Lars and the Real Girl (2007)

Idea: A quiet young man (Ryan Gosling) shocks his brother (Paul Schneider) and sister-in-law (Emily Mortimer) by ordering a Real Doll and introducing her as his girlfriend Bianca. When their psychologist (Patricia Clarkson) advises them to act as though Bianca is a real person, the community embraces Bianca and helps her integrate into daily life.

Listen, I would probably follow Ryan Gosling anywhere, cinematically speaking. When I saw a link for this list, I knew he would be taking home number one. That said, I've got to agree with David Edelstein on this one: he plays it asexually, and I have no idea why. It's not that Gosling isn't, as per usual, perfectly timed and adorable and believable. It's that a man who has no sex life and apparently no desire for one would order a life-sized sex toy, continue to have no sexual relationship with it, and, eventually . . . Well, we won't talk about eventually.

It's not so much a problem with Gosling's performance, per se, as it is with Nancy Oliver's script in general. The idea that a young man would have such a delusion and what real problem he would use it to help him deal with (the problem is obvious to the point of being annoying when it is finally identified out loud within the movie, but fortunately it's only a minor annoyance) are both excellent cinematic ideas. Oliver's script is deadpan and darkly funny and occasionally very sweet. But it also refuses to deal with any adjacent issues to the one that Lars is working out via Bianca, and it ends before it should. We get about nine-tenths of the way through his problem, but the audience needs the home stretch. I know I am being very vague (well, more so than usual), but I don't want to give too much away. Or maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am supposed to tell you what exactly Lars is working through because it isn't supposed to be that much of a reveal. But I think it is. Why else wait to get specific until so close until the end of the movie if you want people to know up front?

First time-ish director Craig Gillespie (he also directed last year's Mr. Woodcock, which makes me very sad for him, but the point is that I don't know which one he directed first) proves himself more than capable with bringing out the dark humour in the process Lars goes through, particularly with his cuts and the way he holds his camera. He's got a good eye for being sensitive and respectful and still hilarious. I hope his next picture is more like this one.

The rest of the cast give uniformly wonderful performances: Mortimer is a fluid actress; Clarkson rarely raises her voice above a whisper and breaks our hearts without trying; Schneider is enraged and mortified. Kelli Garner is a treat as Lars's co-worker with a crush (three guesses on who!), but she plays another character that Oliver's script has no interest in looking at too deeply. It's a shame, really. I think there might have been something there.

If you can see yourself past premise, there is plenty to enjoy. If you can't, there's still some fun in there for you. B

There Will Be Blood (2007)

Premise: Following a tip, oilman Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier) head to the Sunday ranch and quickly discover that there is oil to be had. Daniel buys up as much as of the land as he can and sets to drilling, but he meets opposition from Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) , the town's fiery preacher from the Church of the Third Revelation.

If they gave out director's awards for balls alone, screenwriter and director Paul Thomas Anderson would win this one in a walk. He isn't afraid of anything. He rarely captures his protagonist in the centre of the screen; he trusts that you'll find the action all on your own. Hell, he'll hide the action behind trees and houses and expect you to wait for it. He put minute upon minute together with only ambient noise to back it up. He lets things go without saying. He'll put together one of the grandest American epics of greed and corruption ever committed to celluloid (from Upton Sinclair's novel, Oil!), and then he'll end it ambiguously. And you know what? I don't think he even cares what you think about that. He'll just keep on drinking your milk shake.

So long as this is what we get from Day-Lewis, there's no reason to begrudge him the self-imposed exile, the lengthy, secretive prep process, or the delay between films. So long as there is a sociopath that he can tear into ferociously, imbue him with the kind of slippery evil that keeps you up at night, and still make him seem like a cross between the hallmark of an American family man and the most dangerous creature you are ever like to meet, there is no reason to complain. And - love him for this - he does it all without being in the least bit showy. There's certainly a fussiness about how he gets there, but you can tell the difference between the actor or the character going over the top. With Day-Lewis behind the wheel, you'll never see it from the actor.

Dano may have had less time to prepare, but he has worked with Day-Lewis before. Even so, he must be a prodigious young talent not to get eaten alive by Day-Lewis in some of those scenes. He rightly plays it very close to the chest, leaving you to wonder to what extent Eli holds himself responsible for what follows after the sale and to what extent he wishes he were responsible. It was a deft casting moment for Anderson to call Dano back after his small role as Paul Sunday.

