilson’s initial rapid-fire smart-alec riffs. It works, in part because it mirrors the transitions of the characters themselves: Coolness is a variable quality in Juno, and the better people can often be the ones you don’t expect. It earns its heartfelt ending. On the other hand, the crunchy dialog gets more and more ordinary as the film advances, and it’s easy to pine for the earlier flurry of quotable material. But a better case of instincts running aground can be seen in the typical “indie” feel: the minimalist soundtrack, the endearing goofiness of the characters, the jerky pacing, the basement-cheap cinematography and the deliberately off-the-wall opening credits. It works more or less well: Juno wouldn’t be the film it is had it been adulterated by a slick marketing department, but the rough edges of the film still feel off-putting. But I’m really being far more critical than I should: Out of a lengthy list of indie comedies that have caught on mainstream audiences lately, Juno stands far above Napoleon Dynamite and is generally more consistent than Little Miss Sunshine. Ellen Page shines in the title role, and the script is pure savvy writing. Characters act in refreshing fashions (no cheap histrionics here) and stick in mind long after other films have faded in memory. Oh, just see it, all right?

(In theaters, January 2008) It’s too early in the year to start thinking about best-of-year lists, but I’ve got a feeling that I’ll have to keep a spot for Cloverfield. Sure, it can be instantly dismissed as “Blair Witch Gojira”, or a “Monster movie for the YouTube Generation”. The story is short and simple, the characters are sketches and the shakycam cinematography isn’t as clear as it should be. But that’s missing the point. Cloverfield is a modest triumph of concept, taking a popcorn monster movie and bringing the audience so deep into it that it becomes a full-blown horror film. There are clear visual references to 9/11 early in the film, and it’s hard to avoid thinking that this is the first good pop-culture film to completely internalize the chaos, the confusion and the terror of that day, transposed into something (monsters!) that had become innocuous through endless B-movies. As a movie geek, I was impressed at how well the filmmakers integrated the camera as a character in the film, how the continuous filming felt natural in the context of the piece and yet how they ended up capturing exactly the images they wanted. (Although I think the tower sequence is ill-served by the lack of visual detail.) The suspense works; the subway sequence is terrifying, but the death that it sets up is brutal in its execution. Oh, I can quibble with the best of them about the plot’s logistical problems (walking long distances in minutes, getting off a snapping bridge far too easily, running without shoes and a gaping wound), but I can’t deny that when this film works, it really works. One thing is for sure: It’s so much better than the American remake of Godzilla that it’s like talking about different art forms.

(In theaters, January 2008) The once-sparse subcategory of geopolitical sarcastic comedy is certainly picking up steam: After Lord Of War and The Hunting Party, here’s Charlie Wilson’s War, a “comedy” with more political savvy than most so-called “political thrillers” (not to mention documentaries) out there. Little surprise, since Aaron Sorkin is writing it: his mastery of Soviet weaponry and the Washington political process shows through. Better yet is the acting talent, with Tom Hanks having fun as a philandering Texas congressman and Julia Roberts hamming it up as a larger-than-life Houston socialite. And yet it’s Philip Seymour Hoffman who walks away with the best lines as a riot-nrrrd CIA operative who finally gets a chance to do something. The script deftly takes us around the world, making a comedy out of a foreign policy move that blows back hard. And that, ultimately ends up being the uncomfortable elephant in the room: How can you make a snarky comedy about arming people who would later come back and become one of the USA’s many number-one enemies? Well, you don’t, and you tag the conclusion in an epilogue. Which may be the truest, unkindest joke of all.