I am going to tell you that Anderson's writing and directing and that Robert Elswit cinematography are brilliant and beyond reproach, so we can move on to the single most important non-actorly element of this impeccably made picture: Jonny Greenwood's score. It isn't one score but twenty different interlocking musical moments that come together with the utmost sensitivity. Every time you think you got Greenwood's game beat (I see, you say, heavy on the trumpets), he'll throw you for a loop (no, violins! piano!). Then, just when you think you are about settled, boom! Diegetic music fading away in the background. Non-original, non-diegetic music. A little Brahms for ya.

Actually, Greenwood's game is pretty much Day-Lewis's game, which is the sum total of Anderson's game. He's got a lot to say about greed, vengeance, and blood (it will be spilt if you'll only wait for it). Pay attention. A+

I'm Not There. (2007)

Premise: I'm not going to write a plot description. It doesn't make sense to sit here and try to tease out this dense, tangled knot of a movie into a pithy paragraph. It won't help you understand what you see.

Cate Blanchett, "Jude Quinn": We'll start here for two reasons: 1) She's getting the most press of the six actors to take on the role, and 2) she plays the most easily recognizable Bob Dylan. I don't mean that it is a caricature. I'm not saying that she doesn't resemble a young Dylan (you'll marvel at her ability to hold her face that way). Simply, she plays the most easily recognizable period in Dylan's life (Dylan goes electric; Dylan gets into a motorcycle accident). The level of technical mastery on the part of the actress that goes into transforming this stunning woman into an angry, fragile, drug addled young man is worth the admission price alone. The creative spark that allows Blanchett to go beyond that, to move out of the shadows into real darkness, is worth a mint. All of the Dylans display some level of repulsion with the media and its creation/destruction of celebrity; Blanchett plays it as its ugliest: baiting interviewer Bruce Greenwood, fighting with his loyal band mates, tossing out insults to Michelle William's Edie Sedgwick for sport. It's in Blanchett's scenes that you can genuinely feel why Dylan couldn't stay folk forever.

Christian Bale, "Jack Rollins": Bale portrays Dylan at the height of his folk scene and again in Christian revival mode. The two sections fit perfectly around Blanchett's, feeding and informing them in their initial stages and then showing us the results. Bale's section is one of two that take on a more artificial form. Instead of watching it unfold naturally, it is a documentary TV piece exploring Rollins' rise and fall and presenting us with his first interview in decades. It's framed by black and white photographs, grainy footage, and Julianne Moore's Joan Benz providing interview material. If Blanchett's Dylan was angry, then Bale's is furious. He's also furiously disconnected, which suits the material and the role, but ends up disconnecting the audience as well. It's a great role and portrayal, but it doesn't dig as deep as it could. I'd sooner put that on director and co-writer Todd Haynes than Bale, though.

Heath Ledger, "Robbie Clark": Clark is the actor who portrays Rollins in a biopic, a moment that ends up being the high point in the young actor's career. He's also the only one we capture in a relationship (with a woman he meets on set) and the only father (of young girls). It's more than a little strange to be writing about the day of Ledger's sudden death. It's sad. Should you see this movie (and you should), you can find all manner of similarities that make writing about Ledger in this role now heavier than it ought to be. Ledger's work here is a marvel of foreshadowing. Even the slightest movement or gesture lets you know how it will end. At no point are any of the Dylans any happier than Clark is in those early days with Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and his broad smile and down-to-earth manner are thrown into sharp relief by the places his ego and personal disappointment will take him.

Marcus Carl Franklin, "Woody Guthrie": As a young troubadour riding the rails (and possibly on the run), Franklin's Dylan would seem out of place if the simple edict to write about his times instead of those of the past didn't feed directly into Rollins's arc. Haynes has a created a wonder in how each individual Dylan fits together even when you can't imagine how it will work out. Franklin is the only one who does his own singing. His Dylan brings sweetness and levity into the film, but there's also a scary dark side at which Franklin more than capably hints. He's all set to sell himself out to Hollywood until tragedy forces him to rethink what being a musician really means. Franklin's Dylan is filled with hope in his observant youth.

Richard Gere, "Billy the Kid": More than a few have said Gere's Dylan is the silliest, but I can't agree with that. For one, Billy is Guthrie pushed to his illogical extreme, and there is something exciting in the telling of it. For two, it's not hard to see the relationship between a Billy the Kid who dodged Pat Garrett's bullet and went into hiding and the artist who takes on new personae with ease and regularity. Each townsperson calls him by a different name when he rides into town, and it is in this vignette/story/whatever you want to call it that we get closest to what Dylan's own constant metamorphosis as artist has cost him as a man. As an actor, I've always found Gere difficult to pin down. The performance here is smooth and unfussy, providing the film with a perfect coda even if some of my fellow viewers jumped up at the end of the previous scene (one of Blanchett's) and applauded pre-emptively.

Ben Whishaw, "Arthur Rimbaud": I got all excited to call Whishaw a young whippersnapper here, only to discover that he is older than I am. Whishaw as the (mis?)fortune of playing the most reflexive of the sextet, but it doesn't do him a disservice. Arthur is tethered to a chair in a bare bones press conference, and he provides the context and sometimes even subtext for the other Dylans (more so than even Kris Kristofferson's narration). He channels the jangling nerves that characterize Quinn's interactions with the press as well as Rollins' disconnection into a series of strange Dylan-isms, both grounding and enlightening.

If one man was going to do it, it had to be Haynes. From the blinking "i'm not here/her/there" title in the opening shots to Ginsberg (David Cross) and Quinn hanging out with Jesus to the fantasy sequence with Rimbaud tethered to the earth below, this movie is as unmistakeably Haynes as it is Dylan. Only the man who brought us Bowie by way of Citizen Kane and a biopic starring a Barbie Doll could present us with so something far from a conventional biopic that could still manage to be the definitive take on the life of an ever changing artist.

In the end, this movie isn't about Bob Dylan, Man. It's about our perceptions of Bob Dylan, Artist, as funnelled through his music and pushed back out again to its extremes. It's as if everything we ever thought about the voice of so many generations sprang to life from hazy dreams and fantasies to something fully formed, intelligent and strange. It's a beautiful picture and one that goes on long after you leave the theatre. A

CBC bumps up announcement, Oscars mildly confusing

Don't want anyone to be embarrassed about getting the bum's rush. , but CBC.ca totally put up a press release earlier than they should have in order to make way for the Oscar traffic. Don't say it if you know whose. If they are so keen to get the nominations out there, I should probably throw my hat* in the ring** as well.

*I initially typed 'hate.'

**Here it was 'wring.' I apparently am dealing with some Oscar-related stress rather passive aggressively.

Let's see, let's see.

Surprises: It comes to a surprise to no one but me that Ellen Page got the nomination for actress. I mean, she actually got it. The entire time everyone was saying she would, I started to think that it would be all buzz and then pffft. It's nice to be wrong sometimes.

I can't believe that Jason Reitman made it through in the directing category. Feels unlikely, like maybe he snuck past when a couple of other contenders split the vote.

Atonement sticks out like a sore thumb for best picture. It seems normal and natural following on the heels of its Golden Globe win, but it's strange to see it there without a nomination for either McAvoy or Knightley.

Snubs: Tim Burton for directing, naturally. What is it going to take for these people to give him the attention he deserves? It's just nonsense.

Pleasantries: I am very pleased to see The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford getting some attention for its austere cinematography even if Diving Bell will likely take the award.

I do like that so many of the documentary feature nominees are docs about Iraq. It's time.

I love that "Falling Slowly" was nominated, but I worry about its chances against three Disney songs. Maybe Hansard and Irglova will Three 6 Mafia Menken and Schwartz. I sincerely hope they will be on hand to perform.

In other news, the CFTPA decided to make up their own Indie Awards, and I love them for it.

Now I'm going back to look at the Vulture's predigious amount of Oscar coverage.

I am a Kraken from the sea!

Harry Hamlin does rock, but does anyone else see a similarity here? First, watch this. Then, take a look at the close up here. The Cloverfield monster is like the Kraken only Hulk-ier. Knowing that they (possibly) ripped off Clash of the Titans makes the whole thing less scary, right?

I saw . . . this: the Hepburn/Stewart edition

Stage Door (1937)

This is sort of a strange picture in that a lot of the plot revolves around what is or isn't happening with Kay Hamilton (Andrea Leeds) at any given moment, yet she has very little screen time compared to top billed stars Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers. Set a boarding house, the Footlights club, occupied young women all jockeying to find a role, any role, on Broadway, the house is thrown off balance when an heiress (Hepburn) decides to try her hand at the theatre. Naturally, everyone hates her until the last possible second when a personal tragedy transforms her into a great actress. What I liked best about Hepburn's character (and the movie) was that she was awesome only when no one was around to see it. Other than those moments, as fun as it is see a bunch of young actresses early in their careers (notably Lucille Ball), it's more of a diversion than a classic.

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Now this is a classic and with good reason. Minus two remarkably sexist scenes, it's the story of a woman (Hepburn, as you well know) who finds herself days away from wedding number two, struggling to find someone who will love her instead of putting her on a pedestal. She almost finds it with a visiting reporter (James Stewart), but, in the end, love is waiting for her with husband number one (Cary Grant). Hepburn rode the success of this Broadway smash all the way back to Hollywood, and she plays the hell out of this role. I'm not as familiar with Grant's work compared with the other two leads, and I admit that I found myself wondering what the big deal about him is, especially given that after Stewart's "hell fires and holocausts" monologue, that's the one I would have chosen. Still, Grant grew on me as the film rolled. By the time he's pulled his legs up on the chair like a child and giggling, I was hooked. When Tracy finally promises to be yar and Dexter replies, "Be whatever you like," it's impossible not to smile, teary-eyed. One of the sweetest, most charming, and utterly clever movies you will ever see in your life.

The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

As fantastic as Stewart is in the above, it's more Hepburn's movie. Shop here, while it may be a romantic comedy about a relationship conducted by letters between Alfred Kralik (Stewart) and Klara Novak (Margaret Sullivan) who also happen to have a work relationship filled with animosity, it's Stewart's movie. In a lot of ways, it's a movie about a young man getting his life together that just happens to involve an anonymous, amorous pen pal. Whether he's threatening a punch in the nose or explaining the subtle joys of an unopened envelope, he never ceases to amuse or charm, much like the movie itself. Although, I must confess, it's a toss up between Pepi (William Tracy) and Pirovitch (Felix Bressart) for funniest character. This movie is a gem well worth checking out.

Now if only someone could explain to me what all those Americans were doing in Budapest in the first place.

Are you A: handsome; B: smart; C: scrap metal; or D: all of the above?

Are you in need of a makeover, makeover, makeover, makeover, makeover, makeover, MAKE-O-VER?! Personality-wise, that is. Look no further than my latest Culture article, grab some character scraps, and quilt yourself a new you for the new year.

Stephen and Jon are still figuring out what they're going to do on Monday night's show.

Thanks, Comedy Central spokesman Tony Fox. But between you, me, and USA Today, I can't imagine what could possibly happen on tonight's new shows. Stewart and Colbert are members of the WGA, for pete's sake. Why, why, why are they doing this? Why come back at all without writers?

This strike is getting so weird.

These are my awards, Mother. From Army. The seal is for marksmanship and the gorilla is for sand racing.

Let's take a look at a few more awards, nominations, and best of lists, shall we?

National Society of Film Critics top picks for the year

Toronto Film Critics Association top picks for the year

Screen Actors Guild award nominees

Independent Spirit award nominees

Dana Stevens' Top 10 of 2007 in Slate

The AV Club's Best and Worst of 2007

David Edelstein professionally and more personally

Juno (2007)

Idea: Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) finds herself pregnant after one night with her best friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera) and, after opting out of an abortion, looks to Vanessa (Jennifer Garner) and Mark (Jason Bateman), a couple she found in the Pennysaver, to adopt her unborn child.

I got over my Juno backlash (OMG, you guys, best movie ever! Diablo Cody used to be a stripper! Give Page an Oscar already!) long enough to go see the picture. Is the movie all it's cracked up to be? Pretty much, but not quite.

Remember how people loved, loved, loved Little Miss Sunshine? It's sort of like that. On one hand, a great movie. On the other hand, you have to kid yourself in order not to acknowledge its flaws.

Cody's screenplay is a hoot and a half, and I hope she has a long career ahead of her in Hollywood. She nails Juno's outsider dialogue, as well as the relationships between Juno and her father (a pitch perfect J.K Simmons), Juno and her stepmother (the peerless Allison Janney), and the stepmother and father. There's a scene early on in the movie that you see in the trailers where Juno tells her parents that she's pregnant, and her father exasperatedly says, "I thought you were the kind of girl who knew when to say when." Juno replies, "I don't really know what kind of girl I am." What the ads fail to show you is that this reply comes several beats later and on the verge of tears. The sentence has little meaning to it on the page, but it's exactly the kind of nonsense that we've all gotten from our parents over the years, and it does its work beautifully. It levels Juno completely.

Cody's work is filled with that level of believable, livable detail for the most part. Occasionally Juno's slang heavy dialogue slips past "teenager searching for an identity" and into "wildly unbelievable bullshit." Once, just once, she makes an homophobic remark that doesn't jive with the personality already established for the character. Mostly Cody's smart about her lead and about the casting thereof.

Is Page all she's cracked up to be? Yes. She's come a long way from chicken chips and pepperoni runs. In her hands, and her hands alone, Juno is whip-smart and a heartachingly vulnerable. Above all, she's an idiot who's at least smart enough to know she's an idiot. I know that doesn't sound like much, but few people out there can convincingly portray the maturity it takes to know you are immature without forcing the character to instantly fill the gap. Pitted against Cera's affectless and deft comic hand, they make one of the sweetest pairs.

So what's my big problem? Director Jason Reitman. I don't get what the big deal is there. Critics loved, loved, loved his last picture, Thank You for Smoking. They thought it was brilliant. And it was. For the first hour. There was a moment when we are watching the movie when we pulled into a close up of Aaron Eckhart's evil, smiling face, and I thought, "This is genius." Then it kept going for another 32 minutes. For what reason? What purpose? I couldn't tell you.

To be honest, I think he is to blame for the ridiculously obvious acting Garner and Bateman have on display for much of this film. I've seen them enough of both to know that they are both capable of playing complex and subtle when it is called for, so it's unlikely that they would suddenly disappoint me so keenly. With Vanessa, it's a little more believable that her desire for a child would be so naked, and it does deliver a nice pay off in later scenes when Garner gets to tap into the maternal warmth beneath the frosty, WASP-y exterior. With Mark, however, there is no pay off. It's obvious which way he's going from the word go, and the way things end up re: Mark have less of an emotional impact because of it. I just don't see a reason to pin that, at least not in whole, on Bateman.

I still wish Janney got more sexy lady roles than frumpy mom roles, but hey. What the hell. B+

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

Premise: Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) wrongfully imprisons Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) in order to get to Barker's wife (Laura Michelle Kelly). 15 years later, Barker returns to London as Sweeney Todd with the assistance of the sailor, Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower). Todd discovers that Turpin is raising his daughter, Johanna (Jayne Wisener), and vows revenge with help from his landlady, Mrs. Lovett (Helene Bonham Carter).

*Tim Burton should teach a master class in how to adapt stage for screen. I realize that John Logan, who wrote the screenplay, should get some credit here as well, but come on. I think we know Burton when we see it, don't we?

Listen, this isn't just a filmed version of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's musical. This is something else entirely. Logan and Burton don't just open it up. Under Burton's deft hand the movie has room to soar. He fills his Gothic masterpiece with whirling, twirling fantasy sequences and fantastic bloodletting. Raoul would be proud. A number of songs get dropped (most notably "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd"), but it's all in the service of making a better film. If you can show, why would you tell?

Burton is aided ably, as always, by long time collaborator Depp. Only Depp could play these deranged levels of blood lust and destruction and still let heartbreak bleed through his performance. He's not a singer, and he didn't train as one for the role, but he can sing nonetheless. He doesn't have pipes, per se (if this were Broadway, he'd never hit the cheap seats). He is good enough to let a snarl creep into his voice when necessary, and, with his powdered complexion, Rogue-streaked fright wig, and deep eye liner, his face does the rest.

Bonham Carter makes a lovely Mrs. Lovett, equally deranged but not as equally driven. When they hit upon their plan to bake his victims into her pies and begin waltzing around the shop with weapons behind their back, they make the perfect pair. She plays slightly obsessive, unrequited love so very well.

Rickman is wonderfully menacing, Sacha Baron Cohen a brief delight, Campbell Bower has the best voice in the house, and Kelly looks like Kate Hudson. My favourite, though, is probably little Ed Sanders as Toby, the nipper Mrs. Lovett takes on to help her around the shop. Kid's got a big career ahead of him. His Toby is grown-up, naive, sweet, mean, too big for his britches, innocent, and protective. He's the mixed up jumble that real kids tend to be, and that's tough to play. And he can sing. Love him.

With additional music by Sondheim himself, it feels like a stamp of approval on the whole production. And why shouldn't it? It moves along at a good clip, trust its audience not to be stupid, and showcases amazing performances. It's a morality tale with an antihero at its centre that features cannibalism. It's got something for everyone. A

Now, where can I get that bitchin' leather jacket?

*Do we still have to put director here? I feel like everyone should know that by now. You guys, Tim Burton is a director. I'm glad we had this talk.